« Nork Nuke Deal | Main | NPT Mania » BitTorrent Users Sleeping With the Fishes04 Oct 2007 05:27 pm
What the entertainment industry really needs to do, in my view, is create a new annual awards show for preposterous IP policy arguments. Jeff Zucker makes a strong bid in this morning's subscriber-only CongressDaily: At the conference, NBC-Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said intellectual property theft presents a clear danger to consumer health and safety, and is the "new face of organized crime," he said. Indeed. Comments (34)
Zucker is a horse carriage guy in a warp drive world. 
Would you be kind enough to post Mr. Zucker's 2006 salary, including bonuses and stock options?
Huh. While it may be crime I really have a hard time thinking of music, movie and tv show downloaders as particularly "organized".
220,000 dollars...that poor women. Glad I live in a country (Canada) where none of that stuff is technically illegal.
The problem is two-fold: 1) Assholes like Zucker are just greedy. Big surprise. 2) The logical end result of the basic concept of "intellectual property" is...imperialism, i.e., to maximize my return on investment in my product, I HAVE to charge you for everything you do with it, AND I HAVE to control you totally in terms of what I allow you to do with it. "Intellectual property" is fundamentally an attempt to control other peoples behavior for the benefit of someone else. It's fundamentally opposite of and opposed to the concept of "property rights" which says that what you "own", you control - completely. Now these things are social constructs which are evolutionarily negotiated over time and also relative to other social changes in given societies. But basically, it's hard to conceive of an argument with any evidence behind it that tightening up on a person's control of property he has obtained by either fair trade or "finders" is contributing to the improvement of the species by speedily disseminating new concepts, information or inventions to the species. That is the alleged justification of all IP law. And there isn't a shred of evidence to support it except vague generalities about how IP laws came into existence roughly during the same period as industrialization. No cause-and-effect - or better, a demonstration that WITHOUT IP laws, innovation does not occur, the negative hypothesis - has ever been provided. Whereas in various niche markets, as has been noted elsewhere, contrary evidence exists. It really boils down to humans simply don't want other humans to get anything for "free" because that implies the other humans have an advantage over them - and due to the pervasive human fear of death and human primate competitive psychology, this simply can't be allowed. It really boils down to a pre-rational emotional response: "Gee, he got that music for free while I paid $16! He's better than me! I'm gonna die!" Not in so many actual thoughts, but that is the reptile brain reaction... And most humans are operating on reptile brain reactions, not their higher conceptual capabilities. Or so it seems if you read blogs and the MSM.
I think there was a thread the other day on slashdot that had Sony (! manufacturer of copying devices !!) advocating copying-is-theft. Any tabulation of brazenly stupid ip arguments begins in the queue after that.
I think MY and other commenters are misunderstanding on purpose: I think Zucker is arguing that organized crime is cashing in on "organizing" previously unorganized IP copying/counterfeiting.
I swear, I found those MP3's in the street. They musta fell off the back of a truck ... heh heh heh
Richard Steven Hack's hysterical rantings notwithstanding (even more hysterical than Jeff Zucker's), there's nothing particularly controversial about the concept of intellectual property. It has been recognized and codified in copyright and patent laws for over a century. The fact that technological advances have now made certain kinds of violations of those laws much easier to commit and much harder to detect does not rebut the principle on which they are based.
The fact that technological advances have now made certain kinds of violations of those laws much easier to commit and much harder to detect does not rebut the principle on which they are based. Could you clarify that principle for us, please? 'Cause Jeff Zucker seems to be the one really making it big off of other people's creative works. I'm also curious how that century of non-controversial IP law could be even remotely relevant, since I missed the part where, e.g., book publishers successfully demanded the right to completely control what people could do with books they bought. Hey, reading them aloud is theft! Copying them for one's own use is practically murder! Public libraries are part of an organized crime racket! Over a century ago, we didn't have "Intellectual Property Law" as it's currently defined, we had patents and copyrights... with very limited terms and significant carveouts for fair use. And for decades after that, American firms continued to prosper by appropriating from the public domain that they now wish to eliminate completely (see: Disney). So at least Richard Steven Hack's hysterical rantings actually have some connection to a modern world where companies have claimed naturally-occurring DNA sequences as their intellectual property, as opposed to an ignorant appeal to history.
Could you clarify that principle for us, please? Novels, songs, inventions, and other works protected by IP laws are valued products of the talent and labor of their creators, and therefore constitute a form of property. Eliminating that protection would eliminate the financial incentives that motivate the creation of such works, and deprive their creators of the financial compensation for their talent and labor to which they are entitled.
Jeffrey D, see my comment at the top of the page. It's a link to the same article Slashdot noted.
Eliminating that protection would eliminate the financial incentives that motivate the creation of such works, and deprive their creators of the financial compensation for their talent and labor to which they are entitled. So there was no art or science or anything creative produced before the advent of copyright and patents? What an unproven, asinine statement. A limited term of protection, certainly less than twenty years, might be justifiable for return on investment. But now it's pushing the century mark.
"Novels, songs, inventions, and other works protected by IP laws are valued products of the talent and labor of their creators, and therefore constitute a form of property. Eliminating that protection would eliminate the financial incentives that motivate the creation of such works, and deprive their creators of the financial compensation for their talent and labor to which they are entitled." Bullshit. None of that is true. Not one shred of evidence in history to support it. On the contrary, evidence exists to the contrary. Second, since the second comment is based on the first, it is redundant. "there's nothing particularly controversial about the concept of intellectual property." In fact, there is, and economists of the Austrian school have offered cogent criticisms of the basic concept as being opposed to the basic concepts of property. In fact, one could fairly well make the case that IP is essentially "theft" in some sense in some cases. "It has been recognized and codified in copyright and patent laws for over a century." Obviously this individual is ignorant of the history of IP laws, particularly copyright which originated in England as a means of CONTROLLING what was published, not stimulating it. Not to mention Thomas Jefferson's famous statement about inventions not being subject to property in nature, despite being the US first patent examiner. "The fact that technological advances have now made certain kinds of violations of those laws much easier to commit and much harder to detect does not rebut the principle on which they are based." In fact, it explicitly does. The (alleged) purpose of IP laws is to stimulate the production AND DISSEMINATION of inventions to the species. Digital technology does precisely that. It makes access easier by reducing the cost of production and distribution. It correspondingly makes the market value of the product less because supply can always equal demand. The value of the production of inventions lies for the most part in the DISTRIBUTION part of the equation. Invention is certainly important - if an idea isn't produced, it doesn't exist at all. Once it does exist, however, the value lies entirely in its DISTRIBUTION. An invention known only to one person benefits only that one person. In fact, the definition of "intellectual property" is basically the same as the definition of "secret". The only true "intellectual property" is something I know that you don't know. Once I tell you - with or without an exchange of value - it is no longer "property" because we both possess it. Anything else is a physical product - a CD, a book, whatever. And that product can only be possessed and controlled by one person at a time.' Therefore if I coercively or fraudulently take that physical property from you and do not exchange value for it, I have committed "theft" - because you do not have the product any more and you received no value from its loss. More importantly, you can NOT receive any value from it because I possess it and you do not. Whereas if I COPY a digitized product, you still have it to sell. You may have LOST a sale because I now have the product without an exchange of value, but you still have the product and can thus sell it to someone else. OR you can use it to develop revenue in other ways than direct sale. Whether you can sell it or not because of its general availability is not relevant to the issue of whether it is "theft". Anything that speeds up the distribution of an idea into the species improves the species. Compensation for the production of the idea is a secondary matter, from the point of view of economics. In economics, indeed, in human behavior generally, of which economics is one general aspect, one invests in an activity to achieve a return. That return may or may not be monetary. To the degree that it is, it is still subject to general economic laws. And those laws say that the latest and greatest and less common returns the greatest compensation, while the older and more common returns less value. All products - except those which are natural and also rare - eventually are copied and distributed by other than their inventors. The fact that their inventors are thus "deprived" of the revenue from those distributions is not relevant to the value of those distributions and is not relevant to the probability of production of more such products. In every economic endeavor, early investment brings the most profit. Later investment by other parties reduces the possible profit to what is referred to as the "general rate of return", which is usually very low. But the advantage to the species comes from the availability of the product to the maximum number of people who need it. Thus it is to the advantage of the species to speed up the production and especially the distribution of ideas and inventions. By speeding up the distribution of inventions, the value of any particular invention TO THE INVENTOR goes down, thus stimulating the inventor to produce new inventions - to the degree that he is able. Thus the species is better served by speeding up the distribution of new inventions than in slowing them down in some manner to try to influence the inventor to produce more inventions by realizing a greater profit from individual inventions. In fact, this results in the opposite effect. An inventor who is making plenty of money from an earlier invention has LESS incentive to develop new inventions, not more. This doesn't necessarily apply to every inventor or every invention, but the effect can be seen in the behavior of IP holders in the last century and in this century. The more and longer their profits were ensured by enforcement of IP laws, the less valuable their products became to the consumer because they produce fewer new products for the consumer to consume and their older products are less desirable to the consumer for various reasons. What is the number one complaint of the music consumer today? The music costs too much - and it sucks. So they turn to the Internet to find new bands that do NOT suck, and when they find them, they either pay for convenient access through a service like iTunes or they get it for "free" from P2P systems - albeit paying for it in time and hassles to download (none of the P2P systems are easy to use). In either case, if they like the band, when the band tours, they go see the band and pay for the tickets. Because like the Grateful Dead used to say, and people understand this: "The music's free, the concert costs." In Brazil, there is a movement of musicians who put out CDs for $1.50 and use them as loss leaders to get people to come to their concerts. Many bands elsewhere are also doing concerts and producing a CD of the concert on the spot to be sold to fans as "mementos" of the event. Many bands simply make their money touring. This demonstrates, at least in the music business, that there are multiple ways of making money from an artistic product. It is particularly galling to see the music industry trying to criminalize digital music copying when the entire industry started by appropriating the songs of artists, turning them into physical product in phonograph records, selling the product, and only THEN making deals with songwriters and musicians to generate more product. This is how the industry started. Now that technology is doing what it is INTENDED to do - enabling people to copy and distribute a product that is really dirt cheap in value and should be priced that way for maximum distribution - the industry wants to criminalize what is a normal economic activity which is critical to the improvement of the species. They can't figure out how to make money from the new technology, so they want to ban it or coercively force people to pay them for its use. In that sense, intellectual property IS "theft". Or perhaps "extortion" is the better word. Just as the characteristic of a Zionist is intellectual dishonesty, so it is the characteristic of the "intellectual property" believers. It really boils down to a criminal mind set that believes in extorting its "customers" and treating THEM like "criminals" rather than providing a product and service in a way to maximize the value of the product and thus maximize revenue from the product. Nobody has ever PAID for "music". They've paid for ACCESS to music. For decades the state of technology allowed the music industry to control access to music through the phonograph record. Even in the 1960's, however, the existence of reel to reel tape recorders allowed some music copying to occur. Once cassette tape recorders were embedded in radios, this became common. The advent of the CD seemed to solve that - until the PC was invented and the ability to digitize a CD was invented. Not to mention the Sony CD players that have CD recorders in them - allowing direct copying of CDs. One wonders why Sony Music doesn't sue Sony Electronics for "enabling copyright infringement." What difference does it make - except in volume - whether you can copy a CD one at a time using a Sony deck or via a PC? The only potentially valid place where the industry can claim "criminal" activity is when the Mafia reproduces a CD and distributes it as the product of a record label. That is "fraud" in some rational sense since the product you're buying isn't from the person you think you're buying it from. It's also done in huge quantities. However, it's also done through so-called "legitimate" music stores. Somebody has to distribute those CDs. The Mafia doesn't go door to door. But that shades over into general product "piracy" which is very common in many industries - and has very little effect in the end on the profitability of the main players in an industry. The bottom line: "intellectual property" is a non-issue. Does anybody seriously believe that if nobody could sell CDs that there would be no more music made in the world? Or even easily and cheaply available? Oh, please... The only people whose incomes are threatened are people who don't have the imagination to figure out how to adapt to new technology and new economic circumstances. And that was never guaranteed to anybody by human evolution or human behavior or by economics. Artists who complain that they won't be able to feed their kids if P2P systems continue to exist are people who basically couldn't survive no matter what they did for a living. Or who are too intellectually dishonest to acknowledge that they're lying. And I say that as a poor person barely able to survive at what I do.
"Novels, songs, inventions, and other works protected by IP laws are valued products of the talent and labor of their creators, and therefore constitute a form of property. Eliminating that protection would eliminate the financial incentives that motivate the creation of such works, and deprive their creators of the financial compensation for their talent and labor to which they are entitled. Posted by Mixner | October 4, 2007 11:24 PM" Have you ever actually been involved in the arts industry? Publishers and record labels make money this way. Authors make like a few cents out of every $25 copy sold, with the vast majority going to the publisher. Violating IP laws on books only really matters 1) in China, which is acting like we did at the same time with regard to books (Guess why Dickens hated the US so much?) and 2) if people are willing to pay for, print out and reach hundreds of pages of printer paper. Musicians make their money from concerts and merchandise, with only a few cents from CD sales going to them (except for Metallica and other large-name, well-established acts that have serious bargaining power vis-a-vis record labels). Get back to us when I can download inventions.
Oh for god's sake, I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but could we please stop pretending that this is about personal copying or borrowing, like one would do with an LP or a book - that's just plain dishonest. And if there was no IP law and you could download every album for free legally and without hassle, then indeed the music industry would have a hard time generating revenue for itself and the artists - that's beyond obvious. Also, could we please stop caricaturing all the non-creative personnel working in the music industry as greedy mofos - sure, there are some around as are everywhere, but generally they do what they know best (selling stuff) while the artists do what they do best (making music). It's the same in the book publishing industry, and while there is the occasional grumble from a starving author, editors there are generally treated with respect or even reverence.
It's the same in the book publishing industry, and while there is the occasional grumble from a starving author, editors there are generally treated with respect or even reverence. Publishing companies and their management, however, come in for a great deal of dissatisfaction and even scorn over short-sightedness and greed, including from editors. And a publisher is actually a valid analogy to a music company, unlike an editor. But thanks for playing anyway.
Everyone who uses these programs, never use your personal information in them. Never buy premium versions of these programs. Always use a proxy server in a foreign country. While it will slow things down, you're not likely to get caught. I don't really care about the legality. Recording companies are scum, and they deserve to be punished. They sue children, as far as I'm concerned they deserve everything they get. They copyright materials for all of eternity. They artificially inflate the price of music through illegal anti-competitive practices. I want to see them suffer because they deserve to suffer. I don't really care about morons who fetishize the law, when the law is simply something the powerful use to get their will done. Hurt them where you can.
But thanks for playing anyway. I see, publishers and management are evil and greedy, while editors and authors are the good guys - now that might be the case sometimes in some companies, though the roles can easily be reversed, but to apply this brilliant insight to an industry as a whole (publishing or music) and therefore conclude that IP laws should be abolished is painfully stupid.
Jeff Zucker looks a lot like Paulie Walnuts.
Does anybody remember that old Qwest commercial that went something like: "This hotel has every book ever written, every song ever sung, everywhere, at your fingertips..." etc.? That is P2P, or what it would be without our legacy laws, and it will be a tragedy on the scale of the burning of the Library of Alexandria if it is somehow shut down. Napster was the greatest repository of human creativity that had ever existed to that point. There is also no getting around the fact that copyright and a free information infrastructure are fundamentally incompatible, it is silly to try to make this a consumer-rights issue. Anonymous speech, combined with zero cost of distribution, simply cannot coexist with copyright. We need an entirely new way of thinking about these things. It used to require futuristic commercials to get a point we've already passed technologically but can't come to terms with legally.
So there was no art or science or anything creative produced before the advent of copyright and patents? What an unproven, asinine statement. It's your statement, not mine. Are you seriously advocating the elimination of patent and copyright laws? You really think it should be legal for Person A to take the work of Person B (a novel, a song, an invention, etc.) and distribute it to others without being required to provide any compensation to the creator?
"Reality" (tee hee) man, Publishers and record labels make money this way. Authors make like a few cents out of every $25 copy sold, with the vast majority going to the publisher. If your objection to existing copyright law is that it does not guarantee sufficient compensation to the authors of copyrighted works from sales by their publishers, the solution is to change the law to increase the authors' compensation, not eliminate copyright protection. Violating IP laws on books only really matters 1) in China, which is acting like we did at the same time with regard to books (Guess why Dickens hated the US so much?) and 2) if people are willing to pay for, print out and reach hundreds of pages of printer paper. Nonsense. If you were free to publish any copyrighted book without providing any compensation to the author, authors would lose their income and their incentive to produce new works would be dramatically diminished.
There is also no getting around the fact that copyright and a free information infrastructure are fundamentally incompatible, That's right. Information has value, and information in the form of novels, songs, inventions and so on is the product of the talents and labors of human beings. For that reason, it cannot be "free." It is subject to the economic principles governing supply and demand, just like any other work product.
Mixner, You are seriously missing the point. The justification for the existence of intellectual property law is that it encourages invention. The natural question to ask is: does this actually happen? The point being made is that art, science and creative works have been produced for centuries- generally without any existing copyright protection. I think the feeling some people have is that the intellectual property system has been pushed so far from its original purpose, and because the 'rights' it protects have no validity in themselves, the system is broken that it deserves no respect whatsoever.
Interestingly, there is a good amount of illegal copying going on that is linked to organized crime, and you can find it on eBay pretty quickly-- illegally burned copies of CDs, DVDs, etc. (Quick hint: any DVD on eBay that is 'all region' is probably pirated.) Why the RIAA et. al decided it was more important to make peer-to-peer music sharers their priority instead of this nasty industry I'll never understand. (It does come up from time to time when we enter trade negotiations with China.)
The justification for the existence of intellectual property law is that it encourages invention. That's one justification. There are also others, as I have explained. The natural question to ask is: does this actually happen? The point being made is that art, science and creative works have been produced for centuries- generally without any existing copyright protection. You are seriously missing the point. I am not suggesting, and I doubt anyone else is suggesting, that all creative activity would end if copyright protection were eliminated. Some people would doubtless continue to create even if they received no financial compensation or if their compensation were greatly reduced. But many others would not. Financial gain is obviously a huge motivator for the development of not only artistic works but also new inventions, processes, techniques, and other intellectual products that have obvious tangible benefits.
Actually, you have not provided any other justification. I think the problem here is that some people regard the fact that the digital age allows for super-cheap distribution of content as a net positive. Others view it as a net negative. The goal is creation and distribution of content. The major labels would love to severly limit distribution. Their position is completely unjustified unless they can show this distribution opportunity impacting content creation more than enough to offset the benefit they refuse to acknowledge. You have to actually make that argument. Nobody is making that argument and not just in a theoretical sense but in practicality, today. Probably no one is making it because its not very believable.
I think its time to embrace it and move on, build your business models around these new and emerging technologies. Find where your audience is and appeal to them rather then suing them. They have saved some money by downloading your content.. I am sure they will shell out $$ to see a live concert. Companies like Divinity Metrics are providing this indepth analysis and intelligence.. take a look at them.
Actually, you have not provided any other justification. Actually, I did. You need to read the complete sentence: "Eliminating that protection would eliminate the financial incentives that motivate the creation of such works, and deprive their creators of the financial compensation for their talent and labor to which they are entitled." I think the problem here is that some people regard the fact that the digital age allows for super-cheap distribution of content as a net positive. Others view it as a net negative. The goal is creation and distribution of content. No, that is not "the goal." It may be a goal, and perhaps for you personally it is the only goal, but for others there are clearly other goals also, such as providing incentives for the creation of content and providing the creators of content with just compensation for their work. If you truly believe that eliminating copyright protection, patent protection, and/or other forms of intellectual property protection would produce a net benefit, please present your argument to that effect. I don't think you'll be able to make a remotely persuasive case. The major labels would love to severly limit distribution. No, the major labels (by which I assume you mean the major record companies, which is rather bizarre since copyrighted material is obviously much broader than just music) would love enormous distribution. So would the creators of the music they publish. What they don't want is distribution without compensation, which is what you seem to be advocating.
I think its time to embrace it and move on, build your business models around these new and emerging technologies. Find where your audience is and appeal to them rather then suing them. They are building business models around the new technologies. iTunes, for example, has sold over three billion songs. Note the word "sold." Not "given away other people's work for free against their wishes." I fully expect the RIAA and other publishers of copyrighted material to continue legal action against people who engage in that second activity. Just yesterday, the record companies won a major suit against a woman in Minnesota who was using Kazaa to distribute copyrighted music. The jury found the woman guilty of copyright violation and imposed a penalty on her of $222,000. You can't say you haven't been warned.
Mixner hasn't said word one about how any of this actually works in reality. He's simply regurgitated the standard justifications without any actual evidence that any of that is even remotely true. ITunes does not sell "music", any more than the Grateful Dead did. They sell ACCESS to music - and people pay for it because it's far more convenient that futzing around with ridiculously poorly implemented and difficult to use P2P systems. If you're a nerd, you use P2P. If you're just a music lover, you use ITunes. It has nothing to do with "compensating the artists" because they still get a pittance from the record labels.
Comments closed October 18, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
Copying music you own (to put on your computer or mp3 player) is stealing according to BMG.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2cln52
Posted by Matt B | October 4, 2007 5:40 PM