How Neil Gaiman Went From Fearing 'Piracy' To Believing It's 'An Incredibly Good Thing'

from the epiphanies dept

Public Knowledge points us to a wonderful short clip of Neil Gaiman, being interviewed by the Open Rights Group, explaining how he has completely changed his mind about "piracy" and copyright: He admits that early on, when he saw his works "pirated" on the web, it made him quite upset. At first, he (totally incorrectly) believed that if he didn't fight online copies, it might mean he'd lose his copyright (a myth based on a weak understanding of trademark law that sometimes people confuse with copyright law). Thankfully, he learned that wasn't true. However, where it gets interesting is when he realized that whenever his works got "pirated," it actually seemed to help his sales:

"Then I started to notice that two things that seemed much more significant. One of which was that places where I was being pirated -- particularly Russia (where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading it out into the world) I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. And then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia it would sell more and more copies."

He then mentions that after a lot of persuading, he got his publisher to release a free digital copy of American Gods, and sales went up by 300%, even though it had already been selling quite well before that. And that was his epiphany moment that you're "not losing sales" by having stuff out there. And he explains how "piracy" is just a giant way of lending books, and points out that, when asked this question at talks, he asks how many people in the audience found their favorite author because someone lent them a book vs. going into a book store and buying it. And only 5 to 10% of people found their favorite authors first by buying the books.

"That's really all this is. It's people lending books. And you can't look on that as a lost sale.... What you're actually doing is advertising. You're reaching more people. You're raising awareness. And understanding that gave me a whole new idea of the shape of copyright and what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web was doing is allowing people to hear things, allowing people to read things, allowing people to see things they might never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that's an incredibly good thing."

Filed Under: copyright, neil gaiman, piracy, sharing

David Guetta: The Way To Beat 'Piracy' Is To Give Your Music Away Free

from the more-people-figuring-it-out dept

Award-winning musician/DJ/producer David Guetta seems to have figured out that "free" is not a bad thing. In a recent interview, he notes that he's never worried about "piracy" at all, and that the solution is just to give away stuff for free to keep an audience engaged and to offer more opportunities to continue to build your fan base:

"I have never been very nervous about online pir­acy," the Daily Star quotes him as saying.

"Sometimes you have to give away content, even if it isn't bringing you money. It doesn't have to be music, it can be videos, images and so on."

Plenty of others have made this realization as well, but it's nice to see stars with as big a name as Guetta saying it publicly as well.

Filed Under: david guetta, free, piracy

NBC Universal Study Shows That It's Hollywood's Own Damn Fault So Much Content Is 'Pirated'

from the though,-that's-not-how-they-spun-it dept

All week people have been submitting variations on the news that a study commissioned by NBC Universal, and promoted by the MPAA, shows that 24% of web traffic involves "piracy." If you look through the actual methodology, done by research firm Envisional, there are all sorts of problems with it, including the fact that they seem to bootstrap these findings based on research done by others. Another problem is that the source Envisional used, the PublicBT tracker, does not include many of the legal BitTorrent uses, meaning that they may have significantly undercounted legal usage.

Of course, the MPAA is using this data to suggest that piracy is a big problem, and governments need to step in and help (of course). Yet... if you actually look at the data, as Rob Pegoraro at the Washington Post did, you get a very different picture. It really suggests that all that movie piracy is the industry's own damn fault for not making legitimate content available online. This is not news of course. One of the main reasons why people access unauthorized copies is because they can't get legitimate copies. The movie industry is so infatuated with "windows" that it doesn't seem to realize that restricting how people can access their movies only drives more and more people to unauthorized means.

Pegoraro compares the different stats in the report and notes that there's a very clear indication that when legal alternatives are available, the amount of unauthorized file sharing drops considerably. So if the MPAA's goal is to reduce file sharing, then the answer is to start offering legitimate services. Pegoraro even asked the director of the study about this, and the guy agreed:

I think the availability of legit content in the US may be one reason why infringing use is lower in the country than elsewhere worldwide: the US has Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, Vudu, streaming content from the tv networks, etc. This level of availability just can't be found elsewhere. Further, the content in the greatest demand online is that which originates from the US -- television shows and films in particular -- which often take a while before they appear in other countries.

So, the real lesson of this study is that the large amount of unauthorized access in movies online is the MPAA and NBC Universal's own damn fault for failing to adapt and to offer legitimate services to the market when they want it. Thanks for sharing that information with the world...

Filed Under: competition, file sharing, legitimate options, movies, piracy
Companies: envisional, mpaa, nbc universal

IFPI's Annual Attack On Piracy Once Again Riddled With Errors And Bogus Claims

from the midemeve dept

Every year, on the eve of the Midem music industry event in France, the IFPI puts out its report about how "piracy" is destroying the music industry. It's well-timed, because it then gets quoted repeatedly in Midem discussions, and gets lots of press and stuff. This year, is no different, though amusingly, the IFPI tries to pre-empt the usual criticism by insisting the troubles facing the recording industry have nothing to do with its unwillingness to try new business models. It's also wrong. Blatantly, incredibly, wrong. As has been detailed by many, many, many other studies, the only part of the industry that's really been suffering is the recording industry. Of course, the key point -- which is the same as it is every year -- is the IFPI begging the government to come save its business by blocking competition, criminalizing technology, and making everyone else responsible for propping up the record labels. Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way. Not surprisingly, the IFPI's report is also filled with all sorts of factual errors, such as relying on the debunked report whose methodology was so bad that it thought that only a few 2010 movies were the most downloaded of 2010, with much older movies dominating the list.

The real problem with the report -- beyond the flat-out errors -- is the fact that it's so focused on music sales and music sales alone as the be-all, end-all of the music industry that it simply ignores everything else:

Fewer new artists are breaking through globally. Total sales by debut artists in the global top 50 album chart in 2010 were just one quarter of the level they achieved in 2003

Traditionally vibrant music local industries, such as Spain and Mexico, are especially hard hit. In Spain, where music sales fell by an estimated 22 per cent in 2010, no new home-grown artist featured in the country's top 50 album chart, compared with 10 in 2003

Note the implicit assumption here. Because there are fewer music sales, it means that such new music is not being created, or those artists are not successful. This is like saying that "because fewer horse carriages were sold this year, it shows the automobile is not a legitimate savior of the transportation industry." You see how that's done? If you define success based on the obsolete way of doing things, of course it's going to look bad. But if you look at the actual numbers, and the actual opportunities, you realize that the market is actually growing.

IFPI boss Frances Moore apparently claimed that this is "a crisis affecting not just an industry - but artists, musicians, jobs, consumers, and the wider creative sector." Except that's not true. There are more people making music today than ever before. It's cheaper than ever before to make, distribute and promote music. If you're a musician, there are more ways than ever before to build a fanbase and to build a business model to make a living. It's a great time to be a musician. It's also a fantastic time to be a consumer. It's hard to see how Moore can make such a claim that is obviously false, and no one calls her on the obviously false nature of her claims. When Moore took over last year for John Kennedy, I had hoped that maybe she'd bring some sense to the IFPI. Instead, she seems to be spreading the same propaganda as her predecessor.

Filed Under: piracy, studies
Companies: ifpi

Why Won't Copyright Holders Run Studies On The Actual Impact Of Piracy?

from the wouldn't-they-want-to-know dept

A bunch of folks have sent in this recent O'Reilly Radar interview with Brian O'Leary, concerning the data on the impact of ebook "piracy," with many pointing to the following quote:

Data that we collected for the titles O'Reilly put out showed a net lift in sales for books that had been pirated. So, it actually spurred, not hurt, sales.

Of course, if you read the details, he's actually saying this is from a study from a couple years ago, and the focus of his point is that there really isn't enough data to say yet. He's hoping that other publishers will work with him to do more research on this subject, but so far, they haven't.

O'Leary, correctly, points out that there are lot of factors involved and it would be nice to have more data to look at the actual impact. But what really struck me is that line about how publishers simply aren't willing to collect the data and study the actual impact of unauthorized copies. I'm trying to figure out why this is. There are so many copyright holders who whine and complain about the impact of unauthorized copies, that you would think they would be all over the idea of working with some researchers to figure out the actual impact (good or bad), so that they can respond accordingly. That they refuse to do so seems oddly telling. It's as if they don't want to know. I can only speculate as to why, but as a guess, I would imagine that some firms are afraid of finding out that the impact isn't as bad as they think (or, as O'Reilly discovered, that it's positive on sales, rather than negative), and suddenly they've lost their "bogeyman" that they've been able to blame poor sales on.

Filed Under: ebooks, piracy, stats, studies
Companies: o'reilly

Highly Flawed 'Piracy' Report Used To Support Positions That Are Unrelated

from the just-saying... dept

Last year, we pointed out that Steven Tepp, who worked at the US Copyright Office at the time, and was heavily involved in pushing for ACTA (and downplaying the legitimate concerns of ACTA critics), jumped ship to the private US Chamber of Commerce, which has been one of the stronger supporters of such bad laws. The Chamber of Commerce, which is basically a lobbying organization for some of the world's biggest businesses, has a history of making up absolutely ridiculous claims about intellectual property, so it's really not a surprise that it would hire Tepp, who did the same thing from within the government.

However, when Tepp speaks out in support of greater protectionism, especially based on a complete lack of evidence, shouldn't the press point out that he was heavily involved in the crafting of some of the legislation he's now supporting from the "outside"? For example, Hillicon Valley has an article about a silly new study from MarkMonitor, which notes the unsurprising fact that, gosh darnit, there are a lot of sites out there that offer infringing products. Big shock. But the article then quotes Tepp saying:

"Online counterfeiting and piracy is a destructive force that threatens consumers, hurts our businesses, and costs American jobs."

That's a sort of go to line that we hear all the time. Funny thing is, no one supports it with any actual evidence. It's purely faith-based. What's the neat trick that Tepp pulls is he says this in commenting on a report that sounds like it's presenting evidence to back up his claims. It is not. The report says that there are lots of sites out there offering pirated or counterfeit content. That's different than proving that those sites are "destructive" or harm consumers or businesses. In fact, over and over again, when you have independent research that looks at those actual questions, you discover that the actual impact of such activities is significantly less than industry lobbyists would have you believe.

So rather than just letting someone like Tepp, who is inherently biased, comment on a report that does not make the claims he says it makes, why not speak to folks who might question some of the claims from the report... or at least note that Tepp is hardly an impartial observer here, but someone who is paid to pretend that the impact of copyright and trademark infringement is significantly worse than any of the evidence actually suggests?

As for the actual report that Tepp was commenting on, it doesn't actually say what Tepp says it says. You can read the details of the report (pdf) here. It's almost laughably weak in its methodology. Nowhere does it support any of Tepp's claims -- and you would think that a journalist wouldn't quote a biased commenter making claims that have nothing to do with the report in question. Specifically, the MarkMonitor report simply looked at some sites that are used for infringement, then assumed that they were used entirely for infringing purposes, and then used Alexa ratings (perhaps the least credible measuring system out there) and simply added up all visits, and seemed to suggest that this was all for infringement. When it came to pharmaceuticals, the researchers did not appear to make much of an attempt to determine which offerings were really gray market importers of generic drugs, as opposed to counterfeits. Instead, it just made some assumptions based on the sites themselves.

So basically, all the report actually shows is that, according to Alexa (again, not considered to be even remotely accurate), some sites that may have some infringing downloads or may sell some unauthorized products get a lot of traffic. Like that's a surprise. And yet, that leads to a quote from a biased ex-government official, now paid to hype up the "threat" of infringement, as if this study proves we need the new laws he was a part of writing? How is that responsible journalism?

Filed Under: piracy, steven tepp, studies
Companies: mark monitor, us chamber of commerce

Music Piracy = The Death Of The Recording Artist?

from the how-not-to-move-the-discussion-forward dept

Mike did a post at the end of 2010 talking about moving forward optimistically with our views and expectations of music, movies and media.  It's kind of interesting to see the difference in approach between those on either side of the same old debates being had about the subject and how that approach is reflected in people's thoughts and language.

Which brings me to a recent piece by Rick Carnes, President of the Songwriters Guild of America, for the Huffington Post.  He asks if music piracy has killed the recording artist.  Rick has been discussed at Techdirt in the past, such as when he made some seeminly misguided comments on maximizing per use revenue with regard to iTunes previews rather than what maximizes overall revenue, or that the internet is making it impossible to write music and has "destroyed the profession of songwriting".  These are pessimistic words and thoughts.  And in his latest article, there is more pessimism that really needs to be addressed.

Rick discusses his fondness for The Beatles and some of the amazing things they did for music and experimental recording techniques.  He then goes on to suggest that the reason The Beatles were able to do that type of thing was largely because they stopped touring and could focus their efforts in the studio instead.  For the younger crowd, it might surprise you, as it did me, to find out that The Beatles did so little actual touring that, on the whole, they would have to be considered a studio act, not a live act. Basically, they toured between 1962 and 1966, and that's about it. Guess what time period is labeled "Beatlemania".  Yup, during their touring years.  Why is that important?  Because of some of the things Rick says in his piece.

"Today there are few, if any, examples of true recording artists left...The big recording studios are quickly fading into the past and the studio musicians who were able to devote their lives to improving their sound and their technique are a dying breed, replaced by home recording studios and sample-looping software."

I don't see how this makes sense.  There are plenty of recording artists around today.  But besides that, there's a ton of recorded music being produced.  And the reason you're seeing smaller operations spring up to provide studio-style recordings isn't because listeners don't care about quality.  It's because the difference in quality has been rendered negligable by advances in technology.  This is a good thing for music lovers, because barriers are coming down.  I think that perhaps if Rick could see this from the perspective of the music fan, he'd see it that way as well.

 "Album sales are an after thought since music piracy has obliterated the ability to support an act through recorded music sales alone. Recorded music is given away as a promotional loss-leader, sold as an adjunct to a new tech device, or as an impulse buy at big discount stores."

To be fair, if we're only comparing The Beatles to everyone else today, Rick probably has a point.  But that's a silly comparison.  The Beatles are the best-selling musical act of all time, according to many sources.  But, even in its most profitable time, were album sales really supporting any significant percentage of the musical acts around?  Through the wonder of music label accounting, even in the 60's, music acts were rarely able to make it on record sales alone.  And I think if Rick can get away from The Beatles example for a moment, he already knows this to be true.  If it weren't, why would it be such an anomaly that most bands couldn't stop touring the way The Beatles did?  I'm just not sure things were ever the way Rick says they were.  And then there's this.

"In the 19th century, British, Scottish, and Irish music were not protected by US copyright law. This lead to US songwriters having to compete with a flood of free music coming in from overseas. Our native-born composers like Stephen Foster were reduced to writing the only type of music that the British weren't producing, i.e. minstrel songs. The traveling minstrel show was the only place that Foster could eke out a few dollars. The focus of the Minstrel shows was most definitely not the music but the comedy show instead, mostly racist in content. History shows that Foster did not enjoy writing this type of music and was capable, when given the opportunity, of writing much better work. But it wasn't until 1909 and the new US Copyright Act, that protected the work of foreign writers, that US songwriters no longer had to "compete with free."

Ugh.  If I'm reading his allusion correctly, I see two astounding claims here.  First, The Copyright Act of 1909 was responsible for the obliteration of a great deal of racist comedy in the United States.  Secondly, if piracy continues, that racist comedy is going to come back.  He can't really mean that, can he?

And I'm a little fuzzy on the logic here as well.  You had music lovers in the United States that were being "flooded" with music from overseas.  Ostensibly, this is music they wanted, because it was being consumed.  So, basically, Rick is saying that less copyright led to a flood of musical output.  Wouldn't that be a cultural benefit?  But then, in 1909 with the Copyright Act, that flood was stymied and United States musicians were better off...because foreign music was protected?  Doesn't that seem to suggest that copyright was used as some kind of import levy?

In any case, I don't think Rick should be as concerned as he is.  There are plenty of examples of musical acts that produce amazing studio music and do a ton of touring (The Rolling Stones, anyone?).  I recognize that some of this may be political posturing as Rick tries to appease his base constituents of songwriters, but perhaps with a little less rhetoric and a little more discussion, we'll all find ourselves in a better place at the end of 2011 compared to the beginning.

Filed Under: music, piracy, recording artists, recording industry, rick carnes

Piracy Isn't The Problem, A Bad Business Model Is The Problem

from the but,-but,-but-piracy dept

I've mentioned before how often it seems that those who used to make their business model relying on artificial scarcity can't seem to shake the "but, but piracy" claims. For example, a few years back, when I attended a music industry conference, I was amazed at how many conversations went something along the lines of "We've got to stop treating customers like criminals... but we also need to wipe out those damn pirates." It's as if, when they hear about "piracy" they forget about everything else. I'm always encouraged by the first part (yes, stop treating customers like criminals), but always feel the latter part is a bit misguided. Ross Pruden points us to an interesting blog post by independent filmmaker Michael Barnard, with whom I've debated on this topic before, giving his views on "piracy." Like those other conversations, it starts out on the right track, noting that the entertainment industry started off making a big mistake in handing the "piracy problem" over to the lawyers, whose only solution to everything is to sue (or to change laws). Barnard, correctly, notes that this is not a solution that works -- and he specifically rejects proposals that would "cripple the internet." I think he's absolutely on the right track there.

He also then tries to dig in -- especially in the "movie piracy" space to see if he can separate different types of users and participants -- noting that not everyone who shares unauthorized files can or should be classified in the same manner -- though, I still disagree with his terms. If you call someone a "thievery pirate," you've pretty much shut off any opportunity to think about how they might be of assistance to you. Now, I know that those who think that anyone who falls into the classification of "thievery pirate" could never, ever possibly be of assistance at some point, but I think that may be a bit short-sighted from the standpoint of a content producer.

The problem, that I see, is that Barnard then shifts the essay to a "but, but piracy" type of argument:

The argument in favor of abdicating to piracy is that "it's tough to fight" and "easy to copy." This argument is weak and unimaginative. Abdicating is a roadblock to finding creative solutions. It's just as weak as when corporations blindly turn piracy issues over to the Legal Department. Both are devoid of the creative and moral spark to find a worthy solution for all involved.

I think there's a subtle, but important, mistake in what Barnard is saying here, and it's in the word "abdicating." While I'm sure there are some folks out there who say something along those lines, that's silly. Most of the folks who talk about embracing new business models and new technology never suggest "abdicating" to unauthorized file sharers. To me, abdicating is giving up. Or, at best, it's a form of "give it away and pray." What we're talking about is recognizing how those folks are a form of underserved customers, and then looking for ways in which they can be served.

Barnard is absolutely right that movies and such have value. If they didn't have value, no one would want them. However, he suggests that part of the problem is that because culture is a shared phenomenon, it's tougher for individuals to realize that someone else "owns" that, as they take a bit of ownership of it themselves, in terms of their experience with the work.

But there is a difference with music and movies that doesn't exist with cosmetics or sundries. With our creative endeavors, we enter into people's imaginations and emotions. It's very personal. Individuals don't maintain clarity of ownership over something that is so emotional and imaginative, since we enter their soul, manipulate their feelings, inspire their emotions. The clarity of who created what becomes muddy.

That's an interesting angle I hadn't thought of before, but I'm not so sure that it's the clarity here that gets muddy. I've found over and over and over again, that when a creative artist really does enter someone's soul, manipulates their feelings and inspires their emotions, that those individuals will then go out of their way to continue to support that artist. We see it all the time with musicians like Amanda Palmer or filmmakers like Kevin Smith -- both of whom have fanbases who love to support them, no matter what they're doing.

The choice to download without paying--and most people I've talked to acknowledge they feel as if they should pay but don't want to--is often driven by a sense of anger against filmmakers, as if we were all pompous, elitist millionaires trying to pry $10 out of their hands for something that "really" has no value. Weird. (Frankly, I'm now annoyed by the number of times this meaningless, angry, rote argument is foisted as the justification for piracy and I dismiss it.)

We should work on the issues of perceived value and ease of legal acquisition, rather than abdicate to the piracy and buy into the anger argument, or follow the Legal Department lead and attack our consumers.

What's "weird" to me is that I almost never hear the argument he discusses above. Time and time again when I speak to people who download unauthorized works, I hear quite different stories. They talk about how they don't think the price is reasonable -- or they don't want to get stuck with annoying DRM, or they don't want to have to deal with noisy people at the theater, or who knows what. The ones who actually are touched or moved are happy to support the artist -- but much of that often comes in the form of support for future projects.

And this is where I think some of the confusion often comes in in these discussions. No one (well, I'm sure there are a few, but they're a minority) denies that there is value in the works created. The question is where is that value captured. Many content creators feel that it should be captured in you paying up before you've consumed their work for the first time. Many content consumers don't like that bargain. And so they seek out something else. But that doesn't mean there still isn't value created when someone experiences the music or the film. It's that value that Barnard was discussing in the emotional impact of the work. The trick then is not to worry about getting paid for every copy or every download, but to set up all sorts of opportunities for people to support you as a content creator. Now, this can come in all sorts of formats. Fan-funding has become popular these days, via platforms like Kickstarter, and that can work for some artists. Others are doing creative things like selling related tangible goods that are made more valuable due to their connection to music or movies (Amanda Palmer selling off special ukuleles). Others are selling their experience (Kevin Smith is offering a wonderful 10-week "film school" discussing how he made his latest film). Others are selling a wide variety of things (Nina Paley's long list of ways in which she makes money from her film, Sita Sings the Blues).

The point is that we need to get away from "but, but piracy," and worrying about the fact that, yes, some people are going to download the work for free. That doesn't mean "abdicating" to piracy -- it means working to figure out ways to capture some of the value created from those who download. That means setting up all sorts of opportunities where there is additional scarce value for supporting your future works, rather than worrying so much about getting paid for the past work.

Yes, content creates value. Part of the complaint, right now, is who is capturing that value. Many content creators feel that consumers (or other third parties) are capturing too much of that value, and the content creators aren't capturing enough of it. That may be true. But the point is that the way you do that is not by talking about "pirates" or worrying about the one guy over there downloading your work and not paying for it. The way you deal with it is by creating a series of opportunities where you can provide scarce value in the future for a price, and getting people to pay you for it. Some people will never pay. Forget about them. They're meaningless. Focus on the folks who now appreciate your work, and look for ways to get them to pay to keep you moving forward.

Filed Under: business models, movies, piracy

How 'Piracy' Helped Establish The Dominance Of Nigerian Films

from the it's-just-a-form-of-distribution dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about Kevin Kelly's fascinating look at the movie industries of India, Nigeria and China, which represent the three largest film industries in the world. Yes, all three are larger than the US. And all three are places known for extremely widespread "piracy." Given that Hollywood insists that "piracy" kills the movie industry, it certainly seemed worth noting that these three countries had hugely thriving movie industries despite (or perhaps because of) widespread infringement.

The Economist has an article looking much more closely at the Nigerian movie industry, known as Nollywood, which produces an astounding 50 new movies every week. Now, some will immediately point out -- correctly -- that these are much lower budget than our traditional Hollywood picture, but apparently, many of the movies have pretty good plots and acting -- and they seem to be doing pretty well across all of Africa (not just Nigeria). In fact, the report notes that the infringement may be a big part of why Nigerian films are so successful:

The merchants curse the pirates, but in a way they are a blessing. Pirate gangs were probably Nollywood’s first exporters. They knew how to cross tricky borders and distribute goods across a disparate continent where vast tracts of land are inaccessible. Sometimes they filled empty bags with films when returning from an arms delivery. Often they used films to bribe bored guards at remote borders. The pirates created the pan-African market Mr Akudinobi now feeds.

Once again, this is really a recognition of a point that has been many times around here: copyright infringement is often just a more efficient distribution system -- and if you can figure out how to use that distribution mechanism to your own benefit, you can be much better off. In fact, it sounds like many are doing that, and the massive success of Nigerian movies have opened up all sorts of new opportunities for movie makers:

African diasporas in the West pay good money to see films from home. BSkyB, a British satellite broadcaster, and Odeon, a cinema chain, both show Nollywood classics. Consumer-goods companies offer sponsorship deals.

That wouldn't be possible if the movies weren't getting so much attention. On top of that, for those who will continue to claim that the quality of these movies must suck, it appears that the quality is likely to improve. That's because with so much competition, moviemakers are looking to stand out from the crowd, and one way to do that is to improve your product. In other words, just as we've said for years, you've got a situation where competition is leading to innovation and higher quality, even in the absence of copyright protections... Funny, then, that some still insist that without copyright (or without strong copyright enforcement), no movie industry could exist.

Filed Under: movies, nigeria, piracy