Piracy - Industries created by Theft
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Examples of piracy that created enormous businesses, leading to hardware and software innovation. Stealing is never the right thing to do, but...
The piano roll created during the last decade of the 19th century resulted in sheet music being copied from the great composers. It was a big industry in the early 1900s. Outright theft...
Cable TV was theft of television programs being broadcast into viewer's homes, but it increased the demand for better televisions while creating a new industry that continues to thrive.
VCR tapes were copies of movies stolen from cinemas and production companies, yet this created a demand for tape decks and better speaker systems. The days of VCR tapes are ending, but the innovation continues.
CDs were illegally cloned and sold overseas for enormous profits in the early years, but the industry exploded as people demanded a way to listen in their automobile, while walking around, and at home. CD players replaced the tape decks (My 8-track and cassette players still work fine). Portable handhelds have captured the market, by combining music player, camera, video recorder, telephone, and computer into a pocket-sized product. Your very own doctor, mechanic, restaurant hostess, yellow pages, and travel agent sitting right there in your pocket.
Creativity will always be with us, and the theft of new works of art will continue, especially in the photography, book, gaming, software, and music industries. But, just imagine what this sharing by pirates will cause us to create in the future.
As a side note, many people compare piracy to in-store browsing, rather than thinking of it as outright stealing. The desire is to check things out to determine if it's worth buying, which is why I support and have helped create free streaming of music and spoken books, pick-your-own-food farms, seed sharing cooperatives, private sovereign communites, free bicycle kiosks in cities, and will continue to search out other worthy projects.
Where is the next great business model that will likely be based on theft? What new industries can be created by these modern-day pirates? Only time will tell, but the banking industry is in our crosshairs!
Copying is *not* theft: http://freakonomics.com/2012/04/02/copying-is-not-theft/ (Gnash can read the video at the bottom).
Copying supports sharing. It is fundamentally good. "Pirates" attack ships. That is very bad. We should not use the same term to denote people sharing their culture!
If the arts need to be subsided, we can have a tax (e.g., on Internet connection) or, better, a compulsory Flattr system (so that everybody can decide who deserves an incentive to create more) that would distribute the money more equally than today (today only a tiny portion of the artists can make a living and superstars have far too much money). Prohibiting sharing is fundamentally bad.
That said, violating the law cannot be said good either.
PS: this topic was discussed a lot in this forum... I'd rather not have GNUser insult the rest of us again.
Had a crew of real pirates come aboard on two different occasions, but they only wanted rum and food. They were actually pretty nice guys compared to politicians. HaHa
Thanks, the comments on that article were entertaining!
Check out the math in this video of Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod | Video on TED.com
http://video.ted.com/talk/podcast/2012/None/RobReid_2012.mp4
GNUser seems like a nice young chap, but he does get excited at times. :-)
Indeed. If you want to read him (and the rest of us), you can start here: https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/how-do-you-get-your-movies?page=1#comment-39319
The "Copyright Math" video you linked to really is funny. :-) Too sad many people actually ignore the many independent studies that all show the positive impact of Internet on the culture and believe what the "content industry" claims (even if it totally absurd as shown in the video).
Here are some pointers to studies describing the factual reality: http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/studies-on-the-cultural-sector-in-the-file-sharing-era/
In fact, courts have grown tired of the false and dishonest rhetoric from the copyright industry. The Florida federal court has even explicitly banned the copyright industry from using words such as "piracy", "theft" and "stealing": http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-theft-terms-in-hotfile-trial-131129/
Whatever copying is called, it isn't a right unless the author is giving the work away. Try writing a video game or a book and then have someone come and insist they have a right to a copy of it. Have they made a similar effort? I think piracy refers to unauthorized mass distribution of copies, usually for profit. As for taxes, I prefer to have a say in what they get spent on.
Everybody should have that right. At least non-commercially and without the right to modify (although, with software including the functional parts of video games, those rights should always be conceded).
What about the effort put into software? With the exact same rationale (i.e., without any additional argument) you would conclude that software should not have freedom 2 (the freedom to redistribute copies). Given your nickname and the mere fact you are on this forum, I doubt your would agree!
I have to agree with Freedomoftheopencode. Having the right to share something that the creator doesn't want to be shared freely is not a right at all. I prefer not to use content that restrict me if I have to, that's why I prefer independent creations that are shared with free licenses or with public domain license. I actually wish Public Domain would be so defended as piracy is these days... In my country there are political parties that (maybe with other interests, but whatever) are defending piracy. They don't care about the fact that it takes decades for a work to get into the public domain, they want people to disrespect copyright and share things anyway.
Distributing copies of a program is competition. Copyright is a monopoly. You probably wouldn't say that AT&T deserves a monopoly on phone service, or that it's awful for other phone companies to offer phone service, depriving AT&T of income.
It's work to write a book, and almost no work to copy a book, but that doesn't mean the author has been wronged when the book is copied and he doesn't make as much money as a result. It just means that depending on selling copies to make money is an incredibly stupid business decision that shouldn't work in a capitalist economy.
I am a member!
"It just means that depending on selling copies to make money is an incredibly stupid business decision that shouldn't work in a capitalist economy."
Thank you. This is basically what I wish people could accept.
The rest of the argument (motivation,compensation,productivity, etc) is just a failure of imagination. The biggest innovation being held back by copyright laws (and Ill throw in patents, too) is innovation in business practices that would come if it is repealed.
The crowdfunding websites and bountysource are decent prototypes of just a couple possibilities. The biggest obstacles these models face, I think, is that interest and funding is misdirected to businesses operating on the copyright model.
You could just as well say that writing software in the hope of getting donations is an incredibly stupid business decision. But I think the real danger is software patents. These could even threaten open source. Parasites operating protection rackets that inhibit progress.
The words piracy and theft are too extreme.
The appropriate concept is called illegal copy.
Which is not established by media companies, are not the law!
If the use (copying, distribution, etc.) Of any multimedia object, is unlawful, it determines the local laws of the country where every person alive.
For example, in my country it is not illegal to use any audio or video and no copyright is violated, provided that such use is nonprofit (personal use of media).
The only countries with very severe or laws issued by large companies, are the USA, Japan and England (Thank God).
Apart from digital piracy in the television/movie and offline niche, there are different sorts of piracy happening in online marketplace. Most of the webmaster had to suffer from online piracy, content theft, and data scraping problems in online atmosphere. These types of techniques are mainly used by the hackers or by the one who want take the monitory profit of your hard labor. However, it is important to have a security suite on in online as well as offline network that can protect user/owner from pirates. Using Copyrights, data security services such as ScrapeSentry, filing up Google/DMCA complains can do the magic. However, in every network it is important to have a strong headed opinion and word on data usage as well as privacy.
Apart from digital piracy in the television/movie and offline niche, there are different sorts of piracy happening in online marketplace. Most of the webmaster had to suffer from online piracy, content theft, and data scraping problems in online atmosphere. These types of techniques are mainly used by the hackers or by the one who want take the monitory profit of your hard labor. However, it is important to have a security suite on in online as well as offline network that can protect user/owner from pirates. Using Copyrights, data security services such as ScrapeSentry, filing up Google/DMCA complains can do the magic. However, in every network it is important to have a strong headed opinion and word on data usage as well as privacy.
A video game is software. I have written software for a living, and still do, but I only if I'm paid to (in which case it doesn't belong to me). Now I use my skills to write free and open source software for the benefit of the community. I get a good feeling from that, just as I do from giving birthday presents, but if someone insists they have a right to that present then the good feeling is lost.
It is true that unauthorized copying is not theft in the sense that you are not depriving the original author of their copy, but you are depriving them of their income.
Let's not confuse the original author with publishing companies that pay the author a pittance while keeping huge profits for themselves.
That is actually a very good and clear explanation of the whole "piracy vs sharing vs illegal sharing" thing. I never thought of explaining things like that, good job :)
The fact that somebody makes money through a given activity does not make that activity ethical. Sure, preventing people to share their culture makes money (mainly to Universal, Sony, Warner, etc.). Robbing people makes money too. In my opinion, none of them is ethical, i.e., the law should prohibit both of them.
There are ethical ways to make money. Free software support is the most thriving segment of the IT industry. There could be a tax on Internet connections that would be reversed to people producing works that are shared on the Internet. Some kind of compulsory Flattr would be great. I would love to help the journalist who wrote an article I loved, the developers of a free software program I use on a daily basis, the bands I like, etc... as far as the money goes to them and not the largely useless intermediates I mentioned above!
And many works are achieved without any money incentive. Many videos on YouTube (including remixes despite their illegality w.r.t. copyright) show it. Not to mention the master pieces that were produced before copyright even existed.
The day there will be no Art will be the day humankind ends. The day sharing will be made legal will not make any significant difference in the artistic production. 99% of the artists make *no* money on copies that are sold. On the other hand, the money artists made through live performances is not insignificant... and people go more and more to shows, they go more and more to the cinema too, they play more and more massively multi-player games (with paid subscriptions), etc.
That said, and as I wrote in conclusion of my first message in this post:
Violating the law cannot be said good either.
I am criticizing the law. Not telling people it is OK to violate it.
I hadn't considered the ethical aspect of creating copyrighted works, and I'll have to think about this. As far as I know, I haven't produced anything for years that has been copyrighted. I do buy copyrighted works though, and this could be viewed as supporting an unethical industry. On the other hand, it would be difficult to manage without good video games, books, and even a mobile phone which has a licensed, copyrighted chip design inside it. Maybe it's true that things are not so black and white.
Large forum posts and emails, essays, blog posts, drawings, and other similar things are all copyrighted, so you've probably produced works that are copyrighted recently.
I have given this some thought now. First of all, a bit about my user name: I understand the difference between free software and open source, and my user name indicates that my primary concern is freedom, while acknowledging that open source goes a long way towards ensuring this. It is also a play on the phrase “freedom of the open road”.
On the ethics of copyrighting, I don't think that copyright is unethical in itself, but it gets used in an unethical way. Taking as an example the writing of a video game by an individual programmer, it takes hundreds of hours of work. This can only be done during evenings and weekends because the programmer needs to earn a living too. It may be art but it is real work too, so why would the programmer want to spend all their own time doing this when they could be relaxing and playing video games instead? There needs to be a financial incentive to keep them at it long enough. The options are either to sell it outright for more than any single gamer would pay for it, or else sell multiple copies for royalties while retaining the rights. That way at least the cost is shared among buyers. No one has to buy it, and why would they unless it is much better than anything that is cost free?
I write free software in order to give something back to the community in return for all the free software that others have written, but I won't spend all my free time doing it. I just do what I want to and when I feel like it.
Where copyright becomes unethical is where publishers get involved. In the past they provided a real, physical product with up front costs and risk by printing books, for example. [RANT] Now that we have the internet they may find their livelyhoods threatened, so they lock down the creative works and ruthlessly persecute anyone they fear threatens their interests. Then the warez d00dz come along and make the situation worse for everyone. They rationalise their unauthorised copying as a response to publishers' unethical behaviour, and give the publishers a justification for theirs. Now even harmless game console homebrew writers cannot develop software for the hardware that they have paid for. [/RANT]
As for calling unauthorised copiers “pirates”, this is what many of them proudly call themselves, even using the skull and crossbones flag as their symbol.
The premises of your argumentation are wrong:
- Today, most of the work put into free software is paid by some companies (think of the Linux kernel for instance, of OpenStack, of MySQL, etc.). Developers do not (necessarily) spend their free times on free software. Some do. Mostly because it is fun to code whatever you want (no boss).
- Today, a lot of the money that goes into the video game industry is from subscriptions to online games. The client can be free software. See Ryzom for instance (whose client has *always* been free and, now, so is the server-side).
- Besides, I doubt the actual developers/artists/designers's pockets see any difference w.r.t. the number of sold copies. They only receive a fixed salary.
Anyway, that is not my point. My point is:
"Preventing non-commercial sharing must be legal for obvious ethical reasons (sharing is good). If desired by the people (assuming a democratic state), *any* work distributed through the Internet can be financed in a different way (e.g., a compulsory Flattr system). Money would very probably be better distributed among the real actors (today, almost no artist makes a living from her Art). Video games are included in that vision which is simple to implement (for comparison, try to understand how the money of radio stations is distributed to the "music industry"!).".
The problem is that competition exhorts us not to share. By default, "I don't want to share. It's my property. It's my source of income."
Copying shows the absurdity of property and money.
In a context where we share everything, theft doesn't exist, sharing and copying are no problems.
Unfortunately, many people expect something in exchange. But maybe we underestimate the number of people who want to share their work, and to let the users free to copy and share this work. Now we have the free softwares, the GPL license, the Creative Commons licenses.
Would be good that the works are by default in public domain.
If you ask me, when the greedy corporations created the term "piracy" in an attempt to make it look bad. All they really did was created a new definition that looks good and ethical, which is pretty much the opposite effect of what the greedy corporations were trying to achieve.
Is funny, I know of some "sea pirates" that are actually in the bottom of the Indian Sea, Thanks to the Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle.
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