NBC Universal & MPAA Get NYC To Run Propaganda 'Anti-Piracy' Ad Campaign

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Jarrett Streebin alerts us to the news (via BusinessInsider) that the the NYC Mayor's Office of Michael Bloomberg is running an unintentionally hilarious ad campaign called Stop Piracy in NYC. This is actually a followup to an effort by the MPAA a few years back to get New York City to put in place even more stringent anti-camcording laws (it was already against the law to record a movie in the theater, but the MPAA demanded that it be made criminal, rather than civil, so that the NYC police could do its job for it). Of course, in order to do this, the MPAA simply made up numbers, claiming that 40% of all pirated movies came from camcorded films in NYC. The world is a large place, so attributing 40% of all such movies to NYC seemed like a stretch -- made even more ridiculous when that same MPAA, just a few days later, claimed that 70% of all camcorded films come from Canada, where it was pushing for similar legislation. 40% plus 70% equals... a great big lie for political purposes -- something the MPAA is no stranger to.

Reading through the details of the "ad campaign," we're not surprised to see the driving force behind it is our old friend, Rick Cotton, the General Counsel at NBC Universal, who often seems to have no shame in saying stuff that makes absolutely no sense concerning movie piracy. Cotton, most famously, is the guy who once made a filing with the FCC where he tried to claim that movie piracy was killing the American corn farmer. This ignored two rather important points: (1) people who watch unauthorized copies of movies can also eat popcorn and (2) corn -- one of the most subsidized crops in the US -- continues to grow as a market. Oh yeah, speaking of growing markets, have we mentioned how the movie industry keeps breaking records at the box office, despite all of this file sharing.

Is NYC spending taxpayer money on Hollywood propaganda, or is it being funded by the MPAA? According to one report, this is funded by the city itself, so, yes NYC taxpayer money is going towards this. The city is trying to downplay the cost, by saying it's using resources it already has, but that also means those resources can't be used for other ads. Wouldn't it actually save more jobs if NYC wasn't wasting taxpayer money on propaganda campaigns based on bogus information?

Anyway, the campaign has some hilariously misleading commercials. One has a guy pretending to offer bootleg DVDs, but if you take one, he says, the depressed looking person holding a boom mic next to him will lose her job. Of course, it's not as if the MPAA and Cotton's company have done everything possible to reject new business models that might keep more people employed. But, none of that matters according to the campaign. It's because some kids, who would never buy the DVD in the first place, download a movie that someone won't get a job. Uh huh. And it ends with the blatantly false line: "There's no such thing as a free movie." Someone should tell Nina Paley or Stevie Long or the folks at Double Edge Films or any of the filmmakers using Vodo, etc. There is such a thing as a free-to-consumer movie, contrary to the ad campaign's central message. In fact, if the message is "if you're watching a movie for free, it's infringing," then people probably shouldn't turn on their TVs to watch movies played on broadcast TV.

The problem, once again, is not "piracy." It's folks like Rick Cotton thinking that the business model that Universal used to have must forever be the same. It's pretty sad that NYC is supporting such backwards thinking.

Filed Under: new york city, piracy, propaganda, rick cotton
Companies: nbc universal

Myth Debunking: ISPs Are Profiting From 'Piracy'

from the uh,-no dept

One of the popular claims from entertainment industry supporters, who somehow want ISPs to be liable for file sharing, is that "ISPs profit from file sharing." We hear this over and over again. But there's little evidence that's true. It's not like most internet users wouldn't have internet access if they couldn't file share (that's another myth, where the industry overvalues its own content, without realizing there are other reasons to have an internet connection). However, even more evidence can be found in the fact that various ISPs continue to work so hard to throttle file sharing traffic because it actually costs them a lot in terms of bandwidth. The ISPs already have some incentives to minimize traffic hogging (even if their methods are crude and lame right now).

Filed Under: bandwidth, broadband, isps, piracy, profits, third parties
Companies: rogers

BPI Effectively Admits That Digital Economy Act Was Useless

from the reading-between-the-lines dept

Every time I come across BPI, the UK's version of the RIAA, I'm amazed at how single-minded its focus seems to be. There's little interest in improving profitability for record labels. There's little interest in creating better music. There's little interest in smart new business models. It's only about "piracy" and how evil it is. What's funny is I saw the BPI's Geoff Taylor on a panel a couple years ago, and he was one of the people who would say two sentences in a row that would contradict each other. It was always something along the lines of: "We should stop 'going to war' with our customers... but first we have to stop piracy!"

This past year was a banner year for BPI. The UK market has bucked the trend in pretty much every other part of the world and has seen recorded music sales growing, while its overall music industry (if you count how much money musicians actually make -- beyond just recorded music sales) has been growing for quite some time. Even with all of that, BPI was able to push through the incredibly draconian Digital Economy Act in the UK via questionable means.

So BPI should be thrilled, right? In the midst of a recession, and a massive decline in recorded music sales everywhere else in the world, it was able to buck that trend even before it got this new law passed.

But no, to BPI, absolutely everything is about "piracy." It's put out a new report whining that "piracy" is still increasing and saying it's all Google's fault. Of course, this isn't a surprise as BPI has been trying to set Google up for a lawsuit.

Of course, by my reading of this new study, BPI is effectively admitting that the Digital Economy Act was useless. The industry was already growing before it, so the main reason behind it was to help slow down the dreaded "piracy." And it failed in doing that. So, shouldn't BPI now support a repeal of the Digital Economy Act?

Filed Under: blame, copyright, downloads, piracy, uk
Companies: bpi, google

Avast Claims Single Pro License Installed 774,651 Times Around The Globe

from the that's-a-lot dept

In yet another case of a copyright holder turning "piracy" into publicity, security firm Avast has been making some news after watching a single pro license apparently "go viral" on file sharing sites, leading it to be installed 774,651 times around the globe. The company is claiming it's been installed in 200 countries -- including two computers in Vatican City. Of course, this might raise some skepticism, because depending on who you talk to there are fewer than 200 countries in the world (though, others claim there are more -- so... who knows). Either way, it does appear that Avast has turned the whole thing into a publicity stunt, both with the press coverage, and popping up a note on those 774,561 installs, urging people to switch to legit versions (including the company's popular free version).

Filed Under: piracy, response
Companies: avast

Piracy Is Over Like The Web Is Dead

from the The-Fat-Lady's-A-Mute dept

Attention everyone.  If I could have all of your eyes looking forward please, I have an announcement to make: the pirating of music on the internet has officially ended.  So says Wired's Paul Boutin:

"Mark down the date: The age of stealing music via the Internet is officially over. It’s time for everybody to go legit. The reason: We won. And all you audiophiles and copyfighters, you know who fixed our problems? The record labels and online stores we loved to hate."

That's quite a whopper, isn't it?  Particularly from the same esteemed publication that brought you the news that the web is dead.  You'd have to imagine there would be something pretty substantial in his article to make the claim that the record labels had somehow fixed things so that online infringement no longer should exist, right?  Sadly, not so much.  He starts off by listing out a couple of the problems most folks had with things like DRM, transferring legit purchases to multiple devices, etc.  Then he tells us all why everything is okay now (and for a fun little game, see if you can spot the demeaning slight he sneaks in on music fans):

"Well played, protesters: In January 2009, Apple announced that it would remove the copyright protection wrapper from every song in its store. Today, Amazon and Walmart both sell music encoded as MP3s, which don’t even have hooks for copyright-protection locks. The battle is over, comrades."

So...because, after years of fighting, iTunes finally stood up and removed the DRM, followed by a few retailers, we're supposed to look to the record labels as our saviors?  For not treating us like criminals? And while they're still pushing for new laws and demanding money from ISPs (that will come out of consumers pockets anyway)? That doesn't really pass the smell test.  Paul then goes on to declare the joy audiophiles should feel now that MP3s are being sold with 256 Kbps audio quality, compared to the initial 128 Kbps offering, stating that if anyone wants quality better than that, "you can get a pretty good turntable for around $500" and go spin vinyl.  Oh, and he wants to make sure you know that if you steal vinyl records, that's called shoplifting.  Mmkay.  What else you got, Paul?

"That leaves one last war cry: Music should be free! It’s art! Friends, a song costs a dollar...Most download retailers send about 70 percent of each sale to the record companies that own the music. Artists with 15 percent royalty deals get 15 percent of that 70 percent, or about 10.5 cents per dollar of sales. Those who write their own music and own their own music publishing companies—an increasingly common arrangement—get another 9.1 cents in “mechanical royalties.” Every download sends almost 20 cents straight to the band."

Yup, you read that right.  This, of course, is pure nonsense.  That isn't the way royalties with modern day recording contracts work.  Through the magic of recording label accounting, the average musician makes roughly $23 for every $1000 in music sold -- and that's only if they actually recoup, which is difficult to do, thanks to the way the record labels account for things. For those of you who share my math skills and don't want to reach for a calculator, that's barely 2%.  Some of that result stems from necessary things the bands may need to spend on: managers, lawyers, taxes.  But a good deal of it also comes from neat little, and sometimes recoupable, charges from the record label, things like independent radio promotion, tour support, roughly fifty percent of the music video costs, etc.  Other times, the record labels flatout don't pay the royalties from truly successful albums.  Bottom line is, at the end of the day, record labels make money off of selling music, musicians do not.

And, even if we go with Paul's bogus number of 20 cents on the dollar, is that really that good of a deal? A musician today can use a service like Bandcamp, and get 85% of whatever money they bring in -- and can do so in more creative ways with pay what you want offerings, that can actually bring in much more money. The idea the "record labels" have solved "piracy" by offering musicians 20 cents that they'll never get because they'll never recoup is laughable.

But Paul chooses to ignore those things and instead offers up a pithy conclusion as to why music is still being pirated:

"You're cheap."

Uh huh.  Nuanced arguments would probably be more appreciated from the group of folks you're talking to, who actually spend more money on music than those who do not "pirate".  Funny definition of cheap you're working from...

In the end, there are many reasons why people still file share (and they are still file sharing in droves, which sort of debunks Paul's entire premise), but you don't learn any of that from Paul's article. Since when did Wired switch from thought-provoking analysis to pure trollbait?

Filed Under: hype, music industry, piracy

Don't Blame 'Piracy' For Your Own Failures To Engage

from the Swing-And-A-Miss dept

I kind of don't know where to begin with this blog post from comic artist Colleen Doran at The Hill -- the place where "law makers blog" -- about how awful "piracy" is? Anyway, she seems extremely angry, mixing in vitriolic and pedantic scorn with flashes that she actually understands what's happening... and then ignores it for more scorn. It's really kind of weird. For instance, a few quotes from the article:

"For more than 20 years, I've written and drawn comics for a variety of major publishers: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image and Disney. Like many artists, I've seen my sales figures chipped away as the print market shrinks due, in no small part, to rampant online piracy."

No evidence to back that up, of course. Just a statement of fact, that isn't a fact. Oh well....

"I made my comic series, A Distant Soil, available as a free webcomic less than two years ago. Despite assurances that the many sites pirating my work were doing me a favor with their “free advertising” I never saw a single incoming link from them, saw no increase in traffic, and made virtually no money."

Hold on, let me get this straight. You offered it for free, the "pirate" sites offered it for free... and you STILL lost traffic to those sites? Methinks perhaps that if you, the creator of the comic, can't differentiate yourself from filesharing sites that offer fans no connection with you, no insight into the work, no expertise in the offering, and no personal involvement with the creator, then that is YOUR problem, not the "pirates." For God's sake, people want your stuff! And you were smart enough to price the content the same as the unauthorized places! All you had left to do was offer them something the pirate sites couldn't, and you'd be home free!

Instead, she expected money to just show up at her doorstep. Which is strange, because money doesn't tend to do that....

"Frequent original content (often pirated the day I post it,) increased my traffic, not pirate "advertising." Pirates draw traffic from my site, and cost me millions of hits annually, which cuts my advertising revenue."

Again, in the first sentence she gets it! Keep creating and releasing! If your goal is to draw readers to YOUR site, one way to do that is to ALWAYS have the most up to date offerings of your creative work, and you do that by continuing to create. And pirate SITES don't draw traffic from yours, they draw traffic from the great pool of web surfers. You're both drawing against each other, and YOU have the advantage!

"Readers assume they are only nickel and diming rich corporations with their bit torrent naughtiness, but I am a middle class artist and farmer for whom a few thousand dollars a year in lost income means I can't afford health insurance."

Come on now. You're a 47 year old cartoonist/artist that's been pumping out works, both for publishing companies and some self-published, since you were 12 years old. You're a GOOD artist. There's no need to make plays on our sympathies by mentioning the other things you choose to do, like "farming". That isn't what we're talking about. That kind of transparent attempt to play the victim does not move the discussion forward. Oh, and bit torrent naughtiness is a great name for a forward-looking cyberpunk porn thriller....

"Creators and publishers can’t compete with free and the frightening reality is that even free isn’t good enough. Pirates aggregate content in ways creators and legit publishers can’t. Why go to dozens of web pages for entertainment when you can go to a pirate and get everything you want? There’s no connection to creators as human beings who work hard and make money from that work, and who need income from past work to finance future work."

Sigh. Can't compete with free? Then you can't compete period. Because if all you have to offer is what others can manage to offer for free, then you don't actually have anything to offer to start with. Thing is, you DO have something to offer... you just don't seem to want to offer it. Oh, and that last part, about there being no connection between fans and creators? That's YOUR job, not the fans'. You have to make that connection. We're not mindless moths, fluttering about the heat of your light, desperate to slam our bodies against the fixture. You connect with us, since you're doing the selling, not the other way around....

Case in point? Just a few weeks ago, Techdirt had a couple of posts about someone in the IDENTICAL position to you. Comic artist Steve Lieber. Just like you, he had his works "pirated" on these sites. What did he do? He went and engaged with them and realized they were some of his biggest fans and saw his sales jump by a MASSIVE amount.

And that proves the point, doesn't it? It's not the people copying who are the problem. If you actually worked at engaging with the audience and giving them a reason to buy, they will.

"Everyone gets paid -- manufacturers of computers, iPads, electricity, bandwidth -- everyone except the creators of content."

Ah, so no content creators are getting paid? Funny, there seems to be an awful lot of stuff out there -- including those in the same position as you. Oh, and the internet isn't NEW anymore, okay? And it has yet to create a barren wasteland devoid of downloadable content. With all the evil piraters out there, how could that be?

"It costs big bucks to finance these pirate sites. Major advertisers and open source ad providers like Google pay them."

Google bad? Then why does it feel so good? I assume, since Google is evil, that you have gone directly to your robots.txt and made sure you aren't indexed? Also, it's not Google who's "paying them," which sounds like Google has them on the payroll. They're putting ads on their sites and competing. You can do that too -- and, if you engage with your fans, they'll focus on going to where you want them to go.

The best part is the tagline at the end of the story:

"Colleen Doran is a cartoonist and illustrator with more than 500 credits for companies as diverse as Lucasfilm, Disney, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Harper Collins, and Image Comics. Her work includes illustrations for Captain America, Sandman, Wonder Woman, Amazing Spider-man and many others."

Again, Colleen, you're just so far ahead of the game here that it almost feels strange to see what you've written. That's quite a list of paid work, some which I imagine you could build upon to solidify your reputation and garner even more paid work. Through your own talent and hard work, you're set up to really be able to work with new media and emerging business models. Why not really dig down and embrace them?

Filed Under: business models, colleen doran, piracy

Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software

from the surely-that's-not-the-best-use-of-money? dept

In the past, Microsoft used to be willing to admit that unauthorized copies helped the company, as it helped establish its software as a near-monopoly in certain areas, and kept competitors out. But, in the past few years, the company has become more adamant, not just about denying any possible "benefits" to unauthorized copies, but in trying to crack down on them at any cost. The NY Times has an article highlighting Microsoft's "fight" against unauthorized copies, and does so with dramatic (and cinematic) claims about how organized crime groups are turning to software copying, as an alternative to drugs.

Of course, this ignores the fact that such organized crime groups have actually discovered that it's harder and harder to make money with counterfeit software -- because more and more such software is just available for free online, leaving little reason to pay anything for it, especially from counterfeiters. But, what strikes me as most interesting through the blatantly ridiculous claims throughout the article from Microsoft's folks and its stand-ins at the BSA, is that all the company is really doing here is spending a ton of money to convince people to look at cheaper (or free) alternatives.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, piracy, software
Companies: bsa, microsoft

China's Main Newspaper Complains That The iPad Is Too Damn Legal

from the they-have-a-point dept

China is often accused of ignoring intellectual property, though, as we've noted, lately it's been embracing intellectual property laws, mainly to smack down foreign competitors. The country has been trying to show the world that it's taking these matters seriously, and I'm sure there was plenty of conversation about this when Eric Holder met with officials in Beijing, following his recent blatantly intellectually dishonest speech about intellectual property issues.

So, given all of that, it seems a bit strange that The People's Daily newspaper, which is the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, recently put up a review of Apple's iPad that complained about the fact that it couldn't be used for unauthorized material:

"There are many disadvantages" to the gadgets, it wrote. "For example you cannot install pirate software on them, you cannot download [free] music, and you need to pay for movies you watch on them."

Now, while some might find this a bit surprising, it should be remembered that, in China, it's possible to also get unauthorized devices that build off of other company's gadgets to create something more powerful, and actually open for such uses. So while such a complaint may seem strange at first, when you realize that all they're really saying is that "we know how much more powerful this device should be, and it's a shame that it's locked down, because that takes away much of its value."

Filed Under: china, copyright, ipad, piracy

Comic Book 'Pirated' On 4Chan, Author Joins Discussion... Watches Sales Soar

from the connect-with-fans dept

Paul Watson points us to yet another example of how engaging with fans of your work (even if, technically, they infringed on your copyrights) can lead to pretty happy outcomes for everyone. The basic details are that comic book artist Steve Lieber discovered that folks at 4chan had scanned in and uploaded every page of his graphic novel Underground. Now, the typical reaction is to freak out, scream "piracy," whine about "losses" and demand that "something must be done." But, in a world where obscurity is really a much bigger issue than "piracy," another option is to actually engage with those fans who liked his work so much that they put in the effort to share it with the world. And that's exactly what Lieber did. He went to the site and actually started talking about the work with the folks on 4chan (image from Paul): Nice. But, what did it actually mean? Well, the day after he engaged with fans on 4chan, Lieber posted a blog post highlighting his sales. As he says, "pictures help us learn." But "piracy" is killing the ability to earn money, right?

Filed Under: 4chan, comic books, obscurity, piracy, steve lieber, underground

Why Would Attorney General Eric Holder Cite Debunked Stats About 'Piracy'?

from the can't-admit-the-truth? dept

As part of the latest effort by the US to get China to respect US patent, copyright and trademark laws, it's apparently sent Attorney General Eric Holder to Asia to make speeches that are blatantly ridiculous. You can read the text of the speech that Holder recently gave in Hong Kong, and try not to gag at the claims he makes that are either blatantly misleading or simply outright falsehoods. The Attorney General is supposed to enforce the law -- not lie to protect the interests of a few companies.

After kicking it off with (yet another) conflation of serious counterfeiting issues (that actually put people's lives in danger) with file sharing of music, movies and software, he simply parrots the totally debunked BSA's stats on unauthorized software:

The global software industry is a prime example.

Indeed. If you look at open source software and how they've been able to put together incredible businesses, and enable all sorts of innovation by being the core building blocks of the internet, the web, email and giant companies like Google and Facebook, it really is a prime example of how "piracy" isn't a legal issue, but a business model one. Or wait, did you mean something different?

According to recent industry reports, it is now estimated that, worldwide, more than 40 percent of all software installed on personal computers is obtained illegally -- with forgone revenues to the software industry topping $50 billion.

Yes, according to industry reports. But not according to reality. The "foregone revenue" number is based on a simply laughable claim of a 1:1 ratio of unauthorized copies to "foregone revenue." No intellectually honest person would suggest that number is accurate.

These are funds that could have been invested in new jobs and next-generation technologies.

Right, except Holder ignores the fact that those funds didn't disappear. It's just that rather than going to a few companies with gov't granted monopolies, they went into actual companies doing stuff with the software. That means, those funds did get invested in new jobs and next-generation technologies. In fact, some of the evidence suggests that the money went towards creating even more jobs than it would have if it had gone towards paying for software.

And software piracy affects more than just the software industry -- since, for every $1 of PC software sold, it's estimated that more than $3 of revenues are lost to local IT support and distribution services. Other IP and support industries are seeing the same ripple effect of losses -- and current trends are alarming.

Oh, wait, so you do understand ripple effects. It's just that Eric Holder seems to think ripple effects only go in one direction. They don't. And, um, you do realize that counting "ripple effects" is blatantly misleading in that it's really recounting the same dollars multiple times. Could it be that US Attorney General Eric Holder doesn't understand basic economics and math? Or is he simply accepting widely-debunked claims from an industry that clearly benefits from folks like him repeating those claims? Neither answer seems particularly flattering to Holder.

He then goes on to scold China (without naming them directly) for not doing enough to prop up American businesses. Well, that's not how he puts it, of course, but it's what he's basically saying. Apparently, he hasn't realized that China has been a quick study in figuring out how to use intellectual property laws to hold back foreign companies operating in China -- including many US companies. Encouraging China to respect intellectual property laws is simply encouraging them to harm American companies and innovation, while giving the government more tools to suppress free speech. This is really troubling and dangerous. And, what's most upsetting is that folks like Holder don't even seem to have considered these sorts of reactions.

Next up, he simply makes stuff up to win political brownie points:

As many of you know, last year, President Obama created a new leadership role in the White House -- Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator -- and appointed Victoria Espinel to fill this position.

Except, um, that's not true. President Obama did not create that role. It was created by the (problematic) ProIP bill, which was signed by President Bush, not Obama. Now, Obama did hire the first IP czar, and figure out which department it would go in, but only in response to the law signed by his predecessor. To claim he created the role is blatantly false. This may be a minor point, but it highlights that Holder seems to have filled this entire speech with statements that seem to show a disconnect from reality.

Last December, Vice President Biden convened the administration's first intellectual property summit, which brought together cabinet officials and industry leaders to discuss intellectual property rights and policies

Right. The "summit," which only brought in one side of the debate and kicked out the press. The Attorney General is supposed to uphold the law, right? He must have learned at some point that the entire point of copyright and patent laws is to benefit the public by "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts," right? So, if you're going to convene a "summit" about such intellectual property, wouldn't you expect that the real stakeholders should be present as well -- rather than just a few industry folks seeking regulatory capture and an increase in monopoly rents at the expense of the public?

To build on the contributions and achievements of our prosecutors and investigators, in February of this year, I reestablished the Justice Department's Task Force on Intellectual Property.

Right, at the same time that you were de-emphasizing the importance of things like stopping identity fraud and finding missing persons. But helping prop up a few companies who contribute a lot to political campaigns? We'll get right on that...

There's a lot more like that in the speech, but honestly, the whole thing is shameful. It's a pure propaganda piece for a few industries, at the expense of the public good.

Filed Under: china, eric holder, intellectual property, piracy, propaganda, statistics