The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Piracy Ray Beatty raybea@melbpc.org.au |
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Ray Beatty presents some confronting thoughts; he asks are we willing to do what it takes to minimise piracy, to help the industry survive and pay the creators their dues. |
The day after you acquired your CD or DVD writer the requests would have
started, I bet. "Can you make me copies of these records - I'll supply the
disks" or "My friends just love this movie - can you dub it?" The pleas can be
persistent and reasonable, and in the end you cave in. But are you really doing
damage?
The media companies are complaining ever more loudly that they are losing out to
backyard piracy. And now the artists themselves have joined in the complaints.
Recent reports show the Australian Record Industry Association blaming piracy
for last year's fall in CD sales by 5.5 percent. In America, the equivalent
organisation RIAA sued an ISP to force them to disclose the name of a user who
downloaded hundreds of songs from the Internet. The court agreed, sending civil
liberties advocates into white heat.
The amount of music stolen world-wide is estimated at $8.9 billion. And now DVDs
are picking up speed as the favoured disk to filch.
The Looting Epidemic
The situation is getting so serious that it roused some sleeping giants, who
made their complaints at a Comdex keynote talk, in Las Vegas late last year.
Peter Chernin is a giant, inasmuch as he is President of News Corporation and
Chairman of Fox.
He described this as a "looting epidemic", pointing out that taking material
through your computer is no more legal than stealing with your bare hands. "If
hundreds of thousands of dresses were stolen from a Wal-Mart, the police would
mount a task force that would make Winona Ryder quake in her boots." He pointed
to libraries - if thousands of books were stolen in a single day, security would
leap. If hundreds of thousands of movies were shoplifted from video stores,
"no-one would be defending the shoplifters with claims of personal freedom or
excuses for the harmless high jinks of the young."
So why do otherwise law-abiding citizens happily download buckets of material
every day? He put it down to three public attitudes that prevail on society and
among computer users.
Three Theories
There's the Dinosaur Theory. That big media companies are stuck in their old way
of trading, and haven't taken advantage of the new technology out there, or come
up with creative solutions. The world is moving in new directions and those who
cannot adapt will become extinct.
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In reply Chernin pointed to all the innovations which came or grew because of big media. Computer animation, graphics, film-making. Digital TV and cinema, and the huge success of DVDs. Today movies can be watched in theatres, on video, on laptops, on DVD, on DVHS, on free-to-air TV, digital cable, video on demand and digital satellite. Next there's the Big Bully theory. This believes that companies want to scale back on public freedoms. The freedom to time-shift by recording a program and playing it later. To make copies for private use or for use on computers. No, he said, his companies fully support fair use. They just don't want people making hundreds of copies with the click of a mouse and selling it on the street. |
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Theory number three is Screw The Suits. "According to this theory, illegal
downloads and illicit file-sharing are nothing more than rebellious slaps at the
rich idiots in slick Hollywood offices who basically had it coming!" These
people have too much money anyway and deserve to be ripped off.
Enter Obi-Wan Kenobi
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The problem is, the studios are not the ones who suffer most. At this point he
was joined on stage by George Lucas, to the ripple of the excited audience. Middling in height, bearded and very down-home in his check shirt, he could have been any one of the myriad of geeks browsing the exhibition floor. Except that you knew he could probably buy the lot of them with his loose change. But he was there on a mission. He claimed to speak not for himself, but for the countless other independent producers, cameramen, make-up, grips, gaffers, writers, actors, carpenters, painters, drivers - all those who make their living out of the industry. If piracy continues to grow at the current rate, what will disappear are the little films, the different ones, the experiments, the output of the independents. |
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"You see the corporations aren't the ones that will suffer," he explained - they
will carry on making the blockbusters and the formula movies and the sequels,
all the multiplex stuff. "Corporations are like cockroaches - whatever happens,
they are going to survive anything. It's the rest of us that will suffer."
At this point he explained that he still regarded himself as a small independent
film maker, even if he is the biggest of them all.
At the later press conference, a reporter asked him how he felt when he
discovered that his latest Star Wars movie was available on the streets of New
York a week before the premiere. "Like anyone who comes home and finds that his
house has been robbed," he replied, "an empty sick feeling in the stomach."
The Napster Clones
Even though Napster finally met its doom, any brief search on Google will reveal
scores of Napster clones vying for attention on the Net. Morpheus, Aimster,
Freenet, Limewire - even our home-grown Kazaa. It's just so easy to log on and
download every song you've ever liked. With the growth of broadband, full-length
movies become just as easy. Tin Pan Alley is already suffering, will Hollywood
also suffer from the new
technology?
Chernin's visit to Comdex was prompted by a desire to bring computer and media
companies together in developing new protection for the media properties. Can
they combine to beat a common enemy?
"I haven't come to Comdex with any illusions about the eradication of all
digital stealing... I have great confidence that the extraordinary skills of
media and technology companies, when put together, can return dishonesty and
piracy to the fringes of the vital creative business we share - and restore to
both our industries the explosive growth that is within our reach."
Passionate Justifications
When I debate this issue with friends and fellow members, often the cry comes
up: those companies put their material on free TV, their music plays everywhere
-often the download sites are the only way for a fresh group to get exposure
because the big guys don't support them.... There is a long and passionate list
of justification. Is it true?
Well I've downloaded and copied stuff, and however much I can justify doing it
(the record's out of stock now; it's too hard to find in this country; it's just
an old favourite movie of mine...) I still know I'm ripping someone off. And I
feel guilty about it. And promise that it's just this once, next time I'll try
harder to find the legitimate copy etc. And I'm still ripping someone off.
Now don't tell me that you have never been in that position because I'll call
you a liar. It's just too easy to copy whatever we want with the power of these
mighty machines sitting on our desks. But it is getting out of hand, it is
starting to be a threat to something we value deeply: our entertainment
industry. And our software industry.
At our February monthly meeting the former boss of Tracker, Roger Bushell, asked
how many in the audience were former Tracker users. He was delighted to see a
score of hands shoot up. Then he joked: "and how many of you were using
legitimately purchased copies of Tracker?" Two hands rose. He laughed: "Yes
that's a reason why Tracker went broke."
So from the point of view of the entertainers, from George Lucas to the
small-budget cameraman; from the record companies to a lowly session musician;
from the big software company to the would-be developer in his garage - this is
a problem that will have to be solved. The recent recession shows that the
computer business is not as robust as we always thought, in fact it can be
vulnerable to small jolts in confidence.
In the end each one of us has to ask: if we want this magical industry to
continue to flourish, are we willing to pay the dues? Which can mean saying no
to those dubbing requests.
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