You Will Never Kill Piracy 516
scottbomb writes "This is perhaps the best op-ed I've read about the whole SOPA/PIPA controversy. The author challenges Hollywood to re-think their entire business model. It will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears, for now. But sooner or later, they will have no choice but to adapt. From the article: 'Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it's worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won. It can't, is the short answer, and one these companies do not want to hear as they put their fingers in their ears and start yelling.'"
Some people are now DOSing sites with DMCA notices (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy has made it his job to DOS sites with DMCA takedown notices till they shut down
If more people like this start infiltrating private torrent sites, it could cause a major issue
If the "war on piracy" has achieved one thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
...it is that tremendous progress has been made in the field of anonymous file sharing technology. If the folks from the music/movie industry hadn't pushed so hard to prevent piracy, we would still be on Napster. But instead we now have very advanced things like the BitTorrent protocol, equipped with encryption, magnet links, DHT and PEX. And it's not just the geeks who are using these advanced file sharing technologies either, it's ordinary people. All in all quite an achievement.
Not so sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, they will never make it so that it is completely impossible for a few people to do.
But they have more then enough lobbying power to make the consequences of being caught so severe and the internet so monitored that piracy is so underground that 99% cannot find it and would not take the risk if they did.
It might not help their profit margin to do this as much as they think, but they are mega corporations and they at least have a chance at doing whatever they want.
While they might not be able to do so in any reasonably free and fair society or under current US law, but that will not necessarily stop them.
Hell, I would not bet against them if they launched a coup to physically take over the government and impose a tyranny in the US and put the current administrations heads on spikes outside of the whitehouse.
It's more than piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Studios live on a strong distribution model where they control the vast majority of the content and the distribution channels. Any tool that is viable for "piracy" is also viable by independent distributors as well. While I don't condone copyright infringement I think studios are more interested in their long term viability than to protect their content from "piracy". I expect similar behavior from the major publishing houses in the next couple of years as ebooks break their hold on the distribution channels.
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the distribution channel (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's possible to make a movie and sell it cheaply online, with no DRM, and still make a profit as the article suggests why hasn't anyone done that successfully?
It's the distribution channel, my friend
Tell me, currently what are the distribution channel for movies, and how do they distribute them?
Embrace, extend and extinguish (Score:1, Interesting)
You Will Never Kill Piracy
These copyright laws are not about protecting artists from piracy, they are about expanding the for-profit prison industry.
Let's not full ourselves, the "piracy" issue is just as stupid as believing that the War on Drugs stops people from smoking marijuana.
These copyright agendas use the same principals as Microsoft's "embrace, extend and extinguish" corporate mantra. It's all about one class of people dominating another class of people.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrections_Corporation_of_America [wikipedia.org]
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=867 [corpwatch.org]
http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Prison.html [mediafilter.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish [wikipedia.org]
Sure you will (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:2, Interesting)
They ain't gonna change because none of the pirates posting on Slashdot have ever elaborated a credible alternative for them. Kodak was killed by superior technology - digital was clearly a better way of taking photos and Kodak just failed to make the leap. But what, exactly, is the superior alternative for Hollywood? Give everything away for free? The financial physics of that don't work. Maybe they should pay for movies entirely out of popcorn sales.
Please. This kind of 24/7 "piracy is freedom fighting" crap tires me. The linked article is worthless and adds nothing to what precious little debate there is. He claims the problem is "massively overpriced" works. He then ignores the fact that the easy and cheap rental services he asks for already exist (eg, iTunes, Netflix, Apple TV), and oddly enough, if both are as easy as he claims the free alternative will still always win. The guy practically admits he breaks the law constantly and doesn't care, which isn't surprising because he has demonstrated the kind of reasoning skills I'd expect of a small child.
How about the police check his computer then throw him in jail for a bit? That won't stop piracy but it might stop stupid articles about it from clogging up the internet.
Re:You'll never stop murder or rape either (Score:3, Interesting)
And no one rational says it is. But even though you can't stop rape and murder you only punish the culprits, not the taxi driver that gave them a ride. Not the guy that rents them an apartment. Not the store that sold them a butcher knife. You don't make everyone wear a RFID tag and track them 24/7. You don't put cameras in every room of every house. No, what you do is you catch the culprits and punish them. The problem with the anti-piracy people is that they seem to think it's okay to take away everyone's freedom on the internet instead of doing actual investigation and punishment of those who actually commit piracy.
don't underestimate the enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
We are making the mistake that many losers in many conflicts have made: We think our enemy is stupid and not seing the obvious.
What if they are?
Imagine that Hollywood is as smart as us and knows everything we know. And still they are doing what they are doing. Why would it make sense?
One, it gives them time. They may know they need to change business models, but like all humans, they are risk-averse and they need time to adapt, to test out various strategies, to find the most profitable approach. At the same time, they want their revenue to continue coming in. Delaying the inevitable is sometimes a smart move, if you can use the time inbetween.
Two, making everything else illegal guarantees that they can take down the competition before it emerges. Many of the illegal online services like Napster or Megaupload were toying with the idea of going legit, because they realized that you can only get so big and so much exposure before the guys with the guns come knocking. A legal service that competes with the studios (instead of working with them, like iTunes) could emerge out of those. Can't have that, better to shut it down while it's still clearly on the illegal side.
There are probably more good reasons. Don't assume they are stupid without proof.
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an article for you [techdirt.com]
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:don't underestimate the enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
What they want is for computers to be consumption-only devices, and for the Internet to be a fancy broadcasting system. Everything they have been pushing for over the past 15 years is designed to chip away at the P2P nature of Internet communications and to put consumers back in their place. There is a grand strategy at work: kill the Internet, rebuild it as a fancy cable TV system.
That is the nature of the enemy here.
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy rose to popularity because the sailor who did all the actual work were treated worse than unskilled farm laborers, and they could be pressed into the navy before they even got paid from their merchant ship tour, or just cheated out of their pay by the merchant captain. Serving a privateer promised at least a share of the plunder, but it was one share for the sailor compared to 14 or more for the captain. The famous pirates you hear about ran in democratic packs, electing their captains who only got one additional share, and voting on all important decisions. For many a life of piracy was better than the legal alternative. At least for a while.
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:1, Interesting)
"The fiber just got laid 10-15 years ago, we've barely managed to start rolling out IPv6 (I'd equate IPv4 to square rigging...), piracy will be around for quite awhile, but it will eventually be marginalized just Jean Lafitte and his like have been."
That is the single most foolish statement ever made on Slashdot.
The reason Sea "pirates" dont have a chance is because they dont have Trillions of dollars to have massive balttleships built and they typically are low IQ types. If they had any brains they would get their hands on some old WW-II submarines and utterly own the US navy. a WW-II torpedo will take out a US ship easily. We are just lucky that the pirates out there are simply opportunists that are nothing more than petty thieves and muggers of the sea.
On the internet, a 13 year old kid has as much technology and power as the entire US government has. This scares the shit out of the governments of the world and big business. Even after IPv8 has been in place for 20 years and quantum processors have been in the iPad 12 and iPhone 47 a 13 year old that has been studying technology and the internet will STILL have as much power as any government on this planet when on the internet.
The internet is nothing like the physical world where it takes a lot of money and resources to build something.
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:5, Interesting)
" Slashdot have ever elaborated a credible alternative for them"
you must be blind then.
Every single time the pirates state.. "make it playable on what I want to play it on and a reasonable price."
that means 30 minute TV shows are $0.25 1 hour are $0.50 and Movies are $1.99
But the rampant obscene greed from the MPAA refuses to even think of that. Sorry, that TV show you broadcast free over public airwaves is NOT worth it to me to pay $1.99 to watch it on my apple TV or other device.
I'll even give you $5.99 for first run just out of theater for the first 4 weeks. But a 1985 movie that made it's money 10 times over? it had better be very very cheap for me to watch.
That is a very viable and REASONABLE alternative. it's just that the people with very low IQ's or are blinded by pure greed refuse to see it as a reasonable response.
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe try actually reading the article.
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole "victimless crime" thing is a distinction between IP theft and theft of physical goods. Just what constitutes IP is a far more ephemeral construct than a bar of gold or barrel of salted pork.
I was referring to the "gallant nobility" of Jean Lafitte, or Robin Hood, or any of the old (mostly romanticized and false) stories of persons operating outside the law as a manner of making a living. For a more realistic depiction of what it meant to operate outside the law in the "good old days," see: The Bounty [imdb.com]. Today's Somali pirates are certainly a much smaller fraction of the global commerce picture than the Privateers were 200 years ago.
As the internet, and the nodes that interface to it, mature with another century of experience, it will become increasingly difficult to freely trade "protected" information across it with impunity. A global consensus definition of "protected information" is one of the things that will have to develop before intellectual property will become more difficult to "steal" using the global network, but, even if there never is 100% agreement about just what is IP and what protection it deserves, you will see "blowback" from the interests that feel wronged against both the little guys who can't defend themselves and the big flamboyant pirates like Kim Dotcom [rollingstone.com].
Unsafe is safe (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's stop protecting all our crops from pests and thieves and see how that turns out.
Protecting good, going overboard on protection bad. Makers of recombinant herbicide-resistant crop seeds have gone overboard; Roundup Ready soy just leads to Roundup Ready weeds [iastate.edu]. Everyone outside the entertainment industry realizes that copyright has gone overboard, and some people posting here claim that the concept of copyright itself is overboard.
Let's just accept that people are going to die in road accidents and ignore all traffic laws.
Taking away road signs has been shown to improve safety in some (I admit anecdotal) cases. See for example unsafe is safe [spiegel.de].
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:5, Interesting)
Never heard of merchandising? Hollywood makes as much through merchandising as they do from the movie itself. Wanna know why that Mickey Mouse tshirt costs 30 bucks and a parody tshirt costs 10 bucks? The licensing fee per shirt the manufacture has to pay to Disney. It costs what, 25 cents to make that Transformer lunch box. Why's it cost 29.99 in the store? Licensing costs to the studio. This business model has been around for a long time. Back in the 60's when I was a kid, the big thing was The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the show was a bigassed hit, and the stores were filled with the lunch boxes, the toy guns, the posters, everything. The studio made a killing on that shit, and you can get big bucks for a lunchbox on eBay.
Tangled vs. Plane Crazy and Song of the South (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:watermarks (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Some people are now DOSing sites with DMCA noti (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm. Pro-piracy activists, worst case: Illegally access your computers and make you look like a fool on the Internet. Anti-piracy lobby: Put you in prison for 5 years, bankrupt you, and leave you unable to make a living once you get out (thanks to that felony conviction -- good luck getting the AIDS drugs for the case you picked up in prison). All legal. Still think the pro-piracy activists are worse?
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's the Streisand Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi, I've been commenting elsewhere (bitchily) on the thread and I'm a commercial artist and work in Hollywood [imdb.com].
Many of my friends who direct and produce have absolutely been giving serious consideration to these other funding models:
- A friend of mine from school produced an entire very well-made scifi short [scificool.com] many years ago, funding it with donations on his website, long before Kickstarter even existed. It's a great short and he got a lot of attention, and it won a lot of awards at several festivals. Aside from producing another friends feature, however, Jason's paying gig remains an editor-for-hire on E! cable shows of the "100 Craziest celebrity moments" variety. If he wasn't making money from those he would never have been able to complete his short; he was able to raise money to just make the thing with friends, and nowhere near enough to pay himself for the time it took to develop and produce the project, or pay anyone their actual market wages.
- Another friend of mine [daniellelurie.com] has been raising money for her project [indiegogo.com] for several years now on IndieGoGo. Several years now. Luckily she has means and is able to supplement her income with writing gigs on Big Hollywood Movies.
Basically none of the proposed funding models work without either (1) Hollywood paying everybody the 10 months out of the year people aren't working on their crowdsourced project or (2) abandoning the concept of the professional artist. As I said in another post, your median open source developer doesn't live on donations, they make their money at day jobs working for Evil Corporations that Sue People for infringing IP. Open source is a "marginal time" activity, it doesn't satisfy material needs. Open content is only so far a complement to the copyright model, it can't replace it.
Crowd sourced funding promises a lot of things: the idea that people will reward good work with more money, or that new work that is "suppressed" by the old system will emerge. In practice, however, these things haven't materialized and I don't think they ever will, I just don't think entertainment works that way. People want a casual experience they can take or leave, they don't want their entertainment experience turned into an advocacy enterprise where they have to band together with people and raise money and attract friend networks and go through all this bullshit just to see 20 minutes of mumblecore.
Kill copyright and you threaten to kill everything that stands on top of it, like a lot of open source software developers, and any artist that isn't willing to whore himself out to rich patrons. That's what the world was like before copyright: there were artists and there was art, and it was whatever a rich guy said it was. With copyright everyone gets a say in who is rewarded, and they vote with their pocketbooks. Ending copyright, wether that is right or wrong, would unquestionably jeopardize this.
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:5, Interesting)
The music companies were always screwed - it didn't matter what choices they made. Music revenues have done nothing but decline in the past 10 years. Saying that iTunes did it right is missing the fact that digital music sales have not compensated for the loss of physical sales. Mathematically speaking, for every $100 decline in physical music sales over the past ten years there has been an $18 increase in digital music sales. It's not a winning strategy. At best, it's making the best of a bad situation.
(Sorry, I get annoyed when people like to explain the music industry's decline as a result of "not moving to digital sales" when it seems like the real culprit was always what the music industry thought it was: a fast, global internet combined with piracy. The music industry was not wrong about Napster.)
Re:Hollywood won't change (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:4, Interesting)
Odd thing is, a lot of people create entertainment for free during their spare time (a very modern concept in its own right). Consider the amount of time people have contributed to the *nix ecosystem simply because they have the time, knowledge and a itch to scratch? Also, why do the creator need to take on debt? Consider Kickstarter, where someone can put up a draft of what they hope to make and provide a means for a group fundraiser. Afterwards the production costs have been covered, the creator have created what he hoped to create and can then put it up for download for anyone interested. The cost of creation 1000 extra copies once the master have been finalized is basically zero these days, with torrents or similar it is the downloaders that are fronting the cost once a swarm is properly formed. It used to be that corporations have very specific task to perform and was dissolved once that task was performed. As such, the recording labels and studios are an artifact of a time when distribution and duplication was a very mechanical undertaking. This is no longer the case. Also, i wonder how many of the current generations have no familiarity with the backlog of creations that sit in some vault because the copyright duration have been continually extended. I keep finding as much in the decades past as i find in the present, but i am forbidden to legally partake because of the duration of a certain law.
Re:It's the distribution channel (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just that, but if they are in so much trouble, why do I keep reading about new moviegoer record sales every year?