An idea instead of current piracy laws

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#481230 14-Jun-2011 22:36

tdgeek: ---Yeah all that file sharing is sure killing the music industry oh wait no it isn't... ---

I think you must have misread it. It says the music sales are going well, due to the ability of users to buy singles, and of online stores. It then goes on to imply, despite illegal file sharing,

You are still persisting with the belief that 1 download = 1 lost sale, which is simply not true at all.

There have always and will always be people who do things like: Watch the cricket from the roofs of houses around Eden park rather than buying a ticket and being closer in the stand OR hang around outside rock concerts listening to the music.

For these people the value of the paid experience hasn't surpassed the free lower quality experience.

The only way to capture some of that market is to make things cheaper, faster/more convenient or a better experience.

Historically trying to artificially restrict things just annoys everyone, doesn't win over these guys ^ and alienates your existing customers.

macuser

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#481231 14-Jun-2011 22:39

Ragnor:

But why should they get to access the content that you are making? They shouldn't unless you want to give it away. Maybe they can listen to a couple of ads, they probably don't care.

Not out to stop people grabbing a movie/song off a mate, but out to stop freeloaders. You know, the guys who download 20 new songs a night, listen to them once or twice, forget about them, and never think about going to the show.

Even if those 20 songs are from the most critically acclaimed artist you can think of.

tdgeek

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#481237 14-Jun-2011 22:52

---You are still persisting with the belief that 1 download = 1 lost sale, which is simply not true at all---

No, I'm not, and neither is that article that I quoted from which was your URL.

It merely says that sales are up, despite high filesharing.

Ragnor

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#481240 14-Jun-2011 22:59

tdgeek: ---You are still persisting with the belief that 1 download = 1 lost sale, which is simply not true at all---

No, I'm not, and neither is that article that I quoted from which was your URL.

It merely says that sales are up, despite high filesharing.

Maybe I read to much into it that you were implying they would be higher if there was no filesharing.

Ragnor

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#481245 14-Jun-2011 23:09

macuser:
Ragnor:

But why should they get to access the content that you are making? They shouldn't unless you want to give it away. Maybe they can listen to a couple of ads, they probably don't care.

Not out to stop people grabbing a movie/song off a mate, but out to stop freeloaders. You know, the guys who download 20 new songs a night, listen to them once or twice, forget about them, and never think about going to the show.

Even if those 20 songs are from the most critically acclaimed artist you can think of.

If you wanted to make a consistent pro copyright law you'd have to stop both the people copying a song off a mate and stop the freeloaders otherwise how do you draw the line it's just way too much of a grey area.

Therein lies the problem you start disrupting natural human sharing of culture.

The bottom line is content is not scarce these days it costs almost nothing to make an additional unit of anything digital.

In economics you need to understand the difference between the sunk cost to make something and the marginal cost to make another unit of it. Marginal cost is almost zero now and supply is infinite.

The price of things in a competitive market always comes down to the marginal cost + a bit of profit not the original sunk cost.

Physical distribution, middlemen and big labels are going south.. this is normal.. we didn't change the law to protect buggy whip makers when the car started making horses obsolete why are we doing it now for content owners.. particularly the middlemen part of the industry?

For most artists/creators obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy. Many artist online now make more money from a small number of big fans than a large number of average fans as with the former they don't have the huge costs of the record labels and middlemen taking their cut (usually the majority of the money).

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#481247 14-Jun-2011 23:12

---Maybe I read to much into it that you were implying they would be higher if there was no filesharing. ---

That is what the article implied. And I think everyone must agree with that. How much, we cannot say. If there were say 10,000 downloads of a new popular song, we don't know how many of those are lost sales. Maybe 80%, maybe 40%, maybe 15% Maybe 2%. But I do agree that it is not 1 to 1, nowhere near it.

With software, it would be really low. With OS it would be relatively high, we can't use Windows 95 for ever. Music, well we all have music cos we like it, so if we could not download it for free, we would buy an amount of it. With movies, if we could not download for free, I guess we would often rent it. But naturally those dudes who leech 300Gb a month or more of movies won't be buying/renting them, they could not afford it, or need to be unemployed to have the time to watch them. But the rightsholders will tally that up to give a big figure.

But surely you don't feel that filesharing does not affect revenue at all?

Ragnor

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#481249 14-Jun-2011 23:14

Personally for music I'm more likely to buy a song after having listened to it several times via radio, youtube or download.

I'm also way more likely to go to buy a ticket to a live gig for a band after a quick listen to their back catalogue whether it be on youtube or otherwise.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

tdgeek

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#481253 14-Jun-2011 23:22

---The bottom line is content is not scarce these days it costs almost nothing to make an additional unit of anything digital.---

I agree with many of your points. But the above one bothers me.True, the cost of selling you a song online is next to zero. That doesnt mean that you can therefore take it for free. They are running a business with real costs, such as creating the song, marketing the song, getting radio stations to play it, there are a lot of costs. The revenue is from sales. Happily in todays digital age, the cost of those saes are almost zero, but they are still sales that are to recover the expended real costs, and leave a profit.

So, while I disagree 100% with that one statement, there is another related issue. The selling cost of an online sale is often little less than a CD, a movie DVD, etc. It needs to It needs to be the hardware based RRP, less the shipping, packaging, and warehousing costs.

ScottStevensNZ

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#481300 15-Jun-2011 08:31

macuser:
It is a single target, but that target is the government, so they may have a little more power to stop it happening, and punish those who do.

Um no - governments do not react fast to technological change. And frankly, with the system proposed what you are more likely to get is a parallel internet. Think about it, world wide roll out of something like this - where exactly in the web stack are you going to put it? Does traffic that hits the web server at the host end have to decrypt and check against a master algorithm? If so, then who is going to pay for the extra capacity (SSL adds upto 30% CPU overhead)? If there is a lookup against a master register then where is that register held and how secure is it(think PSN - how much has that cost sony?)

I think one US government agency called a cyber attack an act of war.

You're kidding, right? You are seriously conflating a concerted attack on national infrastructure such as a power grid, air traffic control or military networks with cracking a system that ostensibly is put in place to protect copyright?

One problem with the first point is I (and many other industry people) charge a lot more for an international usage license for my images, than I do a regional or national usage license because there is so much more the media company will get out of it.

Frankly - tough. Its not up to technology to try and solve the problem with your business model, and it is certainly no reason to change a set of open standards to protect it either. Yes sure, IT should help solve a business problem but the fact is the internet evolves because it is out of any one single entities control and will remain so due to its very nature.

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1080p

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#481408 15-Jun-2011 12:08

The 'InternetID' concept will never work. I could easily log in with an InternetID and connect to a personal VPN and do all sorts of illegal things completely anonymously. The technical challenges surrounding this aren't great and there will always be a way to get around any kind of monitoring or auditing by a government.

Pressing the issue will result in deeper and deeper technical discussion which will eventually see that such a system could never be implemented without creating unacceptable privacy concerns or expending more money than would ever make it worth it. Consider that China has a national firewall locking down its citizens' every web visit but the main source of leaked Blu-ray content to the web are from that country. They regularly post films a month or more before their retail release with zero penalty simply because they have found a way to do so.

Implementing a system which stops people doing things that they want to do will always result in people circumventing the system. Providing a better option than piracy on the other hand will wipe it out almost completely.

As many people have stated before; there are *always* going to be people who infringe copyright in order to get access to free content. They are just the same as those who made and sold liquor during the prohibition in the USA. They are the same as people who smoke marijuana now despite it being illegal. They are the same as people who speed despite very heavy penalties if convicted.

Their reasons are many and varied, some do it because they can, others because of some ideological hang up. Some just because they want to save a buck or two or because it is a hobby. You will never be able to stop this group of people. Look at how much money and effort has gone into the speeding and drink driving campaigns; has it curbed a lot of speeding and drink driving? Yes. Are there still people who ignore all warning and penalty and do it anyway? Yes.

What we have at the moment is a large group of people in New Zealand who infringe copyright because it is much, much easier to source content this way than in the traditional way.

Consider a consumer searching for the film 'The Dreamers' directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309987/). The traditional way of finding that film would be going to your local DVD store and looking for it. They wouldn't find it for sale (I've looked) so they might think to go past their local DVD rental store and take a look:

http://civicvideo.co.nz/search.asp?CurrentPage=1&keywords=The+Dreamers&container=moviesdb

http://www.videoezy.co.nz/search?q=the+dreamers&activeFilter=movies

Nada.

The might think to search some online stores for the film.

http://www.marbecks.co.nz/
http://www.mightyape.co.nz/
iTunes Store.

They would have no luck there either. In frustration they might turn to online auction sites to see if anyone has a copy of the film they want to get rid of.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/
http://www.ebay.co.nz/

They would have luck with the final URL in being able to purchase the DVD from a US or UK seller and shipping would take between one and three weeks. Quality of the film, even legitimacy, aren't guaranteed however.

Compare that mess of an ordeal to the copyright infringer:

http://thepiratebay.org/search/the%20dreamers/0/99/200

Sorted. In fact, I can pick between downloading one for my iPod, my DVD player, my portable hard drive and with certain films high definition options as well.

The fact that this option is illegal matters less and less as consumers experience frustration is sourcing what it is that they want. The internet has given us limitless amounts of information with a few clicks; why should I jump through hoops just to see a film I am interested in?

Unfortunately this has been more or less the case since DVDs have been able to be released on the internet. You might think that in 10-12 years someone in one of these large media companies might have implemented a system allowing their customers easier or better access to what they want. Apparently not. And if so, not to countries outside of the United States or major European countries.

As a result they are having huge issues with a greater proportion of their potential customers choosing to infringe copyright over purchasing legally. This balance would shift dramatically back into their favour with a small amount of work by them. Simply open online stores allowing access to high quality downloads for a fair price. Embrace the internet and destroy things like regional content restrictions - they are the content producers and have *all* of the power in that scenario.

They will never stop those who infringe copyright just because they can but they will shift enough users to be laughing to the bank in spite of the infringers.

My tl;dr point is that arguing that we need to stop infringers by adding restrictions and accountability to the internet is an argument that is missing the point. The market is speaking; it wants an easier way to access content. Strengthening copyright law adding an InternetID, fining infringers will simply be turning on the garden hose to stop a bush fire.

tdgeek

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#481415 15-Jun-2011 12:22

1080P

You make very good points. I guess what we dont know is the mix between those who will speed/drinkdrive/download anyway. Those will do it anyway.

Whether the remainder download mainly becase they cannot locate the music/movie/software in stores here or online is another matter, we do not know.

If a term could go into the Act that the rightsholder will not assess a download if the content was never sent here physically, or is not available online, then that would remove this issue of "not sent to NZ or available online". Same applies to TV series that are not here, and boxed sets not eported here.

SaltyNZ

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#481423 15-Jun-2011 12:32

1080p: Strengthening copyright law adding an InternetID, fining infringers will simply be turning on the garden hose to stop a bush fire by pointing it in the opposite direction.

Fixed that for ya.

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These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

dontpanic42

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#481447 15-Jun-2011 13:30

Very well said 1080p. That sums up my thoughts and feelings on the matter 100%.

Ars has just posted a small article claiming that quite a few countries (including NZ, US, Sweden) have just shown support for the UN findings that cutting off the internet is in breach of human rights.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/us-nz-sweden-others-condemn-three-strikes-internet-laws.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

I really don't know how NZ is getting away with this bill/amendment/act. According to the UN, it is illegal.

tdgeek

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#481534 15-Jun-2011 17:09

The cutting off is put back 2 years, after that it won't happen

blakamin

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#481538 15-Jun-2011 17:15

Here's a fine example. I just heard about a book called "" Go the "EFF" to sleep"
It became a hit due to a PDF that went "wild"
Now they have a FREE audio-book... I cant get it though, because I live in NZ!
WTF? Glad there's no internet ID

Publishers, get your act together!

EDIT: cant post link to wikipedia due to T&Cs of GZ

not even as hyperlink

"was subject to an unintended viral marketing campaign after PDF copies of the book, presumably from advance copies sent to booksellers, were distributed via email. While the book was originally scheduled for release in October 2011, by the end of April the book had hit #2 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, and by May 12 the book was #1. In the meantime, the publishing date was moved up to June, and the publisher increased its first printing to 150,000 copies.Akashic, which acknowledged the importance of social media in popularizing the book ("it's a miracle from the heavens for us", is trying to prevent piracy of the book. The rights for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth were acquired by Canongate. The film rights have been optioned by Fox 2000."

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