Posts by Peter Cox
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One of the problems with the "can't make money selling movies on the internet" line is that is seems to assume that the internet is the only way to sell movies
Pretty sure no one ever claimed anything of the sort.
. But I also think that in the case of indies they're far less of an issue. When a movie costs $10m to make, if you can get a million people to buy it at $10 you've recouped all your costs. $10 is not outside the realms of reasonable for something that's convenient to watch and easy to find.
That's exactly what the guy who made 'Tormented' thought.
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Addition FYI, on the French law:
the law, which will set up a new regulatory body with the power to investigate suspected illegal downloaders and recommend sanctions, has also been heavily criticised by consumer groups as well as the opposition.
They say it will be ineffective in combating determined pirates and will impose unduly harsh punishment on ordinary Internet users.
The previous version of the law was watered down after the constitutional court rejected a text that would have created a body with the power to cut Internet access for those found guilty of illegal downloads.
The constitutional court ruled that the new body could only have the power to issue warnings and that any disconnections could only be ordered by a judge after two written warnings from the new authority.
The sanctions imposed by a judge could also include fines of up to 30,000 euros ($44,420).
The law will also oblige anyone with a wi-fi connection to block non-authorised users from using the connection.
Interestingly, there seems to be very few mentions of what's happenning there, since this went through in June. Certainly, I can't find any information on how they are technically doing it.
(oh, and PS Russell, fully take your point on the failures to offer decent online services, and my suggestions on piracy harming uptake are hard to prove. I also agree that it was the pirates who pushed the innovatio of digital distribution first. The big players are very slow to move, and if they're already making money in the system they have, they don't want to change. However, I suspect the lessons leart from music are echoing in the film industry. (Sony, for example pushed very hard with the PS3 to get multimedia internet streaming into the lounge, some might say rather too hard, and most likely with the desire to corner the market). Anyway, I am hopeful that with more entrants to the market, we will see improved services...)
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I don't get why some people seem to think that ISPs should be policing what is effectively a different industry's problem.
I suspect it's mostly to do with uncertainty over how difficult it will be for the ISPs to monitor this stuff.
Oddly, it's very hard to find sensible discussions on this subject. I guess it's because they get bogged down in the 'is piracy really hurting the industry or not?' discussion before the technicalities of doing something about it is really picked up on.
But the more that we can be realisitic about the realities of each other's industries then hopefully we can move forward in a constructive way.
Thanks, by the way Matthew for your thoughts on this. And general cheers and 'here, here's' to many others. I won't name names, but you know who you are :)
Anyway, I will absolutely defer to others on the technicalities of a monitoring system. But are we really stuck in an unassailable bind? Are there not any better ways to get around it all? Only logging the activity of people who visit the bit torrent sites for example?
Does anyone know how the French are doing it?
Oh, btw:
On a Monday morning? I didn't realise things were that bad!
I'm in Italy at the moment, so it was Sunday night ;) Which is not to say I don't drink on a Monday morning - although that's usually a sign things are good rather than bad...
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(again, apologies, for the lack of being able to take part in the discussion properly. My internet access is unreliable at the moment. In fact right now an Itlalian Café owner is giving me a dirty look for my 3 hours internet access for one cup of tea)
Moving on from something I DO know a bit about, to something I'm just starting to gather information on, so I'm very happy to admit I'm fumbling about these issues still.
First of all, I’d like to point out that I’m no friend of the MPA, nor are most Guilds. Not only are we constantly at battle with them anyway over the rights of artists. So, no, we trust them about as much, and perhaps even less than Matthew or Colin do. However, it’s also frustrating to see them engage so pathetically with the wider community when there’s an issue that the 'artist’s' Guilds and the MPA actually have in common. In large part that’s part of the reason I’m getting involved with the discussion myself.
Basically, first off, I don’t think ACTA is necessarily the issue here. The issue is the form of the legislation that enacts whatever they decide. However the more I learn about ACTA the more I worry about what legislation, in terms of 3 strikes rules, will be launched onto us without the govt. So a lot depends on what options the government will have when legislating deterrents.
Anyway, ACTA aside, the problem with S92 is that it was a rushed, poorly thought out piece of legislation: the crappy definitions of what constitutes an ISP, guilt upon accusation with no legal recourse, etc.
So first off, the thing that’s vital is no matter what system we have we need an ombudsman or similar system to monitor what’s going on. We don’t want these laws to be used in ways unintended.
My personal point of view is that all it would really take is people to feel as if their illegal activities are being monitored for illegal downloading to go down notably. The penalties themselves don’t have to be overly severe, though there certainly need to be some.
Personally, I’m in favour of a fine after warning. The money can perhaps go back into the creative industries that are being stolen from, and perhaps even some to the ISPs for the additional monitoring work they have to do. Or maybe into further education about piracy? I don’t know what the technicalities of the law are in regards to fining people without them having the option of going to court?
But if it’s the threat of internet being cut off then to be honest I don’t think it’s the end of the world, given that people can swap to a new ISP (although that has problems itself, with people trying to exit ISPs contracts, etc). I understand that the right to the internet is something quite vital, but to be honest, if you’re going to get caught so many times that you’ve gone through every single ISP in the country you deserve everything you get. It’s a problematic solution, but with an ombudsman, there is at least recourse to guilt upon accusation, and we won’t find innocent people getting caught up.
To me, the vital thing is actually the warning itself. To me it’s more a case of targeted education: let people know the ways in which pirating is harming the industry, that what they’re doing is effectively theft, which is harming the artists, and personally, I think many casual illegal downloaders will think twice. People, generally speaking, are ethical, they just need a gentle reminder of that fact. Of course, it has to be decently put together, and not a repeat of the MPA’s dubious statistics on earnings losses and the like.
Obviously there are also the technical issues about how that monitoring takes place, whether the ISPs can do it reasonably without too severely walking on the privacy of customers, and how accurate it all actually is. I’d love to hear some feedback from the more technically experienced regarding this. For example: can we monitor specific websites and then if people visit websites such as pirate bay or isohunt for the torrents, their activity is logged, and then if they start downloading large amounts of data that also gets logged, hence, evidence? What holes are in that? Is there a better way?
I would also like the government to legislate some decent guidelines about what the ISPs are supposed to do to monitor pirates, how they’re supposed to react, what evidence they should be including in their notices, etc.
Finally, I would also like us to all get into the Net Neutrality fight to stop the big companies and ISPs getting together to increase speeds to certain areas of the internet and decrease others, which is going to be a much greater harm to internet users, than the odd issue we’re going to have with an anti-‘piracy’ law. Given that Net Neutrality growing into a bit of an issue in the US (McCain just came out against it), now seems as good a time as any to lobby to get this issue covered in our law while the general internet freedom issue is coming up.
Okay that's is. Cheers. Now having that drink Russell suggested ;)
PS Thanks Gio and Craig! Very kind of you both.
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Apologies for yet another ridiculous essay like post. Like I say, I’d love to be a bit more conversive if I could.
Anyway, I’ll just start by answering a few questions.
Movies do cost millions to make. But do they have to
Yes, if we want to actually pay the people involved. Even low budget films like REC was 3 million. And there’s no one getting anywhere near rich in those numbers, I can promise you that.
The real problem that the major labels appear to have is this entrenchment of both Hollywood accounting and also the massive cost structures. The very existence of a $20m list and a $10m list says that the entire industry is built on enormous, ridiculous costs.
The real problem that the major labels appear to have is this entrenchment of both Hollywood accounting and also the massive cost structures. The very existence of a $20m list and a $10m list says that the entire industry is built on enormous, ridiculous costs.
Yes. They are. But then, movies actually do cost a lot to make. The 3million dollar REC was all interior, mostly one location, no international stars, and was pretty short (80 mins or so?). Look at the length of a credits list sometime, many of those people are employed for a lot longer than the shooting time. 10 million isn’t actually that crazy.
Anyway, your list of 25 successful sub-1 million dollar films over the last 25 years or so is not something to base an industry on. Nobody would be able to earn a living and the industry – at least an industry of any quality – would simply fold.
I’m not suggesting a very tiny minority of the film industry are grossly overpaid. The rest of us (if we’re lucky) simply manage to earn a living. So please don’t take a couple of small examples of film stars and movie moguls and make gross generalizations.
But to be honest, that’s the market dictating those terms for the tiny minority. If a vast amount of people go to see a film simply because it’s got Adam Sandler in it, then Adam Sandler’s agent is going to ask for a silly amount of money, and budgets will inflate. If big, expensive special effects are what it takes to bring the masses in for the live experience then that’s how it is. In fact, it’s exactly the free market at work you’ve been arguing for all along.
With free software like Massive and relatively cheap stuff like Maya even semi-decent special effects can be done at home.
Yes, with the hell of a lot of EXPERTISE and TIME (and, in many ways, these cheaper programs require more expertise and time). Which somebody ought to be paid for, no?
some movers & shakers in the movie industry are tacitly accepting that improving the "live" experience is a good way to make money.
Yes, that’s true, but only for the big screen blockbuster experiences. Smaller scale films without a lot of special effects are not able to compete in the same way. The advent of stronger home cinema experiences will make things worse.
Peter, you keep on saying the same thing back: "Higher costs of production". That is the only reason I can see you having advanced for why movies cannot be treated the same way as music, and I happen to think that it's a crap reason.
Well, yes it would be a crap reason if that’s all I had actually been saying. Production is not the only issue, so also is distribution and consumption. In fact some of the other issues I’ve advanced are at least more concerning than cost of production. Please go back and look at what I actually wrote about why they’re different; there are a large number of other reasons. I would write them again but it’s frustrating to repeat the same thing over and over.
Looking at your example of Tormented, it may be that the lack of a proper marketplace didn't help.
Well, it may be I guess, if you don’t know anything about it, but if you did, you’d find it is not true at all. In fact the opposite is the case: the Production Company worked very hard on creating their ‘market’ or consumer base or whatever you want to call it, and then those same people turned around on release and downloaded it for free on the internet.
Fro memory, the producer described it as: ‘at first shocking, and then, in retrospect, completely inevitable’.
I'll also point out that, in any other industry, if you released a product that garnered hundreds-of-millions of dollars in revenue but didn't make a net profit you would be looking for a new job. In another industry.
Because that’s what I do all the time?
Meanwhile, Modern Warfare 2 takes a staggering $550 million in its first five days on sale -- and that's while the torrent and warez sites seem to be groaning with cracks and copies of it. People still do seem to buy stuff.
Games also are a little different, as they require online play which is far harder for pirates to fake their way onto.
Let’s be clear though: no one has ever said people don’t also buy stuff even if it’s available for free. Especially people like us, who have enough concerns about copyright, ethics and ‘the art’ to churn out 15 odd pages of discussion. But I also believe there are a lot of people – particularly of the upcoming generation, who have been brought up with the notion of free IP – who don’t feel quite so ethically conflicted as we do.
Peter Cox at least backed up his position with examples from real life, but of ambiguous evidentiary value.
Find me evidence. Find me real numbers. Not stuff from big media press releases, but audited sales figures and income distribution reports.
Well, there’s no way because we don’t have numbers. Particularly in these early stages. Like I’ve said, there’s no ‘control’ earth that we can compare to and get numbers of what the situation would be like if we had no piracy. DVD sales may go down 20% in a year, but is that piracy? Or did all the films that year just suck? Are people buying less DVDs and instead getting blu-ray, which are more expensive, so per unit the numbers go down? There are no numbers that can’t be disputed a million different ways – such as the MPA’s insistence on using number of downloads = amount of lost revenue, which I think we can all agree is plainly ludicrous.
But not having solid indisputable numbers is not a reason to dismiss the argument. It may be a reason to be a little more cautious about what we do to stop piracy, as the effect is not completely known. But there is ample evidence as I’ve listed, and plain common sense when you understand the industry, that the film industry is going to experience a *much* more difficult situation that music, and that in fact people who are not just Rich Corporate Evildoers are going to suffer. Many people with a sound understanding of the industry, and in fact many of those who have pioneered film distribution into the internet age, are very, very worried. I know. I’ve talked to them.
No, they’re not idiots, yes they understand all the arguments that have been put forward here. And they, with good reason, are convinced piracy is the problem.A lot of the contributions to this thread seem to be premised on the assumption that the technology cannot possibly be good because downloading is running rampant. "Won't somebody think of the artists?" kind of thing, and from that we start running off into this world of designing a solution. Only, I don't see that we do need a solution, because I am very, very far from convinced that there is a problem. Fine, that's a point of serious disagreement. But it's no less extreme than the approach that I'm seeing that we have to plan for a problem because, in the absence of evidence that there's not a problem we have to assume that a problem exists.
That’s fine. And like I keep saying, that’s mighty comfortable position to have when your ability to feed and clothe your children is not on the line. I’ve given you solid examples, pointed out why there are no solid numbers, and there most likely never will be until it’s too late.
</quote>Without intending any disrespect, I don't count Peter and Keri's experience for much for the same reason that I wouldn't expect you to count my experience for much.</quote>
No, I’m dismissing a lot of your experience because you don’t actually have much experience at all in the industry that you’ve been talking about, and many of your comments reflect that (including lecturing those that do in where we’re going wrong: “gee, why don’t you just make great movies for under 1 million?” Well thanks, we never thought of that. *golden age of cinema begins*). Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude about it, but it’s true. I know it’s with the best intentions, but from our point of view it’s a tad patronizing.I have to say, if you're 4872nd hit on Google, you're doin' it wrong. This is the age where can do have an opportunity to make your own luck in that respect.
Sure, but once everyone is on board with the various cheap online marketing angles, it’s going to get flooded, and you’ll be back to square one.
You'd be a mug if you were trying to do your own streaming. But there are people who'll do it for you for free or cheap in music and, I suspect, emerging in screen works.
Perhaps, but as you mention an 8 gig file is going to be a very different beast to most music, even flac, so we’re in for a wait before that becomes viable. Particularly if (heaven forbid) your film actually starts doing well, downloading starts to accelerate, and servers come under pressure…
As a side-bar, one solution is for the studios to stop pissing their pants about "piracy" and let people who buy DVDs get a 'digital copy' as part of the package.
Hell yes, in fact, I’d like to see people who purchase an online version, be able to get a substantial discount for the DVD/BluRay, with only the extra costs of physical production/distribution of the disks/box/booklet added on.
The pricing's wrong too. $2.95 an episode for the first series of Breaking Bad doesn't sound like much, but it adds up to much more than hiring the DVD, with all the associated additional costs for production and distribution built in there.
I’ll go you one better. The pricing is absolute bul**hit, and as a result I don’t blame anyone for pirating instead of paying exorbitant prices. HOWEVER, the only answer for fixing this is to open up competition for distribution which should bring prices down. Once Netflix (and the direct from internet to tv gadgets become more reasonably priced) the rest enter the market things will change I’m sure, and we might start to see some proper services as consumers decide where we want to go.
But then you have to look at the fact that illegal downloading is more than likely to be actually slowing the uptake of new distributors entering the market because the margins for new entrants into digital distribution are being hurt by those downloaders. So piracy is actually partly to blame for these exorbitant prices. Either way, allowing piracy to continue unchallenged certainly won’t help.
Or shall we talk about how majors regularly mark down stock by acts and then give it away as free 'bonuses' or 'deletions' to retailers, thus avoiding any artist royaties but encouraging large orders from the retailer of the new release often by completely unrelated acts to the ones who just had their royalty stream snipped off.
It starts to get hard to draw an ethical distinction between that and downloading ...
The difference is that the artists can get together, form a union and demand better conditions. Hence the latest Writer’s Guild strike, which successfully got writers a decent stake in the online earnings. We can’t do that with illegal downloaders.
I’ll add that our last big strike was in regard to DVD and VCR, and we pussed out and ended up with rubbish conditions. Fortunately we didn’t make that mistake this time :D But anyway, I guess the point we’re making is that we’re not completely powerless and we *can* actually look after ourselves.
Now, if the Guilds disintergrated, that would be a different story…
Oh god, I haven’t even gotten into what I actually wanted to say, which is about this:Gio, Paul, Peter, Kyle, Keir -- where do you all stand on this? What balance best serves the public good? How should we best move forward? Again: put away the moral thunderbolts -- what might actually work?
Damn straight. Let’s assume that a reasonable enough portion of us admit that it might be worth looking at some proper solutions that weigh up risk to the industry vs public good. Which, at least to me, is a much more fascinating, and practical discussion.
I have few thoughts about that which I’d like to hear discussion on, but okay, this post is long enough. I’ll start another one.
Well done to anyone that made it this far. Sorry. A lot to deal with.
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Okay, I realise it's poor form to pop in such a lengthy post, but I'm on a different time zone, so I can't, unfortunately be more conversational. But anyway...
Matthew,
Moral rights cannot be assigned, so this is something of a non-point. They vest in the creator, end of story.
Yes but - as you ought to know - they can be contractually waved.
But perhaps I'm being nitpicky so to get back on the point:
I honestly do not believe that there is any way to limit non-paying consumption of digital materials without unduly impinging on the use of the internet by the general public. I say this as someone who has very strong feelings about civil liberties, and also has over a decade of experience doing various things with IP-based networks that provide content to and connections for the internet.
I understand your concern. But you must also realise that there ought to be some kind of balance between limiting illegal internet downloading of IP material and harm to the general public. You say that film will be fine because music is doing fine, I list a lot of reasons and examples why it may well not be, and why it is different from music, and then get a reply back which essentially just lists a bunch of reasons music is doing just fine, and why can't film just do that? Okay, you say you're not comparing music and film:
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.
and yet you then do, constantly:
Musicians are starting to return to live performing as the way they make money, with CDs as a side issue. Why can the movie industry not do the same thing?
What has worked for the music industry in trying to reverse the tide of downloading has been the rise of services that are convenient, offer value-for-money, and have a good selection. Why can this not work for the movie industry?
I've already explained why at least 3 times now, (receiving the most patronizing replies), and then find the exact same comparisons happening again. Frustrating for me, no? Islander seems to be having the exact same issues regarding literature, and I can imagine s/he must be feeling the same way.
If you want a list of all the reasons why film (and books) have very different realities different in terms production/distribution/consumption, then go back to page 6 and have a look.
I've also painstakingly pointed out multiple specific real world examples of why independents are having terrible trouble getting a foothold distributing their own material on the internet, and yet somehow it doesn't register, and we're back to the same old tired comparisons regarding music again and again.
Yes, the film industry could have better internet distribution, and that's changing, but the fact of the matter is that there are good reasons why it can be suggested that illegal downloading is going to do more damage to the film industry than the music industry. It is also clear evidence that independent filmmakers are having their attempts to distrubute their work are having the efforts shut down by piracy. There's no way to prove it undoubtably because we don't have a second earth, without piracy, that we can use as a control, but like with global warming I don't need undoubtable proof to be worried about a potential problem and expect some moves to be made to correct it before a lot of good artists may well get screwed over and their livelihoods ruined, and some wonderful artworks not ever being made.
So for f**ks sake let's get out of this childish meme that this is about:
"opening it up right from the top to expose far more artists to the opportunity to make reasonable incomes from their work. This will, however, come at the expense of those who currently live lifestyles based around snorting cocaine from the armrests of the seats in their private jets."It's pathetic. Artists are getting screwed and will continue to get screwed.
Look, if you want to take a stance of 'well, stuff the film industry, their survival is not important as the absolute freedom of the internet' then that's fine, you're entitled to that opinion, but don't go giving us all this patronising crap that if how we could only turn the situation to our advantage if we did what the music industry is doing, and that somehow not limiting pirates is actually helping poor artists who are somehow 'stuck in the system', in the 'serfdom' of copyright. That's just patronising bollocks. We are quite capable of understanding our own system, making our own arguments, and lobbying our own points, thank you very much.
Or as George Darroch put it earlier:
I wish people would stop treating pro-copyright/anti-filestealing advocates as idiots. We understand your arguments, we just don't agree with them.
To end on a relatively concillatory note though: I think you hit the nail on the head with our diverging views, in that I believe limiting piracy is worthwhile avoid the film industry getting into serious trouble, whereas you do not. It's just that I find all your justifications of why 'pirating to be not so bad for the film industry, and really it's the film industry's own fault for not distributing online faster' at best misinformed and at worst disingenuous.
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Yes, and in fact many creatives will retain their moral rights as a matter of course, meaning that the work can only be utilised under their own terms. Screenwriters have no such benefits, however we do form unions, employ agents, and have strikes and generally make sure we get deals that we feel more accurately reflect and reward our creative effort. We don't feel as if we need to be looked after by people who want to circumvent copyright 'for our own good'. I suspect almost all authors (and a reasonable portion of musicians) feel similarly.
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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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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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Cheers Kerry.
Well, yeah, it's tough, and to be honest I don't have anything especially new or clever to say.
I'm not sure about the situation for artists that work in mediums that requite less production investment. Common sense tells me piracy will damage them too even as they take up the net as distribution. And, in fact, if recent history is anything to go buy, the more successful you are with your distribution online, the more you will have your art stolen, and the less likely you are to make a living from your additional effort. It's debatable whether to what extent the advantages of direct distribution may make up somewhat for that, depending on the production costs, etc.
At any rate, there are 3 major issues for me.
1. The technology. Is there are way to effectively limit piracy without intruding on the rights of regular users? The right to the internet is vital, and people should not be cut off unreasonably, so really, the million dollar question is constantly: can we be sure that it actually pirates we are cutting off? The MPA (which is basically the Producer's/Studios Lobby group) are constantly suggesting that they can be 100% certain, but I personally trust very little of what they say. On the other hand, the internet freedom groups can be prone to rhetoric over how much they will be damaged. So the first thing is to be clear about the technology of how things will be policed, and how much that will effect legal use of the internet.
The debate shouldn't be: should piracy be policed or not? It should be: yes, it sure as hell should, but how can we do it reasonably weighing up the rights of *both* sides?
2. How can artists become the distributors?
Firstly, let's not pretend that just because something is on the internet that the distribution is free: you still need servers, marketing, etc. So it will be very difficult for the individual artist to compete in the diverse market of the internet, when they are the 4872nd hit on google. Getting out there on facebook ain't going to cut it when there are thousands of others in the same situation. So collectives and new distribution network will be formed that will ultimately be similar to what we have now: there will always be gatekeepers. But, if we play our cards right we can have better access to the gatekeepers, and there will be more gatekeepers with more diverse interests, and hopefully less overheads.
Music is a bit of a different beast at least when it comes to the marketing/collective side of things, as it's easy for consumers to quickly sample something and decide if they like it. 'Free' radio and MTV has helped people find new music for years. Films, painting and the like are a different story in that regard. Also, music tends to be listened to over and over, whereas films and books not so much. So getting a once off free listen of a song streamed over the net is not so much of a big deal.
Anyway, one good thing in all this is that distribution will be more efficient which is good for artists with niche markets, particularly when they have a limited population such as NZ.
Given all this, the real problem is making sure that the market for distributors needs to be an even field, so that quality can actually rise. Currently, the old distribution networks (ie major studios) want to make deals with the ISPs to guide traffic to certain sites more quickly than others. So, as you can imagine that's going to cause problems for independent niche distributors who will find that if they're not able to compete reasonably as their websites are streaming more slowly and consumers will move to the big companies.
So if the distributors aren't competing it's bad for the artist (whose work they're competing for) and the consumer (whose money they're competing for).
This is why I wish we were more concerned about 'net neutrality' in this regard, because that is the sneaky issue that is going to cause us real damage if we don't keep and eye out for it.
3. Artists concerned about piracy have to make their voices heard. The people who steal our work seem to be under the impression that it is only hurting 'men in suits' somewhere, so they don't feel guilty. We need to let people know that's not the case, and that the ability for artists to create the work is being damaged, and we're not terribly thrilled about it.