Speaker: ACTA: Don't sell us down the river
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Fighting their customers. Suing their customers, in the case of the music industry. Refusing to release product that consumers want in the absence of supposedly-perfect protection against duplication in the case of the movie industry. They force people into downloading because they fail to deliver what is being sought.
And yes, without wanting to even search for it, if the best forgotten copyright thread established one thing it was that the demise of the record industry (as in the big record companies) could not be attributed to just one factor: piracy. There are a multitude of reason why sales plummeted in the 2000s (and indeed quite some data that argues that they haven't plummeted in the way IFPI and RIAA would have one believe, rather the customer has ceased to acquire in a way that provides quite the cash flow that recording giants were used to in years earlier), with piracy being just one part of the equation.
2009 has been something of a vintage year for new music, and almost none of it has been released by majors. Indeed, read through the lists of the best music of the 2000s appearing here there and everywhere and the one thing that sticks out is how little of it comes from the big labels...the ones who control the bodies screaming piracy.
I bet the kids are excited this week..Bon Jovi are number one in the US.....
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including whether it is right - and not just inevitable - that music films and books should be downloaded for free
What the hell is with you, and Paul, and your incessant repetition of the "downloaded for free" mantra? If you want this debate, you need to accept that people can, will, and do pay to get media off the internet. If iTunes was an abject failure, and eMusic had folded, I might be prepared to accept arguments that people don't want to pay when they can get it for free. However, we have real, solid evidence that shoots that proposition all to hell.
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I invoke the free market, for goodness sake, how can it be anything but ideological?
Except you don't even understand your own ideology; there is no free market in fixed expressions of ideas without the continual intervention of the state. We can't leave it `up to the free-market' because the free-market can be proven, and by entirely orthodox neo-classicist tools alone, to be unable to provide these things, unless the state intervenes constantly and drastically.
(If you don't believe in economics, which is an entirely defensible position, all very well, but then you can hardly invoke the `free-market'.)
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the customer has ceased to acquire in a way that provides quite the cash flow that recording giants were used to in years earlier
Indeed. No more CD singles, no more CD albums. Pick-and-mix off iTunes. No more paying $25 to get three good tracks from the 15 on a CD, the rest worthless except as filler. That is consumers speaking loudly, and clearly, as to how they wish to consume their music. The choice has mostly been made to give them what they wish, but it was not a choice made willingly and it is still a choice that does not sit easily with the major labels. Until they suck it up and deal with the fact that the world has changed, they will never really be open to exploring the possibilities that may come along in the future.
I bet the kids are excited this week..Bon Jovi are number one in the US
I bet the kids would be horrified to realise that Bon Jovi was last number one in the US before they were conceived :P
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In fact copyright is premised on the observation that the marginal costs of distribution may be next to zero
Um, if copyright wasn't designed to protect scarcity, why would it need to be introduced when the cost of duplicating a book had dropped to a very low value? Your argument makes no sense!
And btw, copyright, in itself, doesn't prevent "piracy". It simply allows the copyright holder certain legal rights to protect their IP once it's been copied.
To take it back to the topic, the problem with ACTA is that it protects copyright while removing fundamental rights of the consumer. It's core premise is guilty until proven innocent, and too bad if it destroys your livelihood, you shouldn't have been (accused of) downloading media!
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Um, if copyright wasn't designed to protect scarcity, why would it need to be introduced when the cost of duplicating a book had dropped to a very low value?
No, that's my point. Copyright is a reaction to a sudden plummeting in the marginal cost of books. Matthew's claim that the current copyright regime is outdated because of low marginal costs is the one that has severe issues with the historical record.
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We cannot foresee what will happen in the future. We do not know whether current technologies (including printed books) will continue- but we do know the latter last quite a while. Whereas I wouldnt give a battery's arse for the lifelength of a Kindle-
or, sadly, for a 'free' internet-
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If iTunes was an abject failure, and eMusic had folded, I might be prepared to accept arguments that people don't want to pay when they can get it for free. However, we have real, solid evidence that shoots that proposition all to hell.
Not for film.
Once again, let's not compare the music to the film industry in terms of the ability for artists to get their work out there. As I've pointed out, there are many reasons why they have very different issues involved with production, distribution and consumption.
On the subject of 'guesswork, modelling, and speculation' over the future of film distribution in the new medium, I'll take the educated variety any day of the week, and frankly, from what I can ascertain many people here don't seem to wholly aware of the realities of film production and distribution, whether the internet is involved or not.
Anyway, the reality is film overheads are not going to magically disappear and professional quality film will not be able to be sold for low prices on the internet to the extent music can. I've already given multiple examples of why the online distribution model is in big trouble in real life instances (no, not guesswork at all), as I've mentioned, the pioneers for the model are finding very little success, in large part due to piracy. And yes, Rich, I'm calling it piracy; words change and expand meaning over time.
But yes Matthew, no one is certain what will happen in the future
but I daresay it must be pleasant to be in the cosy situation of taking that position when your ability to be able to feed and clothe your children is not at stake. Unfortunately, many of us don't have that luxury.And even if you're not in the industry anyone who sees value in the art form ought to be pretty damn concerned too.
I'll also take issue with the logic that because it's a new technology it should be allowed to play out without regulation in the free market. Do we feel the same way about GE for instance?
At any rate if you're arguing for free use of the technology, I don't see how you can get away from the fact that piracy is actually limiting the ability for film-makers to take up the new technology, which is harming the free market rather than helping it.
And while we're on the subject of the free market debate, if we had a true free market, NZ film, and in fact 90% of 'independent' film wouldn't exist at all anyway. Anyone think that's a good thing?
Out of curiosity though, is there anywhere else you favor a purely unregulated market, or just in this one instance?
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But yes Matthew, no one is certain what will happen in the future
but I daresay it must be pleasant to be in the cosy situation of taking that position when your ability to be able to feed and clothe your children is not at stake. Unfortunately, many of us don't have that luxury.And even if you're not in the industry anyone who sees value in the art form ought to be pretty damn concerned too.
Thank you sir.
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Peter, once again, I don't know what to do about movies. How many times must I repeat the same message before it gets through to you? I have said that I know the costs of production are vastly different to music. You haven't made a single point that I have not accepted as fact when it comes to music not being equivalent to movies. Not one.
Also, again, the studios are having the same issue as the labels: unwillingness to accept anything less than a perfect solution to copying before they will enter the game. Which attempts at online distribution are you thinking of when you say they're "in real trouble... due to piracy"? Can you demonstrate that it's "piracy" (I hate that word, for the same reason Rich does), and not, say, consumers finding the offering underwhelming? Overpriced, afflicted with so much protection that it's inconvenient to use, and/or offering only a limited selection?
If you looked at the attempts of the music labels to enter the digital music market, you would've said that there was no way it could possibly fly. You probably would've blamed it on downloaders, too. Then iTunes came along, and eMusic, and totally blew that excuse away. eMusic had no copy protection whatsoever, and iTunes had stuff that was trivial to circumvent. Their pricing was good. Their selection was better than anything the labels could manage (at least in part because the labels weren't collaborating to offer anything from outside their own houses). They met the criteria for a successful digital offering: convenient, value-for-money, and with real depth to the selection, and they're both actually, objectively successful.Out of curiosity though, is there anywhere else you favor a purely unregulated market, or just in this one instance?
I'm against unregulated markets in general, yes. In this case, though, all the regulation is being passed in favour of one party and that is my objection. Consumers are being ignored, despite the fact that they are just as essential to a properly-functioning market as producers. If the regulation recognised that it's supposed to be an equal relationship, I would be less concerned. It's such an unbalanced situation, and the producers are still not happy, that I can only see leaving it to market forces as a solution.
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It's such an unbalanced situation, and the producers are still not happy, that I can only see leaving it to market forces as a solution.
You could make a reasonable argument that doing absolutely nothing is better than what we are hearing about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, yes. Still, if all we can muster in opposition to ACTA is "adapt or die" and "let's wait and see what happens", that's pretty damn poor.
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What the hell is with you, and Paul, and your incessant repetition of the "downloaded for free" mantra?
Torrents, dear boy, torrents.
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Except you don't even understand your own ideology; there is no free market in fixed expressions of ideas without the continual intervention of the state. We can't leave it `up to the free-market' because the free-market can be proven, and by entirely orthodox neo-classicist tools alone, to be unable to provide these things, unless the state intervenes constantly and drastically.
huh? How can it be a free market if the state must intervene "constantly and drastically"? That speaks to a very un-free market, both by logic and by economic definition.
We have no idea if there would be a proper free market for expression of ideas, because no such market has existed within modern economic principles. Copyright predates Smith. Though, thinking about it, one could argue that fine art auctions demonstrate that there absolutely is a perfectly-functioning free market in expression of ideas. Moreover, it is one that does not rely on copyright to enforce value, because all of the works of the old masters were outside any copyright term limits before the idea of copyright even existed. -
Though, thinking about it, one could argue that fine art auctions demonstrate that there absolutely is a perfectly-functioning free market in expression of ideas. Moreover, it is one that does not rely on copyright to enforce value, because all of the works of the old masters were outside any copyright term limits before the idea of copyright even existed.
Based on the fact that in that particular medium the original has supreme object-value. Which happens to be exactly the opposite of what happens in the digital. But carry on.
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But Paul, that is the entire extent of your position: That things can be downloaded for free, thus there is no paying market for those goods. That's crap, and I've proved it. So repeating, incessantly, "downloading for free", contributes nothing and ignores the evidence that people will pay for downloads provided that they are convenient, offer value-for-money, and are what the consumer wants. When it's $2/song to download, you can only play it on a Digital Nobodies 3000, and you have a selection that spans the range from Billy Ray Cyrus to NKOTB, it's not going to be a successful, high-demand service. That doesn't mean there's no market for paid music downloads, it just means that there's no market for over-priced, inconvenient downloads of crap music (no offence intended to Billy Ray or NKOTB fans).
iTunes makes lots of money. Billions of songs sold at 99c per is a veritable money tree. You cannot tell me that people won't pay for digital music when they can get it for free.
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...one could argue that fine art auctions demonstrate that there absolutely is a perfectly-functioning free market in expression of ideas.
One could so argue, but one would expose oneself as a fool by doing so. Perhaps one should attend an auction or so; perhaps one should see how the art market works.
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that is the entire extent of your position: That things can be downloaded for free, thus there is no paying market for those goods. That's crap, and I've proved it.
There you go again, making strawmen. Perhaps I was not paying attention when you proved the argument which I did not make was wrong.
My argument is that things are downloaded free, that some folks may pay for stuff but many others do not. It is wrong to take other folks' stuff. Copyright is not a form of serfdom but the means by which artists can protect their productions and earn income from them.
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huh? How can it be a free market if the state must intervene "constantly and drastically"? That speaks to a very un-free market, both by logic and by economic definition.
Watch! Let us consider the case of fish. The state defines a quota --- say, x fish per license. Then, if the state sells those licenses at auction, say, and the licenses are resalable, we then have a free market in fish-catching licenses, despite the fact that the fish-catching is only valuable as a figment of the the state's imagination. Then, let us go even further and observe that without the state's intervention, the fish stocks would be rapidly fished to depletion, at which point the supply of fish would stop*.
To be slightly shorter: free-markets often only exist when The Free Market is muzzled by the state.
This stuff is hardly controversial, it's the kind of rather dull crap that gets trotted out by orthodox academic economists whenever there's a resource management problem: markets in everything!
* in fact i suspect the neo-classical economist would prefer a slightly different set up here, but it'll do as an illustration.
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in fact i suspect the neo-classical economist
What's one of those? Do they feature Doric columns?
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Gio, it's as close to a real free market for artistic works as has been seen within our economic system. I know it's not much use as an indicator of what would happen if creativity were delivered up onto the slab of the free market, but it's all we have.
The biggest problem with digital is the payment modality. In the real world, payment is a well-known, thoroughly-considered system. The internet analogues of these are still being developed, complicated by currency conversion and all those other things that attend with a borderless economy in a world without a unified currency.
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You vaguely imagine a stern line-drawing wandering around saying how we should all go back to trading decorated pots and olive oil, and that'll solve all our problems!
No, a bog-standard orthodox academic economist, the sort that believes in rational actors and efficient markets and all that.
(The problem with your analogy to ptg is that of course the cost of producing another old master is the same as the first; very high marginal costs so really a truly shocking comparison. And anyway you aren't buying the expressed idea, you are buying the object.)
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Copyright is not a form of serfdom but the means by which artists can protect their productions and earn income from them.
You haven't been paying much attention to what actually happens with copyright, have you? Calling it serfdom isn't too far from the truth, especially in the work-for-hire category (which is where lyricists and composers tend to fall).
Please forgive my confusion. You keep on saying "downloading for free", and nothing more, leading me to believe that your entire position was that there is nobody willing to pay for goods online. Now that we've established that you do, actually, accept that people will pay for downloads, can we please move on to discussing how to make that model work instead of harping on about the downloaders*. Downloaders won't go away, no matter how much people try. That genie is out of the bottle, and cannot be returned. Better to figure out how to entice people to buy instead of download than to fight the losing battle of winding back the clock.
* What you would call pirates.
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Peter, once again, I don't know what to do about movies. How many times must I repeat the same message before it gets through to you? I have said that I know the costs of production are vastly different to music. You haven't made a single point that I have not accepted as fact when it comes to music not being equivalent to movies. Not one.
My apologies, though I must admit it does sometimes seem that your points regarding the viability of music production/distribution tend to bleed into arguments regarding the viability of distribution of copyright material *in general*. It may be an error of interpretation, but I suspect I wouldn't be the only one making it.
So, having established that, I take it we are now in agreement that film-makers may need some kind of protection? Like, let's say finding ways to limit 'downloaders'. No, of course, they'll never go away completely, just like people will always drive too fast, but that doesn't mean we ought to try and keep the numbers down as much as possible.
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Or do we define it as bringing depth and width to the pool of artists who can live on the income they get from being artists?
Man does not live by breadth alone...
the neo-classical economist...
What's one of those?
Do they feature Doric columns?I'm afraid they're all Capitalists
as in the heads of pillars (of society?)
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Um, if copyright wasn't designed to protect scarcity, why would it need to be introduced when the cost of duplicating a book had dropped to a very low value? Your argument makes no sense!
The cost of writing the book and producing the first copy is what costs lots of time/money. Copyright doesn't protect a particular book, which would only cost a few bucks to print, it protects what is written within in.
Can you demonstrate that it's "piracy" (I hate that word, for the same reason Rich does), and not, say, consumers finding the offering underwhelming? Overpriced, afflicted with so much protection that it's inconvenient to use, and/or offering only a limited selection?
Whatever the reason for doing it, it's still 'piracy'. I fail to see what's wrong with the term anyway, it was used with illegally copied software for many years before music and film downloading became common. One of the major sites which facilitates the activity is called 'Pirate Bay' after all.
Peter, once again, I don't know what to do about movies. How many times must I repeat the same message before it gets through to you? I have said that I know the costs of production are vastly different to music. You haven't made a single point that I have not accepted as fact when it comes to music not being equivalent to movies. Not one.
On this basis, musicians should drastically increase their costs of production and then you'd be looking for a different solution for them than 'adapt or die'.
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