Michael Arrington on Copyright: Wrong
In January, Michael wrote:
Personally, I think a new era of free recorded music and paid live performances is a very good thing. Recorded music will become a marketing tool to get people to pay for concerts and merchandise. Overall the music industry will be smaller in terms of revenue. But the artists who are driven to create their art will continue to do so, and many will make a very good living from it.
First, if music goes down, so will every other form of copyrighted material including ultimately books, movies, TV, etc. What we will be saying is in the Internet era, copyright doesn't matter. And this is good?
Second, there is no evidence *at all* that free music on the Internet is an effective (i.e. successful career building) marketing tool. There have been no blockbuster successes that have come from, for example Garageband availability. I don't think you could even count more than a handful -- if that -- internet-based artists making a living from music. I believe several of the American Idol contestants have been on indie music Internet sites, but you cannot attribute their success to the Internet.
Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow -- they will shrink. This is because the money that goes into creating concert demand (all from record label marketing) will disappear. People *will* see fewer concerts and they will cost less money because of reduced demand. So not only will the recorded music business disappear, but so will the much of the live music business. So there will be no "live music windfall" to share. Revenue in live music will shrink substantially from where it is today.
In a continuation of the theme, today Mike writes:
My position is that it’s bad to criminalize natural behavior. And watching a clip of The Office, whether it’s legally on Hulu or illegally on YouTube is natural behavior. The only question is whether or not people are getting sued, or going to jail, for doing it.
There are several problems with the above statement. The first is that no one is criminalizing the viewer. In all p2p cases and in the YouTube case, the entity being criminalized or sued is not the viewer but the "facilitator". This means the person who posted or makes available the content, or the service itself. I do not believe there has ever been a case of someone being charged with anything for receiving, watching or listening to pirated content. So on the face if it, this is misleading.
The second problem with this statement is that it reflects a misunderstanding of the purpose of law. I know Michael is a lawyer and I am not, but nevertheless, the purpose of law is generally to stop people from harming each other, or society at-large, whether it is natural to do so or not. Certainly not paying taxes would be more "natural." And while we might argue over taxation levels, few would agree that allowing tax evasion would be socially beneficial.
If an activity is harmful to others, we make the activity illegal. The larger the harm, or the more difficult it is to catch, the harsher we tend to make the offense in order to create a deterrent effect. This is the appropriate and necessary role of law in this country and actually more generally on our planet.
But the third problem with Michael's statement is that it suggests that he has some reasonable alternative in mind to monetize content published in this free-for-all way. But he does not. What he said today is this:
It’s time to rethink copyright laws, and it’s time for copyright holders to rethink their business models. The winners won’t be the companies that win or lose billion dollar lawsuits. It’ll be the companies that throw out everything that’s come before, and build new businesses around the natural behavior of people. Remove friction and win.
Without specifics, this is an empty, meaningless statement. Without enforcement and/or monitoring, whatever scheme one might come up with can't work. We don't currently have the technology to track every copyrighted piece of work, and we are unlikely to have any such technology in even the medium term. There is just too much content. Such tracking may be possible for TV shows and some music because of the severely constrained pool of content, but it will be impossible for everything else.
As I see it, the concept of "rethinking copyright" without specifics and without the willingness to follow things through to their natural conclusion is dangerous. This discussion must be about consequences. If you cannot propose solutions and provide reasonable answers to what the consequences are, such suggestions are only harmful because they embolden people to think that stealing intellectual property is acceptable and that IP protections are bad. But, In fact without intellectual property and attendant protections, we will be flushing down seven or eight percent of our economy directly, and indirectly twenty percent or more.
In other words, the stakes here could not be larger.
Interestingly, in the narrow confines of music, where usage could be tracked at least fairly well, Michael's concept of not punishing file sharing but turning it into a business might be possible. But this idea would, since there is no viable advertising model for music downloads, require that we tax ISPs and distribute the money in some way to copyright holders. But Michael is vehemently against that, calling it extortion.
The bottom line is you must do some combination of :
- stopping the illegal publishing of the content through laws and/or technology
- providing a means of monetizing free-for-all publishing through a tax of some sort
- finding an advertising model on the net that really works broadly -- so far most advertising outside of search has failed (including YouTube) or is failing, and music download ads have failed horrifically.
The argument that copyright holders are wrong or stupid for not coming up with some new business model and for trying to enforce the law is not just wrongheaded, but dangerous.
Much of our economy and our value in world markets is tied into the creation of intellectual property. The collapse of the concept of intellectual property will have devastating economic effects on everyone in every post-industrial economy. This may seem like it is just about illegal downloads, but the issue is much more serious and if not addressed portends an economic melt down of unthinkable proportions. A little "straight talk" is really critical at this point, because we really are talking here about economic Armageddon.
SAI Contributor Hank Williams is a New York-based entrepreneur. He writes Why Does Everything Suck? Exploring the tech marketplace from 10,000 feet.
As for the music business, I don't advocate the "crash and burn" approach suggested by Michael Arrington that would undoubtedly lead to a collapse of the industry at large, including the artists. However the amount of effort and energy spent by the incubants to fight for a status quo is in a sense even more damaging to the future of the music business as it slows down efforts to discover a new viable value chain (that I totally agree with the author here we haven't found yet).
On the broader issue of intellectual property, we wrote a piece a few weeks ago discussing Chris Anderson's latest book, Free! at http://traackr.com/blog/?p=32 for those interested.
It is true that viewing unlicensed copyrighted material isn't technical criminal, the RIAA has attempted to argue simply making MP3s available on P2P networks is copyright infringement. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proposed in the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 making attempted copyright infringement a crime as well as life imprisonment for using pirated software. The bill has not progressed, but if current Attorney General Michael Mukasey keeps repeating lines like piracy funds terrorism, people might get scared enough to pass ludicrous laws.
We need new, modernized copyright laws that uphold fair use and actually encourage innovation and creation of new arts. Suing fans and blocking people from consuming content the way they want will hurt media companies more than letting their infinite goods, like music and movie files, run free and use them to sell scarce goods like advertising and merchandise.
"Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow -- they will shrink. This is because the money that goes into creating concert demand (all from record label marketing) will disappear. People *will* see fewer concerts and they will cost less money because of reduced demand."
First of all, there is the problem with the statement that concert prices will fall and demand will shrink. At some point obviously, the low prices will once again fuel demand.
There is also the notion that only record label promotion fuels demand. I can't tell you how wrong that is for many of the concerts I go to. The promotion is small, if nonexistent. I mean, being on a band's mailing list isn't exactly high cost here. But I hear about concerts that way and I go. If I'm a fan, I support the music I like.
Lastly, I think the rumors of the music industry's death are greatly exaggerated. But it would help if we define music industry. Are we talking about artists and musicians? I think they'll do fine. If we're talking about major record labels, then yes, they're in for some trouble. Here's why. Back when, there was really only one place to get music, a record store, and a few ways to reach consumers; radio, advertising and word of mouth. Now the options have exploded, people can get music from any number of sources, from stores, websites, P2P, the artists themselves. And people are reached in different ways, there is more interaction between consumers, and between consumers and the artists' themselves. Which, if you look at it that way, cuts out the record labels. So now labels have no way to market effectively across the incredibly wide range of places people get their music information, and therefore no way to produce blockbuster hits anymore. So they're in for a serious hit. The reason labels make money is because the ratio to advertising dollars spent and music sold was good. Now it is bad.
I think the real thing to take away from this is that the record label business isn't going to mean making hundreds of millions of dollars a year anymore. its just not there. Their purpose for existing has been eclipsed, and their value to an artist is low. If you're a million dollar record label, rethinking what the value is you provide will go further towards increasing revenue than whining about piracy.
Still a big demand for music, but the traditional music label model no longer works. I think Arrington's right that the answer is other revenue streams (or other variants of this one)--anything that doesn't try to restrict the flow of bits. Plenty to think through, but the new models may turn out better for artists and consumers than the current system--and as far as I'm concerned, those are the only two constituencies that matter.
You said:
"There is also the notion that only record label promotion fuels demand. I can't tell you how wrong that is for many of the concerts I go to."
You are speaking anecdotally about *your* experience, which is never useful. We are talking about giant economic factors that must be analyzed on that basis. When you look at the pollstar top 50, for example, none of those artists have become successful brands without label marketing. And again, there are few if any artists that have become major artists without label promotion. It just doesnt and hasnt happened, even when given the ubiquity of the internet, one might think it should have.
The size of the concert tours that play in small venues, as I presume you are referring to, don't even move the needle a little tiny bit from an overall economic perspective. The top 50 artists are well more than 50% of annual concert revenue. There is very little long tail in this business -- your concert going experience notwithstanding.
Arrington and others seems to want to put the burden on copyright holders. This is unfair, and I agree with Hank - dangerous.
We're moving towards a world where information will be more valuable than anything physical. We need to come up with more ways to control the flow of information, so the value can be reaped by the creator first, and then the borrower.
Henry,
Then if the only goal is free flowing bits (not business or revenue) then how does that, even conceptually help artists? Where is there evidence that the internet has helped any artists become successful, or even generally pay rent? I would be all for this if there was any evidence anywhere, with any indie artists under any circumstances to make a living. Where are the alternate revenue streams. Certainly artists should have found these by now right? The internet is old enough that we should have anecdotal examples.
But there are *none*. At all.
If you can point me to that, I will agree. Until that time the argument is little more than a justification for stealing artists work without compensation.
Oh, and one other thing. You said "at least for music". The implication is that we should perhaps abolish copyright for *music* but not for for example blogs like alley insider, or movies like ironman? It seems to me you cant say whats good for me isnt good for you. Either copyright is good or its not.
Today, at least one thing seems to be clear to me: If a work can be digitized, it will be digitized at some point in time. Take the book-scanning project from Google as an example. In previous times, it was impossible to do this, but today it seems to be no problem at all. Or take photography: just very very few photographers have not made the step towards digital yet; most photos are digital right away. Music has been digital for years. Since the launch of Youtube, digital video has taken off seriously.
I think that today any piece of (digital) artwork is losing its value immediately once it has been released to the Internet, thanks to all those who think its not illegal to take someones digital works. Their weird rationale is that taking a digital copy is hurting noone ("if I steal from a shop, then that shop has one item less to sell - but if I steal from the Internet, the original content item is still available for the owner to sell"). Which is -of course- utter nonsense.
By making any content item publicly and legally available, IP owners will be depraved of ways to monetize their digital content, and the content industry will undergo massive changes. This will ultimately lead to LESS QUALITY. Look at the most watched clips on Youtube, e.g. by searching for a popular band name or TV show. You will see that the top 20 is typically populated by clips of commercial quality (for music: video clips and concert bootlegs).
Today, the last retreat is still the copyright law, which seems to be weakend heavily by the introduction of the DMCA. If now a "new copyright" would be introduced, many content producers will not be able to afford the high production cost, and quality will go down. In other words: we'll see more shaky, boring mobile phone videos filmed by uninspired kids and less quality content.
Shocking, but simple, and certainly not something I want to see happening soon.
P.S.: It's a shame that the whole copyright/IP discussion always centers around msuic and video. Noone cares about writers and photographers. We're the scum of the content producing industry anyways.
There have been no blockbuster successes that have come from, for example Garageband availability
True, the days of overnight rock stars that make millions off selling albums are more or less over but it really depends on how you define "blockbuster success." It's hard to make a living on music but the free distribution of music over the Internet has certainly been a boon for smaller artists just trying to make a living. I also wouldn't be so quick to assume that free distribution hasn't been a big part of the success of bands like Death Cab for Cutie that spent a decade playing smaller venues and releasing albums with limited distribution before blowing up (they were the #1 album last week).
Arrington is right to encourage people to "rethink" copyright. Yes, copyright helps a lot of industries but digital media will always be pirated and people need to "rethink" how that might affect their business. For the music industry, they need to shift the focus to live performance and merchandise sales. For software, there may be an ad supported model. For film, there probably needs to be a greater focus on the theater experience. Asking people to "rethink" their business in the face of reality shouldn't be discouraged.
After all, cassette tapes were the last black death that was going to destroy everything and the industry found a way to make a better product.
Who do you think fronts the money for a band to go on tour?
Marketing is a huge expense for labels, while digital distribution has lessened many expenses, it hasn't really touched marketing.
1. For laws to be effective they MUST be largely voluntarily accepted by the vast majority of the governed. No punishment will make people obey laws.
2. Nightclubs exposes many new bands without record marketing. If a band can’t develop a local following, it is because they suck.
Few would argue that software piracy is OK, regardless of distribution method. Content piracy isn't any different.
There's no question that the model is broken for content. Breaking it up into micro chunks is crushing the economics. Software has and is trying some interesting models, from google docs to Msft's ad supported small business accounting basic. Content can add some experiental elements (concerts), but still has a long way to go to make up what has been lost in the recent past.
" It's hard to make a living on music but the free distribution of music over the Internet has certainly been a boon for smaller artists just trying to make a living."
How has this helped? Can you quote artists for which this is the case? Are you really saying there are artists that give away their music and are making money from t-shirts and concerts? Who? I would like to interview them because it would really be economically important -- particularly if it was more than a handful.
You cite Death Cab for Cutie, which but I do not believe they are self published or that they give away their music. I certainly can't find them on garageband. I *do* consider indie labels to be the same as major labels. They spend money, then market, they promote, etc. DCC did not succeed on their own. More importantly, they do not give away music... they sell it so I don't get your point here. Oh, and by the way, it appears DCC is signed to atlantic records. No giveaways there.
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
The names might be big, but there are also big names moving away from traditional record companies. Live nation is a great example. Its a concert promoter first, but it also does some traditional record label functions. The very idea that its been able to be successful should tell some record companies that maybe their model is now flawed.
However, I'm more interested in the long tail (although of music, not of concerts, which was your example). Everyone traditionally makes copyright violations and privacy out to be the bogeyman of the music industries woes. But what if its just that purchases are shifting from a short tail model to a long tail? A great way to find this out would be to look at weekly album sales year over year. Does the average top weekly sale this year match that of year's past? Sure, you could attribute it to piracy, but you could also attribute it to people deciding to buy other music than the "popular" artists.
The fact is, consumers are lazy. I am lazy. If Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were the artists thrown at me on tv and radio, that is what i checked out first. But now I get music shown to me in other ways. iTunes recommendations, social websites, the local band scene. I'm buying more music than ever before, just not "major" artists. Maybe the major record labels are having trouble because the revenue is now spread out over more record labels than ever before?
And coming from an attorney even more ridiculous when Arrington argues with specifics. This is the same guy that continues to call Hulu a bad service - well markets will speak for themselves - and the consumer will come out ahead - with our without Arrington's ramblings -
"A great way to find this out would be to look at weekly album sales year over year. Does the average top weekly sale this year match that of year's past? Sure, you could attribute it to piracy, but you could also attribute it to people deciding to buy other music than the "popular" artists."
If the music sales were just distributed differently, you would be right. But they are not. Sales are down by every conceivable measure. The overall dollar volume is down.
The ease of copying and transmitting digital information is the cause of this "problem", but I don't believe that it will help much with a "solution".
Trying to hawk self produced content on the internet can work for some people some of the time, but it will certainly never allow for the volume of money in the content marketplace that the old ways did. The implication of this is that eventually, big record labels and movie companies will scale down to insignificant sizes, and less content will be made, less artists will be employed, and less money will be spent on catering and alcohol. All of which are bad for the economy.
But how bad? Will it really be as "devastating" to the global marketplace as you say? I know, most people will reply by telling me exactly how large the copyright protected industry is and assume I'll hear a large number and stop arguing. How much of this market is at risk to the internet though? Most copyright infringement software requires large numbers of people to be a viable distribution replacement. This means that it's primarily going to be consumers driving the push against paying for content. How much of that large number you were quoting me is consumer media like music and movies?
Next, assuming consumers really do win the war against content providers, how much less money will they spend per year on luxuries? Will they keep spending their disposable incomes on other stuff, or take their savings and invest it or try to get out of debt? Either way, there will be a benefit to the economy to balance the damage that the falling content industry does.
In the end, my point is that your argument seems to be based on flawed economic reasoning. There's no global reason we should all be happy about having our online activities restricted and being sued when we step out of line.
actually the problem is that what will happen is that purchases will shift to purely physical shipped goods. This is stuff we dont do in America any more. We oursource it to third world countries because our standard of living is high enough here that no one wants to do that work anymore. So if we dont mind creating a giant trade deficit with China, and/or you dont mind becoming a manual laborer we will all be fine.
Correct. The only way I can think of to measure this would be the percent drop of the top sellers vs. the overall industry. I'm assuming, for this purpose, that generally the top selling albums each week will be from the top record companies.
For example, lets say the number one album each week in 1998 sold an average of 200,000 copies. But last year, lets say the average was only 100,000 copies. So if music sales in general only dropped 20% during that time, it would point to something other than piracy as being the problem. People are buying less music, yes, but they might also be buying less of the record company's music and more of smaller outfits music. When a business model is based on blockbuster hits, it will obviously hurt major record labels if consumers were buying more from their smaller competitors, even if people are buying less music in general.
That said, an increased dependence on live shows for revenue bares an interesting consequence in that booking agencies like Windish could gain label like sway over the acts that they represent. Labels have already become essentially a source to buffer overhead in exchange for a (large) chunk of the overall profits, it'd be problematic (and largely impossible to remedy) if the live side fell into a similar pitfall.
That's all purely speculative, of course, but not necessarily a longshot. Having worked as a talent buyer in the past, I've had the chance to deal with plenty of booking agents and I'd argue though that they're closer to the music and more apt to support their bands that subject them to gross vampirisms.
For society? Yes. For individuals who have built their lives around copyright? Probably not.
"Second, there is no evidence *at all* that free music on the Internet is an effective (i.e. successful career building) marketing tool."
I shot a music video for a band out of Nashville called Hip Kitty. That video is freely circulated on numerous services (YouTube, Myspace, etc.), and has been used by the band to build awareness and book gigs around the country. I have no doubt that they sell a decent number of CDs at their shows, but most of their income is coming from busting their asses doing what they love... playing live everywhere from Disneyworld to small clubs in Indiana.
"Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow -- they will shrink."
For whom? For big acts who are only big because a marketing department at some MediaCo decided to sell them? Sure. But everyone else will pretty much continue on as they always have.
"If an activity is harmful to others, we make the activity illegal."
In the case of copyright, laws have actually created as much harm as anything. Copyright (the control part, not the authorial credit bits) runs in direct opposition to basic economics. It takes something which is in near-infinite supply and makes it artificially scarce, creating micro- and macro-monopolies that suck the creative vitality from our culture.
Which actually made sense once upon a time. Back in the days when distribution was expensive, when physical copies couldn't be produced on-demand and had to be stored, when consumers had no way to deal directly with the producers of content... what else could you do? Copyright was a sort of subsidy granted to a struggling new industry.
Those days are gone.
With all that said, I'm not an "abolish copyright" kinda guy. It simply needs to be reigned in considerably.
That must be why no one goes to see Beethoven anymore, huh? How does a 90 year copyright advance the state of music, or benefit the public in any way.
"There are several problems with the above statement. The first is that no one is criminalizing the viewer. In all p2p cases and in the YouTube case, the entity being criminalized or sued is not the viewer but the "facilitator"."
Tell that to that 9 year old sued for downloads. And his grandmom, who swears the kid didn't do it, but had to pay anyway.
Facilitator? You'll make more points in your argument if you don't include obviously factually incorrect data.
Copyright law needs to be reformed, starting with orphan works and strengthening of fair use, and moving on to shortening the monopoly time allowed back to a reasonable amount, such as the life of the author, or 30 years. But neither you nor the cited author do anything to advance the discussion.
(begin reprint)
This hubub proves how the incumbent old media hectors STILL to this day don't get the internet and the new economics of the long tail and "moving the freeline"...
Watch closely what's been happening in the music space. The smartest bands have already figured out that their initial song offerings are nothing but a promotional loss leader to get mind-share, they make all of their profits on the back-end with live shows, fan materials, special cuts, etc.
Why? Because in this new world of the Long Tail [ushered in by the Internet and it's lowered distribution and often production costs], it is harder and harder for anyone to ramp up any significant mind-share/attention! Most bands should be so lucky that people would want to "steal" their music (i.e. take it for free). Most would have to pay people to take it...
Back to the news networks: they should be ECSTATIC for RedLasso or anyone else to repurpose their content and bring it in front of many more people that way. Once a news-hour has passed and the ads that were embedded ran, the value goes to near 0.
That's why it's called "old news" :)
It's really cute that they'd rather have you watch clips on their controlled sites, but that misses the point completely about the potential added-value of blog commentary (both by the author and in the comments). Of course it's not surprising, because they still largely have no clue about how Web 2.0 works.
If they were smart, they'd say to Redlasso: Use our stuff all you want, here, we'll make it even easier for you, under these conditions: We get to control the start-up still frame (including embedded links possibly) and the fade out/end frame. Or at least one of the two. Free advertisement for them all over the net, where they can THEN link to their other walled/controlled archives, etc. etc.
[Also note that the content on these blogs/etc. will self-selected for contextual relevance, typically by a human no less, something that the wider field of on-line text/display ads is still struggling with. If you get the context wrong, NO ONE will even notice your ad, they will block it out at the unconscious level(!) because you are representing an unwelcome interruption.]
And again, it's about mind-share: If they could pay someone to constantly replay their BRANDED content and create mind-share over and above the number of live viewers of the 24 hour networks (an anemic number...), they would/should. Wake up people, this is a whole new ballgame. Ignore this fact at your peril.
What they really want is for someone to see a clip of say Keith Olberman on Huffington Post and say to themselves: I had better catch what this guy will say tonight LIVE. (If the blog post or comments/discussion spurred on such a decision, even better.)
Wake up.
(end reprint)
As Rich Schefren and others have argued, ATTENTION is the new scarce resource of the information economy. First, you have to get attention, and you probably have to use a massive "Moving the Freeline"/"loss leader" to do it (e.g. free/high quality music content that convinces people that they should be paying any attention; BTW, this had previously been done by way of radio, except that the rules of the game have changed there as well, due to people's distaste for annoying/lengthy radio ads).
One more note on the music business: The Long Tail is what has led to a massive fragmentation of a previously much more monolithic industry, hence the decline/disappearance of the "Super-Star" musician/band. This has nothing to do with piracy, but everything to do with people having so many more options than ever before.
If I were to copy Techcrunch articles verbatim and post it on my own blog with MY ads, given his position on copyrights, surely he would have no problems with what I'm doing. In ArringtonLand, he can make his living by charging for speeches and talks.
You believe that protecting the content industry is going to somehow fix the trade imbalance with China? Where's your sense of scale? The trade deficit is large and growing, but it is on a different scale than the money being lost by the consumer content industry. More importantly, the trade deficit is going to continue its growth regardless of whether or not we protect one of the (smallish) markets that employs people in North America.
Moreover, you're advocating some fairly massive changes to American culture:
"- stopping the illegal publishing of the content through laws and/or technology
- providing a means of monetizing free-for-all publishing through a tax of some sort"
If we're willing to change laws and add taxes just to have a small effect on the trade deficit, couldn't there be a better target than the consumer content market? We would be better served plugging the effort and money you propose spending on copyright issues into protectionist laws and taxes that make it cheaper to hire people here in America.
This is all based on the fact that your argument for advocating a stronger copyright structure seems to be our global economic health. If, in fact, you have another (more compelling) reason, please enlighten me.
Oh, also: it's "don't", not "dont". If you're going to attack the internet and free culture, at least try to avoid typos ;)
I'd love to see you do that. Arrington has a credibility issue. Talk about a great way to smoke him out:)
actually, this is just not true. pure copyright businesses (music, movies, software, books) make up 7% or so of our economy so on the face of it your statement is untrue, particularly when you consider how much of our GDP is real estate, fuel, food, and other staples. 7% is a **huge** number. And if that 7% goes away, service industries that serve or benefit from that sector will be damaged mightily.
Read the rest of my comment. I'm talking about the small percent of "copyright business" that is in real danger of being eliminated by the internet. Mostly consumer products like movies and music. Also, my point is that people will spend that money elsewhere. The counterpoint is that they will spend it on something that will increase our trade deficit.
So you think that software and books and TV are not threatened by the Internet? And you think that music and movies are a small percentage of "copyright businesses?" Well, then there is not much more I can say. That is an incredible conclusion to me, particularly the software part as I have watched as huge sectors of the software business go away.
Why are lower prices not part of the solutions you mention? As far as I can tell, with all the whining about declining CD sales, record labels still turn a profit. So what exactly is the problem here? It seems to me that piracy is directly related to price. As the price goes up, so does piracy. Therefore, if music was actually set at market prices, then piracy would go down.
I don't agree with Arrington, but nor do I think the focus on copyright laws should be a substitute for enforcing basic economics. Theoretically, when music supply became infinite with digital, the price should have gone down. A lot more than it did. Again, as far as I can tell, the music industry even profits from .99 cent downloads.
Part of the problem is that the music industry encouraged piracy by trying to maintain artificially high prices. There was a disconnect in people's minds about how much music should cost and what it did cost. Now they have a culture of piracy they they need to get rid of. But I have a feeling that unless they drop prices to encourage buying instead or pirating, they're going to fail, as will all the other solutions you mention. Its like the one big huge giant solution to this, "make less money" isn't even on the table. Why?
Free music cannot always be supported by "other" revenue streams. Bands cannot always tour. Bedroom producers don't have a band to play live. Hip hop artists would have to close up shop because those artists do not make the majority of their money from touring. Many musicians will choose to stay with their families rather than hit the road to recoup the money that used to come from music sales.
Besides, not that many people go see live shows. Some big shows a few times a year, but that's about it. Are you telling me people commenting on this post will go out and support that band they downloaded when they play an 11pm Monday night gig in their town? Not a chance. It works for the type of bands that attract 20-somethings without kids, but that kind of music is just a sliver of the music that is released every year. Folks need to stop thinking about business models and changes to copyright that will help just rock bands.
Maybe we don't need to overhaul copyright just yet. Music companies have not yet exhausted all the potential, innovative licenses that would allow for many of the services mentioned in the comments.
There's a ton of free music online, but just streaming. If the point of free music is to enable discovery, companies like last.fm can satisfy that demand.
Some artists may choose to give away their music (actual downloads, not just streams). No problem. It's their choice. Some will use free music (either entire albums or just a track or two, as Coldplay and Madonna have done recently) to prime the pump and increase sales of recorded music, concert tickets and merchandise. But as Radiohead showed us, many people will pay for something they can get for free. Opting out of selling music should be the artist's choice. The solution doesn't have to be a revision of copyright to do what artists and labels are already free to do.
Actually, I read your blog too, and it's pretty good -- a welcome breath of fresh air from the twitterati. I'd recommend everyone here to give it a read. Thanks!
You've completely missed the point. Regardless of whether muscicians can make a living in the Internet era or not, why should I be forced to pay for products or services I don't use? I don't buy , download, or steal major label music. The propsal underdiscusison here is that *EVERYONE* pay an adidiotnal $5 a month to cover the industry's "losses" due to piracy.
Leaving saside the issue of how this money would actually be colelcted and distributed, the suggested "music tax" would collect an estimated $20 billion annually according to Jim Griffin. Not only is this amount at least ten times the industry's claimed annual losses due to piracy, its two times their current annual revenue! Nice try guys!
What's more, the music business isn't the only one that wants to charge you a fee for products/services you didn't use. Roben Farzad suggests a very similar taxation concept to subsidise journalism.(http://industry.bnet.com/media/2008/05/27/business-week-guy-declares-war-on-enemy-google)
Maybe you should have to pay an operating system tax to Microsoft even if you use OSX or Linux?
How about a movie tax for films in languages you don't understand?
Contact your ISP and your legal representatives and let them know you oppose media taxes being added to your phone or Internet bill.
The Internet has created a new way to consume music; access to music instead of ownership of music. I really don't want to own a copy of music. Owning it places the archival burden on me. Making sure I don't lose the music I own is a pain. Forget one backup and it vaporizes.
Instead I want access to the music. But I want the access in an untethered form - in an mp3 player, off-line laptop, whole house audio, etc. I would consider music copied into these offline forms as being cached. I'd love to be able to wipe these devices clean and start over again or copy songs I like onto a new device.
There are two obvious monetization points in this model. First the central websites providing the access can be licensed. This is something easy to police and prosecute. These sites could pay from $200K to $200M+/yr depending on volume. There are lots of revenue models that can be used to pay for these wholesale - ads/pay for no ads/subscription/etc.
The model is to sell the recorded music wholesale and then allow the consumer to have it without restriction. Commercial distribution of music will require a wholesale license. Keep the wholesale license fee reasonable and bit torrent will disappear.
The second monetization point is live performances. I think live performances are being sold short. I live in Boston and just about every act that comes to town is sold out. Most venues that offer live music, like jazz clubs, are also completely full. I believe there is considerable untapped demand for live performances.
That being said, I don't think your views and his are really that mutually exclusive. Michael, for all his intellectual laziness, is largely right in saying that copyright laws need to be re-thought. and you're largely right in saying that artists still need to get paid.
"And indeed, the biggest grossing live bands are often totally detached from the largest grossing recorded acts."
There are no highly grossing bands that got there without a record label and record label marketing. Often the largest touring artists, like the stones, or jimmy buffet don't sell any records now, but they got there through the efforts of a major record label. None of the biggest touring bands got there without a label making investments in them.
Bingo!
For some time I have indeed believed that with respect to the music business, buying permanent licenses to songs regardless of media, is a very serious potential future.
That said, it will not work if we continue to talk as though there is nothing wrong with not paying. Because at the end of the day even your brilliant idea will not work if we just have no respect for each others work and the need to pay for it.
Copyright protection is here to stay. They issue is that the elegant solution has not been developed yet, otherwise it would have been adopted wholesale. I find it amusing that when millions of kids around the country make an application 'cool' us grownups in technology think for some bizarre reason it will equate to a business model that will stand the test of time. I don't see scores of lawyers and Michael Arrington going out on their lunch hour climbing trees and building sandcastles so this notion that all this web 2.0 garbage will grow into a 'business model' that destroys the 'hollywood system' will be exposed as folly once Web 2.0 explodes in the next dot.com bubble. And that implosion of dot.com is going to come on the official switch to digital television in February 2009. So commentors like Arrington should enjoy their last year in the sun and perhaps climb some trees or shoot some slingshots as web 2.0 is nearing and end and discussions of copyright death will be thought of as a reminder of 'social networking' era.
Honestly Trevor, he hasn't debunked any of my assertions. He seems to be holding to that argument that the real reason we should change the law and add taxes is to avoid worsening the trade deficit...
His only rebuttal seems to be that I don't claim to have exact numbers of how much smaller the economy will get if no laws are changed. That and he has seen huge sections of the software business "go away".
"If you cannot propose solutions and provide reasonable answers to what the consequences are, such suggestions are only harmful because they embolden people to think that stealing intellectual property is acceptable and that IP protections are bad. But, In fact without intellectual property and attendant protections, we will be flushing down seven or eight percent of our economy directly, and indirectly twenty percent or more."
The current issues with IP laws and industries that have traditionally gained all or most of their income from distribution of that IP are due to basic supply and demand. Since digital technology makes the supply of IP essentially infinite and demand is not similarly infinite, eventually prices will drop to production costs, which are lower than ever for most types of IP (music especially).
If as you state, 7% of our economy depends on control of IP, that needs to change before that market collapses (which it will do piracy or no) by changing the way IP is used to generate revenue and not by using laws to artificially support current business models in ways that punish law abiding behavior in the ways extensive DRM and the often discussed ISP download tax do.
Suggesting that content producers use their intellectual property to increase the value of scarce goods (i.e. concert tickets, merchandise, and high quality hard copies may not be a perfect solution, but it is one that has been shown to work repeatedly.
"If you cannot propose solutions and provide reasonable answers to what the consequences are, such suggestions are only harmful because they embolden people to think that stealing intellectual property is acceptable and that IP protections are bad. But, In fact without intellectual property and attendant protections, we will be flushing down seven or eight percent of our economy directly, and indirectly twenty percent or more."
The current issues with IP laws and industries that have traditionally gained all or most of their income from distribution of that IP are due to basic supply and demand. Since digital technology makes the supply of IP essentially infinite and demand is not similarly infinite, eventually prices will drop to production costs, which are lower than ever for most types of IP (music especially).
If as you state, 7% of our economy depends on control of IP, that needs to change before that market collapses (which it will do piracy or no) by changing the way IP is used to generate revenue and not by using laws to artificially support current business models in ways that punish law abiding behavior in the ways extensive DRM and the often discussed ISP download tax do.
Suggesting that content producers use their intellectual property to increase the value of scarce goods (i.e. concert tickets, merchandise, and high quality hard copies may not be a perfect solution, but it is one that has been shown to work repeatedly.
As long as science is progressing and useful arts are being created the law is doing it's job. However, in the current state the law is actually hindering that creating by placing overly burdensome barriers.
I can speak more to software, as I am a developer. Commodity software is of great value, but most of the tools and products I use are free specifically because they are infinite goods (much like music). The companies backing these products offer a myriad of other services that are not infinite (service, support, instruction, custom development). This is the market. If an artist doesn't want to bother with finding ways to make money in a market where music is an infinite good (which it is) then he is not going to make money (or much of it) for long. The work and effort put into something has nothing to do with what it can be sold for. You just can't change economics.
I'm not keen on the pop/rock/hip-hop music business-- classical's my thing-- perhaps someone can tell me whether classical musicians might actually benefit from all the trends discussed here? Aside from the mega-stars, copyright's not really much of an issue for your average regional symphony. I would think that a producer or packager of music from lesser-known symphonies and chamber orchestras would do a nice business online and through a variety of digital media.
These artists have enormously high fixed costs, or maybe capacity is a better way to think of it, and very little of this capacity is monetized. Why not start selling recordings of rehearsals, concerts, recitals etc-- esp as the market for these would be global and can be easily aggregated online?
Your Podunk Symphony might well be able to generate unit sales of a few thousand every day if they can sell @ maybe 1$-per-download to Asians and East Europeans. That's enough to keep a symphony in the black.
If so, I don't see what this has to do with copyright law. The main point here is that a work of art or science represents a unique EXPRESSION that is IDENTIFIED with the author of the work. We identify "Rhapsody in Blue" with Gershwin, not the friendly skies of United Airlines, which is why UA was required to license it from the Gershwin estate. If your software creation is a unique expression of your unique genius-- ie is identified with you as a developer-- then I'd guess that it merits similar protection.
But it sounds as though your view of software is that it's not so much a unique expression of a coherent product as a repackaging of "tools." We think of tools as generic, not identified with a craftsman. Hammers and nails don't merit copyright protection.
I don't see creative or performing arts as in any way akin to the production and sharing of generic "tools". Maybe DJs and hiphop 'artists' who cobble together different tracks come close to this model, but even then, I think the goal of the creator is to, as Robert Hughes put it, "make it new", ie something you can sign your name to.
The artist, whatever his art, seeks to create something that comes from deep inside his identity as an individual. He doesn't view himself as you seem to view your work, ie more like a stonemason wielding tools and piling blocks of others' carving on top of each other.
Not trying to be snarky, I just think these are different worlds, and I'd prefer to hear more from the artists themselves on this subject. Including writers and photographers and painters.
If people only create because of copyright, how do you explain the existence of ancient artifacts? It is the same thing we have today. People want to express themselves, and the content business is hijacking more and more legitimate channels of communication and self-expression because they feel it threatens their current businesses model. History has shown (read The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen) that big media companies will go down, and new upstarts will eat their lunch.
First the economic argument (which isn't directly related to copyright law, but more to the article). Yes, when I talk about an 'infinite good' I'm talking about something with a zero, or near zero, marginal cost of production. My point here is that any 'infinite good' will have it's price pushed to zero through basic supply and demand economics. I used software as an example because it's what I do. When I referred to tools that I use I'm talking about fully featured products that represent 10's or 100's of thousands of man hours in several cases. Major efforts by any measure and definitely fall under the protection of copyright. These products (that I called tools) have great value but due to economics have a price of zero. The companies creating these products find other ways to monetize the products and this is very much the same situation the music industry is in (regardless how much they fight against it).
From a legal standpoint, the law is in place to benefit society and doesn't care for the artist. The benefit to society is the creation of new works. As long as new works are being created the law is doing it's job. The current state is quite different as new work is regularly being stifled (in both science and art) by overly zealous copyright enforcement that stretches well beyond the original intent.
You said "The artist, whatever his art, seeks to create something that comes from deep inside his identity as an individual.", but that is only partially right. We are all influenced and inspired by what came before us in both science and art. The line between what is a derivative work and what is 'new' is rather fuzzy. Not to mention much of this is based on the idea that IP can be treated like real physical property which just isn't the case.
flv converter for mac supports set video output settings including resolution, frame rate, encoder, bit rate. Set audio output settings including sample rate, channel, encoder and bit rate.
well ,we got this youtube video converter for youtube fans to convert.
wmv to mp4 converter can also help you put WMV files to your iPod, Zune, PSP these potable devices.
mov converter for mac is currently one of the best conversion software program.avi converter for mac
الجاسوسات-العاب مسابقات-العاب
بنات-العاب فلاش-طبخ-العاب
اطفال-خطوط جديدة
العاب تلبيس-العاب
للبنات فقط-اكسسوارات-العاب
طبخ-العاب سيارات-صور
صدام حسين
العاب بنات فقط-العاب
بنات تلبيس-العاب للاطفال-العاب
بنات جديدة-العاب مكياج-للبنات
فقط
باربي-صدام
حسين-العاب باربي-العاب
البنات-صور حب-خطوط
صور سيارات-صور
اطفال-صور مضحكة-العاب
الاطفال-صور بنات-صور
مضحكه
العاب تلبيس بنات-صدام-الغاز-مسابقات-تواقيع-صور-معاني
الاسماء-صور ازهار-خطوط
انجليزية
صور زهور-تواقيع
للمنتديات-صور قلوب-صور
جبال-صور حزينه-تحميل
خطوط
صور تواقيع-العاب
ذكاء-صور توم وجيري-العاب
ديكور-العاب قص الشعر-العاب
الطبخ-الخطوط-قص
الشعر-العاب الطبخ الجديدة-توم
وجيري-بنات-ازياء-مكياج-العاب
طبخ جديدة-العاب الغاز-خطوط
عربية-العاب قص شعر-صور
صدام-لعب
العاب لعب-العاب
بنات فقط-العاب-العاب
اطفال-العاب اكشن-العاب
تركيز-العاب الصور-قص
شعر
العاب الغاز-العاب
الورق-العاب بنات-العاب
تعليميه-العاب ذكاء
العاب رماية-العاب
رياضية-العاب سباق-العاب
سهله-العاب طريفه
العاب فضاء-العاب
قتال-العاب كبار-العاب
سباق سيارات
العاب متميزة-العاب
مثيرة-العاب كرتون-العاب
سيارات-العاب مسلية
العاب مضحكة-العاب
صرقعة-العاب متنوعة-العاب
صوتية-العاب فلاش-العاب
للبنات فقط-لعبة توم وجيري-العاب
اكشن
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
phone sex
mootzie
cosmology
edvard munch
humorous quotations
hundredth monkey
brain teasers
jillian ann
shakespeare quotations
bride of frankenstein
gettysburg address
bill of rights
van gogh
bowling tips
violin books
eden prosper
julia dreyfus
violin bows
chess download
xslt
aviation
funny quotes
xslt tips
gothic abs
self hypnosis
gothic clothes
monique
olivia noda
amanda roberts
somethings happening
bgreen68
bfire3
reldeve links
psychology
hypnosis
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
phonesex
mootzie