Copyright laws

Except it's not a remotely burdensome restriction at all. What on earth do you need to repeat someone else's creative work verbatim for, versus doing it yourself?

I mean, repeating existing work verbatim makes perfect sense when it's scientific research or some other factual information people just discover instead of creating, where it makes no sense to, say, rediscover gravity yourself instead of repeating and then building on the existing discovery. But what possible need is there for repeating and copying creative work in its entirety verbatim, as opposed to just talking about it or coming up with your own work?

(Note that I'm referring to piracy proper; derivative works are a much thornier issue.)

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

It's not a thorny issue at all: Derivative works are speech and should be covered by free speech.

Then again, I'm a radical free speech, gun rights, privacy rights and personal autonomy nut. Most folks are more authoritarian than I am, and I sort of understand it.

edited 18th May '11 6:34:54 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

I had to run out yesterday, so I wanted to add some additional thoughts to this.

1. 1. There's actually a lot to the idea that a lot of the particular ethics of culture sharing..or to be more precise, the damage to the creator, has to do with the circumstances in which it exists. Lending a DVD you've already watched and have no intention of rewatching anytime soon to someone else is worse than lending a DVD which you might rebuy because you want to watch it again. Likewise, someone who pirates something for a personal collection that they watch all the time is way worse than someone who pirates something, watches it then deletes it, which is worse than someone who pirates something and then doesn't watch it at all.

2. 2. Wait what? Pirates something and then doesn't watch it at all? Yup. I actually think that the piracy problem is quite overblown. A large part of the domestic pirate torrent traffic, I think is actually a relatively small number of hoarders who in my experience surprisingly often don't watch/use all the stuff they download. Downloading in and of itself is the point of what they're doing. It's all very weird.

3. 3. Piracy IS a big deal outside of the 1st world. Mainly because things are prices right out of the range of the average person. They could try and be competitive, but then people in the 1st world could order the works for the much lower prices. This is not something I worry myself over. They made their choice, they have to live with it. Globalization bitches.

4. 4. Copyright is not about "not paying for what you consume". Copyright is about fraudulent packaging. This is why I disagree with Savage, copyright itself is not a free speech issue. Copyright MUST exist in order to prevent fraudulent packaging. The question is really if a download should be a violation of copyright. I think it should be, for large scale sharing but with the damages set at somewhere between 2x and 3x the actual cost of the work. (My beef actually isn't with the current fines. It's actually that we don't see arbitrarily large punishments for corporate crimes. I don't like the double standard). Sending a song to a friend is NOT an example of fraudulent packaging. Neither is something that is legally unavailable.

5. 5. Why is packaging so important? I personally believe that in certain sectors (music, movies, console games) used sales do vastly more damage to creators than piracy ever could. Why? As I said, I'm a strong believer in using multiple price points to maximize both sales and exposure to the content. One way of doing this is to have prices lower over time. So as the price lowers, people who thought that 20 was too much might buy it at 10. However, if they find the used copy, and buy it at 10, they're no longer in the market at 10. Essentially, a 10 dollar sale was lost. That's real money.

That's why I made the distinction at #1. Are there some pirates who download a cultural work who would pay for it? Sure. And that's a very unethical thing to do. That's an X dollar sale lost. But someone who watches it and deletes it..is that a sale lost? Eh. Maybe? Probably not. Maybe a rental, at most. But a rental, especially these days, is probably taking away a sale at certain price points, especially at the large chains. What is it, 7 for a new release rental at Blockbuster? If they were selling new releases at 10, I'm sure they'd get almost as many takers.

It's not that simple.

And that's my point. The damage to the creator is in terms of lost sales. And like it or not, a used sale/rental/loan is often just as damaging to the creator as if something was pirated. But these are an essential part of distributing culture. So it's all a balance. I just happen to see piracy as a useful way to ensure competition in the pseudo-monopoly of culture distribution.

And it works, or at least I think it works.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

It could also be a Value Added Tax on data storage devices, that would even more directly put the weight on the type people who are engaged in using digital content.

We currently have a system like that here, in Hungary, that (since as I said earlier, everyone is a pirate), there is a special tax on every CD, DVD, SD card, external HDD, mobile phone, PC, etc, anything with storage, and the incomes get distributed between artists by an organization called Artis Jus.

Of course, this being Hungary, downloading is still illegal anyways, plus since it's a small country with open borders, everyone just goes to Slovakia to buy cheaper untaxed stuff, and the market is screwed.

Oh, and probably Artis Jus doesn't really pay most of the money to the artists, because they are actually the mafia.

But I'm still sure that it would work in a better country, with better transparency, and more common sense.

edited 18th May '11 6:50:14 AM by EternalSeptember

Which is why your position confuses me. The idea that you own the things you create with your labor (including art) and thus have control over them is like Personal Autonomy 101. Describing repeating works verbatim as a free speech issue is also really, really stretching things. If you want to display a work, then yes, that's a speech issue — no one should be able to prevent you from legally acquiring a copy and then displaying it*

^{note: "legally" in this context means that if you plan on displaying it for large groups of people, then yes, you need a public performance license, not just a private viewing one}

— but I don't see how violating copyright by sharing a work counts as free speech in any meaningful sense.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yes, thank you for phrasing my viewpoint perhaps better than I have been.

Being against creator control and/or for forcing all creators into specific business models really feels hypocritical for anyone who professes to be all about personal autonomy.

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

Copyright arguments are like religion politics and abortion. Everyone chooses their first premises and then stealthily berates anyone that disagrees with them. I think I've already said, repeatedly, that I disagree with the notion that it is in any way harmful if you download something that there is no way you would have paid for it even if you didn't-no one has proven that it is harmful, they've just asserted that it is.

Practically speaking though, if you torrent something, you're also uploading it, which is harmful if people are downloading it and they otherwise would have bought it. I'll grant you that. But this is just a disagreement of first premises. Unless someone is able to point out a contradiction in holding the first premise to be true or false, I don't see any further room for real argument. It's just natter.

^I think as well it's a case where people are trying to make ideology and morality out of something that in reality is a lot more pragmatic than it first appears to me. Because to virtually all of us we're talking about a balance between the ability of a creator to make a living off their work vs. accessibility to content and culture. Different people strike the balance in different places, of course. But at least at some point we're all talking about a balance.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

That's certainly fair. I certainly acknowledge that the presence of digital piracy affects individuals buying habits in the aggregate, so even if individually, such and such person would never have bought work A even if it wasn't freely available for download, the free availability of downloads in the general case are what led him to that position. But that being said, tough luck-because you can copyright shit all you like and insist on hard-copy distribution in order to protect yourself, but Steam and other Digital Distribution models are going to devalue your content so hard, you won't be worrying about illegitimate competition-you'll be worrying only about the legitimate competition.

Essentially, in reality, piracy is not the problem. The notion of piracy shapes the market, but even if the actual piracy was not there, it would still shape the market.

Legitimate Digital Distribution, aside from being full of DRM'd crap, is not significantly less expensive than physical distribution.

At least, not much. The distributor (Steam) gets its cut. It's the publishers who need to die in a fire. There's no reason why the dev team wouldn't just deal directly with Steam, split the profits and be done with it.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Steam radically reduces the price of some game content. You could never sell a game in a box in a store for 10 bucks-the cost of paying those funny looking guys in funny looking hats alone would eat up all your profit margin.

And I'm guessing that a large part of it is that for more expensive games, they keep the prices artificially high in order to not compete with stores quite as much. Deliberate inefficiency I suppose. It's what happens when you have "Monopolistic Competition."

I can agree with that in theory, but the problem is that in practice it's impossible to determine whether every instance of piracy constitutes a lost sale or not. Obviously not every illegal download is a lost sale, but just as obviously, some illegal downloads are lost sales. Without being able to magically tell the difference, the best we can do is ban it all, since even if it's not actually causing monetary damage, you're still not entitled to a copy of someone else's work for free.

That said, I'm not advocating stupid-high penalties for copyright infringement. The instances of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines per infringement is intended to penalize businesses selling bootleg copies of stuff en masse for profit, not for use against individuals downloading stuff for private use. A penalty on the order of a speeding ticket would make more sense to me — though, admittedly, there's no good way to enforce it anyway.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

And that's what's happening more and more, is that the publishers are being bypassed and the developers are working directly with Steam. Which is why PC gaming IMO is going through a great resurgence in terms of quality and unique experiences over the last year or two.

And yeah, my argument isn't that piracy is good. It's that how the threat of piracy shapes the market...that's good.

Edit:I should add one thing. There are BAD ways that the "threat" of piracy shapes the market. DRM.

DRM isn't intended, usually to thwart pirates, at best it's a speedbump. It's intended to prevent people from making a copy of a work for friends and family. It kind of is totally ass-backwards if you think about it.

edited 18th May '11 10:36:48 AM by Karmakin

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

The thing is, you should be entitled to a copy for free. And artists should be entitled to be compensated for their work. And those two ideas aren't mutually exclusive; it's just that the mechanisms for their not being mutually exclusive basically fall into one of two camps:

1.) An imperfect solution whereby you're "supposed" to pay for content, and do occasionally, but not always (ala "What we got") OR 2.) The centralized body, which leads to some kind of futuristic communistic dystopia apparently.

The reason why you should be entitled to copies is because the copies are free-and in an ideal world, everything falls to marginal cost of production. In the same way that once we have replicators (lulz Star Trek) people shouldn't have to pay just to get apples.

Or to be more precise, you should be able to view the content for little/no cost (I think owning an actual copy is something a bit different). If that means that the movie studios, for example, are forced to put up ad-supported versions of new release movies, then so be it. We're all benefiting from another option.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Yeah, I can agree with that. Little/No Cost is the operative goal here, not "copying" per say.

Not that I don't believe you, but… Ahahaha, no, sorry, I don't believe you at all, try again.

Guess what all those had in common? The people they appealed to made a lousy market segment, either because they were too small, or unreceptive to advertising. Which means it's impossible to make a profit. Some similar shows can survive if they figure out how to make enough profit off their Periphery Demographic though, like Futurama.

Yeah, Screwed by the Network sucks, but the answer to that is creating networks that give their investments a fair shake, not killing TV. Adult Swim is something of a special case, as they've been specifically targeting external shows (I.E.: anime) for cancellation even if they have gigantic ratings and rake in a ton of cash, for the rather evil reason that they prefer to use Cartoon Network as a promotional vehicle for in-house shows so they can syndicate them later.

That would accomplish precisely nothing. You'd just be killing the art that needs copyright to survive, and leave everyone (rich and poor) with only the art that (even today) exists without copyright. In order to make copywritten art more accessible, what's needed is perhaps some kind of charity, subsidy, or special distribution, to effectively turn them into paying consumers.

Why? Nobody's forcing people to buy blockbuster games that need $50 sales prices over cheaper rinkydink productions. People make what sells.

I think I'd describe that the other way around. What Nintendo's complaining about isn't low-end games costing $1-5, what they're complaining about is when the attitude of cheapness and entitlement those games are creating in consumers of higher-end titles. Calls that VC games should all be $1, or that the next Zelda should be $10, it backs the industry into a corner, because it raises the expectation that all games should rely on phenomenal sales figures to compensate for unsustainable prices.

Aside from the culturally implanted Shoulder Angels chiding you for such thoughts.

Well, to maximize access to art, which includes maximizing the amount and quality of art that's produced. Balancing the two requires a certain tradeoff in access restriction.

Ethics aside, there's also practicality. No money, no art, no debate.

Work deserves proportional property rights. I mean, think of the difference between an actor and a lighting grip, you have to divvy things up by whose contribution is most disposable.

Y'know what else dates from that time? Mass copying. It simply wasn't an issue before then.

This already exists, it's called public art endowments (PBS's CPB is one such example,) though I agree they could use more funding. That said, copyright must continue alongside it, more choices are the best way.

Agreed, Steam is teh evulz.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Note that I'd add one proviso, which is that this only applies to the financial side of the artist's system, modding and hacking are fine so long as they don't cost the fellow (real or potential) money.

Corporations are people as too, just people hiding behind a made up name.

Every rap “song” I hear reenforces my opinion that derivative works should have as many restrictions as possible.

But are you sure, if the option of piracy wasn't there, you wouldn't be motivated to work harder, cut your consumption of less important art, and buy it anyway? That logic only applies if you're certain your answer would still be yes.

Which is why the idea of using parasitic 3rd party distributors and portals for digital distribution is retarded. Note to everyone: If you're about to buy something, check the original creator's website and see if you can order it direct for a similar price, if so, do, they'll get FAR more of your money, and you might get less DRM to boot.

Eric,

Economies of Scale ensures that incredibly specifically tailored networks are doomed to failure. DOOMED! I mean, look at how Sy Fy had to rebrand itself.

Also: I'm chronically unemployed dude. It's not about "working harder" or not. The world doesn't work like that. I can either be bored out of my mind, or not bored out of my mind. Those are the two choices-not "Spend more on entertainment" vs "Not spending money on entertainment."

And again, I concede the argument that the existence of digital piracy shapes aggregate buying habits-but the same is true of Webcomics and 1 dollar video games.

edited 18th May '11 11:05:41 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

1. You would be practically unable to find a job in the mainstream media industry as an animator, a scriptwriter, an actor, a programmer, game designer, or pretty much anything from any credits lists ever, without giving up that infamous, over-mystified "control" over your work.

You belittle every alternate method as they are "against author control", even if it eventually pays for the art through other means than copyright, yet paying to artists without copyright is more acceptable when at least the (completely redundant and irrelevant) publishing company still holds the copyrights?

2. "without compensation"? Please, could you finally stop this strawmanning? Somehow we always fall back to that ridiculous idea, as if all alternate method would essentially mean forcing artists to work as slaves, without any payment.

A statement that I agree with. creators need to have control over plagiarism, control to stop others selling their work, exclusive right for sequels within the brand, etc. Also, they should get desired compensation through at least a dozen legit methods.

The problem isn't that along with these you also want to see a control over allowing copies, and instead of a dozen, you would prefer to have a baker's dozen of legit incomes, with priced copies included.

The problem is, that you inherently treat these as "real" control over the work, and and everything less than that as "forcing the artists to create without sufficient compensation"

Why shouldn't "control" include control over allowing parodies? Or control over allowing any reference to the work anywhere else? Not to mention, that you already agreed that publishers should lose control under certain conditions. (if they abandon an IP).

The same about "desired compensation": Whether there are 12 or 13 ways to earn money from art, there are infinite others that aren't legit. As I said in the earlier example: Why isn't every creator automatically entitled to a pile of gold just for creating art? Why aren't they entitled to every viewer's firstborn son? Why aren't they entitled to get $1 every time someone says their work's title?

You just arbitarily decided that control over copies is the holy bastion of "COMPLETE CONTROL", and getting paid for copying is the holy bastion of "WHATEVER DESIRED COMPENSATION" the artists want, simply because this is the law and this is established right now.

Karmakin got it right, we should be talking about pragmatic reasons: Only you and Savage Heathen are throwing around ideologies and "rights", instead of logically discussing what would work out nowadays.

edited 18th May '11 11:35:10 AM by EternalSeptember

That actually is the case, kind of. Back when Galactic Civilizations II was coming out, I remember people asking Stardock why the direct downloads through their site cost the same as the boxed copies in stores. And the Stardock CEO basically said that if they undercut the stores with their own distribution, the stores would be unhappy and want to drop them, and the store presence was too valuable for gaining exposure to give it up.

I definitely agree that the punishments nowadays are way, way too high and unjust. Someone fined for piracy/file-sharing should, at most, only be forced to pay for actual damages.

Except that it's actually not selling, and the PC game market is very unhealthy at the moment due to that and other factors. That particular discussion is probably off-topic for this particular thread, though.

This I actually do agree with; there needs to be some kind of better provision for amateur, unofficial dervative works. (And possibly also a more accessible method of official derivative works, as well.) Derivative works =/= piracy, though.

Or three, be not bored out of your mind by using entertainment that's legimately and voluntarily free. I've been chronically unemployed for years myself, but I still manage to be sufficiently entertained without resorting to pirating everything.

Like I've said in repeated posts in this thread, I consider the fact that currently corporations can have copyright over things they didn't create to be a problem that needs fixing, so I don't know why you act like you're telling me something I don't know or catching me in some big logical contradiction here. Just because I feel copyright is a good idea in general doesn't mean I have to agree with every aspect of its current implementation, and indeed I do not.

It's not strawmanning, it's not being utterly naive about how people work in the real world. If you have copies available legally and morally for free, almost nobody is going to donate money to the creators. So, yes, artists will mostly be working without payment because a much, much smaller number of people will bother to compensate them.

Actually, I'm also logically discussing what would work out. You're the one turning my statements into strawmen statements I didn't even say. (Seriously, 3/4 of your most recent post has me going, "Dude, where the hell are you even getting this ridiculous crap out of what I said?" If you want to invent imaginary standpoints nobody actually said to debate against yourself for the hell of it, go ahead, but leave me out of it, please.)

edited 18th May '11 12:27:33 PM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

As a visual artist, I can safely say I have mixed feelings about copyright.

On the one handm, I support the idea of being paid for my effort, obviously.

On the other, I think shit like the RIAA is insanely draconic and sabotages the good parts of copyright in a blatant attempt to not work within the system like Steam or Itunes does to find a happy medium.

The PC game market is actually stomping all over other platforms right now, the problem is most of it's in the form of MMORPGs. I fear for the world if Blizzard launches a console MMO.

Eric,

The problem with a Console "wow" is it'd mean abamndoning most of what makles World Of Warcraft so popular with gamers. Namely the near completely free license to mod your UI with addons that increase functionality and perform all sorts of useful features.

Not to mention making it far harder to maintain an rp community because its far harder to talk via chat.

I admit I don't consider only one or two genres being successful, and rampant sequelitis, to be a sign of healthiness. (But then, I'm admittedly biased because I don't like MMOs or FPSs.)

edited 18th May '11 12:40:16 PM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

But that ultimately has nothing to do with digital piracy-if MM Os are what sell, then MM Os will be produced. It's legitimate consumption that's crowding out other genres, not digital piracy.

Also: Yeah, I prefer adventure games. I'm a huge fan of Tell Tale games. I've bought a lot of their products. You know, despite being unemployed and flat-broke.

edited 18th May '11 12:41:11 PM by TheyCallMeTomu