stories filed under: "piracy"
Techdirt Extends Promise To Pay Up To $1 Million For Proof Of BSA $1 Million Reward
from the again,-please-note-the- dept
You may recall that, over the summer, the Business Software Alliance, got a lot of press for supposedly offering $1 million to folks who reported their employers to the BSA for using unauthorized software. A $1 million reward seems like a big deal -- the type likely to generate lots of press and (the BSA hoped) get more people to snitch on their bosses. Except, when you looked at the fine print, you realized that the BSA had all sorts of conditions, and the reward was really "up to" $1 million, pretty much entirely at the discretion of the BSA. So they could claim a $1 million award, and then pay out a lot less. In fact, when a CNET reporter went searching for how much the BSA had actually paid out, she could only find awards of about $5,000. So, that prompted us to promise "up to" $1 million to anyone who could prove the BSA gave a single person a $1 million reward -- with how much we actually pay out entirely up to our own discretion. Anyway, it would appear that the original announcement didn't get the BSA enough attention (or enough snitching), so it's now announced that it's extending the (not really) $1 million reward program that supposedly had an end date. And, of course, the press dutifully report this news. So, in response, we'd like to announce that we're also extending our "up to $1 million" reward to anyone who can show that the BSA actually has paid an individual $1 million for snitching on his boss for using unauthorized software. Given how much press attention the BSA announcement got, we're surprised no one's reporting on our offer as well.Media Uncritically Cites Flawed Piracy Studies, Again
from the balance-needed dept
The Washington Post has a story about the never-ending lobbying campaign for more draconian penalties for copyright infringement. It's extremely one-sided, quoting several industry executives but not a single person on the other side of the copyright debate, who could have pointed out that Congress has passed "tougher penalties" repeatedly in recent years and the results haven't exactly been good. The report also cites the widely discredited series of piracy reports that, as I explained here and here, dramatically overstate the effects of piracy on the copyright holders by double- and triple-counting uncaptured revenues by adding in "ripple effects."Those previous studies covered the movie and music industries, and both made the same basic error: after they counted some amount of CDs or movie tickets unsold as "lost revenue," they then counted the same lost revenue again by calculating how much less the movie and music industry is paying their suppliers due to those lower revenues. In some cases, they count the same dollar a third or fourth time when those suppliers pay their suppliers less than they would have without piracy. But that's obviously silly. What matters is the total number of dollars earned, not how many times each dollar changes hands. When you strip out these spurious double- and triple-counted revenues, and correct some of the other questionable assumptions I detail in the posts linked to above, you find out that uncaptured revenues from music piracy to the recording industry are around $3.2 billion, not $12.5 billion as the report claims. Similarly, IPI claims the uncaptured revenue for the movie industry is $20.5 billion, but if you strip out the double-counting, you find it's more like $6.1 billion. I pointed these problems out to them after they released the movie study, yet they still made the same flawed assumptions for the music study, and presumably their latest study has the same problems. The Post says the latest study finds that the combined cost of movie, music, and software piracy is $58 billion. I think it's a safe bet that this number, too, is wildly overstated, and that the actual figure is closer to $15 billion. Unfortunately, this reporter apparently didn't have the time to dig into the report in detail, or to pick up the phone and call someone who could offer a critical perspective. Once again, readers will see these inflated numbers reported as fact and assume there must be some rigorous methodology behind it.
Filed Under: copyright, piracy, ripple effects
Companies: ipi
What The Entertainment Industry Could Learn From Al Neuharth
from the don't-sue-'em,-make-them-help-you dept
No matter what you feel about USA Today founder Al Neuharth (who certainly elicits quite a strong reaction from many people), he revealed a very interesting story about a decision made in the early days of USA Today in an interview on the 25th anniversary of the paper. It's a story that the entertainment industry, busy in its plan to sue college kids, could learn a lot from. Apparently, soon after USA Today launched, some college kids stole some of the cool looking vending machines USA Today was using. Neuharth then took what may seem like the counter-intuitive step in dealing with it:"Our lawyers, as lawyers are wont to do, said, "Let's sue the bastards." And I said, "Like hell we will. Let's find them and we will make them our distributors." And we did that."Every time we write about why it's dumb for the entertainment industry to enforce its copyrights in doing things like suing YouTube, people yell at us for taking away the rights of content creators. This is a misreading of what we've been writing. We've never said to take away their rights -- just that they can be better off if they choose, of their own will, to ignore those rights and use the fact that people are using their content to their advantage. It's the same thing here. Neuharth clearly would have been within his rights to follow his lawyers' advice and "sue the bastards." Instead, he realized that it could make a lot more business sense to realize that these "criminals" could be a lot more useful. Clearly, they were "fans" of USA Today, so why not use that to the company's advantage and make them distributors, helping to promote USA Today? It's the same thing with the entertainment industry today. For those who decide not to enforce copyrights, and actually encourage their best fans to promote and share their content for them, it can help get a lot more attention, a lot more fans and open up many new avenues for profit.
Filed Under: business models, piracy
CBS More Focused On Keeping Fans Happy
from the keep-the-fans-happy,-and-business-models-work-out dept
It's fascinating to watch the different approaches that competitors NBC and CBS are taking to dealing with the online video market. NBC has seemed almost to have a new strategy every day, happily putting videos up on YouTube, pulling them down from YouTube, being happy with YouTube, being upset with YouTube, putting videos on iTunes, pulling them down from iTunes. It's as if NBC doesn't have a real strategy at all -- or, at the very least, different factions within the company "win" every few weeks or so. In contrast, you have CBS, who recognized the importance of online video at nearly the same time as NBC. However, rather than going with a constantly shifting target, CBS's strategy has evolved in a pretty straight line. The company quickly realized that distribution and awareness was a lot more important than protection and focused on getting videos available wherever people wanted to view them (not just where CBS could control everything). That meant syndicating the content as widely as possible and even embracing the benefits from people sharing CBS content on YouTube and other sites. That's why it's not too surprising to hear CBS' Les Moonves respond to questions about NBC's decision to take its content off iTunes by saying that CBS is thrilled with iTunes and sees no reason to follow NBC's decision. The really telling statement is this one: "We look at iTunes as much as a promotional vehicle for our shows as a financial vehicle." That's why NBC is focused on putting up barriers for viewers, while CBS appears to be focused on taking them down.Filed Under: itunes, online video, piracy, tv
Companies: apple, cbs, nbc
Why Did NBC Make Life Harder For People Who Want To Buy Its Content?
from the disconnect-with-reality dept
It really is amusing to watch how the companies who are most worried about "piracy" (which is a misnomer) always seem to treat their legitimate customers the worst. We've all wondered why the movie companies put up those annoying anti-piracy ads that waste the time of the folks who actually paid. But, what's most amazing is how many of these content companies are so focused on "piracy" that they miss the fact that they need to provide a reasonable experience for people who actually want to purchase their content. Making life difficult is only going to drive those legitimate customer prospects towards the very activity they were most afraid of. Take NBC Universal, for example. The company is so worried about the threat of "piracy" that it's making up ridiculous stories about the harm caused to corn growers due to piracy. However, at the same time, it gets into a petty argument with Apple and pulls all of its content from iTunes -- which is where the majority of folks who wanted to pay for NBC's TV shows would go. The end result? NBC Universal, for all their worries about "piracy," just made life much more difficult for legitimate purchasers, most likely driving some of them to experiment with unauthorized downloads, just to get the content they would have happily paid for. For some reason, you don't seem to see these types of actions from the companies who aren't freaked out about piracy -- but perhaps that's because they know the way to succeed is to offer a better customer experience and more value, rather than worrying so much.Filed Under: content, copyright, downloads, piracy
Companies: nbc universal
Russia Cracking Down On Software Piracy... But Only On Gov't Critics?
from the sneaky,-sneaky dept
It's no secret that the US has been pressuring Russia to crack down on intellectual property abuses which are rampant throughout the country. And, in fact, there's been some evidence that Russia is now trying to crack down on abuses in order to keep the US happy (and aid its own chances in joining the WTO). However, some are suggesting that while things like unauthorized software use is rampant almost everywhere in Russia, the only ones who are being targeted in the "crackdown" happen to be those who are critical of the current Russian government. Perhaps the authorities in Russia saw it as a way of killing two birds with one stone: show a crackdown on companies using unauthorized software to make the US happy... and come up with something to use to silence local government critics. Remember how the Big Copyright players were claiming that file sharing helps support terrorism (without any real evidence to support it)? Does that mean we can now claim that cracking down on software "piracy" helps stifle gov't dissent? Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's no less ridiculous than the terrorism claims.Biggest Box Office Summer Ever... And Yet All We Hear About Is Piracy?
from the let's-rethink-this,-okay? dept
With the MPAA constantly screaming about how piracy is killing the movie industry, putting poor stagehands and grips out of work, you'd be hard pressed to see the problem when you hear that the box office take this summer passed $4 billion for the first time ever. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that movies are a social experience. People like going out to the movies if the experience is fun and good. If there are good movies, people will go out and see them, even if they're available as a free download online. Just imagine what would happen if the movie industry stopped freaking out, stopped treating everyone as if they were a criminal and (gasp!) actually made the movie-going experience more enjoyable? It seems quite likely that dumb movie industry policies are costing the industry a hell of a lot more than piracy ever has or ever will have.Filed Under: box office, movies, mpaa, piracy
Companies: mpaa
Howard Berman To Force ISPs To Do RIAA's Bidding
from the the-representative-from-hollywood-strikes-again dept
First Congress tried to require universities to act as the RIAA's servants (or Congress would take away funding) and now they're trying to do the same thing to ISPs. Rep. Howard Berman (who continually lives up to his nickname of being the Representative from Disney), the head of the Intellectual Property subcommittee (which, as Larry Lessig has pointed out, is like asking a Representative from Detroit to head up the committee on auto safety), is about to introduce legislation that would require ISPs pass on RIAA/MPAA threat letters to subscribers (found via TorrentFreak). Of course, Berman doesn't seem to note that the entertainment industry process is based on extremely flimsy evidence and the whole "settlement process" amounts to little more than an extortion shakedown from the entertainment industry. It's not easy to fight back, and often people feel compelled to settle. With ISPs forced to do their bidding, it will only encourage the entertainment industry to send out notices based on even weaker evidence, since the whole thing has become a revenue generator for them -- and this will simply increase their channel -- all with government support. This is making a mockery of the intent of copyright.Filed Under: copyright, isps, piracy
Companies: congress, mpaa, riaa
Are U.S. Educators On The Wrong Side Of The Copyright War?
from the sharing-information-is-a-good-thing... dept
Last month, the entertainment industry (with the help of Senator Harry Reid) slipped a nice little amendment into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which funds colleges and universities as well as students. The amendment would require universities block p2p file sharing or lose funding. A number of universities complained (reasonably) about the expense involved in doing so, but some are arguing that it's about time that universities got away from just the cost argument and stood against this on principle. John points us to an argument for why universities should be fighting back against copyright maximalism, noting that, of all places, universities should recognize the benefits of a freer flow of information, and how trying to artificially limit information only leads to problems. The author notes that the high price of college textbooks should be example number one of how copyright can hinder the educational purpose of a university by artificially driving up the price. Of course, these days it seems like too many of the myths from the entertainment industry have been accepted as fact -- so it seems unlikely that universities will stand up against dangerous copyright practices any time soon.Filed Under: congress, copyright, p2p, piracy, politics, universities
Companies: congress
