Internet monitoring, copyright monopolism, and other methods of stopping filesharing aren’t an industry defending itself from economic damage. They’re a concerted effort to deny access to culture, tools, and information to working-class people in industrialized nations, and everyone else in the rest of the world. And the worst part is, it reinforces itself by turning struggling artists against struggling fans.
The attitude that looks down on people who “just want free stuff” and “don’t want to pay for things” is one coming from great economic privilege. If you’re able to afford expensive software, or you have no problem accessing culture through hundreds of 99 cent downloads and multiple $8 per month subscription services, good for you. If you have access to the financial services needed to pay for these things, that’s fantastic. But billions of people around the world don’t. Billions of people who have access to the Internet — but not much else — can only get their culture, their information, or their tools from The Pirate Bay.
It is socioeconomic bigotry to look down on these people, and to decry what they do as evil piracy when they couldn’t do the so-called “right” thing if they tried.
It’s equally supremacist to look down on working-class and non-Western filesharers for not sucking it up and abstaining from downloading anything. Privileged people have this idea that because access to the latest Foo Fighters album isn’t something essential like food or water, you’re a deplorable, petty little thief if you go and “steal” it anyway. These “luxuries” of entertainment and joy are only for the rich, for the people fortunate enough to have access to credit cards, for people who live in a country deemed economically “important” enough for culture to be approved for distribution in their region.
It’s very easy to tell other people that they don’t need things when you’re fortunate enough to be able to have them.
If you think it’s so easy to survive without access to all the culture you want, when you want, try giving it up. Call your bank and have them freeze all of your accounts for a while, and don’t use anything you that you can’t buy with the amount of cash available to someone living on poverty wages. See what it’s like to live without your Netflix like that, even with the added privilege of knowing that you can terminate the experiment whenever you want.
The problem is even starker when you look at operating systems and creative software. These are tools of production, and under the copyright industry’s system of oppression, people who can afford these tools have a direct socioeconomic advantage over the people who can’t. The reason filesharing is branded as “piracy” is because it pokes a hole in that domination. It takes away the upper class’s stranglehold on producing culture, whether for the purpose of making money or simply having a voice.
Some economically disadvantaged people also consciously declare themselves pirates as a form of political protest — against intellectual property, a company’s business practices, or what have you. There are absolutely a minority of people in a position of economic privilege who also do this, who are able to afford the asking price of the things they download for free and fileshare purely for political reasons. If this political act offends your sensibilities — because it’s not “real” civil disobedience if you avoid consequences, and not a “real” boycott if you still get the product — that’s barely any less pearl-clutchingly pompous than spitting on people who fileshare out of necessity. But I want to reiterate, people who are both able to afford the copyright industry’s asking prices, and who also choose piracy as a form of protest, are a very small minority. The pirate who can pay and chooses not to is largely a strawman.
Perhaps there are people in a “gray area” — the ones who can’t afford Photoshop and certainly not Maya, but maybe it wouldn’t kill them to spend a few dollars on iTunes. I’d like to remind you that nobody has any right to judge how poor people handle their money. Nobody has any right to say somebody doesn’t qualify as “poor” because they own such luxuries as a refrigerator and an Xbox, or because they’re dependent on upper- or middle-class family members for a slightly more comfortable lifestyle than eating roach-infested ramen. By extension, nobody has any right to tell people that their filesharing is out of necessity or out of a political crusade. It can be one, or the other, or both. And it’s absolutely elitist to say that it’s illegitimate.
Nobody gets to decide who’s being poor correctly. Not rich people, not poor people. And the latter is equally a problem, when poor people moralize at other poor people for not respecting property rights enough. Just like how people of color can internalize racist narratives, LGBT people can internalize homophobia, and women can internalize patriarchy, you don’t have to be upper class to be classist. Anyone can buy into the bullshit of classism and perpetuate it, even though it’s against their own interests. And nobody internalizes copyright classism like starving artists.
In case it’s not clear, the definition of “classism,” “sexism,” “racism,” etc. we’re using here is from social justice theory, i.e. a culture-wide system of domination by one group of people over another. It’s not a synonym for one individual having a prejudice. A poor person who hates rich people is not “reverse classist.” That’s a prejudiced poor person. But there’s no culturally-pervasive system that gives their prejudice any power.
Maybe you’re a struggling artist, writer, coder, or other creative person who has a hard time feeling sympathy for all the people who enjoy the fruits of your hard work and don’t give you anything in return. You know what? I am too. I published a book that nobody bought when I was 16, I had a failed Kickstarter when I was 21, and by 24 I’ve had empty donation boxes at more film screenings and presentations than I can count. This is not because people are mean, cruel, and callous. This is because everybody else is just as broke as I am.
When there’s not enough money to go around, only about 1% of artists ever get any of it. It doesn’t go to the best 1% of artists (and if you think it does, please read all three books in the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy and then get back to me). It goes to the luckiest 1%. That’s just the way this screwed up world works.
We need to stop internalizing classism and believing that it is a crime to be poor, and that people without money don’t deserve nice things. It starts with refusing to believe that you, yourself, are financially struggling because it’s your own fault, that you’re not good enough, or that your situation is the result of anything besides an accident of what family you were born into. That’s what happens when we internalize bigotry: we hate ourselves just as much as the people like us.
So if we really care about the injustice towards struggling artists who can’t make any money from their hard work, let’s direct our rage at the people and institutions that are reinforcing economic inequality. Don’t take it out on the people who just want to distract themselves from how broke we all are with some free Game of Thrones.
One TEENSY little problem, Zacq.
How do content creators get compensated for their work ??
I talk to a lot of Indie Authors, who use open-source tools and open systems to produce DRM-free ebooks.
And sell them directly to readers, via Amazon, Smashwords, and other platforms.
We’re not talking big media conglomerates, or the MPAA-RIAA Crime Cartel, but individual authors, trying to make a living. How is pirating THEIR books, already inexpensive, compensating them for their work and their costs (hint: Covers COST money, if you have to buy or commission artwork. Editors don’t work for free, either. . . .)
Teensy little problem, indeed. You can just publish your ideas before going through the hassle of making them real and, if people like it enough, they might give you money to execute it via crowdfunding.
Once you’re in, funding more stuff gets easier and easier as people build trust on you.
Most businesses need upfront investment, so what’s the problem with investing your time to making your ideas shine and ask money to execute them? It already happens. Just have a look at Kickstarter.
What makes you think selling copies is the only way an artist can make money? There are many ways. What I told you is just the easier one.
Gee, Kickstarter and crowd-funding. Except you never know how it turns out until it’s done. And there are no guarantees: not just the failed Kickstarters and such, but the sellouts, like Oculus VR. 2 million from supporters, thanks. . . now we’re selling ourselves to Fecesbook.
But say I already HAVE a backlist of books that I have written and retain the rights to, and I choose to sell them as an individual on the free market.
Pirating them is STILL theft, and not from any faceless conglomerate.
No, it’s not technically theft. See: http://falkvinge.net/2013/12/23/reminder-1-copyright-monopoly-infringement-isnt-stealing-says-the-us-supreme-court/.
Stealing implies taking property away from someone without their consent. Technically, “intelectual property” is not property either. See: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html. And if I’m copying stuff that’s already on the Internet, from people who are not YOU, how on earth could I be stealing from you?
If I fileshared your work:
* I’m wouldn’t even be interacting with you or your property.
* I’m wouldn’t even be dealing with property at all.
* I’d get a copy from peers and they would keep their own copies.
* I wouldn’t be doing that without their consent.
* How can you try to make a case I’m stealing something from you in this scenario?
What I *would* be doing is copyright infringement. That’s a wildly different beast.
Regarding crowdfunding, wow, so there’s no guarantee of success. If that’s crowdfunding’s problem compared to selling of copies, then selling copies must guarantee success, and we both know that’s not true. If people don’t like what you do, they don’t buy it. If people don’t like what you propose to do, or don’t trust you, they won’t fund your projects. It’s all the same.
What Oculus Rift did was horrible, but people should just remember the folks involved and avoid backing their future projects. Problem solved.
Crowdfunding won’t be over just because an a$$ did something evil. Not even if 20 a$$e$ do that. They’ll just detroy their public image. Crowdfunding as a concept though came to stay, because it’s the only real way out. It’s a way YOU could make the damn money you insist you need copyrestriction laws to make. That’s very powerful. That kind of value just won’t go to waste. And as for copyrestrictions, if all goes well, they’ll fall into disuse due to massive civil disobedience. Eventually, companies will just get tired and find better ways to exploit us. They always do.
It takes a serious perversion of language to equate multiplying something with taking away (stealing.) There’s a name for that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Re: crowdfunding, I’m sorry but if you have a problem getting fans to pay you for your work, then the problem is not crowdfunding. Don’t take that the wrong way – I’m not saying it’s your work either. Believe me, I know how difficult it is to make money from art, and just because someone isn’t raking in cash on Kickstarter doesn’t mean their work sucks. But the myth that compensation requires copyright should have been put down long ago.
Like I said below, Kickstarter – or any other crowdfunding platform – may not be the one that works for everyone, or works for you in particular. But this is hardly different from the locked-up publishing model of the old world – there are no guarantees of success in the art world and there never have been.
Additionally, your choice to sell your books on the free market is perfectly valid. But your ability to sell books and get compensated for your work does not rely on people not pirating your work. In fact, quite the reverse: much ink has already been spilled on the *positive* (or at least neutral, in some cases) link between piracy and sales. Here’s a small, and far from exhaustive, sample I’ve collected:
http://cheapassfiction.com/reference-copyrightpiracy-research/
This is the “digital tips” idea that gets floated around and has some merit. Basically if some unknown name is trying to get their name known, they just self-publish (which is far easier in this digital age) offer a payment/digital tips option, but make it optional. This leads to greater exposure for the content creator, as more people are willing to take a chance or make a time investment on a free thing than an unknown commodity. If the content is actually GOOD, most people will pay when they have the means to, or at the very least tell other people about it to increase exposure and positive word of mouth. This builds trust, confidence, and a fanbase for the content creator so future works will get even more exposure, and more exposure means a higher chance that an average consumer of the content will pay for it.
While it doesn’t have the same sizzle as 1 download = 1 sale (it might be 1 download = 0.56 sale), the fact that instead of 20 guys who may be adventurous enough to purchase the content, you’ll find 100 guys who download and out of that maybe 50 of them chip in a buck or two.
With respect, I think those who are still asking “how do creators get compensated“ aren’t paying attention.
Look, I get it. It’s some real fucking WORK. I’ve been writing for my entire life, and for the adult part of it at least, struggling to get paid. The reality is, it IS a struggle. But the reality is also that the digital age – pirates and all – has given us far more ways to monetize our work than ever even existed before.
Can we say “here’s “a business plan that’s guaranteed to work!” Of course not (And if anyone does offer you a guarantee of success, you should probably run the other way.) We can’t say that Kindle sales, or Kickstarter, or donations, or micro-donations, or sale of physical merchandize like paperbacks, or advertising, or sponsorship, or Patreon-like patronage, or this promotion, or that promotion or–
etc. We can’t say that every opportunity is is going to work for every creator ever time. That’s not how it works. (And incidentally, that’s not how it ever worked. The distribution monopoly of traditional publishing was hardly a goldmine for everyone with a manuscript.)
But arguing on the grounds that there are actually fewer ways to get compensated now because piracy, rings hollow. Especially when you are talking about small-time and indie authors (or musicians or filmmakers or developers or…) For us small-time creators, the danger isn’t that someone will see our work without giving us .99, or whatever. The danger is that someone won’t see our work AT ALL.
Believe me, I want to get my work read and I want those 99 cents in return, but cutting out most of the world to ensure the payment of a few is not the way to do it.
Exactly. Society is evolving past the point where every has to or even should have to do real heavy ‘work’ like we conceive of it today.
A subsistence level guaranteed income with extras for those who work for them IS going to be the future, period and done with.
Now, is this going to royally piss off the rich and the ‘job creators’. Yes, but at the point where everyone does not have to worry about simply surviving anymore people can go out and start their OWN businesses, write their OWN books, etc. and publish them without a worry about getting compensated for it.
If they are compensated for it later? Whoop de do! Good for them, they have made something that people actually want to buy and is worth paying for.
There is the problem with the content ‘industry’ today. They seem to think that they are ENTITLED to compensation just because someone looks at their artwork/plays their game/listens to their music/just because they make X or Y.
Sorry, that is not how it works in the real world.
The whole reason why there was copyright to begin with was to create a financial incentive to discover signals that are interesting. Today Big Media thinks it’s a God-given right that the artists condom failures have to be entitled to sit on their anus for something their grandfather wrote 60 years ago. Greed by any other name is still greed. What if someone stole your car but it was still there in the morning? If a person is required by law to be lucky and get filthy rich because they discovered the 2^211,000 bits that sound pleasing then our society needs some serious re-programming.
Yes, hmm. If the fans find value in what you do it should be in their interest that you can keep doing your thing. If it then is by donation, paying for copies, live performances or whatever is of less importance. If they won’t pay you… suit themselves if you can’t spend time doing your thing. Even if that driver is not good enough, you can also create social media incentives to support creators. “Wow, look john supported X creators this month, the best of all his friends! That’s impressive.”. Social status.
Check out patreon for instance.
Yes, the last sentence is really something to consider and I suspect that was your main objection all along.
I already support a bunch of indie creators on patreon, you should check it out if you really care about indie creators!
Are their books being pirated? In general you see pirating of the best known (that is, MPAA-RIAA-Crime-Cartel-stuff).
Al the others have to fear oblivion, in stead of pirating. The pirated first book can be seen as PR for future work.
I really liked something Cory Doctorow said in his keynote speech at dConstruct “When we try to preserve the business models that worked last year, what we’re really saying is that last year’s lottery winner should be guaranteed to win this one.”
Some people will happen to be among the lucky one percent of artists who make money off of what is, when you get down to it, a hobby, and that’s great. I have no ill will toward the people who manage it. But being one of those lucky people this year doesn’t mean that society has to guarantee that you’ll always be part of that one percent.
That was an epic speech. (This one, right?: “Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free” http://craphound.com/?p=5305 )
All artists should give it a listen.
Pirates are self-centered egoistical leechers who don’t give a shit about the artist – and that’s the ugly truth.
I don’t need “fans” who don’t give a shit about me and just use my work without paying.
And no matter how you look at it:
If you earn money with pirated software you’re a piece of shit thief.
And that applies to ALL torrent sites. That’s why TPB founders are guilty of theft, because they’re profiting off other’s work without compensating them.
Let’s be honest – no one visits torrent sites to download linux.
They download commercial software and art. And torrent sites who help to distribute that stuff are indirectly profiting off work of others without compensating them – those torrent site owners are thieves – plain and simple.
Piracy is morally wrong – no matter how you look at it – there are no arguments against that.
Sharing stuff for free is just a bit less wrong that sharing it for profit – and that’s it.
“Pirates are self-centered egoistical leechers who don’t give a shit about the artist – and that’s the ugly truth.”
In your retarded world maybe. I pirate the shit out of my favorite musicians songs and yet I attend their concerts and even buy the physical media (which I never even rip the plastic package out because it’s only to support them). I’ve even donated directly instead. And I’m neither alone here and nor the minority.
“I don’t need “fans” who don’t give a shit about me and just use my work without paying.”
You can die in oblivion then. The world doesn’t need artists like you either.
“If you earn money with pirated software you’re a piece of shit thief.”
I used to think like that up to the point I learned a single copy of Photoshop costs almost half an year of work (at least here, not in the US) and gets updated frequently for cosmetic changes. Really. You are a piece of shit for ignoring this single reality.
“That’s why TPB founders are guilty of theft, because they’re profiting off other’s work without compensating them.”
You need to check the definition of theft, it is not the case and multiple courts agree with me here. As for the profits, it has been proven that pirate sites don’t earn much money at all, specially when advertisers avoid them like the plague. I’m talking about sites you can use for free of course, there are those who try to sell access. But even so, why can’t they earn money for providing a channel for file-sharing? If the industry is so harmed by this why don’t they strike deals and lower prices to make it affordable and easily available for the masses? They’d even save the goddamn bandwidth.
“Let’s be honest – no one visits torrent sites to download linux.”
You’d be surprised. Also, Linux is not the only freely available thing via torrents. There are plenty of free software (including games), movies, music etc. The fact that you have your head stuck up in your ass preventing you from seeing it doesn’t mean these free options aren’t there.
“Piracy is morally wrong – no matter how you look at it – there are no arguments against that.”
No, it is not. In fact it’s kind of mandatory considering the pricing, artificial time windows, geo restrictions, artist screwing and all the rest your bosses are guilty of. Care to talk about the fuckery the other side of the coin is engaged in? Setting up Dotcom with false charges and denying him due process? Rigging the system against the operators of TPB, corrupting law enforcement and the judicial system to get convictions? What about the blatant human rights violations against them?
You, sir, are the piece of shit here.
“Pirates are self-centered egoistical leechers who don’t give a shit about the artist – and that’s the ugly truth.”
Bet you haven’t seen patreon or kickstarter. Lots of pirates are there investing in culture and other things.
“I don’t need “fans” who don’t give a shit about me and just use my work without paying.”
Well they aren’t by definition fans if they don’t find a value in what you do. A real fan would find a value in paying you. And if it turns out he wasn’t a fan, then no harm done. Most educated fans know you don’t get shit by selling copies and want to pay you directly instead. So it does not make sense that you would be a creator. It makes much more sense that you make money on traditional publishing or something of the sort.
“Let’s be honest – no one visits torrent sites to download linux.”
I do. And other CC culture as well. Taking down torrent sites is not about stopping piracy, it’s about stopping creators to be able to reach fans without having to go to publishing.
“Piracy is morally wrong – no matter how you look at it – there are no arguments against that.”
There are many arguments against that. If you were willing to listen it would have been meaningful to explain to you. But you won’t listen.
“And that applies to ALL torrent sites. That’s why TPB founders are guilty of theft, because they’re profiting off other’s work without compensating them.”
Good for you, then, that the next generation of torrent clients fully decentralizes the need for torrent sites altogether.
Either live in a paradigm where what people choose to communicate between themselves is none of your affair, or go back to lamenting the fact you don’t live in the 16th century anymore.
Honestly, all one has to do is read your commentary and it becomes quite obvious that you can’t make any single argument without first lying through your teeth.
Multiplying a piece of information isn’t stealing – unless you want to say anyone gossiping is guilty of grand larceny as well. As a third party you have no involvement in when party A shows his/her property to person B so person B can manufacture a copy using their own efforts.
Keep calling it “theft” by all means. All you do is render yourself irrelevant to the debate.
Regardless of your judgment of the individuals,
The economics of copying have moved on as surely as the economics of travel did at the turn of the 20th century.
Anyone who believes in the liberating power of technical innovation facilitated by economic freedom would be able to see the parallels here.
We didn’t stand in the way of the screw propeller or the automobile to arbitrarily and artificially preserve the paychecks of sailmakers and buggy whip salesmen.
We recognized this as increased efficiency freeing capital for more creative uses, and that’s what P2P is. The age of the centrally controlled press is over, and any attempt to prop it up for political gains will be resisted by a large contingent of the global population the same way attempts to clamp down on the press in the 1700’s were resisted.
How will I find out your ravings are worth my money ?
If even the first taste costs me anything more than my time you are locked out of my future choices.
I do not know the figure on how much is written and posted every day but in an age where YouTube has 100 HOURS of video uploaded every minute it has to be more than I could read even the TITLES to in real time, let alone pay attention to subjects.
Whether you call it piracy or advertising or Reviews, your text will never reach me if you make it hard for it to spread, at no cost, to a venue I trust for recommendations.
In the past you had a few thousand editors to reach and if you rose above the thousand other offerings they had each day then I might be apprised of your existence.
Today there are tens of millions you need to stand out from. If your offering is not placed before me, no more than a single click away, then it is not worth my time to pursue. I have millions of other offerings to look at.
Maybe Zacquary is actually secretly working for copyright industry – because his articles almost sound like a parodies written by copyright industry.
They’re so fucking illogical – they’re doing more harm than good to the pirate movement.
Considering, how many trolls are in here, I presume article is good. Will read.
There probably doesn’t exist enough money in the world to even begin to pay full price for every unauthorised copy that currently exists…
And if you think about it, that’s great. Incredibly, mind-bogglingly great. It means that in giving so many people access to culture for free, piracy has created* more wealth than all other human endeavors taken together.
* It took nothing away – everyone who had a copy still has one – so it must have created the wealth instead of just redistributing it. It’s not like Robin Hood stealing gold from the rich to give to the poor, it’s like Jesus summoning bread out of thin air – and the bakers’ guild crying foul because it cuts into their profits.
“There probably doesn’t exist enough money in the world to even begin to pay full price for every unauthorised copy that currently exists…”
There doesn’t. The official numbers slung about by the MPAA and RIAA alone indicate they lose more jobs each year to piracy than all of Hollywood employs, and they lose more money due to people making copies than 42 times of the money existing in the entire world.
And those numbers, even by casual perusal, can be traced down to some figure estimate made in the 70’s, with no research or study at all backing it.
Yes. We are at a stage where the very value of money more or less is defined by these monopolies. The value of money earned outside of a monopoly is worth so much less than money earned inside a monopoly that people who do real labour not protected by monopoly should refuse to accept monopoly-money as payment and only accept something which guarantees a certain amount of (other) labour will be done in exchange for the labour done. Trading “micro-contracts” or “micro-options” instead of “money”. If you offer me a service I offer you X minutes of my work by contract.
For an example of Copyright math…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
Yes it can be viewed as a kind of noblemans privileges. Or maybe as the old guilds had “rights” to decide how their trade was done and anyone not a “master” (in the guild) had no right to challenge or change that. Shoemakers guild for instance. Can’t have been very happy when factories were started to make shoes.
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I still have a big problem with people copying material for profit instead of personal use. I believe the distinction to be crucial: it’s not the same thing to copy X to use/give to a friend, than to copy X and sell it on the street (yeah, i “manufactured” it, to quote falkvinge, but do I “own” it?). In latinamerica and parts of asia this kind of piracy is rampant, and i believe this to be damaging, not only to the distributors, but to artists and audience as well (even on good quality copies) since any semblance of (creative) control is lost and type of piracy justs substitutes the distributor for a new one. I believe the “true piracy” should bring artist and audience closer, and every useful part of the chain should be rewarded for their contribution, discarded when not needed and never enforced.
Falkvinge was so wrong to allow this social justice warior to write on his site and fill it with marxist ideology. This social justice bullshit really has no place in the pirate community. Fighting against the draconian copyright laws should be soly based on defending basic human rights and civil liberties, and not on some ideological grounds.
Especially this very harmful SJW ideology shouldn’t be allowed to poison even the pirate community (after it poisoned gameing, comics, atheism, and many other things). It is as much against civil liberties as the copyright laws, or maybe even more.
Do you have anything to contribute other than buzzwords? At no point in your diatribe do you actually present a counterargument to the article. What is your specific objection to the proposal that a system that disproportionately benefits rich people might have an institutional socioeconomic/class bias?
While I agree with this article’s points, I agree with them from the theory of economic meritocracy facilitated by market freedom, not a “social justice” theory.
If you apply logic and critical thought to the application of “social justice” at the individual level in the real world, the theory of “social justice” falls apart like a house of cards and is exposed for the naked emperor it is:
Collective Punishment.
For instance, collectively, whites occupy a place of privilege in the US, but it still stands the majority of the impoverished are white rural poor. One would hardly call it “justice” if one of these white rural poor were denied entry to a university based on race under affirmative action.
That white rural poor person was just collectively punished for the actions of a likely dead man from 4 generations ago who happened to have the same skin color.
“A poor person who hates rich people is not “reverse classist.” That’s a prejudiced poor person. But there’s no culturally-pervasive system that gives their prejudice any power.”
That’s a terrible argument. The attitude of the poor in 1930’s germany, blaming the rich jewish bankers for their own poverty injustice was all that was necessary to empower a tyrant and bring devastation to europe. All you need for the power balance to shift is for those views to become more popular, and they are allowed to do that when they are shielded from criticism by social stigma, like you’ve just replicated.
The police are for hire and only serve those who they see fit to serve. Proof is in the recent tragedies of police officers that have been shot. I saw on the news days later some police commissioner crying that no one cares. Maybe he should be crying to the people he serves that use him like the tool he is. Slaves didn’t give a crap about their masters and the abused don’t care about the abusers, end of story.
This is why we need a unconditional Basic Income, so all artists can make a good living even without copyright !