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Ebooks, Copyright, Piracy
Okay, world, what do we do about copyright? What, if anything, do we do about those big bad companies that sue Internet Robin Hoods and cute college students for giving somebody else's stuff away? Hooray, we say, screw copyright, stick it to the man. But then since when are writers, musicians, or artists "the man"?
David Pogue asked Do Electronic Versions Deter Piracy in yesterday's New York Times. That followed his Can e-Publishing Overcome Copyright Concerns from late May. The first post tells a sad story: Twice he sent unprotected ebook files to people who said they were blind. Both times those books ended up widely pirated soon after. The second post is about the comments, comments in all directions, from do the Kindle to right on to oh come on to oh shut up (or so it seemed, as I read through them).
This is the same David Pogue, NYTimes tech columnist, who did the great "I Want an iPhone" video (iPhone: the Musical), setting the standard for Internet tech write-reviewer-commentator parody. Or, even more to the point, the equally great TED Music Wars video. (I've put both of those at the bottom of this post, for entertainment value, and I hope with proper respect to copyright; I'm using the YouTube versions, posted by copyright owners, with embed code, and, I believe, permission to embed.)
In yesterday's post he links to Must We Give away Digital Creative Works?, by John Cadell. He calls it "Well argued," and I agree.
There are some truly troubling sides to this many-sided argument. Serious people who say copyright is dead and authors should write for free; or that authors should give away their books and make money selling other stuff (t-shirts? speakers' fees?); or that books are too expensive, or too exclusive.
In the earlier post he quotes the following "Slashdot" argument from author Steven Poole, in Free Your Mind:
I'll call it, for short, "the Slashdot argument". It says that books, music, films, software and so on ought to be freely distributed to anyone who wants them, simply because they can be freely distributed. What is the writer or musician to do, though, if she can't earn money from her art? Simple, says the Slashdotter: earn your money playing live (if you're one of those musicians who plays live), or selling T-shirts or merchandise, or providing some other kind of "value-added" service. Many such arguments seem to me to be simple greed disguised in high-falutin' idealism about how "information wants to be free". Perhaps it's not empty pedantry to point out that "information" doesn't want anything in and for itself. The information in which humans traffic is created by humans. And most information-creating humans need to earn dollars or yuan to survive.
In any case, I think the Slashdot argument can actually be disposed of rapidly with one rhetorical question, as follows.
Oh Mr Freetard, you work as a programmer, do you? How interesting. So do you perform all your corporate programming duties for free, and earn your keep by selling personally branded mousemats on the side?
Didn't think so.
I have to say, I'm biased. I'm one of those authors ... you know, the people whose work gets stolen? David Poole's entry into this issue was his experiment with giving away one of his books and asking for PayPal donations. Unfortunately no, not successful. Far from it.
And I've also experimented, put some skin in this game, meaning, in this case, I've purposely given some of my stuff away. Not just this blog, and the other blogs I do, and a few hundred articles on bplans.com. I've been giving one of my books away for a year or so now. You can download the PDF of Hurdle: the Book on Business Planning at www.bplans.com. And at the present I'm giving away my newest, The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, at planasyougo.com. Results are mixed, and, for that matter, motives aren't all that altruistic either, because people who like the books can buy Business Plan Pro, and I get a royalty on the software. That's another related story, because although Palo Alto Software donates lots of copies to worthy causes like Small Business Development Centers, the software sells for about $99, and through the serial number system we've seen more than 100,000 attempts (and nobody knows how many successes) at hacked or pirated copies.
My kids thought I was completely obsolete, about 10 years ago, when I insisted that there'd be no Napster in our house. Remember Napster? I was delighted when iTunes and the subscription version of Napster came along so that I could give them a better answer than "because it's stealing". (That is, "Okay, I'll pay for it then.")
And then there's this viewpoint, from a comment on Steven Poole's post:
What I don't get is that why creative professionals, artist, writers, record companies, publishing, newspapers etc are yelling that everyone else, the consumers, should come up with some new shiny business model that would rescue them. It's your goddam business, it's your job to figure that out. If my business was about to die, I wouldn't count on some weed smoking artist's help. You cannot blame it on technology or your customers. I don't even believe that someone can come up with some kind of scheme in a economic vacuum. You have to think and try things out.
Things that can be copied, will be copied, and their value will come near to zero. Fortunately there is lots of things and attributes that cannot be copied. Check Kevin Kelly's writings.
I have no way to conclude this piece, on this troubling copyright problem. I'd like some snappy irony. Actually, that Napster thing was supposed to be snappy irony, but I don't think it worked. So instead, I'm embedding the two David Pogue videos I mentioned above. If for some reason (it's not me) you can't see the following two videos, the links are in the third paragraph, you can click to see the source videos.
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You really think Republicans who have past more laws that give businesses legal advantages over the consumers to help stop Businesses from stealing and selling stuff like art, music, or inventions?>
That would go agaisnt the gain where they allow Oil, mining, and other companys to steal natural resource from the U.S. Citizens and other countries.
I did not address our current copyright system, mainly because it no longer is relevant to individual creators. Changing the wording of laws that are not enforced on behalf of creators is an exercise in futility. That is a game played by corporations and lawfirms-artists are merely pawns in it. The fight over 'who owns what' is merely a symptom of a society so sick with the need to consume that it's lost it's ability to recognize what's worth having. We want it all-we want it cheap-we want it now. And we want even more tomorrow. We are in a 'feeding frenzy', gourging ourselves on empty calories and useless junk, filling our bodies, our homes and our souls with whatever we can take-good or bad- not knowing or caring if it's good or has meaning-it costs us nothing so we take it. The finest, freshest foods can lose their taste in mouths that do not stop long enough to savor their flavor, a masterpiece painting purchased only to 'match the couch' will soon join it in the landfill-it's meaning lost and ignored by those only concerned with fleeting styles.
HuffPost's Pick
Our need to have everything leaves us empty, standing on a landscape despoiled by our greed, concerned only with our fear that someone else might have 'more'. We celebrate and reward only the ones that can produce the fastest, with no respect for how it's produced or what went into it. We must stop and think about what we really want in our lives. I'd like everyone to look around them and try to find one thing in their lives that will still be important to them 30 years from now. Chances are, if anything is worth saving out of all the clutter that surrounds us, that object will be a photo, a book, a piece of music, or art. So please show some respect to those that create it.
You say you're looking for irony. I'm not sure how "snappy" it is, but how's this.... artist Ed Miracle's painting "I Told You So" has become sort of the unofficial symbol of those pesky copyright rules that can ensnare 'innocent' publishers, with numerous webblogs citing his lawsuit and opining on how he should be grateful for the 'fame' and world-wide exposure his artwork received. The thing is, Miracle wasn't looking for fame, he worked his entire life to create great art, and achieved enough success that he could earn a living from his art. Galleries that carried his work knew that his prints were of the highest quality and would hold their value. It took decades to build that reputation.That reputation was destroyed when an unscrupulous printer flooded the world with cheap, poor-quality posters. A printer that was being promoted in the book's credits. Galleries no longer carry Miracle's work, they will not compete with $20.00 posters. Miracle is no longer earning a living from his paintings, at 70 years old, he must start over. He's portrayed as greedy for filing a lawsuit. How's that for irony?
HuffPost's Pick
Music, dance, paintings, literature, and design are never free. Someone paid. Someone invested materials, instruments, tools, education, tears, sweat, training and time-often whole lifetimes-into perfecting their techniques, day after day after day, all in an effort to express their message to the world "in their own voice". Whatever form that voice takes-words, steps, brushstrokes, movements, or buildings. A society that refuses to acknowledge the value of those works is condemning itself to a future devoid of greatness. Will find itself drowning in mediocrity, and severly limited in it's ability to communicate. Because art IS communication, the expression of who & what we are, and what we hope to be. That's too important to be left to only part-timers & hobbiests.
Music, dance, paintings, literature, and design are ALWAYS free. The only person who "paid" is the person who created the work. Naturally, he should be able to try to make a living from his work, but there is never a guarantee. If you're looking for a sure-fire way to make money, I recommend submitting an application at Wal-Mart or McDonald's.
The problem, the reason we're even talking about copyright today, is that the wrong people are getting rich from the "Intellectual Property" that is supposedly inherent in artistic works. You'll notice that when the RIAA or MPAA or whichever **AA is suing somebody, it's never, ever representing the artist. Rather, it represents some conglomerate that happens to own the Division, which owns the Company, which owns the Label, which owns...nothing real except the contract that some poor schmuck artist signed when he was struggling to get his art off the ground.
Mr. "itolduso" has it absolutely backward. If we do away with the current model for copyright, we will not be "drowning in mediocrity". I don't know what radio station he's listening to, but someone needs to inform him that we are already "drowning in mediocrity".
Yes, piracy is a very serious problem. Lots of revenue lost. It will change as our economy could not withstand the hit. Nothing in this world is free, it just takes some people a while to realize this. No artist could survive on a lick and a promise and very very few artist are willing to give their work away. Many artists are afraid to speak up on the matter at the moment because they are fearful of repercussions. It is sad so many people do not even understand what it cost's in terms of time and money to produce good e-books and other artistic works. But, they will find out the hard way.
You speak of "revenue" as if it's the very air we breathe. Perhaps you don't realize this, but of all the "revenue" generated by the music business, less than 5 percent actually gets to the artists that make the great music that you love.
The system we have is so broken. Only the most sadly bland music is heard widely. Only the most mediocre artists are rewarded financially. The people who get rich from music have never made a single note of music.
It's the same for whichever art form you choose. It's become a top-down, "revenue" machine which has nothing to do with the importance of artistic work to our culture. Naturally, artists should get paid for their successful work. But not this way...
There is no solution. If it can be easily stolen, it will be. And the Internet makes stealing easy.
People don"t rob banks very often. And the reason is because it is difficult to do. If banks kept their money in big lose piles in the parking lot, people would steal it.
On the Intarwebs, stealing is easy. It"s anonymous too. Not security guard is going to shoot you.
The "justifications" on Slashdot, the "information wants to be free" crowd, they are nothing more than rationalizations for their theft. They want it, so they took it. Plain old theft.
Does anyone think that if copyright were changed to how the /. crowd wanted things, they"d stop downloading?
There simply is no way to protect against this. And tech solution will quickly spawn a counter tech, and back and forth. The only way to stop people from stealing is to change people"s nature so they don"t want to steal. And we all know the chance of that happening.
I agree with your thoughtful article that copyright is an interesting "problem." I am a collage artist and have had to assess the issue of intellectual property from the creator's as well as the "borrower/stealer's" of raw materials perspectives.
Current copyright law is made to protect corporate intellectual property - not individual artists, writers, inventors, and musicians. If you are an unknown band or artist and someone steals your work, the burden of enforcing the copyright is on YOUR shoulders. Very few struggling artists have the financial means to hire the legal help required to enforce their copyrights. And if you are a serious writer or artist, you shouldn't have the time to chase down and find the offenders. The corporations, on the other hand, usually have well fed legal departments.
It really irks me when a company like Corbis claims copyright on work originally created in the public domain - like an image of a WWII bomber obviously taken by a military person. They wanted $2500 for a limited use 3-year license for a combat photo of a B-17 shot by a belly gunner. And Life Magazine's special photo edition publications? They are purely a means to expand and extend their copyrights to materials that should rightly be in the public domain - and many of which were originally in the public domain.
If the artists and the corporations can't make a deal, Badbone is right, there is no solution.
I think there's a fine line somewhere here. As someone in the publishing business, I see anarchy if copyright laws are not upheld. Several years ago, we nailed a Taiwan pirater and he landed in prison. He was printing brand new novels in hardcover and charging a dollar and making a mint.
On the other hand, prices of some of the materials, whether books, CDs or audiobooks, are exhorbitant and it just invites downloading.
For me personally, I do a combination of downloading and purchasing through iTunes. Most, if not all, of what I download for free is music from the 70s and 80s, and they've made their money already. In fact, I had purchased the album originally so I did in fact pay for that music.
There are too many places to go for free stuff, like newsgroups, bittorrent and filesharing sites, and it's tempting for many. On the one hand, it stifles creativity, on the other hand, it raises prices thus inviting more stealing.
I think it will eventually come to a head. Creative artists and writers are not going to stop writing or make music. I think there will evolve a way to cut out the middle man, i.e. the corporations and record companies, and there will eventually be a happy medium.
Yes that whole radio thing bankrupted the music business! and that ITunes thing will never work.....
Please forgive me for thinking that you have no idea of what you speak. Business models will change associated with content ans they will find a way to make money. Just a matter of time.
It's a matter of how much and for whom. Starve the artists and you weaken the product. Starve the Corporations and you lose any power to enforce rights.
Copyright is a geovernment determined right, and one which has come *very* late in humanity's process of organizing itself socially and economically.
People invented things and made art for millenia before the dawn or copyright, and will go one doing so after. The thirty-second dismissal of the slashdot argument is deliberately stupid: copyright is *not* the sole possibility for encouraging and rewarding creativity. Others have existed and will exist again.
There were artists before there was fiat currency too. So what? SImon says it's stu pid?
PIRATE'S ADVOCATE
Why does copyright protection exist? Is it to recompense authors and artists for their labors, or to make corporations wealthy?
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" pretty much sums it up.
To promote the progress of science and useful arts.
Now for a thought-experiment.
Suppose we had a moratorium on copyrights. No new copyrights issued for, say, ten years. What would happen?
Would there be no new advertisements created? No newspapers published? No books, no movies, no songs, no pictures?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
What do you think would happen?
Interesting idea: We just redefine authors and artists as corporations, so then we can just steal from them and feel good about ourselves as we do it. We weren't stealing stuff, we were sticking it to the big guy, fighting the establishment.
As for your thought experiment, after you suspend copyright, we'll still have advertisements (what? are you saying advertisements are works of art?) and newspapers, and movies, songs, and pictures, but real works will be harder to find amidst all the mass-produced noise (do you like reality TV? mindless sequels? Elevator music? Commercial jingles?) and real authors and artists, at least those who stick with it, will have less time to work (because they'll need their day jobs) and less money. Is that what you want from the world?
Actually, I think that's what he knows of the world.
I've written and self-published two novels, both works of fiction, and both in hard copy format. I refuse to give in to the e-book craze (phase?) for the very reasons you have discussed. People, for some strange reason, look at an e-book as pirate worthy as a single song. Really, now? You mean to say the TWO YEARS of my life spent writing a book is on par with the week or two it took such-as-such to bang out one track? I'm not advocating music piracy, just adding some scale to the discussion, that if you think pirating music is wrong, consider that pirating a copyrighted novel is like stealing two years of someone's life. The word vampire isn't strong enough.
SOT
Ultimately, I believe that author's of colllege textbooks could avoid such a prevalence of copyright violations if colleges were to resolve to charge more reasonable prices for their textbooks.
For instance, I was once able to purchase a particular title known as "Desert Mirage" at a sale price of only $9.95. Several years later, I caught sight of the very same textbook at my college bookstore, only to gawk at the fact that the school had elected to charge $52 dollars per copy.
"What is the writer or musician to do, though, if she can't earn money from her art?"
While I can't speak for musicians, very few authors are capable of putting food on the table strictly through publication alone, due to negligible advances and at best recieving a 2% royalty cost for each copy sold.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that such thefts probably wouldn't have resulted on such a wide scale if colleges would elect to charge prices in proporation to the content of the book, as opposed to milking students for humongous cost figures which exist merely due to the fact that such textbooks are essential.
Do you understand that when you bought the remaindered copy, the author earned not a penny in royalties? He or she was exactly as ripped off as in filesharing.
The copy I purchased was not remainedered.
I'm with you, pal. I've written seven books with an e-publisher and received zilch for the effort. Seven books that made mincemeat of the competition, and earned me nothing. I'd like to think it would change, but the hard facts say it won't. The market is simply too compressed for honesty.
When Napster was legal, I spent hours downloading stuff I used to listen to from my long-gone 8-track tape collection. I also downloaded a few newer songs like "Who Let The Dogs Out?" where the rest of the CD frankly sucked.
But I got news for you.
If you think my budget, either then or today, would have allowed me to instead go out and buy the CDs for any but a token of this downloaded "free" music, perhaps I might interest you in bridge for sale in Brooklyn. Given the choice between the free downloads or paying for the CDs, I would have chosen the radio.
An ironic thing is that this "free" downloading brought interest anew in older music, leading to increased sales, and it made smash hits out of newer songs that never would have otherwise become such, or never would have become *as* popular. "Free" downloading fueled rather than diminished sales, if it would have been played wisely.
All this is what was so utterly asinine to the nth degree about the RIAA's propaganda and famously stupid actions of the day...actions which were led by none other than Hillary Rosen, now HuffPo's own Political Director and Washington Editor-at-Large. Go figure.
As for that music I once downloaded, I play it today about as much as I would play my old 8-track tapes, if I still had them. I can count the times over the years on one hand.
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Posted June 20, 2008 | 01:31 PM (EST)