Piracy
You see, this is what happens when Siobhan takes a break from blogging. All her displaced commentators, starved of insightful commentary, set up camp on my blog expecting me to nurture and encourage intelligent debate. Come on people, you know that's just not going to happen!
Regarding the download piracy debate that seemed to have evolved out of my discussion about TV yesterday...
I was going to get on my high horse about this today. In fact I had it re-shod especially with extra-high stiletto horse shoes. I had the blog entry all worked out in my head last night, but then I read the comments this morning and everyone else had made the points that I wanted to make. Which has kind of stolen my thunder somewhat.
The point I wanted to make was this. It really annoys me when I hear things like:
"I download TV shows off the net because I'm fed up off waiting for it to be shown in the UK."
or
"I download films off the net because I don't like sitting in a noisy cinema with a load of chavs to see the latest films."
Bollocks. You download stuff off the net because it's free, easy, and most importantly you're very unlikely to get caught.
Of course downloading a TV show or film is a quicker and more convenient way of acquiring it than finding a way to pay for it. If it wasn't, no-one would bother. Coming out with arguments like that is basically saying "stealing is a cheaper quicker way of getting stuff than paying for things."
Wow, really? Who'd have thought it!?
I'm not whiter than white in all this, I'm not taking the high ground. I've downloaded a few MP3s and TV shows before now, but the point is I've never tried to justify my actions as legitimate. If I'd have wanted to, I could have found a way of legally acquiring the same items. Even the rare ones. Or, in the case of shows that hadn't arrived in the UK yet, I could have waited.
What's wrong with waiting for stuff? Will the world come to an end if someone tells you the plot of a film before you get a chance to see it? Can't you find something else to do until the last episode of Six Feet Under comes on? Look, it's sunny outside!
There's only one real difference between downloading a file illegally and shoplifting a CD or DVD: the chance of getting caught. You're a lot more likely to be prosecuted for half-inching something from HMV than you are for downloading something on Bittorrent. The fear of getting caught is what stops many if not most people from shoplifting, and the ones that do shoplift don't tend to boast about the fact as if they've done something very clever and justifiable:
"Yeah, I nicked that Lord of the Rings trilogy DVD box set yesterday... I got fed up of waiting for it to come on TV, and of course I get to watch it whenever I want now."
To summarise, I'm not saying "downloading stuff you don't own is wrong and you're all going to hell," I'm just saying "do it if you like, but don't tell me about it as if you'd done a Good Thing."
(Looks down.)
Er... how did I get up here? Woooah... easy Lighting, you'll break a stiletto. Um... can someone find me a stepladder?
Regarding the download piracy debate that seemed to have evolved out of my discussion about TV yesterday...
I was going to get on my high horse about this today. In fact I had it re-shod especially with extra-high stiletto horse shoes. I had the blog entry all worked out in my head last night, but then I read the comments this morning and everyone else had made the points that I wanted to make. Which has kind of stolen my thunder somewhat.
The point I wanted to make was this. It really annoys me when I hear things like:
"I download TV shows off the net because I'm fed up off waiting for it to be shown in the UK."
or
"I download films off the net because I don't like sitting in a noisy cinema with a load of chavs to see the latest films."
Bollocks. You download stuff off the net because it's free, easy, and most importantly you're very unlikely to get caught.
Of course downloading a TV show or film is a quicker and more convenient way of acquiring it than finding a way to pay for it. If it wasn't, no-one would bother. Coming out with arguments like that is basically saying "stealing is a cheaper quicker way of getting stuff than paying for things."
Wow, really? Who'd have thought it!?
I'm not whiter than white in all this, I'm not taking the high ground. I've downloaded a few MP3s and TV shows before now, but the point is I've never tried to justify my actions as legitimate. If I'd have wanted to, I could have found a way of legally acquiring the same items. Even the rare ones. Or, in the case of shows that hadn't arrived in the UK yet, I could have waited.
What's wrong with waiting for stuff? Will the world come to an end if someone tells you the plot of a film before you get a chance to see it? Can't you find something else to do until the last episode of Six Feet Under comes on? Look, it's sunny outside!
There's only one real difference between downloading a file illegally and shoplifting a CD or DVD: the chance of getting caught. You're a lot more likely to be prosecuted for half-inching something from HMV than you are for downloading something on Bittorrent. The fear of getting caught is what stops many if not most people from shoplifting, and the ones that do shoplift don't tend to boast about the fact as if they've done something very clever and justifiable:
"Yeah, I nicked that Lord of the Rings trilogy DVD box set yesterday... I got fed up of waiting for it to come on TV, and of course I get to watch it whenever I want now."
To summarise, I'm not saying "downloading stuff you don't own is wrong and you're all going to hell," I'm just saying "do it if you like, but don't tell me about it as if you'd done a Good Thing."
(Looks down.)
Er... how did I get up here? Woooah... easy Lighting, you'll break a stiletto. Um... can someone find me a stepladder?
I'm right with you on the downloading debate...A friend of mine has been downloading stuff for years; DVDs, CDs, computer games. He'll come round, and the conversation will usually go...
"I really want to see the new Charlie & the Factory film"
"I'll get you a copy...Saw it weeks ago"
"Erm, no thanks...I'd rather watch it at the cinema"
I'm a bit sad like that...I LIKE going to the cinema, I LIKE owning a CD or DVD, I LIKE the little booklets that come with them, I'd also LIKE to watch an episode 'LOST' every week, instead of spending a whole week watching the entire series. If someone lends me a book that I really enjoy, I'll even go out and buy my own copy after I've read it!!!
I only entended on leaving a little comment...Think that high horse is catching!!!
Wow, really? Who'd have thought it!?"
Yes it's an obvious argument, but the point is that downloading/stealing has become far easier specifically *because* of the culture industry's failure to keep up by providing legitimate downloading services.
I wasn't trying to justify downloading or stealing, merely pointing out that we're in an interim period - downloading video is where music downloads were five years ago. At the moment the situation is like driving 30 miles to the supermarket to buy an apple, because the apple grower in the field next door for some pig ignorrant reason won't sell direct!!
Just to be controversial I will put my neck out and say that illegal downloading is a Great Thing. Without the pressure that Napster put on the music industry, I doubt very much we would have iTunes et al now. Big business doesn't like change and five years ago the music industry had too much money invested in CDs to abandon them to formatless MP3s. Back then what do you think Sony would prefer? For people to buy their music on MP3 and play on computer more likely at the time to be purchased from an unrelated company, or to by a CD manufactured in their own pressing plant and take it home to play most likely on a Sony CD player?
Although the morality is debatable, illegal downloading has strong armed an industry stuck using old distribution technologies into moving on. Television is a dying format and the sooner it is killed the better. When we can legally download Lost minus the adverts every five minutes and without any cuts I will be happy! (Well, okay it's not the be all and end all of my life, but y'know I want to know what's down that goddamn h***h!)
Re: "There's only one real difference between downloading a file illegally and shoplifting a CD or DVD: the chance of getting caught."
I disagree. There are two differences - that's one, the other is the cost of reproduction. One has a provable, direct loss, the other doesn't unless you assume that everyone that downloads would have otherwise paid. Freeload now, buy the DVD boxset with super surround sound and pointless extras later later! Screw the f**king adverts... At least that way there is an incentive for TV executives to make decent programs.
Surely it's a little cynical to say that people only download because it's free and easy to get away with? I expect most of us here have freeloaded at some point, but have any of us stopped buying music, games, books, etc...? Probably not. People that shoplift are more likely to be doing it to fund drug habits than because they are impatient Lord of the Rings fans.
At present, people freeload what is easy to download and buy what is difficult. In the short term this may result in lost revenue, but in the long term it will either force the industry to provide legit download services or move to formats that are more difficult to copy - ie, stereo music on CD may slowly die out because they are easy to copy, but 5.1 surround DVDs will take over because they are not so easily copied or ripped. To use an obvious analogy: is it a bad thing that a load of monks were put out of business by the invention of the printing press? What about all the jobs and opportunities the printing press created?
At the end of the day, when people have a disposable income at the end of the month, chances are it will get spent on something. Whether it gets spent on a video game, book, music, television license/subscription is largely irrelevant to the culture industries when you consider that something like 85% are owned by one of five corporations.
If you just think that straight and simple, as in "do it if you can but don't if you 'll get caught" and turn it into a morality issue, you 'll miss the point. Which is, we 're all trying to trade here, right? The companies want our money and we want entertainment. And nothing in life is free- even if you just download stuff, you have to pay for a connection (not much, but sufficiently to make your provider a successful enterprise which comes under the heading of "enough"), you generate cash for the owners of the site/software that lets you download the loot, and you generally participate in a whole economic structure... I 'm serious about this... saying "I don't pay anything for music because I download it" is like saying "I don't pollute the environment because I don't own a car". It's ignoring the economy you 're part of, and support.
The thing with pirated audio/video is that it makes it easier for people to choose what they want from a product and keep just that. For example, if you go buy a CD from a record store just for that one single the radio's earwashed you with, but have to pay for the packaging and a bunch of crappy filler songs you 've never heard, you 've been ripped-off, and that's just what the record companies want to protect: their right to take your money for stuff you don't need. People who really like an artists' job go get the real thing, case in point, the underground Black Metal scene. The bands there are too independent and too poor to press charges against anyone sharing their stuff, but people who are interested in their stuff in the first place don't care about sharing because they want the whole work: the covers, the lyrics, the bands' pics, everything and in the original, collectible form. So they actually go into all the trouble to order/ buy the CDs. Because they *want* them. It's really a case of selling better content, instead of pricier embalage.
So I don't agree with your cynical view: people *will* pay for quality and they 'll pay for it gladly and with a degree of pride, which they won't be able to enjoy with a free ride. Conversely, the companie's greed makes people feel like suckers, it makes them feel they 're being treated as idiots who can't tell crap from good, and it doesn't help anyone's bussiness- it hurts it. Music is not supposed to be a luxury good, part of whose value depends on its' price! People don't buy it because it's expensive or cheap, they buy it because they like it. And the same thing goes for video.
With software in particular, having the ability to find cracked versions of extremely costly products, like, just conversationally, Maya for example, or CuBase, or even less expensive but more ubiquitous ones, like dear old Phshop or Office, is actually good for the companies that produce them, in the long term. I mean, if a program is not affordable by the people who wish to learn it, a lot fewer people are going to be able to, and then a lot fewer people are going to be able to use it professionally, which is how the software is meant to be used and meant to be sold too. And professionals always *have* to buy the software they use... unless they 're terminally dumb... So, in this case, more copies cracked means more copies sold.
I think the problem of licence owners is that they don't understand how to use their properties to make money without nagging people. Did the Tolkien estate demand copyrights from Gygax for using Orks in D&D? They probably sold one third more books than they 'd have, thanks to him ...
Anyway, if there wasn't free media around, there would be much less hardware and a lot less gains for the hardware industry... and that much less industry. Think how successful would have the PS been if it wasn't chippable. If you knew you 'd be stuck with a game a month, right? Like with those other consoles with the cartridges (pah)! Or, how many PCs would sell if everybody and their uncle Lilly didn't run pirated Windows... come to think of it, if it wasn't for piracy, Bill Gates wouldn't be where he is now... nobody would be running windows if they had to pay for them...!
And in the way of the compulsory comedy relief, it just occured to me that this was originally an argument about free TV/CDs. On a TV/CD's blog. O-ley!
i 'll go blog about, uh... about... um...
I 'll go blog about The War on Iraq!!!!
(more comedy relief)
Accepted point Marcia, and actually I agreed with everything you wrote yesterday. You didn't come across as someone who boasts about all the stuff they've downloaded as if it was somehow big or clever, which is what I hate.
"Just to be controversial I will put my neck out and say that illegal downloading is a Great Thing. Without the pressure that Napster put on the music industry, I doubt very much we would have iTunes et al now."
I guess all new things go through a stage where by the very fact that they're new means the law is blurry. When Napster came along there weren't many explicit laws against it. Napster didn't set out to break the law, it just set out to exploit the potential of the MP3 format. The point is that now the current sharing behemoths ARE setting out to make it possible to break the law, in my opinion. None of them stay put for very long, because they've deliberately made themselves a moving target.
"When we can legally download Lost minus the adverts every five minutes and without any cuts I will be happy!"
But the adverts are what pays for the program... will you be happy to pay for it? That's the thing, I think that 99% of the illegal downloading that's going on is for things that people would NEVER pay for. They just get it because they can, for free.
"Television is a dying format and the sooner it is killed the better."
Couldn't disagree more. I love good TV. See my blog entry a couple of days ago.
Okay... imagine what a world would be like with no TV. Take Lost for example. Leaving aside the question of if it's any good or not, would a serial drama like that even be MADE if it didn't have TV as a medium to exist on? I think it's unlikely.
But i don't think film downloads will kill TV, any more than MP3 downloads have killed Radio. There'll always be a place for the kind of entertainment TV provides.
Your arguments tend to suggest that we could get rid of the "monks" of the digital age... the content providers... and the quality wouldn't suffer. I think it would. To make great entertainment takes skilled individuals in a well-funded enviroment. And at the moment no-one has come up with a replacement for the funding they use at the moment: licence fees, subscriptions and advertising. We already have the means for most anyone to make a radio or TV program and distribute it digitally. But how much of the home-made stuff is actually any GOOD?
It's NOT NECCESSARILLY a Bad Thing to download stuff off the net. But my jury is out that it's going to be a Good Thing in the long term.
It IS a Bad Thing to make out you're some kind of fucking modern-day Robin Hood just because you've just downloaded the next 20 episodes of Nip/Tuck to your hard drive.
'Nuff said. ;-)
Stassa - i'd comment on your blog but when I click on your name in the comments area it says your blogger profile is hidden! :)
And I must agree with Rachel, life is just too short.
However, if daylight robbery is more your thing...
How about the pernicious Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB mobsters stealing all the good programmes first and then charging an extortionate price to watch it.... Hey I feel a blog coming on LOL
In addition they sometimes show programmes months after the US does (Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica isnt on until Jan next year!).
Channel 4 is even worse and have been sitting on Lost for months. And no idea when Season 6 of The West Wing will be on (the R2 dvd is out quicker ffs!!)
Finally I peruse a lot of sites that discuss the US shows after they have been aired.
So yes I download US tv shows I want to see. I remember hearing about a show called Las Vegas a couple of years ago. I had no idea if it was ever going to be on over here so I downloaded it.
I don't download films as I would rather either watch them at the cinema or when they are shown on Sky Movies.
I don't download games either.
So call me a thief if you want, but I am not stealing from anyone!
Connie
Oh but you are Connie! :-) You're not watching the adverts which pay for the programme as well as your sky subs. And the potential money the DVD-makers could have made from you waiting and buying the DVD.
Piracy is stealing and copying stuff from illegal online sources is piracy.
As I said, it's not necessarily a totally "bad thing" that people are doing it, but rather than saying "i'm not stealing", which isn't true, you should be saying "i'm stealing for these reasons..." :-)
And THAT is enuff said! :)
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