h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Another perspective:

Artists are expecting teh interwebs to be a brand new source of income for them. The idea is that they can sell hundredsandhundredandhundreds of copies of their work, worldwide, to people they've never met. But why should they have this expectation? Taking a historical perspective, artists have had to sell physical objects which they have created with their own, fair hands. Granted fewer artists were able to make decent money this way. But why should all and sundry expect the mere existence of teh interwebs to hand everyone a living on a plate?

Or music...might it not even be healthier for musicians to regard recorded output as the promos for their live performances?

I pirated something recently. I made a t-shirt out of this copyrighted image.

http://cdn3.pitchfork.com/news/45193/header.jpeg

End with a song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM

"might it not even be healthier for musicians to regard recorded output as the promos for their live performances?" [Edward the Bonobo]

Yes, absolutely.......in a perfect world. Plus, their live performances can be (and often are) recorded and released on CD or whatever. However, some musicians [for whatever reason] become shy about live performances. One could cite pianist Glenn Gould, who gave up live concerts fairly early, and issued only studio recordings thereafter. A better known musician is vocalist Barbra Streisand, who rarely gives live performances nowadays. The answer given is stage fright.

OK.

So we should develop economic structures to support musical performers who cannot perform in much the same way as we support, say, miners who are unable to wield a pickaxe?

It's unlikely that Barbra Streisand needs the help.

Probably we should just try to manage better with what we already have.

Rather than talk about about what people 'should' do regarding downloads, artists need to discover what 'can' be done.

It's the "don't get mad, get even" principle.

Indeed. People shouldn't download for free...and people shouldn't leave their wallet on the bar when they go to the toilet.

Unfortunately the only models that have worked so far have involved renting your music from monopoly suppliers who control how and when you can listen to it.

In a way, it doesn't matter whether or not piracy is right or wrong. Because of technological factors, it will never be possible to stop it from happening and it's incredibly difficult / impossible to find out who is doing it (it's sometimes possible at the moment, but the technology is evolving to make it even more difficult). So, piracy will always be possible. The only sensible thing to do is to work out alternative ways of dealing with it.

One option is for companies to make their product more compelling than the pirated version. I often go for the pirated version because I don't want (a) a whole load of adverts, and (b) DRM limited files that I can only play on one machine with one piece of software which spies on what I'm doing and sends reports back to the company. If the companies make something better than what the pirates are doing, I think more people would use them.

Another option is to have some sort of alternative mechanism for payment, like the music tax that various people have proposed. There are many problematic aspects of these, but I think that we will inevitably have to go towards this sort of model in the end.

Or else Communism, obviously.

"One option is for companies to make their product more compelling than the pirated version."

Agreed. I think there's at least two sorts of 'piracy' - one where it's just straightforward 'dontwannapayism', and a second which results from a form of market or business model failure. Sorting out the first is much harder than the second. And it's sorting the second that should be top priority for the big corporates who don't like piracy. Get your own house in order.

As Dogster says, DRM was terrible. I wanted to buy music and then do what the hell I like with it - put it on whatever computer I liked, whatever portable device I liked, whatever mix CD I liked. What I didn't want was to be forced to pay a monthly quasi-rental fee to be allowed to retain access to the music I wanted. Stop paying and there goes your whole music collection. Madness. Ironically, I did eventually find a legitimate vendor who would sell music. None of which works any more because the DRM is no longer supported.

Similarly.... want to watch your favourite football team's matches on TV/the internet? Sorry, you can't. You can watch a handful, if you buy two separate subscriptions which include a load of stuff you don't want. You can watch a few more if your team is one of Big Sky Teams (or Liverpool). But that's your lot. Now of course some people will always watch free streams, but come up with a quality product with a reliable stream that's safe and straightforward to watch, and people will pay a sensible price for it. (Now granted, this raises all kinds of other issues for football, which are off topic here).

And why won't anyone sell me the second series of 'Community', apart from via an overpriced imported DVD with a different region? Why couldn't I download the 'Drive' soundtrack anywhere except iTunes for ages and ages? iTunes is no good to me. I'm reminded of the Prohibition era in the US, and arguably soft drugs today..... make the only source an illegal one, and you criminalise people.

On the other hand.... musicians and comedians have offered DRM-free downloads on an 'honour' system. And guess what? Fans pay. Because it's easier/safer/more convenient than looking for an illegal download, or because they feel a sense of obligation and fair play.

Now.... I'm not saying that we've got the right to expect the market to provide what we want, for the price we want, under the terms and conditions that we want..... but when market failure drives people to piracy, it's a bit harder to feel sympathy.

One thing is ...

... we're assuming that the producer wants to make money. And, in the case of Hollywood films, that's a safe assumption. In other cases, the author's priority may be creative control, or some other issue.

Let's say an author writes a collection of short stories intended to be read together, as they relate to each other. She wants them available as a collection only, not individually.

Does she have the right to enforce that?

TRiG.

""One option is for companies to make their product more compelling than the pirated version."

Yuh huh.

The indies are already doing this, and it's great... just bought a limited digipak and t-shirt bundle for £21 including shipping from the States. Problem is, being indies they're pretty much by default peddling a product to loyal customers who would rather buy the real thing anyway. I can't imagine a major label doing such fantastic deals.

This is the way DVDs are sold in Japan. Most people consume visual media either the first time it is screened, or by rental. When DVDs are sold, it is in an expensive (sometimes very expensive - this http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%80%8EFate-Zero%E3%80%8F-Blu-ray-Disc-Box/dp/B005ZOPANI/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1335389496&sr=1-1 adds up to around £50 per hour!) version with exclusive material, plenty of bonus features, stylish packaging and often free gifts. It's a prestige package, for hardcore fans only.
They tried that in the West, but failed, because this is not how we consume visual media. We want to own what we watch, and are generally not too bothered about any 'bonus extras'. So many films are available on DVD for £3-4 that keeping your prices artificially at £20 just leads to people buying something else instead. Under those conditions, it seems they've opted to fight piracy by making their wares very affordable - and I think it's worked, at least in my case.

Theoretical, of course. You have spent the most recent 7 years researching, being imaginative, and created one damned fabulous novel.
Adventure, romance, intrigue, twists a-plenty.

You don't have an agent or money to publish on paper, so you find the route to piblish it on a Kindle/e-book sort of affair. Asking a small
price through an amazin'g place.

Some clever Dick has a rip program, strips your writing down to a common text or html file and broadcasts it across the world.

Hey, 39,000 people have now read your work and loved it. And you pocketed the 99-pence of the buyer for your efforts.

But you can still grin at all of the 'aaarghs' and 'ahoys' come 'Talk like a pirate day'

Rrrr!



It's not what usually happens, of course. Have you come across many examples of self-publishers being pirated?

Have YOU come across many examples of self-pirates being published?

B

I know that there is tons of inexpensive, self published work available for Kindle. Perhaps some £2.49 novels are pirated - but the lists of 4000+ novels I've seen on sites are from bestselling authors published by major publishing houses.

I'm not saying that this makes it OK to pirate them. All I'm saying is that Rev Nick's example is a red herring. It bears no meaningful relationship to the real world phenomenon of pirating.

The subtle point was that anyone who puts time, effort and talent into something, ... they should be able to expect to be recompensed
by the people that want to enjoy it as well.

Next time one of you sort is putting on a fabulous feast, do let me know. I'd love to eat for free with a clear conscience.

Strangely enough, as I write this post, I'm listening to a CD of "Pirates of Penzance" [starring Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline]. When it was first performed, in the late 19th century, pirating of new shows* was so prevalent that Gilbert and Sullivan decided to foil the pirates by premiering the show in New York, not London. Things have not changed that much in 130 years. Different methods of getting stuff, but there are still people trying to get around the safeguards.

I'm interested in the notion of "renting" music. Do local public libraries not have CDs that could be borrowed at no cost? Or, if you have favorite recordings that you wish to hear again and again, why not just buy them as CDs, which you can keep indefinitely?


*As it happened, there were apparently moles in the New York production, who managed to get copies of the score to rival companies who then put on their own productions of the show.

Ed, I'm not sure that the self publishing argument is totally irrelevant. Yes, in the grand scheme of things it's small fry, but it does happen and it's important to those people much more than to the big companies. Not sure how often with books, but I read about a self published computer game where he added code that would detect and notify him about pirate copies, but not stop them from working. Apparently 90% of copies were pirate copies. That's a lot. The question remains though about what to do about it. His argument was that he was quite happy because many more people were playing the game, telling others about it, and this was generating more legitimate sales.

DVDs are doing a good job with showcasing the premium model by having a tonne of extras. I recently bought the Game of Thrones S1 boxset for £35 which I initially thought was a bit steep. Then I got it home and checked out the extras: some on the DVDs, some physical free gifts - the box itself was a work of art - and they guaranteed I'll be buying the S2 boxset instead of/as well as pirating.

Then there's the opposite trend whereby supermarkets in particular sell very basic copies of films for a few quid so it makes no sense to pirate it.

Companies are making the wrong assumption that the choice is pay or not pay and that if they can outwit the pirates (which is a huge if) people will start buying their product again. In a crowded marketplace that just isn't true: people will simply move on to something similar and cheaper to obtain. I quite like Glee and I was a bit miffed when Sky bought the rights from Channel 4 - I don't have Sky and never will have - but had I not been able to find an alternative method of viewing I'd have simply stopped watching Glee, catching the songs (the main reason I watch it) on Youtube/Spotify instead. Companies need to realise ever more stringent anti-piracy measures won't solve their problems.