A Timeline Of How The Entertainment Industry Made The File Sharing Issue Much Worse For Itself
from the keep-whac-whac-whacing dept
A bunch of folks have sent over the various stories about how Paramount's COO, Fred Huntsberry, recently started claiming that the "new piracy threat" facing Hollywood is "digital lockers." The whole article is a bit silly in a variety of ways, not the least of which is that it's an implicit admission that Hollywood's own tactics have been a complete failure. The funny thing is that even as they're admitting it, you get the feeling they don't realize it. Let's follow the "path" which many people warned about as soon as Napster was sued:- Napster was a Silicon Valley, venture capital-funded startup that tried to bend over backwards to figure out a way for the industry to embrace it and work with it legitimately. The entertainment industry had every opportunity to work out a reasonable deal, and instead took a hardline position, suing the company effectively out of business (though the brand later lived on).
- After Napster, just as many people warned, the file sharing market began to fragment and shifted to slightly more distributed operations, such as Grokster, Kazaa and Morpheus. These were a bit more difficult to work with, but all still involved company entities that had an interest in working with the entertainment industry. Once again, they were sued out of business.
- After Grokster, again the market fragmented even more, and a lot of the interest shifted to BitTorrent and tracker sites. These sites were often outside of the US, and not particularly interested in working with the entertainment industry to actually set up any kind of business relationship. And, still, the industry sued to get them shut down (a process that is still ongoing), while also seeking to pass specific laws against them.
- So here we are, and the market has fragmented even more and people have been driven even further underground to things like private cyberlocker sites. Hollywood is claiming that many of these sites are run by organized crime groups, though, we've yet to see any evidence to support that.
"Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites," Huntsberry said. "That's the irony."That's not irony, Fred, that's your company and your colleagues failing for over a decade to come up with a way to properly satisfy consumer demand.
All in all, you actually start to wonder if Hollywood has this need to make up some big scary bogeyman to keep pushing its legislative agenda of granting more and more control and taking away more and more user rights. At first it was "file sharing sites." Then those were sued out of existence. So then it was BitTorrent trackers. And now its lockers. In fact, it's amusing that as part of Huntsberry's talk he basically admitted that three strikes laws aren't enough because they don't do anything to stop these file lockers. In other words, "we fought, and are still fighting, for three strikes laws that we know are useless." It's as if the entertainment industry has to just keep pointing out some huge new threat so that the government keeps paying attention to them.
Along those lines, techflaws.org points us to a German publication's coverage of the same Huntsberry talk, and it's interesting that The Hollywood Reporter version of the story appears to have conveniently left out the part where Huntsberry blames Google for all of this (that's a Google translation of the original). In that one, he calls Google the "biggest leech." Of course, the courts recently shot down that claim, but it looks like Viacom and its subsidiaries are sticking to the claim.
What's amazing, of course, is that if the folks at Paramount and other studios and record labels stopped looking for enemies everywhere, they would have realized there were tons of opportunities to adapt and embrace these things a decade ago. But each step of the way they've made things more difficult for themselves. It's a living case study in how not to respond to a disruptive market change.
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Filed Under: copyright, digital lockers, file sharing, fred huntsberry
Companies: google, paramount
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tune back in monday when mike will attempt to post something that isnt total dreck.
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the uploader then gives a URL that links back to the uploaded file to the person(s) they want to share the file with.
these sorts of sites include rapidshare, megaupload, easyshare etc.
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Wow
Now we know who to ignore when the only thing you can do is the very same as certain other people that make baseless arguments.
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They're currently to implement for Three Strikes law which means entire households can be disconnected for one person's wrongdoing, using only an IP address as evidence.
Why is it shocking that the pirates simply stopped using the services that disclosed their IP addresses or found a way to mask it? To me, that would be the only logical consequence of a law like this.
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Bulletin Board Systems (BBS):
Publicly available message and file repositories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
Usenet:
Sort of a precursor to modern internet forums, people could post messages and files under a hierarchically organized system of topics. Hosting was usually provided by the ISP running the Usenet server. Usenet is still in use today for file swapping although more and more ISPs are closing their Usenet servers under pressure from media companies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
Private FTPs:
Serious traders still run sFTP servers with terabytes of music, movies, games, cracks, app, and anything else. Access is often traded via IRC communities. Usually an up/down ratio is enforced for anonymous users.
Gated file share communities like Hotline:
A wealth of applications sprang up that incorporated messaging and lists of file share servers. Access is usually traded through IRC and favors, sometimes by contributing a certain amount of verified warez to a person's share before being given free access.
Sneakernet/Lan parties:
You better believe this one is still in use today. Space is so cheap and local networks are so fast that it's easy to bring your desktop with your entire collection to a party and come away with hundreds of gigs of new goodies.
Soooo many other things could be listed, like gophernet and xdcc communities. I'd love to see an article paralleling the development of all those things with media company attempts to shut them down.
The reason people say that further efforts will just drive communities to go farther underground and become more advanced is that it's true. We've been through hundreds of iterations of this so far and the amount of progress made on stopping the widespread sharing of copyrighted material is less than 0. Filesharing is more prolific than ever.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyX7O4qplQs
Somehow I think the world will end up like that with rabbits killing everything that moves.
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Personally, I hope they do force web-blocking into law. I'd spend all my free time requesting that the websites of the BPI, RIAA, iMPAA, etc be removed for the most vexatious of reasons.
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FTFY.
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Having said that, I and many others moved away from torrents years ago, not through fear of being sued or imprisoned, but because there are far more effective and efficient ways to obtain the material we want.
Who wants their 100Mbit line hobbled to a crawl due to a poorly seeded torrent? Forget that, I'll go with an option that will max out my connection 24/7, and that isn't torrents.
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The day that happens is the day civilizations crumble.
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That's not irony, Fred, that's your company and your colleagues failing for over a decade to come up with a way to properly satisfy consumer demand."
Indeed. I can only repeat here what's been said before. "Pirate" services have always given people *what they want*. The content industry has spent the last 15 years pissing around - first trying to ban MP3 players and digital playback devices. When that didn't work, they have tried at every step to impose anti-consumer blocks on what people can do - region locking, DRM, windowed releases, "bonus" tracks on albums that a person in another country is not allowed to buy, double-dipping DVDs and trying to force people to buy inferior discs in "smaller" markets.
Meanwhile, the "pirates" have everything that a person could want - every album and movie, often before their release or well after they're "out of print", all the tracks, all the extras in a format that's as high (or low) quality as you wants, whenever you want, and will play on any device you wish.
Forget the "free" aspect of it - the selection and lack or restrictions are the real killer feature of the "pirate" sites. I reckon a lot of people would pay for a legitimate service with these features if one was available, but there is not one that matches up. This is largely thanks to outdated licensing models that are unworkable in the modern world. If only they had tried fixing that instead of attacking customers, they might have such a service available today. Instead, I'm not allowed to buy digitally from Amazon, iTunes doesn't sell the movies I want and my XBox 360 constantly tells me I'm on the wrong patch of dirt to buy from it. The Pirate Bay, on the other hand, is happy to offer me the goods I want but doesn't take money, even though I am willing to pay legally for them.
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That be mutiny in this sea! Ye be walkin da plank fer this treason!
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Think about when Napster first came out and the technology that it unleashed. In no way was P2P very efficient. With that technology (we're disregarding BBS since that's been around for what seems like centuries) companies continued to find new ways to make the download process more efficient.
I have to question how exactly you're downloading something new compared to BT, since that still seems the best way for most people.
Main point is that as Hollywood tries a heavy handed approach, it's making the filesharing process that much more efficient as it litigates once company out of existence.
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Its also ....
A friend of mine is getting his doctorate studying the psychology of this disruptive market change. After watching 20-30 random hours (600 hrs total) of video he has shot or gathered at label and studio get togethers. I find it pretty amazing the way these people group toghether, are totally inflexable, attack anyone with a discenting voice, go into rages or walk away in denial when anyone questions their belief system.
My favorite quote from my friend is "Its a modern day corporate cultism, all that is missing is jonestown or waco style event".
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Have to ask...
Thanks a million, that amuses me, or what?
TIA.
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usenet is getting squeezed on all sides, its life is almost up.
private ftps require an actual owner to operate. as more and more people end up on the bad end of legal charges, there are fewer people willing to be on the hook.
gated communities share the same problem, they have owners who can be found personally liable. even if they come out ahead legally (think oink) the personal costs of getting there are insane.
lan parties with the intention of sharing files is a legal situation ripe for action. authorities only need to get one person 'inside' to spot the action, and then they can swoop down and take action directly. there is potential that parties like these would not only be violating contract law (copyright) but could be considered a criminal conspiracy, worthy of actual police action. it would be on the level of burning dvds and selling them at a flea market.
in the end, any community or system that becomes widely known will get slapping into the dirt. as communities go further underground, they seperate themselves from the mainstream and no longer are of great concern as the general public will not be part of them. at that point, piracy isnt an issue. in the end, the industries dont expect to make piracy disappear, just to make it so that the vast majority of the public no longer participates or sees it as a valid, safe, and legal option.
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thanks!
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oops...
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If people want something, they will find a way to get it....
If people want booze, they will get booze. It can be as easy as going to a store and paying taxes, or as hard as finding a speakeasy and paying some mobster.
If people want drugs, they will get drugs. It could be as easy as growing pot in your closet, or as hard as finding some shady drug dealer who tries to hustle crappy cut up crack.
If people want free music, they will get free music. (See a pattern here?) It could be as easy as getting it from a single entity that could be forced to pay royalties a-la napster, or as hard as going to a warez site and getting a virus.
The entertainment industry has only managed to drive the entire file sharing industry underground. If there is involvement with organized crime, or other unpalatable entities its the industries fault.
I am really beginning to doubt that the entertainment execs will ever understand any of this. Unfortunately it might take the collapse of the major labels/studios before there are enough firing synapses in Hollywood to grasp the situation.
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Only because of obsolescence. It's being replaced by superior technology.
"private ftps require an actual owner to operate. as more and more people end up on the bad end of legal charges, there are fewer people willing to be on the hook."
1 percent of the population can only enforce so many laws against the rest of the 99 percent of the population being that 1 percent of the population can conduct far less law enforcement labor than the quantity of law violating labor that the rest of the 99 percent can conduct. It's impossible to go after that many people, you can't jail everyone our jails simply don't have the capacity or the funds to maintain themselves. Tyrannies have failed throughout history for good reason, they are unsustainable. When you have too many laws they become unenforceable being that the population breaking the laws far outnumbers those enforcing the laws and hence far outdoes them in terms of labor efforts. and when everything everyone does becomes illegal the law becomes meaningless. You can't control the every action of everyone and law enforcement already can't control the drug war, IN JAIL, yet alone out of jail (or even in China), despite the tens of billions of dollars spent per year and criminal sanctions.
"as communities go further underground, they seperate themselves from the mainstream and no longer are of great concern as the general public will not be part of them."
No, they simply better organize themselves to avoid getting caught. The drug wars are dangerous for good reason, because enforcement is harsh. Gangs create their own governments with their own rules and enforcement entities with weapons so that they can sell drugs to anyone they pleas. and pretty much anyone right from the general public right now can buy drugs with little to no risk of getting in trouble. To the extent that people don't buy drugs it's only because drugs are bad for us and doing drugs is not in our best interest, not because anyone really fears law enforcement. Piracy does not suffer this same dynamic and most people see nothing wrong with breaking our current laws.
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Bottom line, I'd be more than happy to pay a reasonable price get music or movies or whatever in a format I actually want. Unfortunately, the industry does not sell what I want to buy. I am forced to find another way. Wake up and start selling what people actually want to buy and then all the other crap the industry is fighting so hard will become irrelevant.
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Yet the drug wars are still a complete failure. If law enforcement really wants to crack down on piracy then piracy gangs will create harsher and harsher resistance against insiders, creating their own laws and enforcement thereof. Their level of organization and sophistication will increase. Authorities will get one person inside but once others have figured out who this one person is they will simply reform and exclude that outsider. Authorities will have to find another insider each time and it can't be from any known authorities either (ie: cops or known law enforcement), it must always be someone new. The demand for pirated goods is (or will be) far greater than the demand for illegal drugs. Why? Illegal drugs are bad for us so most people don't want them. Pirated goods do not suffer this dynamic. Demand creates supply one way or another and more demand means more supply, even if violent force is necessary against insider cops who are discovered, just like with the war on drugs. and being that the demand for piracy far exceeds (or will far exceed as more and more people adopt technology) the demand for illegal drugs people will be willing to employ more violence against law enforcement to fulfill that demand. The costs simply won't be worth it.
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"Blah blah blah friday sucks blah blah I love lasagna blah I hate mike you killed my father prepare to die."
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Tune back Saturday, where TAM makes an even bigger fool of himself. Stay tuned, don't go away, you don't want to miss it.
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Technology Transition
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I beg to differ... source
There are other reasons that usenet has disappeared, but a crushing vice isn't one of them.
I find your post quite odd.
It ignores the fact that broadband and the internet have taken away the large disparities that are supposedly inherent in the market place. You can download a torrent, get a movie and have someone else ready to watch that movie in another country.
Here's how the movie and music industry could make money. As Mike does, you pay for access to the content. Music is a commodity? Fine, P2P, 5$ a month, go nuts. Every now and then run a contest. Most downloads in a month, give them a $50 gift card. You want to be part of the community? Great, promote this new artist.
For movies, it's so much simpler to print the DVDs, have a universal release date and release the torrent on the same day. Charge a first rate $10 for the torrent, keep the receipt and you get $5 off when the DVD comes out in your area. It uses the technology of today without seeming to screw the fans. Would it make money for all involved? Hell yes! Will it happen now? Not with the current landscape. Regardless, criminalizing people doesn't work to do anything but make you believe you are the only one in the world to exist.
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The underlying concept of the war on drugs, initiated by Richard Nixon in the 1970s, is that demand can be curbed by eliminating supply.
...
This concept marries intellectual idiocy – that supply leads demand – with practical impossibility. But it is golden politics. For 30 years it has allowed western politicians to shift blame for not regulating drug abuse at home on to the shoulders of poor countries abroad. It is gloriously, crashingly immoral.
The entire "jail them all" concept is kinda tired in the US. We need a new strategy. Quite frankly, if we could end the war on drugs and the war on piracy and accept that a new way is needed, we may all be a better off.
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How will the industry respond to private anonymous networks?
That is P2P 2.0 for ya.
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" - the speed at which you share with your immediate friends isnt fast enough to cause the same issue as open file trading online. if you only trade with friends you trust, it is likely that the material you pirate isnt exactly turning into millions of copies. if you are too ignorant to see the difference, well, enjoy wearing down your sneakers.
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as for the rest of your points, the issue is never those who desperately want something, but rather easy availability to those people in the middle. when drugs are too easily avialable, more people try them (particularly in and around high schools). the more people who try them and get addicted creates the demand. it is one of those horrible circular things, demand is created by availability, and availabilty is created by demand. it is almost impossible to stop demand, but it is much easier to work against supply.
the war on drugs is mostly lost because of weak borders, and a criminal justice system that makes it easy to get off, and very hard to build a case. it is also hampered by a justice system that cannot find the time or the money to really prosecute anyone but the biggest and the very smallest players. the big middle just keeps on.
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Nope the war on drugs is lost because the Justice Department is to small to contain it, the laws to make it happen are the ones that would deprive people of due course and the right to a defence, it ain't happening. That is why copyright will also fail in the end.
People will just find anonymous private networks and all your talk will be just BS on the wind.
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and somehow the war on piracy is immune to these obstacles? As far as the lack of money to prosecute them, $24+ billion this year alone was spent
http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
What makes you think they can find the time or money or time to prosecute piracy offenders? Why does the war on piracy not suffer these same dynamics? The whole point that I'm making is that it does. The 99 percent of the population that completely disrespects our current IP laws (95 year copy protection lengths) can produce more law violating labor hours per unit time than the labor hours that law enforcement can produce per the same unit time.
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Re: Have to ask...
He's a troll that used to have that as a login, but abandoned it when he realised people would just attack his previous posts when he tried to make a claim. He's now posting as an AC, but he's easily identifiable as the same moron, so people call him out on him.
As his original username suggests, his entire persona is dependent on attacking Mike on everything he posts, no matter how lucid, well cited or intelligent it is. Sad, really. I don't agree with everything Mike posts, but to create an entire persona over attacking his posts? Pathetic.
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If drinking water is criminal, many would. If doing something that ought NOT be criminal is criminal, then many would. The only true criminal enterprise here is the U.S. government for their crimes to humanity and their efforts to restrict us of our natural rights for no good reason and their use of violent force to enforce their nefarious laws. The only ones here promoting organized crime are big corporations because of their inability to adapt and their unwillingness to give up their unearned monopolies. If copying was legalized there would be no such organized crime and there would be tons more music, art, creativity, and innovation. Or at least if copy protection laws were more reasonable it would reduce such organized crime. But being that they're not, rampant organized crime is inevitable and the government et al are powerless to stop it.
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They could have done this at any point during the last 10 years and it would have been a smashing success. All-you-can-eat, flat fee, no DRM. Seamless integration with purchase of physical goods like t-shirts, notification of new concerts and albums by bands that you like, instant dynamically generated radio stations using the "sounds like" algorithms to help you discover new music, easy integration with social sites like facebook, all in one package.
Instead they let their crushing fear that someone somewhere might copy a song get in the way. They launched poorly-thought-out services that did not do very much, tied their user's hands with DRM schemes, offered no value that the user couldn't find elsewhere, and punted on every chance for actual innovation. So iTunes and other competitors stole those opportunities right out from under them.
It amazes me that music service offerings are still so fragmented today. iTunes took a large share of the market, but there is still room for a major industry leading service that does all of these things. The money has always been right there for them to take. Instead they have repeatedly elected to fight human nature and sue their customers out of existence.
Innovate: "Wow, those guys built a really cool service around our stuff! Buy it and hire them!"
Litigate: "Wow, those guys built a really cool service around our stuff! Let's spend years suing them and our own customers and spend who-knows how many billions lobbying for new laws in every country in the world!"
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Re: Re: Have to ask...
Strawman, fallacy, and ad hominem are his weapons of choice. His moronic arguments do so much to discredit his own position that I'm beginning to think he's actually pulling for the other side.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkg7Ozu0pH8&feature=related
The song is You're Not Alone by Olive. It was essentially a one hit wonder back in 1996, where the song shot straight to #1 in the UK and then no other tune by the band did as well. I always though they were short-changed but I stumbled across them while listening to music while getting ready to go out tonight.
So, what does that have to do with this discussion? Well, first of all if you managed to see the video after clicking on the link - no f**king regional restrictions. While (as far as I know) the song was only a hit in the UK, I watched it in Spain and people anywhere in the world can see it. Yet, the first comment on the video is this:
"How did you find this video. I had the MTV2 watermarked version, and VIACOM took it down. This is the best version!"
Yeah, that's right. Somebody who loves this 15 year old song wanted to share it with the world, and the copyright owners too it down. This from an industry that's dependant on back catalogue titles. Meanwhile, this particular video, which people clearly love and may have bought copies of, according to the comments, is also a clear copyright "violation" from the Yahoo watermark in the corner.
If this restriction doesn't strike you as idiocy, and you're not receiving money from the RIAA, maybe you'd better re-evaluate your ideas about music, because not sharing the stuff has never been a good thing for music. Same thing for movies, games, whatever.
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Unfortunately the overwhelming volume of frivolous laws in this country distorts the enforcement efforts of good laws but it also makes the enforcement of bad laws like copy protection laws more difficult because they must compete with the enforcement labor demand of other laws.
RIAA et al, I just want you to think about this for a second. You are truly fighting a losing battle. People have come to disrespect you, they have come to disrespect the nefarious laws you have put in place, and while getting congress to pass whatever laws you want is cheap, changing human behavior is not cheap. I want you to read this and think hard. The economics of this doesn't work out for you. You are largely outnumbered and hence out labored. Pouring more money into the equation can't fix that because money is a product of labor and those who outnumber you can produce more labor than you can. It's simple economics. You can't win.
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I think my phychology professor shared this once...
As kids we scream for it
As teens we rebel for it
As adults we scheme for it.
Tell us not to do something were going to find a way to do it. Just for the experience. It's not wanting something that is the cause but the curiosity of human nature.
The name of the Renaissance painter escapes me and I'm probably mutilating the quote but;
"I do things I cant do, simply to learn how to do them"
& for all the cats out there;
"... And satisfaction brought them back"
After all fun is why were here.
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I think my phychology professor shared this once...
As kids we scream for it
As teens we rebel for it
As adults we scheme for it.
Tell us not to do something were going to find a way to do it. Just for the experience. It's not wanting something that is the cause but the curiosity of human nature.
The name of the Renaissance painter escapes me and I'm probably mutilating the quote but;
"I do things I cant do, simply to learn how to do them"
& for all the cats out there;
"... And satisfaction brought them back"
After all fun is why were here.
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Call all your customers thieves.
Flounder about like morons whenever you don't get your own way.
Claim how important you are to an industry which would be doing infinitely better without you.
Please continue... because I find this stupidity almost as entertaining as "The Three Stooges".
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http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html
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Sounds like you are proposing the Stasi to me. Remember how well that worked....
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No, even if you fixed all of that the war on drugs is unwinnable. Even if you succeed in limiting supply all that achieves is to drive up the profitability of the remaining supply - given that demand will certainly not tail off quickly. This just increases the resources available to evade enforcement and attracts more players into the game. It is simple market economics.
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Bullshit, completely specious argument. First of all, there is no way in hell that 99%, or even a majority, of the population "disrespects" current copyright law. If they do, its because of unintentional that happens without intent, due to the laws being so restrictive that its impossible NOT to violate it. OR, if there is truly that many people violating the law, then perhaps the law is unjust and/or needs to be revised or eliminated? Civil disobedience of that scale means there is a major problem with the law.
So, which is it, which is your position? Because you cant have it both ways. You cant have a "little of column A, a little of column B" here.
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Unless you happen to be black. Or are you that much of a moron?
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???
Easy availability? Neither supply nor demand are static in this regard. One drops (supply of drugs) the demand increases (raising the price to get a certain drug). In terms of illicit drugs, there's been the same demand going on 6 or more decades. Obviously, something isn't working because people continue to make this black market lucrative enough to continue to produce these drugs.
"the war on drugs is mostly lost because of weak borders, and a criminal justice system that makes it easy to get off, and very hard to build a case."
First part is laughable. I don't want to make this into a drug thread, but stronger enforcement on the borders isn't going to make the flow of drugs any less.
Our justice system has the most people imprisoned compared to any other country in the world. We aren't keeping drugs out of the country, we're making smarter criminals. There's a huge difference. And yet, you're saying we're letting them off?
I must say your argument is somewhat flawed.
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Yep, that's what I'm saying. 95 year copyright length for instance and the fact that the punishment for accidental infringement is greater than the punishment for accidentally claiming privileges on something one does not have privileges on. and the fact that out of print books and discontinued material are still covered under copy protection laws.
and the only people that don't disrespect copy protection laws are ignorant about it. Most (if not all) people I know disagree with it. I bet a poll will show the same results, that most people substantially disagree with the law. and disagreement and disrespect will only get worse.
"Because you cant have it both ways."
I haven't presented two contradictory ways.
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and if so few people disrespect copy protection laws then why all the lobbying efforts to stop it? If copy protection laws were so respected then piracy naturally wouldn't be a problem without the need for the RIAA et al to keep lobbying for it to be stopped. It's a problem because so many people disrespect it. and yes, there is something seriously wrong with our laws. They need to be fixed.
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My friends have friends that I do not associate with, those friends of friends also share music and so on. Even with sneakernet information travels quickly. You can believe that the sum of sneakernet shares is not in the millions but you are wrong.
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Re: ???
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How could I have been so stupid.
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Heck, even when I was a little kid, many years ago, I knew someone who was in college who needed a ~ $2000 piece of software for a class and didn't want to have to buy it or be forced to only use it at school. The software required like forty to fifty 3 and a 1/2 floppy disks, a whole box full of them. This person wound up acquiring a box full of floppy disks with a pirated copy of the software and installed it on a home computer to use (this was back before anyone I knew had an Internet connection and I was really young). I'm sure this person isn't the only one who did this and from what I gather everyone in the class pretty much did the same thing. Those days are gone now that we can stick all that content on a single CD. This person returned the disks when the class ended and deleted the software afterwords (it took up too much hard disk space being that it was installed on a computer with Windows 95 and 1 GB of HD and it had to compete with Windows and other software for hard disk space and was only necessary for the duration of the class).
Heck, the software was some sort of DOS math program even, this person was taking a computer math class I believe, it might have been Mathematica (the DOS version?). Not sure, just a guess.
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More like the Keystone Kops... with real badges.
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This is easy - money. The fools in charge of the entertainment industry think that "piracy" represents "lost" sales (as do you TAM), and spend millions trying to force people to pay that money. The fact that this is not true escapes them.
"If copy protection laws were so respected then piracy naturally wouldn't be a problem without the need for the RIAA et al to keep lobbying for it to be stopped."
If you're talking about DRM, that idiocy has prevented me from buying digital movies and games - and not "pirate" them, btw - and stopped me from trying out digital music for many years before it was dropped. If not, then you're an idiot - people have been copying music, movies, games, books, whatever well before the internet ever existed - it just wasn't such an easy scapegoat before.
"It's a problem because so many people disrespect it."
Civil disobedience - look it up. Sometimes, if a large number of people disobey laws, it-s because the laws are unjust, not because there's something wrong with the people.
"They need to be fixed."
Indeed. Customers need to be given a reasonably priced service, in whatever quality they choose, without regional or platform restrictions, without being called a "thief" if they choose to format-shift their legally bought item, use them on a different patch of dirt or getting sued for sharing it with a friend.
Oh, that's not what you meant? Figures, moron.
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As with drugs, the secret to reducing "piracy" is to reduce the demand, not the supply.
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Yep, that's the secret.
I often tell my story of how I consumed music. I bought a *lot* of CDs in the 90s, and a lot lot of vinyl as I also worked the occasional night as a house/garage DJ (but didn't earn enough to feed my vinyl addiction!). By the early 2000s, I was buying virtually nothing. Finances were hard, I'd given up my money losing DJ gigs and commercial music had no appeal.
My habits were turned around by eMusic. At one point, I was on their 100 tracks for €30 plan. I devoured whatever I could find, happy to experiment with many different genres and new artists as I was only paying €3-4 per album. I found a massive amount of great new artists and it rekindled my love for the medium.
But, of course, things turned sour when the majors got involved. As soon as Sony decided to hook up, prices increase so that the average album would cost closer to €6 - as much as a sale CD at play.com. All of a sudden, it wasn't a good deal, so I first reduced then cancelled my subscription. This was a year ago, and I've gone from buying 10-12 albums per month to only buying 4 in the last year.
This is the lesson. Reasonably priced, quality product on consumer-friendly terms gets you custom. Anti-consumer terms, DRM, region restriction and high prices loses it.
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Wel said..
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http://renegade.bigbig.com/flashterm
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The products don't appeal to the customers.
For example, when the industry makes a movie, it has to have shiny props. Whatever it is, people like it more if it's shiny. And if you make it shiny, you can get product placement deals and charge more. More shiny = more money. I'm convinced that is the solution to the problem.
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The products don't appeal to the customers.
For example, when the industry makes a movie, it should have shiny props. Whatever it is, people like it more if it's shiny. And if you make it shiny, you can get product placement deals and charge more. For example, how many asians have shiny mirror-face cases for their iPhones? Asians have money too. Why do you think Google called their new browser "Chrome?"
More shiny = more money. I'm convinced that is the solution to the problem.
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Still, in this timeline Napster was among the first to take advantage of the widespread adoption of high speed (DSL etc) as opposed to dial up which made trading and sharing of music recordings and movies practical. And it was one of the first "above" ground attempts to do so.
Mike's correct in that each attempt to stifle this has led to fragmentation and the appearance of even more ways to share.
Thing is the "private lockers" are, in their conception, as legitimate as bittorent is. In fact, the private lockers are one of the keys to the overhyped cloud. (Bittorrent was developed, initially, to make the distribution of Linux and BSD easier and faster over dialup and people have found other ways to use it since. You can't blame the technology for how people use it.)
As you say, people will find a way to get what they want. That's the key truth behind the phrase "information wants to be free" in the sense it wants to be unimpeded. And people will find a way to do just that.
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Just to repeat what Mike said do you have as much as a shred of evidence to back that up that hasn't come from remarks made by MPAA and RIAA spokespeople who haven't shown anyone their sources either?
"the more people who try them and get addicted creates the demand. it is one of those horrible circular things, demand is created by availability, and availability is created by demand"
Simplistic as all get out but still wrong. Of course, if it was right the USA would still have alcohol prohibition, right? (Sorry to point out the flipping obvious but someone needed to.) The same dynamic is at work in drugs. (Alcohol is a drug, you know, and the most, by far, addictive one.) So you're wrong again. Working on strike three.
"the war on drugs is mostly lost because of weak borders, and a criminal justice system that makes it easy to get off, and very hard to build a case." And it should be hard to build a criminal case. Read the US Constitution, Magna Carta and a few other source documents and refinements to the criminal justice system to find out why.
Swing and a miss...strike three and you're outa there.
As for money to prosecute those you call the "big middle" I trust you are aware that the US spends something like $70 billion a year on that now. And you want to spend more on a failure?
Presumably, you want the same for copyright infringement too and another $70 billion, at least, for that. In addition to direct and indirect criminalization of what is at worst a civil offense now. (ACTA anyone?)
Do you begin to realize just how idiotic that sounds?
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Re: I think my phychology professor shared this once...
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If nobody got "addicted" to software nobody would buy software legally and the software business would die. The fact that you need demand for people to buy software will naturally create demand for people to pirate it.
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I think you are confused here. The person you are attacking is not supporting criminal enterprise - he is simply pointing out it's inevitability.
Please read this wikipedia page before you comment again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_the_messenger
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On another note, it's heartwarming to see no sign of TP for a while, even on a Friday.
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What is theft, though, is the Canadian tax/levy on CD's that goes directly to the CRIA. That's theft, it's taking from the consumer and allocating it to an undeserving private good that gives nothing in return. These corporations are criminal organizations, just because they control the laws doesn't mean the laws they make are justified.
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You mean those excuses?
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And sometimes people disobey laws because they like free shit!
Calling piracy "civil disobedience" is hilarious. None of you are Rosa Parks. Get over yourselves. Go torrent some more porn but make sure to keep an ear out for mommy's footsteps, you wouldn't want her to catch you being "civilly disobedient" into your gym sock...
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So then what is it, violent disobedience?
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Crazy bastards!
crazy person: Look at my new car!
confused person: There is nothing there!
crazy person: yes there is, my imaginary car!
confused person: hmmm...now I understand, you make believe those things.
crazy person: I'll call the cops to imprison you, you stole my car I saw it.
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Yes, life is so much easier if you make simple assumptions and ignore the very real problems and complexity in life.
Get over yourself. I've detailed many, many reasons in the this thread as to why these laws may be disobeyed - from DRM and region coding to format restrictions, windowing and out of print tiles. None of these, you'll notice, has anything to do with price.
Now, do you want to address any of these or just ignore the real world as usual?
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The problem is that the entertainment industry is being eaten by a lion because it failed to feed the lion - and now it is trying to blame the lion.
Look - the lion does what the lion does - end of story. If you want to survive in the lion enclosure then you have to play by the lion's rules. Whingeing about it won't stop the lion biting you leg off.
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Kazaa
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Cynical? Me?
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If it's so easy, why has the drug war been such a stupendous failure?
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