Cary Sherman defends the RIAA's tactics in a USA Today editorial. Please allow me to boil it down to its essence:
- piracy problem ... piracy epidemic ... multiprong strategy ... warranted and effective ... illegal file-sharers ... our business ... right and wrong ... illegal file-sharing ... threatening the jobs of tens of thousands ... shoplifting ... illegal file-sharers ... distributing stolen copies for free ... illegal file-sharers
Actually, the matters of free speech, personal privacy, the next generation of communication, and the future of the electronics and communications industries are vastly more important than the future of your little antiquated business, predicated on controlling the flow of information, enforcing scarcity, and labeling those who don't agree "pirates" and "shoplifters" rather than "independent promoters" who work for free.
Again and again I say this: I want to see creators be fairly compensated for their work, but this is not the way to do it.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Natalie Davis
I consider file sharing (when the files being shared are being used without the consent of the artist involved) nothing short of theft. Yes, it's shoplifting. At the same time, when the artist is OK with it, I'm all for it. In any event, the RIAA is wrong, wrong, wrong to pursue this matter through lawsuits against little people. What good does thta serve beyond allowing the public to see the RIAA for the power-hungry, vengeful, selfish, out-of-touch entity it is?
2 - bhw
Eric, you're stretching your argument a bit too far this time. You say:
and labeling those who don't agree 'pirates' and 'shoplifters' rather than 'independent promoters' who work for free.
The way I see it, the RIAA is labeling the file traders -- Joe Schmo who uploads and downloads hundreds of copyrighted songs without permission from the copyright holder -- as shoplifters. If you want to call people who violate the license on their CD collection 'independent promoters,' I suppose you can. But it's completely off the mark.
Your 'independent promoters' have no right to promote [or, actually, give away for free] music without the permission of the copyright holder. Sometimes that's the artist, sometimes it's the record label.
The RIAA is NOT going after people who aren't infringing on copyrights, just the people who are. So if Joe Schmo was sharing only music that he had permission to share, he'd be fine and he could indeed refer to himself as an independent promoter without causing me to snort.
3 - TDavid
Eric - you keep writing that you want to see artists being fairly compensated and your line of thinking, at least from my interpretation, seems to be that the current system is completely broken and the artists are not being compensated. Yes/no?
I do agree with this part (if you answer yes), if I am understanding your position correctly, but this still doesn't give a free pass to the pirates to run all day and night filetrading operations.
I write software and distribute programs commercially on the web and I am affected by piracy as well, and it hits me in the wallet when someone filetrades programs or does installations on other domains when the license of the product only calls for one domain or server. It impacts me financially whether that program is given away to a friend or installed on another domain without the appropriate license or seat.
A big part of copyright is understanding what people are going to do with it. Again, if I understand you correctly, you don't find any problem with folks trading music, books, any copyrighted work without permission if it isn't FOR SALE? Yes/no?
But the FOR SALE aspect has little to do with legality.
Pricing is set based upon many factors, including distribution (demand). There is also the piracy factor which everybody's perspective changes when they are on the other side.
I see the RIAA's point, I understand why they want to enforce the abuse of the copyright. They didn't make the laws, but they are trying to see that the laws that are already in place are not being broken.
I don't like their methods, I think there are better, more positive ways to go about this, I don't like them, I don't like the fact that the artists are the ones suffering and the attorneys and them will be the ones profiting from these actions BUT ... and it's a big BUT, this country affords them the same rights that you or I would have if our work was being pirated.
The RIAA's solution, I think, is going to be ultimately embracing the digital market, instead of going kicking and screaming and fighting into it. They claim they are taking steps to embrace downloading. So far many of those steps have been negative, but I am holding out to the hope that in the end the final program will be more affordable for us music consumers and profitable for the artists.
If I were an artist, however, I'd be building my brand through my own website and go direct as much as possible with my music. Work both channels.
4 - Eric Olsen
My point re "independent promoter" is that this perspective is no more outlandish than the RIAA's of "pirate" and "shoplifter." Shoplifting involves physical goods that disappear when they are taken - electronic copying is something different, I am not exactly sure WHAT yet, but something different.
I don't file share for various reasons, other than when I need a specific song I can't get either at all via CD, or only by buying a complete album. It's just economics: I'm not going to pay $15-18 for one song. This has happened about 10 times. I feel guilty not. But other than that I don't do it because a) I don't have to, b) the sound quality is variable, c) I hate spyware, pop-ups, etc, d) it takes a lot of time, e) I like physical copies of everything for reference purposes, as a mnemonic device to remember what I have, storage purposes (I want to be able to scan actual entities), etc. So my arguments are more philosophical than practical - I don't have to do it to defend the rights of others to do it under certain circumstances.
Talk to me about the morality of file sharing when there is a reasonably priced, all inclusive (millions of songs, not a few-hundred-thousand), high quality, unrestricted (no DRM) commercial source. Such a thing won't need legal protection, because it will be more attractive than "free" file sharing, a la bottled water to tap, or fertilizer to taking a dump in the garden.
RE file sharing: not all file sharing is created equal: I would say using an unauthorized copy of software is different in that file sharing a song does not in any way preclude someone from wanting to buy the CD; in fact, if the consumer likes the song, he/she may well be MORE likely to buy the CD. But software is the end use in and of itself - it is the product - and obtaining an unauthorized copy would typically preclude that person from wanting to buy it legitimately. This is a very big difference.
As I have said, I see blanket licensing as the way out of the current mess: everyone wins with the minimum of intrusion.
5 - Kel
The "current mess" you refer to is nothing but outright theft. The fact that file sharing involves intangible (i.e., intellectual) property does not change that fact. You are essentially quarelling with the notion of private property -- which, along with the rule of law, is the foundation of our free market system. It is that system that provides us with the inventions and innovative products that we all enjoy. By denying innovators the fruits of their labor, you deny them the incentive to create those products. In the end, the selfish "sharing" of files will mean less music for us all to enjoy.
6 - bhw
Shoplifting involves physical goods that disappear when they are taken - electronic copying is something different, I am not exactly sure WHAT yet, but something different.
Right. Illegal electronic copying on the Internet circumvents the "shoplifting" route merely because a physical entitiy is not needed to do the sharing. But it's no different than copying a CD a thousand times and giving it away for free, except for the physical storage medium.
The Supreme Court knows what it is and isn't. They said it isn't theft, legally speaking, but is copyright infringement, legally speaking. Copyright infringement is illegal and can be punished by fines and a jail sentence. In that way, it's not much different from shoplifting, is it?
Talk to me about the morality of file sharing when there is a reasonably priced, all inclusive (millions of songs, not a few-hundred-thousand), high quality, unrestricted (no DRM) commercial source.
There is no "morality exception" to copyright infringement just because you don't like the current music distribution methods. A poor or unwanted business model does not morally excuse file sharers from their moral responsibility. You have no legal or moral right to impose a distribution method upon the recording industry, yet they have a legal right and moral justification for suing file sharers to protect their intellectual property.
The moral thing to do to change an industry you don't like is to act within the law to make those changes. Advocating illegal behavior is not moral. And please, let's not compare this to the civil rights movement or some other civil disobedience that actually was morally justified.
7 - Tom Johnson
The interesting thing about the "theft" issue with file trading is that it's most likely that most of the people would never, ever dare even think about shoplifting the same CDs they're downloading. The reason why, however, is purely because it's "wrong" - not just because they don't want to get caught, but because there's actually a morality associated with truly stealing a physical good, but most certainly not because they're concerned about the original artist or the record company not getting their cut.
8 - bhw
but because there's actually a morality associated with truly stealing a physical good, but most certainly not because they're concerned about the original artist or the record company not getting their cut.
Excellent point. Nobody's out there stealing CDs, saying: "I lifted it because I just wanted one song, and I wasn't willing to pay $18 for the whole CD just to get the one song I wanted."
The whole "the record industry is evil" line just rings untrue to me. Perhaps a minute number of people are file trading as a form of protest. The rest are doing it because they can, it's free, and they think they'll get away with it. Has nothing to do with starving artists.
9 - Eric Olsen
File sharing is a gray area - it exists on a continuum, not in the black and white, yes or no, all or none, that Kel and bhw suggest. Looking purely at the moral issue: 1) law does not equal morality, I already addressed that. In general we want to encourage respect for the law, but this too is gray. We acknowledge this by creating a social fudge factor for things such as speeding (is 5 MPH over okay? 10? 15? legally no, in reality usually yes, at least up to 5MPH over the speed limit), alcohol use during prohibition, marijuana use now, sodomy laws, miscegination laws, etc - there are many laws honored more in the breach). iwant to encourage respect for the law as well, that's why I want to see copyright law changed and I want to see the licensing of the free exchange of intellectual property over the Internet, with funds split among creators.
And don't tell me what is and what is not "civil disobedience that actually was morally justified" - who the hell are you?
10 - bhw
If you think infringing upon copyrights to prove a point is on the same par with true civil disobedience aimed at changing a true societal ill, such as segregation, I think you're misguided.
And, by the way, I'm bhw, that's who the hell I am. And I'm entitled to my opinion on what is and isn't morally justified.
Sorry you don't like dissent. So much for the free exchange of ideas.
11 - Kel
Eric --
That is an awefully postmodern view of the world. It's all gray and you are the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong -- even if it involves someone else's property. Give me a break.
There is no legally or morally gray area here. Artists create works. In doing so, they rely on our legal system, which effectively says that the work they create is their property and, if they choose, they may sell it to you. Then they -- to the benefit of us all -- put this property out in the market so that we may purchase it if we like it. By "sharing" you are in fact taking their work without compensation.
This is stealing -- from both a moral perspective and a legal perspective. From a moral perspective, the artist relied on the rule of law and spent his precious time and effort to create his work. He then put it out in the market so that you would have the benefit of being able to buy it, should you find it enjoyable. But no. You come along at the end of chain and decide to change the rule -- commit a little "civil disobedience." Well, that is called theft. It is morally (and legally) wrong.
And, no, there is no such thing as a "social fudge factor." What you are referring to is a problem with enforcing the law. Essentially, the costs are too high for society to enforce every minor breach of the law. But this doesn't not imply that morally correct to take advantage of this. This is not a gray area, this is you being a skilled criminal who is able to avoid being caught.
If you were interested in taking a principled position, you would denounce file sharing as both morally and legally wrong. But if you truly believed that the copyright laws were wrong, then you would attempt to change them. You wouldn't, however, call things gray that aren't and justify ripping-off artists and record companies.
12 - Phillip Winn
Oh no! ::gasp:: Eric disagreed with bhw after bhw disagreed with Eric! ::mouth drops open:: So much for the free exchange of ideas! ::shakes head::
13 - The Theory
This is one of the rare times I think eric is very wrong in his opinion.
I also think Kel is wrong. The way the system is set up now the artists don't own their own work nor do they see compensation for it from the label, unless they're are major artists like U2 or Dylan. So to use that as an arguement is faulty.
Now, downloading songs is wrong just because it is STEALING. Eric can argue that it's not til he's blue in the face and that doesn't change the fact that it is taking something without the copyright holder's permission.
Sure, the RIAA and record labels are ASSES, but they still own the copyright and have the choice to sell their cds at whatever price tickles their fancy.
14 - Eric Olsen
I am free to make my own moral judgments - it is not your place to tell me where a given moral decision fits in to the big picture, other than in your opinion. Do not state your opinion as fact, and surely me stating this is in no way stifling free expression. Brittleness of thought and attitude typically returns the same.
There are areas of moral decision I feel are worthy of the binary attitude taken by Kel and bhw - file sharing is not one of them.
And stating that there is no such thing as a social fudge factor is just plain, demonstrably wrong. There is no "law enforcement problem" if I drive past a police car with radar in full effect at 5 mph over the speed limit and he/she chooses to not enforce the law. It wouldn't be any harder to give me a ticket than to not give me a ticket - it's duie to the social fudge factor that most police decide most of the time to not enforce a lot of laws. You can be sure if I drove by at 95 in a school zone I would have been given the ticket and had the book thrown at me, and rightly so. This analogy holds across all kinds of laws, and to pretend otherwise is to live as an ostrich.
Have you ever known any law enforcement people? I have known many and they ALL say they won't bother to enforce a lot of laws under certain circumstances - this isn't a "problem of enforcing the law," it's a conscious decision by moral actors taking in to account societal norms and standards and the purpose of the law in th efirst place.
If you don't think I am trying to change the copyright laws with this forum, what do you think I am doing?
I also mentioned I don't file share, but I can understand why people do.
15 - Eric Olsen
I wrote this before I saw The Theory's opinion - it is not directed at him, but I would again reiterate that it isn't nearly as black and white as he presents it, and it is surely not "stealing" as understood by the law or common use.
16 - TDavid
"Stealing", copyright infringement. Fundamentally, what is the difference? You create something, I create something, and somebody else decides it is ok, not morally wrong, whatever the term one wants to use, to distribute that to millions of people on KaZaa. Not limited versions of the material, but the full meal deal.
What happened to people asking for PERMISSION for things in this world? I realize that manners have very little to do with the law, but I follow a law of common sense in addition to the laws.
I have a hard time believing that if you were on the other side that your opinion would be the same, but if so then I'll at least concede your consistency on the issue. Otherwise that would be the point that you and I completely parted ways on this issue, I guess.
It's ok to agree to disagree though ;)
17 - Eric Olsen
Yes, I am a creator, I have music shared on the Internet. I could conceivably have writing shared if that was done much. I want to be paid. I do not see file sharing as an enemy to getting paid in the big picture - it is at least as much promotion as it is taking something away. I also said I see software as different.
I am consistent: I want both for creators to be paid and for people to be able to share information over the Internet. I am always willing to agree to disagree, what makes me a bit testy is being told opinion is fact. This strikes me as dogmatic.
18 - The Theory
I agree with you TD. My father is a professional photographer. Photography, like music, is going in a digital direction. While photo stealing isn't quite as rampant as music "copyright infringing", it is still an issue with him. People use his photo with out permission on their websites because they found it on my father's website. What a sad world we live in....
19 - bhw
Brittleness of thought and attitude typically returns the same.
Right. I'm brittle in thought and attitude because I know what I believe and I state it clearly and strongly. I get it.
Actually, the matters of free speech, personal privacy, the next generation of communication, and the future of the electronics and communications industries are vastly more important than the future of your little antiquated business, predicated on controlling the flow of information, enforcing scarcity, and labeling those who don't agree "pirates" and "shoplifters" rather than "independent promoters" who work for free.
Is this not opinion stated as fact? Isn't that how most people present their opinions in a debate? Must we really begin every sentence with "In my opinion"?
20 - TDavid
bhw - just sprinkle liberally with IMO or IMHO.
I go under the assumption that the vast majority of things people say (myself included) in these comments are opinion, not fact, unless backed up with statistics, supporting links, etc.
IMO, morals are often too subjective to debate because yours, mine, Eric's, everybody in this thread, could have different views on morals.
Hopefully most of us should have enough manners to recognize that taking something that isn't ours without permission is not a good thing to do no matter what the backdrop or circumstances.
And btw, I'm not saying or even remotely insinuating that anyone in this thread has poor or deficit manners, I'm just talking generally about this subject because IMHO, those who filetrade are, in fact, stealing from somebody unless there is permission (like when Metallica said of their vault that it was ok to rip, trade and burn music from there).
I do agree with Eric's emphasis on the need for copyright reform. Something in stone and not spaghetti should be drafted to include the digital age.
21 - Eric Olsen
I am pissed about several things at the moment including the fact that we were down for 14 hours for no motherfucking good reason, losing about 2500 visits, between Sunday night and Monday morning, so perhaps that has jolted my accustomed equanimity.
No - people do not have qualify every opinion stated with an "in my opinion."
BUT please look at the unfolding of this discussion and tell me that I was not told my opinion that there is some justification for file sharing, that it is not the same thing as shoplifting, that the matter is not black and white, that sharing is not an unambiguous bad thing for artists or labels, that copyright even as it is currently written is not unambiguous regarding consumer rights, etc., is morally wrong, that only others here - but not me - can decide the relative morality of these and other issues like civil rights.
There are people who honestly and sincerely feel (I do not go this far) that these matters are every bit as important for individual rights, privacy, and the economic future as civil rights and whatever else bhw deems as fit matters for civil disobedience. It's okay if you say it is? Isn't that what I was accused of?
That said, I will apologize for reactng more strongly than usual to being disagreed with.
22 - Kel
The Theory: The "system" isn't "set up" so that the artist doesn't own his own work. An artist is free to choose what he wants to do with his work. He can choose to go it alone and put out his own CDs. Or he can enter into an agreement with a record company and perhaps assign his property rights to the record company. Obviously, to the extent he is someone like Dylan, an artist can demand more favorable terms -- either by selling his own CD for a higher price or by getting a better deal from a record company.
The point is that, in any case, the artist is relying on the economic value created by the bargain implicit in the copyright laws -- that his work is a property right that is protected under the law. The file sharers diminish that economic value, which hurts both the artist who self publishes (by directly resulting in fewer sales) and the artist who goes with a record company (by making it more likely that sales won't cover the company's costs and thus that the artist won't see a dime).
Eric: What you can the "social fudge factor" is merely individual cops arbitrarily deciding who to ticket. But there is nothing normative about this process. Pick ten cops and you will get ten different standards and rationales for their actions. That is not a particularly useful tool in determining the morality of a certain situation.
The bottom line is that file sharers are taking artists' property without compensating them for it. That is theft. And it is morally wrong too. The fact that the internet makes this possible without immediate consequences (as compared to walking out of the store with the CD) doesn't change this.
23 - TDavid
Eric - if hosting is your beef (and now this is going way off topic, sorry), then consider switching to the folks at Cyberwurx. I recommend them highly and if you (or anybody else reading) do check them out then drop my name. I did a review/prop sometime ago on my website for them.
They are good people with fair prices, have been doing biz one the web since 1997, great service and I have worked with easily a 100+ hosts out there from clients with sites that are very small traffic-wise to clients with websites doing millions of hits a day and Cyberwurx ranks in the top of them.
Excuse the plug in this thread, but being down for 14 hours with the multitude of redundancy options *if* this was because of hosting is total bullshit.
It's none of my business what your situation is about, but if it is hosting-related, I'd highly recommend putting Cyberwurx in your PIM for future reference.
24 - Eric Olsen
Thank you for the info T - the problem is related to the benefit is all I can say about it. That and the fact that I chose this particular day to not look at the computer from about 3pm Sunday until I got in Monday morning. If I had looked at any point it would have been resolved then. I go that long without looking at the computer about once every quarter. So a lot of it is just chance, and that pisses me off even more because there is no one in particular to be pissed at.
25 - bhw
Eric, I haven't interacted with you that often, but you and I have been able to disagree about this topic in the past while remaining "friendly," in the I-know-you-only-by-your-Internet-presence sense.
I know that I have a very direct writing style. The tone of my comments today could have been friendlier, or at least less strident, while still being direct. I didn't intend for them to come across in a condescending way, just in a clear and unambiguous way. So I apologize for the tone, Eric. I'll try to pay more attention to it in the future.
Alrighty, back to the debate, folks. Nothing to see here.