Supporters Of SOPA/PIPA Make Arguments That Make No Sense

from the please-make-it-stop dept

A few folks pointed out Bruce Iglauer's opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune, urging support for PROTECT IP. It's a little odd, because the piece never mentions SOPA at all, and applauds the "introduction" of PROTECT IP (PIPA), despite that happening many months ago. Either way, while I'm sure that Iglauer, an old school indie label founder and operator, means well, his arguments make almost no sense. First, he runs through all the usual tropes about how "you wouldn't steal a stick of gum." Of course, that should be a sign that perhaps (just perhaps) something is different online. Instead, people like Iglauer, after fundamentally recognizing digital works are different, then pretends they should be treated the same. Then it's time for strawmen:

This kind of theft is often rationalized as "all musicians are rich anyway" or "all the record companies are ripping off the musicians" or "music should be free."

Thing is, almost none of these arguments are regularly used by those worried about PIPA and SOPA. I've never heard anyone say that "all musicians are rich anyway." And while I'm sure someone, somewhere, may have made those latter two arguments, they're far from common, and not the reason most people are opposed to this overly aggressive, draconian legal mess.

He then goes on to knock down the strawmen he set up, pointing out that many musicians are poor. Um. Yes. That's how it's always been. That's got nothing to do with copyright infringement. In fact, the internet has allowed many, many more musicians to make money from their works than ever before. In the past, most artists made nothing (or went into debt). Now it's much, much easier to make some money. That seems like progress. But Iglauer seems to be suggesting that copyright should be welfare for artists who can't succeed. I don't see how that makes much sense. He puts forth some sob stories of artists who don't make much money and then proudly states that "about one dollar of ever four that my company takes in is paid to a musician or songwriter."

Is that really something to be proud of? Perhaps it beats the much lower royalty rates of the majors, but for artists adopting new platforms like Kickstarter and TopSpin, they can retain the vast majority of money that people pay for their stuff. That seems like a good opportunity for artists. Though, perhaps not for Iglauer.

Later, he laughably calls the IFPI's piracy estimates "the most conservative estimates." That's ridiculous. The IFPI's estimates are not conservative in any way, and are based on the group's desire to push for more draconian copyright laws and enforcement.

Finally, he fails to acknowledge even a single reason why so many people are up in arms about PIPA and how it is overly broad and leads to a very high likelihood of abuse and censorship. Reading this, all I can think is, there's a label that failed to adapt to changing times and now thinks that it's the government's responsibility to fix his business mistakes. Sorry, Bruce, but that's not the way things should work.

Filed Under: bruce iglauer, copyright, indie music, pipa, protect ip, sopa, strawmen

That Mythical 'Information Wants To Be Free' Crowd

from the help-us-out-here dept

Jay Rosen is doing a brilliant job highlighting the rather silly trend among folks who think they're "debunking" the economics of free to build up complete strawmen often identified as "the information wants to be free crowd." However, as Rosen notes, none of those critics ever links to anyone in particular or defines who they're arguing against or what it is they actually said. There's a good reason for that, of course. Usually those folks are arguing against a myth. They don't want to argue against the actual economics or what folks who understand where free fits into the wider economic landscape are actually saying. They want to throw up a punching bag (usually something along the lines of "everything must be free!") which they can knock down without anyone punching back. But that's not because they're right, but because they're arguing against a myth. No one claims everything (even information) must be free. Most (and in this group I include folks like Kevin Kelly, Chris Anderson, Stewart Brand and others) are simply pointing to the basic economic forces on information. If you don't understand what those forces are, then you will be overwhelmed by them. But simply claiming that any one in that group is saying that everything must be free is flat out wrong.

Filed Under: chris anderson, economics, free, kevin kelly, stewart brand, strawmen

Pro-Copyright Strawmen Won't Protect You From Real Economics

from the knock-'em-down dept

Over the last couple of months, I've discussed some unsubstantiated claims by Hank Williams, a writer for Silicon Alley Insider, that seemed dubious and uninformed, such as the idea that business models based on "free" were the fault of venture capitalist and made it impossible for small businesses to survive. Then, a couple weeks ago, there was his totally unsubstantiated attack on those who support weakening copyright protections. Williams has now responded, with a piece taking a few quotes from me out of context and insisting that I had no evidence to back up my claims. In reading through his claims, one thing becomes clear: Williams, like many others, likes to set up strawmen on what he wishes I said, and then to try to prove his point, puts artificial restrictions on what counts as proof. Let's take a look.

Williams original statement: First, if music goes down, so will every other form of copyrighted material including ultimately books, movies, TV, etc.

Masnick said: This assumes that without copyright, content creation goes down. There's no evidence to support this. In fact, we see more content creation today than ever before in history, and most of it is not because of copyright in the slightest.

Williams' Response: First of all, as far as I know, we still have copyright laws in this country. But Masnick says copyright isn't important to the creators of that content. How do we know this? Because Masnick says so. And I am sure most movie makers, book authors and publishers, and TV producers agree that they could continue to make their products without copyright. I am sure Jeff Zucker agrees. I am sure Bob Iger agrees. I am sure all those writers who get book advances agree. What about YouTube? What about the blogosphere? Well, the last time I looked Star Wars Kid had neither a TV nor movie deal for his famous clip.

The strawman that Williams is using here is to mix and match what type of content he's talking about to suit his purpose. I thought he was talking about content as a whole, which is what he implied. But when I pointed out that there's more content being produced today than ever before (thank you internet) and the vast majority of it isn't being produced because of copyright, he changed his tune, to say he only meant professionally made content that was made using copyright. In other words, it's a tautological argument: the only content that counts is the content produced by this particular business model -- so if that business model goes away, there will be less content produced by that business model. Well, duh. But that doesn't mean less content will be produced, which is what his handwaving is meant to imply.

And, of course, there's little evidence to suggest he's correct even there. The music industry, as has widely been demonstrated, has not been decimated by piracy at all. While the recording industry has had trouble adjusting, just look how many musicians have found a decent audience thanks to the internet. The combination of cheaper tools to make music, record music, distribute music and promote music means that more people can and are making music today than ever before in history. The same is true of other types of content as well. Of course, Williams has a neat trick in his bag to discount all of those, but we'll get to that next.

Williams said: There is no evidence at all that free music on the Internet is an effective (i.e. successful career building) marketing tool.

Masnick said: That's simply untrue. Mr. Williams may not have found such evidence, but it's only because he didn't look very hard. The number of bands who exist solely because of their ability to build a following on the internet is rather large at this point, with plenty of bands crediting the internet's ability for easy distribution and marketing for their own ability to exist.

Williams' Comment: Again, Masnick's response appears to be: "You are wrong because I said so." But I'm trying to help: Via the Free Music Research Project I've started, I'm trying to see if I can find any artists that have effectively used the Internet promotion for anything other than to get noticed by a label. We are still in fairly early days, but so far no qualifying artists have been submitted. Kevin Kelley and Jaron Lanier have both also aggressively been looking for such artists, and they haven't found any either. I am not saying that there aren't any, but at this point any evidence is elusive. I suspect that there may be one somewhere. But probably not three.

And here's the neat little trick. The devil is in the details, but Williams has defined using free music to create a success so incredibly narrowly to make sure to limit the number of musicians who meet his qualifications. Let's go through the problems with his definition one-by-one.

First, he says it only applies to bands that are not on any label. Why? Who knows. I certainly have never claimed that bands need to remain off labels. In fact, I've pointed out exactly the opposite -- that even in the world of free music there's plenty of room for music labels who take a more holistic approach to helping a band create a full business model. So, suddenly, he cuts off any band that has ever signed with a label, even those that are embracing giving away their content to make money in other ways.

Second, he says it only applies to bands that make all their music downloadable as mp3s on MySpace. Why only on MySpace? Again, no idea. I'm not sure what MySpace has to do with any of this. Perhaps this isn't that much of a limitation, since most bands do seem to have a MySpace page -- but it still seems like an odd restriction.

Third, it only applies to musicians who are US based. He says this is to make it easier to research the details, but of course, that leaves out successful examples we've discussed in countries like Jamaica, China and Brazil. But that's okay, because none of those examples meet some of Williams' other pointless restrictions.

Fourth, it only applies to bands who have agreed to give away all of their music, rather than those who are just testing the waters. Why this limitation? Again, it's not at all clear. But just because a band is testing the waters and learning how "free" works, doesn't mean that they don't count as evidence.

As a subsidiary point (point 4a) it appears to also only apply to bands that don't also sell their music (Hank can hopefully correct me if I'm wrong here). I'm putting this as 4a, because it's not entirely clear if this really disqualifies a band -- though, Hank does say: "The idea is to find artists that, as a career choice, are not selling their music." Hank is pulling a sneaky strawman trick here: by saying that if a band is still making any money from the legacy system, then obviously that legacy system works great. This is similar to the problem with point 4 above. No one says to completely ignore the old way while you transition -- but for Hank, that's just not good enough.

Fifth, Hank insists that the bands can only make money from touring, and demands that they have a published schedule online. In fact, in the comments he dismisses Jane Siberry/Issa, who has built a career out of giving away her music because she doesn't happen to have a tour listed online. This is a common point of attack that people have made. But, it again is an artificial limitation. I have never suggested that bands should make their money touring, so I'm not sure why Williams thinks that's a reasonable limitation. I have simply said that they can sell scarce goods while giving away the infinite goods (the music). And, those scarce goods can include many things. Touring is certainly a big obvious one -- but hardly the only one -- as can be clearly seen by the successful experiments run by both Trent Reznor and Jill Sobule.

In both cases, Reznor and Sobule sold other scarce goods that had little to do with concerts (though, one of Sobule's "tiers" included concert tickets). Reznor ended up making well over $1.6 million. Sobule made $75k (her goal) in less than two months. But, to Williams, these don't count -- even though neither of them were business models predicated on copyright. And, so we have a strawman. Williams has decided that the business model we support has all of these limitations on it, even though it does not -- and he won't bother to accept any musician who has their feet in both pools.

I'm not sure what that proves, but it certainly doesn't prove that the model we're discussing doesn't work. We've already seen plenty of proof that it does.

Williams said: There have been no blockbuster successes that have come from, for example, Garageband availability. I don't think you could even count more than a handful -- if that -- internet-based artists making a living from music.

Masnick says: Of course, that depends on how you define "blockbuster" success. Williams seems to define it narrowly to suit his purposes, and that completely undermines his argument. Bands like the Arctic Monkeys created the following that turned them into a huge success via the internet.

Williams' Comment: The Arctic Monkeys do not fit the criteria, but not because they aren't big enough, but because they aren't an Internet band. I will happily concede that the Internet has been helpful to labels in discovering artists. In fact the the Internet is now a primary research tool for label A&R departments. And such is the case with The Arctic Monkeys. But all of The Arctic Monkeys' major success, like best selling records, and major radio play, came after they signed with a label in 2005.

And if they were so successful without a label, why sign with one? Why not just keep that big pile of Internet cash to yourself? Even if you discount that the Arctic Monkeys are a label band,, and just accept Masnick's contention that they are an Internet blockbuster, one single band does not make a movement. It doesn't even qualify as a "handful".

We've already discussed the strawman of Williams' that somehow signing with a label disqualifies a band from gaining value from the internet or embracing free music. Instead, I'll focus on the fact that Williams conveniently snips out the success stories of Maria Schneider and Flo Rida. I'm sure he has reasons why they, too, don't qualify. However, when you spend so much time pointing out why every example "doesn't qualify" for some arbitrary set of rules, at some point you'll have to realize that all of those exceptions are the rule.

We never said that one business model (and certainly not the one Williams insists must be there) is the answer. We simply explained the basic economics and how to craft multiple business models that take advantage of those economics. You can build a strawman to argue against any single business model, but given that the overall economics are sound, and the increasing number of artists who are taking advantage of those economics (even if they don't fit Williams' narrow criteria) are doing a fine job of proving the point that Williams strawman won't support. So, go ahead and knock over that strawman, Hank. The rest of us are focusing on the business models that work.

Update: A friend just alerted me to the most ridiculous contradiction in Williams' post that was too good not to point out. As we noted above, in determining who "qualifies" as a success story with these non-copyright-focused business models, Williams' says you can't include anyone signed to a record label. Yet, in determining what qualifies as a "success" story with internet content, he mocks the Star Wars Kid: "Well, the last time I looked Star Wars Kid had neither a TV nor movie deal for his famous clip." So, apparently, to be a success as an amateur, you need to sign a pro deal, but once you sign a pro deal, you no longer qualify to be considered a success as an amateur. This is positively brilliant. Williams has created a scenario where it's simply impossible to qualify for his definition of success, because the second you qualify... you're disqualified.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, economics, free, hank williams, strawmen