Whitechapel - Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

cjstevens — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:26:45 -0700

Hey WC.

This has been grating on me for a while and this seems like the best place to vent my frustrations and anger.
This was an important enough issue to make the front of the FT yesterday, and basically what I can understand is this:

Record/Media companies have pressured (through GOV) the ISP's to clamp down on illegal dowloads of music/video content, which to my mind raises many issues.
The first is privacy. Apparently ISP's will now issue warnings for those downloading material. Firstly, how is this possible. Is there a certain body of employees dedicated to monitoring downloaded content??? Is this not a absurd and ironic counter-productive tool, similar to the gov administering congestion/emmision charges to motorists. Surely the implementation of this exceeds the revenue accrued. Who is watching what I download, do they have this right??
Secondly, this is my view...

I hear a band/artist on the radio. I download ( for free) some tracks. If they are good and worthy of my time, I will possibly buy an album/ go to a gig/possibly even buy some merch. We have to adapt as society. I look at piracy as a filter of content. 'Quality sells itself.' If something is good it will prevail.
The music/ film industry keeps blabbering on about how it looses millions a year in revenue etc. If this is the case, how come a crack head like Amy Winehouse (Who's music I have appreciated for years), or actors like Will Smith- received 40 million for Hancock) can obtain such a vast pay packet?
I know the counter argument is that the other employees of the industry will rally against me saying the film crew/ editors/ technicians/whatever are getting knocked, but I have to ask: Why get involved with the industry at all? No one is forcing you to be in the film/music industry.

Here is my point....

People don't give a fuck about art anymore. To my mind, music is art. You are a musician, you wanna make good music and if you get paid then, well ..bonus.

It seems in our age of Pop Idol madness, record contracts come over content. Think about it. I know Radiohead were already established, but they let you choose how much you wanted to pay for In Rainbows. Prince sold his album to a paper (Mail I think) and did a load of sell out shows. Even Mc bloody Fly released content free with a paper.

It just seems to me that the only people really bothered about this are the big record/media dominators, worried about earning 10 million, when they could be earning 50 million. It all comes down to greed, and this ties into a capitalism rant. On the front of the Spectator this month was the heading 'Does Class Matter?' with pics of Lewis Hamilton and Kate Moss, and I started thinking.. and this is my quote of the week:
Class is a myth, perpetuated by people with money and power to mainatin hegemongy.
I don't actually think CLASS ever existed. We have all been duped!
I don't think people care about what they are producing anymore, they just want to guarantee how much they can earn. Look at the Artic Monkeys. The first real band to achieve dominace and success through download (legal or illegal, who cares? word of mouth is worth more than record sales statistics).
I'm drunk and maybe rambling, but you get my drift. Basically successful musicians/artists prevail, regardless of piracy. What you gonna do, stop me lending a cool Calvin Harris album to my mate cause technically I'm not legally allowed to do so?
It just seems to me to be another example of corporate greed in overdrive, pushing to maximse profits, regardless of quality.
These are just my angry pissed views. Please feel free to disagree.
I love Whitechapel.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Cat Vincent — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:37:27 -0700

For me, the definitive quote about 'piracy' is years old, from Matt Groening's 'Life In Hell' strip:
"Home taping is killing the music industry.
Instead of making billions and billions of dollars, we're only making billions of dollars."

I have to disagree about class, though. That shit may be fading a little these days, but it still has claws.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:41:28 -0700

First of all I'll say that I don't agree with what all these ISPs are doing. If I were in a position to choose my ISP, I would move away from any of those who have a part in this business of watching what we're downloading and trying to 'educate' people. I have a feeling that in future other ISPs will start to market themselves as offering privacy, i.e. not sending you letters for downloading music etc.

I'll also say that just about everybody engages in file sharing. I've downloaded stuff for free, I don't think I know a single person who knows how to do it who hasn't at some point. And yeh, if I like something I'll buy it when I can.

Having said that, there are really no good arguments for it. It all basically boils down to 'I like getting free stuff and I'm pissed off that people want to stop me from being able to get it'. The main argument here seems to be that old one of 'artists should be in it for the art not the money'. It's all very easy to sit back at home and be so very noble about it, but it's not really your decision to make. You're deciding on behalf of all artists that they shouldn't be bothered about making money. Of course artists do it mainly for the enjoyment, but that's not an excuse for stealing from them. It's like if you were a chef, and you did it because you loved cooking fine food, and people started walking out of your restaurant without paying, and said 'yeh well you do it for the enjoyment of cooking don't you, so you shouldn't be worried about the money'. Should we not bother paying nurses more because they do it out of kindness?

Sure yeh, some artists make millions, but I don't understand what gives people the right to decide how much money someone is allowed to make. I'm not some kind of mega-capitalist or anything, but I don't understand how stealing from one person is better than stealing from another.

And then there's the whole 'yeh well it's big corporations innit, they're all corporationy'. Of course record companies try and increase profits, that's what businesses do. Somehow it's worse if it's a big company? People paint a caricature of fat-cat corporations, again because it suits them.

Regarding the Prince and McFly CDs by the way, Prince's label actually struck a deal with the paper worth millions; the paper obviously make money out of selling advertising space in the paper with which the album was distributed, the label get paid by the paper for the right to give it away with the paper - for one day I might add. So it's not really the same as just giving the album away for free on the internet.

The class thing I'm not even going to get into. I have a feeling this thread will be closed anyway.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:48:12 -0700

I, too, see a closing imminent. So I'll get in my two cents.

As a musician, I spent many thousands of dollars promoting my band (and bands we played shows with), gear, various supplies, rehearsal space rent, and gas. I poured many hours of work into writing, arranging, and recording my music, as well as putting time into learning recording techniques. I loved every minute of it and every dollar spent.

BUT

I made no money. Literally none. In my hometown it's impossible to make money unless you're a cover band. And we were against playing exclusively covers. We weren't into that. So we recorded a couple demos, we put out a couple EPs, and we didn't make any money off of those either. It's easy to say that an artist needs to be in it for the art and not the money, but most working musicians barely make enough to subsist on. Most of those Swedish metal bands? They go home to their day jobs when the tour is over. When an artist finally reaches a point of being successful, it's an incredible relief.

I agree that the industry as it is now is a despicable waste of human creativity, but it's rarely the artist's fault. They're just trying to make money to live. Someone mentioned about Metallica today that they can't possibly be doing it for money anymore. They have so much money their grandchildren won't know what work is. Radiohead, Trent Reznor, Pink Floyd, the two remaining Beatles, they're not hurting for cash. But they should still get paid for their work. If millions of people are willing to give them a dollar for their work, that's still millions of dollars. (Artists rarely get that from sales. They usually get pennies on the dollar.) If I got up in the morning and went and wrote a magazine article, would I not want to get paid? Just because I enjoyed doing it doesn't mean I shouldn't get paid.

There's a real stigma out there, and it's sort of a two-way street, that artists and musicians should be starving and shivering in a warehouse somewhere because that's "just the way things are" and most of the time, said artists and musicians are more than willing to propagate that myth. (It's actually spelled out pretty well in a book by Caroll Mitchels called How to Survive as an Artist.) There's no reason you shouldn't get paid for your work.

The problem is that the industry's been antiquated and resistant to change for a long, long time. It's built on a model where it could control all distribution, because the only way to get music was through a physical, tangible fixed media such as a vinyl record or published sheet music. But the combination of pro-sumer level recording equipment and digital distribution, the whole paradigm shifts. The labels are no longer in control, and the LABELS aren't making money. The movies STUDIOS aren't making money. The reason artists get so much money is because they bring EVEN MORE money to the labels. Before the industry, musicians made a living off the kindness of others; they were hired to work in a certain place or write music for events or whatever. As soon as people realized they could make money off other people's popularity, they created the music industry.

Say you're a carpenter. You make really good chairs. We agree that I'll reproduce and distribute your chairs, and for all the money I make from it, I'll give you a piece. Same concept. It's just now that piracy allows people to get the plans for the chairs on the internet, and the raw materials plus the free plans is cheaper than the chair bought from the store. So the guy that made the original chair gets screwed because someone else is making his chair without paying him for it.

The problem that the labels (and artists, to a lesser extent) are having is that they can't figure out a good way to charge people for the chairs or the plans. While still maintaining the same profit rate.

I agree, the industry is full of greedy, bloodsucking fuckers. But at the end of it, the content generation portion, there's still a human being that's just trying to do a good job.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

jona — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:18:38 -0700

Points well made Liquid and Rickie.

I think people forget that "Real" people make the music they are downloading. It is part of the curse of the Web - everything becomes blurred and anonymous. I'm not entirely sure that the ISPs have the power/know-how to monitor everything that is downloaded otherwise they would quite easily be able to report to the authorities paedophiles and the like. It seems to be working on the basis that a lot of people (the majority? or it may just be me) don't actually know how the Internet works. So it is relatively easy to use tactics that are being employed in regard to the downloads. They figure a signifigant minority will lay off the downloads for a while, which lets the ISPs off the hook.

I agree that artists should be paid for what they do. After all it is a job, how they make a living; they aren't a charity or philanthropic venture. Of course they love doing it but that don't pay the bills.

I suspect very little will change in the long term. The reps for the ISPs that I saw on TV were all looking very uncomfortable about this.

yeah downloading is fun (probably, I don't have the nous to know how to do it) but people need to be paid; regardless of if they are Paul McCartney or RickieP00h

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

mlpeters — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:31:19 -0700

jona, rickiep00h and liquidcow are right. Their points apply to all forms of art.

Just wanted to say that.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

biglig — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:25:01 -0700

My worry is that time spent on this sort of thing is time not being spent on working out a new business models for selling artistic work. So far as I can see, in music, a few methods are being used to get round the "internet broke my business model" problem.

"Make money with the things people can't bittorrent" like live shows. This isn't really new: and of course artists have always made more money this way because there are fewer middlemen. The main problem with this is that it limits the size of your audience, as Rickie explains. I want to pay to go to every Marcella Detroit concert there is, but she works in California and I don't.
"Make it easier to pay for music than to steal it". Apple have made a fortune with this. If I want a record (ouch, showing my age) then three taps on my ipod to get it vs. poking about in the internet's bowels for an hour or two is worth £8 to me. This seems to be the one that's worked most so far.
"Bait and Switch". Make it free to get the regular product, then when people are hooked upsell them to something better, like Radiohead did. The causal downloaders won't bother with the deluxe version, so it's not common on the torrent sites, so the people who want the better one are more likely to buy it. Not sure about this one: if you're a huge Radiohead fan you'd buy the deluxe anyway, wouldn't you?
"Make a personal connection with your audience". Everyone here should know about that one. We're probably all in favor of reducing the revenue stream of greedy media conglomerates but if I were to download the new Wil Wheaton or Tom Reynolds or Warren Ellis book from some dodgy website I'd know it means less money for them and their families - and I care about what happens to them. Especially if Ellis can't afford enough Red Bull, and as a result posts the Joe 90 titles on the internet again and giving me a third batch of the heebie-jeebies. Brrr! /li>

These methods have some things going for them, but are they all there is?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

cjstevens — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:58:56 -0700

BigLig I'm with you 110% and I think you have correctly identified how the industry needs develop. This is exactly what I think. Sell Cd's with extra video content, inclusive art and photos, make people want to buy your product instead of churning out unnecessary albums as gap-filler and pot-boilers. I think the industry and some artists have bought all these problems of piracy on themselves.
I completely respect musicians/artists/filmmakers like Rickip00h, and hope that if you are still active, that you are successful and start earning some good cash for what you enjoy, but I do think this whole issue should cause people to look at the reasons for piracy, the tech thats available and do something positive that benefits everyone, themselves included.

Take Warren as an example. I first discovered him as a writer 3 years ago, when working in a library, I noticed Lust For Life TPB. I borrowed it FREE. Now anything I can't get from the library I will try and buy. I love Transmetro and Sleepless and the mini series' so much that I have EVERY single issue, because I am a collector and want to pay for the hard copies.
Remember you don't need a connected PC to get stuff free. Any chump can get a library card and get a book/film/CD - even order in the stuff they dont' have, and it is free, and say you borrow a CD, even a 12 year old PC has a CD copier. The library is a public service, promoted by the government, but paperback writers are not stupid enough to try shutting them down. It is counter productive. I'm also aware that the creators get a percentage of the money, but this is still a significant factor.

I completely respect the views of Liquid Cow Jon and mlpeters, and think you raise very valid and important points that should not be overlooked, but I do honestly think you are looking at things in a slightly idealised way. I really believe that in a way an artist does have to suffer, as the suffering improves the art. You can't EXPECT to earn big money being an aspiring musician/filmmaker, hell if you could even more people would be trying to do it than they are already, and with this abundance, the quality of the output would be affected.
Once again I think this is a really interesting issue that raises questions of ethics, privacy, laws, freedom and liberty, art and culture, politics and sociolgy. I have no idea why people were saying that this thread would be closed, as to my mind WC is the best place for this sort of debate.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Nygaard — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:53:08 -0700

Information can, rather obviously, be a means of production. Whether of a utilitarian or aesthetic nature, information can be used to create things people think they need. (Some things are luxuries, some things are necessities; but it's not my business to tell you what you need or don't need. I assume you're the one in the best position to know.) That information can also be made a commodity in itself is secondary. That cancer cure will enable a doctor to cure you regardless of the way he aquired it. Therefore, it is a more basic means of production than skills or machinery; a computer is useless without software, and a factory will never be built without a blueprint, a vaccine can't be made without a recipe.

This puts a new thing - information technology - in a familiar split; between the people who believe everyone has a right to the things they think they need, and the people who don't. Forget about those damn kids and their noisy mp3's for a moment, and think big. Most people fall somewhere in between on this question. There probably are people who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, because "that's MY valuable piss thank you very much". But most people aren't like that. We do some pretty complicated cost-benefit analysis before we decide to help someone else, or share something, with what's at stake as one of the most important variables. When you're on fire, your life is at stake, and people will usually go to great lenghts to help you, free of charge. They'll tell you to roll around on the ground without asking for royalties first. They will not turn up at the hospital to demand that you pay for the water or the ruined blankets.

This goes into the information sharing problem as well - with the cancer cure, lives are at stake. Witholding that information gets uncomfortably close to murder, and would not be a widely popular move. What is percieved to be at stake, the context of the piece of information, and what kind of production it enables, makes up a large part of its worth as a commodity.

Quite a bit of your discussion seems to be about determining what's at stake for the artists - people who use their skills to create new and inspiring information. Can a musician make a living without an artificial scarcity of recordings? I have no clue. But if we're going to discuss media filesharing, rather than more pressing information issues - I'm wondering if we could have a look at the other end of the transaction. What's at stake for the music fan, or the comics reader? Enough to justify taking what he wants rather than pay for it? (That's assuming he has the option of paying for it. A lot of people don't.) Are they "on fire"? Is it immoral to deny them access to the free data they have decided they need?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:11:38 -0700

What's at stake for the music fan, or the comics reader?

Since the general issue of freedom of information is a much larger subject than that presented on this thread, I'm just going to address this and let the reader extrapolate what they want.

I'm a terrible hypocrite. I won't deny that I've downloaded a pretty fair share of songs, movies, and the like, but if it was stuff I could generally buy, I would. If it's stuff I can't, like a bootleg of a live show that I attended or a music video that hasn't been released on DVD or whatever, I'll be all over it. If it's a movie that's not in print, like Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie was for the longest time, I'll probably download it. 90% of the time, if I download something, I'll likely buy it. This is a personal preference. I've been exposed to a lot of new music through the internet and filesharing. But really, would my life be over if I didn't download anything? Hardly.

Most real music nerds I know still buy their albums. They learn to budget. By ending filesharing you go back to tape trading. And we all know what home taping did to the record industry.

I think a lot of the freedom of information talk derives from the fact that it's so much easier to GET that information now. In 1978, you had to be really well connected to hear of some punk band from halfway across the world before anyone else. Now you just have to know a couple people, read some blogs, and get the whole album for yourself in a format you can take anywhere and play on nearly and piece of electronic equipment that you may have purchased in the past five years. And it's not just music, but most visual arts as well, including film and TV.

So what IS at stake? Nothing. You slow down and commodify an instantaneous and free market, fans adapt. They always do. It's the infrastructure that has mostly resisted this.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:24:32 -0700

I think I'll come back to this thread later when I have a bit of time, but I'd just like to make four small points, neither particularly well argued at the moment. My personal views are that copyright is a *good* thing, it's just being used to try and clamp down on things that we have always assumed to be true (even though they haven't been).

1)

I were to download the new Wil Wheaton or Tom Reynolds or Warren Ellis book

You can download my book for free, it's a CC licensed work available on archive.org and many other sites (and I'm going to be firing off letters to various ebook readers so they are aware they can 'stock' it as well) - It certainly hasn't stopped it selling loads of physical copies, the proof in it being that Harper Collins are going to release my next book in a similar way.

2)Is it technically possible to detect which packets of mine are 'illegal'? I'm assuming that they are going to try and automate the process in which point they are handing over the job of a judge to a computer programme. Thirdly, have these people never heard of the Tor project? If it can get past the great firewall of China I'm sure that it's going to befuddle anyone else trying to control what sites we are 'allowed' to visit.

3) I use bittorrent for non-infringing uses, am I going to get an anonymous letter telling me that I've been naughty? Are the ISPs and record companies in league with Microsoft to stop me from downloading Linux? (Yes, that last comment was a joke).

4)A lot of artists believe that they have the right to live off the work that they create, that they can give up the day job and do nothing other than play music, write books, knit sweaters. I think that the separation between the fact and this fiction is fuelling a lot of these fears that "If only people weren't downloading things illegally I'd have my house in Beverly Hills and a woman on each arm". While it is certainly true that a few people can make enough money to live off by doing what they love, it certainly isn't true or a great majority of people.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:10:52 -0700

In response to the last point there, and some of what cjstevens says, I realize it is totally idealistic to expect to be able to live off your art, I'm not saying that without illegal file sharing all musicians would be living in manions. Most of the bands I like have day jobs, and I also know that bands like Opeth are able to live off their music, but only about nine albums into their career. What I'm saying though, is that is no excuse. By stealing from someone you are taking away any chance, however small, of them being able to make a living. It's not even a case of making a living, just being able to make a little extra money, or make enough to be able to carry on doing what they're doing, even without making a profit. And again, it's not really up to us to decide whether someone should want to make money off of something. I don't walk into HMV, say 'huh, that band's never going to make it big', and swipe their album.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:04:01 -0700

@liquidcow
I agree with you absolutely, it's just that I think this disconnect fuels a lot of anger and misunderstanding on both sides - it obviously isn't right to ilegally download any artists work. But I am perhaps conflating this issue with the EU's desire for a copyright term extension so that "artists can have a pension". Unlike the rest of us who have to *save* for our pension rather than do something and expect to live of a few days work for the rest of our lives.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:27:18 -0700

Oh yeh that 95 years thing is a load of bollocks, it's just a load of rich people like Cliff Richard wanting their kids to never have to earn a living. I think it's alright to make money off it in your own lifetime, but I don't see why they shouldn't have pensions that work like everybody elses. But yeh that's kind of a separate issue.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Wilf — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:38:24 -0700

it's just a load of rich people like Cliff Richard wanting their kids to never have to earn a living

Lol! Cliff Richard, kids? You could have used a better example there!!

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:54:00 -0700

Yeh good point. I don't really think about Cliff Richard that much so I forgot about that. He is one of the people who's been trying to get the copyright extension business done though. Maybe for nieces and nephews.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Kradlum — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:06:08 -0700

I think it is the artist's choice. Warren chooses to make FreakAngels free and that's his prerogative. However, if I scanned all the back issues of Doktor Sleepless and made them available on my server for free, I'm sure Avatar's lawyers would soon be trying to shutdown my server.

The people hosting the pirated material seem to be very quick at replacing their servers if they are impounded, so the music industry have convinced the government that it is easier to go for the people downloading the pirated material. They don't need "people" to look at what you are downloading, they just need a database of pirate server IP addresses and compare that to the sites and quantities people are downloading. It's a very cheap alternative to actually shutting down the servers.

(I think Reynolds and I were at the same party in Whitechapel on Thursday, judging by the photos)

[EDIT]
I forgot one other thing. I don't download pirated stuff as a rule. I don't download films or whole TV series from a torrent. All those people that do are clogging up my internet and preventing my legitimate downloading of porn!

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Nygaard — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:59:55 -0700

I'm thinking that if the stake for most creators is as Reynolds puts it, and for fans as rickiep00h says, aren't we really talking about a storm in a glass of water here? If creators really are getting cheated out of a living (and I'm not saying they aren't), that's terrible. Being cheated out of making a bit of extra money off a hobby, or an extra limo, not so terrible. But I haven't seen convincing numbers either way.

I kind of suspect that a lot of file sharers either wouldn't buy or wouldn't be able to afford the media they are sharing. In which case the advertising value could potentially outstrip any loss estimate. Wouldn't it be nice, if that turned out to be true? :)

I think a case could be made that there's *something* at stake for fans as well - there's a value in aesthetic enjoyment, inspiration, enriching your mind. It can't be compared to a situation where the difference is making or not making a living, but if artists' living isn't really threatened, aren't we, at worst, talking about two opposing interests in access to luxuries rather than to necessities? Some file sharers seem to argue that case, while others actually try to go as far as to represent access to media as a necessity. Either by bunching media in with undeniably necessary information, or by arguing that the value of media access is vastly higher than generally assumed?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

entzauberung — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:53:33 -0700

@liquidcow
Regarding Opeth: Mikael Åkerfeldt recently posted about this on his forum. His stance was that while they may be losing money now, Opeth would never have reached their current level WITHOUT illegal filesharing. So he's ambivalent about the whole thing.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:15:24 -0700

@entzauberung

I think a lot of bands regard it in much the same way of tape trading in the 80s. I mean, Metallica's Lars Ulrich intentionally spread tapes of their demo in the underground metal community to spread the word. Same concept, different medium. That's the main reason I was confused when Metallica initially took on Napster. But now I see their side of the argument.

That duality, I think, is why I'm so curious as to what is coming out of the whole thing. I think Reynolds is definitely on the right track, though. Metallica themselves have adopted some of those very tactics to "combat" illegal sharing. From a money-making standpoint it's good, and from the POV of a group like Radiohead or NIN, who have a definite visual arts interest, it's another area to explore creatively. I also think it may put some bands at a disadvantage in a "CD plus a zillion extras" market, especially smaller bands. Not that they aren't at a disadvantage in the money sense as it is, but you know what I mean.

*Full Disclosure: Written while listening to Beck's Modern Guilt album, which I have yet to purchase. Will do so on Friday, likely.*

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:21:09 -0700

@entzauberung - Yeh I know, and there's a lot of bands I wouldn't have heard of (Opeth included) without filesharing, which means a lot of bands that wouldn't have got any money off me without me stealing their music first. It's a double-edged sword and I'm not completely one-sided over it, I just get fed up with the excuses people give because they don't want to have to think about what they're doing.

At the same time, I was downloading Opeth songs and stuff before things like MySpace were about, when the only way to hear a free sample was through a shit sounding RealPlayer file (never understood why anyone used RealPlayer but it used to be really popular). Nowdays I'll often buy an album based on hearing a couple of tracks on the bands myspace or their website or something. It's not like it's impossible to hear new bands without going to The Pirate Bay these days.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Blye — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:25:36 -0700

Fundamentally what you are looking at with the piracy issue is the reduction of all musicians (and filmmakers to a lesser extent) to the level of street performers.

"Um, hey guys.... you have been standing here for an hour... and i love that you are really appreciating the music i have worked so hard to master and these songs i have poured my soul into writing... and i do love that you have called up your friends and gotten them to watch me play too..... but, um... maybe could you give me a dollar or two to make this monentarily worth my while?"

"HELL NO DUDE!!! YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY THAT JUST LIKE YOUR STUFF WE DO!!!"

"Um, please? I think i kinda deserve it... I spend so many hours rehearsing and-"

"SHUT UP AND PLAY MONKEY BOY!!!!"

The idea of IP address trackers does creep me out SEVERELY... It is too big brotherish... it opens a door to monitoring the internet in a way that makes my stomach cramp. Unfortunately the great unwashed masses of thieves bring it down upon us all... just like the actions of terrorists support the development of police states.

You want the new business model as Lord Blye forsees it?
Advertisement.

"You want to make money off of your song? We here at cocacola are offering to X buckaroos if you work the line 'coke is it' into your song. Either that or you can sell the song outright to us for XX buckaroos and we will completely bastardize it and use it as our next jingle"

"Man, i really don't want the people who have been stealing my songs off of the internet to think i am a sell out...... But i have kids to feed, i really would like to give up my day job so i can devote more time to the music people so love to steal... and maybe even afford to go on tour... It's a deal Mr. Coke Man."

Music turns into TV.... and not the quality programing of pay television but the mediocrity of corporation ass kissing network television.

As you might guess, i haven't illegally downloaded a song since my first napsterheyday era computer with 2000 stolen songs died, and when i was about to start restealing them all... i took a moment and realized what i'd been doing. I buy an average of 1 cd a week and when looking around at my friends and family... i feel like i am the only person left on the face of the planet supporting the music industry.

If you write a song that touches people's hearts and changes their lives you DESERVE to make a bajillion dollars. You DESERVE a house in malibu because you have made the world a better place.

And this comic which we all so gratefully read for free here....
after every issue doesn't it make you want to go out and pick out more of Sr. Ellis's work?
I know it does me.
It may be a wonderfully generous act on his part to impart this gift unto us humble masses... but it is also a wonderful bit of advertising. I would never dare say that is the "point", in fear of accusing our gratious host of ulterior motives... but it sure does work... at least on this cowboy.
The thing is.... he GIVES it to us to read for free... we don't rip it out of his hands and say "We DESERVE this".

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Kradlum — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:44:05 -0700

The BBC had a blog piece on product placement in the UK charts just yesterday.

As for IP address trackeng, your ISP already does it.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Brendan McGinley — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:10:28 -0700

Piracy is stealing. It just is.

However, it can also be terrific marketing. The fact is, from a consumer's perspective, media can be had for free all over the place, such as the radio or TV airwaves, or borrowing a friend's copy. Nobody reasonably thinks there's a moral transgression in borrowing a DVD or a book.

Is there really a colossal difference between downloading a digital copy of a comic or Byrne-stealing it at the rack of your local comic shop?

Sure, as a creator, I'd rather people bought up copies of DOSE, but I'm just starting out. If somebody reads it for free and then emails it to a friend, at least I've made a couple new fans who are going to keep an eye out for more work from me. Somewhere down the line it's going to result in increased sales for me, because if my work comes to mean something to people, some of them are going to want to have it. There's a need to possess. Like the evil doctor said, "We're in a strange relationship with our fiction."

I think the bulk of piracy leans toward the mix tapes I used to make with my friends that introduced us to new bands rather than saved us the need to buy anything. Sure there are hoarders and people producing low-quality knock-offs, but I still believe people disseminating the product comprise the majority, and ultimately, that benefits me more than it harms. It pretty demonstrably does both, but in the final analysis, I'm just glad to be building an audience. If people are reproducing it, at least they like it. I can find a way to profit by that. I can find a way to control it by putting it up on my own site. Why, for example, would you download a bootleg copy of THE ONION when you can simply go their website and enjoy?

Creative memes are viruses, and viruses either grow or they die.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

biglig — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:24:12 -0700

@Brendan That reminds me of another point: none of this has anything to do with the commercial bootleggers who make money from copies.

@Reynolds Sorry, I forgot you CCed your book. Actually I keep forgetting to buy your book as well, so let me do some clicking on your affiliate link to Amazon... Hmm, does that work just for your book, or also for the other things I buy in the same transaction? If so, I want to make it clear that those DVDs I also bought are for a friend, not me.

Ah, and that reminds me of another way to make money that I left out. Make the physical container for the bits nicer than just the bits. I'll enjoy having Tom's book as a physical object. CDs don't have this effect, because I rip them and throw them in a box under the stairs. Comic books and graphic novels have this the most; also nice old second hand books. LPs used to have it - guess it must be the size of the artwork. DVDs have it (for me) because I like special features, and they're hard to rip. If I didn't, if I just wanted to see the film, I'd pull it off the internet.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:34:16 -0700

@biglig Indeed, having a physical artifact is often part of the experience of owning something, it's why I have singles and trades of Transmetropolitan (but...shush... Don't tell Warren I also have scans sitting on my computer for when I want to read it on the go...)

And that little parenthesis comment makes me wonder why the big companies don't offer downloads for comics, surely there could be a big market for them, even a subscription model. 'iTunes for comics', legal downloads that build a desire for physical objects either as trades or singles. Hmmm. That needs more thought methinks.

For those that are interested, two links, the first is Becky Hogge of ORG, Andy burnham (culture minister) and Billy Bragg on the Today programme talking about the warning letters. Bragg is a sensible lad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7522000/7522889.stm

(this link may be time limited)

Second the rather awful coverage of the same subject on Channel Four news.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=1688199242

What is interesting is that if the surveys are right, then there are a hell of a lot of criminals in the UK, and with that number of people breaking the law isn't it a sign that the law needs to change?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

heresybob — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:01:47 -0700

I believe your rant deals with a very important issue more so about the acceptance of restrictive laws by society and the slow acceptance of technology.

Your privacy is a myth for two reasons. First, your behavior is only private until someone declares a law against it.
Right now, places have passed laws about the use of transfat and smoking. A thousand years ago Islam passed laws against alcohol. And laws against cocaine, the 3-strikes rule, "I work for homeland security" (ad nauseum) are recent examples. The reason why governments pass these laws is either a core group of individuals believe "this is the way things SHOULD be" or a large group of people agree this change is "for the greater good."

Once the law exists, the government has a reason to intervene ("for the greater good" or the "what about the children" argument). While RIAA is trying to change the law, it's also trying to change behavior. Such behavior change, via legal means, starts with suing small individuals who have to settle, which then lead to large behavioral changes (getting ISPs to monitor you and reveal your internet traffic). For some of us who have been following this legal behavior pattern (imminent domain, gay marriage rights), we lost the battle at Napster, allowing the camel's nose into the tent.

Second, technology is being used in new ways everyday. In a bizarre tribute to two of its greatest authors, Orwell and Alan Moore, England believes it's safer by having CCTV on every fucking corner. On the other hand, the fucking USA can't actually listen to your phone calls, but it can gather data how, when and who you call, apply an algorithm and decide your threat level. Once technology is successfully used, it only spreads, it is never reduced - with the exception of widespread destructive technology - that technology path favors precision (killing targets such as people, buildings, resources or combinations thereof) rather than more ubiquitous use. Once technology is used to solve problems, technology is refined to be a better problem solvers (this is why we have 50 different types of hammers - each one does a special job).

Also, we voluntarily give up our privacy because we perceive the adoption of technology is cool - but technology has a way of biting us. How many young people across the world are taking pictures of themselves nude and posting them to their friends? It's innocent sexual behavior, but with technology that can do facial mapping, IP telephony mapping and digital watermarking - we can identify these people. Depending on our society: we can allow the little perverts to continue and endorse them, we look the other way (unofficially condoning the behavior) or we can punish them. But it doesn't stop there: all SORTS of behavior on youtube/porntube/cakefart/2G1C are being posted - and if we pass a law outlawing the behavior, well, those participants are immediately suspect. Like all the guys named "Mohammad" today having troubles traveling by air because the pattern of a Middle Eastern name and appearance, those innocent little perverts will be marked, tagged, id, categorized and numbered by a very large system of interconnected computer programs. We're looking at a future president's shaved pussy today, at a future senator's ass tattoo tomorrow. "It was photoshopped" is the new hotness replacing the old and busted "I didn't inhale."

The other price of technology is the ubiquitous nature: businesses posted cameras in stores to prevent shoplifting and robbery. We installed cameras in our homes to watch the nannies beat our children, our spouses cheat on our families and catch our uncles preying on our boys. Soon thereafter, CCTV became justified. It's a natural acceptance - the government isn't preventing you from walking down the street where the hookers are, but they are going to take pictures of you when you do. Same with downloading music: government isn't going to stop you, but when you ARE caught, they will have proof.

So if there's no privacy, what's the point of this post? The tyranny of the majority is about ensuring the dominant culture remains dominant. Laws punish the law breaker not because he or she broke the law - it's because he or she got caught. The risk of getting caught is proportional to your status and the number of your enemies while your status may prevent real jailtime, the loss of that status is part of the punishment.

What's the lesson of this longwinded post? Your behavior (current and previous) will be used against you - whether you think its private or not is immaterial. Keep on sharing and stealing music until it becomes too risky for you to do so. The punishment is a loss of your current social privileges, so staying under the social radar helps you when you ARE caught - unless you have very good lawyers and public relations, you will have less to fall.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

heresybob — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:02:38 -0700

Of course, I do not endorse bending to the will of corporate asshats. :)

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:13:14 -0700

@heresybob

Once technology is successfully used, it only spreads, it is never reduced

Not true (and I'm not trying to be an asshat), but ration cards aren't used in the UK any more, VCRs are being removed from shop shelves, we don't use 8-tracks anymore. Speed cameras are being taken down in at least one council and another council is tearing up the speedhumps. An NHS trust is opting out of the NHS IT project.

In concern to your larger post - it used to be a terrible loss of status to be gay and in public life. Today, not so much. Social mores change and not always for the worst.

Will privacy be the next big campaign point? Will it involve struggle against consensus and the government? Almost certainly, but such changes have occurred before and will certainly occur again and its up to people like us to make sure that it's a change for the better.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

heresybob — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:52:04 -0700

@Reynolds no asshatness detected, but I believe you're looking at implementation details not the behavior the technology affords.

Compare 8 tracks to MP3s. Compare VCRs to AVI files. 8 tracks requires: 1 a player, a physical medium (the 8 track), a sound system (large and clunky when dealing with systems from 30+ years ago) and large ass speaker cones. Each device requires more resources.

MP3s now require small computers (Ipod nano), there's no physical shipping of the media necessary (just plug into a computer, or a la Zune bluetooth), the sound system can actually be any vibrating device (look at these babies: http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/audio/6bd8/). AVI files are going the same way (yay, bittorrent!).

My argument isn't that 8-tracks are being used less but that technology to listen to music are being used more often, by more people, and require fewer resources (money, time preparation, even space to hold/organize your music collection).

Regarding gay/public life, you're adding a value judgment that I tried to sidestep. Yes, being gay and out is (thankfully) becoming normalized, but what if you're into 2 Girls 1 Cup (fecalphilia), beastiality or (**horrors**) child pornography? Remember, that less than 200 years ago, the concept of "childhood" didn't exist in the way it does now. 2000 years ago, Romans would buy young children as "household servants" and they pretty much had impunity to fuck what they wanted to, as long as they didn't make too many enemies along the way. The ethics of today ("poo is bad!") is not the same as the ethics of tomorrow - they change over time, and they vacillate. Gay people may be gaining acceptance today, but in many nations, they are still being beheaded. (Personally, I also think that the fight for marriage was counter productive and extremely self-centered - fighting for other people to be able to keep their heads is much more meaningful.)

As for speed cameras, let's look at the overall adoption rate: many more are going up over taking them down especially since they are recognized as a revenue source. The ratio is so out of balance, one wonders about the general adoption into the price of urban planning (i.e. the cost of building a new road will include the cost of the asphalt, the time/building hours, and the cameras to plug into the existing camera systems).

A good comic this thread reminds me of is The Extremist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extremist_(comic))by Milligan and McKeever. Which would make an EXCELLENT movie.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

cjstevens — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:03:38 -0700

Heresybob.

Your rant is more unwieldy and off-kilter than mine, but this is good!

See the piracy laws run parallel with loads of other aspects of government and control that piss me off and cause me to diatribe on society and possibly offend people.

Things like the recent controversy over BP profits and the bonus's received by Network Rail that I read in the Metro everyday - and I'm sure that paper is gonna be the catalyst for an uprising.
The way government keep telling us they are doing things for our benefit ( congestion/emmision charging/parking restrictions and fines) when they just need to increase revenue.
I believe in the free market but there has to be some modifications to the current system, and piracy and freedom of information/art distribution are important.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:01:01 -0700

@Heresybob

I think this needs it\s own thread, something like 'how society reacts to technology'. Which makes me start thinking about forum software that allows forking discussions and the coming together of similar threads as a function of how it is presented rather than through the actions of moderators.

But now I'm running late for work.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:13:34 -0700

@Reynolds

I was thinking the same thing, but was waiting to see if the thread would figure itself out or just die, finally. I don't know if we've really done "privacy on the internet", but frankly, I don't care. If someone wants to make that thread, I might pop in.

And the amount of AI involved in what you suggest inre: forum threads may be staggering. But I think, given enough time and caffeine, Ariana could figure it out.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Kradlum — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:17:20 -0700

The way government keep telling us they are doing things for our benefit ( congestion/emmision charging/parking restrictions and fines) when they just need to increase revenue.

Can you imagine what London would be like if the 3 million people who currently use public transport to get to work each day took their car instead? They don't, because the congestion/emission charging/parking restrictions and fines act as a stick and the income (from the congestion charge at least) subsidises public transport, the carrot, which means the people that do drive into central London each day can actually move, rather than be stuck in 24 hour gridlock. It is for our benefit, although they wouldn't have to do it if so many of the population weren't self-centred and selfish with no sense of their own responsibilities but a heightened sense of their so-called rights.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

heresybob — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:52:38 -0700

@cjstevens Rant? I am a sad Bob. I thought it was rather calm :)

Wow - talk about timely, even Google doesn't believe in "complete privacy".

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

cjstevens — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:25:38 -0700

Kradlum:

I'm sorry but you are insane. Everything you said about the London transportation system is just plain wrong. Do you work for TFL??!
Train fares are so high that it probably works out cheaper to drive!!
The congestion charge is just a poor tax that hits tradesmen making room for the high-earners to cruise around in their Bentleys!
It has been proved the emmision charge will actually increase overall emmisions.
Over priced and over invigilated parking charges are just killing local business.

But anyway, back to our lovely debate about freedom and access of information...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:15:16 -0700

Hmmm thinking about hw to thread and rethread discussions I'm not thinking AI but instead some sort of community consensus, similar to the vote up/vote down that you see on some forums. So the readers of this very post could vote for it to split into it's own thread, or to join it with another one.

Ariana, am I being a pillock for thinking that something like this, while work, isn't impossible?

And that's the last I'll say on it, and will let the tread get back to it's topic while I apologise for using it to think out loud.

(Not a suggestion for this forum to change, more hitting on your expertise and experience as to the feasibility of the idea)

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Ariana — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:23:18 -0700

Hmmm thinking about hw to thread and rethread discussions I'm not thinking AI but instead some sort of community consensus, similar to the vote up/vote down that you see on some forums. So the readers of this very post could vote for it to split into it's own thread, or to join it with another one.

Ariana, am I being a pillock for thinking that something like this, while work, isn't impossible?

Well, Wikipedia's been doing that sort of thing for years (merging and splitting articles, on consensus of contributors). But it's not really necessary on a forum where there's no solid rule about what's a post and what's not. I trust your artificial intelligences can see if a thread is drifting to the point where it needs to be split, and redundant threads are often linked to the original and closed.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Jon Wake — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:50:36 -0700

Im wondering if anyone has any actual data on the estimated loss to the artist attributed to internet piracy? Every time I hear this argument come up, there's moralizing, ethical statements, and personal beliefs, but never do I hear just how much money piracy cost someone. In fact, the only time I hear anyone talk about the pragmatic costs of piracy, it's more often than not positive, i.e., wider audience exposure.
Separating your personal feelings from the subject for a moment, how much does piracy cost the artist?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:50:53 -0700

That bloody swine* Doctorow has gone and written a good piece on this very subject.

Whereas before, anyone who wanted your ISP to spy on your internet connection would have had to show evidence to a judge and get a court order, now any joker who claims to be an aggrieved copyright holder can do so.

*I call him a swine because he writes clearly about some complex issues in a way I wish I could - it's pure jealousy.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

mlpeters — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:06:21 -0700

@Jon Wake

I don't believe there's any definitive way to prove how much an artist didn't make, due to piracy, or anything else.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:33:45 -0700

Indeed, the reason you never hear how much piracy costs the artists is because it's not really possible to know. What you'd basically be trying to find is who would have bought the album but didn't. There is no way of finding out something completely hypothetical like that. The best you could do is what they often do which is look at album sales in the years since filesharing has appeared, but that's just correlations, you can't be sure what the cause is.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:06:28 -0700

@liquidcow

I contend most of the time that the decline of record sales is the fact that music SUCKS lately. Maybe that's just me.

The latest Rolling Stone, fine piece of journalism that it is, reports that, yet again, CD sales are down but digital sales are up. As a whole, the market is down. But major releases are still getting a decent level of sales. Coldplay, NIN, Radiohead, etc--typical big-name bands are still selling (even with some of them releasing their albums FREE first), as well as that whole Disney "tween" market exploding (which I think it should do literally). And there's still releases this year from AC/DC, Metallica, U2, and a few other groups that tend to buoy the industry. It will probably end up being the biggest year in a while for the industry, but it will likely still be down because there just aren't the same caliber of aggregate sales for any band, especially from a 90s perspective. I mean, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, I hate to say this, really drove a lot of those 90s sales. Without a blockbuster release to market to a giant, rich, stupid segment of the population, the industry as a whole won't have the same sort of numbers.

However, I think that a lot of the mid-level bands aren't selling as well as they could be. Beck's newest album is stupidly good, and it's selling like hotcakes in indie stores, but I don't think it's exactly Odelay. And a lot of it I credit to the labels being to focused on keeping the status quo than actually, y'know, promoting the product like they used to.

As far as a "how much does this cost the artist" argument is concerned:

While it's impossible to know exactly how much a pirated download costs the artist, most artists get between 7% and 15% of the retail price of a CD. So that's about $.97 to $2.08 on a $13.88 CD from Walmart (which, in fact, usually pays less because they get their product at a discount). Some established artists, for instance, Metallica, get more than that, upwards of $3.50 per CD (depending on their contract). Add to that the fact that a large chunk comes out for what the label calls a "breakage allowance," which originated when vinyl albums broke during transport (but rarely happens to CDs), and hundreds if not thousands of CDs are sent out for free to radio stations, AND artists don't see one dime of sales from CD clubs like Columbia House, it all evens out to a pretty small amount of money per CD, which means that, in order to make any money, they have to sell in the range of the hundred thousands or millions to get a significant return. Sure, one CD download doesn't mean much, but a few hundred thousand CDs is pretty significant. Can I affix a specific number to it? No. But understanding how the industry works (i.e., labels get a lot and the band gets shit on) usually helps realize how much of an impact aggregate numbers of downloads can have.

Now, this is assuming that it's sold through a major label at a major retailer, new. And indie band that self-releases a CD and fronts all manufacturing costs and sells their album as merch on tour makes a significantly larger amount per CD. But it also costs them a lot more when you don't buy the album because you downloaded it. Sure, there's the argument that downloading drives sales, because I think it does, but even for entry-level or breakout bands, it cuts into what can potentially be a significant source of income.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that all costs of actually producing an album come out of the artist's share. Producers, engineers, studio musician's, everyone gets paid out of the artist's $.97 to $2.08. Oh, plus most bands split their profits three, four, or five ways, since most of the time, everyone in the band gets some sort of credit or compensation.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

liquidcow — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:05:57 -0700

I don't know about music sucking lately, I think everyone always thinks that music currently sucks, because it's easy to look back and assume that there was more good stuff going on years ago in retrospect, without considering that it would have still been somewhat spread out in time. I think there's always good stuff going on, you just have to look for it. I think that's another reason that a lot of big record companies are reporting a downfall in sales. It's interesting that shows like Top of the Pops have been axed recently, because basically the charts are meaningless. Because of the internet, we're all listening to different stuff. The most popular music isn't necessarily the thing that most people are listening to. I think it's possible that people are diversifying in what they're buying, which means the sales are spreading across loads of different record labels, including many independent ones, which means that individual companies might be selling less because people are buying stuff from other labels instead.

Just my personal theory, I don't really have anything to back it up, except I think it's an idea that's explored in Chris Anderson's The Long Tail (although I haven't read it), for example, iTunes make more money out of the vast numbers of albums that continue to sell but weren't necessarily hits, than they do out of the popular stuff.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

muse hick — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:06:44 -0700

i think if you are an unknown the current system can be a great way to get your work out there and new bands, to a degree,are probably going to create a greater guilt factor in the user when they download illegally (this could just be me). but with minimal investment the internet offers new bands a whole slew of potential customers they would not otherwise have had access to.

established bands and bands that the big record companies are trying to push are generally shackled to the old methods of distribution -- huge overheads in attendance and shareholders mean they need to make more to feed the machinery they have constructed around themselves. time to shake it off i say. all it is going to take is one visionary in one of the record companies to see that they can make more money by streamlining their own operations and using these sales tactics, something that seems to have slipped by them thus far, and there might be a big shake up and some lay-offs.

online exclusives could be used like loss leaders or to create a market buzz a la freakangels -- just look at how many people come here and are going to buy the graphic novel, even with it remaining free online. i think people would choose a cheap and safe download option over having to risk limewire and its bloody viruses. my main reason for having used downloads is that my music collection on CD is too large to carry when travelling and it got wipedoff my hard drive when i had to re-format it. crap reason? maybe. but true.

and again i sat down to write something and don't think i really hit what i wanted to say. i just don't think there is a single solution that will cater to people throughout the music buying spectrum because new bands and small record companiesuse the internet in a different way to the big reecord companies expect to use it. i think the move to regulate ISPs will see not only the record companies in severe trouble but the ISPs too -- people will vote with their feet and go elsewhere.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

agentarsenic — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:58:28 -0700

Just steal everything by Metallica ever and then promptly delete it.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

BrianKellett — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:41:44 -0700

While it's impossible to know exactly how much a pirated download costs the artist, most artists get between 7% and 15% of the retail price of a CD.

Are you sure that it's the retail price, or is it the price that the record shop pays for it?

(I may be misremembering, but I seem to think that this is the situation I got with my book, so sales from Amazon, who get big discounts, aren't worth as much as from some shop that pays 60% of cover price. I will bow to your knowledge of such things as this question is based entirely on a currently frazzled brain).

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Jon Wake — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:01:04 -0700

@rickiep00h

I may be wrong, but I recall seeing a report put out by the Canadian gov't that showed that the most illegally downloaded albums were also the most sold albums. I'm not drawing a causal link between the two, but it does something to dispute the notion that more downloads necessarily equal less sales.

I find that while people may have strong ethical arguments against piracy (ones that are quite strong and obvious), the actual effect of that on artists is so negligible as to be impossible to track. The reactions people have to it are far in excess of the actual cost.

In an ideal world, we would just think of the huge peer to peer networks as international libraries, with a similar social function.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Thom B. — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:31:57 -0700

Well then, I just arrived here after having already read Doctrow's column on the ISP thing so I have no further comment on that part as he pretty much nails it.

A few thoughts though...

@ rickiep00h - the carpenter/chair analogy doesn't really work. Their really isn't that much pirate furniture out there (although I wish there was) because there is a prerequisite skill set that will prevent most people from following the plans even if they're available. Plus it just tales a long damn time to make a good chair. It’s because of these reasons that I have no concern about making the patterns for my clothing designs available for free. By contrast copying digital media requires very little by way of skill, time or material resources.

The copyright issue as a whole is one that I find perplexing. I tend to be, at a gut level, radically opposed to IP laws. I find them to be morally repugnant but I don’t have much by way of an answer to how people should get paid for their work.

I know that as far as most small bands go they make the majority of their money from selling merchandise.

My business (supposedly) makes money by selling tangible goods which in turn cover the costs of the CC licensed multimedia projects we work on. The Multimedia stuff could be seen as advertising for hard goods but it’s more a case of trying to sell something to have enough money to produce free cultural materials. In practice I’m still deeply in debt so I’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.

The Library is an interesting aspect that I was thinking about the other day as I can’t see how it’s any different from file sharing aside from it’s being culturally acceptable.

Another thing which struck me recently was how the commercial music industry killed off “folk” music. By which I mean that music used to be a social activity that people engaged in with their friends and family not the genera that we call folk. I tend to feel that participating in the activity of making music with ones friends is hugely a valuable experience that most people miss out on these days. By creating a professional caste of musicians and an industry that pedals them has society lost something of value?

As someone who is often accused of being an artist I often wonder at the perceived value of the Artist in society and whether art benefits from having a professional class. I don’t think it’s something which benefits religion too much and I feel that art and religion are both ministries of the soul. Perhaps neither of them should be institutionalized.

Alright, that’s my blather out of the way.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

rickiep00h — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:40:47 -0700

i don't think it's a question of being too negligible to track so much as being impossible to track without tracking specific numbers of downloads. you can't really say what someone would have bought... i think that's the thrust of it there.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Kradlum — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:06:40 -0700

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Blye — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:11:34 -0700

What would be interesting to track...

....and possibly doable...

would be the "I'm just listening and if i like it i will buy it" numbers.

eg. Anonymous survey participant X downloaded ..........

you get it... why am i always posting here when i am almost incoherent?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

zoem — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:53:48 -0700

Blye : It would be interesting to hear. I used to buy literally a hundred or more CDs a year, for a long time. Most of them, I listened to once or twice, decided they weren't worth it, and sold them used or shelved them.

Now, I tend to use downloads to "screen" things - albums I listen to more than a couple of times, I tend to buy (assuming I'm not dead broke - in which case, they go on a list for later). This isn't just ethics - this is aesthetics. I love having the album art, and I like having something a *physical object* to fall back on, instead of a dodgy electronic purchase (don't get me started on iTunes).

I would indeed like to know who does similarly. More on the privacy aspects later - I think there are some goofy ideas out there about how the internet works...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:54:12 -0800

So this thread hasn't been touched in three and a half years. It may be a fool's errand to poke it again. But the thing is a lot has happened and yet there's also the same old bullshit, new Presidential election year.

If anyone notices this... should I just start a new thread and link back to this one?

Stuff on my mind at the moment include:

Bandai giving up on distributing manga and anime in the US

and Kyle Hebert taking that as a strike directly from piracy (and many other pro VO people agreeing)

Kyle Hebert (still can't figure out video embedding)

A religion in Swedon based on Internet Piracy

Neil Gaiman on how it helps authors avoid obscurity

Amanda Palmer openly telling her fans to steal (most) of her music since she won't see a penny either way.

And so on. Which makes me think a few things. There are different kinds of piracy for the different kinds of produced work. How many people, in the end, directly made the product come into existence? Who is making sure you find out about it? How is the work consumed? (eyes? Ears? all at once? over time/episodes/tracks?) What ARE the numbers of converted fans after they find something for free? What is the ratio of the entitled downloader to the person willing & eager to kick some cash to the artist? How can we delineate when the Internet is being the solution and when it's allowing the problem?

Upthread are some really good thoughts on how tape exchanges didn't exactly cripple music. But then they could never be on the scale of file sharing. Online an artist or a TV* show can make itself know by reaching its audience through strategic marketing and word of mouth, all without fighting for the extremely limited broadcast schedule of actual television.

Where are we now? Obviously entertainment is having to reformat itself to factor in the Internet, now more than ever. And in the throes (hopefully the death throes) of a nasty, persistent economic downturn, the corporations in charge of promoting (and therefor choking off) access to entertainment have to make some really harsh decisions when they find they can't move as many units as they're used to. The Internet is making us rewrite a lot of How We Do Stuff, from idle acquaintances to political campaigns for top office. What's it up to now in early 2012?

Where are we headed? More gypsy artists like Ms Palmer, ready to do anything for attention, making their whole lives part and parcel of their punk cabaret art? Writers who either strike it big over a few media or else never leave their day jobs? Cutting off risky ventures like overseas distribution in favor of leaving the material accessible by Internet, with no physical media? Prognosticate, 'Chapellians! I want to see the future!

*TV is the old word but there isn't a new word. I'd say we need a new phrase for a "TV show" format of entertainment, but we probably won't get one. Just like we never got rid of "music record."

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

D.J. — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:02:52 -0800

If we're talking about piracy...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

James Cunningham — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:08:13 -0800

Hit the Video/Mp3 button, enter full URL into the little pop-up thingy, hit enter again. Maybe the buttons don't work right on your browser, due to the bits that make the magic work being disabled?

I used to pirate, back in my younger days. I'm older now and don't do that any more, because I grew out of it.

Also, that Louis C K special was worth every penny, and I'm glad it worked out for him. People keep saying "we want this, in this format, at this cost, without these restrictions". He gave it to them, and they happily paid. I really like it when the world somehow avoids making more cynical. :)

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:30:27 -0800

Between Louis CK, Amanda Palmer and other performing artists I think we're sort of figuring out how to make it work for individuals or very small groups with a tiny staff. Though I think we're never going to get out of needing to catch the attention much bigger named artists to give them a bump.

I wonder about a bigger outfit - the number of people it takes to create a whole TV show - not just a one show but multiple episodes or even seasons. Maybe the only thing for it is to start out free, a la The Guild. But, again, that still takes making friends with bigger/weightier distributors. Word of mouth only goes so far, as it turns out.

PS - Re the video: those are the exact steps I took with the video/MP3 button and it came in as a link anyway.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:49:21 -0800

Okay, this thread is relevant to my interests. I've been making my living through most of the millennium by copyright fees from journalistic work, I write, make music, I've worked in movies and TV and I hope to release some video games this year. So, the issue of copyrights hits quite close at home with me. Yet, I'm a copyright activist on the other side of the fence. I find it despicable how the industry is shooting itself on the foot continuously with the silly lawsuits, internet censorship, clunky DRM and all that... The biggest threat to my current and future livelihood are not pirates, it's groups like RIAA, MPAA and their domestic versions.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:24:59 -0800

This is from a speech by Cory Doctorow from last month. It's so on point and deeper still that it hurts.

if you think of protocols and websites as features of the network, then saying "fix the Internet so that it doesn't run BitTorrent", or "fix the Internet so that thepiratebay.org no longer resolves," sounds a lot like "change the sound of busy signals," or "take that pizzeria on the corner off the phone network," and not like an attack on the fundamental principles of internetworking.

(highlighting is mine.)

Just really good points that trying to stop a kind of a crime makes it that much harder on legitimate computer use. I've been coasting on thinking that this tussle would sort of resolve itself; that the traditional industries are in a state of evolution and individuals in the middle of it right now would suffer until it all settles down, just like when the TV went into mass availability and the movie industry freaked out...until they realized they could license movies to air. But this brings up interesting points deeper than what I had been thinking.

I hope more people have thoughts, not just me and Vornaskotti.... Where have all the Whitechapelthinkers gone?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:25:03 -0800

I admit I'm a little burned out even trying to debate piracy issues with people. I've had to quit another forum over it, because so many people have the same entitlement views on it ("a copy pirated isn't a lost sale, they wouldn't buy it anyway!", "Why should a developer have the right to protect their work?", "it's not theft") that it brings me to tears.

The way the games industry is handling piracy right now? Isn't really working. No-one likes DRM, and I think you'll see that slowly phasing out in games over this year. The current 'trick' is the online pass. If you're not familiar with those, it's where you make some aspect of the game not work (usually the online multiplayer part) unless you enter a code that comes on a bit of paper in the box. If you don't have a code (cause you're a pirate, or even because you bought it second hand) then you can buy a code for $10.

Consumers hate it. Retailers who depend a lot on second hand sales hate it. Gamestop for example hated it to the point where they've actually negotiated with publishers to be able to print their *own* unlock codes for the second hand racked games, as reduced second hand sales will likely kill them off.

One argument is that if games were cheaper (and they're the price they are because, hey, paying 150 creatives to make the thing has to be paid for somewhere) then people wouldn't pirate as much. But piracy on the iPhone is a *massive* problem, and those games only cost like a dollar. If people can get it for free, then they will.

Pretty much the only tactic that seems to work is subscription based stuff like World of Warcraft, or the freemium model used by Zynga etc...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:30:17 -0800

Yeah, Flabyo, I have zero tolerance for entitlement bitches also.

One big problem with most piracy conversations is that every media and IP is treated equally, which in my opinion just doesn't work. I mean, I consider pirating music to be far more acceptable than pirating movies or games. Why, because I'm not a musician? No, it's because music is something that's consumed over and over again. I pirated most of my favorite bands to those music killing C-cassettes in the 80's and 90's, and when I got some actual income, I've poured quite a hefty amount of money to those artists, plus I've heard of some of my current favorite artists only via piracy, since their stuff hasn't really been available on the Finnish radio or... well, fucking anywhere else.

Then again, movies and games. Uhm, I don't really pirate those, for one single reason: once I've watched the movie or played the game, I don't really have any incentive to buy it anymore. For me it would be a lost sale. The same goes really with books and comics for me. I'm just not a collector and I rarely read, watch or play anything twice, unless there's a gap of like 10 years there. Or at least for long enough that I've essentially forgotten the story etc.

But, really - we should't speak of "piracy" as an umbrella term, but more about music piracy, game piracy, movie piracy etc. Each and every one of these examples has a different financing and money flow structure, so piracy affects them in different ways.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:10:17 -0800

@flaybo I haven't seen this particular thread get abusive or really particularly obnoxious. And I know Ariana or Si would stomp on anyone who wants to squeal about their own right to do something just because they can.

@Vorn - YES. I definitely think the conversation could benefit by breaking down the kinds of pirating, both by the kind of content (comic book, movie, music, application/computer program).

I always figured the Internet piracy issues as they affect entertainment would sort themselves out - never entirely go away, but the industry would adapt. However, when it comes to computer programs, once you have a working copy you're probably not going to be bothered to go back for more if you have to pay hundreds of dollars. E.g. A long time ago I whined about not having Photoshop (this was like seven years ago, four computers and two boyfriends ago) and my boyfriend at the time passed me his copy. Once I had it there was absolutely no reason to go and pay for the legitimate copy.

Vice versa, I've got a few freeware apps on my current machine that go from security to archiving my media and are neat and helpful and made me glad to have them that I kicked over some cash to the creators when they asked.

I think creators of content that is getting lifted would benefit greatly if they learned something about the people who are downloading their material. In particular it would behoove them to know the habits of their consumers. Because, as it happens, I regard movies and TV frequently very differently from how most people do. I don't have a "I've seen it so I have no further use for it" attitude if I liked it at all. Case in point: A couple of years ago it wasn't very hard to find Cowboy Bebop in its entirety on YouTube. I had nothing to do with putting there, HOWEVER, finding it led to watching it again after having previously seen it many years earlier. I was swiftly reminded how much I loved it, how much I wanted to share it with others and how much I hate watching anything longer than two minutes on YouTube. Buffering, computer serviceability, the interface, my laptop screen... they all go against how I like consuming TV & movies so once I had the money I ordered my own copy of the DVDs. Shows that I enjoy I get almost compulsive about rewatching; and I get impatient with all the nonsense that goes into needing to watch via my computer via an Internet connection.

Now, if I were someone who didn't mind stealing (I am, but let's pretend) the technology is almost already here to go from grabbing a show online to watching it on my TV. It actually, is here, mostly but still a little clunky. And in my experience, the illicit copies are like bootlegs of concerts from the 80s - the quality and fidelity just isn't that good. BUT my research has indicated to me time and again that people aren't that annoyed by poor quality if they can get at the essence of the content.

Vorn - would you, or someone with a habit similar to yours "use once and move on" be more likely to buy if first the makers of the movie or game offered a free version/sample on their Web site for you to download and right next to it was a "buy the whole thing with discount/coupon/special thanks for using the sample?"

It's something I keep thinking about even for different musical acts, because depending on who they are and how they go about their business, their financial structure can be vastly different. Amanda Palmer doesn't come anywhere near, and possibly will never personally earn, the kind of money anyone in U2 will see in a year. There's a small army of people professionally devoted to supporting U2 - if Bono and the boys ever decided to crowdfund their work and only go where their fans set up space for them that army would SO FUCKED. But obviously on the flipside, Amanda won't boast the massive numbers of fans that U2 gets in one city alone. Never mind how many U2 albums are downloaded in a year, the institution of the industry is so ingrained in their fans that enough will straight out buy the CDs the lads, and more importantly (as finances go) the people at Island records never have to worry. Amanda *tells* her fans to download, burn, share her music and then comes back and solicits donations for tours, crowdfunds new work, asks for rehearsal space, props, sites for ninja gigs, etc over Twitter. Her support staff is maybe three people who first came on board for no pay.

the way the two groups run their business is vastly different and neither one could continue to be themselves if they suddenly switched methods.

Now when it comes to TV & movies, though, the artists are numerous and scattered throughout the process. If we're to appeal to the "never mind the folks in marketing, think of the artist" ethos, it's hard to show money spent on the media gets to the artist when, let's say (to pick an example painfully close to me), an American voice over actor is hired well after the media is produced and distributed in another country, but before it's distributed in the U.S. In my perfect world the process wouldn't work quite like that (I'd actually rip it inside out and make the Internet work for me to bring distribution to both/all countries closer together, but that's only after I get to ride my unicorn over a rainbow).

How should industries go about figuring out where they would best be served? How should they learn who are their consumers and how their products are most typically consumed?

I strongly feel that just stomping on the Internet is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Or as Rep Smith (author of SOPA) said ...giving Washington sweeping powers over the Internet is necessary to protect free enterprise. That's not just irony, that's whiplash-inducing bullshit.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:57:48 -0800

@raz - oh god no, I'm not complaining about *here*. I'm just saying that talking about it *at all* can feel like such an effort after talking about it elsewhere...

For the record, SOPA can fuck *right* off.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:04:10 -0800

razrangel:

There's one important point to note here: up here in Commie Reindeerland we don't really have functional, cheap and sensible online services for watching films and especially TV series. No Netflix for us. Some of the local operators do offer online services for films, but it's impossible to get TV series legally online. People would be willing to buy, but they aren't selling.

I'm an online service freak. I buy all my music digitally or stream it from Spotify, if possible I'll buy all of my games from download stores, not to mention films. When there's finally an online service where I can download the latest episodes of all the TV series I follow, I'll go bankrupt in a week.

I'm still with Valve on the whole "piracy is not a price but a service issue". Especially in my age and social group in here, as in 30+ professional working pop culture geeks, people pirate the stuff that they literally can't buy anywhere in the format that they want. I used to buy dvd boxes of all the TV series I had watched illegally online, but now I can't bother anymore. I had a shelf full of DVDs still in the shrink wrap, which made horribly little sense.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Finagle — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:59:06 -0800

@vornaskotti -

I'm with you on the streaming. My real objection to the state of things in digital distribution these days is having to continually re-purchase the same items. If a TV program is free-to-air, I have a real problem with being expected to pay for it again and again in new DVD versions and different service offerings.

If I buy a license for some content, I'd like it to follow the *content*. If I would like a perpetual license to, say the entire /Buffy the Vampire Slayer/ series, I'd like that content license to follow me somehow. As it is now, even if I own the entire DVD set, should one get scratched I have to pay for the content again should I want to watch it online. Amazon doesn't know I own it; iTunes doesn't know I own it, and they don't talk to each other.

As it is now, I could just buy everything through iTunes or Amazon and know that that license will remain in the cloud, at least. But Amazon and iTunes don't coordinate, so should one of those services go away, I lose it all. Nothing ties that content back to the creator.

What I'd love to do is subscribe to Vornaskotti productions, let's say. Somehow from that I'd own a content license to your films and music or whatnot, that doesn't depend on a distribution channel.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:42:01 -0800

@Finagle:

Heh, funny you should say that - what you described is what I was dreaming about earlier... When I buy music, I could purchase a license to an album, maybe in the form of a cool cover booklet or whatever, and that would constitute as a license to listen to that album however I please. Then again, there are genuine problems in here - after all, remastering music and films does take work, and it would be great to get people pay for it. Then again, you could contradict this by saying that a new and a better version would make more people buy the license to the product, etc... I guess it remains a question of someone being in a good place and brave enough to try this.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:31:14 -0800

I am personally rather wary of large companies teaming up for any reason. That's when the price gouging sets in. One good thing you can say about piracy is that it keeps the legitimate providers of content more competitive about their prices and service. Some industries don't have that (such as the cell-phone industry in Canada - all of the Big Three providers are in cahoots with each other, and there is little to no difference in price or quality between them).

Valve probably has the best anti-pirating strategy out there: ease of purchase, really good value for your money, a content management system that brings to your attention things you might not have heard of before, and a pretty dang good desktop client to tie it all together. I've definitely sunk a bunch of money in to Steam games, mostly for the aforementioned reasons, but also because I feel that the most of the games I buy through them actually depend on my money for their continued existence. I would feel much worse about pirating their games than I would about giants such as Skyrim (Bethesda has already gotten plenty of money from me, and from everyone else besides). Looking back on the past months, my piracy of games has dropped to almost nothing primarily because of reasonable alternatives (I've also played very little on my XBox, because it simply doesn't remain competitive in that regard).

One thing that many of the big companies seem to miss is that trust is a huge part of combating piracy. If your customers don't trust you to treat them fairly, they are much more likely to either look to either competitors or piracy. DRM is one of the better examples of this. I know Apple ran face first into this issue a few years ago, but even today I am much more likely to buy my music from Bandcamp than I am from pretty much any other music provider. The success of Bandcamp runs almost entirely on trust. They allow you to listen, in full, to everything you want to purchase before you purchase it. It would be pretty easy for people to simply rip the audio without paying, but I would venture that most people don't. Not only are the prices reasonable enough to give you pause, but any given Bandcamp page is more run by the artist than it is by Bandcamp. Ripping the music seems like a violation of the trust they have collectively placed in us, the consumers. Contrast that with the monolithic interfaces and limited soundbytes that other major digital music providers have adopted, and I think it's easy to see why many people pirate music. (As an aside, basically the entire webcomic industry is based around this concept of trust: "I've given you all this great stuff for free. If you have a few dollars, maybe buy some of my merchandise?").

This is why things like SOPA and its ilk raise my ire: the assumption that people, given the opportunity, will pirate an industry in to the ground, when there are a many examples showing that this simply isn't the case. Well, that and the implication that suing everyone out of existence is simpler and cheaper than changing their business model to adapt to a changing digital landscape.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:28:09 -0800

Steam has it's drawbacks for developers though. It's a pretty closed system, they've been known to reject games and not give any kind of reason for why. And people aren't keen on how they 'favour' their own titles over everyone elses. (There was a bit of fuss when they used the service to massively advertise Portal 2 in a way that no other developer using the service is able to...)

But yeah, as a system it does seem to work.

Curious about the 'I don't mind pirating if they're a big company' attitude though. I work as a developer for a pretty big company, does that mean I have less right to have people not pirate my work than Notch does with Minecraft just cause 'we're bigger so it's ok' ?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:41:11 -0800

As someone who is currently trying to break in to the indie game scene, I'm familiar with Steam's drawbacks. I have a compiled list of associated documentation around here somewhere... Honestly, though, at the back end it's fairly comparable to most other publishing deals. The real difference I am commenting on is the publisher-customer relationship, rather than publisher-developer relationship (knowing much less about the latter, I am hesitant to try and defend my opinions on that matter).

As far as the big company vs. little company mentality that I have, it's an extension of "value for your money" thinking. Once a companies profit is measured in the millions, there's a real diminish return in the value I see in the purchase. As far as I know, most of the large companies don't have profit sharing (feel free to correct me on this), which means that once the worker's wages are paid everything else goes on to the investors, not to mention all pockets padded along the way for the various stages of getting something like that to retail (I am really loathe to support EB Games/Gamestop in any way). The more independent games, however, I am much more likely to pay money for. Not only are the prices generally much more reasonable, I feel that it is much more likely that my money is going to go to someone who really needs it, without which they might not be able to keep making games.

This is all personal opinion, though. I'm not sure where I would stand if shifted gears into a discussion about rights (what rights a developer has is already enough of a tangled mess of philosophy, politics, and economics even before you introduce piracy to the mix). I'm just trying to set up a system where I can reward good gameplay design and discourage designers from re-making the same bland, terrible, and sometimes completely irresponsible games that are becoming the norm for the super-mainstream games. (As an aside, Skyrim was a terrible example. I should really give Bethesda some money for that game. Let's pretend I said something else in my earlier post, like Call of Duty).

Final note: Minecraft has sold over 4 million copies, and has over 20 million registered users. While they definitely started out in the indie arena, they are no longer operating on that battlefield. I'd have a fewer compunctions about pirating Minecraft today than I would have a year or two ago (Notch's Pirate Party affiliations notwithstanding).

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:51:35 -0800

I'm paid a royalty bonus for the games I've worked on that comes out of a pool which is built from the profit made by the title, so while it's only my bonus that's affected by piracy not my actual salary, it's still money 'lost' (and I put it in quotes because I know it isn't as simple as that). Not every company does it, indeed this is the first I've worked for in my career that does, but a certain amount of profit sharing does take place in the games industry.

I sort of see your stance though, you don't want to reward what you see as creative bankruptcy. I put it that not buying it is enough, you don't have to pirate it too just to play it and prove yourself right for not wanting to support it... :)

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:33:41 -0800

Most of the time I don't buy something, I also don't pirate it. There is the rare occasion where I do, but with indie games getting better and easier to obtain, this is becoming less and less frequent. I have over 90 games on my Steam account, and I'm having a hard enough time getting through all those without adding pirated mainstream games in to the mix. This is either a sign that the industry is already adapting to the issues of piracy (for the better, in my opinion), or that I'm just getting more refined in my tastes.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Darkest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:52:31 -0800

I just wish it was easier to get US/etc television in the UK. We have no service like Netflix which is frustrating because you have to wait for a large time gap for it to appear on tv or even longer for it to come out on DVD.

I am loving Spotify, Audible and Steam. Mostly because I see any of the more dodgily aquired items on my hardrives as a place holder. I probably consume more now that I'm capable of watching episodes of something back to back for free as opposed to paying £XX (more if it was when you only got three episodes on a DVD) pounds for a box set and then finding out I had kind of wasted my money.

I too would love some sort of unified streaming cloud service a lower price and increaded reliability would compensate for the lack of hard copies and I love having hard copies.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:27:04 -0800

Yep. This why I think laws limiting the Internet are so misguided, the Web can be the answer rather than only supplying the problem. With the Web, information can be sent throughout the world pretty much immediately. So why make other countries wait for a release date months down the road? The only thing about international trade that's on its way out is the cargo ship (when it comes to entertainment products).

Just takes some proactivity on the part of publishers - if they want to be in that market, put in the time & effort to release in that country at the same time. If they don't care if they're in that market, don't whine when consumers in that country devise their own solutions.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:07:53 -0800

My big wish at this point is for things like Hulu, Pandora, and Turntable.fm to be available outside of the US. Really great ideas that could be a force for global change are really getting shut down by some really stupid laws.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

oddbill — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:12:34 -0800

An interesting example of a simultaneous global release would be the Harry Potter books. That was globally coordinated and it sure worked. Those books would drop on the same day everywhere and I really don't think they could possibly have sold any better. I actually don't think it likely that anyone will be able to replicate a phenomenon like that - lines for books at midnight in cities around the world.

I think the staggered releases of TV and film globally are due largely to the mechanics of sale of distribution rights, along with plans to maximize sales by staggered pushes in various distribution channels. That was certainly the most lucrative plan at one time. It's possible it isn't any more, though I've never seen anyone yet propose a compelling analysis for why it isn't.

I'd love to see a high profile TV show released simultaneously in all available pay channels everywhere and see what kind of income it generates. Sadly, I would be willing to bet it would be less than most people think.

The byzantine channel labyrinth frustrates me as well. For example, I like HBO's original shows. Almost across the board, everything they produce as a series is excellent. It's got to the point that I'll watch any of it, even if I have no previous interest in the subject they are tackling, just because I know they will do it so well.

However, I watch an HBO series on DVD/Blu-Ray the year after it airs, because I don't have cable and won't get it. I hate almost all other TV. I also don't think I'd pay for just HBO - I don't really want the movies. I just want the shows, and I'd like to be able to watch them on my own schedule.

So HBO makes it's money off of me on DVD sales.

I'd pay as much, probably, as $10.00 per episode to watch something like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire or Deadwood as it was released. I'm not sure enough other people would to make that a viable economic model. I think HBO makes more off of cable subscriptions than it would off of people paying per episode, or per series. The very reason they produce good shows is to drive cable subscriptions. It's how their whole model has been designed. So I can't grudge them their model. I like their shows, and want them to keep making them.

I don't think the new model - simultaneous, non-restricted easy global release, is quite possible yet. It is technically, but not remuniteravely, if that makes sense. I don't think it is possible to negotiate a paying channel for the whole world at the same time for a TV show, due largely to legal complications in the various countries involved. I'd love to see some kind of a distributor crack that nut. It is a nut yet to be cracked.

Meanwhile, I think the amount of actual piracy that thrives is not really related to that. There are, I think, a small number of people who seek out pirated content because they can't legitimately get it through any other channel. Mostly, honestly, piracy exists because people don't want to pay for things.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:54:12 -0800

@Darkest - we do have Netflix in the UK now. It launched last week.

@Morac - it's not so much laws stopping services like Hulu moving abroad, it's more questions of who owns the material. It's pretty common for rights to a series to be owned by someone else outside the US compared to inside. For example, if Hulu carries Game of Thrones, then in the UK Sky are going to not want them to stream it, cause they own it here. And so on. It's more ownership red tape than any government level laws getting in the way at the moment. (Although the mandatory BBFC thing probably doesn't help)

@oddbill - a few games manage simultaeneous releases now as well. The norm at the moment though is for the US release to be the Tuesday and the European release that same Friday. That's about as close together as you can go without spending silly money to bypass the normal distribution channel (which is set up to drop the product into the shops on specific days, Mondays for the States, Thursdays for the UK).

As a result, the only time it's economically feasible to do a global day and date release is when demand is going to be high enough to offset having to do a custom distribution setup.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:12:27 -0800

I can confirm at least from the point of view of films that the problem with global online release are the distribution rights. On the surface it would seem logical for a filmmaker to just release the film on his own download platform, globally, and to rake in money that way. This would of course stomp on the toes of all the regional distributors. Why are they relevant? Well, it's a little known fact that actually selling the distribution rights are a major part of the financing of films, and they are sold before the film is even finished. Bypassing the regional distributors simply means that you lose a lion's share of your films budget, there and then.

I would imagine there's a similar thing going with TV-series. I might be talking out of my ass here, but I'd imagine the network and the distributors pay in advance for the series, either season by season or a larger chunk, which brings in the money to make the series in the first place.

Then again, in Europe and especially in smaller countries like Finland the copyright law and the local copyright systems are a hindrance for launching online services. Every country has their own distributors and RIAAas, which are a hassle to deal with. It's not an accident that many online distribution platforms for music for example launch initially in UK, Germany, France and Spain. Get distribution rights to them -> get a huge amount of potential customers per rights negotiation.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

razrangel — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:22:37 -0800

Oh good lord what I wouldn't give for cable channels to get unbundled. I not paying a hundred or two dollars per month to watch one or two extra shows on HBO or something. Since I don't do the illegal downloading (but um...shan't look away if a friend is playing their copy gotten through [censored] means), it just means I don't have any idea what a LOT of people are talking about when it comes to some of the (supposedly) best TV of the last decade.

30 years of bundled channels and I'm still every bit as aggravated by it.

Different countries have different copyright and licensing laws, so yes. It's not exactly straightforward. But it's worth the effort, if creators want access to the new markets without the hassle of pirates.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

oddbill — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:55:48 -0800

But it's worth the effort, if creators want access to the new markets without the hassle of pirates.

That's just it though, in a very real way I don't think it is worth the effort. Vorn points out a big one - for film - in that international distribution sales actually form a large portion of the budget before the film is actually made. The traditional distribution channels pay for the films. It's not the audience putting money up front to get them made.

This goes to the core of the piracy problem, I think. The audience does not want to pay. Certainly not enough to get the thing made in the first place. Small, low budget projects can crowdfund. But can a multi-million dollar budgeted series crowdfund it's budget? It would be interesting to find out, but I'm pretty confident betting against that working.

The audience for things like film and television have no real idea how much things cost, how many people are involved, how difficult it is to do. Audiences resent paying money for entertainment, and a very vocal segment of it gleefully pirates and then claims they wouldn't watch it anyway if they weren't watching it for free. The audience thinks of itself as the customer of the production company, but it isn't. The distributors are the customers of the production companies. They are the ones willing to pay. The audience is the customer of the distribution channels, theaters, cable and network TV, Netflix, Hulu, etc.

How is it worth the creator's effort to fight the byzantine array of global distributors when those distributors are the creator's primary customer?

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:56:50 -0800

I'll try and avoid a long rambly post, as I really need to get to bed, but there are two points I want to bring up in regards to your argument, Oddbill.

First, there's more to the piracy argument than just not wanting to pay for things, such as availability and convenience. But most of all, I think it's about value. More than disliking paying for things, people dislike paying for things they don't feel is worth it. People will gladly pay out the nose if they think they are getting a good deal. One of the reasons that movie theatre sales have been in decline recently is that people no longer feel that the value they get for their money is worth it (especially with the price hikes that 3D movies have brought about - a theoretical family of four has to pay upwards of $50, even before concession items).

Second, while piracy is far from the victimless crime that some proponents purport, it is much more a battle between distributors and customers than it is between creators and distributors. Even in light of piracy and the market changes it is bringing with it, I wouldn't advocate for creators to try and fight the giant distributors. After all, having the distributors take care of the getting-content-to-people end (including navigating the waters of piracy) is why the creators go in to business with distributors in the first place. That said, going with a distributor that can't adapt to the changing markets may be a poor business decision.

Damn, that was longer than I intended. Must go sleep now.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Flabyo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:17:59 -0800

Problem is, the distributor insists on the piracy protection systems like DRM, and the public blames the developers.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:50:27 -0800

oddbill:

"It's not the audience putting money up front to get them made. "

Well, actually... ;)

But seriously, even with Iron Sky, which is a major success in crowd funding, most of the money came from traditional sources, such as film foundations,regional grants and yes, distributor money. The crowd funding stuff is used mainly for so called gap funding, which is usually handled by bank loans (IIRC).

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

tachyon42 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:40:36 -0800

I am sure most of you are familiar with the numerous studies done how the most proliferous pirates are those who spend the most on music and media.

I can attest to the fact that there are good pirates, and there are bad pirates.

A notable example is the excellent indie movie Ink. It was one of the top downloaded movies in the world for like 6 months in 2009, yet the indie filmmakers could not land a release deal with a studio, so they had to release it themselves.
Due to torrents, Ink became somewhat of a quiet cult hit. I found it via torrents, located the site, and bought the bluray. The filmakers actually have a donate button on their site specifically for bit torrent users, any amount, even a buck if they enjoyed the movie.
The movie reached millions of viewers(I would estimate) due to bit torrent.

Personally, my music collection is way too huge for me to afford. I try and buy and support artists that I like, but there is no way I could support all of them on a student budget. Its commonly discussed on a music blog I follow how the blog actually costs people more money because they discover and buy more music than they thought they would.

As everything shifts to digital media, piracy is a reaction to the fact that once you buy a digital item, IT HAS NO VALUE. You can't resell it, you can't lock it up and save it as an investment. Why would I purchase something that has no value? Thats why I try and stay away from music downloads and purchase cds, or if I want to support a movie, I will buy the DVD or Blu-Ray. Books? The only thing I will download for my pc/phone is comics, due to their brevity.

It is late, sorry for the sloppy web link...I don't post often and need to get around to looking over the forum guidelines...

Oh...and I dislike crowd funding...but then again, I also dislike charities

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Morac — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:39:54 -0800

@tachyon: Disliking crowd funding and charities seems like an unusual stance. Care to elaborate?

Also, to fix the link, you need to type something like this: the text of the link.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:14:08 -0800

tachyon42:

How about crowd investing, as we did on Iron Sky. The idea is that anyone can become an investor, with an equity investment of 1000 euros or more. What this means is that when the producers start making money off the film, all the fan investors start making money also. It's been working really well so far.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Bankara — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:34:40 -0800

I am going to jump in here and I am not sure if someone has already made this point but I want to point to something Frank Zappa proposed in 1983 that if it had been adopted would have killed the record industry dead and rewarded artists for creating good music. This is, of course, precisely what the record companies have been trying to head off for the last two decades. SOPA/PIPA is a last desperate attempt to continue their role of paymaster to the actual talent with their broken ass business model.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090405/1806484395.shtml

Worth a read since it basically describes what bittorrent is and could be twenty years before it existed. Tweak the trackers to provide information about download popularity and pay out a portion of the subscriber fees to the artists who top out the charts and you have a version of spotify that works. Copyright doesn't even enter into the equation. people create what they love and are paid according to how people respond to it and everyone has an equal chance. Now that is a model worth fighting for because there isn't a single lawyer in sight.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

MrMonk — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:33:24 -0800

Megaupload, one of the internet's largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US.

And so it begins, one day after the blackout.

I believe that Megauploads was specifically singled out during the Senate debates on SOPA as an exemplary target of that bill. Seizing the site blocks the distribution of both infringing and non-infringing works, and should have been a major free speech issue if it occurred in the U.S. I also note that the U.S. reached out to the New Zealand government to have the founders and employees arrested. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

This also seems to undermine the Administration's case that it needs bills like SOPA or PIPA, since it apparently can go after bad actors directly.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

D.J. — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:58:27 -0800

Anonymous is retaliating hard and the internet is freaking out. Everything happening right now is kind of frightening, and things are going to come out the other side looking very different once the dust is settled.

I wish there was something substantial I could do right now.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

dorkmuffin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:01:04 -0800

If y'all look, there are definitely petitions to be signed.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

KeeperofManyNames — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:29:11 -0800

Looks like the contact info/address of the MPAA CEO is online now. This is going to be interesting. Let's see if Anonymous can keep up the pressure without getting innocents caught in the crossfire...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

tachyon42 — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:09:12 -0800

@morac

Crowd-funding seems to me just a fad. And its model is set up like a charity. Problem is, money is not certain, and you still must rely on dedicated investors or financial backers. But, on the flip-side, crowd-funding IS the only possible way for some film-makers to raise funds. I am familiar with Iron Sky, but follow more closely James Rolfe's(AVGN) new movie venture. Film studios exist to make a profit. This is not inherently a bad motive or purpose in life. Therefore, they choose the movies to invest in which they see generating the largest amount of revenue.

I don't give to charities because...well, thats a discussion for a thread not on piracy.

@vornaskotti

1000 euros or usd is a lot of money if its not your brainchild. I think I would have a better chance making more money as an investment in the stock market. If the majority of mainstream society is not even willing to purchase movies or music anymore in light of streaming services, then how much more willing they be to invest in a film, let alone buy it on its release?

On another thought on piracy, I have a lot of friends who go to the theaters a lot, but then will simply download the movie when it releases. Paying $10 to see 1 movie is a pretty hefty investment compared the $9 unlimited netflix model.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:33:34 -0800

tachyon42:

Yet Iron Sky has raised over 600k from crowd financing and crowd funding. The point is, there are a lot of people who are willing to do that.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:30:58 -0800

Got kind of miffed and wrote something inflammatory, yet hopefully informative. News at eleven.

The Problem With Piracy Is Ignorance – Or Artists: Stop Whining And Tell The People How You Make Money

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

costi.ra — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:57:34 -0800

Piracy can't be stopped. Just some people will stop earning money

I'm just sayn'

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

icelandbob — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:00:37 -0800

Nice piece there Janos, and it also reminded me that i don't read you blog often enough...

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:08:20 -0800

icelandbob:

Cheers, man, appreciate it. As an afterthought I should've let the text rest a bit and then structure it a bit differently, but by the time I realized that, it had already spread here and there so meh. Hopefully it gets something across.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

ScottBieser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:06:37 -0800

The problem with copyright and IP rights are that they did not develop naturally in the common law the same way that our right not to be assaulted or killed or have our physical property stolen from us (except via taxes). It began as a state grant of privilege to publishers (not authors, originally) with the Statute of Anne in 1709.

And as governments usually oversell their abilities, these grants were only partially enforceable by the King's (and later, the President's or Prime Minister's) men. The physical difficulties of copying works, and the replicative degeneracy effect of imperfect copying, also inhibited unauthorized copying.

But new technologies have removed the practical roadblocks to copying, and the regime's powers have failed to pick up the slack. Worse still, any effort to curtail copying either by technology or statute seems to only alienate customers while failing to prevent the copying. Not to mention, provide governments with another tool for suppressing dissent. And so we get ACTA and SOPA and PIPA and similar moves which could likely break the Internet, and with it all the myriad benefits we've gained from it.

Industries and business models which have grown up around copyright (and patent) are in crisis, and either their world is going to change, forever, or else we will lose the promise of the Internet and the explosion of economic and social benefits we get from freely shared information -- a cost I think too great to bear. We may not get 100-million-dollar (or the equivalent) block-buster feature films with amazing special effects anymore, for a while at least. Movie producers will have to think as much in terms of keeping costs low as they do in covering costs as they are now. The relationship between musicians and distributors will become very different. And all creators will have to focus more on connecting with their audience on a personal level than most of them are used to now.

I was discussing IP with my brother and he pointed out that "our claim to a property right is only as good as our ability to enforce it." The time when copyrights could be effectively enforced by states, without unacceptably draconian measures, has apparently passed. We need to come up with new ways to persuade consumers of our works to compensate us for them, that is satisfactory for everyone (except perhaps the dedicated free-loaders).

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:52:32 -0800

By the way, SOPA might be sort of kind of gone, but the travesty that's ACTA is still very much alive and kicking:

"Kader Arif, the EU "rapporteur" for ACTA (a copyright treaty negotiated in secret, which contains all the worst elements of SOPA, and which is coming to a vote in the EU) has turned in his report and resigned from his job, delivering a scathing rebuke to the EU negotiators and parliamentarians, and the global corporations who are pushing this through:"

Chief ACTA Eurocrat quits in disgust at lack of democratic fundamentals in global copyright treaty

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Finagle — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:39:28 -0800

I just noticed that the Pirate Bay launched a new category: Physibles - objects designed to be reproduced by a 3D printer. Now you can theoretically not just pirate the design ON an object - mug, t-shirt, automobile - but the entire object itself.

Would any of you feel any differently about downloading and printing your own patented automobile part to fix your car, versus the theft of a song or illustration?

Evolution: New category.

We're always trying to foresee the future a bit here at TPB. One of the things that we really know is that we as a society will always share. Digital communication has made that a lot easier and will continue to do so. And after the internets evolutionized data to go from analog to digital, it's time for the next step.

Today most data is born digitally. It's not about the transition from analog to digital anymore. We don't talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things. Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere. But we're physical people and we need objects to touch sometimes as well!

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We'll be able to print food for hungry people. We'll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We'll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one.

We believe that the future of sharing is about physible data. We're thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay - but we had no graphical artist around to make a logo. In the future, we'll download one.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Foamhead — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:56:17 -0800

Stumbled on this after following Vornaskotti's post in NEWSTRANGE (“This is Why I Pirate”: How A Groundless Copyright Threat Destroyed A Young Film Student’s Dreams and Career")

Nothing especially new but rants are usually worth reading, as this thread shows.

From Forbes.com:

You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You

Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it’s worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won.
It can’t, is the short answer, and one these companies do not want to hear as they put their fingers in their ears and start yelling. As technology continues to evolve, the battle between pirates and copyright holders is going to escalate, and pirates are always, always going to be one step ahead. To be clear, this is in no way meant to be a “pro-piracy” piece, it is merely attempting to show the inescapable realities of piracy that media companies refuse to acknowledge.

As for ACTA, this raised an eyebrow:

Planned Post-ACTA Repression In European Union: The Documents

A European Commissioner responsible for the governing of 500 million people who refers to his constituents as “consumers” and describes complying at legal gunpoint as “cooperation” is just a small taste of the newspeak in the documents we find here, documents that are intended for the post-ACTA timeframe. Oh, and he doesn’t rule out shutting down your income streams either. It is not hard to see where this particular mindset comes from – and no, it is certainly not Locke’s ideas of a constitutional government or anything similarly responsible. It’s filled to the brim with terms we would otherwise only see in reports from the copyright industry lobby.

Piracy issues. (Rant warning)

Vornaskotti — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:46:45 -0800

Day and date multiformat releases - movie piracy solved.

BitTorrent Piracy Doesn’t Affect US Box Office Returns, Study Finds