Embrace file-sharing, or die

Salon.com ^ | Feb. 1, 2003 | John Snyder and Ben Snyder

[wizzler]

I'm a teacher, and I can tell you, my students just grin whenever someone mentions buying a CD. "Why would you spend that much money when hardly any of it gets to the singer?"

So I'm assuming that you, as the only adult in a room full of children, take this opportunity to explain how the adult world works?

I'm assuming you tell them, "Well, for starters, you and I probably don't know exactly how much the 'singer' may be getting from a CD sale. But in free countries like America, business is often conducted by contracts -- voluntary agreements between parties. If a 'singer' has willingly signed a contract that gives her one penny for each CD sold, that's her business."

[eno_]

The price will be more like $0.25 or less per cut. The artist will pay maybe 5% for bandwidth and server space. So the price of an album will be more like $4, almost all of it going straight into the artist's paypal account. The music will have no DRM, and be in an open format like Ogg.

The coked up jerks who THINK they are important to "promoting" music (read "providing a fig leaf for payola") will find they are obsoleted by bloggers.

[eno_]

Let me tell you as a CTO in charge of product management in a youth-oriented market: The RIAA is a dead cartel walking. Those kids are its customers. Its customers hate it. Unlike some airlines I hate that are going out of business slowly, because I still must fly, the RIAA labels will go out of business like a puff of smoke because those kids can easily never buy another CD, starting today. Either they recapture the respect of their target market, or they are done, whether or not you think DRM, the DMCA, and copyright extentions are right or wrong.

[wizzler]

None of this is about the RIAA.

This is about principles that exist well outside and above some arbitrary trade group. This is about basic morality and legality: Copyright holders have a right to control the the reproduction and distribution of their work.

Hate the record industry; that's fine. I think there are plenty of reasons to do so, myself. But the idea that companies may die because their products are being gleefully and illegally traded online certainly isn't worth celebrating.

[bvw]

Wow. Max work by the authors! Bravo!

[Afronaut]

How's Justin Timberlake doin ?

[eno_]

This is about principles that exist well outside and above some arbitrary trade group. This is about basic morality and legality: Copyright holders have a right to control the the reproduction and distribution of their work.

Balanced against the copyright issue are:

The fact the music industry has done more economic damamge to artists than P2P downloaders through sleazy dealing. They have no standing to plead a moral case.

The fact the music industry is loaded with leftists who would rather piss on the Constitution than read it. Your 4th amendment rights have no importance to them, compared with their wanting to hack into your PC.

The fact the music industry is mobbed up and corrupt. They are worse criminals than any P2P downloader.

So cry me a river about their moral case. And no matter the reason, right or wrong, if I woke up one day and found that my market hates me, I'd quit, because it would be nobody's fault but my own for creating those conditions.

The fact is, every commercial enterprise treads a line: Is it "moral" to make ATVs that may harm the environment? Is it "moral" to make ice axes for an insanely dangerous sport like ice-climbing? Is it "moral" to make skis that can take a recreational skier up to 40mph and beyond on icy slopes? Is it moral to make computer games that encourage people to hook up for casual sex (and, if you take the marriage contract and family law at the letter, illegal sex) In the end, you give the customer what they want, and you must trust the customer to choose wisely. The RIAA has lost the ability to influence how their customers evaluate choices in the grey areas of fair use. That is why they will fail.

[eno_]

Justin Timberlake? Are you serious? I have no idea.

But seriously: The artists that will take advantage of a new system will almost certainly be different artists.

I do have an example of this: Stephen King self-published a book electronically, in an unprotected format. It did far more business than the whole DRM'ed e-book industry ever did, and probably ever will do. But it was still chump-change for Stephen King. So Stephen King won't be doing unprotected e-books.

There was some freeper that did a book about China. I have no idea if it was DRM'ed or not. I expect not. Ask him what he thinks about e-publishing.

[wizzler]

Balanced against the copyright issue are:

The fact the music industry has done more economic damamge to artists than P2P downloaders through sleazy dealing. They have no standing to plead a moral case.

Well, I'm not a "music industry," just a guy on an online forum. And I'm the one who was pleading the case. I do have the standing, thanks.

Still, I hope you don't argue all moral issues this way -- that because X has wronged Y, X has no claim to ANY moral stand. It's a fallacious argument.

Let's run with it a second, anyway, and grant that someone who has done damage to artists deserves to have their rights infringed. How, then, do you propose we treat record companies or other copyright holders who have NOT done damage to artists? Are they exempt from your bitterness and able to claim their rights?

The fact the music industry is loaded with leftists who would rather piss on the Constitution than read it. Your 4th amendment rights have no importance to them, compared with their wanting to hack into your PC.

You're declaring fundamental principles to be void because of the political makeup of one particular group with an interest? You think they want to trample on one aspect of individual rights, so you respond by trampling on another?

Look, YOU'RE the one who's treading in leftist-style collectivism here. You fail to consider that this is about INDIVIDUAL entities and their INDIVIDUAL copyrights. Just because you look out, survey the landscape, and gauge that there happens to be this Monolithic Music Industry out there with a certain political bent, doesn't mean we pull the rug out from under copyright. Rights are not about groups.

And one can argue against copyright infringement without arguing in favor of hacking computers.

The fact the music industry is mobbed up and corrupt. They are worse criminals than any P2P downloader.

See point #1, above.

So cry me a river about their moral case. And no matter the reason, right or wrong, if I woke up one day and found that my market hates me, I'd quit, because it would be nobody's fault but my own for creating those conditions.

You're right. Silly Sony, silly Warner, silly Universal, silly Joe Blow Records in Topeka. The whole silly lot of 'em. Their market has expressed such seething hatred by actively trading their products via P2P. Why haven't they just thrown in the towel? What are they thinking?

[Afronaut]

Just kidding... This is what we get from A&R these days...

[logic101.net]

Let's look at the reason behind copywrite laws. Let's say you spend 5 years of your free time writing a book. Then let's say you go to publish it, and get it published. But, some big name author decides he likes it, takes your text, word for word, and puts his name on it. He just made alot of money off your work.

Music is similar. These people (sometimes) put alot of time and effort into producing something. They want to get some money from all that effort. They want CD sales. If only one person buys the CD, copies it over and over and distributes it for free, what happens to the incentive to produce more new music?

MARK A SITY

[wizzler]

Prepare for the usual litany of half-assed, irrelevant responses:

-- "Nobody's making a profit by sharing it on P2P"

-- "Well, CDs only have one or two good songs on them"

-- "The record industry is sleazy"

-- "Once I buy a CD, I own the music"

-- "Artists don't make any money from CDs, they should just go on tour"

Ad nauseam...

[concentric circles]

Excellent essay by Janis Ian on downloading, RIAA, and NARAS: The Internet Debacle - An Alternative View from janisian.com. And Follow up.

[Jonathon Spectre]

So I'm assuming that you, as the only adult in a room full of children, take this opportunity to explain how the adult world works?

I'm assuming you tell them, "Well, for starters, you and I probably don't know exactly how much the 'singer' may be getting from a CD sale. But in free countries like America, business is often conducted by contracts -- voluntary agreements between parties. If a 'singer' has willingly signed a contract that gives her one penny for each CD sold, that's her business."

You know what they say about assumptions. I merely point out that they should purchase the music and merchandise of the bands they like to support them or otherwise they are leeches contributing to that band's eventual dissolution.

Of course, students aren't idiots. They are already well aware of this. But they could care less. An 8th-grader is not going to go plunk down $15 for the "8-Mile" soundtrack to get the one popular song on it. They know that particular song will be forgotten in less than a month, forgotten by design, even.

The monolithic radio/music "industry" has been trying for YEARS to reach this point, to get people to regard music as bubblegum or candy, something to be listened to once or twice, chewed for a few days on some coast-to-coast playlist ("Our focus group shows that "Linkin Park" does best during the 3:30 drive time in the 18-29 demographic!"), and then discarded forever. Unfortunately for them, technology has evolved to the point that the candy store can be bypassed altogether, and it turns out that a whoooooole lot of people aren't interested in paying $15 for bubblegum, and usually only one piece at that.

The RIAA and record companies have dug their own graves by charging too much for too little. Rather than adapt, they have chosen to die. Good riddance. The fact that MP3s and downloadable music had the potential to be the greatest boon the recording industry has or will ever know is just sweet irony. "We cannot allow them to download the songs they want in the order they want! Our obsolete business model doesn't provide for that! To get three popular songs they should be forced to buy three albums!"

If the music industry had wholeheartedly embraced file-sharing and Napster from the day it was developed, the recording companies would today be experiencing record profits and praise, not the falling sales and monstrous negative publicity they have. Like all tyrants, they instead attempted to quash what they could not totally control. Might as well fight the tide. Oh, wait, that is exactly what they are doing...

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Copyright holders have a right to control the the reproduction and distribution of their work.

Incorrect. According to copyright law, copyright holders have a right to control the the commercial reproduction and distribution of their work. I can go photocopy my own copy of The Hobbit to my hearts content. I can sit down and write a "sequel" to The Lord of the Rings, print it out, get it bound, and give it to all of my friends. What I can't do is sell my photocopies of The Hobbit or my derivative works.

The sad fact is that the entire legal concept of "intellectual property" is nothing more than a scam, a twisted concotion warped by modern conglomerates into an artificial monopoly system that has nothing to do with "rights" and everything to do with maintaining control over their market share. You can own a book, a CD, a DVD, but you cannot own an idea...

Look at Thomas Jefferson's words on the subject, and compare it to the laws passed by the bought-and-paid-for politicians in our government. Who has it right?

[wizzler]

An 8th-grader is not going to go plunk down $15 for the "8-Mile" soundtrack to get the one popular song on it.

That's fine. When enough of them don't plunk down that $15, prices will drop.

But I hope they don't think it's OK to head to Kazaa and plunk down nothing to get it.

That's the nifty thing about the free market: By not acquiring a given product, consumers can send a signal to sellers that the price is too high. But here's one of the problems with "file-sharing": The demand is still being very visibly expressed, but the seller is getting nothing from it. The whole supply-price-demand equation becomes corrupted. The market cannot react efficiently, and prices will not be adjusted accordingly.

(Incidental note: The "8 Mile" soundtrack has spawned three hits.)

The monolithic radio/music "industry" has been trying for YEARS to reach this point, to get people to regard music as bubblegum or candy

Oh, for heaven's sake, do you really think the notion of ephemeral pop music is something new? That isn't some 21st century phenomenon. We've always had disposable pop music. Lots of it. It's a beautiful, unique aspect of AMERICAN culture -- not some evil conspiracy wrought by record labels.

If the music industry had ...

Just curious -- why do you care so much about the business decisions and inner workings of some group of record labels? Do you own stock or have some other vested interest in them? I just have trouble imagining people getting so up in arms about whether, say, JCPenney "keeps up with technology" or United Airlines makes wise financial choices. Yet apparently some record labels' failure to proceed as you think they should has the sweat flying off your keyboard.

[wizzler]

What I can't do is sell my photocopies of The Hobbit or my derivative works.

No, what you can't do is distribute your photocopies. It's the distribution that can cause harm to the copyright owner, not your potential profit.

[wizzler]

My second sentence should have been constructed like this, for clarity:

It's the distribution, not your potential profit, that can cause harm to the copyright owner.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." -- Thomas Jefferson.

The Constitution gives the Congress the power to grant copyright for the "useful arts and sciences" in order to encourage the creation of new works. The present system does not. In fact, the vast majority of the money involved goes to individuals who NEVER HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL IDEA. Walt Disney Corp. is a perfect example of this. Those who originally made Mickey Mouse are dead and gone, but Michael Eisner wants to protect his personal gravy train. Please explain to me how increasing copyright terms benefit the original creators and artists of Mickey Mouse. Only by blurring the very concept you are asserting can you suddenly claim that a pimply-faced 23 year-old cubicle worker at Disney Corp. is somehow the natural recipient of the income from the Mickey Mouse copyright. Copyright law needs to be rewritten, and the RIAA's stranglehold on the politicians must be broken...

[wizzler]

Sorry, I think we're arguing about two different things here. (Understandable, given the breadth of issues covered in the original Salon article.)

My primary focus here has been on P2P file-sharing. Your focus is apparently copyright extensions.

The length of copyright terms is a political debate, which I presume is why the founders put it in the hands of Congress. My inclination, like yours, is that they are now too long.

That doesn't mitigate the argument against P2P copyright infringement.