Piracy is not a problem; SOPA is not a solution

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/piracy_not_problem_sopa_not_solution

by macco • 15 years ago

97 77 15 years ago

wnoise• 15 years ago

I say this as a copyright minimalist: the comparison to used bookstores is a bit disingenuous, for two reasons.

The fact that used bookstores exist, and that you can sell old books means that a new book is worth not just the value derived from reading it, but also the price you can get from selling it when you are done. In theory this reflected in a slightly higher initial price of purchase. (Not all readers will sell, of course, but some will, and the ability to do so should matter on the margin.)

The used book is also a substitute for a new book. Buying a used book increases the price, driving people who would buy the used version to buy the new one instead and at equilibrium raises the prices for the new version as well. In theory, of course.

AlisdairO• 15 years ago

Not just that, but only one person can have the book at any one time - unlike our current piracy system where one copy can spawn effectively infinite sub-copies. This means that when a given number of people want to read a book (and particularly if they want to read it in some relatively short period after the book's release), you need to have a substantial number of new book sales to support all those people. This isn't a requirement with modern-day piracy.

rrreese4• 15 years ago

Also note that a secondhand book isn't a perfect substitute for a new books. Some people don't want to own second hand books, and many people don't want to give secondhand items as gifts.

On the other hand second hand books often get resold several times. When I was a student and bought secondhand books regularly it wasn't unusual to buy a book that already had several second hand book stores stamps on the first page, a book that I would end up selling myself at a later time.

TomOfTTB2• 15 years ago

Well first his metaphor doesn't really hold weight. Selling a Used Book is a one-to-one transaction in which the receiver is getting a less than perfect copy. Putting an e-book on a p2p network is a one-to-many transaction that transmits a perfect copy each time.

But that doesn't necessarily invalidate his overall point.

As far as his larger point is concerned I don't think I can say he's right or wrong. What I can say is he's not really looking at the deeper issues.

The real issue behind piracy is societal values. Those who advocate this opinion are basically saying people only have the right to profit from their creations to recover their costs. Beyond that the content belongs to society. That's the only justification for piracy (since you're arguing the cost of distribution is so low the user doesn't need to be compensated for it)

You can dress that up with arguments about fans loving artists and giving them additional revenue streams but since those additional revenue streams are separate transactions that may or may not occur you can't use them as justification for not paying an artist initially for his/her creation.

Beyond that there's the issue of choice. Even if all the pro-piracy arguments are true there will be some artists who simply don't want their work pirated. Even if it's irrational (look at artists like AC/DC who still refuse to sell their music digitally). By imposing piracy on those artists you're again saying their art belongs to society once created.

So that brings us back to the question of societal values. Do we as a society believe content should belong to the entire society upon creation or does it belong to the creator who can choose to distribute it in the way they see fit (even if that means handing it over to a record company or some other corporate entity)?

narag• 15 years ago

The real issue behind piracy is societal values.

I disagree. Every time the discussion is going that way, I feel we're hopelessly lost.

There is very little Ethics debate on the industry behaviour: suing their customers, exploiting authors, and lobbying for draconian laws instead of using new business models. Hey, they are companies, they're just looking for their shareholders' interest! That's legitimate! It seems Ethics only apply to consumers.

Call to ethics is the last refuge of inapplicable laws.

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

I still don't understand this mindset.

If one author wants to make the "new market" work for them by giving things away or taking donations, they can do that. If that's the market you like to shop in, then donate or take freely.

But if another author wants you to pay a specific price for their work when you want a copy, and you don't like the price, then you let them know that by not getting a copy. If your reason for not paying is because you don't like their publisher, then you let them know by not getting a copy. Lo and behold, the market will work itself out.

Where does the mindset come from that you're still entitled to those things you're not willing to pay for? Or that your right to have them is more important than the rights of the people who made them? This is to say nothing about overreaching solutions - this guy is saying who cares about the particular solution, any one of them will require me to pay for things I want!

TomOfTTB2• 15 years ago

I don’t want to give a false impression. I don’t advocate this mindset. But from a historical perspective it isn’t that hard to understand. The history of mankind has always been a process of vacillating between societies motivated by self-profit and societies that attempt to live communally.

Right now the world has shifted more towards self-profit because we’re still living in the shadow of the Soviet Union’s collapse (the largest communal society ever attempted). But that doesn’t mean the idea of communal living has gone away completely. What the USSR proved more than anything is a society needs self-profit motivation in order to get people to put in the effort to excel.

There were no startups in the USSR because no one was willing to put a large amount of effort into something that would eventually be owned by the government.

But in that context artistic expression takes on a different bent because it is something most artists feel compelled to put effort into even without a profit motivation. So the question becomes “if something costs almost nothing to produce and the creator is compelled to create it without a profit motivation should it then be communal?”

NSMeta• 15 years ago

| There were no startups in the USSR because no one was willing to put a large amount of effort into something that would eventually be owned by the government.

While this is correct, people were prohibited to start their own enterprises in the first place. Hence it's not the lack of profits that stopped the people - it's the fear of getting punished by the government.

In my humble opinion, Soviet Union did not prove that society needs self-profit motivation, not in terms of accumulating wealth. What it did prove is that the State will sooner or later collapse(because of the class war) when it threatens, oppresses and all the power is situated in the hands of a few people at the top.

wazoox3• 15 years ago

I've read an interesting paper on the pioneers of Soviet Computing. These guys were as passionate and hard at work as anyone in the Silicon Valley, and even did skunkworks on stuff they weren't allowed to work on...

I'd say self-profit isn't the main motivation for creators, most of the time.

Here's the book BTW: http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/08/pioneers-of-soviet-c...

lutorm• 15 years ago

The Soviet Union was not a communal society. It was a dictatorship paying lip service to being a communal society. I'd venture to say that those running the USSR were quite motivated by self-profit.

nickgeiger3• 15 years ago

Fair enough point and I do agree that this guy's article is perhaps lacking in proposing solutions or fully explaining the problem.

The problem as I see it is that technology allows someone to avoid paying those "other authors that specific price for their work" as long as they are willing to spend some time and energy to pirate it. I believe people with more time than money will always exist. SOPA may make piracy more difficult, but it's not going to stop it, just as killing napster didn't stop music piracy. Is it really going to create more jobs other than employing people to respond to the new SOPA takedown requests?

I think iTunes/Netflix/Rhapsody-type services are the right solution to this problem. Sure, a college kid can always pirate stuff for the sake of pirating or because they have no money, but most busy people that can afford to pay for it, as long as the asking price of the studios is not too egregious, they will usually pay it happily as long as it's easy. Simple paid options are the real solution here.

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

Simple paid options may be the best option for all involved, but again, if someone makes their product difficult or expensive to get, nothing says every person ought to still be entitled to have it however they can get at it. Saying that you can't stop this behavior completely is irrelevant to whether you should aim to reduce it. None of the laws we have made something go away completely just by it being illegal.

rimantas• 15 years ago

The technology makes it a bit more complicated, by enabling almost zero-cost copying. This is very very new and when a lot of rules and laws were created nobody could foresee this case. I don't advocate piracy, but there is a stupid notion of "lost profit" when every pirated copy is assumed the copy not purchased. Sorry, but it does not work this way. If someone thinks that the price is to high or simply does not have the money then in the piracy-free world that person would simply not purchase the product. So, does this kind of person really harm the producer when he pirates in real world? What if he shows the pirated movie to his friends and they like it so much that they go and buy a copy for themselves? Then there is the whole "piracy as convenience" thing. The whole picture is very complicated and will take a long time to sort out.

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

Just because it only costs $0.00 to make a copy, doesn't mean that's what it costs to make the product.

And just because people talk about lost sales doesn't mean they assume every stolen copy is $.99 out of their pocket. It means that some people who take copies would buy them if they couldn't pirate them.

Whether one wants to justify piracy by saying they wouldn't pay for the product anyway, or they end up buying a lot of products they pirate first, or they help "spread the word" to others who pay, at the end of the day they're all self-serving justifications for engaging in an involuntary exchange of disparate value with the creator.

rrreese4• 15 years ago

There seem too be two flawed mindsets.

On one hand you have people claiming that every pirated copy is lost revenue and that there are no positive benefits. Pirates are thieves destroying the lively hoods of hard working creators.

On the other you have people claiming that piracy doesn't harm the industry (where music, film, software and books are interchangeable), and that piracy actually helps authors by increasing the publicity for their work.

Both these stand points seem way to extreme. If a kid pirates Photoshop rather than drop a grand for it I don't really think Adobe has been harmed. On the other hand if the same guy grabs a movie of a torrent rather then dropping a few dollars (which they can afford) on a rental then that is lost money. Maybe for some artists of developers that loss will be offset by increased recognition or maybe it won't.

It's a shame that so many people take such hard and fast stands for or against piracy, and we lack the more nuanced opinions that reflect the situation as it actually is.

I guess "Pirates are thieves" or "Unknown band becomes smash hit due to torrenting" make more effective headlines then "Piracy is really complicated and effects different stake holders in different ways".

padolsey• 15 years ago

The question is: where does your mindset come from?

Promoting a freer market does not mean sacrificing rights. To have my creation used and enjoyed by many would be great. The compensation I think I deserve is only symptomatic of the current economic system under which we live. Don't pretend that you're starting from square one and the OP is suggesting a great shift. It's you too that should explain your motives.

nailer5• 15 years ago

I think most people (both in general, but particularly on HN as we make things here) wouldn't bother explaining what we generally take for common sense. However:

- People that make things should be able to charge what they they want for them.

- If people don't like the price that's fine, they're not forced to buy the item.

- Taking something somebody has made without their permission is unethical.

Edit: People convinced that the ability to easily take something making it right won't be convinced otherwise. This is HN - we make apps. Posts that advocate taking them without our permission should simply be flagged.

bambax6• 15 years ago

Ideas and the work of the mind are in the public domain; they belong to the public. If you come up with an original idea, even if this original idea cost you a year's work, this original idea that you and you alone built, belongs to everyone.

Now, in order to encourage people to work on original ideas, it was decided to give to authors a right to their own work, for a limited time.

This "right" is taken from the public domain (ie, the public). The justification is that by helping struggling authors, it lets them coming up with more original ideas, and therefore benefits the public.

The deal is this: the public gives a piece of their own property to authors, in exchange for more work from those same authors.

This system has grown out of proportion with its original intents. (The minute dead authors could earn anything from copyright, the system should have been considered broken).

So, although it's currently illegal, and I don't approve of "piracy", it's not illegitimate to consider that if someone says something, I have a right to know what they're saying (especially if that doesn't cost them anything to let me hear it).

You could really turn your proposition the other way around: if someone doesn't want non-paying readers to read what they write, then they should refrain from writing anything.

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

> The minute dead authors could earn anything from copyright, the system should have been considered broken

The system was created to encourage people to invest in the creation of new ideas and products. It's not always just an investment of time, which means you have to make it property that can be owned, traded and sold, with a known term. In your system where copyright dies with the author, the interests of others who might invest in a project or stand to gain from it (like a creator's children) are not looked after. By this mindset, everything Steve Jobs helped to create would now be free for "the public" to do with as they wish, and I imagine a lot of people would have stopped funding Steve's ideas when they found out he was sick.

> You could really turn your proposition the other way around: if someone doesn't want non-paying readers to read what they write, then they should refrain from writing anything.

I could, but it makes no sense to me to tell people who want to be compensated for making something valuable to stop doing it so that we can make whatever remaining works there are public domain.

GHFigs4• 15 years ago

it's not illegitimate to consider that if someone says something, I have a right to know what they're saying

How do you feel about privacy?

VMG• 15 years ago

The speech analogy is pretty insidious considering we are talking about multi-million-dollar games and movies.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

It is simply false to assume that everyone who consumes a work of intellectual property (music, movies, television, etc.) has purchased a copy of the work. That has never been true historically. The difference today is that technology has made possible new ways for people to consume IP without direct purchase and some publishers have yet to adapt.

hxa72413• 15 years ago

> Where does the mindset come from

Most importantly, it comes from thinking about why the current laws and conventions are justified. They are not simply there in reality. Why do we have them?

It is not about justifying piracy, it is saying we should not even have the laws in the first place that lead to the possibility of piracy.

You might reply that this is ridiculous: simply changing the name of an act does not remove the harm it does. But this is the core of the matter: with copying, that reply is basically false! (Piracy is in legal terms a malum prohibitum not a malum in se.)

Look at the underlying phenomena, prior to any legal construction. Copying is an abstract relation: there is no physical connection between an original and a copy. It no more harms someone to be copied than it harms the number 4 when you write it down. Since copying renders no harm, and in fact the opposite, it is very beneficial, and furthermore it is an abundance, why should we restrict it? (No moral argument for copyright/IP/etc. seems ever to have answered that.)

In practice it may possibly be that selling creative effort is difficult to do optimally without some structure like copyright etc. That is the contention of the standard economic view. But that gives only a very particular and limited justification. Such restrictions on copying are justified only insofar as they actually turn out to help us overall.

Which returns us the gist of the article: if those restrictions do not help much, or rather have comparable alternatives, the justification for their existence is gone.

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

So if you go to the doctor for a regular check up and they take biological waste from your visit and send it to a company who uses your DNA to make multiple clones of you to be given to adoptive parents who can't have children, you're good with that?

_rknLA• 15 years ago

You're also missing the part where someone had to purchase the book new in order for it to arrive at the used book store.

Now, I understand that even a used book can be sold back to a used book store, so the cycle might happen a few times, but in most cases, someone had to purchase that book new before selling it to the bookstore.

TomOfTTB's point about societal values is a good one if people who pirate content are actually trying to morally justify their actions, but I'm not really convinced that they are.

I do think, though, that if the industries backing SOPA put as many resources as they have towards suing customers and lobbying congress towards making new products and innovating the technology in their respective spaces that there actually wouldn't be a problem.

But then, I still firmly believe that the reason people pirate content is because it's easier and more convenient than the "store" options. (DRM, transferability, etc)

darrikmazey• 15 years ago

In so much of this discussion, people seem to get distracted arguing whether pirating media is morally reprehensible or not. This is irrelevant to whether SOPA is a good solution to the alleged problem. I perceive two separate debates: whether piracy is a "problem" and whether SOPA solves that "problem."

SOPA is simply an industry of middlemen asking a heavier hand to come down and reinforce a business model the market has allowed to decline. Whether that is because customers demand better options and are not being satisfied or not is largely immaterial. The so-called act of piracy is already illegal, and what is being asked for is not legal recourse for this (that already exists) but a course of action immune from repudiation and challenge. It is a unilateral action without oversight or representation, and for this reason it is contrary to the foundation of the Constitution. Typically, the more egregious offenses carry the stiffest penalties, but all allow for some sort of defense and reasonable trial. If society has deemed that this is a more serious offense than previously evaluated, legislation increasing the penalty can be enacted, but legislation removing one's ability to defend oneself prior to punishment being enacted is unthinkable.

Private entities are being legislatively appointed to enforce public law, and this is unacceptable. It is a conflict of interest, as the public has no means to remove from "office" those serving the public in this manner. In all other aspects of public law, one has a vote somewhere in the chain to reconcile abuse of power. We can not vote on a private company whose enforcement of the law becomes corrupt, save economically, and economically our vote is severely disadvantaged.

yason• 15 years ago

Producing and distributing content ought to be decoupled. Distributors don't create content and content creators don't know how to work distribution.

Ideally, I pay the author for the book, album, movie or software and he'll then let me get my copy wherever I deem it's best available in the format I need it.

Erwin• 15 years ago

Let's pretend that some terrible remote exploit appears tomorrow, that allows anyone to get out the complete source of every SaaS server side app, which is the most prevalent setup here at HN startups. No harm is done to the server, no private user data escapes. No significant extra resources are used on copying the data.

What was previously impervious to copyright infringement, can now be easily copied. Illegal of course, but so is copyright infringement according to current laws.

You were just planning on selling the company for $5 million. But now, an exact copy is available on a site outside of your legal reach. They are able to do everything you do.

Will your potential buyer still offer you $5 million? Would you say that your pirate wasn't going to buy your company anyway and couldn't afford it, so he does you no harm? Your product was proprietary and hoarding data of users, he claims to be open and free. He claims that you are your code and ideas should belong to everyone, and you already got enough money from your first $2 million investment; asking for more would be greedy.

To me it seems that the only difference is that cracking a SaaS app is generally not technically possible, while removing the DRM on an installed app and then redistributing it is easy.

zerostar07• 15 years ago

This is already happening. Making a copy of a website is quite easy. Sure there are plenty of copycats of facebook out there, yet none is a threat. It happens a lot with games, apps etc too. Entertainment Content producers are not worried that someone will take their work and reuse it for their benefit, rather that they just don't pay for it. The real problem is not piracy (let's face it, even if SOPA passes, there are tons of ways to circumvent it). They need to realize that a) the actual value of their content has dropped due to technical advances and commoditization b) there is no better legal alternative to piracy in many cases (esp. if you live outside the US/UK).

People want to pay for content; there is just no easy way. Heck, I believe that even if they invented a "virtual ticket" that allowed you to watch a movie no matter which way you obtained it, people would buy.

p.s. speaking of piracy, here's a pirated copy of the parent post: http://instablogg.com/Du-dhKh

loup-vaillant• 15 years ago

You've just demonstrated that our society is insane (at least in this case).

If we were not crazy, what harm could such a copy possibly do ? None. You effectively (though unwillingly) donated your knowledge to the world. You deserve even more than if you kept your code secret.

But.

By "donating", you lost leverage. You can no longer threaten people with not giving them what they want if they don't pay you.

This is by the way the problem with basically everything: making something abundant will add actual value, while at the same time destroying market value. It is most visible with Free Software, (vs Proprietary Software), but applies to anything. Say for instance that we could copy food the way we copy software.

Conclusion: our society in general (and the market in particular), is very poor at valuing things in the face of abundance. Somehow it needs scarcity. Paraphrasing In Time, "For a few to be wealthy, many must starve". I don't have a solution, but this is nuts.

GHFigs4• 15 years ago

There are other words for "unwilling donation".

earbitscom12• 15 years ago

Nuts is saying that an artist trying to extract value from things they create is "threatening people". God forbid you be "threatened" with not having a copy of the latest Coldplay album. The fact that you liken it to starving, indeed, indicates our society may have slipped into the grips of insanity.

hxa72413• 15 years ago

That is a description of technological advance. Means of accessing and communication information is improved, and in general that is most probably a gain. It disrupts some people expecting to continue as before, and that is bad. But we do not ultimately want to restrict gains from invention for the sake of a few temporary losers. We want to have some more general support for such 'casualties', and let everyone move forward in exploring innovation.

It all comes down to the basic physical limitations. Copying may be illegal, but there is no physical loss -- in fact the opposite, it is beneficial. We ideally want the economic system to evolve toward fully realising the resources available. That means copying is free, and everyone should benefit from it as much as they like. And production is scarce and has costs, hence commands a price in a market (and in a better form of market would then be used according to need).

Of course, we may or may not, in various ways, be able to reach that ideal. But a law -- like copyright -- that restricts us from using resources that are otherwise free is not justified in a fundamental way. It is there only pragmatically, to get the best out of practical limitations. It must not obstruct us from finding other ways.

bitwize• 15 years ago

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

It doesn't matter how shitty the major labels treat musicians, or whether they get paid or not. To a musician, signing with a major label means you've "made it". If your shit gets leaked out there onto the internet, major labels will lose interest in you. They won't put up the money to promote you and won't sign you if you are perceived as a risk. There goes your career. There goes your opportunity to make a living off your music.

Every small-time musician I've talked to has expressed favor for stronger copyright controls, both in the form of legislation and technical measures like DRM. I bet the band you see playing gigs in your local dive bar are all SOPA supporters. If it means the difference between where they are now and playing the Hollywood Bowl, they'll support it.

wazoox3• 15 years ago

These guys never signed with a label. Back in the 90s two of my successive bands signed with labels. In one case, the label boss simply wanted to make sure that our album won't interfere with "his artists" by keeping us under control, printing just the minimum number of CDs and making dead sure that they were almost impossible to get, anywhere.

Small time musicians playing gigs don't give a shit about copyright, and their practice, consisting most of the time of playing covers of well-known songs, contradicts what they'd say on it anyway: did they bought the scores? do they pay whatever ASCAP would want them to pay?

cechner2• 15 years ago

> If your shit gets leaked out there onto the internet, major labels will lose interest in you

I really don't think that becoming popular on the Internet would make you less appealing to a label. (I hope I'm not mangling your intended meaning too much.)

> Every small-time musician I've talked to has expressed favor for stronger copyright controls

I know many 'small time musicians' and not one of them is in favour of stronger copyright controls. In fact they spend a lot of their time trying to get their names out by any means possible. This is one of the main things MySpace is still used for, I believe - the free distribution of indy music.

Music LABELS on the other hand, love controlling distribution because that's pretty much the main thing they do. They also love to make people think that the musicians beholden to them think this way as well.

edit to add disclaimer: I don't know anyone who is signed to a label.

snowwrestler2• 15 years ago

Big music labels exist because most musicians don't want to run a business, they want to make music. The label handles the business stuff for them.

If musicians do want to run a business, copyright protections will help them just like they will help a major label. Ani Difranco started and built her own label by selling recordings. In situations like that (or Dischord, or Fat Wreck Chords, or Epitaph, etc.), copyrighted recordings actually helped musicians thrive outside the major label system.

Major labels are much better equipped today to deal with piracy than small independent labels. These days they just do "360 deals" where they guarantee themselves a cut of everything--concert revenues, merchandise, sync licensing (e.g. TV ads).

ecaradec• 15 years ago

The copyright issue is at an edge of what allows the the market to work.

Until the internet, maximizing profit and maximizing value was more or less the same thing. That's not true anymore : when I copy something I'm actually creating value while destroying profit. The only way to do maintain profit is to create scarcity and define prices artificially as the most people would pay for it.

The ability to create copy of things at no cost is a kind of a miracle when you look at it. The issue is that the market doesn't seem to work well with limitless resources. Totally fixing piracy would require a market that can work for unlimited resources, but we have nothing of that kind yet ; it could be something like wuffies (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom ). Read it if you want to experiment what a society with limitless resources could look like.

Not saying that this is the solution still.

davidw2• 15 years ago

This is a well-defined problem in economics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

cechner2• 15 years ago

This so succinctly describes the problem that I created an account just to upvote you.

These laws are essentially fabricating scarcity - the medium has /solved/ the distribution problem, so of course anyone with an interest in monopolising distribution would try to stymie it.

This reminds me tangentially of software developers - especially iOS devs (of which I am one) - who get upset when their apps are cloned. It only seems unfair to those devs because they refuse to evolve with the available technology. You just don't make profits in the same way anymore. You want to take advantage of simple free distribution, but of course you don't want it to be TOO free!

I will now go out and buy that book...

snowwrestler2• 15 years ago

Creating digital copies is not free. It requires computing resources, connectivity, and electricity, all of which we pay for.

I don't think the issue of digital copying is as revolutionary as we all like to think it is. I think we can look at it as another step on the long trek of using automation to reduce content production costs--a trek which began with the advent of the printing press. That was when the legal concept of copyright originated--which, for historical context, was the time of Newton.

If you had a printing press back then, the cost of reproduction was reduced essentially to the commodity costs of paper and ink, plus the time to configure the copying.

Fast forward to today. If you have a computer, the cost of reproduction has now been reduced to the commodity costs of electricity, fractional hard drive cost, and bandwidth, plus the time to configure the copy. Granted, those costs are way, way lower than a printing press 300 years ago. But to me at least that seems like a matter of degree than some fundamental difference.

Piracy is not a problem; SOPA is not a solution

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