Internet Piracy
The Obama Administration, known for its hard stance against seafaring pirates (not including Johnny Depp), announced its plans yesterday to put the smack down on intellectual property pirates, who apparently loot and plunder everything from car tires to medical instruments with the same relentless fervor as Carmen Sandiego. But like all thieves, they must learn that crime does not pay.
“It is smash and grab” Vice President Joe Biden explained, stating that piracy was no different than going down to 5th Avenue, smashing the window at Tiffany’s and taking what you want. He also went on to explain that “piracy kills” because counterfeit tires cause accidents and pharmaceutical knock-offs can poison people.
The plan, drawn up by Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, is quite comprehensive and seems to deal mostly with counterfeit products being shipped into the United States from foreign countries and those sold abroad which pretend to be American products. Nevertheless, they made no distinction between the counterfeiting of drugs and the free distribution of songs and movies online.
The problem with associating the two is that the only reason to prevent counterfeit drugs from being distributed to citizens is that the quality may not be as good, but a pirated song will have the same quality as a legally purchased one.
The second assertion made by associations like the RIAA and MPAA is that piracy of songs and movies costs the recording industry and movie industry billions of dollars. Somehow, downloading a movie using BitTorrent actually takes money away from the content creators.
Unfortunately, their logic makes a number of assumptions that are not necessarily true. Some of the assumptions are:
- Piracy is like stealing physical goods
- People who download movies, for example, will not buy the DVDs of those movies
- Because people obtained the movies or songs for free through downloading, the industry loses money
The first assumption, that piracy is like stealing physical goods, is flawed for the simple reason that making a copy of a file does not take away the original. I could make six billion copies of an Mp3 file and give it to everyone on earth, and each person would have a copy of equal quality. The original copy would not diminish in quality at all.
The second assumption claims that people who download movies will not buy them, but they have not actually proven this. In some cases, people may download pirated electronic media with the intention of buying them later, which leads us to the third assumption.
The fact that someone downloads a movie or song for free also does not mean they would have otherwise purchased it. People who can afford to pay for music and movies usually will. It is simply easier to do. If someone downloads a movie because he cannot afford to buy it at the moment, the industry has not lost any money at all because that person was never a customer. In actuality, that same person may later become a customer once he acquires more money.
Furthermore, a person who watched a movie illegally may still recommend that movie to her friends. If those friends then purchase or rent the movie, the industry is actually gaining money rather than losing it.
If governments truly want to prevent Internet piracy, there are more effective ways to accomplish it that do not involve wasting millions of dollars in legal fees trying to shut down piracy websites.
They should encourage intellectual property owners to come up with quality, affordable alternatives. Providing people with access to content online for free, using ad-based systems (i.e. the Hulu method) is one way to encourage legal online viewing. Online Internet radio stations are another example of acceptable alternatives.
Some content creators have even used file sharing to their advantage as a way to promote their creative works. For example, Sanctuary, the Syfy TV show, had humble beginnings as a freely distributed online web show.
Rather than diminish their profits, they were able to increase their revenue, using the Web to their advantage.
If the US government truly wants a war on piracy, it will be like the war on drugs and the war on terror: endless and pointless. If, however, they want to truly foster creativity and innovation, while still making sure content creators are paid fairly for their work, they need to stop treating it like a war and start coming up with useful alternatives.
Tags: internet piracy
here's one way of ending piracry.MAKE MOVIES & MUSIC MORE CHEAPER . one song 99cents?
better that HOW ABOUT one album $.99 . Now movies last week i took my niece to see a movie , You know the typical popcorn fountain drink and tickets for one adult and child total amount $48.00 for an hour of happiness. Now i make $11.50 per hr on a 40 hr per week . take home is 330.00 per week after taxes. 200 of it goes to rent 100 for home needs such as groceries which is not cheap at all. now your left with maybe 40 dollars for the week.there's not to many jobs are around for second shift specialy for a skilled trade but i like my job ,exellent full benefits then there's gas um electric, phone and typical goin out SOCIAL THINGS .so what you are saying is this. GIVE UP OUR WAY OF LIFE, TO DUMB FOUNDED DIPSHIT DRUG ADDICTED SELF LOATHING NO TALENT OVERATED OVER PAID MUSICIANS AND ACTOR. fuck you and them . first off every musician ripps off one nother, LOOK IT UP ON THE INTERNET IT'S THERE ,LISTEN TO WHAT'S BEEN RIPPED OFF YOU HAVE TWO EARS IT'S ALSO THERE .AND LOOK AT THE MUSICIANS WHO ARE SAYING OUR MUSIC IS BEING RIPPED OFF ,GUESS WHO'S HOLLIER THAN THOU CAST THE FIST STONE, MOVIES YOU WANNA TALK MOVIES HELL, THEY ARE RIPPING THEM OFF FROM BOOKS,it dosen't matter if they are twisting them around ,the point is this. pure and simple they are ,look at the credits!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm not saying piracy is a good thing what am saying they should make it even cheaper with mp3 players with vdeo capability cuts back on making it to a dvd costs , they do make gadets that you can hook your mp3 player to your tv to watch it even better . So next time you buy a cd ,play it in your $5000.00 car or $813.00 a Month rent apartment on a $1300.00 MONTH SALLERY AND THE COVER OF SOME SINGER SITTING NEXT TO THERE $250,000 CAR NEXT TO THEIR $5,000,000,000 HOME,WATCHING SOME NON TALLENT ACTOR OR ACTRESS BEING PAMPERED PARTING-IT-UP (snorting coke) IN SOME POSH PLACE EATING THE MOST FINEST FOODS IN THE WORLD, WHILE YOUR JUST SITTING ON YOUR FUTON EATING MACARONI AN CHEESE CAUSE YOU CANT AFFORD THE BETTER THINGS IN LIFE .Wanna make the economy better GO AFTER THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING KNOCK-OFF'S