Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/

by dpkendal • 15 years ago

202 56 15 years ago

> making money from art is not a human right.

This is an excellent point (and paragraph) - I wish more people understood this (although it is probably scary to many in the startup community).

omonra2• 15 years ago

Is ability to charge money for any labor a human right?

extension• 15 years ago

Charging money is a right. Making money isn't.

Lazare• 15 years ago

Apparently not. :) Almost all countries have extensive rules limiting your ability to charge money for your labour, including but not limited to: * Minimum wage laws * Professional licensing laws * Legal bans on prostitution

burgerbrain5• 15 years ago

It is a human right to only work voluntarily. The alternative is slavery.

So yes, it is.

re_format• 15 years ago

The point that he raises by stating the fact that for most of the history of human art, people have not been paid to create art is not one to be overlooked. Mick Jagger has also said this of the music business specifically.

Looking back on art over the centuries I would not say that today's art is necessarily "better" because people are paid to create it.

Yet I've read statements by entertainment industry people that if we don't spend heaps of money on motion pictures, their quality will plummet to the likes of "reality TV".

Not only do I think this is complete rubbish -- it's not the budget that makes the quality of the film -- but all I can think rgarding the reality TV comment is, "Then why the heck are we bombarded with crappy reality TV?" The reasonable conslusion is because the stuff gets watched. So even if there was a drop in quality, it isn't going to affect their profits. People will still consume this stuff.

omonra2• 15 years ago

"The point that he raises by stating the fact that for most of the history of human art, people have not been paid to create art is not one to be overlooked."

I find this point meaningless. For most of human history a lot of things happened - for example 1) Slavery was normal 2) People were ruled by monarchies 3) Countries were constantly fighting each other

More to the point, we simply lacked the mechanism for 'normal people' (ie not nobles) to pay a small percent of their disposable income for art. Instead church & rich people picked up the slack and employed artists.

I think the point here is not so much about Intellectual Property as such, but about modes of distribution. Writers have been selling books for a couple hundred years - and nobody is complaining. We are comfortable buying books. But for media content the model is just not there yet. But let's talk about that - instead of attacking IP as such.

krig• 15 years ago

Brilliant, I agree with just about everything said in this post. There is no credible evidence that piracy actually damages artists, and plenty of empirical case studies where it greatly benefited them. It is horrendously disappointing to see the american government, supposedly the elected representation of the people, ignore all the scientific evidence produced and wholly adopt the viewpoint they are fed by a miniscule but rich group of media companies. If only there was some way of stopping the flow of money from corporations into politics...

I just posted a similar rant on my own website on the characterization of pirates that also refers to the Swiss study that Coulton brings up, plus another study commissioned by the Dutch government that reached very similar conclusions.

http://tusk.se/2012/01/20/piracy-3-character/

baddox• 15 years ago

The only thing I don't understand completely is his actual stance on copyright. He says he's okay with the notion, since he and many other artists benefit from it. But he quite clearly doesn't think piracy hurts artists, and doesn't seem to think that downloading poses a threat (or at least not enough of a threat to warrant taking down websites).

I agree with the latter, but I'm not sure how Coulton finds the latter consistent with the former. Perhaps he believes copyright should only apply to commercial violations, or should only require attribution, which would make since considering that his works are released under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. But does he believe other artists should be allowed to place their works under stricter licenses (i.e. ones that would allow them to sue a kid for downloading an MP3)?

Wilya• 15 years ago

Copyright does quite a lot more things than just enabling restrictions on distribution. There's the right to be credited, some limits on derivative works, and limitations to commercial violations. I suppose not every musician would be pleased to find their music used as the soundtrack of a porn movie without their knowledge, for example.

sterling312• 15 years ago

Copyrights is the same as creating a legal monopoly to a particular item/idea. Hence, from a pure economic perspective, it creates deadweightloss, or over all less for the economy. Hence assuming an efficient market, it is a VERY bad thing.

However, since we don't live in an efficient market, we have these things that prevents anybody from creating things called the barrier to entry. This could be startup capital, facilities, or whatever that is needed to manufacture and distribute the items. This prevents anybody from just making a movie, since you would need all the equipment and crew to shoot it. Copyright basically guarantees a limited monopoly for the creators to give them a reduction in risk involved in creating the item.

But the bottom line is, copyright is not a good thing, and it is only as good as the barrier to entry is. With the barrier to entry for making creative media so much lower than what it was before (anybody can record an album using Garageband), the reduction of risk, in the form of copyright, might not justify the overall loss created by the deadweightloss. Essentially it is a comparison of deadweightloss vs opportunity cost of not having the idea ever created. And in the current time, because the opportunity cost is so small, copyright laws should adjust itself, which it hasn't.

warfangle• 15 years ago

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV.

I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Part 2 of Deathly Hollows - were available on Amazon video for rental. Score!

Of course, I didn’t realize Part 1 of the Deathly Hollows wasn’t available on Amazon when I started this drunken marathon. But you can believe after the first two, I was in the mood for more. And I wasn’t about to ruin the series by watching Part 2 before Part 1. I won’t say what route I took to watch it, but these were my legal options after scouring Netflix Streaming, Hulu+, Amazon OnDemand and iTunes:

* Wait two-to-three days for a DVD to arrive from Netflix

* Go to Blockbus..oh.

* Go to a DVD sto..oh. I mean, I suppose I could’ve taken the train 20 minutes to Best Buy at Union Square, bought the DVD of a film I was only going to watch once, take the train 20 minutes back home and … shit. I don’t have a DVD player anymore.

I won’t tell you the course of action I took. Only that the entire experience was exasperating, annoying, and thoroughly made me want to not watch the rest of Harry Potter. And I wanted to give them money.

I don’t get how this is hard to understand.

boredguy8• 15 years ago

"I don’t get how this is hard to understand."

Because the 'other side' doesn't understand why you think they have to make it easy for you to buy Harry Potter 7.1 and if they don't, why you think you get to circumvent their processes.

You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

nitrogen• 15 years ago

You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

It is the responsibility of the producer to meet the terms of the consumer, or else go out of business.

nantes• 15 years ago

Interesting. I think this points out a difference between my lifetime and my parents. Lots of thing (most of things?) were negotiated. I can't even imagine negotiating for something like a candy bar at the grocery store and I certainly can't even try to negotiate with the studios on a movie rental. This complete inability to show any flexibility by the studios (and many other businesses) shows that the inelasticity of the market.

burgerbrain5• 15 years ago

"They want you to give them money"

Clearly not.

bowyakka• 15 years ago

I am going to be a little naughty and quote my good friend who I had this very conversation over email with about two years ago

---- ME:

It just dumbfounds me that, with card in hand they cant make this shit work. I had the same problem with microsoft and fallout3 extensions, after I went through microsofts increadibly evil market place for games thing, bought myself some credits (why can't I just use money guys) and downloaded the extensions, I had to jerry rig them to work with fallout3 because that version I downloaded with steam, and MS has a clause in their terms about versions of fallout downloaded from competing software devlivery systems.

In fact steam is the only on of these fucking things I have ever used that just works (in fact it works a bit too well its nearly as dangerous to my wallet as amazons one click)

Hint guys, If you cant make it like steam, or amazons one click, just pack up shop and go home, the more hoops I jump through, just to appease your circle jacking business people and "Information architects" the more likly I am to just pirate the software.

My Friend:

> > It just dumbfounds me that, with card in hand they cant make this shit work. I feel your pain.

But you're expecting it to work because you see it as a transaction, you buy it, they give it to you. They on the other hand are living in crazy bugfuck dying-media-company world (it's Sony), where it's actually an opportunity for you to STEAL FROM THEM. And so people who a) don't know how software works and b) aren't operating with a full deck to start with dictate how the process gets built. They add this and demand that in this big committee (all the more efficient because it's actually a tree of committees), and some poor schmoe programmer implements it the way he's told.

The real surprise is that they manage to sell /anything/.

moe2• 15 years ago

I have a nice story, too.

Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead).

On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I took for granted not only because I do it with their apps and music all the time, but also because most of their movies were more expensive than the equivalent DVD.

Well, needless to say, apple does not allow to re-download purchased movies.

I may still be able to recover that harddrive. But I'm most certainly not buying movies from apple anymore.

there• 15 years ago

is that really a problem with itunes? if your house burned down, you'd lose all of the movies you had on DVD. at least with itunes movies, you can legally make backups of the files.

vrdabomb5717• 15 years ago

This happened to me recently. I had nearly 2 TB of movies and TV shows on an external hard drive that decided to die on me when I moved it. After some messing around, I was able to coax the drive to boot up again and list files, but it takes hours for me to move the files off of that drive and onto another. Luckily, I buy my TV from iTunes, which lets me re-download everything onto another device, but those movies are lost forever.

I've been looking into other digital download options, but Amazon's not compatible on a Mac, and I enjoy watching movies in HD quality. I don't blame Apple for the restrictions that Hollywood puts on them, but I'm also not going to spend more effort than I need to to watch my movies. Downloading them is the most convenient way to watch, there are no ads, and the quality is amazing. I don't understand why this is so hard for the studios to get right.

Sukotto• 15 years ago

This is news to me. When looking at an iPad recently the guy in the Apple store told me that anything I bought on iTunes could be moved to a new device should I ever upgrade. So long as I have the same AppleId (email?)

What else is non-transferable? Books? Music? Apps? (Can iDevices do other things?)

spicyj• 15 years ago

If you contact Apple support they'll let you redownload all of your purchases.

Ryan_Shmotkin• 15 years ago

I have a story too, I really wanted an apple and when I came into the super market they had this HUGE line and they only accept credit cards on purchases above 5$.

I won't tell you the course of action I took, but I really wanted an apple.

Obviously, totally their fault and its OK since they are a failing industry.

ThomPete• 15 years ago

The thing is. There is a finite number of apples.

eli• 15 years ago

I just heard his piece on NPR's Marketplace. I thought he came across well, and the reporter put the tweet in the proper context.

firefoxman1• 15 years ago

Wow, just listened to it. He really nailed the subject in those 5 minutes. He said a lot of the things it seemed like Alexis Ohanian wanted to say in his debates.

keturn• 15 years ago

This was a good post, but I confess to being a little disappointed that it was not in musical form.

eggspurt• 15 years ago

Hmm, isn't Jonathan's blog post just an advertisement for a few e-commerce links on his website - catering to anti-SOPA-crazed technologists that will upvote this post and buy his songs while they're there?

Anyway, people don't change overnight. Once you train people they can find pirated content for free, they'll continue doing this - and it's very hard to compete with a torrent search site.

chc• 15 years ago

Is it just that? It doesn't look like it. Does it serve as an advertisement for his work? Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that.

SquareWheel2• 15 years ago

For as long as I've been following his blog, he's used it to talk about things he wants to talk about. If he's touring, he'll likely post about touring. Lately he's been organizing a cruise, and he's been talking about that. He also just released an album -- I don't think it's unfair that he post about that on his blog.

I have seen examples of people attempting to "cash-in" on the SOPA outcry, but I do not believe Jonathan Coulton is one of those people.

axiom• 15 years ago

This whole post is a red herring.

Megaupload was also used for legal activities. Awesome. I bet the mafia also did some stuff that was legal. Let's consider the "complexity" this introduces into the act of putting mobsters in jail. Insightful.

Piracy is victimless. So is me breaking into your house while you're not home, watching TV for a while, and then leaving. I mean, you're not even using your TV while you're not home! I mean, if I break into your house and watch your TV, it's not like I would have paid to watch your TV if I hadn't broken into your house. I mean, you're not losing anything! How dare you prevent me from doing what I want with your shit.

What, just because you spend $100M making a movie, you think you "own" the right to charge for that movie?

The end.

SquareWheel2• 15 years ago

"This whole post is a red herring."

I don't understand how you can say that. What is this "red herring" truly hiding? Jonathan Coulton has always been outspoken about piracy in this regard.

Your comparison of piracy to breaking and entering is really outlandish.

dedward• 15 years ago

So let's see - your legal stuff stored on an online service... or even broader, you contract some service you need out to a company. That company gets it's doors slammed because they landed in legal trouble - who cares who's fault that was, that's not your problem - your immediate problem is you no longer have access to that service.

I've seen a bank go bankrupt and people lose quite a bit of money. (no, not in the US, no FDIC, etc etc, private bank, other country). Imagine hitting the ATM on the way to work and finding out that the bank is simply gone. Okay, the US has good protections against that, as do most 1st world nations..... but the lesson coming out of that was "Hmm, maybe we should look at only using government sanctioned banks with, you know, insurance, and if it's going to be a private bank, I want to know more about their financial situation before committing to them. Lesson learned.

Security company for the condo complex got shut down because they broke immigration laws. Left the condo with no security, even though most of the staff were legal, it didn't matter. Those guys are out jobs, and the condo has to have an emergency meeting to figure out how to get back good, trustworthy guards again. Suppliers go bankrupt. Heck, people get sick, family emergencies, they die unexpectedly and unfortunately, leaving you with a problem.

So let's not blow it up into more than it is. If the lawmakers were way out of line here, let's make sure it comes out and they are sanctioned appropriately.... but regardless, it's a 3rd party service. If you're using any critical service that is devastating to be without, you need to properly assess and address that risk.... whether it's data or services, staff or insurance, etc.

RyanMcGreal• 15 years ago

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. The big content companies are TERRIBLE at doing both of these things, so it’s no wonder they’re not doing so well in the current environment."

Beautiful.

netcan• 15 years ago

A great point:

"We are constantly demonstrating through our actions what we believe to be the norms for acquiring and consuming content. Right now a lot of us think that it’s OK to download stuff through illegal sites under certain circumstances, and a lot of us think it’s totally fine to use those things to make videos and put them on YouTube even though YouTube profits from it. That’s not ME saying that, that’s US saying that"

Piracy discussions often go towards the ethical. It makes sense to look at what the actual ethical norms are.

Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

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