Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
I think that its a bit of a stretch to say that someone who posted an artist's copywritten work on a web site without the artist's permission "free advertising."
Now if this was a Wil Wheaton fan page or something like that, then I think that argument could be made and could have some legs to it. Or if he was highlighting some snippets as fair use, definitely advertising.
Wholeheartedly agree! I think that word choice could have been more appropriate and you tend to embellish and say stupid shit when your angry. Choose words carefully and you appear less angry. To quote Comic Book Guy:
"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling!"
"You can't say "Well, he gives a lot of digital stuff away for free, but this other digital stuff he sells, so he gets it.""
I feel there are two very strong arguments used when defending piracy. First is the sample. Consumers do not want to blindly try something. In the physical world think of Borders or Barnes and Noble. You can pick up a book, flip through it, read some of it, etc. Really get the sense of if its a good read or not. Or think about the listening stations that are set up in music stores for new albums. But you can't leave the store without purchasing the book or the CD.
You need to provide the same for the digital world. Companies like Amazon "get it." They started providing scans of the table of contents and first few pages of books. Same with short samples of albums. Consumers get a chance to see if they like the content or not. Artists who don't "get it" sue people for doing that and many others that may be in the spirit of fair use if not the letter of the law. So he provides samples and content, I say he "gets it" in that regard.
Another argument is DRM. I think that DRM is an ungodly concept. It treats your consumers like criminals and is easily circumventable by an advanced user. So it does nothing for piracy problem and screws with the person who actually bought the content. If you purchased your content but didn't want a rootkit installed on your system I can hardly fault you for wandering to PirateBay and snagging a DRM free version. DRM doesn't work and Wil doesn't include it in his content. So I say he "gets it."
To argue your last point he is not basing his business model on the fact that none of his content will be stolen/pirated/whatever. He isn't sending out DMCAs (although he is well within his rights to), he isn't calling lawers and suing the infringer for eleventy-billion dollars of "lost profit." He didn't even mention who was doing it so as to not drive traffic to the site or illicit a retaliation from his fans.
Nope, he wrote on his blog about a guy who was being a dick and then moved on.
Good point, circular logic on my part. People who respect his work should not download it. Downloading a non-free digital performance without paying for it is disrespectful. Physical is whole other story. Those fans who did download it should delete it or pay for it.
I think of it this way, if this was a bootleg copy from a really cool reading he did that was not commercially available then that's cool for fans to download and trade. But sharing the premium content or downloading without paying is a real dick move.
It's hard to object to the piracy of your work and not come off sounding like a total dick. This is just one of those many aspects of "life is not fair".
Wholeheartedly agree! I think that word choice could have been more appropriate and you tend to embellish and say stupid shit when your angry. Choose words carefully and you appear less angry. To quote Comic Book Guy:
"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling!"
"You can't say "Well, he gives a lot of digital stuff away for free, but this other digital stuff he sells, so he gets it.""
I feel there are two very strong arguments used when defending piracy. First is the sample. Consumers do not want to blindly try something. In the physical world think of Borders or Barnes and Noble. You can pick up a book, flip through it, read some of it, etc. Really get the sense of if its a good read or not. Or think about the listening stations that are set up in music stores for new albums. But you can't leave the store without purchasing the book or the CD.
You need to provide the same for the digital world. Companies like Amazon "get it." They started providing scans of the table of contents and first few pages of books. Same with short samples of albums. Consumers get a chance to see if they like the content or not. Artists who don't "get it" sue people for doing that and many others that may be in the spirit of fair use if not the letter of the law. So he provides samples and content, I say he "gets it" in that regard.
Another argument is DRM. I think that DRM is an ungodly concept. It treats your consumers like criminals and is easily circumventable by an advanced user. So it does nothing for piracy problem and screws with the person who actually bought the content. If you purchased your content but didn't want a rootkit installed on your system I can hardly fault you for wandering to PirateBay and snagging a DRM free version. DRM doesn't work and Wil doesn't include it in his content. So I say he "gets it."
To argue your last point he is not basing his business model on the fact that none of his content will be stolen/pirated/whatever. He isn't sending out DMCAs (although he is well within his rights to), he isn't calling lawers and suing the infringer for eleventy-billion dollars of "lost profit." He didn't even mention who was doing it so as to not drive traffic to the site or illicit a retaliation from his fans.
Nope, he wrote on his blog about a guy who was being a dick and then moved on.
"Well I have never heard of this guy before, maybe I will go download it, if it is any good I will buy it, if it is not, I won't. If it is really good, I may become a lifelong fan and buy more things from him."
Awesome! Rather than start with the pirated material you could download the plethora of material he gives away for free and not download the pirated material. I highly recommend the PAX keynote from 2007: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/08/pax-ftw.html
This way you can see if you enjoy his work without supporting someone who posted the premium content on a shady warez site and keep your computer from getting cyber-herpes.
"You HAVE to make free downloads a part of your business model, whether you like it or not."
Exactly, which is something that he does. Free content in the form of blog postings and articles, free downloads in the form of the podcasts that he creates and the art/photos he releases under creative commons. He is a guy that gets it. Where he makes money is on premium content in the form of books and audiobooks.
"Because insulting your fans is the best way to keep them, of course."
First off, his fans would not download it. That is one of the more important messages of the blog post. Wil Wheaton maintains an active blog, writes several columns, and produces podcasts for his fans. Not only free, but under a Creative Commons share-alike license. He gives a ton of content for free. What he does to make a living, and feed his family, is create premium content for his fans to purchase. And he does it DRM free as he does not feel his consumers should be treated like criminals or that they should lose content that they purchased because after 5 years an authentication server goes splut or that file format is no longer supported on the latest gadget those kids are buying these days.
He is for the rights of consumers and he is for his rights as a content creator. He also has rights as a producer, director, distributor, etc. This is done by him pretty much exclusively. So when he says that if you download it you are stealing from him he's a lot closer than most other artists.
Now for the great part that I think he missed out on but works in his favor. Downloads do not equal sales. Chances are if you were going to download it from a shady site you were not going to purchase it. Its a dick move for sure, but it won't affect his bottom line. Instead he wrote about it and got a discussion going.
Memories of the Future comes out next week and he has several hawesome podcasts already on the site about it available for free, this time straight from the author
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by sketchydave.
Obligatory Spinal Tap Quote
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Now if this was a Wil Wheaton fan page or something like that, then I think that argument could be made and could have some legs to it. Or if he was highlighting some snippets as fair use, definitely advertising.
Re: Re: Wil Wheaton...
"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling!"
Re: Re:
I feel there are two very strong arguments used when defending piracy. First is the sample. Consumers do not want to blindly try something. In the physical world think of Borders or Barnes and Noble. You can pick up a book, flip through it, read some of it, etc. Really get the sense of if its a good read or not. Or think about the listening stations that are set up in music stores for new albums. But you can't leave the store without purchasing the book or the CD.
You need to provide the same for the digital world. Companies like Amazon "get it." They started providing scans of the table of contents and first few pages of books. Same with short samples of albums. Consumers get a chance to see if they like the content or not. Artists who don't "get it" sue people for doing that and many others that may be in the spirit of fair use if not the letter of the law. So he provides samples and content, I say he "gets it" in that regard.
Another argument is DRM. I think that DRM is an ungodly concept. It treats your consumers like criminals and is easily circumventable by an advanced user. So it does nothing for piracy problem and screws with the person who actually bought the content. If you purchased your content but didn't want a rootkit installed on your system I can hardly fault you for wandering to PirateBay and snagging a DRM free version. DRM doesn't work and Wil doesn't include it in his content. So I say he "gets it."
To argue your last point he is not basing his business model on the fact that none of his content will be stolen/pirated/whatever. He isn't sending out DMCAs (although he is well within his rights to), he isn't calling lawers and suing the infringer for eleventy-billion dollars of "lost profit." He didn't even mention who was doing it so as to not drive traffic to the site or illicit a retaliation from his fans.
Nope, he wrote on his blog about a guy who was being a dick and then moved on.
(untitled comment)
Re: Re:
Re: Re:
I think of it this way, if this was a bootleg copy from a really cool reading he did that was not commercially available then that's cool for fans to download and trade. But sharing the premium content or downloading without paying is a real dick move.
(untitled comment)
Wholeheartedly agree! I think that word choice could have been more appropriate and you tend to embellish and say stupid shit when your angry. Choose words carefully and you appear less angry. To quote Comic Book Guy:
"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling!"
(untitled comment)
I feel there are two very strong arguments used when defending piracy. First is the sample. Consumers do not want to blindly try something. In the physical world think of Borders or Barnes and Noble. You can pick up a book, flip through it, read some of it, etc. Really get the sense of if its a good read or not. Or think about the listening stations that are set up in music stores for new albums. But you can't leave the store without purchasing the book or the CD.
You need to provide the same for the digital world. Companies like Amazon "get it." They started providing scans of the table of contents and first few pages of books. Same with short samples of albums. Consumers get a chance to see if they like the content or not. Artists who don't "get it" sue people for doing that and many others that may be in the spirit of fair use if not the letter of the law. So he provides samples and content, I say he "gets it" in that regard.
Another argument is DRM. I think that DRM is an ungodly concept. It treats your consumers like criminals and is easily circumventable by an advanced user. So it does nothing for piracy problem and screws with the person who actually bought the content. If you purchased your content but didn't want a rootkit installed on your system I can hardly fault you for wandering to PirateBay and snagging a DRM free version. DRM doesn't work and Wil doesn't include it in his content. So I say he "gets it."
To argue your last point he is not basing his business model on the fact that none of his content will be stolen/pirated/whatever. He isn't sending out DMCAs (although he is well within his rights to), he isn't calling lawers and suing the infringer for eleventy-billion dollars of "lost profit." He didn't even mention who was doing it so as to not drive traffic to the site or illicit a retaliation from his fans.
Nope, he wrote on his blog about a guy who was being a dick and then moved on.
(untitled comment)
Awesome! Rather than start with the pirated material you could download the plethora of material he gives away for free and not download the pirated material. I highly recommend the PAX keynote from 2007:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/08/pax-ftw.html
This way you can see if you enjoy his work without supporting someone who posted the premium content on a shady warez site and keep your computer from getting cyber-herpes.
(untitled comment)
Exactly, which is something that he does. Free content in the form of blog postings and articles, free downloads in the form of the podcasts that he creates and the art/photos he releases under creative commons. He is a guy that gets it. Where he makes money is on premium content in the form of books and audiobooks.
(untitled comment)
Reverse Streisand Effect For the Win!!!
(untitled comment)
First off, his fans would not download it. That is one of the more important messages of the blog post. Wil Wheaton maintains an active blog, writes several columns, and produces podcasts for his fans. Not only free, but under a Creative Commons share-alike license. He gives a ton of content for free. What he does to make a living, and feed his family, is create premium content for his fans to purchase. And he does it DRM free as he does not feel his consumers should be treated like criminals or that they should lose content that they purchased because after 5 years an authentication server goes splut or that file format is no longer supported on the latest gadget those kids are buying these days.
He is for the rights of consumers and he is for his rights as a content creator. He also has rights as a producer, director, distributor, etc. This is done by him pretty much exclusively. So when he says that if you download it you are stealing from him he's a lot closer than most other artists.
Now for the great part that I think he missed out on but works in his favor. Downloads do not equal sales. Chances are if you were going to download it from a shady site you were not going to purchase it. Its a dick move for sure, but it won't affect his bottom line. Instead he wrote about it and got a discussion going.
Memories of the Future comes out next week and he has several hawesome podcasts already on the site about it available for free, this time straight from the author
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by sketchydave.
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