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What Various Studies Really Reveal About File-Sharing
Dangerous_Minds writes "Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has an interesting look at file-sharing. It all started with a review of a Phoenix study that was used to promote SOPA. Wilson says that the study was long on wild claims and short on fact. While most writers would simply criticize the study and move on, Wilson took it a step further and looked in to what file-sharing studies have really been saying throughout the years. What he found was an impressive 19 of 20 studies not getting any coverage. He launched a large series detailing what these studies have to say on file-sharing. The first study suggests that file-sharing litigation was a failure. The second study said that p2p has no effect on music sales. The third study found that the RIAA suppresses innovation. The fourth study says that the MPAA has simply been trying to preserve its oligopoly. The fifth study says that even when one uses the methodology of one download means one lost sale, the losses amount to less than $2 per album. The studies, so far, are being posted on a daily basis and are certainly worth the read."
I know anecdotes don't mean much but...
I was in university (and poor) when Napster became popular and I stopped paying for music. I have money now but the habit kind of stuck and I haven't paid for music since; I know many people who are the same way. I'm pretty sure that P2P has cost the music industry hundreds of dollars from me personally over the last 14 years.
Pressing millions of copies of a musician's studio-crafted single-- highly exploitative practice that took the hard work of the most compliant musicians they could find. The musicians who manage to game the music industry are just as rare, per capita, as the consumers who actually seek out what they want rather than what they are force-fed by media outlets. This has been true for sixty years.
I have paid musicians for copies of their music that came with personalized notes, or shout-outs that included my name, or logo-printed kazoos, and lots of actual art included. A few artists have come up with products that people might be into e.g. Beck putting a bunch of custom stickers in one of his albums instead of cover art.
Basically I think that the record-funded music industry has been the anomaly, not the corrective factor that the internet introduces into the industry.
You assume that the current framework is ethical. Rationalize mind abuse all you want its still mind abuse. Copyright holders assert far too many rights, one of which is that once they let the cat out of the bag, they presume they can stuff it back in anytime they desire. Maximization of profit is not a strong enough reason to allow the current abusive system to continue.
Good-bye
Congratulations! You have just pointed out what both sides are doing except one side has far more money and publicity power and the other has 10 million internets until the first side buys your government and then the other has no internets.
However.
Now, there are other issues implied in your post. For instance, those who control copyright in a work may act at odds with the wishes of the author, or even at times at odds with the legal owner of the copyright. Even when technically legal, this is itself a form disrespect that should be fought (though whether the fighting is done by breaking the law or by changing the law is an open question)
Also, there is the question of inappropriate influence. Compared to the size of the "copyright industry" (by which I mean primarily film and music, and to an extent software, where the product is copyright-enforced artificial scarcity), there is an argument that inappropriate levels of political influence are exerted. Possibly this is due to the "fame" obsession in the general populace - ie, perceptual bias.
Cherry-picking sympathetic journals...
Sorry, but this really smacks of the True Scotsman fallacy. Yes, research can be skewed - but if you are using researched funded by the RIAA or MPAA etc, then it is just as likely to be as skewed as you claim these to be, thereby making the comment redundant in itself. How about posting a few links to legitimate research done by neutral parties with no interest either way, instead of simply dismissing these?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
"A fact lots of well educated people don't seem to understand regardless of the number of studies showing this effect."
Obviously this fact conflicts with their world view. I have observed this effect in action, however, on multiple occasions, sometimes to comical effect - such as people believing I said the direct opposite of what I actually just said.
It does require you look at the actual data and work done inside the paper, to make sure it is scientifically sound, instead of just trusting the researcher's conclusions.
Unfortunately, TFA did not do that. I hope someone else is less lazy than me, and looks at the studies to see what potential problems there might be, or if they are sound.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think the obvious correlation between piracy and global warming is clearly the bigger issue here. It has not been proven conclusively that there has been a causal relation between piracy and the music industry!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
And I may not disagree, but that sure as hell does not justify the lying, fraud, thuggery, bribery, and the rest of the long list of nasty things the **AA organizations have done. I daresay they've done far more damage overall than people downloading a few tracks.
It is a granted right, not an inalienable natural right. It is supposed to be a bargain struck between the public and the artist. Through deeply unethical manipulation, the law no longer reflects such a fair and balanced bargain. It's little wonder that a growing portion of the public no longer respect it.
the obvious correlation between piracy and decreased music sales is intellectually dishonest
What's intellectually dishonest is asserting that there is an "obvious correlation".
A few points about music:
1. Supply is effectively infinite. There is always something new you haven't listened to yet. You could never consume it all in one lifetime of non-stop listening.
2. Copying music without a licence does not in any way imply that you would buy the relevant music. At most, it implies that you were sufficiently interested to invest about 10 seconds of your time and about 10 cents worth of bandwidth to "check it out".
3. Copying music without a licence does imply that you are interested in listening to music generally. The more you copy, the more interested you are. There are studies showing that the biggest "pirates" tend to be the biggest spenders on music.
4. In my experience, there is an extremely strong correlation between people copying music and people buying music. Specifically, many people now essentially "try before they buy". For example, someone might download an old Radiohead album. If they have any taste, they will be blown away by its quality. Next time Radiohead release a new album, they will be far, far more likely to buy it than they were before.
5. Most people have a reasonably hard limit of how much spending on entertainment they can "justify". Because the supply of new music is near infinite, people are likely to spend up to their limit on music and then copy thereafter (not as neatly as that, but psychologically).
6. IIRC there is evidence that the rise in on-line copying has actually improved music sales.
7. Music isn't like a car. You don't download one album, then not want another one for 10 years.
Read Pynchon.
Seems like a lot of wasted space. The bulk of the Slashdot community will never change their opinion and the other side won't change their opinion. The arguments are always the same so why is the subject matter worthy of three posts in a row? Yes they are slightly different but the responses aren't. We might as well run three posts in a row on Evolution verses Creationism. I'm not trying to troll but it seems like the whole thread ends up being redundant and we're into the second decade of the debate. There just has to be other tech stories to cover. There's lots of cool stuff going on in the maker community. Things like the Cube bringing slick professional 3D printing at an afordable price $1,299. http://cubify.com/cube/index.aspx Or a $249 vacuum former kit. http://www.phlatboyz.com/Phlatformer-Kit_p_10.html It just seems there's more happening in the tech world than limiting copyrights and the downloading fight. If some one comes up with a fresh slant on the subject I'm thrilled to hear it but the two sides are so far apart I don't see any compromise in the near future if ever. Just saying to the editors can we keep it to a couple of stories a day and space them out a bit?
So in summary:
Line of support #1: correlation without causal evidence. Based on what you've provided, the decline could very well be caused by the decreasing influence of the moon's gravity upon the earth as it slowly deorbits. "Don't thank me - thank the moon's gravitaitonal pull", as it were. Furthermore, I posit that as I have aged, my flatulent output has been steadliy increasing as music sales decline. Coincidence?! You decide.
Line of support #2: anecdote. Apparently, if you 'know plenty of people', why, that ought to be enough proof for anybody. What with only 7 billiion or so other people on this planet you presumably do not know, your 'plenty of people' that you know surely covers all the bases.
Line of support #3: projection. Since you do or think a certain thing, everyone else must be doing and thinking the same thing. Another term for this is narcissism, but that's putting it nicely.
Line of support #4: lack of use of iTunes music card. I'm not even sure what logical fallacy this falls under, but then again, I'm fairly sure this proves nothing. That's no worse than your other points, though.
Does that about cover it?
Please educate yourself on the meaning of 'evidence' and 'science' and then reassess your thoughts. These words do not mean what you think they mean; that much is obvious.
First of all, I happen to agree that distribution against the author's wishes is somewhat disrespectful.
Nobody is more disrespectful of the artists than the record industry.
The record industry has a long history of fiddling the accounts so the artists make approximately zero from record sales. If P2P has any effect it's to skews the accounting so the record execs make less. The artists will still make approximately zero, ie. it doesn't bother them much.
No sig today...
Open up google and put in the following line:
"T. Randolph Beard" "George S. Ford" "Lawrence J. Spiwak"
Doing a quick google search using the names in the article shows something interesting. Articles on telecommunications, wireless, net neutrality threats, and a bunch of other stuff. What also pops up is this strange organization called Phoenix Center.
T. Randolph Beard (Professor of Economics, Auburn University)
George S. Ford (Chief Economist, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies)
Lawrence J. Spiwak (President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies )
Do another google search with the following line:
site:www.phoenix-center.org pdf
This shows a whole bunch of articles behind this strange organization.
Yep.
And lets not forget the record industry isn't really very big. Gross yearly revenue is single digit billions of dollars. To you or me that's a lot of money but in the scheme of things it's a drop in the ocean. The amount of government time they've wasted over this is probably worth more, we should just buy them out and get it over with.
Their profits are a tiny fraction of the value of the Internet, it's certainly not worth wrecking the Internet for such a small amount, but that's what they're doing.
No sig today...
Given the creative accounting of the entertainment industry, it's impossible to get meaningful numbers for a research like this. But then again, until they become frank with society, they shouldn't ask for any legislatory help from society either. The right thing to do would be to tell the entertainment industry to come clean with their numbers, otherwise no copyright enforcement law will be based on an informed decision. If they refuse, then just let them die, assuming they really are dying.
As a Member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party, I have just published a short book (108 pages) on copyright reform together with Rick Falkvinge, who is the founder of the first and Swedish Pirate party.
The studies mentioned here seem to paint exactly the same picture as a number of studies that we refer to in that book. File sharing is not hurting revenues for the cultural sector. When we look at statistics for the last decade, with rampant file sharing on the internet, we see that more money is going into film, music, books, games and other culture than ever before, and that a larger portion of it is going to the artists and other creative people involved (as opposed to middle men such as the big record companies).
Two weeks ago we had a book launch for "The Case for Copyright Reform" in the European Parliament, and I have distributed a paper copy of it to each of the 754 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament).
Now all that remains to be seen is how many of my colleagues in the parliament will actually read it, but that's another story. ;)
If you are interested in checking out the book, you can download "The Case for Copyright Reform" (for free, obviously) from http://www.copyrightreform.eu/ You can also order a paper copy at cost price via print-on-demand, if you prefer that.
It is time that we start looking at copyright legislation in a fact-based manner, as opposed to the IPR fundamentalist way that has been dominant in this policy area so far on both sides of the Atlantic.
There is a better way.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
You're painting this picture a little wrongly.
The war on drugs, alcohol, adultery and entertainment piracy fail primarily because the conflict too heavily with standard human behavior. Humans are exactly less than we idealize and we have flourished and prospered because of it.
Sure, it's true that copyright and rights holders are "wrong" and abusive, but it begs the question about why and how it is wrong -- the true core of what is wrong about it. It's the fact that it conflicts with the factors of human behavior and true human values that makes it wrong.
One of the most significant factor contributing to the rise of humans and technology is the fact that we NEED to share. It's not merely a want or a wish of the good-hearted, but an instinctive need just the same as our need to have sex and children and all that. It's not enough to say that knowledge wants to be free, it's that it needs to be free. And entertainment is just another form of knowledge... don't kid yourself.
And to push against human nature and especially human need is... well... it's just bad.
7. Music isn't like a car. You don't download one album, then not want another one for 10 years.
I once downloaded a Justin Bieber song, and I don't want another one for at least 10 years.
I eagerly read your post looking for citations proving your claim of "obvious correlation between piracy and decreased music sales" and was very disappointed to find none! Certainly, since you say it is obvious, there has to be something you can provide to back up that assertion.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The question I'm always left asking is this: "Should artists be paid for recordings?"
In days past, performers made money for performing. They still do. There were no recordings on which to profit.
If ALL music were free as in beer and free as in liberty, surely artists would make less money. But would they go bankrupt? Many would still be multi-millionaires from concert ticket sales and merchandise alone. These would be the same artists with or without iTunes and CD sales.
So I ask: Should artists be paid for recordings? I think the answer is "No."
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
What I see here is that people have discovered "hey, I can download stuff for free" and then just make up all sorts of excuses like "RIAA suppresses innovation" to desperately justify what they are doing.
What I see here is your lack of reading comprehension. Some of us despise the *AAs for what they're doing to legislatures the world over. We despise them for their Hollywood accounting schemes that leave the real artists in debt to the distribution companies. The IP maximalists are making money hand over fist, so much so that they can afford to buy legislation favorable (they believe) to them, yet they're equally convinced that piracy is destroying their gravy train. They're like children running around with their fingers in their ears shouting, "Lalalalalala ..." They don't listen to reasoned arguments, and anyone who disagrees with them is assumed to be a pirate, by definition.
Some of us advocate boycotting everything even remotely related to the *AAs, hoping they'll just die and wither away troubling the world no further. The anti-piracy crusade these middlemen are on is immoral and abusive to artists and fans and to legal systems the world over, and I for one can't wait to see the back of them.
I won't buy their stuff, I won't steal their stuff, and I won't consume their stuff. I'm looking forward to the day the artists wise up and stop falling for their spiel. The artists don't need them when the Internet can do their distributing and marketing for them, and we certainly don't need the secondary effects of the anti-piracy crusade they're pushing.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I was wondering whether someone was going to call the poster out for being an astroturfing sock puppet. While it may, or may not, be the case in this particular example, it shows that people are becoming more aware of the problem. This is a good thing.
I would like to point out that the marketing firms that provide astroturf/sockpuppet service have grown more sophisticated that has our awareness of the problem. For example, a competent sock-puppeteer will create the accounts YEARS in advance and fill them with occasional post so they look like real accounts. They now routinely create entire online ecosystems, including false debates & discussions, where they play multiple the critical roles with different accounts. Watch for this!
how ironic... at least he posted as AC...
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT