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The Pirate Bay, Featured in Vanity Fair
koregaonpark writes "Via the TorrentFreak site, an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair about BitTorrent, movie piracy and The Pirate Bay. The Vanity Fair piece is lengthy, and covers the MPAA's struggle to stamp out piracy, Hollywood's increasing losses, and how the 'heartfelt testimony of Ben Affleck, a man who was paid $12.5 million to star in Gigli,' didn't help one bit. 'Pirates of the Multiplex' covers the saga of Pirate Bay in a very high-level, mass-market fashion. Did you ever think you'd be reading about TPB in Vanity Fair?"
I appreciate this article because it shows common sense in how the market of distribution operates. Would daddy give his daughter The Little Mermaid on a DVD written with a Sharpie? But that isn't the key element of why "piracy" is good for the market of art creation -- "piracy" is the return of power to everyone, rather than just those who are politically powerful.
Regardless of what the State tries to do to create monopolies using force, you can't stop the commoditizing of a product. In the case of copyright, the commoditizing isn't the actual movie or song, but the distribution system. For the first few thousand years or so of writing on paper, the distribution mechanism was a tiny industry of copy-writers. Most villages had one Bible as their own written word, and it stayed this way for generations. The printing press blew open the door for people getting their ideas out -- that is all it was about. People wrote to increase their power to attract an audience to pay them for their knowledge. Shakespeare's money didn't come from bookmaking, but from attracting others to his plays. His name was strong because of the press, but his money came from his repeat labor of continuing his work throughout his life. Can you imagine if Shakespeare had copyright to protect his first book, and never returned to the writing desk to continue writing? That's sort of what we're seeing today with the implementation of ridiculous copyright laws -- forced monopolies that give the distribution system more power than the author or the actor.
After 100 years of copyright really dooming the amateur and the new content creators to obscurity, we're finally seeing distribution move from a coerced monopoly to the masses. We're moving to the day that everyone will have a level playing field in terms of their ability to market their product to the masses -- but no one will be able to "get rich quick" with only a few months or a year of hard work -- if you want continued success, you will have to continue to work. This is how income has always existed -- you work, you find a market/customer, you get paid, you continue to work and the cycle repeats. Copyright has destroyed that cycle for the top tier elite, and thankfully The Pirate Bay and the Internet at large is destroying that State-perversion of the market so we all can have access to the system of distribution -- if we work hard at marketing our product.
I can't wait to see what happens to the current distribution systems as our preteens and teens hit their 30s and 40s. They've grown up around knowing that information is readily available freely. For a short period of time, artists and producers may get harmed by this fact -- they will see much of their work copied freely without reimbursement. But this means we'll see more artists and producers moving to a repeat-labor market where they work for their dollar -- more concerts, more plays/live productions, more face-time with their fans, etc. You can copy the new Fall Out Boy album for free, but their concerts will cost you $30-$50 a ticket. Why? Because these famous, popular musicians have the opportunity to provide their customers with a unique experience, and the supply of this particular artist does not meet the demand for them -- the price goes up. This is a GOOD THING.
I'm paying $180 to see Prince in Vegas in March. We love seeing him play live. He made a good decision to go around Universal and the rest of the collusive monopolists in the distribution market -- he plays lives twice a week at his club. He sells it out. Good for him. I see Matthew Broderick and David Hasselhoff have embraced this market too -- instead of just making movies, now they act live in musicals and theater productions -- commanding high ticket prices for the truly scarce product. As I've said before, an artist might spend 3-6 months creating something new and unique, and they hope to make money on it forever without more work. A plumber might spend 3-6 months learning a new task to fix a bathroom sink, but the
Yeah I'm sure Ben Affleck is eating TV dinners because of Pirates Bay. I wish someone would smack that arrogant jack ass.
Single page version.
/. doesn't just link to these where available, I will never know...
Why on earth
I'm waiting for the article on Slashdot to come out in Cosmo.
I read not too long ago the industry was making record profits.
Of course, the piece I read was in a business magazine, and seemed aimed at potential investors, not consumers.
Guess the message changes depending on who they're talking to.
I'll read about movies shattering box office records one day, and then read the sad, sad, tale of how Tom Hanks, Ron Howard and Glazer "only" get 25% of the net from Da Vinci Code, instead of 40%, because it didn't make the box office they'd hoped and the studio wanted more bucks. This is all because of internet piracy, not because it's a shitty formulaic movie based on a shitty formulaic novel that many people were sick of hearing about.
I don't support pirating DVD rips, because IMO, unlike the RIAA, I actually think DVD's are priced fairly. They sell very well, as I'm told, and as far as I can see from anecdotal evidence: In our mall, the two music stores are gone - and a suncoast movie store just opened up, and another gamestop.
Whatever, they can whine about piracy and we can whine about how we feel justified in pirating, etc. Nothing is going to change, though. If the big studios cant compete they'll close down, and others will take their place.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
i'd like to also add that the movie experience, the theatre, is still an experience people are willing to pay tickets for. in other words, the DVD aftermarket for movies is obsolete, exactly as you suggest. however, the movie house is not obsolete, as you suggest
forget the internet for a moment: television was supposed to kill cinema in the 1950s. why is it still alive? why did it in fact boom in growth after the 1950s?
psychologists have done studies showing that people actually subconsciously like the ooohs and aahs and laughs and startles of their fellow popcorn munchers at a movie. yes, a site like slashdot won't admit to the fact, but people apparently have an enhanced emotional experience in a packed theatre... subconciously
consciously they won't admit that fact. they will complain about babies and cell phones, but that's what a lot of people do: whine and bitch and moan... and still go to the movies. people whine about greenhouse gases and global warming, but they still get in their cars every day too. people whine. and then forget about it. cest la vie
look the experience of watching a first run movie at a giant screen surrounded by other people as emotionally enthralled as you. you've never seen it before. everyone else is anonymous to you, their reactions are real and honest. it's almost like church and you're a religious ecstatic: the presence of others and the overwhelming audio/ visual media greatly enhances your enjoyment
ok, now compare: you're going to sit, alone, in front of a 19 inch monitor, in your basement, with your computer whirring in the background, and watch lord of the rings
oh joy
see my point?
add popcorn. add a friend or two. make it a projector. add a booming sound system. it's stil not the same. really
every single slashdotter who ever complains about cellphones and babies and loud rude jerks is still going to go to the movie theatre. again and again. i will bet money on it. in fact, their emotionally strong reaction to the ringing cell phone or loud rude jerk in theatre tells you exactly how important the movie theatre experience is to them. they don't want it messed with. people loudly proclaim how they will abandon something the love dearly if they are hurt or wounded. but they always come back, because they still love it
the cinema isn't going anywhere. look only for future growth. that's a fact
even if the MPAA magically said tomorrow they were completely abandoning DVDs and releasing all movies for free on line in highest quality the same day as release in theatres. people are still going to flock to movie houses, and movie houses will still grow. point of fact
so like you talk about prince giving live concerts, or matthew broderick in the producers on broadway: i say to you that the movie house experience is just as much still alive and kicking and unthreatened by bittorrent and just as irreplaceable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The first major blow to the anti-piracy lobby was when the courts ruled that collecting IP addresses was a privacy violation.
The second blow was when the courts fined a guy that was engaged in sharing movies. The big point was that they didn't send him to jail. By Swedish law for a search warrant to be issued, the suspected crime must be punishable by jail. So no search warrants for copyright infringements.
The third blow was that the courts found that electronically collected evidence was not enough for a copyright infringement conviction. Hard evidence was needed (computer hardware with the violating media installed) - which was not possible to obtain because of the previous ruling.
The pirate bay spectacle has come at a huge political cost for the involved. The former minster of justice Thomas Bodström is facing hearings suspected of "ministerstyre" - as a minister putting pressure on civil servants, something excessively illegal and unconstitutional. It's major league stuff.
Furthermore the pirate bay case according to almost every legal analysis is non-existent. They didn't even have any copyrighted material on their server - just torrent links - which is not against Swedish law. So why hasn't the case been dropped? Because everybody got so scared over the political shit storm came down crashing following the raids last year. Nobody involved wants to touch it and much less admit that it was because of political pressure. So the prosecutor is pushing on with the case although it is blatantly obvious to everybody that there won't be any convictions.
If this all above makes you think that the battle is over and has been lost by the anti-pirating lobby, well, you'd be wrong. Swedish law is much less precedent based than for instance US or UK laws. The text of the law is more important than previous cases and you need a shitload of precedent before it becomes relevant. Right now we have something that amounts to anecdotal evidence. The anti-piracy lobby groups are trying to get convictions that would go against the existing precedents and it is not entirely impossible that they will succeed.
The political situation is a bit different as file sharing is really on the march in Sweden. Some 1.2 million were estimated in 2005 and 2.5 million in 2006. That's a lot for a population of 9 million. You can't make nearly a third of the population criminals and the politicians have recognized that. Through that and because of the pirate bay scandal all the Swedish major parties have expressed the wish to find some form of general solution (a tax of some sort has been suggested) for both allowing people to freely download and for the artists to get paid. While this is far from being implemented, the idea of a "war on piracy" is very dead. The anti-piracy groups will do their thing but they can't expect any political support.