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Fighting For Downloaders' Hearts and Minds
iateyourcookies writes "As opposed to enforcement which usually makes the headlines, The BBC is running an article called Inside A Downloader's Head which looks at the film and music industries' attempts to prevent copyright infringement. It details some of the campaigns, their rationale, controversy surrounding them and notes that 'there are plenty, even among the young, who can be eloquent about why they believe illegal downloading is not wrong. These can include everything from what they see as the unacceptable "control freakery" of DRM and regional coding, to overcharging and exploitation of the very artists the music industry claims to protect.' However, PR company for the industry Blue Rubicon attests that 'campaigns can change hearts and minds... If you do them right you can make a material impact on people's behaviour.'"
So they admit they want to control our minds!
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"Blue Rubicon attests that 'if you do them right you can make a material impact on people's behaviour.'"
That will certainly make a material impact on Blue Rubicon's net profits. But change people's behavior? That's pretty unlikely. History is not on their side.
The article seems filled with examples of fuzzy logic. For example, it discusses how many "bad guys" force illegal immigrants/migrants to sell pirated DVDs on the street, thus showing an example of how innocent foreigners are harmed by the trade in illegal software/media. However... isn't this better than them being forced into being drug mules or prostitutes? Shouldn't they be trying to clarify that morality != legality rather than muddling the issue?
I suppose it's better than RIAA's tactics, but the claims of reducing piracy by 5% seem tenuous at best.
Signatures are the new names.
...but it seems to escape them that home taping did not kill the music industry! I guess they just think it means their campaign worked.
And of course I could also mention VHS (aka "The Boston Strangler").
I can't justify everything I've downloaded from the pirate bay, however, there are certain instances where I don't feel the least bit sorry:
* I purchased Spore and then downloaded the cracked version, which I installed on my computer, and then edited the system registry to give myself a the key. Sorry, if I purchased a piece of software, I deserve to get at least as good an experience as the pirates do, which means no rootkits.
* Several years ago, I purchased RPG Maker XP. I've gone through several computers since the purchase, and it no longer allows me to activate the software. I'd like to continue using the software that I legitimately paid for, and my only option is to download a cracked, pirated version.
* On many occasions, I've downloaded no-CD cracks for games I've purchased legitimately.
Did I violate the DMCA in these cases? Probably. Do I feel justified in doing so? Absolutely. I shouldn't be locked out of software that I purchase, and when I buy software legitimately, I shouldn't be punished for it with shitty DRM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
"Resistance" also served as part of Thoreau's metaphor which compared the government to a machine, and said that when the machine was working injustice it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be "a counter friction" - that is, a resistance - "to stop the machine."
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Now, the current length for copyright seems to be 50 years or more after the death of an author. Are you fucking kidding me? How the hell is that limited in any way? The person has been dead for 49 years and his/her work still isn't public domain? What is that crap?
The copyright should be date of publication + 20 years and I don't care if the author is a person or a corporation, nor do I care if the art in question is a song, a tune, a movie, a videogame, a tv show, a book, whatever.
If it was published or released before 1989 then it should be public domain, no exceptions.
In fact, the governments should have web servers so that its citizens can go download the now-public-domain things for free, in open or non-proprietary formats.
The movie was produced to make money.
People do all sorts of things in the expectation of making money. Sometimes this expectation is fulfilled; sometimes it isn't. It's not really a matter of morality in most cases.
No matter how you water it down, you took something that you didn't pay for.
If I "take" something from you, then you no longer have it. That is clearly not what's going on here.
You're only lying to yourself.
The liars are the ones who pretend that intellectual property and real property are the same thing, when any rational person can see that they aren't.
You claim to believe that illegally downloading movies is theft, but that you do it anyway. I have to question the sincerity of your belief. Do you regularly steal other things as well? Probably not, and if not, then it's a pretty good bet that the reason you're willing to "steal" movies but not steal money or cars is because you recognize that there is a fundamental difference between these actions.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
there are plenty, even among the young, who can be eloquent about why they believe illegal downloading is not wrong. These can include everything from what they see as the unacceptable "control freakery" of DRM and regional coding, to overcharging and exploitation of the very artists the music industry claims to protect.
"Principled opposition to copyright itself" is, of course, left out of their range of acceptable dissent.
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The core of what is wrong is the abuse, exploitation and extension of copyright law. Region coding is not justifiable as a means to do anything but control multiple prices in multiple markets. Content protection systems (aka DVD-CSS) are not justifiable as it does not prevent copying and only serves to control how and what players are used to access the media that, once purchased, the media companies no longer have any right or entitlement to. And the very idea of DRM is not only a problem in the sense that it grants no rights to the user and that they literally have to "ask permission to access" each and every time the user wants to access it, but it also runs the risk of becoming theft on the part of the DRM controller as when they shut down, they deny all access to the content that was legally paid for by the consumer. (They selleth, and then they taketh away!) And the extension of copyright terms to durations that can only be useful to immortal corporate "persons"? That is more unreasonable than words can express.
And before anyone can say "but that does not give you the right to steal" I have to say "so fucking what?!" Look. Fighting against "wrongness" in any way available is how the USA gained its independence. Some colonials wanted to stay connected to the crown of England and didn't want any part of it. Sounds like the "no right to steal" crowd.
And forgetting all this morality stuff, let's be plain about it. The amount of copyright infringement is negligible and most infringers are also people who buy things when they can and when it is good enough. These media jerks should let it quietly go on because they are still raking in tons of money and are still getting their laws passed. They don't need the enemies they are breeding and they don't need the growing fight they are getting. The more fight they give, the more doom they bring upon themselves. Wait and see... they will be wishing for "the good ole days" when they have everything nearly the way they wanted.
It seems the BBC has forgotten about the last time it forgot that sharing is not a crime! : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4758636.stm
'First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We're very, very sorry.'
Not sorry enough to remember...
Stop the presses! A PR Firm promotes the value of running a PR campaign!
Some honest two-way dialog is what's needed, not preaching the old way.
I could be wrong but I think my first impression of the summary was somewhat like yours, though expressed differently. When I saw this part:
My first thought on reading that was "because a material impact is the only type they're capable of recognizing." I also have my doubts that their campaign is going to try to "change hearts and minds" with facts and reasoning. It's sort of like a debate which has an audience: if you're good, you can "win" a debate or an argument whether or not you are actually correct, particularly if your audience is naive, unfamiliar with argumentation and critical thinking, or has no independent understanding of the subject matter. Unfortunately, I think all three of those factors are working in favor of the *AAs. The Slashdot crowd is exceptional in many ways, but I would not expect the average person to be so familiar with these issues and many unrelated things remind me of the general public's lack of familiarity with argumentation and critical thinking.
Talk-show hosts do something similar all the time. They like to use the Socratic method not as a teaching tool, but to control the conversation by forcing the caller/guest into answering a series of simple questions that don't permit appreciation of differing viewpoints. Any attempts to suggest that the subject is more nuanced than this, that the questions don't cover the full scope of the issue, or that determing your conclusion prior to taking any other steps might be intellectually dishonest are dealt with. That's why the host's voice has a higher gain/volume than the caller's, why the host has a mute (or hold) button to instantly silence the caller, and is one (of several) reasons why calls are screened before being taken. Put those same hosts in a situation where they must interact as equals who cannot force the other person to submit to their control of the conversation and suddenly they'd have much greater difficulty seeming like they are always "right."
The situation with media campaigns is likewise asymmetric. The *AAs can easily afford to run these campaigns and get their side of the story into public view. Could you or I afford to produce and air our own commercials, on a national level, that argue against them and show any flaws in their reasoning? You mention two-way dialog. Imagine what it would do to all of PR and advertising if that were the norm.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Not really. Information only wants to be cheap enough, and that includes transaction costs.
I don't watch that many films, but when I do, my requirements are as follows: I don't want to decide early on what I want to watch (ideally, I want to make up my mind at dinner, and watch it after the coffee), I don't want to spend more time on getting what I want then the time spent deciding what to see (i.e. buh-bye shop), and I want to be able to have at least two alternatives for the evening, in case I get bored with my first choice.
So, in my heart and mind the situation looks like this:
(a) I can download legally: There is little choice in services, they have various requirements for software (meaning it is limited to OS and browser I don't use), they have ridiculously little choice, half of that without language support I require and the price for what is available is also kind of high (a movie download cost about $20-ish last I bothered to check).
(b) I can downloading illegally: I can choose OS and player as I see fit, the availability of content is unsurpassed, even rare films, which will never make it legally here, or have been out of commercial circulation for decades are available; and there is usually someone helpful who has provided subtitles in my language, and in the language of the significant other, for even the weirdest movie and language. besides, it is really fast.
So, again, why should I bother with the "legal" downloads? Why should I put up with crappy customer service? Just because someone bribed some politico types and bought themselves a monopoly? It isn't like the "legal" provider cannot do for me for the same $20 what any private tracker does for free. If they would, I'd be happy to subscribe. I'd be even happier to watch for $5, or (less happy probably) for a fixed monthly subscription of sorts.
It is so simple to win my heart and mind, that I am at a huge loss as to why it is still unwon. The problem isn't it is hard. The problem is no one wants to win me. Well, if you suck, I'll damn right go where they treat me better.
Your example is childish and disingenuous because you are ignoring the labor that went into a product.
Incorrect. Illegal copying doesn't deprive anyone of their labor (or cause them to labor against their will) any more than it deprives them of the work being copied.
Only a finite amount of labor went into that product, and the labor has already been performed by the time anyone has a chance to make a copy. Whether you buy a copy legally, download a copy illegally, or don't obtain a copy at all, the amount of labor doesn't change -- the artist does exactly the same amount of work, no matter how many copies are eventually made or how many of those copies are legal.
Another way to look at it is that the artist gains no benefit when people choose not to download his works. His life isn't any richer or easier when his work is seen by 10 paying customers than when it's seen by 10 paying customers and 500 pirates. The pirates cause him no extra effort and take nothing away from him.
This, by the way, firmly places you in a clinically pre-adolescent stage of cognitive development.
When you've posted a completely boneheaded argument, pretending to be a psychologist only makes you look worse. Please, keep it up!
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Keep trying. Your flaw is that if taken to the extreme of all digital media being pirated, the creators would indeed be deprived of the fruits of their labor.
How silly. You might as well claim you're being deprived of the fruits of your labor when you mow your neighbor's lawn (without asking him first) and then he refuses to pay you.
They're only entitled to "fruits of their labor" when someone has agreed to pay for that labor beforehand. If I decide to spend my time making a movie, the only thing I'm entitled to afterward is a copy of that movie. My choice to perform labor doesn't obligate anyone else to pay me for it. Such an obligation can only come from a mutual agreement between me and the person who's paying.
Even if only a fraction of the output is pirated, the business model of selling digital goods is subverted.
So what? No one is required to make another person's business model work, especially such a foolish model as "work for free now, sell copies later", and especially when propping up that model requires ceding one's own right to communicate.
It is specious to insist that nothing is lost simply because a material item did not change hands.
No, it's just a straightforward application of the meaning of "lost". You can't lose something you never had. You can't lose money that belongs to someone else. You can, however, fail to convince someone to give you their money.
Music, video, games, etc. are digital information that required a great deal of labor to create.
Indeed they are. That's why it's so foolish to do all that labor for free and then pray that you can recoup your production costs by selling copies, especially when you know anyone can cut you out of the loop by making their own copies at home. The creation is the valuable part, not the copying.
Copying it without compensation or in violation of the artist's chosen license does indeed transfer a good from the artist to the thief.
More directly, it transfers a good from the uploader (who is almost certainly not the artist) to the downloader.
But "transfer" is not theft. When I tell you that the acceleration due to gravity on Earth is 9.8 m/s/s, I've transferred information to you, but I haven't lost anything. If you pass that information on to someone else without my permission, I still haven't lost anything.
Theft absolutely requires a loss. That's what makes theft a bad thing in the first place: not the fact that the thief gets something for free, but the fact that the rightful owner no longer has it. If you could wave a magic wand and make a copy of someone's car, few people would object to that (since it doesn't make them any poorer), and you'd have a hard time convincing anyone to call it an act of theft.
Most people have a better understanding of what theft is, and why theft is wrong, than you seem to. The best possible outcome of your line of argument is that you convince a few people that there are two kinds of "theft": the kind that's bad and the kind that isn't. Is that really what you want?
Keep denying it. You are stuck in the past. In this century, digital goods are a valid commercial entity.
I'm not the one who's stuck in the past. Copyright is an artifact of a relatively brief era when copying on a massive scale was practical for a few wealthy entities (who could afford printing presses, CD manufacturing plants, etc.) but not for the masses. Copyright is enforceable when you only need to keep an eye on factory owners who see copying as a business venture. But that era is gone: copying is now practical on a massive scale for anyone, the most dangerous copying (to the antiquated business model) is casual and noncommercial, and copyright is no longer enforceable without utterly decimating free speech and technical innovation.
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What insult? Did you follow the link? Piaget's stages of cognitive development are very well established criteria. But you already knew that, right? Right?
Insults disguised as armchair psychology are still insults. But you already knew that, right?
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