US Survey Shows Piracy Common and Accepted 528
bs0d3 writes "A new U.S. survey sponsored by the American Assembly has revealed that piracy is both common and accepted. The surveys findings show that 46% of adults and 75% of young people have bought, copied, or downloaded some copyright infringing material. 70% of those surveyed said it's reasonable to share music files (PDF) with friends and family. Support for internet blocking schemes was at 16%."
double-edged sword (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too bad they're too busy downloading and sharing music to call their congressmen, threaten not to vote for them if they vote for SOPA/PIPA, and actually follow through on that threat on election day.
How many are hostile to copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what percentage of people are directly hostile to the notion of copyrights? I know I am
Citation needed (Score:5, Interesting)
The last sentence in the summary -- "Support for internet blocking schemes was at 16%." -- is not accurate. Check page 8 of the PDF. There is a particularly harshly worded prompt which drew only 36% support, but in every other question there was higher support for internet filtering -- in some scenarios a majority support filters.
Wishing don't make it so.
You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet (Score:2, Interesting)
The following was from a very recent discussion and is relevant to this. I release it to the public domain :-)
The public domain is valuable to society. Copyright was created to get more people to create content for the public domain. We seem to have forgotten that. Since we have damaging and abusive laws protecting Imaginary Property when the public domain has been harmed by special interest legislation, copyright holders can listen to the world's smallest violin.
I agree with strong copyright laws if the exclusive rights lasts for about 15 years, or whatever is reasonable for the market. Longer than that is simply corruption that needs to be corrected. But these days, with technology, convenience, and economies of scale that were never before possible, I am skeptical that we need any government laws to protect content producers. The laws protecting content produces harm the general public more than help in numerous ways.
A while ago, corporations could only exist if it was proven that their existence was a benefit to the public. Now, we write laws that protect the corporations from the general public. It seems like everything about laws these days are backwards.
The public's burden of corporate special interests is already quite high, and our corrupt political and economic system needs to either be reformed or loose credibility. To the degree that reform fails, the loss of credibility for a corrupt system is ethical. Luckily, we are not near any kind of breaking point yet, and I hope that someday the pendulum starts to swing the other way, but it is conceivable and historically probable that we the people continue to support a corrupt system until very painful and long lasting damage is done. Civil disobedience is a form of nonviolent resistance that can effect change. Its utilization can avoid later violent resistance. I like laws and a functioning government, and oddly enough, the best way to protect all laws is to sometimes break a few bad ones (nonviolently, of course). Interestingly, breaking laws is the only way that the justice system can correct these kind of things, but it seems to be sorely underused.
I personally do not commit copyright infringement, but I happen to be lucky enough to afford the ability to avoid copyright infringement. I cannot condemn copyright infringement when artificial scarcity is being inflicted upon the infringers by the lobbyists of the large content producers. To have sympathy for the large content producers and the corrupt system that inflicts harm onto others is to invite Stockholm syndrome.
Here's hoping that things improve, but things are not going to improve via complacency. These kinds of discussions are needed, and oddly enough, they are fueled by the conflict between the infringer and infringee. Humanity is flawed, and I prefer to be realistic about ourselves. I prefer philosophy that takes into account all systems rather than focusing on only a few (and ignoring the rest at potential detriment).
Re:Sauce for the goose (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years back there was an absolutely amazing music torrent called oink.me which offered unprecedented selection and quality, all assembled by dedicated contributors. Naturally, it was shut down. I, and everyone I knew, would have gladly switched to a subscription model, and it could have been a gold mine for the recording industry, because it offered quality, selection, and organization unmet anywhere else. But of course like many dying industries, they decided they were more interested in control than profit, and arrogant enough to think they could maintain that control.
Forgive me if I don't shed any tears watching them crash and burn. I feel bad for the artists and other content creators, but I suspect they'll survive the transition better than the parasites.
Re:Sauce for the goose (Score:4, Interesting)
This looks bad for the US economy, long term. Software (in the broad sense, including movies, music, books, and games) is what we do best, compared with the rest of the world.
Not really, what the US does best is promotion of said things, there is plenty of high quality of the stuff from other countries. (Some of it finds it's way into the US if it's translated but a lot of high quality movies/music/books never gets translated into english.)
What I can agree on is that Software is what we do best compared with other things we do.
The problem is that software only has virtual scarcity, don't expect people to be willing to pay for it and it is foolish to try to base an economy on it.
Re:Media companies lost the war (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright infringement went mainstream in 1998-2002
Eh? I guess you're too young to remember casette tapes and taping songs from the radio, or using dual tape machines to copy a buddy's tapes. It was pretty mainstream in the 1960's and 70's too. Not everything has happened in recent history, young man.
Re:Sauce for the goose (Score:2, Interesting)
Disney does not have to spend $20 million dollars making and distributing a movie and no one would care or miss something that never existed. We only watch Disney's movies because they are there. If Disney didn't do it, others would and people would enjoy the alternatives just as much. There is limitless entertainment for free in the world and accessible on the internet made by people that do it for very little money if any at all. The average person just don't have much interest wading through the crap to find something they like. The people with the money and the control get their creations to the top and "out there" through promotion and big recognizable "stars". Those two things do not naturally make them better works at all. They just help you make your decision of what to what to watch or listen too easier for you. Just like cable TV every time you sit on the couch. Only 100 or so channels to pick from, 50 of which your not interested in at all so you surf the other 50 and stop on the one that interests you most and you are happy. Less channels to surf so the decision is easier. Imagine having 10000 channels? There may be 9500 other things out there better but you don;t feel like finding them.
Re:Of course people have no problem with sharing.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can in China...
Re:Media companies lost the war (Score:5, Interesting)
One major exception: People don't mind paying their Netflix subscription fee to get better service than piracy. But selection is still a big problem.
This is really the key, and the media companies don't seem to get it. People are willing to pay for content, if it is provided at a reasonable price and reasonably easily obtained. If they want to "defeat piracy" they need to make it easier (and cheap) to get the content legally. As a business, "cheap" money coming in is far better than nothing. Add that doing this (providing content easily and cheaply) would improve public opinion of them...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Media companies lost the war (Score:4, Interesting)
Copyright infringement went mainstream in 1998-2002,
It's quite common to attribute the existing attitude about copyright enfringement to Napster, but in reality the attitude already existed way before Napster existed. Before Napster it was CD-burners, and before that it was copying floppies and tapes. The biggest shift was the fact that content could be copied easily and without a significant loss of quality. Napster (or rather peer 2 peer networks) were just the next logical step in an increasingly networked world.
Whatever social value(s) the media industry was trying to impress upon us over the last 10 years have failed,
The content industry has been preaching that message long before Napster, but the difference is that due to successful lobbying they've been far more successful with the legislative branch than in the era before that. The message in general has always fallen on deaf ears with the public, after all those mixtapes didn't make themselves.
I would argue that copyright infringement in most cases hasn't changed over those years in essence: people still buy music, video games and movies, and people still share. What has changed is how visible it has become thanks to the Internet. Sure, you'll have a few people who won't buy anything and simply copy everything, but it's safe to say that those type people existed way before the internet existed and did the exact same thing.
What has more significantly changed over the years is that consumption has taken on a new form. People are much more interested in digital downloads than owning a physical copy. Convenience has become more of a priority than it used to, and this is something where some parts of the content industry have learned their lesson (most notably video games). Take a look at the success of Steam, despite it being a form of DRM, Steam is wildly popular because it's extremely convenient. They rely on impulse shopping for the most part, and the customers they don't get with impulse shopping they'll get with bargain deals. Despite some people on slashdot being vehemently opposed to Steam, it's very popular and most people find this form of DRM very acceptable. (I myself am not arguing for or against DRM here, that is beside the issue of this post)
The generational shift has already happened, and public favor is against the media industry. Something's gotta budge, and it isn't public opinion.
I've noticed an exciting trend in the past year or so, and it has probably been growing for a while longer. More and more beginning artists are embracing the internet on their own, and skipping the traditional content industry all together. I've noticed that a lot of DJs have begun setting up streams to promote themselves, bands are using social media and networks to promote themselves, and a lot of people are actively making their own "TV shows". Examples of this are for instance eSports events like Starcraft 2 broadcasts (tournaments such as MLG, casters on youtube, or even in depth analysis such as Day[9]) and even fighting game tournaments (such as the teamsp00ky streams). The technological barrier of entry to do so has become so small that practically anyone with an average non-technical understanding of how internet works can setup their own platform for promoting themselves or others. Having an average of 5000 to 15000 live viewers for an amateur show in what's likely to be a very niche market is a lot.
I've also noticed that so called "netlabels" are becoming more popular (especially in Japan), where artists release their works on the web partly for free for promotion and release a few commercial tracks on sites such as beatport, etc. It's all very amateurish compared to the big established content industry, but it's certainly a powerful tool for promotion as more and more people are becoming aware of these things.
While I'm not going to argue that the traditional content industry is finished, or predict the dea
Re:Sauce for the goose (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that software only has virtual scarcity, don't expect people to be willing to pay for it and it is foolish to try to base an economy on it.
Yes, the real value of software to an economy is the production that is increased or made possible by it's use, not the sale of copies of it. Productive software is capital to the user. As such, I see FOSS and commodity hardware as the expansion of capitalist opportunity to everyone, even though not everyone will choose to be productive with software, some will only consume.
Piracy is simply the symptom of supplier's greed (Score:5, Interesting)
MOST people will pay a reasonable price for something they want.
Louis CK just made a standup comedy special himself. Paid for the production of a 1 hour commercial-quality standup video (about $250,000), and put it up on the internet asking $5 to download it. It did have that $5 paygate, to prevent the casual downloading freeloader, but it is totally drm-free, and available in HD.
The response has been so overwhelming that once he paid for production, he capped his own income from the exercise at $220,000. He paid his production people a bonus of $250,000 and still has money left over, so is donating all excess to a number of charities. He's *already* given them $280,000.
An extraordinary success powered by creativity and (significantly) a lack of greed on his part. Win win win.
It's almost like we don't need the middlemen. Hm.
Re:If one thing, I would say the number is low (Score:5, Interesting)
Those of the older generation are likely somewhat short. I wonder how many of those that said "No" traded tapes or sneakernetted when they were younger and such.
I've noticed this myself. My father was a professional musician for a lot of years, and by virtue of the fact that he made his living playing music he obviously feels very strongly about music piracy. Many a night have I listened to him and his friends from the industry rail against the pirates "stealing from artists."
But, even back in the days before the internet, I remember watching movies he had taped off of television, in some cases over a decade earlier. He had countless cassette tapes he had recorded off the radio or copied from LPs and later CDs, concerts he had recorded...he even had stuff he had copied onto reel-to-reel; it was so old it predated the cassette. Pointing this out to him when he gets on his rants about piracy yields little, as he seems to think it's different somehow. The fact that, in his youth, he was the dirty pirate just doesn't compute.
It's funny to me how, to people like my father, the justification for piracy has more to do with how difficult it is to do, or the quality of the copy, and not the act of pirating in itself, like it's okay as long as the copy is shitty and making it is time consuming. It wasn't until the internet came around and people started downloading that he really started having a problem with it, which is a little ridiculous to me, and a little hypocritical as well, but seems to be a mindset shared by many of his peers.
Re:double-edged sword (Score:4, Interesting)
when presented with two bags of crap most just prefer to stick with the current bag of crap they have been voting for rather than try the new one.
It's not even that complicated.
You're either religious/conservative or not. If you are you vote for the religious/conservative bag of crap , if you're not you vote the other one.
Everybody else is just hippies.
Re:If one thing, I would say the number is low (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect many people won't come forward
Since the beginning of this debate, twenty years ago when we were all still using 1.44MB floppy disks, I have been firmly in the "thou shalt not copy" camp. I never, ever pirated software or music. Occasionally I copied MP3s from a friend, then re-bought them if I ended up listening to them more than once or twice. And I still felt guilty.
Last month was my change of heart.
I was trying to Do The Right Thing, and download Terry Pratchett's Discworld audiobooks using iTunes. Each audiobook costs $20, but I was willing to pay it. I splurged and bought the first three. The download of the third one failed, and there is no way to resume it (in order to get the rest of the audiobook, I only received the first 42 minutes), because of Audible.com's license restrictions. I'm facing an hour on the phone with iTunes tech support.
But even THAT was acceptable. Until I found out, the hard way, that my audiobooks can't be listened to on my other iOS devices. I can listen to them on the iPhone I purchased them on, but not on my iPad (same iTunes) account or my sons' iPads (same iTunes). WTF?
So I decided that Audible.com and iTunes have colluded to defraud the consumer. And I got gypped $60 before I figured it out. I therefore conclude that I am free of my moral obligation to pay them for the content they control. And suddenly, the world, and this whole piracy conversation, looks very different to me.
Re:Media companies cut their own throats here (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright is a form of stealing.
Re:If one thing, I would say the number is low (Score:3, Interesting)