The Copyright Industry - A Century of Deceit - TorrentFreak

The Copyright Industry A Century Of Deceit | TorrentFreak
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Rick Falkvinge November 27, 2011 199
It is said that those who dont study history are doomed to repeat it. In the case of the copyright industry, they have learned that they can get new monopoly benefits and rent-seekers benefits every time there is a new technology, if they just complain loudly enough to the legislators. The past 100 years have seen a vast array of technical advances in
copyright Print
broadcasting, multiplication and transmissions of culture, but equally much misguided legislators who sought to preserve the old at expense of the new, just because the old was complaining. First, lets take a look at what the copyright industry tried to ban and outlaw, or
at least receive taxpayer money in compensation for its existence: It started around 1905, when the self-playing piano was becoming popular. Sellers of note sheet music proclaimed that this would be the end of artistry if they couldnt make a living off of middlemen between composers and the public, so they called for a ban on the player piano. A famous letter in 1906 claims that both the gramophone and the self-playing piano will be the end of artistry, and indeed, the end of a vivid, songful humanity. In the 1920s, as broadcast radio started appearing, another copyright industry was demanding its ban because it cut into profits. Record sales fell from $75 million in 1929 to $5 million four years later a recession many times greater than the record industrys current troubles. (Speaking of recession, the drop in profits happened to coincide with the Great Depression.) The copyright industry sued radio stations, and collecting societies started collecting part of the station profits under a blanket licensing scheme. Laws were proposed that would immunize the new radio medium from the copyright industry, but they did not pass. In the 1930s, silent movies were phased out by movies with audio tracks. Every theater had previously employed an orchestra that played music to accompany the silent movies, and now, these were out of a job. It is quite conceivable that this is the single worst technology development for professional performers. Their unions demanded guaranteed jobs for these performers in varying propositions. In the 1940s, the movie industry complained that the television would be the death of movies, as movie industry profits dropped from $120 million to $31 million in five years. Famous quote: Why pay to go see a movie when you can see it at home for free? In 1972, the copyright industry tried to ban the photocopier. This push was from book publishers and magazine publishers alike. The day may not be far off when no one need purchase books. The 1970s saw the advent of the cassette tape, which is when the copyright industry really went all-out in proclaiming their entitlement. Ads saying Home taping is killing music! were everywhere. The band Dead Kennedys famously responded by subtly changing the message in adding industry profits, and We left this side [of their tape] blank, so you can help. The 1970s also saw another significant shift, where DJs and loudspeakers started taking the place of live dance music. Unions and the copyright industry went ballistic over this, and suggested a disco fee that would be charged at locations playing disco (recorded) music, to be collected by private organizations under governmental mandate and redistributed to live bands. This produces hearty laughter today, but that laughter
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stops sharp with the realization that the disco fee was actually introduced, and still exists.
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The 1980s is a special chapter with the advent of video cassette recorders. The ExtraTorrent isoHunt copyright RyanDownie Design by industrys famous quote when testifying before the US Congress where the KickassTorrents Torrentz.com film lobbys highest representative said that The VCR is to the American film producer YouTorrent
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and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone is the stuff of legend today. Still, it bears reminding that the Sony vs so-called Betamax case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and that the VCR was as near as could be from being killed by the copyright industry: The Betamax team won the case by 5-4 in votes. Also in the late 1980s, we saw the complete flop of the Digital Audio Tape (DAT). A lot of this can be ascribed to the fact that the copyright industry had been allowed to put its politics into the design: the cassette, although technically superior to the analog Compact Cassette, was so deliberately unusable for copying music that people rejected it flat outright. This is an example of a technology that the copyright industry succeeded in killing, even though I doubt it was intentional: they just got their wishes as to how it should work to not disrupt the status quo. In 1994, Fraunhofer Institute published a prototype implementation of its digital coding technique that would revolutionize digital audio. It allowed CD-quality audio to take one-tenth of the disk space, which was very valuable in this time, when a typical hard drive would be just a couple of gigabytes. Technically known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, it was quickly shortened to MP3 in everyday speak. The copyright industry screamed again, calling it a technology that only can be used for criminal activity. The first successful MP3 player, the Diamond Rio, saw the light in 1998. It had 32 megabytes of memory. Despite good sales, the copyright industry sued its maker, Diamond Multimedia, into oblivion: while the lawsuit was struck down, the company did not recover from the burden of defending. The monopoly middlemen tried aggressively to have MP3 players banned. The century ended with the copyright middlemen pushing through a new law in the United States called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which would have killed the Internet and social media by introducing intermediary liability essentially killing social technologies in their cradle. Only with much effort did the technology industry manage to stave off disaster by introducing so-called safe harbors that immunizes the technical companies from liability on the condition that they throw the end-users to the wolves on request. The internet and social media survived the copyright industrys onslaught by a very narrow escape that still left it significantly harmed and slowed. Right after the turn of the century, the use of Digital Video Recorders was called stealing as it allowed for skipping of commercials (as if nobody did that before). In 2003, the copyright industry tried to have its say in the design of HDTV with a so-called broadcast flag that would make it illegal to manufacture devices that could copy movies so flagged. In the USA, the FCC miraculously granted this request, but was struck down in bolts of lightning by courts who said they had way overstepped their mandate. What we have here is a century of deceit, and a century revealing the internal culture inherent in the copyright industry. Every time something new appears, the copyright industry has learned to cry like a little baby that needs more food, and succeeds practically every time to get legislators to channel taxpayer money their way or restrict competing industries. And every time the copyright industry succeeds in doing so, this behavior is further reinforced. It is far past due that the copyright industry is stripped of its nobility benefits, every part of its governmental weekly allowance, and gets kicked out of its comfy chair to get a damn job and learn to compete on a free and honest market.
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About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Follow @Falkvinge 6,737 followers Book Falkvinge as speaker?
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Thanks Rick, nice post as always.

37 people liked this.
Been far too long without one of your articles here, Rick and what a corker. Excellently highlights the copyright industries complete madness. Last time I looked, there was still sheet music, books, movies and music still being produced. When will they learn that they've been wrong for a century?
No, they arent wrong for a century. They are rich for a century.
One of the BEST articles I have ever read on here.

Ditto. Ricks best article so far. Well done Mr Falkvinge.

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I usually don't comment on articles but this one - well done, Rick! This is very informative!
1 person liked this.
It is alarming, to say the least, to see this concisely summed up on one page. Well done sir. Nigel
I'm not sure if I'm part of what you are calling 'the copyright industry', but I write educational piano music, and the way I get paid is when a student buys one of my books. When a piano teacher decides to photocopy the music instead I don't get paid. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at *least* half the students presenting my music for their piano examinations have been working from photocopies (that is to say, avoiding paying me for my work). I work really hard producing excellent material that teachers and students alike enjoy widely. I am smart about only saying yes to projects that are likely to meet a genuine need. How am I supposed to compete in a free (i.e. not-paying-me-for-my work) market? I certainly publish far less than I might as it is, and I'm one of educational piano music's success stories.
The question in the end, really, is whether that person would have purchased your music if they had to pay for it. While we do feel bad that you're not getting paid as much as you believe your work is worth, the truth of the matter is that, if you had a way to lock it down so that nobody could copy your works and HAD to pay you, they'd likely just get their music from a free source. Or, more likely, they'd borrow the originals or just learn popular music that is now in the public domain. Maybe your line of work is simply unsustainable. I'd love to spend my days commenting on forums and getting paid, but sadly there is no money in it. Everyone would laugh if I wanted legislation that forced me to have a minimum wage per post so I could earn a living off this.
"The question in the end, really, is whether that person would have purchased your music if they had to pay for it." Wrong. The question really is "Does anyone have a right to possess through unlawful duplication in a way that circumvents compensation?" The answer is no, always has been. In fact the only things truly deceitful here are when VPN's and onion routing and encryption and wifi hacking are used to duplicate and possess without compensation. And also the very premise of Rick's self-serving and deceitful article, of course.
Could you explain how the article is self-serving? In addition, could you point out which historical item is made up or misrepresented?
None 2 months ago
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Spoken from the perspective of a true capitalist pig. Nothing matters but $$$$$$$$$$$, and every singular venture one undertakes must result in $$$$$$$$$. The "in the end" fact wouldn't consider such abstract and silly things as copyright law. They'd boil down to culture and arts, which were around and doing well long before capitalism, $$$$$$$$$, or copyright, and will continue after your flawed, beloved, selfish capitalism goes the way of the dodo.
Actually, douchebag, the answer is yes. If you can make a copy of something that's fine. As long as no one is deprived. The answer is and always has been yes. Only recently has it been argued against and felt that "no" was an answer. It was acceptable to make copies when we used cassette or vhs tapes. What's different now? The quality of the copies? If that's it, that's no real difference at all. In fact, the only people saying otherwise, are those whose livelihoods are threatened, in that they'll no longer be able to profit off the work of others. A.k.a. the middlemen. The labels, the studios, etc. Artists for the most part do not gain/lose a thing from file sharing. Actually, not true, artists can gain a following of die hard fans. Who'll support them through the purchase of merchandise and purchases of tickets to live events. Also, VPNs, onion routing, and encryption are all perfectly legitimate and legal things. Just because they can be used for "wrong" (and wrong is in the eyes of the beholder) does NOT make them deceitful. You're an idiot trying to push your morals onto others. The world disagrees with you. Most of the country disagrees with you. These are proven facts. Just get the f*ck over yourself troll. You lost the battle. The war, cause I'm sure you'll say this, isn't over yet. But you've essentially already lost that. Once you are resorting to lobbying and deceiving OUR government to hang onto your outdated business practices, you've already lost. You're a dinosaur, and a douchebag, move on. And before you try the moral crap with me or anyone else on here. Let's look at history. History itself is against the studios and labels, who routinely shortchange the people who create, financially mismanage money (so record selling albums and movies are still not "profiting"), and so on and so forth. Don't try the holier than thou approach here. We are better than you and always have been. The morally bankrupt one here is the people PROFITING off the works of others. That'd be you and the idiots like you.
> "The question really is "Does anyone have a right to possess through unlawful duplication in a way that circumvents compensation?"" That question is completely meaningless and dishonest, since it is based on already established premisses, without any argument put forward for if those premisses are legitimate to begin with. But from you, i guess that's what we've come to expect. In the real world, the only question that should be asked and answered, is why people's private property should be intruded into by a legislative monopoly, forbidding people from doing as they wish with their own property, and if such intrusion really benefits society. All burden of proof to answer that question falls on those advocating the copyright monopoly's intrusion into peoples property. If they fail to present actual evidence that society has a need for such monopoly(do not confuse society with certain entrepreneurs wishing to continue to profit from certain no longer needed business models), and that said monopoly actually works, and that it's a proportionate intrusion into peoples property and freedom, then such
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legislative monopoly constitutes illegitimate legislation. Since people advocating the copyright monopoly hasn't been able to provide such proof over the last 100 years, the copyright monopoly does indeed constitute illegitimate legislation, so the debate is over. People can fileshare as much as they want, creating copies with their own physical property as much as they want, for whatever reason they see fit, and only a completely ignorant person, or a true fascist, would argue against it.
Changing tv-channels during a commercial brake is stealing, you know that right? You get to watch your favorite show in exchange for watching the ads. So if you are not watching the ads, you are stealing that tv-show. You Anon, are a dirty little pirate!
Obvious troll is obvious. Nothing to see here at all but the same old tired arguments that he and other MAFIAA shills having been making time and time again. So much for countering anything Rick has said. Somehow, I doubt you have the capability to stand on an equal level with him and prove why copyright as it is today needs to be maintained or strengthened. And saying what you have been saying all along is not proof.
@None It's Monopoly-ism not Capitalist you retard.

In short and to summarize your usual rancid dogma: "Because we have can't control communication, the business model fails". Yes, well, that's what both Sovjet and the DDR found out as well. Copyright has no more ability to exist in a human society than the plan economy. If we could reliably enforce copyright then we could also implement practical communism - since humans would have stopped being human. The only way you can control the unhindered spread of information is by keeping said information a secret. If your business method relies on the premise that this ultimate rule can be violated then your business model will fail. It's that simple.
Disgusting psychopathy, as usual, Anon . The thing you produce when you labor is your copy. Not all copies. If you don't want it copied further, don't fucking release it. Stop demanding the whole world is censored merely because you feel you're owed more money than you'd get in a free market. The copyright monopoly steals from us all. http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/...
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Wrong, and that's the reason the big players, don't lock stuff down if they did they would kill their down stream. They just like to bitch, to maximize revenue via legislation. Because they and we know the truth is, if they found a way to 100% lock it down, their margins would collapse by damaging their down stream. Glib's response was right, you have to ask yourself, how many people that did copy it would pay for it, if the answer is none, and you can't support yourself on the people that are willing to, then you don't have a business model, you have a charity. Counting a copy as a theft is about as ludicrous as counting every girl that looks at me, as in to me. Sure some may be, but most probably are not. As to the poster above Glib asking about the sheet music. It sucks, but it the nature of the business, you either find way to increase the perceived value of your product, leather bound cover, special editions or give it away for free and take donations. Create a musical enrichment organization, position it as enriching children through learning music and give the stuff away, build a website that distributes the music and take pay-pal donation and pay yourself $200,000 a year as the CEO. I write software, I have people copy my stuff everyday without paying, and there is no way I support legislation to protect me. My rights as a human are worth far more than a buck for some digits. Find a way to not trample other peoples rights, to protect your own, if you can't move on, nothing gives you the right to exalt your rights over other peoples rights.
Ok... is Glib Spanish for Idiot! If the music was good enough to play it was good enough to pay for. Intellectual property means that its somebody's property. You implying that if someone steals or borrows your property that they wouldn't have taken it if they had to pay for it. Could you please forward the address of your vehicle or other belongings and let's try that theory out.
If we could copy his vehicle we would have done that by now, but we can't. Copying something digital, or photocopying something (analog -> digital -> analog) in this case, doesn't remove the original. That excuse is old and worn out, get a new one!
"Could you please forward the address of your vehicle or other belongings and let's try that theory out." As long as all you do is copy said vehicles without moving them from the spot you are certainly welcome to. Any other irrelevant arguments a l idiot you intend to trot out? Intellectual property is complete rubbish to begin with - you cannot keep information from distributing in an uncontrolled fashion without also keeping said information a secret to begin with. This has been known for roughly 4000 years of human history. Intellectual property = Information control. This works no better for capitalists than it did for the communists. It should come as no surprise.
IDIOCRACY 2 months ago
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I just copyrighted yesterday the word Blueprintdesigns, can you forward me your creditcard number so I can cash in the royalties from you for using this word as your nickname?? hehe
I didn't make myself clear: I don't think I'm being paid less than my work is worth. Composition and money don't exist in that relationship ('worth'). I think I'm being paid far less than I'm being *used*; people are keen to use my work as compared to the work of others, but because they have a copy-culture mentality I miss out on any wage. Teachers even charge for the photocopies so that *they* are not out of pocket!! I'm intrigued that you compare creating widely-used music education resources with commenting on forums - this is an original analogy, but you'd need to demonstrate that your comments are distributed to a wide number of students on an annual basis before it might hold up.... But maybe I'm just misunderstanding your point.
Elissa, I really hope you read my previous post. The breakdown of your situation is that not enough people pay for your product. A small market, but your situation is made much worse by a large number of people copying without paying. Without any other information, I draw the conclusion that your customers would prefer a different licensing arrangement. With a more general product, a much higher single licence may appeal to your customers. The site licence allows you to get a large one time profit, and it gives your customers the legal right to copy your product for 50+ years as long as the lessons are done on school grounds (students taking copies home for homework/practice should be allowed as long as the lessons remain on school grounds). I do not see what you do as a dead industry. You just need to recognise that your customer base expects slightly different products, a different way of purchasing, and maybe a different delivery (I would love to see an Android Tablet program that would display sheet music on screen so you can place the tablet where you used to put the printed sheet music while you play the piano. The benefit to your customer would be tone sequence recognition that would recognise that the musician has reached the end of the page and would "flip the page" automatically... think of enhancing that with the software changing the colour of the notes to RED when the student hits a bum note and logging so the teacher can review the weeks practice of the student and see if there are regular mistakes on certain passages and can work on those problem passages with the student).
boybunny, thank you so much for your great comments!! This one is fantastic too!! Now, as to the question of whether the customers would like a different licensing arrangement - hmm, I really don't know.... I suspect there's a MASSIVE market for publishers to allow teachers to choose the works they want to have in a single volume and then produce a quality publication, custom-made for them. On the other hand, I can't see this being a viable product in terms of cost to the publisher/teacher /student. So we'd be back to status quo. There have been some interesting experiments in print music with selling books at a higher unit price but including a photocopy license as part of that purchase price and it's never seemed to me to have any market appeal - the teachers will copy what they want anyway, and the good teachers want the students to have books, not photocopies, in the first place.... I'm interested to see how well touch-screen interfaces do with developing music reading apps: it's still not anywhere near as useful as paper with the current tech.
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Love your ideas about possibilities for music applications! BUT, I'd like it on the record that nothing could be less useful educationally than 'bum' notes coming up as a different colour in the music: there are all kinds of times and reasons for playing alternatives to the written notes in the process of lessons, and this would be *COMPLETELY FREAKING DISTRACTING*!!!!!! What would be most useful is an app that reads beautifully along with screens that really are more or less the same size as A3 and *then* has fantastic ways of writing on the score that are superior to working with a pencil on paper. THAT is when pianists will really start using downloadable scores instead of print product.
How am I supposed to compete in a free (i.e. not-paying-me-for-my work) market? Have you tried expanding your market? Do you have a website where your music is offered online for $.30 to $3.00? Have you tried playing your music through Youtube, similar to how Khanacademy offers free views on his channel for his math courses? Is there a way for people to talk to you about your sheet music, your songs, your performances? Do you constantly try new music or believe that just sheet music can be sold? There's plenty of avenues to take. If you need more alternatives, I'll be more than happy to point out other ways that might work to make money for you.
Thanks for your suggestions, Jay! In answer to your questions: yes to all questions until your last one, which I don't understand.... "Do you constantly try new music or believe that just sheet music can be sold?" What do you mean? When learning the piano the way teachers and students work is from a print music score sitting on the piano while they play/learn. What format do you mean?
How about "Interactive teaching models"? The sad part is we are five-ten years early for this, but an interactive touchscreen app would be an ideal way for adults and children to learn the basics of the piano. As a piano generally costs way more than this. On top of which, most schools are all too happy to purchase an on-site license, meaning they can use whatever parts of your books they choose and you get paid.
Scary Devil Monastery, no an app will never be an *ideal* way for anyone to learn to play the piano!!! Apps will be ideal for other important music education experiences, however, and it will be interesting to see what's available in those areas in 5 years time. And schools don't use my material - it's private piano teachers, mostly working from home, working one on one with mostly quite young students (ages 5-14).
pip25 2 months ago
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07.2.2012 . 16:16
I learned playing the trumpet for a while. I (and fellow students like me) bought the main course book, but supplemental pieces were always photocopied, because neither us or the school could afford the price that sheet music was sold at. As a fellow producer of creative work, Ms. Milne, I think we should ask the question whether those who copy our work would/could truly pay for it if it was not available for free on any channel, legal or otherwise. I think many either would not, or could not. Of course, if we don't get paid at all, because no one is willing to give money for what we produced, that will be bad for us - but it will be likewise bad for our audience, who found our work usable and/or enjoyable. I do believe (call it foolish faith if you will) that audiences will not be so stupid. The current industry around intellectual property might be subjected to some trimming in the process, though. I am not entirely convinced that it would be a bad thing.
Yes, I can honestly say that 95% of those who use my copied work would also use it if they had to pay. I'm happy to leave 5% wriggle room. I grew up in a place where print music prices were prohibitive, so I understand your point about not being able to afford music; however, my books retail at little more than half the minimum hourly rate in my country, costing less than a ticket to the movies.
If so, then you might be a victim of habit. Most printed music remains expensive, so some copy your works without realizing that they would be more affordable than others. I'm not sure how one could handle this, but I am pleased to hear that the situation did not affect your income so far.
pip25, I think you are completely correct with your assessment that this is a habit more than anything else!!!! Educational print music such as the kind I create is actually really affordable, pretty much across the board, these days. I think my income from book sales is probably around half of what it would be if everyone bought the book instead of having a photocopy handed to them at their lesson. Kids just do what their teachers tell them....
"I am smart about only saying yes to projects that are likely to meet a genuine need." Maybe you shouldn't be so picky if you aren't making enough money. I assume you get paid for these "projects," so I'm not seeing a problem. Unless of course you're trying to make money off of something widely available for free elsewhere; something that has been done many thousands of times in the past, and then expecting to make money until you breath your last breath. If so, you're no better than the copyright industry itself. You aren't better than the thousands of other sheet music writers in the past, so what makes you think you should make more money off it than they did? Just because the whole "starving artist" propaganda led you to believe Art = Money doesn't mean it's right. If you died off today, piano would go on, and those students would still learn. If copyright died off today, art would go on, and probably thrive.
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grawss, you misunderstood my line about only saying yes to projects that meet a genuine need: if a project does *not* meet a genuine need in the world of education then it will (and should) fail in the market. And you also misunderstand the business model - I don't get paid 'for the project', I get paid by sales of the publication. So this means I get paid my first installment of pay some 18-24 months after doing the work. And when sales are halved or more by people photocopying my work my income per project is halved (or more). If I died off today the world would absolutely go on, (although my family would be quite devastated). I don't think my work is key to the survival of piano education, [although the feedback I get from teachers is that it's changed their teaching experience in a profound and happy way :-)]. But thanks for trying to help.
"ANd when sales are halved or more by people photocopying my work my income per project is halved (or more)." Do you have actual proof of this? The movie/music industries take the same argument, saying every pirated copy is a lost sale. But all these movies/music /shows I have definitely wouldn't be sitting on a shelf in CD/DVD form if I hadn't downloaded them. The same goes for your sheet music; I highly doubt even 10% of the people who photocopied your work would have purchased it had they not been able to reproduce it themselves. As for your business model, it seems to me that there isn't much of a need for what you do, or you aren't aiming big enough. If I started a business making drinking glasses out of duct tape, I may get some business from a very niche market, but it would be stupid to rely on it to pay the bills.
grawss, it sounds to me like you are not a piano teacher. The flaw in your economic thinking here is that you are assuming that *use* of *any* music would be reduced without photocopying being available. Choosing to use no music at all would would thwart the intent of the student (to learn to play the piano) right from the get-go. Until using no music to learn to play the piano is a viable alternative to using music to learn to play the piano your argument doesn't hold up in this particular niche. It's been argued elsewhere that there would be less students learning the piano if they had to buy music, a claim that doesn't take into account the high cost of a year's worth of lessons in comparison to purchasing music (music for a year's worth of lessons would cost about the same as three weeks of lessons) - no one is going to say "that's it, I won't learn" with that ratio.... And that also does not factor in the cost of purchasing a piano!!
So, Elissa Milne, if a student that has no money and is in dept $50,000 on loans and untold credit cards borrows a copy of your music from a teacher in order to do an unpaid performance, you truly believe you should be paid for this? This saddens me. You are only in it for the money and do not want people to hear your music... It's not a line of work of love for you, is it?
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While I understand the meaning behind your post, I would like to point out that for many artists who have invested time and money into their line of work there is the dual mindset that equally believes it's a passion AND a line of work.
I design electronics... I don't cry and scream when people copy my work, or even flat out recreate it as-is. I'm just happy as hell people like and use my stuff, it might just be around when I'm not anymore. If I had any artistic skill I would totally be doing my best to spread it far and wide, not lock it up or not create it unless there was monetary gain... Passion and love for something do not involve money. Money is a byproduct of doing the thing you love.
You apply your morals to determine what other people's motives must be. "Money is a byproduct of doing the thing you love." In the ideal world, that would be true. It's not true here. My loves, for example, are whittling wood, painting rocks and playing video games. I have never been and never will be paid for doing either, and believe me, I've tried quite hard; As a result, I have a job that doesn't involve doing any of these, and I preform my enjoyable and artistic (maybe not the gaming) activities much less. Money doesn't come naturally. It comes from market demand. The problem here is the observation that if music is free, than musicians will have a harder time making money (and the same goes for movie makers and game designers and etc.). It then becomes an opportunity cost; I want to preform the activity I love, but then again, I also want to have nice things, and I want to provide for my family (or just earn enough to HAVE a family), and I want to earn enough to not have to rent houses, and I want to spend time relaxing. The reason people want to make money from their art is so that they can keep on making it without having to devote their time and energy to less productive and less enjoyable work. Artists exist in the real world. They exist in the free market. And sometimes, the free market says "I quit".
Example: Sistine Chape Ceilingl; great work of art. A true beauty and an artistic wonder. Made for the money (Michelangelo thought all art that wasn't sculptures was inferior, and only made them in order to make his sculptures).
...there is the dual mindset that equally believes it's a passion AND a line of work. Some 90% of the world's currently employed population would most likely say that there have been extensive periods of time where they had to work with tasks they didn't have a passion for. Roughly 99,99% or more of any aspiring artists will simply fail. Stephen King is the odd one out of ten thousand artists who tried making a living out of writing and actually succeeded. Even though perhaps at least 1% of the aspirants actually wrote stuff very worth reading which would (and perhaps did) cater to relatively wide audiences. The moral of the story is very clear - if something is fun for people to produce then enough people will produce it to create a supply which meets the demand as is. And that means there is no market place available for selling that product.
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Or at least, there should not be, according to any theory. However, the ability to generate a potent brand combined with advertising will make a lie out of even that logic as today people can survive by simply running a popular blog. If you find great demand for what you write then failing to cash in is a failure of your ability to market it - as demonstrated amply by, for example, Paulo Coelho.
Resin: Paint rocks, sell at flea market. It's not often I see them but I know they sell well when nicely painted rocks are at a open stall gathering. My mom is quite fond of her round rock painted like a shoe that holds the patio door open, and she bought it!
Resin: Oh... You've so validated my original response of telling her she's doing something she doesn't love. You can sell your whittles and rocks (I've seen it done, as I said in my first reply to you.) You're only replying to half of my statements and ignoring the other half. She's not doing something she loves, nor is the mass of other "job" holding people. People that have careers and love going to work everyday, that's a passion. People that write, paint, sculpt, sing, fart in jars, and juggle flaming donkey nuts... and get paid for doing it when they love doing it, is doing something you love and enjoy and the money is a byproduct of it. I love my career, I won't take positions in my company higher than this one that pay more when I can, because I LOVE my career. The money is a byproduct of doing things I love to do every day.
The point I'm making is that many people CAN'T make a career out of what they love. It would be impossible for me to support myself with the rocks and whittling. I know. I've tried. The reason I stopped trying was because I couldn't meet rent. That's the problem. Passions don't always match possible careers. I'm really glad that your passion was career-worthy, but the simple fact is that electronics design is a market-demanded profession. Many forms of art are not, and there is a legitimate concern that free content. Your experience of getting a career doing what you love does not mean that it's possible for everyone. Just remember that.
Lulz, thank you so much for taking the time to think about whether I love my work or not. I've very much enjoyed reading your assessment. I cannot think of a polite way to respond to your post. It saddens me that you think this way, and there is obviously no way for me to dissuade you from this judgment. It kinda goes without saying that if $ motivated me I'd have chosen a different line of work.
@Elissa: You are right, trying to monetarily rely on past models in a world where
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there is almost no cost to copying is like standing on quicksand. I think that the future, ultimately, will be the model used by the websites Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. In a way this a return to the past, when copyright didn't exist and artists would be sponsored by patrons. The difference this time is that the patrons won't be a few rich people, but dozens or hundreds of average people (plus maybe a few rich people) who'll be willing to pre-order your work based on your past record. Essentially, the future of art will be grants. Artists will do what scientists do today constantly write grant proposals and work on the ones for which there is public demand.
I do think you are right. We are heading back into the age of patronage for the arts; the market model for what I do, in any case, has been seriously frayed.... It's just changing the gatekeepers....
After reading all these posts (its always good to here a structured argument from the otherside, we're used to these retarded trolls on here). I'm not sure where you fit in to most of these arguments to be honest. Photocopiers have been around for decades (says it in the article) and I assume you are still earning money to live off? You claim you would be making twice as much if all students who used your works bought them. This is true in a literal sense but as others have pointed out you are probably lucky that even half buy the copy given that it is likely to be set by a teacher and your average student is very poor! If you have seen a recent decline in your profits its more likely due to the fact that less people are learning the piano these days and spending there time doing other things (youngsters of today usually spend their time on facebook) so I doubt your issue is with file sharing or the fact that copyright has failed to support your business model. Unfortunately this is life, you either adapt to a new market or medium or fail and get a different job!
Danny, I haven't seen a recent decline in my profits. I've seen a steady increase in the popularity and use of my music. And piano students are not poor. If they are poor they can't even afford a piano, as a rule (of course there are exceptions). Children of the middle class tend to be the ones who learn the piano. There have been some comments here which critique the capitalist economic system per se, and I'm extremely sympathetic to this perspective, but in the meantime this is the world we live in and I'd enjoy having a living wage from a 40 hour week rather than from a 65+ hour week...
In my youth, I was assigned quite a few musical pieces to learn and perform at recitals and examinations. Most pieces were not to my taste, but fit the curriculum of my instructor. The pieces had been paid for by our school, but my copy would not fit your rather limited definition of licensing. Should I have been forced to pay an additional licensing fee for being assigned a piece of work I had no desire to play, other than fulfilling a course requirement? Many of the students you reference in your comment have the same problem. If they refuse, they will not pass the course. I mean no offense to your skills, just that tastes vary with the individual. If all students were required to pay additional fees for each copy of music they were assigned, there would be a great deal fewer students
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studying music. That would certainly make us a poorer society.

You shouldn't have been forced to learn music with someone who was unsympathetic to your tastes. It seems to me that paying that person was the source of the error which lead to your thinking that if you don't like cabbage you should be allowed to take it from the grocer for free, since your mum's making you eat it. Now, will fewer students learn music if they have to pay for my music? No! That's a very funny suggestion!
If, however, students *must* pay for your music, they may very well choose a CC-licensed work that lets them practice for free instead. Right now I see two ways for the Copyright industry to go. The first is, they keep it up with their ridiculous demands, refuse to cooperate and, indeed, won't coexist with the filesharers. This path will eventually lead to more and more people saying "Well screw you!" and start using more and more CC-licensed music and other works. This way, the copyright industry will eventually sue themselves into oblivion. It might take a few decades but it will happen. The second way, is that the copyright industry starts listening to their customers. Design products and above all, services that appeal to the filesharing generation. Release older works as they aren't worth much anymore. Provide easy access to your own content for a reasonable fee, and customers will flock to you in droves. This way the copyright industry will survive. You decide.
Cabbage cannot be copied without removing the original...

Per, my music doesn't fall into a CC-licensed category. And no, students don't ever HAVE to play my music. Also, the copying is not in response to student demand, it's a teacher thing. I don't have a view on what the whole industry should do, basically because I can't do anything to influence the whole copyright industry!!! Asking *me* to decide seems to be misunderstanding what composers do. And, as I've noted elsewhere, my music is available at very affordable prices.
123, you are right: cabbage is not reproducible in the same way something can be photocopied. If you are patient you could grow your own, however, and not have to pay for cabbages. In any case, your point fails to engage with the idea that it's OK to not pay for things you don't like but consume anyway. There are good reasons to copy/pirate, but doing so because you didn't really want it anyway is a really dumb reason.
Per Ekstrm 2 months ago
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Elissa, you misunderstand. Author A offers a CC-licensed piece that lets you play music for free. Author B offers a copyrighted piece that requires a fee to play. In this case Author B will lose customers to Artist A because, given the two alternatives, many will go for the license that costs less money. You are competing directly *with* CC-licensed music, even if you *yourself* isn't selling any.
Per, music of the kind I write is never CC-licensed. I am only competing against like products. I think you misunderstood my post where I said that my music doesn't fall into this category - I literally meant the whole category of the field of education for which I write (private piano lessons) does not fall within the reach of CC-licensed work - there's nothing of this kind competing with me or any of the other composers working in my field. Also, note that I am not feeling aggrieved that students are choosing other composers than myself - my work is being used by plenty of students. I'd just like to get paid when my music is used. Your comments about licensing seem to accept copyright licensing as a part of the economy, which seems some what contrary to the spirit of the original post. In my particular situation one kind of copyright licensing is the only kind used. Maybe one day the model will change, but for now there is no competition per se in my field between licensing models.
You are not the "copyright industry" by any stretch of the imagination. Even legally speaking, photocopying a short piece of music for educational purposes is not copyright infringement, as it's covered by fair use (in the US) and fair dealing (in most other places). Speaking as a self-employed software engineer (I'm not the "copyright industry" either), I would advise you to concentrate on using the internet to make your sheet music easily and super-cheaply available. Make it easier and better to buy from your website than use a photocopy. Provide services that are valuable and wanted but not photocopyable! It goes without saying that at the very minimum you should have an online shop where anyone can buy your sheet music in digital form. The shop should sell all your books in digital and physical format (priced accordingly), and also the choice to download individual copies of each piece (for much cheaper). If you've signed all your rights away, even the most moronic publisher should allow you to do this much. If you still own your rights and want to try fancier things, you can innovate and do cool stuff to attract more people. I'll give you some ideas, but don't forget that at the end of the day you'll need to do some out-of-the-box thinking yourself and do real work -- you'll need to be an entrepreneur.
The shop could also offer your music pieces sorted in groups by difficulty, students will be able to listen to recordings and choose their favourite pieces from each group to create their own music course (the website could give immediate feedback about their choices to keep the difficulties balanced). The students will then be able to download the custom course they chose in a common digital format like pdf, which they can print themselves (and it should look pretty and even have the student's name on the first page in a calligraphic font!). This costs you nothing but offers a worthwhile service and convenience that no photocopying teacher or pirate can match, and it's done at a bargain price point (you are aiming to convert non-paying customers into paying customers; a digital copy costs you nothing so you are aiming for a large volume of small sales). Rule #1 of selling digital goods in 2011 is that a digital copy should cost significantly less than a printed book. Low price, convenience and valuable uncopyable services is how you
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provide something worthwhile that can compete with free. The copyable things are a bonus, since they'll bring attention to the stuff you're actually trying to sell -- the photocopies are not all bad in this sense! Your online shop should also sell copies of your existing paper books. Since you are selling directly, you can undercut distributors and other middlemen and keep all the profits. You could even offer a small printing service, where students can have their custom books printed on quality paper for a decent price (I believe most such books are only 25 pages or so, so your local print shop could easily do several hundred of these for cheap.. but you need to do the costings before you try it). Why would anyone buy these? Signed by the author! If your name is recognisable, make use of it! As an example, the digital copies could be $0.99, the plain printed books $3.99+postage and the custom printed books $10.99+postage. Those prices are only indicative of course, but it's a fact that independent ebooks on Amazon typically sell for around $0.99 (check if you don't believe me). There's all sorts of things you can do on the internet to monetise your books and reputation. For example, you could provide music theory lessons on your website, and even entire interactive courses based around your music. For an annual fee you could offer interactive lessons that teach music theory through the website so students don't need to waste time during physical lessons. The website could allow teachers to monitor their students' progress remotely, set/mark tests (pre-prepared tests that the teachers can modify; multiple-choice questions can be graded automatically while essay questions can be delivered to the teacher for grading, etc), allow teachers and students to communicate, give online lectures to multiple students etc. Remember, you aren't just selling the lessons themselves (which can be copied, except the interactive parts) but also the service of being able to communicate easily and the convenience of having all the information neatly in one place. If there's an open forum where all subscribers can chat, you could drop by every day to personally answer some questions about your work -- nobody can photocopy that! For instance, you could sell a $25/student package that gives access to all the online lessons and facilities and includes a custom ebook of your music in the price. Perhaps the theory lessons could be automatically customised to each student's selection of music pieces, so they are shown examples of music they are (or will become) familiar with. You get the idea. I hope.
Thanks. Your comment was like a whole other article.

Wow. That was really informative. Lots of good ideas there, I hope Elissa Milne takes a look at some of them.
Thanks for these suggestions. My publisher already does all of this. Apart from having the student's name in a pretty calligraphic font. And it doesn't 'cost nothing' to set up a website/service that does this, which is why I'm quite thrilled my publisher does do this.
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No problem. I should point out that your publisher (Alfred Music Publishing, yes?) isn't really doing any of what I suggested, at least as far as I can tell. They do have an online shop, but they aren't even selling any of your music in digital format, and especially not individual pieces -- like I said, that's the minimum they should be doing to compete with free photocopies. Being forced to buy a $10 physical book to get the one piece they want from that book is not the way to dissuade people from photocopying the piece they want (just like people buying music don't like to buy a $10 physical CD to get the one song they like from that CD). Of course, maybe your sheet music is available in a digital format through your publisher's iPad app? If so, can it be printed out? If you are satisfied with their app, in my opinion you are doing yourself a great disservice -- their app is very badly rated, and I suspect not many people will ever use it... Also, not only is your name buried several clicks deep in the publisher's website, a google search for your name doesn't even lead to the publisher's website. In fact, a google search for your name doesn't lead to a place where your books can be bought until the second results page! (But your blog comes up at the top -- at least add a link from there to the publisher's shop!) As for setting up an online shop, believe me it really does 'cost nothing'!!! There are dozens of open source e-shop solutions out there, which you can pick up and use completely for free (and there's no catch)! You could have your own e-commerce website up and running within a couple of hours for less than $50, as long as you know someone who can help you set it up. Don't be thrilled that your publisher is doing something trivial that you could easily be doing yourself for a fraction of the cost and ten times the benefits. I'm telling you this speaking from experience, as I've had to deal with such middlemen in my own career... never again. Get out of your comfort zone and start thinking like an entrepreneur! That's the best advice I can offer someone. Anyway, good luck and thanks for reading! :)
Momo, no, Alfred Publishing is not my publisher. And I agree that Alfred could do a lot along the lines of your suggestions. One of my publishers (and the one I'm referencing here) is Faber Music, and most of my pieces ARE available as individual downloads. It's hard to discuss your comment further because your criticisms of Alfred do not apply to Faber. And obviously it's hard to find my name on the Alfred site because they don't publish me (although they do distribute my music, very different role). Your suggestion to link from my blog to the Faber site is a good one, on the other hand! And your suggestion that I start thinking like an entrepreneur has made me smile! I appreciate that many people see a publisher as a middle man who does nothing but take from the producer of the work, but I know what's involved in publishing in terms of investment and time, and I'm perfectly happy to 'pay' someone to do that side of the business for me (pre-parenthood I had time, but it's been fantastic to not have to worry about stock and deliveries while dealing with a newborn/toddler/preschooler).
Elissa, your comments are so true and it's not just music or books that have their copyright breached. I design houses for people and come up with original concepts. It continually amazes me that people think they own the copyright of our work because they engaged me to do a design for them and this is how much the copyright laws are misunderstood. As an example every design I do the builder then thinks that they are now their designs which they then pass off as their own because they paid for the plans. It's a bit like a music shop buying a shipment of music and therefore they must surely own the copyright because they paid for the music.
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So you want the builder to pay you for every house he builds with your one plan? He bought the plan he can build that house as many times as he wants with it... it's a plan and he's a builder. You're a designer, make more plans! Music store owns the CD's, jewel cases, boxes, and even the packing peanuts... just like the builder owns the plans on the paper. If he loses his copies of the plans or gives them away then he'll have to buy another, just like the store has to buy more. Get over it :-P
Lulz, read up on the law. Are you trying to say that If one person bought a copy of Windows 7 then that person would own the rights to Windows 7 and could then duplicate it at free will? What if I bought a Panadol tablet I would then own the formula? The original authors have rights and are entitled to be paid for their research and contribution of their work and there are laws protecting their rights no matter what the popular belief is. The bit about making a copy of someone's car means I didn't steal it? Well yes it is an offence and perhaps this needs further explaining. If you made a copy of the latest model ford as an example and started selling them do you really think the ford motor company would just sit back and say well done! or how about copying $100 dollar bills, I didn't steal them officer, I just made copies.
It never ceases to amaze me how preoccupied some folks are over losing imaginary profits. They always assume that if a copies of the content wasn't available, everyone would buy their work instead. Wishful thinking at its finest. Anyone who goes to the trouble of finding a free copy, whether one is available or not, is showing you they either don't want to pay, or simply cannot pay. If they can't find your work for free, they'll look for other works that are. This type of person will never feel obligated to pay just because they can't find the material they're seeking for free. If paying was in their nature, they wouldn't be looking for a copy to begin with! The other preoccupation that always amazes me is how a lot of so called "artists" will say and do whatever it takes to be paid repeatedly, and in perpetuity, for one single piece of work. They want as much money as they can get for as little effort as possible. I honestly can't think of anything lazier. Besides the obvious moral implications, there is also a major problem to consider when allowing this kind of behavior. It takes away all incentive to create new creative works, the exact opposite of what copyright was meant to do before vested interests warped it into something completely malign. And to think this is the exact type of person society has chosen to worship as their "fans". No wonder civilization is becoming so morally bankrupt, what with role models like these.
@Blueprintdesigns "If you made a copy of the latest model ford as an example and started selling them do you really think the ford motor company would just sit back and say well done!" Never tell others to read up on law when you demonstrate such screaming ignorance yourself. If I make a copy of the latest Ford using my own materials then I am
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certainly able to drive that car without paying ford a damn cent. I am not able to sell the car for profit and I'm in really hot water if I try to put the Ford logo on the car (brand fraud). The same holds true with any physical item I would create using my own materials for my own private use. So yes, I am fully entitled to building a house which is as identical a copy as I can make it to some other house. Irrespective of who drew the plans for that house. This is how "fair use" works. In short, if your skills as an architect are on par with your skills in logic and law then I can at least assure you the demand to copy your style will be in low demand.
Blueprintdesigns, then by your logic I should pay every time I listen to a song on a CD. *BOOM*... You're boat just exploded and sunk. Unless you've explicitly sold the builder a plan with written agreement (Microsoft's EULA) that they will only build 1 house with it then they can build any number of houses with it they darn well wish to. You sold them plans to make a house, not materials and the labor to build said house. If he chooses to make that house more than once then that's his choice, how would you know if he did anyways? Do you drive every road in a 100+ mile radius of your house?
You should read what Glib said. Especially regarding the work sustainability. A piano teacher is indispensable and thus able to charge an hourly fee for his/her services. Educational types of music is, i hate to say, an optional extra once you have a teacher at hand. Your problem is that you are catering to a very nichd field to begin with - and much as is the case with open source computer programs, you can find free-for-all equivalents written by enthusiasts everywhere on the internet to begin with. As your books are available, they may be an easy source to photocopy from. But be assured that if the alternative is for each student to pay an extra 50$ for materials then those books will not even be an alternative any longer - a collation of "dummies guides" made of internet enthusiasts will take it's place.
I don't mind in the slightest if students don't want to play my music. If they are not buying my music because they prefer someone else's then that's fine!!! It's when they really do want to play my music, and they go on overseas holidays and have plasma screen tvs and so forth, but go to enormous effort to not pay $9 for a collection of pieces.....
If I may be so bold, it seems like you're suggesting that what you have a problem with the entitlement of your students; that they don't pay you for your products even though they have no restriction of means preventing them from doing so. Does that sound accurate to you? If so, it may be worth considering that this attitude is becoming more commonplace. It may be healthy to see the attitude not as entitlement, but as an acknowledgement that intellectual works have less inherant value because they can be easily copied, removing their physical scarcity. The effect of this is that production of cultural goods will probably shift to high-class producers, and low-cost / free producers. Middle of the road types such yourself will probably feel the brunt of the change.
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I think I went a bit off track from my original point there, but my overall point you may have to acknowledge that changing technologies and attitudes means that the market doesn't value your work anymore. It's harsh, it seems that that's the cost of change. Hope you have luck in your business.
Ogra, your comment seems to me to be getting to the heart of it: the day will arrive when *anything* that reproducible 'work' will have extremely low to nil value, and all value will reside in what cannot be reproduced. I genuinely believe that the day will come when composers do not receive income from their composing but from the appearances they make and the way they can exploit their *existence* (as compared to their work, which merely acts as an advertisement for the existence of the composer). The astonishing business successes of people who are famous for being famous suggests there is much more income to be derived from the aggregation of happy vibes than anything else, and this trend also signals that brand-value is vastly more powerful than property. Just some thoughts to add to yours!!
That's roughly true. It would do you well to not see that as too much of a negative. In the end, the system will probably end up being that decent hard-workers will end up subsidizing not only those who are to poor to pay for cultural products, but also those who are simply too greedy to pay. It will be, as one poster before me said, a system of patronage, where the good-hearted subsidize the assholes. Oh well. It will probably end up being a rather poor system that doesn't reward artists and other cultural producers unless they are either quite famous or are willing to work for no reward. However, the other solution, copyright, is even worse because it infringes on property rights and applies punishments to those who seek to use their property to the full extent. In the end, I'm not sure that the new system will be more rewarding than the old to artists... but it will preserve liberties, and that's more important. An ideal solution would be one where people actually paid for work they used out of some sense of personal morality.... if that could actually happen; As much as I love Pirates, I know they are human like anyone else, and human morality is easily broken, particularly if their actions aren't public. It's harsh, but sometimes a sacrifice must be made in the name of preserving freedom. I do hope you're not among the causalities. Best of luck.
This is a question of priorities above all. There are many reasons why someone would choose to create a copy of a work instead of getting the original. Normally this debate is held regarding software and electronic media where other rules apply, but when it comes to sheet music (or, for that matter, paper books) we are looking at two primary guilty parties above all: Convenience and economy (some might say "common sense", depending). I'm unfamiliar with the size and composition of your books but can well imagine the following situation. A piano teacher is to hold a class. For his curriculum he chooses three songs out of twenty from your books, as well as some representative examples from the classics. Instead of handing out a separate copy of your book to each and every one of his 20 students, incurring a 180-dollar expense and a possible hernia from carrying them
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he simply takes down his one copy of your book and copies the three specific songs he had in mind for his class, along with printouts of the classical pieces copied down from the internet. He staples these together into a neat selection for each student and thus has his studying materials well in hand. The alternative would not only mean higher expense (something the class could most likely bear) but far more importantly for the teacher in question, it just isn't as convenient as creating a portfolio suited to his particular curriculum. I can say with a great degree of accuracy that this same way of using reference material is standard modus operandi in any university. I don't think I've attended a single course in my many years of education where a large part of the preassembled learning material did not consist of stapled-together photocopies. Of course where university studies are concerned, trying to bring in every book containing valid references would result in an expenditure for books easily surpassing the average student's living expenses per month and so there the factor of economy takes the front seat instead. Your problem, then, seems to be one of catering to the crowd desiring to use mere extracts of your works while also having no convenient way of remunerating you for the use of that fraction. The challenge is to create a method which ensures it is simply more convenient for your customer to use the services you provide rather than hauling himself downstairs for a lengthy date with a photocopier and stapler. I'm sorry to say your problem is a very old one. And ironically it's one the invention of the internet did very little to excarberate. There may, however, be mitigating solutions out there, like webpage solutions doing the work of collating for said teachers. Honestly, you'd be in a far better position if your work was universally acclaimed and downloaded by everyone, achieving total market penetration. That approach worked for Paulo Coelho and a number of other authors...but relies on having a far larger consumer base to work with. Coelhos work may have been downloaded a few hundred million times but the end result was him selling twelve million more copies of his book after releasing it for free because people wanted it on their shelves. I don't see that many aspiring piano players around I'm sad to say. "I do think you are right. We are heading back into the age of patronage for the arts; the market model for what I do, in any case, has been seriously frayed.... It's just changing the gatekeepers..." The market model for what you do, dear lady, became seriously frayed once printers and photocopiers became publicly available. As for the age of patronage...that never went away. Honestly, any artist creating a work relies in effect on creating a work, publishing it, and hoping that enough people will like it to remunerate him for his service. In reality, trying to put information (which is what any media is) on the same level as physical property or services is something neither human nature nor the universe will cooperate with. It's not necessarily a losing proposition. Trent Reznor managed to sell a million copies of an album he already gave away for free. Earning millions in the process. Busking becomes a whole other ballgame when you can play every street corner in the world simultaneously with no more effort involved. But as I said earlier, that method relies on being able to reach vast amounts of people, so even if you think what I'm writing makes sense I'm pretty sure it doesn't offer very much comfort. :(
Hi Scary Devil Monastery, piano teachers overwhelmingly teach one on one. They tailor the materials they use *specifically* to the student. Students use the music over some period of time. Which leads us to your point about convenience and economy. Absolutely the most convenient thing for the student is to have a book. Photocopies are easily lost, they don't stand well on the piano, they bend and tear, and so forth. But photocopies are convenient for the teacher in that they don't have to plan ahead - they can suddenly
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think "OOH, we'll do *this* fantastic new piece" and make a copy right there and then (maybe planning to buy the music later) and away they go. Of course, then it's never convenient to organise to buy the music, and next thing you know six months have passed. Economy: these products are not expensive. What's interesting is that piano teachers would hardly EVER scan a piece of music and email it to a student. That would be beyond the pale. But making a photocopy? Sure.
"How am I supposed to compete in a free (i.e. not-paying-me-for-my work) market?" Rebecca Black posts a (rather lousy) video for free on youtube and almost instantly sells several hundred thousand copies on iTunes? Paulo Coelho publishes his book "The Alchemist" on The Pirate Bay and his book sales skyrocket by 12 million? Evian puts water in a bottle and sells it at a hundred times the production cost even though good tap water is universally available? Trent Reznor publishes his album "Ghost I-IV" on the pirate bay and still manages to sell one million copies of the physical album on amazon afterwards? (becoming amazon's top seller for that year, btw) There are numerous people who today make a very good living out of writing blogs. They are not being paid for this at all - but the ads on their pages convert reader's "eyeball time" to hard cash. There are thousands of people who do wonderfully well in obtaining money for their work despite the work being available entirely for free. The key is volume - if only one in ten pay, then widen your audience by a factor of 100.
Also, I don't think it's ethical to link education to advertising. Kids should, in my opinion, be allowed to learn without having fast food or children's consumer products marketed at them in the process. But I appreciate many of the comments here don't have this qualm.
No, this is a dilemma. Advertising and education do not mix well in an ethical sense unless you can be sure the viewers are adults. However, if what you sold was a service where you did the collating of material a piano teacher has to perform then you could be certain the person viewing the ads was an adult. In addition to charging for the service. You mentioned earlier that composers will come to reap benefits from their existence and not their works. I beg to differ and would make the claim that this has always been the case. An artist/creator generates an image - a brand, if you like - and that brand is what enables them to reach out and sell, well, anything. Linus Torvald once created the operating system known today as Linux. For this he became a living legend. He chose to publish it as open source and to my knowledge has never directly earned a single cent from it's development. However, he can write his own paycheck today and i'm pretty sure any IT company would pay him top dollar just to have it known he is sitting around in their offices. Even if his job description was "Look like a computer guru".
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Evian can sell bottled water at 5 per liter. Despite tap water or unbranded labels being every bit as good. The difference between a good quality handbag and an almost-identical one branded "Louis Vuitton" can be two orders opf magnitude in price and nothing else. The list goes on. When it comes to artists...Trent Reznor became so irate when his record company hiked the prices on his music he ordered his fans to rip it all from the pirate bay. Today he pulls down more money selling "free" music than he did in all of the rest of his career. Because his fans are more than willing to throw cash at him. Metallica burned their own fans at the stake with the napster-case, dumping their own trademark with their fans. And ended up with a ten-year exile from the music scene from which they are just now recovering. This is not a new phenomenon. Being known sells. In the case of Rebecca Black or Justin Bieber, even being known for being atrociously bad sells. This is the way humans work.
I'm seeing a problem with what you're saying; all of the people you mentioned are A. At the very top of their respective fields, and B. Paid for being famous. This doesn't seem like a solution for the average person. A general worker doesn't have a brand-name. They don't have that sort of recognition. The way you describe it, it doesn't sound like people have a reason to pay for anything that isn't either extremely new and good (something that should be paid for) or comes brandstamped and approved by fame (like Renzor and Bieber (and no, I'm not comparing their quality there, before someone bitches about it)). It seems that we should be slightly concerned that the new paradigm seems to reward the top-tier (the very rich and successful), while placing more burden on the somewhat more average. Isn't that a point of bother here, that the rich are getting more money while the producer of anything that's not already famous seems to have less chance of success.
To clarify, I'm not sure that this new solution does anything other than support the few who gain fame, while not rewarding the average hard-worker. A prime complaint to me seems to be that being a Rebecca Black or Kim Kardashian, being famous for nothing of worth, is seen as a more successful way to live than working designing something that people want and demand, but aren't necessarily inclined to pay for. That's more of a cultural problem than a legal one, and certainly one I don't lay at the feet of the Pirate Movement, but it's still something that I can never quite get over.
Elissa, I would like to thank you for coming here, and making this one of the best comment discussions I have seen here on TorrentFreak. It is nice and good that you have an opposing viewpoint while still having a civil discussion based on facts and civil arguments. The kind of discourse you have raised here is fruitful and educating. Even the "worst" of pirates have a lot of respect for the people who created the works they copy. I just hope that not too many people here have mistaken you for one of the (probably paid) trolls who often come here to again and again repeat arguments that have been refuted again and again. If someone here have verbally attacked you because of such a mistake, please allow me to apologize on their behalf.
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The way you listen to our arguments while still remaining skeptical, as any sane person would be to the arguments of a different viewpoint, reminds me of the Swedish author Anna Troberg when she first argued with pirates in the comments on her blog after having criticized the pirates in a blog entry. She was also respectful, and listened to arguments while still being skeptical. Today she is the leader of the Pirate Party of Sweden.
Pirat, thanks for your comments. I haven't read (and probably won't have time to read) all the comment directed at me, but I've already come across one person who can't *believe* I could come to this site of my own (unpaid) volition! I don't know the dynamic of this site, so I can completely understand if my appearance and conversation are disconcerting to some - I appreciate your encouragements to pay the disconcerted no heed. As far as your implication that I could lead a political party devoted to the legalisation of piracy, I am flattered! I think the issue is bigger than one of piracy, and it comes down to what we pay people for when they work. Is it time? Is it value? And do we pay with cash? With shares? With food and shelter? How do we as a society choose to organise our relationships with each other and with the value we give to each other and the energy we take from each other? Fixing one element (such as copyright law) would leave all the other elements unfixed - no reason not to fix what we can, but the picture is bigger than *copyright*. What value is society going to give to those who create the kinds of things I do? Is that value no longer going to be money, but from now on will be fame? My original comments/questions were not intended to support the continuation of existing copyright laws, but rather to explore what will take their place. How will I receive an income without *either* a wage or a royalty? What new form of recompense awaits me?!! [OR, do I now have to ingratiate myself with wealthy people and in turn they'll support me?!]
"The key is volume - if only one in ten pay, then widen your audience by a factor of 100." In short, factor in the possibility that your work will be pirated anyway.
Elissa, I have made a killing in the educational arena. First, you need to understand that piano education is a very small niche market. It is best to try to find the widest market inside education that you can. If your product can be reinvented to include a wider range of students, then you will sell more units for a higher price. Possibly a music/piano education kit based on software (in basic game form, for absolute beginners), but with a printed teachers kit. Just ask as many school music teachers that you can what thy would like in a kit, and what lessons they would like to include. Ask children as well for their opinions, but understand that they probably have no idea what they want, but you may find new angles that entertain them. Next, sell "Site Licences". Schools do hate to keep buying the same books. They need to keep track of each books publisher. Not to mention that books go out of print without notice. I have found that schools have no problem paying for a site licence for hundreds of dollars as a one off cost. Some simple licences of simple products can be $800. Though I have found you can get a 33% market penetration in a couple of years with a site licence of $200. For a full printed educational kit with multiple copies and some professionally printed CDs or DVDs, I would expect that
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$500-$1500 would be acceptable. ASK teachers and schools beforehand how much they would pay for a full kit that they pay for once and can photocopy and burn copy CDs of for decades. Schools pay quickly, which is better than selling to businesses. Schools can be advertised to easily at the right time of year (they have funding cycles, learn when they are) with nothing more than a targeted mail drop. Thats about the cheapest advertising any business can hope for. If you need help, use my login name and add a gmail address to the end to email me. I can give advice on all sorts of things. Including how cheap it is to print CDs and DVDs, how to lay out the screenprinted tops of the disks (it actually needs to be layed out as a five or six colour process for colour disks, as opposed to a four colour process for printing on paper).
Thanks so much for your advice and your willingness to help! The kind of music I compose is used by private piano teachers, no schools involved. This change the marketing dynamic sufficiently that most of your expertise with schools would not be particularly relevant - with THIS!! I may well be in touch regarding other projects that DO address the school market!! Can I make a living out of composing educational piano music that is marketed to an other-than-school based market? I suspect I can, given enough time and enough product. That's not really the issue though - the question I started with came down to how I could make money from composing educational piano music if not through the prism of property law.... There is no existing economic model for paying me a wage through anything other than copyright provisions, and your post details how you've made a good living through copyright! So, while you're helpful in a personal sense, you're telling me that copyright gives me new markets to explore! And this is not what the article was about at all!!!
@Elissa Milne It seems your comment (the one I am replying to), is the fifth one in this article (not counting the replies by Xult and Comon-_). Question is, as an "educational piano music" writer, what the F are you doing on Torrentfreak? Perhaps you don't make enough money from your "educational piano music", so now you also have a job posting pro copyright comments on sites like Torrentfreak. And perhaps you decided to post using your real name because the previous comment was by "notanonymousoracoward".
Wow! This is the funniest conspiracy theory I've ever heard (funniest, no doubt, because it involves a theory about me). I follow cool people on twitter, John! And one of them retweeted the link to this article. I decided long ago to post using my real name everywhere because then I wouldn't need to remember who the F I was. And posting with my full, real name keeps me from being tempted into trolling :-). Maybe it's time to take a look at your preconceptions about composers, and about people who work in music education! [although to be fair to you, I'm not typical of my kind]
The way someone gets paid (or 'competes') in a free market is by convincing
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someone to agree to pay you for providing a good or service, or in other words, working for them. If a student made a photocopy of some music you wrote, you haven't worked for him or her, and have not provided any good or service to him or her. You did work for yourself sometime prior to that hoping that people would pay you for it someday in the future. Presumably some people have met these hopes, since you imply you make an income from it. So some people see the product you sell as more valuable than a photocopy they made themselves. They agree to buy a product or good you've made and you sell it to them. Others don't see the good you're selling as more valuable than making a photocopy themselves and so some make a copy instead. You didn't provide any good or service to these people: you did not do any work for them, and thus are not entitled to any payment. There are infinite ways anyone can say... BUT I just can't make as much money for myself at my particular chosen profession unless this that and the other law is passed to subsidize my chosen profession and force people i've never done any work for to pay me money. For example, let's say I'm a construction worker and I built a bridge. Now anyone and everyone is crossing this bridge constantly without each of them paying me every time. I'm losing tons of money i could be making because all these people are not paying me for my work. Therefore Congress needs to pays a special law for me and my fellow workers and attack these bridge crossers so i can make more money. Or, I'm a landscaper. Now I made this beautiful landscape and only the first property owner payed me. But then everyone who drives by gets to enjoy my landscape without paying me for my work, and so I'm losing money and can't compete, so Congress needs to pass a special law for me and attack these landscape enjoyers who each owe me money. This is all ridiculous but somehow the copyright industry and many governments have decided that "Creative People" - but nobody else - must have special laws just for them to force everyone in the world to pay them every time anyone makes some kind of use out of their previous, already completed, work.
You might be surprised how many laws other than copyright law have been passed to ensure workers receive a certain base level wage, all the way from legislation that determines minimum wages all the way through to other legislations regarding relationships between workers and employees. It could be argued that copyright law is an extension of this kind of lawmaking. On the other hand, copyright law is essentially a law regarding property, not work, and copyright laws are the extreme versions of reification of time, intellect and endeavour. So my work is reified (as a property) in order that it may be legislated about, and instead of receiving a wage I receive a royalty. That obviously creates a problem when discussing these issues: how can my kind of work get transferred back into the working-for-a-wage category when it has been legislated as workingto-create-capital for hundreds of years? Landscapers, fortunately for you, still have their work in the working-for-a-wage category, so you will make a half decent living *in the first place*. And that's without going into a philosophical discussion as to the value that the owner of the garden receives from the passers-by seeing his/her fantastic garden and ascribing qualities to the owner of the garden as a result. Music doesn't have an owner the same way a garden does. But in any case, copyright law is not about charging for enjoyment, it's about charging for use, and I don't think you've understood the difference between these two concepts.
"You might be surprised how many laws other than copyright law have been passed to ensure workers receive a certain base level wage" I'm well aware of things like minimum wage laws and other labour laws, but these are not akin to copyright law. For one, the worker receiving the minimum wage has already gotten the people paying to agree to pay for a good or service that the
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worker provides, not being paid by people the worker hasn't worked for. Nor does copyright law guarantee any wage to anyone. I could easily write a bunch of scores (do the work) and make no money or wage. "But in any case, copyright law is not about charging for enjoyment, it's about charging for use, and I don't think you've understood the difference between these two concepts." Perhaps you're right that I don't understand the difference between those two concepts because they are nebulous concepts that make little sense. How does one "enjoy" a copyrighted work without what you're calling "use", for example?
Rayhow4220wxy4220, your response to my first paragraph (where I compare copyright law to workplace relations laws) fails to take into account my *second* paragraph (where I point out that copyright law is more actually a property law, and work of the kind I do is considered in law not to be labour but creation of property). Just as a baker does not have an employment contract with each person who eats their loaves of bread, neither do I have an employment contract with each person who uses my music to learn to play at the piano. But the baker and I both rely on the people who use our products to pay us for them, otherwise we have no means of supporting ourselves, and we'll stop *making* things. Copyright law does not guarantee a wage for me, it guarantees that when people make use of my work I will get some payment for that (otherwise unpaid for) work. Much of the economy relies on things being made prior to people deciding to buy those things - nearly everything you buy in the course of your lifetime will have been made without a direct contract with you. Finally, I don't agree that nouns that refer to something that is not concrete (such as the word 'enjoyment') are "nebulous concepts that make little sense". But this might well be the way you experience language, so I can't quibble with your own perceptions. For anyone else: let's think about music being played in a department store - you enter the store and you might enjoy the music they are choosing to play, but you have no control over what is being played and you have no reason to want to hear that music at that time. The store, on the other hand, is using this music to create the kind of environment they believe will best lead to higher sales; they are choosing what to play, when to play it and at what volume - they are the users. Your enjoyment is part of what they want to achieve by playing that music, and that enjoyment is paid for by anyone who makes a purchase in that store. The user (the store) pays for the music, those enjoying it may or may not be part of financing that payment, but in either case they are not the *users* of the music.
Good article. Thanks
ho
to me it feels like many people do not understand the difference between production and development, because they expect to get payed for development AND for production. I never noticed anyone charging for development costs of electricity, advanced metal alloys or chairs, but production, well that's a must to any sale. in other words, if you invest lots of money developing something that will cost near
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nothing to produce, then do it to develop it, not to make money. and to be honest, I'd rather take a knife and an axe into the forrest, chop down a tree, chop it up, make a chair totally of wood. if it'd cost me less (money, effort & time considered) than traveling to the store.
The fact seems to be that some people like that piano producer above in the comments may lose their jobs as they currently are and have to expand (as discussed in above comments), but it is more important to free culture and information than to stick to the status quo. It may sound awful, but it is true. We have the copyright industry doing crazy things right now, and trying to get the government to use laws to give them money. Despite the definition of a copy, which is that no one loses the resource when it is copied, we still have the copyright industry, the resistors in the circuit of free information. The copyright industry is heating up the circuit, and soon information will explode in an electrical flame caused by a short in the circuit. And, this can all be attributed to one psychological principle, the principle of positive reenforcement. For every time the copyright industry gets what it wants and their efforts are reinforced, information is made less free to fly as it wishes to do. The copyright industry is reinforced and therefore demands more. It's about time to begin the process of extinction of an operant response. The book I linked to is completely free to read online, and it is actually quite full of interesting information. That information wants to be free, and there it is, free for use by those who want to learn it.
We all are being forced to change our ways and adapt in these years of economic misery (caused in no small part by the ones crying the loudest about things like copyright). The old ways (steel mills, auto, mfg, etc) are fading out, and those workers have to adapt. The old ways (physical media) are fading out, and those workers would be better served adapting rather than bitching and trying to keep a naturally expired system on life support at the expense of a war on their customer base.
I would have to agree with you on that. Change is coming, and we have to accept it. If this message does not get through for some reason, it is because I am replying to this comment via email.
Sorry, didn't make it through :P

Excellent.
I find it disturbing, that they always try, and try, and try... but they will likely fail this time too...
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Well, they won with Groklaw. But the reaction to SOPA/PIPA is pretty telling that they've woken up a giant to their shenanigans...
Oddly enough when they lobby governments repeatedly for change no one asks them for any proof of their claims or allegations. No one seems to remember past what they had for breakfast so expecting them to remember or research to see that this isn't the first request and maybe based on past track record this isn't the best course of action may be expecting to much. Their phantom loses haven't materialized, and anytime controls were put in place that were to restrictive the technology was rejected outright. When are they going to learn that without consumers of their product they have nothing? Ever heard of the saying the customer is always right? Maybe it is about time you listen to them rather them blaming what boils down to shortcomings in your business model on everyone else... . Sadly it seems as long as the lobbyists are padding political campaigns this chicken little the sky is falling BS will remain. For any culture to evolve they must be able to embrace change.Sadly creativity is being sidelined for a dollar value. Entertainment has become about recycling the existing not pushing the limits of creativity. Is it any wonder if product has no vision in it's creation why would it in it's distribution?
Note that when silent movie pianists were out of a job, it's because the public stopped going to see silent movies. Sheet music died because people stopped buying sheet music. Today is different. The public still consumes recorded music, more than ever. They just don't pay for it.
People stopped buying records because records are a retardedly backward way of distribution. Sales of CDs are down for much the same reason. Profit margins for digital downloads are ridiculously high and will be the downfall of brick-and-mortar music markets. And most people DO pay for music, especially with the advertisement-run Pandora and Spotify. The corollary to that is the Netflix business model.
Tell that to Steve Jobs' stock portfolio. Yeah, nobody is buying music at all. Probably a similar proportion honestly. Ease of digital access (paid and otherwise) has made the releases more widespread than a solely physical release used to... Even though piracy has increased, there's still a substantial portion of people paying in this ever so increased reach of access and distribution.
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I think there is an important distinction to make here. Silent movie pianists were out of work because their medium was no longer desired. Today, the art is still entirely desired, people just aren't interested in paying. So the question is, if modern art is still desired and consumed, why is it no longer paid for?
"So the question is, if modern art is still desired and consumed, why is it no longer paid for?" Ven, if you had to peg an industry as the most consistently successful for the last ten years, the music industry would be a top contender. I humbly submit that an industry as a whole does not show consistent growth figures over 7% anually year after year if "no-one pays for the product". The truth is that music makes money hand-over-fist despite the fact that for all intents and purposes, everyone could and does download for free.
I'm not concerned with the distribution and marketing industries that support giant labels into success. I'm intrigued by the shift in personal opinion at large on the subject, that is all.
If anything, it's the method or form of "modern art" that might or might not be paid for.
@Ven Then I'm not sure what your question refers to. Pianists are paid for the service they render. Modern art is still paid for. In some cases you might argue that the art is the advertising and it's the artist who gets paid for. But I don't see the paradigm where modern art is desired but that desire doesn't provide payoff. Unless what you mean is that some people become popular without an easy method to cash in on their fame.
I stopped buying cassette's when they kept getting eaten, melted, erased and when cd's came out. I stopped buying cd's when they kept getting scratched, cracked and when digital came out. I stopped buying digital when the RIAA launched the first multimillion dollar lawsuit on a 12 year old and started lobbying for more power. Now I get all the music I ever buy directly from an artist. I refuse to support labels that rip off the actual creators and the industry that wants to try to hold us all hostage and force us to consume how they feel we should. On a side note I have NEVER pirated and refuse to as well, as that doesn't support the artist at all.
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Rick, excellent article. We are living in an exciting time. The copyright industry is a relic that is having its legs cut out from under it with every advance in technology. Multiple homes and exotic cars don't pay for themselves, no wonder they're whining.
They're just like the banks and other useless industries that don't actually make anything. Yet they feel that as the rest of us are cutting back, their profit margins deserve to stay the same or increase, even though the world has changed. Tell a musician or artist a hundred years ago that they should feverishly demand every work they produce should produce immense profit, and every musician should be rich rich rich. I haven't seen any copyright whiners driving a beat up neon and wondering how they'll pay the power bill this month. Maybe the age of gluttonously rich creative industries has reached the end of it's artificial assumptions? The market pays what the market pays. Laws won't change that at it's core.
If I go and see a movie, I have to pay. If it was a good movie, and I want to see it again, I have to rent the DVD and pay again, or buy the DVD, and pay again. The copyright industry is the only one that expects to be paid everytime their product is used. If I buy a pair of pants at Walmart, I don't have to pay everytime I wear them.
If you buy pants at Walmart, your example is beside the point. They wouldn't last past the first washing, anyway.
If anything hasn't survived the first washing, it would most definately have to have been your brain. Good article, sums up what all of us have been saying, that the industries in power don't want change because they fear they'll lose money.
exactly right, but it doesn't give the various governments the right to spend taxpayers money propping up those industries and penalising the public at the same time. as stated above, no proof is asked for and therefore not provided by the industries to back up their claims and independent proof stating there is minimal lose is ignored. politicians are 'encouraged' to go along with what the industries say, even though, eventually, it could cost them a lot more, ie, when it comes to elections. you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but you cant fool all the people all the time!
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Again, you prove how moronic and out of touch with reality you are. I routinely buy my pants at Walmart. Because they usually have good prices as opposed to big retailers like Macy's and what have you. My pants, which I use beyond regularly because I like them and they're comfortable, last several years. This includes "past the first washing, anyway". When are you going to get lost?
The entire buying CD's and DVD's thing always baffled me. They're the only products in the world where the sellers actually think it's a morally-acceptable business model to advertise that something is a great product that will give you lots of enjoyment, not let you try it before you buy it, and then tell you tough s**t when you want to return it because it sucked. How ridiculous would Walmart look if it put all its pants in a sealed black bag with a sticker on the outside that said the size, but wouldn't let you return them if you got them home and found out they were actually a different size? Why are the "content" people immune from false advertising lawsuits?
I agree with you None. The entertainment industry is the only one in the world where "try" and "returns" are unacceptable terms. I can buy a new car and have it for I believe a month (give or take) and if it doesn't meet my needs or proves dissatisfactory I can return it. No questions asked. I can do the same with a various electronics, food items (either individual ingredients or outright entire meals at some places), clothing, etc. All are items/industries where if my needs are not met, they will do their damndest to meet them or to resolve the problem. Either by refunding me my money, giving me a proper or better product, etc. They're all willing to meet you halfway in some regards (at the very least). But when it comes to music, movies and games you can go f*ck yourself. If it wasn't to your liking get bent. In fact, the only way you can get a refund is in theaters. (Although Anon, the idiot who has no idea about reality, has argued otherwise.) You tell them the movie wasn't to your liking or it had too much profanity or was too gory and they'll gladly refund your money (of course you won't sit through the whole thing and usually know "this isn't for me" within 30 minutes) or give you tickets to something else. But you know what amuses me, all these other industries need no protection whatsoever. There are counterfeit Levi's. Replica Shelby Mustangs. Essentially knock off OS X running computers. Etc. And yet, all those are dealt with in reasonable manners by current laws. No special privileges, no special laws, no wanting to criminalize EVERYONE and take away people's rights so a few select people can keep being happy. I laugh at that. How is it pretty much every other single industry on the planet can thrive and adapt as needed, yet the content industries can't? It really makes you wonder. Then you see their efforts to play the morality card and other things and you can't help but laugh. Hypocrisy is a word that comes readily to mind when you see/hear of such things. Or idiots. Both work equally well. The times have changed and the content industries, for the most part, haven't changed with them. In fact, with the exception of independent filmmakers, musicians and few game developers, not a one has changed at all. They're 10 years late to the
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party and when they show up they demand we all do as they say. If we don't, we're the bad guys. They had their chance, they blew it. Now it's going to bite them in the ass and I say about fucking time. They think they can pass laws as they see fit, then they try and hide what they're doing. The people are waking up and the people are not pleased. I worked in retail for a few years. The job wasn't great. The customers weren't always pleasant. But at the end of the day we lived by one motto, "the customer is always right". Regardless. Better to please a customer than lose 'em. The content industries are ignoring all of us and then calling us thieves in the process. I want their content. I want it at a reasonable price (and no, that doesn't mean free, I will gladly pay a REASONABLE price). I want it when I want it (regionalized release dates is a load of crap). I want it how I want it (DRM-free and digital, without having to get the blu-ray/dvd/digital combo pack). Now satisfy my needs or lose me as a customer. But don't start crying when someone else, "pirates" are willing to do what you aren't and do so for free. If they can do it, why can't you? (Not "you" as in you None, "you" as in the industries.) I say, fuck them and fuck Anon. $5 says he goes on another pirate rant when he sees what any of us are saying. That or "you just want free stuff" and "you're all criminals" and wre wre wre. He's a picture perfect example of the industries. Can't see past their own noses and everything different is "evil". 'tards the lot of them.
They aren't immune to those lawsuits, None.... it's just that most people don't have enough bucks to press those lawsuits and are easily outspent by the Wal-Marts, Targets, etc. of the world.
i actually remembered when the industry was tryin to get rid of VCRs
And I remember that too.And being 55 I have used a ton of different formats.Our family had a Player Piano when I was a kid.I still own vinyl.And I have used DAT Tapes,cassette,various incarnations of reel tapes. Over and over the assholes rear their heads in an attempt to stop new tech is not news it is fact.
A question for those supporting copyright infringement as a social evolution? Do you feel the same way about patents? If so, why or why not?
Interestingly, patents have a maximum life of 20 years (sometimes less). Copyright can last up to 75 years. Find a cure for cancer, you get 20 years to make a return. Yet, Dude Where's My Car gets 75 years of monopoly. Something wrong with that equation. Patents do not exclude people from making their own copy of devices and processes for personal use. Patent law is light years ahead of copyright law.
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Actually, patent law is too long as well. 10 years on drugs is way more than enough to get back the money you invested, which most times the GOVERNMENT has put forward most of the funds that are used to make new drugs. Yes, the government is the one who paid for most of the development cost of Lipitor or whatever drug you wish to name, through direct and indirect means. Look on the AMA's website, they have a wonderful article that points this out.
Actually, it's lifetime of the artist +70 years. So copyright basically lasts for a century or more. Compared to patents which range from 5-20. And honestly, patents should be restricted down to ten years at most as well - if you can't create a piece of technology today and make a profit in ten years you never will. For any technology relating to IT, make that a max limit of five years - in six months whatever you made will have become obsolete anyway.
Thanks to Rick for taking us down this long, rather obscene history that the copyright industry labors to reinvent daily for its benefit in the legislatures. Regretably, although the attributes that we most abhor about this history punish us most in regards to corporate control of intellectual property and social media, the really fearsome narrative within this history speaks to the sheer momentum and to the depth and power with which corporations have been able to impose their collective will in all the private nooks and crannies and in all the public prommenades and plazas of our lives. Imagine for a moment that Henry Ford had been able to protect the Model T with all the legislated perpetuity and all the legislated obstructions and preclusions against competition and innovation that the copyright industry has today amassed for its self protection. What would we be driving? Yet, we intuitively understand that on a rainy day on a muddy road one might yet opt for god's burro, or god's donkey or god's horse; or, if worse comes to worst, god's gifted feet. What exactly do we opt for after corporations have established a comparable legislated level of corporate control over the universe of ideas? Here, in this obscene history, the corporate copyright laws must be our first monopoly horror of all horrors. Why? Because everything that is permanent in Man's history (including corporations) started as an idea: That the pyramids are expressed in stone is an mere afterthought. First they were an idea. Family. Christianity. The Empire. Sin. Love. Electricity. Twin Towers. AIG. CNBC. Copyright. Legislatures. Tyranny. Democracy. Freedom. All of them, were born first as ideas. There are no material origins or material innovations in all of Man's history indepedent of their attributes first and foremost as ideas. So, what is the ultimate significance of a copyright industry who's economic purpose has been, not to produce, safeguard, innovate and maximize distribution of intellectual property; but, to resist its innovation, distribute it under conditions of artificial scarcity, enjoy its legislatively mandated monopolistic premium, and to apply the power of that premium in the legislatures in order make its previledges perpetual? This is the relevant and important human dilemma at the heart of Ricks article. Make no mistake, any example of corporate dominance in our legislatures represents grevious tthreat of damage to our constitutional and civil liberties;
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but, above all other threats, the corporate monopoly of intellectual property in perpetuity, with no reversion EVER to the public domain, threatens us uniquely; in everything that ever allowed us to bestow purpose and meaning and value on mere matter; in everything intangible and abstraxt that makes us human. Resistence to that threat is no luxury.
Minor correction to article. The para on VCRs refers incorrectly to a case :Sony vs Betamax' The actual case was refered to as 'the Betamax case' and was Sony vs Universal
Yes, and it was especially confusing when one realizes that Sony developed Betamax
I'm not so sure all this is willful deceit. I truly believe it's just the various industries revolving around copyrighted materials/products not knowing how to adapt to new tech and learn how to use it to their advantage. It's a good thing that they don't, actually. We've finally reached a breaking point (over a century in coming), and these industries will not win the fight. The reason? They don't release copyright to artists and/or their families within a reasonable time frame. Copyright should automatically revert once the publisher/company decides either not to use the purchased art OR when sales drift off enough that they take certain titles/art out of print (meaning, no more NEW sales of a particular product). It's a simple adjustment to the law, more sensible, and would put the ultimate power of art back into the hands of the original creators (or their progeny/heirs). The above would, of course, mean that Public Domain for certain titles/products can only occur if - and ONLY if - the artist/heirs release it to be such. In cases of no artist or clear heirs (line of succession), PD is automatic. Look, if the industries want to treat copyright holds like royal charters, then we should give into that thinking...but on the artist's side. Art of any kind belongs neither to the corporations nor the people...it belongs with the artists and/or their heirs. Period. Copyright should reflect such...
In terms of the so-called "music industry" you're spot-on MW. Their hold over originators and artistes was based on the difficulty to mass-produce and distribute their works, and thus a middleman industry was borne - one that has gained in strength through lobbying of politicians to ensure laws protecting "their" rights to a cut in a product they contributed nothing to produce. But now we have home computers, the internet and filesharing originators of music and artistes can now produce, market and distribute their own works without the need for any middleman. So if copyright MUST be retained in our laws, then it should be designed to protect these originators and performers, and not a defunct industry that no-one needs in the 21st century.
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But I'm not convinced that the laws of CopyWrong, Patents, and Imaginary Property should exist at all. Perhaps TF's resident CopyWrong Trolls would care to try and convince me with a sensible argument?
Music, publishing, film/stage productions... They've always been at the forefront of the whining about having to make sudden adjustments to better common technology. Neither of these industries have ever been innovative, frankly, choosing instead to work off what technology "civilians" have created. CGI/3D tech, for example, was originally intended for gaming. It just also happens to work well with physically impossible scenes in films and videos. Hollywood did NOT create this tech, but they sure as hell used it to further their businesses. Why can't they do the same with new delivery and recording systems? After all, the film industry did originally bitch about digital recording/cameras...yet they found a way to adjust, anyway. Right? Thank God for Independent filmmakers... What you never really hear about are universities and colleges, which seem to fully control any and all media created under their auspices. They're even more "protective" of their hold over the work of others. Copyright - in it's ORIGINAL form - is necessary to protect original content from being stolen by those who have a better means of distribution. For example,m if Person A creates something beloved by most who view it but cannot seem to break through to the mass market, and Person B decide (s)he can take that work to the "next level," without copyright protection what's to shop him/her from slapping his/her name upon the work. After all, who would believe the original artist, since the thief has happened to create a much larger fan base? We all know how militant fans can be, yeah? Even if the truth is revealed and proved, the damage is already done...forever. Without copyright, even in it's current form, there would be no remedy for the actual artist. This does actually happen from time to time. Plagiarizers would also be numerous. So, yes, I would argue that copyright in a sensible form is absolutely necessary. Even with sensible copyright law, the current legal system in most Western nations is geared (in reality) toward those who have the most resources. Under these systems, even if there is a successful defense, the artist may become irrelevant simply because (s)he is financially ruined. A sub-system is necessary, not unlike what some nations/states have done with Family law. A lot needs to change before copyright is properly geared toward it;s actual intent. Don't look for it to ever happen, though. If there's no money or headlines (glory) in a thing, government tends to ignore it (even if it's the right thing to do).
Very thoughtful and thought provoking post....A+++++
From the way you propose to deal with a crying baby I can only say that I hope that you never have any kids. You sound like quite the sociopath. And used to the other side of your picture: compassion with the creators of the culture you enjoy is different from hatred of the middlemen!! Get your perspectives right!
Hey, there comes a time when an adult who is whining like a baby needs a foot up the ass and to be told "Grow up and start acting like a man/woman!"
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I liked the last paragraph. The copyright industry needs to shut the fuck up and stop bitching; anything can potentially be used to copy media. It's similar to the DHS/TSA's policy of how anything can be used as a weapon: if you accept such a broad interpretation, then in the end, you'll just end up hurt and inconvenienced. Instead of resisting technology and trying to preserve a monopoly, embrace these developments in technology and use them to your advantage. If it wasn't for these technological developments, we would not have many of the things we enjoy today: photocopiers for copying documents, the internet for conducting research, and efficient audio encoding schemes for storing music.
This article is five-star, should be reproduced in more places. My favorite bit: "was struck down in bolts of lightning by courts who said they had way overstepped their mandate" lol
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all." Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe 1980
This cannot make anymore sense than it did. They are the reason we can never have nice things in a fluient manner. You can guarantee that with every new technological advancement that comes around the corner. These assholes are standing in wait, readying their pocketbooks and whipping out their little megaphones so they can do it all over again. What do they want us to do? Live like things as they were several decades ago? Keep buying copy after copy when a copy gets worn? Copyright needs to die, it has ran it's course. It's a weapon now, for them, to use whenever things aren't going their way. It has no benefits, it does not offer anything good, it only likes to take and take more away. I thought the copyright ordeal began during when casettes were born, but figured out it goes a lot further back. Which is completely pathetic in itself. I have no remorse for the people involved, in all branches, of the entertainment industry when their lives go to shit. Especially when they're going to go out of their way by ripping people's lives apart over a stupid three megabyte file to a unauthorized copy of a movie someone ripped as a backup when the real purchased copy of said movie is sitting right next to it in plain sight.
WOW. You must have spent at least fifteen seconds researching this articular. Where are your footnotes, bibliography and all that shit? Very poor.
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Finally decided to crawl out from under a rock, have you?
Please refute any points you like my good man!
It's the copyright industry's power that I am, and I think most people here are against. Not the people who produce the products. I happily pay for things that are worth my money. In fact I wish the people actually making what I'm buying got a better share of my money. But no, I wont support products with DRM (movies and games mostly nowadays), so on and so forth.
This virus is very contagious, just enjoy the days left. Persistence is key and they are almost at their goal. No one can stop them, its about CONTROL. How many surveillance cameras do you see outside? Soon inside for your safety. ;)
"the sound of ideologies clashing" for me it depends on the individuals belief system. freedom or control. Great thread full of interesting dialogue.
Everything is about control, but it can't be easily applied sometimes...
I am surprised the copyright industry hasn't tried to ban libraries.
Wait up ... are you saying that any of these are related? For one, your article is full of bullshit dragged off of wikipedia etc, and for two, the insane amount of illegally downloaded (stolen) content on the current internet FAR outweighs any tape copying etc back in the 80's. What a dumb, mindless article. And surprise surprise, supported by a bunch of thieving little sacks of shit who feel they're entitled to free shit on a constant basis because they don't agree with pricing of products.
Seeing how you did not understand the article, I'll sum it up: Any business that sees a new technology as a threat will go to any length to stop
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said technology. If that doesn't work, I can draw a diagram in crayon if that will help.
thank God - a gem of a post amongst all the entitled ones here whinging about copyright - I read this stuff and still cannot believe that people can think it is OK to steal content off the internet!
I still can't believe people haven't read the verdict handed out by the Supreme Court which emphatically states that "copyright infringement" is not stealing. Which basically renders you similar to a man walking into a bar at random and starts shrieking "YOU'RE ALL THIEVES!!!" while foaming at the mouth. Nice try, troll. Back under the bridge with you.
> "..amongst all the entitled ones here.." There's nothing strange or unnatural about feeling entitled to your own physical property, that you yourself own, and the possibility to with it build copies. What's strange and unnatural is the feeling of entitlement to a copyright monopoly which performs an intrusion into all other peoples physical property, that they own.
> "..and still cannot believe that people can think it is OK to steal content off the internet!" No pirate thinks that. No pirate does that. The act of manufacturing a copy with your own physical property, that you yourself own, according to the pattern of another persons own physical property, that he owns, and freely chooses to tell others about, is in no way the same thing as stealing someone else's property. But if you seriously believe that, you obviously lack the most fundamental knowledge about physics, copyright and logic, and can therefore not come to any relevant conclusion about the act of filesharing.
> "..who feel they're entitled to free shit on a constant basis.." Obviously people feel entitled to their own physical property, that they own, and the possibility to create copies with it.
> "..because they don't agree with pricing of products." There's nothing strange with wanting to save money, and possibly instead of buying it, choosing to manufacture the product yourself, with your own physical property, if the price one seller demands is to high in comparison to other prices, such as the price for manufacturing it yourself, which is free? That's how it works on a free market for a capitalist.
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A question Fredrika; does this right to manufacture and give away your own property extend to selling it? For example, if I wanted to make copies of Metallica's music and sell them, would you consider that acceptable or not? (As a clarification, I'll be clear that I wouldn't be fraudulent about what it is. I wouldn't claim I made the music, or that I worked for Metallica and would give them the profits. No lies.)
> "..does this right to manufacture and give away your own property extend to selling it? For example, if I wanted to make copies of Metallica's music and sell them, would you consider that acceptable or not?" The question is dishonest, because it reverses the order of society. The starting point is that it is possible to do just that. You do not need any right to do it. You are free to do it, until a prohibition against is put in the law, and in this case in the copyright monopoly. The honest question is not whether or not it is acceptable to manufacture copies and sell them, but whether or not it is acceptable to prohibit it with a copyright monopoly, that performs an intrusion into peoples own property. All burden of proof to answer that question lies on those advocating the copyright monopoly. If they fail, people can manufacture copies for whatever reason they see fit, and the norm in society is that it is indeed acceptable to manufacture goods with your own physical property, and sell it, even if you did get the recipe from someone else, such as Metallica, a baker or a designer. That is the cornerstone of capitalism and a free market.
By "right", I meant something that is not prohibited. You are correct that I should probably have said it differently though. As it stands though, I'd like to ask you if you personally find selling work created by someone else as acceptable, even if you produced the copies.
> "I'd like to ask you if you personally find selling work created by someone else as acceptable, even if you produced the copies." You might have to rewrite that sentence before i can answer it. Selling work? However, the economical parts of copyright(which selling falls under) is never about what someone personally and subjectively feels is acceptable, or about creating a personally subjective perceived form of justice for the author, out of principle. Copyright is about what measurably best benefits the public, especially when it comes to the two economical parts of the conceptual copyright, so the fact that you answer the question indicates that you haven't grasped why society has copyright in the first place. Or maybe you do, but you ask me the question from a non-copyright related aspect, and if so, if we have a free market, free market rules applies, and on a free market, each entrepreneur has an own responsibility to find working business models that
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generate profit for him. If a person creates an intellectual work, with intent to profit from it, it's his responsibility alone to generate profit from using the intellectual work in various business models. Finally, please try to avoid posting comments directed to me, as replies to yourself. I will not notice them then, unless i discover them by chance, as i did now. You can post an answer to me in your Disqus Dashboard, even if the reply button is not available here.
Let me clarify my question with the example I used above. Metallica creates a CD with music. I get a copy of that CD, produce more copies, and sell them. Maybe I sell them online, and maybe I sell them from a store. I don't claim that I am giving money to Metallica from my sales For the purpose of the example, Assume that I have no ethical qualms about doing this. Do you consider that acceptable? More importantly, do you consider government restrictions on that to be acceptable? From an ethical or legal standpoint, either one.
> "Metallica creates a CD with music." Metallica does not create CD's, they create intellectual works. Try to use proper terminologies.
> "I get a copy of that CD, produce more copies, and sell them. Maybe I sell them online, and maybe I sell them from a store. I don't claim that I am giving money to Metallica from my sales > For the purpose of the example, Assume that I have no ethical qualms about doing this. > Do you consider that acceptable? More importantly, do you consider government restrictions on that to be acceptable? From an ethical or legal standpoint, either" Iv'e already answered your question. If we as a society decides that free market rules applies, then obviously it's acceptable for people to manufacture goods with their own physical property, and sell it. In that situation, what's unethical would be for Metallica to try to guilt people into restraining from manufacturing such copies and selling them, because Metallica also has an interest in making money, and don't want free market competition. If Metallica wants to make money as entrepreneurs, then it's their responsibility alone to come up with business models that generate profit for them, and trying to guilt other people into restraining themselves from following free market rules is something i consider extremely unethical. However, that answer only applies if society has decided that free market rules applies. If society instead has decided that we should use a concept called copyright, to benefit the public's access to intellectual works through culturally maximizing society, as we have today, and it can be established with verifiable evidence, that setting aside free market rules, and privileging authors, such as Metallica, with a limited legislative monopoly over certain use of the intellectual work in conjunction with selling goods or services, then obviously that's the way it should be.
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In that case, infringing on such a monopoly, in a manner that can be proven to damage the goal with the conceptual copyright, i.e. culturally maximizing society, is obviously something that should be stopped. If you in that case agree with the goal of copyright, to culturally maximize society, then one should find such infringements unethical. The problem with our reality, in which we indeed have decided to have a concept called copyright, is that today's copyright monopoly's intrusions into peoples property and freedoms, is not built on any verifiable evidence that says that it actually furthers the goal of copyright. And there's no evidence that supports the theory that infringing on today's copyright monopoly actually damages the goal of copyright. Therefore the question of what one considers to be unethical, is if one feel it's ok to violate illegitimate legislation, which most parts of today's copyright monopoly indeed is made up of(the non-profit parts, the parts that regulate transference of information in private communication, and the length of life + 70 years or whatever it is, or anything beyond 14 years, which as far as i know is the highest number of years any scientific research can support the need for), according to all rules of how legitimate legislation should be drafted, with verifiable evidence of need, function, and proportionality. It has often through out history been claimed that's it's not only ok to disobey illegitimate legislation, but that it's also peoples duty, to both try to change it, and disobey it, if it continues to damage the goal which it seeks to achieve, to not let the often slow political process to damage society any further. Rick wrote an article on that topic this spring: http://torrentfreak.com/it-is-... Did this answer make more sense? =)
Yes, that answer clarifies it. It's refreshing to see an argument based purely off of democracy and free-market principles, seeing as how both sides often argues based on false premises. Well, I think that's all the questions I had. I'll mull over what you've said, and see how that changes what I think about copyright. Have a good day.
> "Yes, that answer clarifies it. It's refreshing to see an argument based purely off of democracy and free-market principles, seeing as how both sides often argues based on false premises." First, was there one to many off's in that text? Second, with both sides, i assume you mean pirates being one of them? Then you should know three things. First many pirates in commentator fields are in fact paid lobbyists trying to give pirate's a bad name by arguing as idiots, so you shouldn't always takes comments seriously, if they appear to be over agitated or moronic. Second, the reasoning i've put forward is exactly that of all the Pirate Parties of the world. Organized pirates, politically and otherwise, often have a very high and well thought trough understanding of the copyright issue from the very beginning to end. I'm in no way unique in that sense. And thirdly, genuine pirates, as in everyday people filesharing, who might not have such a thought trough reasoning behind their pirating, are still not evil, or in the wrong(as in a semantically wrong, legally though, obviously in many countries). They fileshare because it saves them money, which is basic capitalism, and because it gives them unlimited access to all culture available, in the same manner as libraries as done for over 150years, which is something that actually constitutes the norm in
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society, and it's something that follows the very core principle of copyright, to culturally maximize society, to create a population culturally well read. The positive value with non-profit filesharing is infinite, so it's natural for people wanting to embrace it. Of course there could be a negative value, but that's gotta be pretty high for people wanting to give up an infinite positive value, and since the publishers tricked politicians into banning non-profit copying several decades ago, no scientific evidence has ever been put forward indicating that a negative value exists. The research that does exist points in the other direction, that it furthers both society's economical and cultural health. That the large monopoly holders and a certain distribution industry might go under is irrelevant in that aspect.
> "I'll mull over what you've said, and see how that changes what I think about copyright." If so, do not confuse copyright, which is a concept, and it's goal, with the different possible ways to achieve that goal, like for instance with the copyright monopoly, which is a means to an end, and which can be drafted in different manners. The Pirate Parties of the world embrace copyright on a conceptual level, but see the problems with today's copyright monopoly not furthering the goal of copyright, but only doing damage, to both culture and human rights. The copyright industry, if you excuse the term, and those unfortunately influenced by them and their false but heavily lobbied propaganda, does in no way embrace the concept of copyright, they only care about the monopoly(because they obviously benefit from not having to operate on market with competitors), not caring one bit about the fact that they are not supposed to be the beneficiary of copyright on a conceptual level.
> "Have a good day." I will, and you made it, It's rare to debate in these comments with someone who actually seems to understand what you write and it's reasoning, and isn't a paid lobbyist or troll which refuses to acknowledge logical reasoning or copyright on a conceptual level.
Good job on getting all the information together. Some of it is obviously just a money grab, but there are bits that make sense. Why should we be allowed to steal music from musicians who work very hard to produce it? Should we be allowed to steal food from farmers?
Copyright, the new inquisition slowing down technological advancement :)

"First, lets take a look at what the copyright industry tried to ban and outlaw, or at least receive taxpayer money in compensation for its existence:" Thanks Rick,
One item missed, in the mid 1960s in UK a number of ship based radio stations (usually known as pirate stations, even though they were not breaking any laws) sprung up. These played records and did not pay royalties. The record companies
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made a huge fuss until they realised that when a record was played on one of the stations it then sold well, so much so that they then sent pre-release records to the station DJ's Dont forget "home taping is killing music"
The BBC were the culprits of the pirate radios being shut down as they had the monopoly over the RF spectrum at the time. Fortunately the pirate stations forced a restructure and today we have more than just the BBC on our radios!
The big problem with the entertainment media is they have fought every new technology that has come along from the cylinder phonograph onward. When they eventually embraced the new technology it became a new outlet for their business. but somehow they have never learned that lesson and every time something new comes out, they fight it tooth and claw and cause problems for everyone else in the process. I liken it to a factory using an outdated steam engine to provide power to their machinery. Electric motors are available which are cheaper and much more efficient, but the PHBs who run the place are too stingy to get them. So they tie down the pressure release on the boiler and turn up the fire trying to get more power out of it. Then the creaky old engine blows to kingdom come and takes the factory with it, so they have to rebuild, and they find they're so much better off with the new electrically powered machines they wonder how they got along without them before. Oh, that the entertainment industry would learn to adapt to the times instead of fighting every new thing that comes out and hanging on to their steam engine age ways, rather than adapting to and embracing the new, which would benefit all of us, and them too.
These entertainment corporation of parasites have taken control of what the banks left of our governments! Let's kill them all!
On a side-note. I keep seeing posts equating the copyright industry with capitalism there is actually nothing LESS capitalistic than the copyright industry. Capitalism is founded upon the basis of a free market - copyrights are the opposite of that. You may correctly (and sadly) correlate the copyright industry with many conservative candidates, but it is not a capitalistic ideal - it is the opposite.
Very true. Copyright - any form of Intellectual Property is, in practice, Information Control. A dogmatic stance adopted only by fascist governments and/or communist ones. The only difference is that in a western country it is assumed private interests can own information, whereas a communist country believes the state holds that right.
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What I can't see is what they expect to gain by making everything copyright essentially forever. Life plus 70 years means some material copyrighted today will still be copyright when our great grandchildren die of old age. This will lead to many orphaned works and much culture will be lost because the media it is recorded on is rotting to dust in warehouses because it is still under copyright and the owners cannot be located, and no one can do anything with it without the consent of the copyright owner. The original term of copyright was 14 years with an optional 14 year extension, after which the work entered the public domain. Everything worked great under this system, but then the media companies got greedy and started extending the term ad infinitum, and now we have life of the author plus 70 years, likely due to be extended to life plus 100 years when again the copyright on Micky Mouse is about to expire. I can only attribute these endless extensions to one thing--greed. Greed is an insatiable monster, it is not and cannot ever be satisfied. For a greedy person, no matter how much he has it's never enough. He always has to have more. J. Paul Getty, I think it was, then the richest man in the world is said to have been asked, If you could have anything in the world you wanted what would it be? Getty's answer: "More money."
I only really land on this site when it's in the Digg top 10...but every time I do I'm glad I did. Really well written articles, both informative and entertaining! Thank you
Truly great article, Mr. Falkvinge. Good read and so true! It really is time for the copyright industry to be put in it's right place (out of business). Sadly there is too much money at stake, far too many people involved who fear for their cut and the roots go back too far on this one as you so fabulously described. As "they" will never defeat file sharing (often wrongly described as "piracy") "we" will never defeat the people who think they have the right to own "copyrights" and fight for their way of making money with many of them even thinking their view on things is legit. I think it is time to change strategy and aim our anger at the right people. "It is far past due that the copyright industry is stripped of its nobility benefits" And who are the people who could do that? That's right: the legislators, the voted politicians of our countries, people who trim their sails with the wind, torn over their craving for money on the one hand and votes on the other. We really must start to see the big picture here: The copyright industry couldn't do scratch, if politicians wouldn't puss out or greed in! Don't hate people who just do what they think is right - hate people who know what they do is wrong! "Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round..." Cheers
Resin 2 months ago
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"Don't hate people who just do what they think is right" Hate to pull a Godwin's Law on ya' here, but even the Nazis thought what they did was right. Most people don't think what they do is wrong. If they do something that counteracts their morals, then either the behavior will change, or the morals change. This works for the copyright industry (lawyers suing lots of people, even though they didn't get into law to do that) and for pirates (some who swear they'll always pay for what they like, and then eventually start finding excuses to hold onto their money). By your morals, the copyright industry is motivated by greed. By the morals of the copyright industry, what pirates do is motivated by greed. Try learning what they think. That may help you understand how to craft a solution.
Oil induced global recession means that their will be no money for anyone. Suing will be a waste of time.
Good article. I see alot of people thinking information and music and content should be free if it's copy-able. Wrong. What I see is a bunch of Occupy wannabes that cant afford their hipster music and think they should be entitled to a free copy since its the governments fault. Kids these days.
> "I see alot of people thinking information and music and content should be free if it's copy-able." No pirate thinks that. The price is free, if you chose to manufacture the copy yourself, with your own physical property. That price is not up for discussion, it can not be anything else than free.
> "..and think they should be entitled to a free copy.." Obviously people feel entitled to their own physical property, which they own, and the possibility to manufacture copies with it. That's the natural state of things.
Another question now. Can it be said that they are manufacturing copies of their own property if they are obtaining the copies online? It seems that your argument would apply to someone who chose to make copies of something they bought, but I'm not seeing the application to filesharing. After all, someone who is getting a copy there isn't making a copy of their own property. It's not their property at the time they obtain a copy; the question in this instance isn't what they can do with the property once they own it, it's what they do to obtain that property. Also, it seems to me that you incorrectly address the point on the entitlement bit. A big problem is people thinking that no matter what, they DESERVE to have content for free. That's not a legal issue, it's an ethical one. It's linked to the increased phenomenon of students believing they are owed certain grades in school, or people believing the government owes them certain entitlements, even if they have no intentions of working. It's a psychological and ethical issue, not a legal one. That's not something we could write an actionable law about... but it's still a problem.
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> "Can it be said that they are manufacturing copies of their own property if they are obtaining the copies online?" They are manufacturing the copies with their own property. The pattern which they chose to manufacture it after is the pattern of another filesharer's physical property, which he owns, and freely chooses to tell others about it.
> "It seems that your argument.." I did not argue in any direction regarding what's right or wrong, or how things should or shouldn't be, i only clarified two facts, one physical and one logical.
> "After all, someone who is getting a copy there isn't making a copy of their own property." All property involved when people fileshare belongs to the people filesharing, no one else.
> "It's not their property at the time they obtain a copy; the question in this instance isn't what they can do with the property once they own it, it's what they do to obtain that property." They do not obtain any property, they acquire information about another persons property, and then create a copy with their own property, according to that information, or recipe if you like.
> "A big problem is people thinking that no matter what, they DESERVE to have content for free. That's not a legal issue, it's an ethical one." The ethical question is not what they, according to someone subjective opinion, deserve, the only ethical question is whether or not it's acceptable to privilege authors with a copyright monopoly, which performs an intrusion into others peoples property. According to the conceptual copyright, which society uses, and which the goal of is very clearly specified, it can be acceptable on some occasions, if it can be assumed that privileging the author with such a monopoly will benefit the public, which is the only relevant party regarding copyright. But obviously the copyright monopoly can't intrude into the basic cornerstones of a democratic society, such as the human rights to freely share and acquire information, in private communication, anonymously.
> "..but it's still a problem." The problem relevant to this discussion, copyright, and filesharing, is that it's impossible to combine privileging an author with a copyright monopoly that controls non-profit distribution of information in private communication, with the human rights and the concept of private communication, which is the cornerstone of a democracy. There's only one solution to that problem, to remove the prohibition against non-profit filesharing in private communication, in those countries where it isn't already fully legal to fileshare.
Interesting. If one views cultural products as purely information, then what you said is certainly true. I'll have to put a bit more thought into it to see if I have any objection, but you have answered all the questions I have for now. Thank you.
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07.2.2012 . 16:16
Well, on reflection, there is one thing. You seem to draw a line between non-profit and for-profit, at least as far as what we should absolutely not find it acceptable for the government to ban. Is that correct, and if so, why?
> "If one views cultural products.." I assume that you with product refer to the intellectual work in this sentence, but you should clarify that more clearly in the future, because depending on from what point of view your perspective comes, there are two different things than can be called product in the copyright debate. First, the intellectual work, which creators and industry people often refer to as a product, which is an unfortunate way to look at it, but understandable from their point of view. But from a consumer perspective, the product refers to the physical goods or service you buy from the seller, the physical copy when you speak of classical media, optical and so on, or the transference of the pattern, when buying copies online or streaming from Grooveshark or a similar service.
> "..as purely information, then what you said is certainly true." An intellectual work is an intellectual work. But when speaking of filesharing, the transference of the information that describes the physical pattern on someone's harddrive, is information, regardless of what that information describes. I'm not using the term information to trivialize or diminish the value of intellectual work, i use it's because it is information.
> "You seem to draw a line between non-profit and for-profit, at least as far as what we should absolutely not find it acceptable for the government to ban. Is that correct, and if so, why?" I actually draw the line depending of if the transference of information takes place in private communication or not, which all filesharing does, and if it's used in public, then the profit part comes in, but for most people the discussion becomes to advanced when you explain to them that it's actually possible to use intellectual works with intent to profit in private communication, and that the ban against such use also must removed, because it's impossible to enforce such infringements while keeping the concept of private communication.
Ha, everyone talking about censorship and controlling info, and yet here my dissenting opinion on this article has been removed. Pot, meet kettle.
... You mean that post that's literally right above this one? That one? Ok.
Here is a question for those against piracy. I sell somebody a sandwich. Cash and all.
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07.2.2012 . 16:16
Now, is it ethical for me to follow whoever I gave the sandwich to around, telling him/her/it that he/she/neither can not give the sandwich to whoever, without that person paying for it?
"can not give the sandwich to whoever" Of course not. You own the sandwich and you can give/sell it to whom you please. But as pirates are quick to point out, digital files aren't sandwiches. The first sale doctrine gives you the right to sell as long as you delete your own copy. The business fundament of one payment/one possession is in effect here. Also in effect is the legal concept of ownership of a sandwich in no way applies to the licensing that takes place in the "purchase" of a digital file. Presumably, there are no restrictions on the sandwich. You can even cut it up and sell it as hors d'oeuvres. But a license comes with significant restrictions so that you in effect "purchase" the right to possess and enjoy but not to duplicate or distribute. Sampling, quoting and remix are almost always available under Fair Use rights, but piracy has so ransacked digital files in recent years creators and rightsholders are now working to erode and eliminate any external access to reuse to their products. That's just the pirates fault. The conventional wisdom is that had pirates respected Fair Use and mixtape conventions on principle through lawful, self control as we do in a huge variety of other societal activities in a similar way as they were formerly limited through technology, none of this would have happened because it never would have HAD to happen. But pirates are demonstrably selfish. There's not one experienced mind in the mix that actually believes that per month fees for unlimited access and use would actually fund professional creation even close to analog paradigms, leaving us with amateur night and a huge decrease in the cultural "soft power" enjoyed primarily by Europe and America. Pirates turned out to be a disrespectful lot, the files have been ransacked, no accommodation towards simply "pay for whatever you want, leave whatever you don't pay for", was ever offered by advocates of piracy and so the artists and their advocates have taken the only remaining path. It's one thing to lose your buggywhip livelihood to an invention called the automobile. It's something else entirely that piracy uses stealth to hide and tech to make limitless copies of the same buggy whip created and invested in by others. The disrespect arrives in the form of willful ignorance as in the comment above, comparing a digital file to a sandwich. As long as pirates continue on such a selfish and poorly thought out path and led by such irrelevant mentalities like Falkvinge, government and industry will continue to legislate and prevail in takedowns, pirates will likely double down through increased stealth, the governments will continue against them even deeper and the internet as a whole loses bigtime. Thanks pirates. We love the way you characterize all this as "freedom." lol
Maybe the author will be OK with me taking his motorbike for a ride without permission. It's his property, but if I can find a way to take it, what's the harm? He makes millions, he can afford another. Also, he'll get it back. I'll just let all my friends ride it too. Or, more relevantly, say he spends a year and a half dedicated to writing a book. Now some kid takes the manuscript and makes digital copies. No one is buying his book, the thing he spent a year and a half on, deferring income, limiting his contact with friends, obsessing over, using years of training and experience to get to the point that he could write something epople would want to read. I wonder what he'd do.
If you can copy it, I'd absolutely encourage you to. It's a very nice bike.
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07.2.2012 . 16:16
Look, big corps. You **really** need to stop trying to strongarm people into giving you handouts, or the shit is going to hit the fan hard.
First off, this "disco fee" sounds interesting but I can't find any evidence of it. Anyone know where I should look? Second, I would love to give ALL of my money to the hundreds of artists I enjoy (and wouldn't know about and in turn buy their music had I not found a free source first). But I can't. So it comes down to who needs the money most. If the artist says, "don't steal our music, we need the money." I will honor their request. But likewise, I cannot listen to their music if I can't afford to buy it. Show me a musician who tells their fans not to listen to their music until they are compensated and I'll show you a person who's not actually a musician.
The "Disco Fee" may have been a relevant term historically, but now is misleading, put forth by someone with enough of a bias against copyright that he refuses to allow another perspective. As in most countries, in Canada, there is a specific license, something called a Tariff 18, that deals with DJs in clubs. The National Performing Rights Organization, SOCAN, administers it. When a bar uses DJs and recorded music for dancing, they are charged a licensing fee on an annual basis, based on the number of days per week with dancing and the capacity of the room. For example, for a large bar that uses DJs/recorded music 6 nights per week, the license fee could easily climb into the thousands. Say, hypothetically, a bar's license is $2000 per year. If that bar has DJs 6 nights per week, their daily fee would be about $6.42. That's not even a cover charge. That's not even a single beer in most big clubs. And what is a bar without music? How many cover charges would they get with no music? How many beers would they sell? For a small bar with dancing one or two nights per week, the license fee is still going to be about the price of a beer per day of use. SOCAN, like all PROs, distributes royalties to those who own the intellectual property businesses are using to make money. So, really, his description is rather simple minded and biased. A business wants to use someone's intellectual property to make money, they should have to compensate someone for it. Not-for-profit PROs like SOCAN do that. So it's not a "tax" to send money to bands because bands are losing market share, it is a license paid to the owners of the intellectual property, who happen to be musicians. Maybe the bars would like to try running without music. See how that goes. I suspect in most of the examples above, the author is intentionally replacing "wanted to license the use of" with "tried to strangle in its cradle." I think it would be very rare and self-defeating that someone who owns the copyright on something would want to stop a new medium. They would just like to get their fair share if the owners of that new medium (or the "broadcasters") are making money from using their content on that medium. Someone makes a living from using someone else's property, is it wrong to expect to be compensated? If a technology removes someone's ability to earn a living for their work, should there not be a mechanism to license that use? Also, from my experience, PROs don't get government money. They operate from license fees paid by businesses using music. The overwhelming majority gets distributed to music creators, but the money comes from people licensing the use, not from the musicians, or from taxpayers or government coffers. The user pays.
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07.2.2012 . 16:16
Its kind of shocking how misinformed the author is, considering he's an "expert." The thing about blogs is that there is no expectation of journalistic standards or balance.
The author forgot to tell us HOW to kick them out of their comfy chair and make them get a job. How do we do that? Tell us how so it can be done.
I predict that the more the entertainment media try to censor the internet the more their sales are going to evaporate and the worse "piracy" will get. If they're so paranoid about losing a few $$$ to downloading, they could very easily license downloading for a few $$ a month and make a fortune off of it. But if they want to be stubborn and shut down half the internet or maybe completely destroy it just to stop downloading, they'll end up causing a backlash that will hurt them badly in the long term.
I just hope this bill doesn't pass. It would destroy the internet.
Real-time updating is enabled.
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07.2.2012 . 16:16

The Copyright Industry - A Century of Deceit - TorrentFreak

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The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Rick Falkvinge November 27, 2011 199