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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."
Arrr, we know you're 'ere, poppet!!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
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.")
I've produced a few bands' records, and asked them to repudiate copyright on their tracks. 2 of them have, and they've skyrocketed the amount of fans that come to shows (in the thousands, on their last tour), and the amount of personalized merchandise they sell. Anything easily duplicated is called "advertising" or "marketing." 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 repudiated copyright on all my writings over a decade ago. My blogs let others take the content I created, and republish it as their own if they want. The two e-books I've written also are freely distributed, with a request for $20 in the final chapter if the books help them.
My business newsletter used to cost over $1000 per year, but now it is free, and I tell others to photocopy it or email the PDF out to others. It generates traffic for my websites, and it also builds reputation to my expanding customer base.
I see no reason for copyright any longer. For items that are costlier to create (TV shows, movies), product placement is a fine way to profit from the distribution of the product. Subscriptions also can work, just like a chapter-by-chapter written blook that continues as people fund the author's writing.
Those who hold onto the statist idea of intellectual property will be left behind. They'll find their market swamped by amateurs with the same amount of talent, and with more drive to distribute their creations as artists always have.
I like this idea, and I recommend others consider going that route when they create content that is easily duplicated. To support it, there are always ways to create value added items (t-shirts, in-person signings or shows, etc).
It's been said that the most stolen dead-tree-form book is the Christian Bible.
Things that make you go "hmmmmmmmm."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If he is such a strong believer in piracy, why is he allowing users to download it for free? Shouldn't he force them to pay for a DRM version while he secretly leaks a free torrent on the side? Now THAT would be hardcore.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
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.
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.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
For items that are costlier to create (TV shows, movies), product placement is a fine way to profit from the distribution of the product.
"Mommy.. why is Gandolf drinking a coke?"
"Never mind, dear."
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
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.
if you make him walk the plank after you read it.
So I tried to download the book from the website right, it has an initial value of $5.00 but you can set the price to whatever you want. I set it to $0.00 as I like to "try before I buy." But unfortunately, the "free download" amount has reached it's limit for the day and I was told to try again the following day.
:P
So, for those of you wondering how you can pirate a free book... if I get it in a torrent, well there you go.
But on the other hand, some people like myself can't escape the pirate label, since my great grandfather was in fact a pirate. It's like like the geico commercials, "so easy a cave man can do it."
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
I recall Stephen King trying this and giving up.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers shouldn't give their music away for free either, at least not in an attempt to make money. For people who are already extremely successful in the traditional methods, they're not going to see the same amount of money using this new technique. However, for people like Brandon Sanderson who are just getting into it, letting out free works can be a good way to get entrenched and build good will.
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.
1994 to the rescue!!
"If you don't send this book to two of your friends and eleven of your enemies, you will be eaten by the Open Source Version of a Grue".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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.
"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.
1. Steal doubloons
2. ???
3. Profit!
My business newsletter used to cost over $1000 per year, but now it is free,
Your ideas interest me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter (now that it's free, of course!)
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Black markets emerge for commodity goods when there are significant discrepancies between marginal costs and market price. This is exactly the case for digital entertainment media, where technology has eliminated the ability of major media producers to (technically) control the means of distribution of their product, and the marginal cost of distribution is orders of magnitude less than the price to legally buy the good. The development of the black market / piracy is expected in this case.
But - there is a middle ground. There is not just "selling media" vs. "pirating media"...
We have built LegalTorrents to get around the "dilemma" we have a working business model that both incorporates emerging technology and ALSO provides financial supports to Content Creators. The answer is simple: give away what you can't control, and provide value when customers choose to pay.
All the media we host can be downloaded without paying for it, but Content Creators can ask for Sponsorship - voluntary payments. Why would a user pay for media they can get with out paying for it? The answer is give them more: Give them more. Give public credit and community props for those users who pay for the media they love. Give them access to the Content Creators. Give them extra material not easily found online. Give them early access to concerts, private events, etc. Enable the Content Creator to build up a community around their work that is available for those users who pay to support it.
The thing is reason #1 is already a very small percentage of musicians. 10% of CD's are profitable:
On top of that, the percentage of musicians making much of a profit on music sales at all is so low that this hardly matters.
Further reading:
http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20030313214407/http://www.riaa.org/PR_STORY.CFM?ID=491
At $463,832 in profit on an unfinished novel, I would love to have such a "waste of time". http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/07/stephen_king_reveals_the_plant/
...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
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a GNU?
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
And cinematic gems like this one:
Elrond: The ring must be destroyed. It must be cast into the fires of Mordor whence it was forged! The path will be long and treacherous, but with the aid of Google Maps, you may find your way.
Aragorn: We will need supplies for our journey. Doritos, to replenish our strength. Adidas, to outrun the Nazgul. Skittles, that we may taste the rainbow of victory. A Honda, to travel long distances with above-average fuel efficiency.
Elrond: And these you shall receive.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
You have to compare that to what he normally gets paid to write a book to decide if it is a "waste of time" or not.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
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?
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.
Occasionally, people who work in advertising or marketing actually realise the horror of what they're doing to the world. Then they put it into a funny advert instead of killing themselves. As you'll see here.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The O'Reilly book, "Using Samba" was published using a free license, prohibiting only commercial large-scale printing for profit.
The book was then shipped with Samba, as the Samba Team's official reference, and people started reading it online, printing off small chunks and using it.
When they wanted a complete copy to mark up or to read in the bathtub, they went to O'Reilly and bought the nice printed copy on thin paper that you could actually carry in one hand (;-))
Net result: it jumped to the top of Samba book sales, and was very profitable for O'Reilly.
And all because my editor (Andy Oram) was smart enough to realize that he could try an experiment in new media with a little help from the Samba Team
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Subscriptions also can work, just like a chapter-by-chapter written blook that continues as people fund the author's writing.
I recall Stephen King trying this and giving up.
King's 'experiment' should be a lesson in how NOT to sell subscriptions.
He wanted people to pay for each chapter AFTER it was released, not before.
That was so stupid that it makes me wonder if his intent (or whomever proposed it to him) was to deliberately fail.
A good subscription based system will give away a few chapters/episodes/songs and then start requiring a minimum amount of money in the bank before the next chapter/episode/song is released because such systems are all forms of the 'ransom' business model - no kidnapper would be stupid enough to return the kid and then demand a ransom, but that's the equivalent of how King ran his experiment.
The 'ransom' model actually has a lot of benefits all around - it reduces the risk of losing money to nearly zero since the money is in the bank before production work even has to get started. For consumers, it takes the middle-man, the guy who treats all content as just another product to be packaged up and resold, out of the middle. It allows people to much more accurately vote with their dollar for what productions they want to see get made.
Black markets emerge for commodity goods when there are significant discrepancies between marginal costs and market price.
The problem is that the marginal cost of media is now roughly zero. The whole price of production is fixed up front costs. Obviously nobody can make a profit selling at a price of zero.
I think that voluntary payment has a future but it will require a cultural shift. People worship their favorite artists/authors/actors. People will send them money. It will just take an effort to make the transition. We're not used to it yet. We need a new attitude/psychology.
It should also be noted though that only a small fraction of the advertising money paid for a TV show actually goes to the production of the programming. If a producer could get just the equivalent of the price of a couple thirty second adds (using product placement, little sponsor logos where network logos currently go, or just a sponsored by X at the beginning and end), they could independently produce the media and then distribute it costlessly through bittorrent.
It might not work for a really expensive show but it could definitely work for something that was maybe 500k to 1m per episode. Although bittorrent distribution might restrict the audience some (probably not by much for a show targeting an audience under 40).
If you want to paid, provide something to people that is in limited supply. Digital music is infinite in supply. Current laws create an artificial scarcity, but that is no longer something that benefits society, and I believe those laws will not last.
Perhaps if copying their music freely was legal, they wouldn't be so heavily marketed, and other bands with comparable talent and less money would be able to compete for fame.
Copyright is not for the benefit of artists. It is for the benefit of society at large. It is to encourage the creation of new works, so that everyone has music to enjoy. We've reached the point where the supply is virtually limitless. If copyright was no longer valid, there would be no shortage of new bands and recordings. Therefore society at large benefits most from the right to freely copy music.
Besides touring, I think bands should retain rights to profit. They can sell tshirts and special edition recordings of their music, as well as sell CDs for any profit they can get from those people who want physical media. This creates avenues for the listeners to support the band even if they can't see them live.
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.