Piracy, Morals and The Need for Change
Written by Ernesto on December 23, 2007Morals are often defined by what the general public sees as right or wrong. Most people don’t feel that they’re doing wrong when they download an MP3 or share a movie, but in most countries they are actually breaking laws, laws which do not reflect what the general public considers to be legal, fair use, or even moral.
Law and morals are clearly out of sync when it concerns sharing copyrighted works on the Internet. To give an example, David Pogue, technology writer for the New York Times often questions his public during talks to find out where the line between wrong and right lies in this case. He starts of with a simple statement such as:
“I own a certain CD, but it got scratched. So I borrow the same CD from the library and rip it to my computer.”
He then asks the public whether they think it’s wrong or not. Normally the more extreme the examples are, the more hands are raised, but when he spoke to an audience of 500 college students, something different happened.
Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, “O.K., let’s try one that’s a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album. You don’t want to pay for it. So you download it.” There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever. “Who thinks that might be wrong?” Two hands out of 500.
Pogue was blown away by this response, and he realized that there is a clear generation gap when it comes to copyright morals. Indeed there is, but what else do you expect from a generation grew up with iPods, CD-burners and the biggest copying machine ever invented (the Internet) at their fingertips. There’s a whole industry built around filesharing, take the 160GB iPod for example, any idea how much it costs to fill that with legally purchased songs?
Computers and the Internet made it easier than ever to reproduce and share files, and it is virtually impossible to stop people from sharing and copying music and videos online. I’m not talking about copying movies for profit here, just for personal use. Besides, sharing files is not as bad as most anti-piracy lobbies want people to believe.
A recent study has shown that people don’t buy less CDs when they download songs, instead, they discover music they otherwise wouldn’t have listened to, and buy more CDs than people who don’t download. On top of this, research continues to show less popular artists actually profit from piracy simply because it allows people to try new music.
From people who missed an episode of their favorite TV-show I often get the question whether it is legal for them to download these off BitTorrent. For them, the only way to see that show is to download it, again, they don’t make any money off it, they just want to see an episode they missed. Is that immoral?
Personally I think it is all about alternatives. Movie, TV and music companies should put their content online and make it available in high quality for a reasonable price without restrictions such as DRM. At the moment there are often no products online that can compete with their pirated counterparts in quality. Sure, there are ways to download (some) music and movies online, but apart from the ridiculous prices, these products are often offered in a low quality format and restricted through DRM.
The thing is, the entertainment industry should learn how to embrace technology and compete with piracy, instead of fighting its customers. The rise of illegal downloading is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels, it’s more about availability than the fact that it’s free, as illustrated by the missed TV-show example.
Honestly, the real problem isn’t so much about protecting the rights of the artist, but about protecting the revenue stream for the big media companies. The people who actually create the movies and music want their content to be shared, only the large corporations behind it are too afraid to move on. Lobby groups such as the MPAA and the RIAA represent the distributors of movies and music, NOT the creators. They even pay politicians to support their cause by voting for or against laws so that legislation is made with their interests in mind. Is that moral?
The main reason why these corporations are hesitant to go online is because they are trying to make most of their money of something that can easily done by the public - distribution. They are striving to preserve outdated business models because that’s how they make their money. I’m not proposing that everyone should just pirate everything, but I suggest that the movie and movie industry make their content available online for a reasonable price.
The Internet and filesharing technologies make it possible to make production (of the copies) and distribution costs disappear, yet the prices still don’t change. Why? Because they cling onto their old business models.
So should sharing copyrighted material be legalized? Not per se, but the entertainment industry should focus on monetizing filesharing networks instead of bringing them down. Sharing is a good thing and there are tons of possibilities to profit from it.
What do you think?
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It is going to be very difficult to convince people not to steal music. <$0.45 USD per song, lossless quality, no DRM. I will buy that music. Until then, I torrent my music.
Times change.
Horse and carriages used to be the main transportation for the masses. Then, when the auto came along, the poor makers of carriages went out of business - possibly some of them began to make cars!
The internet is the car - and the record companies are the carriage makers. They need to adapt or go out of business.
sharing is giving to the world
its the opposite of stealing!
those that say stealing
you’re retarded.
ok, wait a minute. with ungodly profits from concert ticket sales that the true fans cannot even afford to attend, (ebay tickets for hanna montana going over $1000 each. what kind of ten year old girl has that money?) millions of dollars from large corporations to advertise their product, is it really the artists getting screwed? No, the fans, the ones who enjoy music (not some pre fab wannabe gangsta shit from some dude that grew up in the new jersey suburbs) are the ones getting screwed. For every pampered, multimillion dollar artist, there are hundreds of MUSICIANS playing in bars and clubs around the world. People who put their emotions into their music (and for that matter write their own music) who are getting paid next to nothing. Download all the music you want. Cause the huge record labels to run themselves to the ground. Revitalize the whole music scene. Put some people in the spotlight that deserve it. go out and see a live show at your local bar. expose yourself to what music is supposed to be.
Think it’s a coincidence that the #1 contributor to U.S. politicians is the entertainment industry? It used to be a toss-up between the unions and foreign lobbiests, but for the last few years, the combined “might” of the film, television and music industries has lined the pockets of both Dems & Reps in Congress with more money to push their facists agendas. It’s a wonder they haven’t passed the use of the death penalty for pirates in the U.S.!
I have no intention of paying for music that is downloaded it’s my dime to the ISP that take care of that for me.The new business model will be the live concerts nothing beats it no video no tape no CD/DVD.There is magic in live concerts being there is the whole experience that I wouldn’t want to miss for the world.Believe me the net will always try to be free and no government(not even china)is going to stop the world from being online now.To hell with paying apple 99 cents for a song it should be free you already bought the damn ipod.If you want to pay the artist go to the concert.If they don’t like to hell with them then.BTW fuck you riaa.
the best post ever! It’s insane how people see an ad on tv about piracy and think: ” that lazybones youth that just don’t wanna buy for all their products, what a shame, fucking thieves”… people are just stupid at all… Watch something on TV and that’s it they create a opinion with only an ad… here in brazil, there’s a kind of RIAA and they put a lot of propagandas about it and people just say: “yeah, that’s it, fucking thieves”
riaasuxdix said:
“To hell with paying apple 99 cents for a song it should be free you already bought the damn ipod.”
YEAH. And we pay a lot for a car, too, the gas oil and tires should be free!! STEAL GAS. STEAL OIL!! STEAL TIRES!!
You people are truly morons. Truly.
Piracy is the new ways to get music just get over it and find new ways to distribute the music if you want t make money but I don’t care about the money,I’m in it for the music!
is not piracy you dumbshit
its called sharing
piracy = pirates who sail on the ocean sunk ship, rape women and loot someone’s stuff
its not piracy you dumbshit
its sharing!!!
get that right
what a bunch of dumbshit sheeple
[quote comment="249453"]riaasuxdix said:
“To hell with paying apple 99 cents for a song it should be free you already bought the damn ipod.”
YEAH. And we pay a lot for a car, too, the gas oil and tires should be free!! STEAL GAS. STEAL OIL!! STEAL TIRES!!
You people are truly morons. Truly.[/quote]
Your the real moron, you’ve compared digital data to a commodity…there is a major differance.
this is why
pro file sharing
pro liberty
pro freedom of speech, religion etc
anti prohibition
anti net regulation
these are all fundamental rights that we should have, any reason why a goverment takes them away would be in direct agression to the general public, or they have been tricked into doing so, via advanced propaganda techniques.
only once they have a true one world goverment, one world currency, one world army, will they have a chance at completely taking over the internet. this is the only way to stop file sharing.
so if you dont all stop getting on the anti-globalization movement we are all fucked.
Stealing is stealing. Just because someone can get away with it, doesn’t mean it should be legalized. And no, morality is not, and should not be defined by simple majority rules. Especially when, deep down inside, we all know the only reason we steal is because we can, as you say, it’s as much about convenience as it is free. If I “shared” my neghbors bike because it is conveniently there and free, then I am still a thief.
I don’t care if they charge 1 penny per song. I’ll always download for free. And I won’t sit there and look at ads. I’m tired of being brainwashed and manipulated by all of these corporate cocksuckers. They do nothing good for society they just sit there and make money to support their lavish lifestyles. The real people making contributions to society do it and expect nothing, not even a thriving business in return. Our capitolistic system needs an overhaul. We don’t need choice, we need shit that actually works. We need less crap. We need more time for ourselves. We need a chance to do something for the world rather than being stuck in a dead end wallmart job. We need an economy of co-operation, not one of exploitation (which is just economic slavery). We need fewer useless human beings that have no means of survival with their own two hands. We are too dependent. We need less chemically fed crap in our diets. We need less government regulation over our lives. Pure socialism would indeed work today. I’d gladly give it a try. Kick out the damned capitolists, get rid of the politicians, and let us manage our own fuckin lives instead of shoving this fake bs existance of slaving 40 hours a week for pretty much nothing down our throats because we ain’t that dumb, are we? Seems like we are collectively dumb as a people.
Corporations can kiss my hairy cornhole and suck on it, I have no use for them since clearly they are corrupt. We’d all have more by expanding the public domain. Instead these greedy cocksuckers have figured out ways to do almost nothing and get us to be subserviant to them, and they’ll kill all of earth just to keep it that way. They’ll get politicians to rob you of rights that are the spirit of a democracy. All this corruption makes me sick, I’m tired of this elitist bs. Everybody that wants to learn should be-able to get educated, and demonstration of that education should be what it takes to prove that you can do it, not some stupid $30,000 piece of paper from a school but actual demonstration of knowledge, actual testing, which shouldn’t be raping our lives getting us to pay with slavery time. Let’s face it sooner or later they’ll discover ways to make us all trapped, and to make us all into total slaves. They just ain’t gunna do that till we’ve blindly given them all the technology and resources needed to make an airtight implementation of it, air tight as in there will be no means for us to fight their agenda. We are all screwed already and we don’t even know it yet.
StealthC said:
” We are all screwed already and we don’t even know it yet.”
Well. YOU SURE ARE, thinking and ranting that way. It’s always entertaining to see someone rant about how Socialism “works” in spite of a 1000 years of documented, repeat failure. Socialism runs counter to human nature. It will fail everytime. It’s an argument with reality. Those who work within the laws and profit, support the laws. And those who cannot figure out how to make the system work for them? They rant about the need for Socialism, so the proceeds of someone elses work and success must be handed over to them, too. (I don’t think so.)
Poor StealthC. Can’t profit from the system. Hang in there little buddy.
Please keep in mind that infringing copyright is not stealing.
it is a common misconception caused by the abuse of the term contained in the entertainment industries anti-piracy ads helped by the lack of copyright and criminal law background of the people involved in the discussion.
no matter where you are from you can easily pick up a code and check: under the definition of the criminal offence you will notice that:
The actus reus of theft is usually defined as an unauthorised taking, keeping or using of another’s property which must be accompanied by a mens rea of dishonesty and/or the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.
it is hardly possible to “permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use” in intellectual property.
gaetano
Hey Gaetano, you are correct abut this important distinction. It would be good for everyone to understand the true nature of their “taking without paying.” But still.
If you take something you know is created by someone else and intended for proper sale and yet you use technology to hide while taking it for no payment, thereby willfully circumventing their compensation, I hope the ISP’s filter it all and I hope they kick the thieves off the network. Human decency and fair business ethics require nothing less.
Pay as you go wireless broadband internet is going to be big! and very anonymous as well. Will the ISP’s shoot their own feet off! I dont think so. The old make the money from distribution model will not work for the big entertainment companies any more and the should already be competing with itunes by offering 10p a track downloads.
The network is expanding, wimax is coming symmetrical is coming, wireless sharing, bluetooth,open source,
I am a new artist and will not be distributing my art through the current distributers, I will be like Man U dealing direct with my customers, downloading is a lot easier then going out and finding the phsyical product.
The rights and wrongs of copyright are a slight red-herring. What is really happening is a war over the control of distribution of digital data. Record companies make their money using an outdated business model. The younger generation doesn’t want to go to record stores and buy CDs, it wants to point and click, listen and then possibly delete. There is really no need for old-style CD-duplication and marketing campaigns. A musician doesn’t NEED a record company that takes 95% of the price of a CD away from the artist. More bands should leave their labels and follow the Radiohead/Trent Reznor/Saul Williams blueprint. If I had a band right now, I’d upload all my songs to MySpace and just have a “DONATE HERE IF YOU LIKED THIS MUSIC AND WANT US TO MAKE MORE” button. If we get music from its source, we’ll find out its true value. Most of the money spent on CDs goes to fat cat execs and lawyers. THEY are the ones doing the stealing: stealing from the musicians.
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