What Good Will A Swedish Lawsuit Against The Pirate Bay Do?
from the hydra dept
It's been expected for a while, but reports are coming out that Swedish prosecutors will finally get around to filing charges against The Pirate Bay this week. If you don't remember, Swedish authorities bowed to US pressure a year and a half ago, and seized the servers of The Pirate Bay, a bittorrent search engine. As was noted at the time, the Pirate Bay doesn't host any infringing content, but simply acts as a search engine -- one that some artists have learned to use to their own advantage. The raid, which the entertainment industry quickly announced represented a "significant blow" against piracy, actually did the reverse. The resulting publicity, garnered the site a lot more attention, which has only continued to grow. It quickly set up new servers outside of Sweden, and it's hard to see a lawsuit doing very much but increasing the amount of attention given to the site. When the actual lawsuit is announced, expect quotes from the RIAA and MPAA about what a big deal this is -- but the only really big deal is how little this lawsuit will do to help the industry. It won't help them adjust to a changing market. It won't help them to adopt necessary new business models. It will only increase the attention given to the Pirate Bay and other sites. We've seen this before with Napster. We've seen this before with Grokster. We've seen this before with Kazaa. So why does the entertainment industry keep doing this?
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Filed Under: lawsuits, mpaa, pirate bay, riaa, sweden
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No.
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Re: No.
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I'll second that!
As for music, well, my beatles collection was completed years ago... So I have no idea what the music scene is like on tpb.
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Re: I'll second that!
PS: the Transmission client works the best on osx
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Re: Re: I'll second that!
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Re: I'll second that!
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Re: Re: I'll second that!
I have Comcast.
I download Bittorrents.
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Your "new business model"
Whether the movie and music industry need new business models is irrelevant to whether we need copyright protection (which we do), and your bringing it up in every blog you write makes it sound more like an excuse of a whiny little kid - like their lack of creating a new business model entitles you to steal.
If you don't like their product or what they charge, live without it.
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Re: Your "new business model"
It doesn't matter how you feel about the issue. It doesn't matter how Mike feels about the issue. Global market forces are going to work however they're going to work regardless. The fact is that you can even slow down piracy without putting unnecessary restrictions on your legitimate consumers. Nothing can change that fact - no DRM, no new law, no magic lamp, no wishful thinking. All you can do is change your business model to offer a better product that's profitable on the market.
Trying to insist otherwise is more akin to whining.
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Re: Re: Your "new business model"
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Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to have done that. :)
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Re: Your "new business model"
Corey, perhaps I haven't explained the new business model clearly enough then. The point is that it *doesn't matter* if more sites pop up and offer the same content for free. In fact, that *helps* you by promoting your stuff. You don't care how the content gets out there because it's purely promotional. What you do, though, is tie that back to a scarce good that others can't copy, that is made more valuable the more the content is out there.
So, if you're a musician, that means access to you or concerts or the ability to write a new song. These are things that simply can't be copied. So it doesn't matter if other sites pop up. In fact, that's a GOOD thing.
They don't have to invest all of the money into the products, they don't have to pay royalties to the artists like the movie and music industry would have to do, all they have to do is keep their website up and running and keep all of the profits for themselves.
That totally misunderstands the model. You're basing it on the idea that sites should be profiting directly from the content, but that's not how the model works.
Whether the movie and music industry need new business models is irrelevant to whether we need copyright protection (which we do)
Actually, it has everything to do with it. This is a business model question, not a criminal question. And I'd ask you to explain why we need copyright.
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Re: Re: Your "new business model"
I'm a true crime offer who has had decent success, I also know other true crime and history authors. My last last book was well reviewed in national magazines. The hardcover sold out and it will be in paperback this fall. Sell out the hard cover barely made me a profit when you take into account the money spent researching the book. That's the case for many authors, most don't make a lot of money.
Now if you get rid of copyright, when a book comes out others will copy it and sell their own versions, or digitize it (if its not in ebook format) and sell or give those away. For authors barely making a profit already, this will drive them from the business (sorry, when you grow up and have a family, you can't spend all of your money and time writing books when that's the only reward - I spent thousands of dollars researching my last book and couldn't afford to do that if I didn't think I was going to make it back.).
Now who does this hurt? The author, yes, they lose their lively hood, but it also hurts the consumer because as you drive authors from the business, you have less choices. Also, if you drive profit from the business you have less authors getting published through real presses who have things like editors, which will help any book.
If enough profits are taken away from any industry, movies and music included, what will happen is you will have less music and movies being produced, and less money going into the production. In the end the consumer suffers.
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Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
The free and open source software sector done very well without copyright's monopoly protection.
In the early history of the American republic, we don't recognize foreign authors' copyright. Yet American publishers sometime even paid more than the royalty that foreign authors received in their own country.
I bet books like Free as in Freedom still get sold despite the repealing of copyright's monopoly protection.
You need to provide solid real world evidence. You still have no bite.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
I'm sorry that you don't have an ideas that people would pay to buy, and that you want everyone else's ideas for free.
You can't make the argument that if copyright protection is lifted, there will be no impact on the person who created the item. Of course if other people are also putting out your product, you will lose some money. That's why I used the example of authors, because most authors would no longer be working authors if they lost a decent percentage of their royalties.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
In fact, if we abolish copyright, I advise a gradual transition plan to give people time to adapt.
What I am really saying is that copyright is unneccessary as incentive and there is no evidence that copyright improve economic productivity.
You need stop assuming that I am out there to get everything for free. I am quite willing to pay for books, thank you very much. Mot to mention that I also oppose price controls to keep gas price cheap instead of reflecting their real price.
Also, you continue to fail as far as evidence goes. You need real evidence to have any weight.
Hypothetical scenarios are not enough.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
It's been said many times, with little retort: every aspect of the commercial music industry has seen a growth in profit except for the sale of vastly over-priced and undervalued plastic discs. Authors have been dealing with an incredibly common and popular form of file-sharing for quite some time... it's called the public library. Don't underestimate the public's willingness to support an artist when their work is appreciated, when the level of support requested is appropriate and reasonable, and the industry medium hasn't managed to alienate and/or antagonize its prospective buyers.
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Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
As an avid reader myself, I can tell you that when it comes to books & writing, the quality of the work dictates the price I'll pay.
Some books are absolute swill, and those are the ones that I avoid. However with the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan, one which I first started reading digitally and "illegally" I now own most of the series in BOTH hard cover and paper back.
My suggestion to you is this, offer your book online in an open format (drm-free), allow me to copy it around onto disc and such, allow me to share. But also publish it conventionally. If you go back and actually read the article and comments from the past you'll notice that the majority of people are more than willing to buy content they like, and the more you allow me to share that book/document with my friends the more chances you have of one of them liking it too (assuming they've never heard of you before). Mike said it right when he said its about marketing.
My $0.02
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Re: Re: Re: Your "new business model"
Corey, did you really expect us to believe that you're an author when you care so little for your craft of writing that your attempt at intelligent discourse is laden with errors such as the dual errors of "I'm a true crime offer," and the comma splice in only the second sentence? The following one isn't any better. "My last last book..." Is that to mean the book before the last one, or do you mean the REAL last one, not the one that was kinda, sorta the last one.
Oh, wait. There's more. "Sell out the hard cover..." rather than "Selling out the hard cover..." And so on ad nauseum.
Perhaps if you didn't spend "thousands of dollars researching [your] last book" you'd be able to afford a word processing program that actually catches errors that even my high school students wouldn't dare submit to me in an informal writing assignment.
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Re: Your "new business model"
If you can't prove, you got no bite.
I got tons of evidence to prove you wrong. One example is RedHat. Even though RedHat have ton of legal pirates and competitors who are providing the same redhat products, RedHat still make money. Heck, they're even growing.
This isn't about whether if people can get musics for free or not. This is about selecting the best economic strategy so you can survive and thrive in a world that is getting ever more competitive.
Let me tell you, I'll be glad to charge you 30 dollars for buying my games. But I live in a time when it is become increasingly infeasible to do so. Not to mention that I already gave up my intellectual monopoly to boot. It is time to invent new business models that take advantage of the internet and the fact that people copy my games.
For that, I already found ways to make money.
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Re: Re: Your "new business model"
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Re: Re: Re: Your
It is a monopoly on a specific expression of a work. It is narrow but still a monopoly.
Here is a definition from answer.com:
"The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work." -- Answer.com
Emphasis is mine.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
If I write a book on a murder, and that book is copyrighted, you can still go out and write a book on that same murder. Yes, I have the exclusive right to my work, but not a monopoly on that case or murder books in general.
There is no good reason why somebody having exclusive rights over their specific work is bad for anybody. It is not that same thing as a monopoly like the evil exampleof past monopolies you people what to equate it with.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Simply put, nobody can sell a book without your permission.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Simply put, nobody can sell your book without your permission
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Can you explain how that is bad?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
It also cause the unavailability of some out of print books since nobody can print it without permission.
In many cases, it also cause some beneficial works to be illegal such as anime fansubs and fan fiction.
Copyright laws also happen to be particularly vulnerable to rent-seeking such as the DMCA and copyright extensions.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
But on the other side, if you abolish copyright law and any publisher can print someone's work, they have the advantage. The publisher who first published the work has to pay for more then just the printing of the book. They paid for editors, cover design, advertising. After that investment, they can't afford to charge rock bottom for the book and expect to make their money back. They can't compete with people who put out the same product but didn't have to pay for anything but printing the book, and it would be an unfair system if they had to. Their reward for putting the money into the development of the product is the rights to that product. This also goes for movies and music.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Publishers have incentive to be the first to publish books. This allowed them to charge higher price. I believe economists call this the first mover advantage.
They also have incentive to flood the market so other competitors can't complete.
For more example why this is not the case, we look back to RedHat again. Despite competitors charging lower price, or even giving away RedHat products free, Redhat were able to charge at a higher price anyway. Thus, allowing RedHat to make lot of money.
For some markets, people will prefer the original maker over the copycats. For example even if you make a perfect copy of an excellent and very valuable painting, you will not fetch a high price for it once people know that your is not the original. They will alway prefer the original.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yo
Actually he did. You claimed that authors wouldn't get paid, and he explained that this is provably false.
You can always find examples you think "prove" something, but I'm willing to bet that the American publishers publishing foreign author's work examples, those were very well known authors. This would not work for most authors because it takes time to build an audience and get the book reviewed, etc.
All the more reason to encourage it to be copied. It helps build up the audience. THe more it's out there, the more likely it is to find an audience.
Witness Paulo Coehlo's recent decision to pirate his own books:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080124/08563359.shtml
Note that he ended up INCREASING sales drastically this way.
By the time many author's sales peak another publisher could easily have another version out.
For the first book. But the next one will be in high demand.
And again, I used this example because authors generally don't make that much, so this loss in profits could push many authors into other careers. Again, that would hurt the consumer.
You are making the false assumption that the authors make less this way. With a larger audience of potential readers, there are many new ways to profit as well, beyond just selling the book directly. Again, it goes back to my original point: you are ignoring that there are other business models beyond selling content directly.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re
Also, you are ignoring the fact that many, many books are only going to appeal to a certain market. If I write a Civil War book for example, there are only so many people who are going to buy that. As I said, the first edition would be hardcover (so the publisher can recoup the money they invested on it). If someone gets the book the day it come out and prints a paperback, do you think they're doing major advertising and expanding the market? No they are cutting into my sales.
I'm not going to waste my time here at work researching this for you - if you want examples go find them. I'm sorry to tell you this, but there are certain products only so many people will want, so creating competition doesn't always expand the market, many times it splits the market.
And really if you want an example, look at the record industry. I know there's many people in here who will try to find other reasons for their lagging record sales, but the fact is the record industry has always come under the same criticisms its under now, yet sales always increased (as did the population and market). The fact that sales decline has been at the same time as the rise in file "sharing" (stealing) is not coincidence.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re
Well, the book is the product. There is not much merchandising that can be done for a lot of book. Bigger authors can make money from speaking, but not most.
And again, this goes back to hurting the consumer. If you're trying to force authors to use the book as an advertisement and then make money in other ways, you will lose good authors. Just as some people can't write, some authors may not be good at, say, public speaking.
You and others in here act like this is so easy, like publishers, record companies and movie studios have ignored revenue streams. Really? Do you think any of these entities don't want to make as much money as possible?
What is sounds like is jealousy. You can't make money from writing books or making music, so you want those who do to make less and work harder for it. I'm sorry but books and songs are a product. They are providing the consumer with entertainment. This is what are economy is. Exchange of good and services (entertainment) for money,
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Now THAT'S funny.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Really? You should learn what a monopoly is then. And you should learn some history.
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison in discussing whether or not the Constitution should have a provision on copyrights and patents:
"The saying there shall be no monopolies lessens the incitements to ingenuity, which is spurred on by the hope of a monopoly for a limited time, as of 14 years; but the benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression."
Note that he calls them monopolies.
James Madison to Thomas Jefferson:
"But grants of this sort can be justified in very peculiar cases only, if at all; the danger being very great that the good resulting from the operation of the monopoly, will be overbalanced by the evil effect of the precedent; and it being not impossible that the monopoly itself, in its original operation, may produce more evil than good."
So, please explain how it's a stretch to call copyright a monopoly. It clearly is a monopoly, granting the holder exclusive rights to the content.
There is no good reason why somebody having exclusive rights over their specific work is bad for anybody
Actually, there are tremendous reasons why it's bad for everyone. Read a little Adam Smith and learn why monopolies tend to hurt everyone. It shrinks a market, it limits growth and it harms competitiveness. It's why we moved to a free market from protectionism.
It is not that same thing as a monopoly like the evil exampleof past monopolies you people what to equate it with.
Actually, if you look at the research, intellectual monopolies can have an even larger negative impact.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
I don't really care what Adam Smith says, you can always find someone to back your point. There is also many experts and research that says exactly the opposite of Adam Smith.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
Thats the kind of model hes talking about.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
For products it can work for that is great and benefits everyone - but with some products (like ebooks for example) there are limited extras you can sell.
And the other thing about your examples is it was the companies who decided to give the software away for free. They new it would benefit them. These companies have a lot of people working on these problems. If everyone giving away all of their content for free worked, they'd be doing it, but it works for some kinds of content, but not for others.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your
We are at a point where the technology necessary to simply copy and distribute something such as an e-book can be done very easily by any anyone between 9 and 99 years old and with major to very little computer knowledge and with very, very little chance of negative consequences.
The music industry should perhaps consider focusing on doing something to spice up the sale of different kinds of musical products you can't rip - concerts, autographed material, chances to meet the artists, etc..
Actually, they could spice up CD sales by providing more than just a piece of plastic with music someone can get anywhere to include books about the band, photo books, etc, etc.. Turn the actual song from the product into bait to get people to spend their hard-earned cash on all kinds of other stuff.
I can't think of anything for books off the top of my head, but I'm sure something will come to me by the end of the day.
But anyway, that would be the idea.
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see, the **AA are marketing genuises!
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Re:
Lets say you download a song off of itunes for $0.99. Now if you get rid of that fee and replace it with advertising, you will maybe make $0.01 per customer (actually less). Now that penny has to be divided up among a lot of people. That business model only works if you have like 100 times the people visiting th site to download something for free then would pay for it.
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Corey
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Google doesn't host the infringing content, it just shows you where to find it.
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Go Corey!!! NOT!!!
The movie and music industries need a model where they offer their product at a reasonable price and without DRM. Scratch that, only the movie industry needs to do that now.
If the music industry had the copyright protection that they demanded, we wouldn't be seeing DRM-FREE MP3's for sale. (In fact, we probably wouldn't see any music on the internet except for Indie music.)
The music industry adapted, albeit a little late.
The movie industry, on the other hand, instead of pursuing a DRM-FREE Download model (and reasonable prices) has taken to suing anything/everything in sight. CinemaNow/Movielink was a joke, and so are the iTunes movie store and Amazon Unbox. As long as there is DRM on the video, I will not buy it, sorry.
The consumer is speaking, and the industry is not listening. NO DRM - So that I can move content that I have paid for to any device or stream it to any device from my computer. The only thing the industry is 'competing' with (in my eyes) right now is DRM-FREE, not FREE.
If an (industry-sponsored) movie site came online tomorrow, offering (recent) content at a fair price (if a movie sells for 19.99 in the store, then the download should be half that) WITHOUT DRM, then I would have my visa card out so fast that it would make your head spin, Corey.
"What you seem to ignore is this, even if they all adopt new business models and offer the free content you want (which is really what everyone complaining about the MPAA and RIAA want, its not about right),"
I don't want free, see above.
"Whether the movie and music industry need new business models is irrelevant to whether we need copyright protection (which we do), and your bringing it up in every blog you write makes it sound more like an excuse of a whiny little kid - like their lack of creating a new business model entitles you to steal."
No, it entitles me not to buy.
"If you don't like their product or what they charge, live without it."
I can live without the industry, can the industry live without me? Probably. Can the industry live without a million of me? They'll just call it piracy and try to get some legislation passed that demands that every consumer spend at least a hundred dollars a month on their product.
Can the industry live without ten million of me? How about a hundred million?
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Re: Go Corey!!! NOT!!!
The issue is people are not living without it. If they were the industry would be looking at itself. The issue is people are stealing it, and most of those people would be paying for CDs and DVD if they could not get it for free. CD sales were increasing year to year before p2p.
If you really have a moral problem with the RIAA and MPAA, just ignore their products. But we all know in reality that the majority of people illegally downloading music don't have some moral objection to the RIAA, MPAA, or anything else, they just want everything for free.
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Prosecution vs. Lawsuit
This is not like before, where the Swedes shut down the PB, and the owners got to run around to Holland and set it back up again. They'll have to get someone else to do that part, because the owners of the PB will be in jail, or out on bail, with a condition that they not leave the country.
This is more like the DVD Jon case where the Norwegian prosecutor put the screws on Jon, but in the end, they couldn't convict him of a crime. The prosecution in the PB case is looking to put the hurt on the PB administrators.
I wonder what law they will have broken? Whatever the case, this will turn into a long battle. Unless they cop a plea (can you do that in Sweden?) this is going to cost them some time, and possibly a fair bit of money. They might still be in court when the next election rolls around, so who knows what the long-term effects of this prosecution will turn out to be?
One things for sure, if the prosecution actually arrests these folks, that government is not going to stay in power for long. It'll have the Streisand effect all over again, with shades of Kevin Mitnick. Whatever happens, things will get interesting. Sweden's going to have a mutiny on its hands.
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Re: Prosecution vs. Lawsuit
Maybe, maybe not. The linked article doesn't specify that the charges being contemplated are criminal. And if they are, at what level or what that would mean. And I'm not sure that things work the same in the Swedish legal system as in the US system either.
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onward through the fog!!
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To Corey
Now let us look at copyright and its original intentions were to STOP one auther claiming someone elses work as his own. That i dont think anyone disagrees with Same with song and music writing. It was not intended to prevent you as a owner of a COPY of a work doing what you want to do with that copy.
Music industry records a artist singing or playing a song or music they then have the artist or musician tied up in such a contract that the company keep all copyright money the artists get nothing for their work. IS THAT RIGHT? NO.
it is time for a new business model and time for the artist to be the winner but the RECORD COMPANIES DONT WANT TO STOP SCREWING EVERYONE FROM THEIR ARTISTS TO CUSTOMERS. this is not new its gone on for years. only now artists are begining to realise they DONT NEED THE CHEATS and customers are finding the same.
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Re Corey
All evidence argues against you. And the natural forces in the market do too.
Mike already pointed out the flaw in your "need to get out there and be known" argument (again you stated with no proof). Why not offer it for free to everyone? Then tons more people will know who you are. Makes perfect logical sense. Wouldn't you want everyone to know who you are? Easiest path to do that is to give it away to everyone.
How many times were you asked for evidence above yet you haven't given any yet? Like 5 times?
Well, unless you offer actual real life support and not just "this is how it is" arguments, you are getting ignored.
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Re: Re Corey
For a few examples, people putting their work out for free helped them. I'm sure if you research it, you'll find many examples where it did not help (I'm not going to waste my time doing this for you). And in this case we are talking about unknowns. What if copied and sold your own Harry Potter books. Is that getting them more exposure? No, everyone has heard about Harry Potter, all you would be doing is competing with the author and her publisher and taking money from them. Unfairly I might add, because you didn't have to spent time writing the book, pay for editors, cover design, etc.
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Re: Re: Re Corey
It SHOULD BE EASY FOR YOU to dispute what I and others say with real world counterexamples.
Your "logic" won't cut it. You must be able to show and demonstrate that is the case.
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Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
And I'm done responding to you. Its not very hard to understand that one business model doesn't work for everything, or do you not understand "logic".
I suppose you think car makers should give you free cars because they can charge you for upgrades.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
You also have to explain why p2p is a bad thing for the economy. Since you are so knowledgeable on this, I expect you to show me empirical evidence that suggest the economic productivity of the music industry has dropped due to filesharing.
Cars on the hand are something scarce and valuable to a lot of people. So you can sell cars just as you can sell books.
Please note that I never say that some things should be free of cost. I am a big believer that you must have the freedom to sell something at any price that you want. If you want to sell digital musics, fine with me. I just don't think it is advisable to do so.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
No, he's shown how this works for performers. He has not shown how this is beneficial to those who create the content but do not perform it (i.e. songwriters).
You also have to explain why p2p is a bad thing for the economy. Since you are so knowledgeable on this, I expect you to show me empirical evidence that suggest the economic productivity of the music industry has dropped due to filesharing.
And in the same token, you should be expected to profer evidence on how p2p file-sharing is good for the economy. We're all waiting.
Cars on the hand are something scarce and valuable to a lot of people. So you can sell cars just as you can sell books.
There's a fundamental disconnect in this analogy: the car-designers are employed by the car-manufacturers; authors are not employed by publishers or printers.
Also, cars are not easy and cheap to copy. Books and other writings are. That's why copyright protection is essential to authors looking to make a living at what they do.
Please note that I never say that some things should be free of cost. I am a big believer that you must have the freedom to sell something at any price that you want. If you want to sell digital musics, fine with me. I just don't think it is advisable to do so.
So by extension, you in fact do say that music should be free of cost, or at least recorded music should be. Hmm, perhaps you should at least maintain some consistency within a paragraph.
Well, like I've said before, if recorded music, as expensive as it is to make, is to be free, then there is not much incentive to create the recording in the first place. Oh sure, you say that the music is advertising for the performance, but if it is, then why spend the exhorbinant amounts of money recording it in clean detail? Hell, if it's just advertising, why record more than just 3 songs? "Listen to these 3 songs and come see our show!"
The reason music artists record albums is so that they may be sold. If they are not to be sold anymore, why create the album?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
Actually, I've discussed how it benefits songwriters in great detail. Again, it's a reputation business, and the stronger your reputation is the more you can charge for your songwriting skills.
And in the same token, you should be expected to profer evidence on how p2p file-sharing is good for the economy. We're all waiting.
That's not hard. We've already shown how just about every aspect of the music business (other than selling plastic discs) is on the upswing. We've also seen that file sharing has improved software distribution, allowing for greater productivity and economic growth, and how it's improved demand for telecom services and broadband -- which have also contributed greatly to economic growth.
There's a fundamental disconnect in this analogy: the car-designers are employed by the car-manufacturers; authors are not employed by publishers or printers.
Not now. But that's one model that could occur (though, certainly not the only one).
Also, cars are not easy and cheap to copy. Books and other writings are. That's why copyright protection is essential to authors looking to make a living at what they do.
That's a fundamental myth again. Easy to copy doesn't mean that the originator loses the ability to sell their goods. In fact, if you look at the studies, you see the opposite. Again, I'll point out that Verdi produced a lot more work when he had no copyright protection than when he did -- because when he did, he had less incentive to keep producing. The problem is that you seem to think people should be forever compensated for one bit of work. I think the model makes more sense when you're encouraged to keep creating.
And, as for easily copied works, the publishers of the 9/11 commission report, which had no copyright, shows that being first to market matters. The first publisher made the bulk of money on sales of the report, even though other publishers had their copies out within a day. Don't assume that just because something is easy to copy that it means you can't still be the leader in the market.
Besides, being easy to copy just means you should look to tie it to things that *aren't* easy to copy, such as the ability to produce future works. Want people to buy the "official" copy of your book? Why not include a coupon with the book that gives them the opportunity to buy your next book at a discount? Or perhaps to get a chance to meet you at a personal book signing. That's just off the top of my head and there are many more models where that comes from.
Well, like I've said before, if recorded music, as expensive as it is to make, is to be free, then there is not much incentive to create the recording in the first place.
You'd have a much stronger case if there wasn't the very real case study of the world we live in today: all music is essentially available for free (yes, illegally) and yet more music is being created today than ever before. So your claim that the incentive goes away is bogus. Why? Because those musicians are adopting new business models that seem to work much better than the old ones.
Oh sure, you say that the music is advertising for the performance, but if it is, then why spend the exhorbinant amounts of money recording it in clean detail?
Because the better the quality, the more likely it is to find fans?
Hell, if it's just advertising, why record more than just 3 songs? "Listen to these 3 songs and come see our show!"
Are you seriously asking that question? You want to keep your fans happy, you want to keep them engaged. The more songs they know about, the more they're likely to be interested in your concerts. This isn't a difficult concept.
The reason music artists record albums is so that they may be sold. If they are not to be sold anymore, why create the album?
No. That's simply wrong. Sure, it may be the reason why some artists record albums, but there's no business model to support that any more. The reason buggy whip makers made buggy whips was to sell them, but that business model went away.
As for the reason to create an album, isn't it obvious? It's to make all those other business models more valuable.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
First, your examples are just that, examples. It certainly does not mean they will work for every artist or in every industry. Its worked for smaller bands to get the word out. Do you think an artist the size of Sting benefits? When someone reaches that point, people have hear of them, piracy just cuts into their market (or have we decided that its OK to steal from someone if they are successful enough?). And it won't work for every industry - you seem to forget that some things have a finite market.
Second, by you using Verdi as an example of no copyright being an incentive to produce more work proves my point, not yours. If lack of copyright was the reason he needed to produce more, then you acknowledge he lost money on the original work because of lack of copyright. Yeah, great for the market that he produced more, but when we're talking about products that take a long time to produces (like history books, which can take years of research), that extra loss of profit will be enough to end the career of many authors (most history books barely cover the costs of research as it is).
Third, do you think you are that much smarter then EVERYONE. Record companies, movie studios, and publishers have people whose job it is to tie these products to other products and make more money. That's their job and that's all they do. For some movies merchandising can be very successful, for others not so much (I'm still waiting for my Bridges to Madison County action figures). And as far as authors go, you really show your lack of knowledge. Except for celebrity authors and the biggest authors, book signings do not draw that many people. They are good for overall promotion of the book, but many many authors don't even break even on signing when you take into account the cost of travel. If there were all of these great business models to make more money off of books, don't you think someone at these publishing houses, whose job it is to market a book, would have come up with it. (and again one or two examples won't work - it doesn't help if 10% of authors will benefit from giving their book away if 90% suffer.)
If someone writes a book on Jesse James for example, there is a small niche market fr that book. If it gets reviewed well in True West, Wild West, etc, most if the audience that book appeals to will hear about it. Giving it away for free or letting other publishers publish it themselves only cuts into FINITE market for the book and cuts the original publisher's (who invested in the book) and author's profits.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re Corey
And by suggesting such a model, you clearly have no idea how songwriters earn an income. Songwriters get paid royalties based on how much their songs sell or are performed. They do not create works for hire. Songwriters are not employees of a record company, and they are not on a payroll. Instead they are paid based on how well their works perform.
Why is it done this way? Because that is the most inexpensive and fair way to pay songwriters. Record companies should not have to purchase the works of a songwriter without knowing whether the work will be popular. Your model of how a songwriter should get paid does not account for the unpredictability of product performance. A record company does not and should not have to pay for songs up front without knowing how they will perform in the market, but that's what your model proposes. Your model kills the occupation of the songwriter, and that does not "promote the Progress of ... the useful Arts." See U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 8 Cl. 8.
Songwriters should only get paid based on the merit of their work, not the merit of their reputation.
"There's a fundamental disconnect in this analogy: the car-designers are employed by the car-manufacturers; authors are not employed by publishers or printers."
Not now. But that's one model that could occur (though, certainly not the only one).
And that model would fail, because publishers and printers are not going to pay an author to punch a clock. Nor are publishers and printers going to pay upfront for the ownership of a manuscript when they don't know at the outset the popularity of the book.
What you seem to fail to understand is that the writing business, beit music or literary works, is a meritocracy: the authors get paid for the quality of their work, not the quality of their reputation.
That's a fundamental myth again. Easy to copy doesn't mean that the originator loses the ability to sell their goods. In fact, if you look at the studies, you see the opposite. Again, I'll point out that Verdi produced a lot more work when he had no copyright protection than when he did -- because when he did, he had less incentive to keep producing.
Easy to copy means that the originator loses a substantial ability to sell his goods.
I don't know what studies you're talking about, but I'm going to guess they are in limited contexts, much like your Verdi example. However, take a look at the history of movable type and the printing press and how it greatly benefited printers but provided no benefit to authors. Also, take a long look at the history of the Copyright Act and figure out why it was drafted in the first place. After all, if all you say is true and an author does not lose a substantial economic incentive to create if the creation is difficult to make but easy to copy, then why was the Copyright Act put in place to begin with?
The problem is that you seem to think people should be forever compensated for one bit of work.
No, I think people should be compensated justly for their one bit of work. If that one bit of work ends up being hugely popular for a long period of time, then the author should be justly rewarded for that product's popularity.
I think the model makes more sense when you're encouraged to keep creating.
And that's the way it currently is. The more works you create, the more money you stand to make.
And, as for easily copied works, the publishers of the 9/11 commission report, which had no copyright, shows that being first to market matters. The first publisher made the bulk of money on sales of the report, even though other publishers had their copies out within a day. Don't assume that just because something is easy to copy that it means you can't still be the leader in the market.
Sure, I buy the first-to-market theory. The problem with your example is that the first publisher of the 9/11 commission report did actually copy it -- from a public file. The original publisher did not create the subject matter, and the original publisher certainly did not spend much money trying to acquire the subject matter. Further, the publisher does not owe any money to the creator of the file, which is the U.S. Government. This example has no bearing on a situation where the original content is difficult and expensive to create and the publisher and author have to clear a substantial amount of overhead cost.
Besides, being easy to copy just means you should look to tie it to things that *aren't* easy to copy, such as the ability to produce future works. Want people to buy the "official" copy of your book? Why not include a coupon with the book that gives them the opportunity to buy your next book at a discount? Or perhaps to get a chance to meet you at a personal book signing. That's just off the top of my head and there are many more models where that comes from.
Yes, but that loses sight of where the fundamental value lies: in the created product itself. Why should an author have to hawk extraneous stuff, like paraphernalia or public appearances, so that he can make money when the thing of most value is the item he creates? How many John Grisham readers in the United States really want a chance to meet John Grisham? My guess is about half, and I'm willing to bet that even fewer would be willing to pay to do so. The real value lies in the books he writes, not the paraphernalia that is extraneous to it.
You'd have a much stronger case if there wasn't the very real case study of the world we live in today: all music is essentially available for free (yes, illegally) and yet more music is being created today than ever before. So your claim that the incentive goes away is bogus. Why? Because those musicians are adopting new business models that seem to work much better than the old ones.
Ah, but they still do get copyright protection on their music, do they not? And they still go after the infringers, do they not? And I do know that most musicians try to make it extremely difficult to easily copy their works. So to me, it sounds like musicians still have an incentive to prevent other people from easily copying their works.
Are you seriously asking that question? You want to keep your fans happy, you want to keep them engaged. The more songs they know about, the more they're likely to be interested in your concerts. This isn't a difficult concept.
It certainly isn't, and I'd buy that argument if albums were not so damn expensive to make. If popular musicians actually had to foot the bill for the cost of making their albums, they'd have a big problem with giving them away for free. However, record companies pay for the production of the album, and that is why they are ones who have a problem of giving the album away for free. And if they knew they had to give them away for free while paying for the cost of recording, I promise you that the quality of recording would go down so that musicians for the sake of lowering costs.
As for the reason to create an album, isn't it obvious? It's to make all those other business models more valuable.
If that's the case, I would not expect to see much recording going on, especially at the high price it costs.
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Editing
Should read "I promise you that the quality of recording would go down for the sake of lowering costs."
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Corey Tip
"Actually, if you look at the research, intellectual monopolies can have an even larger negative impact."
Corey, Mike jumps freely from one intellectual property rights to another with very little distinction and often undifferentiated in the same sentence or argument. The vast majority of the research that he quotes deal with patents and IMHO have very little to do him theorizing that a little old songwriter like myself would-in some long and convoluted chain of logic- harm the world by writing a song.
Also, I would add that on the theoretical economics side the authors he quotes are hardly universally accepted as theorists and are strongly disputed by many think tanks and other authors.
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In The End
On top of that, we live in a capitalist society where everyones on a life-long mission to get more for less. So, in more cases than not, people are inclined to take something for free if they can avoid paying for it (either in cash or jail time). As a result, P2P is really popular and its not leaving.
Like it or not, whether anyone believes P2P is legal or not, the music industry is going to have to change its business model, as will likely other companies that deal in "intellectual property".
While I'm at it, I think copyright law should simply protect an artist's or creator's claim to having created a particular work, not restrict sales or distribution. For example a guy writes a book, another man copies it and starts selling it himself. Man1 can't stop Man2 from selling the copies, but Man2 is legally bound to clearly credit Man1 as the material's artist. In the end, both would probably profit, but Man1 more so as interest in getting his original works now and future will spread fast.
And thats my few pennies.
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Exactly
"If everyone giving away all of their content for free worked, they'd be doing it, but it works for some kinds of content, but not for others."
That is the crux of the matter and IMHO the discussions here need to winnow out more of the nuances and rules of what and where and how giving away for free works (an option that has always been available) and also when it does not work.
The iron-fisted inflexible mantra exhibited by some here is that there is a grand transcendent unifying theory of the free which looks like some singular law of physics that would describe every action or state of the universe. The insistence on this grand unifying theory leads to very little learning or new knowledge created to the present.
Corey, your above statement provides a working theory that will allow learning to occur. I remain optimistic that real learning can begin here on this site in the future.
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Re: Corey
I mean, that's kind of the point, isn't it? You write a well-written, well-researched book, people read it, and you get a good reputation. Then you work off of that reputation. You will ALWAYS be the first to market because no one can copy it before you print it. After getting it out there, anything else become more advertising for you and your reputation, and now you're THIRD book is in even more demand. And maybe you start to get famous, and people invite you for interviews and to give Commencement speeches and stuff.
What you DO as an author is produce content, but that doesn't have to be what you SELL. If you're good at what you do, if people come to know and respect you, there will be other ways of making money. This goes for bands, yes, but I think ESPECIALLY for authors because there are so many out there, all appealing to small little groups and niche interests, and you have to reach far and wide to find your audience, and once you've found them you have to stand out from the crowd.
Free content is not a PR stunt, it's marketing. More people participating in free-content models will not lessen the effect of reaching more people.
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Re: Re: Corey
I know a lot of successful authors and you know what, they don't make all that much money. If it was so easy to come up with some other business model, don't you think this would have been done already so mare authors could make decent money?
This theory you guys are pushing only works if there is an infinite market. Some products are only going to have so much demand for them, why are you guys ignoring it. So others producing your exact product will only cut into that market, not expand it.
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And just to make another point....
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Re: And just to make another point....
I'm sorry, there are just not that many other products of services for most authors to sell that will make them a 10th of the money the book sales do.And please don't start shouting out examples of exceptions - we all know authors of good economic books can get corporate speaking engagements. But what about the person who writes a novel that sells 10,000 copies? There's usually not much of a market for an author of this popularity for paid speaking engagements, and what other services would they sell? Selling themselves as a writer for companies. Then you're taking working authors and giving them dayjob, reducing the number of books they write, and hurting the consumer.
Why is it so hard to understand that books, music, and movies are products in themselves? Giving everything away free does not work for EVERY BUSINESS.
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"So why does the entertainment industry keep doing
Because they're idiots.
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Why we have copyrights
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The Indictment is ready
The list of the infringing material in the indictment can be found here: http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=3130&a=738369
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Excellent Points
It amazes me when Mike will presume to know so much about something like songwriters (my field) and their behavior. Has he gotten on the phone like a reporter and called a songwriter or two?
When well informed posters like Corey and Willton above refute Mike's theory with man on the ground accuracy, Mike refuses to listen. It seems to me that the lack of flexibility that Mike is exhibiting by refusing to learn (the exact opposite of the scientific method) from evidence that is contrary to his theory is exactly parallel to the inflexiblity that he rants about in the RIAA and the MPAA.
How ironic.
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And even at that, why *can't* songwriters be part of a band, or employed by a record label. If nothing else, it would give something that a Label could offer artists, especially with the costs of production coming down. "Sign with us and you can have access to songs written by X."
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business model
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Re: business model
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business model
Also - fantastic albums can be made for a few thousand these days with the digital recording technology available. How about downloading the software from Pirate Bay for a start to save money lol
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business model...
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industry hipocracy - aiding & abetting - conspiracy to defraud
also creates the means to copy the product
and sells it to us?
then penalises us for using that product?
multinational industry`s are making billions from d.v.d. & c.d. writers & computers.
but make no repriation to the artists,poets, musicians, or software games designers, that lose a certain percentage of their sales.
it`s not the scapegoats you want
it`s the makers of the scapegoats
beware of the cult of the mutilated corpse???
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wondering
Maybe they will love it, maybe they will hate it, either way, this CD is getting played in a circumstance when it normally would not. Who knows, maybe I loved it so much, i will go to the concert and shell out 30 dollars for a t-shirt that cost a dollar to produce?
As the prime example of a music pirate, I need to give some praise to iTunes for making CD's affordable. I love getting gift cards for presents and browsing the 0.99 cent songs, which i would call a fair deal. Stores that revolve around selling hard copies of CDs are going bankrupt everywhere because they are selling discs at pricing that the market does not support.
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