Mainstream Press Account In Australia Makes The Case For Why 'Piracy' Is Not The Problem
from the a-wonderful-essay dept
You don't quite expect to see this sort of thing on a mainstream press source, but ABC, down in Australia, has a feature piece entitled, The case for piracy, which sounds quite similar to many of the things we tend to talk about. It argues that the old school opinion that "piracy bad, copyright good" may not be particularly accurate -- and, in fact, it could be argued that "copyright owners" are in many ways their own worst enemies. If you think that sounds like the same thing we've been saying for over a decade, then you're correct -- but you probably haven't seen something like this show up in the mainstream press.Much of the article focuses on how various industries abuse copyright to do anti-consumer activities, and how infringement is often the only way around it -- even for people who want to pay. The article also covers the recording industry's own suicidal tendencies.
Rather than give customers what they wanted publishers threw every toy they had out of the pram and hit the litigation button. One example saw the recording industry sue a 12-year old girl and won $2000. From her point of view she was simply using a free service on the internet that all her friends were using and discussing. One wonders how happy the recording industry was with its $2000 payout. Over the years industry bodies have spent far more money suing people than they recouped through the courts.It really is a fantastic piece. Kudos to ABC for running it, and to writer Nick Ross for publishing such an article.
One of the main reasons we all have anti-piracy slogans embedded in our brains is because the music industry chose to try and protect its existing market and revenue streams at all costs and marginalise and vilify those who didn't want to conform to the harsh new rules being set.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: adapting, business models, piracy, press
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Overjoyed if I remember rightly, but not as happy as their Lawyers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Imagine how much business they'll lose from that 12 year old girl in the next 60 years, including her friends, and her families, and some of the people who heard the story.
All that for a mere $2000.
Meanwhile, all current copyright infringers rocks on.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's pretty sad when there is no balance in a story, no comments on the money lost, the stores closed, and the recorded music industry decimated by piracy.
It's just insane.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
ftfy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sure before the internet you had to go to a store to buy a cd, now you don't but that ease of purchase and the ability to pick individual tracks kind of sucks so why wouldn't everyone leave the house to go to a store and buy 14 tracks for the one they like?
But i know i know "you have no right" "me me me" "theft" yada yada yada. http://www.buggy-whips.com/
oh yeah i forgot to call you a name because if I do that i dont need any facts or anything, hmmm....pooface!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
ftfy.
Oh and I'm pretty sure the arrival of the digital era and minimal distribution cost put paid to the need of record shops, video stores etc... doesn't matter, industries report greater revenues, more product year on year and people made redundant go find another job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How is that recession thing working out for you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How is that recession thing working out for you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
For the man on the street, not very well. On the other hand, the recording and film industries report record-breaking profits every year... so they seem to be doing fine.
Guess who's going to get more sympathy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
iTunes would have killed brick-and-mortar music stores even if no one ever shared a single song.
As for the rest of it, the music industry is doing fine. The publishing industry however is no longer necessary. They hang on only through inertia and extortion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
That's why the AC's comment doesn't matter.. things change, deal with it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
A human scrap yard of people who lost work because of innovation. Forced to sit around and do nothing because we can't allow them to adapt. Would be an epic painting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
But you don't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
But I doubt it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
There is no other way to explain huge profits never seen before in the middle of a recession cycle is there?
You can't loose potential, you can't loose what you never achieved, what is this the pre-profit-bureau?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Actually, that's not the problem with his sentence. The problem is "by piracy."
The record stores were closing long before piracy came about. Deliberately so, by record labels who stopped dealing with them, and dealt with folks like Best Buy instead.
The internet was the nail in the coffin, really. And not "internet piracy," but iTunes and Amazon, and specifically the "un-bundling" of songs from full-length albums.
The people that are hit the hardest, actually, are radio stations - since everyone listens to Pandora, Last.fm, or Spotify now. Of course, most DJ's had already been laid off when Clear Channel monopolized the industry.
Frankly, the recording industry has been run by such incompetent, short-term-thinking, artist-destroying yahoos for so long, it's a wonder they lasted as long as they did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://www.salon.com/2001/04/30/clear_channel/singleton/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Maybe for a few seconds, but almost certainly not any longer than that.
And I don't know about the recorded music industry being decimated. Probably the legacy industry, but I see more high-quality recorded music, in greater variety, being produced now than I can remember in my nearly 50 years. Most of it isn't coming from the legacy industry, but there's a lot more, and a lot better, in the "industry" than the old school.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
And it only took a 12-year-old girl and her friends to do all that. Wow! Piracy is really evil!!! Either that or there is something wrong with how the recording industry makes money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Decimation
Seems to me the recorded music industry is doing just fine. It's only the disc makers that are seeing the end of days.
But even if I take you at your word for the sake of argument, a decimated industry is still doing pretty good. "Decimate" means "to reduce by 10%", so if the recorded music industry is only decimated by piracy, it means they're still 90% strong.
Hardly a crippling blow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Decimation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Decimation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Decimation
Let me guess, you were captain of the debate team?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Decimation
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-06-03/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Decimation
> you're talking about.
Wow. Behold the irony. Crack a book once in a while, jackass.
The word 'decimate' comes from the practice in the Roman legions whereby Caesar would have one out of every ten soldiers executed if they lost a battle. Therfore, to 'decimate' means to reduce by 1/10th.
The fact that people today have no idea what the word actually means and misuse it to mean 'completely wipe out' or 'destroy' hardly means I have no idea what I'm talking about. Quite the opposite, actually.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
... by a 12-year-old girl and her friends?
So you're saying that a dozen members of the 12-year-old demographic was able to singlehandedly "decimate" the entire music industry and close music stores? That's some heavy purchasing power they have!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Really? You're going to go with that after 10+ years of listening to "lost sales", "piracy is killing the industry", "piracy is theft", "won't somebody please think of the artists", etc.
And you're saying ONE goddamn article from Australia is not being balanced? Wow. Lol. Man, seek help. Reality waved bye bye to you a long time ago apparently. (And yes, I went with the partial insult just cause I can. Well, mostly because of your asinine comment if I'm going to be truly honest. Which is something apparently you can't do.)
"No balance in a story..." [chuckles softly to himself as he shakes his head in wonderment at the things some people say]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
No wonder no one is listening any more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Maybe. What makes you think they suddenly started spending money on legal services as opposed to simply switching to a different piracy method, or free legal methods of listening?Or, of course, boycotting the music industry in favour of another form of entertainment?
"no comments on the money lost"
What money lost? There's still never been any proof that piracy actually loses the industry money other than an assumption based on a correlation. Every study that "proves" losses has been based on made-up numbers and/or faulty methodology.
The industry's almost certainly "lost" more money by people having a wider choice of entertainment and being able to "unbundle" their purchases than as a direct result of piracy. Of course, I have the same level of proof to prove my view as you have to prove yours, so mileage may vary.
"the stores closed"
Physical stores closed, yes, but digital stores opened to replace them. Why do you people always think the physical ones are the only important ones?
"the recorded music industry decimated by piracy"
Another assumption, and a failure to recognise that the music industry consists of more than plastic disc manufacturers. Typical.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
There's no comment on the money lost, decimation of the music industry and the apocalypse because there's no such a thing. Simple as that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Hey, now you're thinking like modern artists.
Well, unless you're being sarcastic. But I hope that's not the case, because the music industry has been complaining about the "apocalypse" since, at least, cassette tapes have existed.
Let's be frank. The reason the recording industry (and not any other music industry) has been losing money, is because consumers have been allowed to buy singles, and not full albums. Piracy has nothing to do with it.
So, it's entirely appropriate that "there's no comment on the money lost," since this article has absolutely zero to do with "lost" money. It has everything to do with people who sit in boardrooms and are idiots.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The Big 5 have lost money hand over fist for musicians in the last decade. Real companies provide services - dieing companies engage in lawsuits. Their big moan in this situation is that they do not control the patents - the music industry is used to holding the patents and carving up regions based on cosy patent and licensing agreements - that is what this argument was always about - a substantial lose of power due to an inability to change with the times. They seem incapable of changing which is understandable given the size of the monopolies they control.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
CNN: Owned by Time Warner a major player in film and television content
MSNBC: Owned by NBCUniversal a major player film (Universal Studios) and television (NBC) content which is, itself, owned by Comcast and GE.
Fox News: Owned by Fox, a major player in television, and Fox is obviously own by News Corp who is a major player in newspaper and magazines.
USA Today: Owned by the Gannett company who owns, in addition to dozens of other city papers, several tv stations as well as other digital media properties.
The Wall Street Journal: Also own by News Corp
NYT: Still a legacy holdout from when individual families dominated the newspaper scene.
Honestly the only reason this editorial was even published by a news outlet at all is because ABC is like NPC, it's a publicly own broadcasting company.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ABC:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: ABC:
Lol. My first thought was why the heck is Disney allowing this - then I Wikapedia-ed "ABC Australia" and realized that it's the Australian Broadcasting Corp. - run by the Australian government, not the ABC in the US owned by Disney.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: ABC:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: ABC:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Since we don't produce anywhere near enough hours of TV to cover e.g. sixteen (free-to-air) channels at 24 hours each and however many cinemas, most of our movies and TV movies which isn't sport, news, community interest or local remakes of overseas stuff comes in directly from overseas - predominantly from the US and the UK. (Not that we can't make good movies or TV down here - we just can't make as much of it.)
Legitimate ways of getting "current" content are often lacking, pricing is comparatively inflated and as consumers with a clue we don't feel obliged to put up with the incompetence of our local content providers if there's an alternative.
We sometimes face months (if not years) of waiting for TV shows and movies to arrive on our screens - if at all. Top Gear and QI both took years to show up down here. The problem is that we're very much aware of the existence of the content in the first place because we have overseas news telling us how awesome it is. So of course we're going to go off and find it for ourselves - local providers miss out on our custom one way or the other, whether it's through piracy or importing things from overseas (whether they're available here for significantly more or not available here at all).
As for DVD/Blu-Ray, it's not much sunnier - a few years ago, the national consumer watchdog (ACCC) decreed that DVD/Blu-ray players down here must be region-unlockable or unlocked at purchase. Compared with the range of stuff released for region 1 and 2, region 4 misses out on so much. (Blu-ray's a bit less rubbish since Australia gets lumped in the same region as Europe and the UK.)
The impact of shipping things in from overseas due to price/timing disparity compared to what we have locally is having a noticeable effect on the bricks-and-mortar shops as well - entire chains of bookstores and CD/DVD stores have folded recently since our currency's been at parity with USD. It's almost always cheaper to hit up Book Depository or Amazon UK/US and pay (often no) shipping than shop locally, and the range is better too. Some local shops even have region 1 or 2 discs on the shelf; that's how rubbish region 4 is.
The release schedules for games are usually much kinder - places like Steam are a godsend - but don't get me started on regional video game pricing. (AU$90 for a US$50 game - sold digitally? While the two currencies are at parity? Very funny, EA.) Indies are levelling the playing field when it comes to that, so there's at least that.
Major record labels, studios and publishers are treating Australian DVD/CD shops, cinemas and bookstores far worse than copyright infringement ever could, in my opinion, if they can't compete with overseas. As the iiNet vs AFACT case seems to prove, Big IP would rather not spend the money to solve the TV/movie problem in this particular territory and increase their legitimate revenue streams in the process. (They'd also rather not let on that it's USA Big IP vs Australia. Thanks for blowing the lid off that, Wikileaks.)
So take all that into account when you read the ABC piece for added perspective. If you're in the USA where the movies are in the cinema that week, or the show is on TV that night, you're not necessarily going to understand so much where Nick's article is coming from.
Incidentally, the ABC's position (think of it as the Australian counterpart to the BBC) as a government-funded entity allows them not to be beholden to corporate interests but only to the Australian public interest - this is how they can run pieces like that. :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The result? Piracy doesn't "hurt" Australia anywhere near as much, because you aren't pirating yourselves, you are pirating others.
It's like China and the patent issue - they don't worry about patents for now, because they are really only taking from others. Give them a while, and they will turn into Japan, paranoid and protectionist.
When you have little or no skin in the game, it's not hard to play wildly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
so that explains the price gouging on products?
on creating a system that forces them to wait even longer for content to protect them from importing "cheap" discs from elsewhere?
Region coding was going to be the panacea for all of this...
We can sell good at the right price for the market because no bad people can take advantage of the cheaper goods and move them elsewhere. Instead they use the region coding to charge more at every chance, ignore any consumer demand and keep being idiots about it.
and if 21,874,900ish people is to small a market to bother with with your entire industry "dying"... you need to die faster.
Seems like an amazing place to setup a bluray/dvd pressing facility and just have the content shipped over that new fangled interwebs thingy and meet the market demand, seems less costly than spending millions trying to change laws to punish consumers who are just being undeserved.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It is obvious MAFIAA will dismiss and try to discredit this study and the source. Will they manage to do it? Dunno, I have yet to see the thing and evaluate the method used to come up with the entire thing. One thing is certain: MAFIAA studies are bogus. It takes just a peek at the sampling and premises used and you'll get enough evidence to discredit them. And if you are sane and reasonable, when you listen to the MAFIAA moaning about trillions lost in Australia you already know there's something wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
On the good news I just ripped THOR, do you want a copy? I have to warn you thought that it is lame.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore�
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over�
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
How long until that happens with us, I wonder? How long until the pressure upon us becomes so great that it can no longer be contained? I do not believe it is as far off as some might think.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]