Slashdot Mirror
Learning To Profit From Piracy
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has an interview with Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism, which discusses how businesses could make money off of piracy, rather than attacking people in a futile attempt to suppress it. And some of his ideas are gaining traction; work is underway on a TV show called Pirate TV, which he describes as 'two parts Anthony Bourdain, one part Mythbusters.' (Heroes executive producer Jesse Alexander is on board.) Also, Mason is pretty good about practicing what he preaches in that you can pirate his book on his own website."
You are not pirating his book if he picks a license that allows you to copy. Otherwise he is being the pirate, by making available a copyright work.
Also, Mason is pretty good about practicing what he preaches in that you can pirate his book on his own website
I dislike the use of the vague and slanted term "pirate" in place of the more exact "copyright infringement".
But the use in the summary is even worse. If he's freely offering the content, then those who download it are not pirating (even by the inaccurate, though generally-used, definition). Then are downloading it with permission.
(It's like someone giving out free food samples at a grocery store, and then saying "go ahead, steal another.")
In college the biggest pirates I knew were the guys who had enough money to buy most of what they got illegally. It never even phased them that they were often pirating the works of small bands that needed every penny that they could get. It never occurred to them to just wait until a DVD came down to $7.50 at Wal-Mart. I still know people who are like that, and they're pulling down nearly six figure salaries.
Charge them with petty or grand theft as appropriate, if you ask me. If you want to change the youth culture it's really simple. Get all of this copyright infringement and DRM bullshit out of the picture and start hitting them with theft charges.
I'm just sick of the entitlement mentality that is wedded to a near Stockholm Syndrome among a lot of younger people. If the music and movie industries are so bad, stop downloading their shit. Ignore them, make them irrelevant. I swear, it's like a bunch of rich kids crying about exploitation, while they shop at the Gap and A&F.
The wisdom in this probably depends on which one or more of the following are your "product":
1. Recordings of your music
2. Merchandise with your logo on it
3. Attendance at your live performances
4. Promotion of other products (for instance, Miley Cyrus's music is mostly about getting you to watch her on TV and buy her lunch boxes)
For a music act whose real product is #3, giving away #1 counts as advertising. For an act whose real product is #1, giving it away, including giving up copyright protection of it, is bad management. It really does depend on your product and the market for it. That said, I wish more music acts considered live music to be their product and everything else to be promotion of the same.
I see you're falling into the trench of "I have it figured out for $medium, therefore copyright is moot." Unfortunately, not everything falls under those banners.
And what about movies or TV shows where such product placement would be horribly out of place? A medieval movie with GM/GE/Pepsi placements? Hell even my favorite hobby, anime, was getting into it with Code Geass, which was packed FULL of Pizza Hut ads which were distracting and ended up being the butt of jokes there were so many.
I recall Stephen King trying this and giving up.
Or they'll give up, when they find that they can't recoup the costs of production, much less make a profit.
You can't eat drive and talent (well you can, but it's considered anti-social...) I don't see people making entire movies and TV series that they just toss up on the internet unless they've got some greater source of funding to ensure they won't go broke in the process.
Which is pointless, since if you repudiate the copyright on your works (ALL of your works) then someone else might as well hang at your shows and sell knockoffs of what you're selling. And signings have limited effectiveness beyond single authors/bands, I'd like to see how you would fund the creation of an entire TV series with that.
Copyright is a very effective tool to allow for the creation of easily duplicated works without sticking it to the creators and essentially punishing them for making the investment. It needs to be reworked and it needs respect. However, the internet audience is extremely insular, rude, and just as selfish and greedy as the MPAA/RIAA (and member companies) when it comes to these things.
Disagreeing with Christians is one thing, claiming they made it all up is another: 1. The search for the historical Jesus came back--yes, he really did exist. The primarily non-Christian group that pursued the study didn't come up with much more than that since they basically were seeking to prove his existence in the first place. (No, I am not talking about the "liberal" Christian pursuit nor the book by the "conservative" Bock) 2. Granted, the New Testament accounts are primarily internally testamental. BUT, they were not written by the same person so, consider it a compendium of varied accounts that are consistent if historical background to the era is understood. 3. One of the greatest archaeologists of the 19th century became famous because he set out to disprove large sections of the NT and came back having proved them to his own frustration. 4. Santa Claus was a Christian "saint" for crying out loud and died several centuries ago after having been known for dropping packets of money to his people through their chimneys so they could afford to ... live.
5. This will now be modded down.
oh, and Horus isn't really a good analog here... the most often claimed "prior art" is from a mystery religion in Greece... this doesn't fit well though given the above points and the time period of the mystery religion involved.
Someone should change the author of this book and re-distribute that way, then he will learn merits of piracy.
Oh yes, let's not forgot how JK Rowling's publishers also live in fear of the terrible damage it might do to their sales if copies of Harry Potter started being sold with the words "By Joe Freetard" written on them.
Seriously - since when has anyone (even the RIAA!) ever indicated that malicious mis-attribution of works was even remotely a problem?
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
You don't charge others to receive a show flyer (which could take a few hours to design, plus hours to print and many hours to distribute), so why charge for music?
I'm sure you'll get responders who tell you that's simplistic, but I want to explore that idea further. Nobody gets to profit from everything forever without operating costs. Corporation or individual, you have to put in time, effort or money somewhere to get more money out. If you want a profit, you don't charge for the show flier because it's advertising, aimed at making you money from something else. Maybe you sell the music, maybe the music is another part of the give-aways, and you sell ads, or controlled concessions, live tickets, or whatever, but if you want to sell anything, there will be investment costs associated. You can't even sell your work to an employer without committing to be there on time, a dress code, or simply eating breakfast to suit the employer's schedule.
For all the people who are pro the existing copyright laws, and especially the ones who love to throw around the violation=stealing line, what about the people on your side who seem bound up in the illusion of unlimited profit with no investment? Take a company which is making a profit selling tee-shirts with its logo and advertising on them, and is actually getting paid by people to let them become walking billboards - Is that a sustainable long term model, or will fashion doubtless change? Can anyone really afford to enforce copyright against people distributing movie trailers? If someone uses the law to control negative reviews, how can they avoid reducing free word-of-mouth advertising by the very same act? How can they file hundreds of cases in court and avoid people thinking they are sue happy? You've got organizations on the pro-IP side that seem to think the law will stretch to let them do all that, and more.
Even if you care deeply about creator's rights and feel the people doing illegal downloading are all thieves, how are you going to satisfy the IP holders who want unlimited profit with no investment, and think tougher man made laws are a way to somehow bend what are really laws of nature that stand in their way. IP law can't protect a creator from all risks associated with seeking a profit, it can't squeeze blood from a stone to actually get $250,000 settlements from violators who barely make minimum wage, it can't keep them from having to advertise if they want to reach a broad audience, it can't let them slavishly imitate a true leader in marketing and get all the benefits of coming up with something for the first time.
Who is John Cabal?
That's not related at all to Stephen King's attempt. He tried doing the suggested pay-by-chapter method where readers could optionally pay if they liked it, and it ended up being a waste of his time. I don't know if he bothered to wrap the novel up and publish it the regular way or just gave up on it.
And I never said they shouldn't give their music away for free, that's entirely -their- call. My issue is with the OPs suggestion that they repudiate their copyright, which is needless self-punishment that opens the door for someone else to make use of it without ever acknowledging the source (thus defeating the point of said "promotion" entirely.)
On the contrary, they are the only ones who will likely see any sort of success from it as the hard part, promotion, is already paid for. Everyone knows who Radiohead is, so people flocked in server crushing numbers to their website for their new album. However for new artists like the one you linked, it'll give him goodwill among small circles but it doesn't have nearly the punch as getting on the radio (another jar of worms) or your music on some movie soundtrack (which is what the giant labels do.)
And again, releasing one's music has nothing to do with OPs suggestion of releasing without copyright. Said movie studio will just have some famous name cover your song and leave you out to dry.
I don't know, I've been getting more into music lately and almost have a band together. The thing is, we're all college students, and then most of us are going to go on to be engineers and scientists, and if we keep up with it, we're not going to have time for many live performances, while recording can even be done long distance. I doubt #2 and #4 are going to be our product, and although it's for fun, making money at it is a good thing. We're probably going to go with the "Put everything up on a website as CC and beg for donations" route, or maybe the Jonathan Coulton "CC but you have to pay for it" route. but I can understand #1 being a big part. Music is EXPENSIVE to make well and I can understand people with other day jobs not being able to gig.
"Just look at how far behind Gutenberg is with the public domain stuff."
On the other hand, if you compare the current rate of text being added to Gutenberg with the current rate of copyright term extension, you come to the inexorable conclusion that Gutenberg WILL eventually catch up and at some point will include everything in the public domain, because the public domain has become non-increasing in size.
"And what about movies or TV shows where such product placement would be horribly out of place? A medieval movie with GM/GE/Pepsi placements?"
A knight's tale had a product placement for Nike.
...we're not going to have time for many live performances, while recording can even be done long distance.
I'm not trying to be snarky here, and I'm also a musician who has played in a few bands and even recorded a few albums, but here's the thing: if you're not willing or able to put in the time to gig, maybe you don't deserve to make money at it.
You see, too many people think that just because they created something, they deserve to be paid for it. That's simply not true. Being in a band should be a job, not just something you do for a few weeks or months and then expect to sit back and let the royalty money flow in for the rest of your life.
You have every right to try to make money off your music. However, if it doesn't work, then too bad. Nobody owes you just because you decided to record an album.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
More drivel advertising.
How are you pirating his book, when he gives permission by giving access on his own website.
I'd suggest actually reading about pirace from someone that doesn't have a confused idea about it in the first place. /., please. Not so much do you have to do 100 percent due diligence in the stories you write, can you just do a basic sanity check?
Piracy is NOT downloading things you have permission for.
--Toll_Free
People don't deserve to be paid for it just because they created it, however, they do deserve to be paid because someone considered their product (a recording) worthwhile to purchase. People should be allowed to charge for their recordings. Recordings are a valid product, they provide utility, and therefore a valid and fair price can be set for them.
Willing to put in the time and being able to put in the time are two very different things. I have a full time job, house and family. There is no way I could take off more than a few days to tour to promote my band's album. Saying if you don't tour you don't deserve to be paid for your music is ridiculous. True that just because we created an album, we don't necessarily deserve to be paid for it, but if somebody wants to own our music, that also doesn't mean they get it for free. Of course they need to pay for an album. XTC has not toured for over 10 years. So you think people should just be able to take their music because they don't tour?
This gets my vote as post of the year. I do not believe I've ever seen anyone. Ever. be polite on slashdot.
Carry on.
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
You can't because the IP holders are greedy pigs that think ripping your cd to your iPod is stealing because you didn't cut them another check. For those of you that think copyrights are fine as they are,I have one sentence for you: Steamboat Willie is still under copyright. The man has been dead for half a century,yet the first cartoon he made,which was made at a time when most cars still had to be started with a handcrank,is still under copyright. That is just fucked up.
Copyrights are SUPPOSED to be a contract between the public and the copyright holder. We give them a limited monopoly on their creations in return for enriching our society through addition to our public domain. As it is now we get nothing in return but screams of "piracy!" and demands for more money every time we buy a new device. I repeat that is just fucked up.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Starbucks makes a fair bit of money from expensive coffee.
You can easily make your own coffee at home for the price of a DVD-R, and some say better coffee. Why don't people do it? Convenience, habit/ritual, social.
Even if one day someone created a Star Trek like Replicator that could replicate Starbucks coffee, I think Starbucks would still be in business.
McDs are based on Location Location Location aka Convenience.
I think the cinema and movie business would still be around.
Teenagers aren't going to take their girlfriends to "Home Theater" especially when Dad is around and perhaps watching a movie. And if you get Dad to stop watching the movie, he might find more inconvenient things to occupy his time with.
Distribution? If the distributors can't do it in a more convenient way than P2P, then I really don't see why people should be paying them. Currently they're charging parasitic amounts for stuff that screws up your computer. If they work their way down to symbiotic or at least "less annoying parasite" amounts then they would still be around.
I know people who pirate stuff because they can't buy it online (due to all sorts of BS restrictions), and they're not going to drive, park and walk to the shop only to find that the shop doesn't have it.
People make $X an hour, at least for the reasonably wealthy, their leisure time should be worth more than $X/hour to them. How long does it take for them to drive, park, buy, return? How long does it take for them to figure out how to find and P2P a specific song?
So if you make it very convenient and charge a fraction of how much their _leisure_ time is worth to them, they'll buy.
You seem to be confusing "produce art" with "make a living". That's a common fallacy. Artists have never been guaranteed a living solely on the basis of the art they produced. Many famous painters, composers, etc. have died as paupers even when they were famous in their own time.
For what it's worth, in a capitalist system nobody else is guaranteed a living for what they do either. You might be the world's best Parcheesi player but I doubt you could make a living doing just that.
Why does it always come down to fuck artist so I get free shit????? You proudly mention "in a capitalist system". Not having to pay is called Communist not capitalist. Capitalist means free market not free to steal. I've worked my ass off and I plan to retire next year. After that none of my work will be public and I encourage all other artist to do the same. Try to imagine a world without music, movies, any form of art? You talk about guarantees. Where is it guaranteed that you can have a 10,000 song library for free?????? The freeloaders aren't the artists that struggle and suffer to create for an unappreciative world it's the leaches that steal from them. You might want to look up the definitions of Capitalism and Communism. I think the system you are fantasizing about is what was tried in Russian and failed. Yes they had some of the best athletes and dancers but it was one large prison camp with little freedom or expression. Everything comes with a price, even free.