Why Money Doesn't Motivate File-Sharers

nk497 writes "File-sharers aren't motivated by financial gain, but by altruism, according to an economist. Joe Cox, of the Portsmouth Business School, said those uploading content for others to share don't see what they're doing as illegal, meaning current tactics to deter piracy are doomed to fail. 'The survey data suggested there was a deep-seated belief that this type of activity shouldn't be illegal, that there was no criminal act involved.'"

Comments

Duh?

[betterunixthanunix]

This is news? Did anyone think that file sharers were making money?

Re:Duh?

[Skarecrow77]

I'm pretty sure it's the file sharers who are out of touch if they don't see what they're doing as illegal.

You can't make something legal by wishing it. These aren't fairies we're talking about here. you're not going to clap your hands and have tinkerbell drop legal blu-ray rips into your lap.

If you believe that the current model is outdated, You can lobby. you can vote. you can inform. you can raise awareness. you can debate. but just ignoring the fact that it's illegal doesn't make it legal.

Re:Duh?

[choko]

The IAAs can't fathom why a person would do ANYTHING unless they are being paid for their work. There is a fundamental difference in philosophy here. These are the same people that think everyone is motivated by the same greed that they are.

Re:Duh?

[metrix007]

When a law makes illegal something that a significant number of people do and don't see as wrong, that is a problem with the law, not the people breaking it. Indeed, such laws should continue to be broken.

Re:Duh?

[geminidomino]

I'm pretty sure it's the file sharers who are out of touch if they don't see what they're doing as illegal.

No, it's just more evidence that our so-called "representative government," well... isn't.

Re:Duh?

[jellomizer]

Harm...
1. It is now much harder for musicians to land recording contracts. Because music industry will only record big sellers as the other types would spread via file sharing.

2. Not respecting the license is a bad thing pirating software is just as bad as taking GNU software bundling it and not giving access to the source.

3. Distorts supply and demand and free market economy as it creates a high supply lowering the cost of the software. Meaning us professionals don't get paid alot.

Re:Duh?

[jejones]

How would that notion apply to the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The whole point of the US government is that there are checks and balances even against the people. It shouldn't be possible to deprive people of their rights just because a significant number of people think it proper.

Re:Duh?

[HungryHobo]

I put this post up before with a few more spelling mistakes but I think it might fit this topic too...

You know I sometimes wonder if the world would be a richer or poorer place without copyright, plenty of things would be different certainly and those who make their money from the current system will of course tell you the world would be a poorer, worse off world for it.

It's almost taken as a given that the world would have less creativity without copyright but I do wonder.

If the chef at your local restaurant had to pay royalties whenever he used a recipe published by a celebrity chef would you have a tastier and more enjoyable meal?
What if he risked being sued into the ground if he created a derivative work by altering the recipe slightly without a license?
or would you just have a more bland, unoriginal, uninspired and ultimately vastly more expensive meal?

If your hairdresser had to pay royalties whenever some kid comes in with a magazine picture and says they want their hair to "look like that".
Would everyone have far more interesting hairstyles or would it just cost far more and see people getting sued for doing their own hair at home in a copyrighted style?

Both these things are creative and also involve a skill much like storytelling or playing a musical instrument and in both cases I've heard of people trying to get copyright protections extended to cover them.

Imagine a world where in the 17th century someone had decided that recipes and cooking should fall under copyright along with books.
You can be sure that were someone to call for it's repeal 300 years later there would be no lack of "professional recipe composers" who would talk about how much work they put into working out new recipes and the time and effort it takes and how we're bad people for implying that they haven't worked hard and that they somehow don't deserve a cut whenever someone follows their recipes.

of course in a world where we're all free to take someone elses recipe, use it, copy it, publish it or even claim it as our own we know very well that fuck all harm has been done to the industry for the lack of legal protection on such creativity.
We live in a world where everyone has family recipes but hardly anyone has family music.

In a world where such legal protections existed and nobody ever knew such an open and unprotected situation as we have in this world it would be very easy to claim that there would be no creativity, no well paid chefs and that setting up a kitchen would be pointless since someone else would just copy the chefs recipes.

Similarly it's taken almost as a given that the world would have less good books, less good stories and less origionality without copyright but try questioning that even for a moment.

Of course someone is going to complain that composing and cooking a good meal can't be compared to composing and playing a good piece of music because..... well just because!

Who knows, the flip side of my argument is that perhaps if recipes had been made copyrightable 300 years ago and someone could charge you money every time you used their recipe there would have been more investment in automatic food preparation(for the sake of consistency, avoiding unintentionally creating unlicensed derivative works and accounting of who has used what recipe) and we'd all have autocooks like we all have MP3 players and every meal would be up to the standards of a master cheff.

Re:Duh?

[girlintraining]

I'm pretty sure it's the file sharers who are out of touch if they don't see what they're doing as illegal.

There is often a misunderstanding about what "illegal" means. People very often equate illegal to immoral, as though the law was the standard for moral judgement. I think it would be more accurate to say that most file sharers do not believe their conduct to be immoral.

In the past thirty years, how many laws have been striken from the books? Okay, and how many added? Most legal experts will tell you that the complexity of our legal and judicial process is such that at any point in time, you are probably in violation of one law or another. In fact, this is so commonplace that contracts often come with several paragraphs of pre-empting clauses, and attempt to dictate the jurisdiction for any claims arising from said contract. Paid professionals dedicate their careers to becoming knowledgeable in small pockets of this enormous system. It is utterly impossible for the average person to follow all the laws, all of the time, but the expectation that they do remains.

So most people adopt simpler internal rules based on their religion, cultural norms, and personal history and live by those instead. And as long as that belief system doesn't conflict substantially with those around them, that is usually the end of it. File sharers are no different; And let's be honest -- this push for intellectual property laws is a recent invention, and not one that is well-understood or supported by the public, which is exactly why they have all these draconian laws on the books. Not because it's fair, or even supports their business model, but because people getting convicted under them make headlines. It's free PR when you sue someone living in their basement for $20 million bucks. Nevermind that it'll eventually get whiddled down, or settled, or even dismissed outright. These aren't legal costs -- these are promotional costs.

The majority of people are either apathetic to intellectual property (don't know, don't care), or somewhat hostile towards it. Only a small minority support it, and those are usually people with "something to lose"; i.e. middle-aged adults who now own property, have a family, etc., and while they might be morally opposed to it, they're not going to rock the boat, so in essence they support the paradigm by inaction. Besides that, the very rich, for obvious reasons: They get rich by creating artificial markets, like "intellectual property"

Re:Duh?

[JockTroll]

The *IAA can't fathom why THEY shouldn't be paid for SOMEONE ELSE's work. FTFY.

Re:Duh?

[Americano]

The government exists to serve the people, not the other way around.

That's true, but you have to realize in a disagreement between two groups of people, "serving the people" doesn't necessarily mean "Give me what I want, tell those other guys to fuck off." When two groups of people have competing interests, you can't just expect one of them to cede all of their rights & entitlements to the others with no consideration given in return. In other words: The RIAA is overcharging, and overzealously trying to preserve a business model that's outdated. The file sharers are underpaying, and overzealously trying to kill a business model in an industry with little regard for the sociopathic nature of their behavior.

Artists have a right to set a price for their work. It doesn't matter what the medium is that they choose to distribute it. If the price is too high, then you shouldn't pay them for their work - but you also should not TAKE a copy of their work without paying. If you don't find the enjoyment you get from the work to be worth the price the artist is asking for the work... then find another artist whose work you do value, or who sets a more reasonable price.

Re:Duh?

[Gerzel]

You are implying that most artists A. Own the work they produce and B are able to make a living with copyright.

Most work for a company doing work that the company wants never owning the copyright to that work. Do you really think that without copyright ad agencies won't want artists to make their adds prettier?

The entertainment industry would still exist, people would still be willing to spend money but the derivative market would be far less.

Most artists are unable to live off their work now and there are some that do live in gutters. Given Poe's life he probably would have been in the gutter anyway artist or not.

Re:Duh?

[Archangel Michael]

A couple of things.

First, To copy a hair style, takes flair and adaption. IF I could have Brad Pitts hair I would. I would download it and put it on my head. It doesn't make me Brad Pitt. But I don't have Brad Pitt's hair, and it takes a skilled artist to even come close.

Second, to copy a Chef is more than recipe. There is a style to the knife work, cooking and other skills required beyond ingredients. Recipe is only PART of the artistry. I we could duplicate the cooking style of a chef, automatically with the fictional cooking machine, which duplicates the entire meal perfectly, who would own the skill of the chef being programmed into the machine?

When I cook, each time I make something, it is slightly different from the last time I made it, it is flair. A TRUE artist has flair and skill that makes each performance unique and yet distinctly the artists. People like the Grateful Dead understood that each performance was its own artwork, and didn't rest upon the recording of a single performance in perpetuity. I don't rest on that one great performance (awesome dinner, if I say so myself) I had two years ago for my wife's Birthday. And if I tried to recreate the meal today, it would have the same basic ingredients but would be distinctly different, the artist's flair.

The idea of resting on one's laurels is sad among the "artist" crowd these days. We miss the great performances that transcend the "notes" of the music. If you've never seen a great performance artist, you're missing something.

Re:Duh?

[HungryHobo]

Please actually read my whole post from start to finish before replying.

Re:Duh?

[Attila Dimedici]

You are misconstruing the OP's argument. They were responding to a post that said that if a significant number don't see something that is illegal as wrong, there is something wrong with the law. They were pointing out that a lot of people didn't see anything wrong with the things that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made illegal and that that doesn't make it a bad law.
However, if a significant number of people see nothing wrong with doing something that is illegal, there is a serious problem that requires open and frank discussion. It may be that this situation exists because the law is a bad law that should be repealed. It may be that a significant number of people do not fully understand the consequences of violating this law (not counting the legal consequences). Most likely it is a varying degree of some of both.

Re:Duh?

[Opportunist]

If anything, Mickey Mouse is a prime example how copyright got out of hand.

The idea was to give writers and creators a way to recover their investment. Mostly, their investment of time. Copyright was created in a time when writers needed months, even years, to get their books published, and had no revenue but the sale of those books alone. And they could only hope and pray that it was published quickly and in large quantity, as soon as the manuscript was out, copies and knockoffs would be in the market in no time.

Fast forward to the 1930s and Mickey. The creation of Mickey took ... well, let's be generous and say hours. The original showing of Steamboat Willie most likely already paid handsomely for the time invested in its creation. And given that the "sale" of this comic figure in movies is only the tip of the mountain, along with other merchandize, I'd say that the investment paid off million- if not billionfold.

Walt Disney died in 1966. Yet the copyright for this figure he created is supposed to run out 70 YEARS after his death. I say supposedly because I do not yet believe Disney (the corporation) will allow it without a fight.

Where is the sense in that? What purpose does this insanely prolonged copyright serve? Even if you said that the creator should be able to make a living from a single creation (something I definitely challenge, show me one architect that gets to charge forever for a house he designed!), the copyright almost invariably runs longer than the creator could possibly live! The original intent, to protect the creator, has become a farce. Art has become a simple commodity. Worse, not even art itself, but the right to use art.

That's sick, people.

Re:Duh?

[JustinOpinion]

Good points. (Relatedly, see this TED talk about how the fashion industry thrives despite lack of copyright protection.) Let's think about various things that can and cannot be copyrighted (many examples taken from that TED talk):

Creative things that cannot be copyrighted:
-Recipes, cooking styles and techniques, etc.
-"Look and feel" of food
-Fashion/jewelery/etc.
-Furniture
-Sculptural design of vehicles
-Magic tricks, jokes, etc.
-Sports techniques/moves/plays/strategies
-Fireworks displays
-Hairstyles
-Smells/perfumes
-Rules of games

Creative things that can be copyrighted:
-Pictures/photos/etc. -Movies/video/etc.
-Books/essays/etc.
-Software
-Music/musical scores/sound recordings/etc.
-Choreography
-Sculptures
-Architecture

From these lists we can infer a few things. Firstly, it should be clear that the usual heuristic rules people carry around about copyright are not reflected in the laws. Those who defend copyright often talk in terms of an artist's "right" to control their work, yet clearly there are many artistic endeavors in the first list that go without protection. Similarly discussion about artistic incentives seem strange, given that some creative acts are afforded the incentive of copyright and others are not.

Which brings us to the second thing worth noting. Do the protected acts (second list) generate far more valuable creativity/art than the first? It can be very difficult to measure the impact and importance of creative work. (For what it's worth, the economic activity associated with the unprotected items dwarfs the protected ones.) So let's consider an easier question: Is there a lack of creative output for non-protected art (first list)? The answer is pretty clear: despite a lack of legal protection against copying, the activities in the unprotected list are vibrant, interesting, innovative, and rapidly advancing. Despite the lack of protection/incentive (arguably, because of it) these industries create interesting new products, artists devote themselves to inspiring works, and large sectors of the economy grow as a result.

So the question becomes: considering that we have ample evidence that many creative activities can thrive without protection, what is the justification for copyright protection? I do agree that there are some differences between the lists (e.g. it's trivially easy nowadays to copy music, whereas copying a hairstyle requires more effort and a skilled craftsperson to do the work each time). But even in cases of very close analogy (photographers claim they need protection for prints of their work; meanwhile the fashion industry has found a way to stay relevant without protection, even though they are just selling a style/look/etc. that others can and to copy).

I think there are many examples where creativity thrives without copyright. That doesn't mean that copyright isn't a good idea (maybe creativity thrives even more when protected?), but it does mean we should be very suspicious of simplistic arguments that claim creativity/art wouldn't exist in a world without restrictions on copying.

Re:Duh?

[ScentCone]

Ah. So you're not avoiding the issue of lost sales because it's notoriously difficult to exactly pin down who would have purchased something vs. not purchase it in the context of easy piracy ... your contention is that every single person who watches pirated movies and listens to pirated music is someone who would not otherwise have purchased it... and that that makes copyright law irrelevent to piracy. And you were lecturing somebody else about their illogical beliefs?

Re:Duh?

[ScentCone]

I'm sure that if you actually tried to understand what I was saying you wouldn't have arrived at this conclusion

Oh, I hear you loud and clear. You're plain as day.

Not to mention that competition 'hurts' (at least by the "'loss' of potential future gain equates to harm" logic) businesses and people in the same way.

No. Legitimate competition faces the same challenges as their competitors. All businesses (from artists to large corporations) face competition. It's factored into how they address the market they're in, and anyone competing to enter that market has to find away to address the costs, risks, and work involved in producing something that will either grow the market, or make their offering more attractive.

But someone who enters into a market with the advantage of having lowered their costs or risks by ripping off something that their competitors otherwise pay for (like R&D investments, or third-party services, etc) distort that market. You can't really call someone who breaks the law in order to beat you a competitor, per se. They are harming the other people in that same market, because they're deliberately breaking the market's rules in order to have an advantage. Their ethical competition won't do that, and are thus harmed.

never even had their money in the first place

So if only one person buys a ticket to a concert, and 9,999 other people jump the fence and sneak in so they can get their entertainment without having to pay what the artist has asked, that's cool ... because the artist never had their money in the first place, right? Hey, they're performing anyway, so it's not like they have to do any extra work to entertain those extra few thousand people or anything. One ticket sale should be more than enough for them, don't you think? They haven't lost anything if that one paying customer holds the fire escape door open for thousands of his close personal friends, right?

Summary wrong

[guyminuslife]

The interviewee says that uploaders don't think that what they're doing should be illegal, not that they aren't aware of the legal ramifications or that education about the law would suddenly change everything.

Re:Summary wrong

[guyminuslife]

As opposed to saying "don't see what they're doing as immoral."

Filesharing is a boon for some of us

[Pojut]

::begin self-plug::

Filesharing is a boon for people like myself. I do some writing (nothing released to the public yet, although once it is it will all be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license) and also make some spacey-ambient and drone-type music. The music I make is freely available to all (both on Last.FM and in a torrent.) Since I care more about people hearing my music (and, in the future, reading my writing) rather than getting money for it, filesharing is perfect for me.

I've got a donate button on my site, but even after I officially put my stuff up for "sale", I will continue to ensure it's available for free. I've gotten my fair share of music and writings for free...I feel like I should contribute something back, know what I mean? ::end self-plug::

Oh, I am sure most...

[PortHaven]

Oh, I am sure most file-sharers understand that it is illegal. The billions of $$$ that our government wastes on anti-piracy, and sending Homeland Security after them.

But is it immoral? That is the real question. And most file-sharers do not feel it is immoral.

--

A large part of this is because we have been ripped off for decades by the music cartel (RIAA). Who has also been ripping off artists for even longer. When we're paying $15 for a $2 product and the artist is lucky to see a dollar. Somehow that cartel's claims that "we're stealing", fall on very deaf ears. And when we see lawsuits which fine someone $2.5 million for a few 99 cent songs - quite clearly in violation of the United States of America's Constitution. We lose any pity we might have for a corrupt industry whose business model is extinct. And if not for the fact that they have paid billions to buy off our government, would have been put out of business a decade ago.

There is a feeling of justification...

Re:Movies

[JayRott]

This picture someone made says it all: http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/why-people-pirate-movies-steps-to-watching-video.jpg

This isn't altruism

[edremy]

Altruism is giving something of yourself. If I write a kickass piece of software or a great song, or a novel and give it away under a GPL or CC license for the rest of the world, that's altruism.

Giving away something that somebody else made and who presumably doesn't want it given away (otherwise they would have done so) is *not* altruism. You can argue theft, copyright infringement, whatever, but it is in no way comparable.

TFS is subtly misleading

[shutdown -p now]

The very first sentence:

File-sharers aren't motivated by financial gain, but by altruism

is overly generic. In practice, here's what TFA says:

For the leechers, pretty obviously, the major motivation was financial. They wanted to acquire music or films without paying for it because it was cheaper than going out to buy it.

What was interesting was the difference with the seeders, and it was quite apparent that financial motivations were nowhere near as prevelant; it was a kind of altruism.

So it only applies to those who deliberately upload.

Information wants to be free.

[hessian]

In light of Wikileaks, I've been reconsidering this.

Back in the 1980s when finding internet access or time on a machine faster than 1mhz was a huge achievement, "information wants to be free" meant "let us use your networks for non-commercial purposes that help them grow."

From hacking came a lot of good things. Better programming; increased security; cutting through the academic and business horse shit that locked technology into repetitive, categorical, and rather boring uses. From it also came some adventure and fun.

But now, hacking is more of an academic art than anything else. Research known exploits and run a fuzzer until you find an injection or overflow waiting to happen, then ta-da! You win. As a result, I don't think "information wants to be free" applies to hacking when you can make one phone call with your credit card and have fast internet access, and another phone call to get a computer 10,000 times faster than anything we had in the 1980s.

File sharing, while I love the idea of it, takes piracy from an elite who further the technology, and instead makes it an everyday way for much of America to steal its content. Many people are computer-literate now, and they're going online not to find rare and technical information, but to download movies, games and music. That's a different use entirely.

Wikileaks also strikes me as a case of "hackers" (if copying stuff to a thumb drive counts as "hacking") going too far in the wrong direction. Ultimately the exposure of diplomatic networks will increase instability and make the United States more inclined to be fascist, not the reverse. In addition, those who worked with the United States toward good causes are already feeling the hurt. "Information wants to be free" doesn't mean "and you can ignore the consequences."

Consider these cases:

1. I post 1.4gb of credit card numbers online in the ideal that it will destroy the financial system and create world anarcho-socialism.

2. You write a novel; it takes you two years. I post it online in Kindle, Nook and Sony reader formats.

3. You take out $20m in loans to make a movie or a video game, and you spend five years of your life on the project, hoping that you can leverage this into a career. I post your game or movie online before it is released.

We'll never know how sales are affected because we will never know if the people downloading would have bought it anyway, but what's really lost is the newness of the material. If your neighbor reads the newspaper, figures out which are the good stories, and then tells you about them while you're fishing, what incentive do you have to buy the newspaper?

We -- the hackers of today -- need to think long and hard about this. By destroying the ability of others to profit from their work, we may be sabotaging the very people we sought to empower all those years ago.

Just $0.02, or probably worth a lot less in this recession.

Re:Information wants to be free.

[Anonymous Coward]

2. You write a novel; it takes you two years. I post it online in Kindle, Nook and Sony reader formats.

3. You take out $20m in loans to make a movie or a video game, and you spend five years of your life on the project, hoping that you can leverage this into a career. I post your game or movie online before it is released.

...We -- the hackers of today -- need to think long and hard about this. By destroying the ability of others to profit from their work, we may be sabotaging the very people we sought to empower all those years ago.

Stop trying to do this "art" stuff for money. It's often vastly inferior, and always less cost effective, than art created by people who are driven to simply create art. I make & record music. You can't pirate it, but you can continue to seed the torrent :P (no link - no troll).

I don't intend to make money from it, I make music because I have to, my soul requires it of me. The internet will destroy the music industry, but it will be a spectacular boon for music. The sooner the profit-driven media factories are kicked out of our creative meme pool, the better. Then art will be made by people who are motivated by art rather than money, and the world will be a better place.

</hope>

Doing what you like

[lymond01]

I keep thinking that, perhaps, one day we'll be able to do what we want to do with our time. If actors want to act, they'll do so without the guarantee of acquiring money (see local community theaters). If musicians want to play, they'll play. I guess it comes down to being able to create food and shelter for yourself -- you wait tables because you need a home, but you play music because that's what you love. I think it's great that popular musicians get paid for doing what they love, but it's sad that it's a necessity.

Sigh...not even sure what I'm trying to say other than I'm not sure what the end goal of a capitalistic society is. We're technologizing ourselves out of jobs, always have been. What happens when robots are doing all the work, creating the music and art? Aside from the robotics engineers, who's collecting a salary?