Comparing Unauthorized Downloads To Speed Limits
from the problem-starts-at-home dept
Given the entertainment industry's obsession with claiming (often in a misleading way) that unauthorized use of copyrighted content hurts all the "everyday" people in the industry rather than the big stars, you would hope that people in the entertainment industry capital of the world, Los Angeles, would be concerned about the problem -- but it appears that many are not. A new study suggests that one in four Los Angelinos bought, copied or downloaded an unauthorized product. Now, that includes things like counterfeit handbags as well as downloading music. However, it's a self-reported study, so it wouldn't be crazy to suggest that these results are much lower than reality, as many people probably wouldn't admit to downloading when asked point-blank. No matter what the number is, Justin Levine uses this study to kick off an interesting discussion comparing such actions to breaking the speed limit. His point is that most people have a general sense of fairness. If they're breaking the speed limit, it's often because they actually think the speed limit is too slow. If speed limits were raised, some people would still speed, but it would be a smaller amount. Alternatively, if the speed limits were lowered, more people would likely break the speed limit. If you swap that analogy back to downloading, Levine notes that it seems like this study is only going to be used by officials as a reason to "crack down," or effectively "lower the speed limit." In other words, trying to crack down on the problem is only likely to make it worse -- which is pretty much exactly what we've seen over the past decade.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: conterfeits, copyright, unauthorized
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Insightful
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Insightful
Cent symbol (no spaces): & cent ;
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Insightful
Obviously the method using alt and the numpad is better, as it is really a cent sign. Using something that only works ify ou have your settings right is kinda useless compared to something that works on everything.
Hmm, sounds like DRM so I guess I'm not tottaly off topic.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Insightful
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
AllofMP3
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Price point
I am a firm believer in capitolism and our economy. Can't blame Apple for charging $5 a song if people will pay it. But when the government gets invovled and limits competition that results in those high prices. That is something I'm very much against.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Charge to much for something...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Living a lifetime w only 5 installations of iTunes
I have had drives fail and needed to reinstall iTunes... each time this happens I give up another pc that the music can be access from as prescribed by Apple. With my luck, I won't be able to use any iTunes purchased music (what with crapping out drives and other hardware upgrades and random freak accidents) in 2 years.
Is this fair? NYET!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Living a lifetime w only 5 installations of iT
All you have to do is call Apple and tell them you have a new hard drive. My buddy has done this several times, but I don't know how many times you can do it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Living a lifetime w only 5 installations o
However, if it has worked for someone, can't hurt to call again. Thanks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
¢
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It neglects to mention that a non-counterfeit DVD likewise costs about 50 cents to produce (actually, probably significantly less, due to the higher volume of production and economies of scale) and goes for closer to $15.
Who's ripping their customers off more? The bootleggers, with a factor-of-10 markup, or the "legitimate" recording industry, with a factor-of-30-or-more markup?
(And whichever you buy from, the artists are lucky to see a thin dime in royalties. The bootleggers are actually more honest; people buying from a bootlegger probably suspect the artist won't see a cent of their money just spent, whereas people buying from the local HMV probably don't suspect, especially given the recording industry's frequent loud rhetoric about artists having to get paid when denouncing bootlegging and downloads.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
By the time the vast majority of movies is released on DVD, the cost to produce the actual content has already been recovered from the box office revenue. And this is without even taking into account revenue from merchandise.
The additional cost of additional content for the DVD is minimal/next to nothing, as a lot of DVDs don't do much more than slap some deleted scenes, trailers, biographies, stills, and some other bits that were already shot during the making of the movie (often for promotional purposes at some point). Heck, even making a commentary track doesn't cost that much, after all it's the actor(s) and/or director and/or ... sitting around, watching the movie and giving comments
In short, for the vast majority of movies
1) content creation has already been paid back by box office revenue
2) the additional cost for additional content on the DVD is minor/non existent
so his initial comparison still stands as far as I am concerned...by the time a movie is released on DVD, any costs of content creation have been covered plenty
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
¢
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
¢
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
nice analogy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I want a Mercedes but I can't afford it so its ok to steal it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You fail, please come back when you are more intelligent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
What if you had a magic wand and could create an *exact duplicate* of a Mercedes out of thin air, then drive off in it? You may be guilty of making an unauthorized copy, but you certainly didn't steal anything.
Any by the way, the SCOTUS agrees with this. See Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
This case fell before the No Electronic Theft Act was passed. Get it, THEFT.
Another point is that the Dowling case said that copyright violation material (the CD's) couldn't be considered stolen property. NET changes that, and even if it didn't, the act of distributing copyright material illegally is defined as theft.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And the price for most derailed analogy goes to...
God, I hate bad metaphors...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
For those last comic standing fans, one comic put it this way. (cant remember his name)
I hate the fbi ads at the begining of movies. They say "You wouldn't steal a car." Right. I wouldn't steal a car. But if my buddy called up and said "Hey I just got a brand new BMW. Would you like me to burn you a copy?" I might think about it.
Seriously. It's a COPY. An seriously if you think the $15 goes to "covering costs" you are just as brainwashed as the rest of them. Go get in line. Effing Lemmings.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Says it all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Come on ppl
This is why we have copyright. But if people starts copying single copies for them selves instead of buying your product, which you should be able to make much much cheaper because of huge volume, then there is something wrong with your price/business model.
And saying that downloading music illegally is the same as stealing a BMW is total BS.
Pete says it beautifully:
"They say "You wouldn't steal a car." Right. I wouldn't steal a car. But if my buddy called up and said "Hey I just got a brand new BMW. Would you like me to burn you a copy?" I might think about it."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Come on ppl
the bottom line here is not the business model as much as it is the ethical decisions people choose to make and the increasingly creative ways they justify and rationalize their behavior.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Maybe I am now guilty of copyright infringement.
And one more thing.
John. Maybe you should get your reading scores up before you post. The comparison is to WHY people are dl'ng music istead of puchasing. It is not comparing speed limits to cracking down.
Another lemming. Go jump.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Way around ITunes DRM....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Way around ITunes DRM....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rewind back to the 80's when companies were selling VHS and Cassettes. One of the large "Yes, please." factors to moving to CDs and DVDs was that those media types cost less to manufacture... Yet when they came out, they charged more for them than the older VHS/Cassettes. A lot of people were angry about this, and a lot of people went on to obtain illegal copies "in protest" of their decision to charge more for something that was cheaper.
Now we move to downloads for music and movies. These cost even LESS to produce, and a website does not require a large sales and manufacturing workforce to man it. This "should" result in an even cheaper product, right? Wrong. The downloads still cost the same, and sometimes even more when you compound 99 cents per song. AoMP3 was charging about what it should have cost for much of their music - $1-$2 per album, with a sliding scale based on track length. This allowed you to get a track from an album like "1. Intro 0:42" for only a few cents, rather than the 99 cents like the other online retailers. The big name websites could learn a thing or two from this...
Then you add DRM on top of it all, and this costs money. The company had to pay the initial costs to develop the system, and has to host a licensing server for the music/movies to call home to. This is very expensive in comparison to non-DRM distribution methods - and guess what? The cost is passed off onto the consumer, making your downloads cost more than they should.
DRM also gets problematic in that you do not have full control over your media. You can delete it from one computer and put it on another instead, you can only burn one or two copies to disc, so on and so on. What happens when you replace your computer more than once in your lifetime? Or maybe you keep losing or scratching the CD that you burned? Too bad, you gotta buy it all over again. This is ridiculous.
I personally refuse to purchase music or movies online for more than it would cost to buy it from a store. I'd rather pay less and get the actual CD/DVD including the package. I also refuse to buy any media which contains DRM. It is a waste of money for me to invest in those tracks on the offchance that I need to make more legitimate/legal copies of the media than they think is fair.
"I want a Mercedes but I can't afford it so it's okay to steal it." is not how these people are thinking who download music illegally. The amount of money people have is not at issue here. The people downloading music/movies without paying for it come from all walks of life. Some are poor, some are middle class, and some are millionaires.
The notion remains that if they dropped the price of online media to better represent the cost of bringing it to you, I would personally guarantee that the number of unique customers and the volume of sales would increase, while the number of illegal downloads would decrease. There will always be people who find it nice to still get things for free - that won't go away, but you can still bring back the ones who WANT to buy the music legally, but can not justify paying their insane rates.
Take that $70k Mercedes you used in your example, take out the increase in price the dealership is charging, strip out all of the optional accessories (but hint that it still has them in your online ad), and then tell me that I can only drive it 15 miles a day, and that the car company will track me on GPS 24-hours a day to see that I do not park my car at a friends house when I visit him, and that no one else may ride in the car aside from yourself... And charge $75k for "removing the dealership" (middleman). THIS is the problem with buying online music with DRM, and why people are avoiding it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: John M
Couldn't have said it better myself
I do not download music/movies legally because the price is too high and the stupid f*****g DRM is too restrictive!!
If they removed the DRM and charged a reasonable price for it I would probably pay for it legally.
These greedy industry b******s just don't get it AT ALL!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]