In the February 27 issue of National Review, Reihan Salam and Patrick Ruffini argue that Hollywood lobbyists have been more successful than they deserve to be, especially by nearly passing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Most of their article’s main points are unobjectionable: SOPA was problematic; the Internet is a wondrous development that should not be overregulated; Hollywood has received unseemly financial favors from various levels of government; and copyright law has been needlessly expanded at the hands of the entertainment industry.
Salam and Ruffini are also correct that the Web has thrown numerous established businesses, from brick-and-mortar retailers to newspapers to the U.S. Postal Service, into turmoil, forcing them to confront highly efficient online competition. They are right, too, that the government should let the market work its magic in these cases. But they are wrong to include the threat Hollywood faces from Internet piracy in this trend.
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When brick-and-mortar bookstores complain about the threat they face from Amazon.com, they are complaining that customers will leave them for a superior alternative; when Hollywood complains about piracy, they are complaining that customers have left them for an illegal alternative. They have stopped paying for Hollywood products yet are still consuming them. These are not even remotely similar situations — morally, legally, or economically.
With this distinction in mind, one might find it rather odd for Salam and Ruffini to insist that the solution to piracy is “innovation” rather than law enforcement. By “innovation,” they mean primarily that Hollywood should make it easier and cheaper for customers to buy their content digitally, citing studies indicating that when digital content becomes readily available through legal channels, piracy goes down. But even assuming Hollywood can discourage piracy by cutting prices and offering its content in different ways, since when do we tellcrime victims to appease their tormenters?
Moreover, in no other industry do we allow consumers to force prices down by taking products for free whenever they, personally, think the legal versions are too expensive or inconvenient. Any customer may refuse to buy a product that’s undesirable, or even organize a boycott — but then that customer needs to go without the product. Salam and Ruffini provide no justification for singling out industries that sell intellectual property — and little evidence that these industries’ disproportionately young, bratty, and entitled consumers are better equipped than the free market to decide what a “fair” price is for an album or movie that cost thousands or even millions of dollars to create and market. Essentially, they are calling for price controls calibrated to the liking of the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
Salam and Ruffini also note that despite the cratering of sales for easily pirated media — recorded music and home movies, in particular — the entertainment industry as a whole is doing all right by some metrics. But once again, even if this is true, it applies a standard to the entertainment industry that no other sector must suffer under — namely, that it must tolerate violations of its legal rights so long as it remains profitable.
Of course, one may claim that the legal rights themselves are the problem, and should be eliminated or substantially weakened — but Salam and Ruffini take no such position in their piece, at least not explicitly. There are also the matters of how government should prioritize copyright enforcement, and what tradeoff we should strike between enforcing copyright laws and keeping legitimate Internet activity unrestricted. But Congress has for centuries recognized some form of copyright, the Constitution explicitly authorizes the legislature to do so, and even Salam and Ruffini concede that piracy is common and increasing. Thus it would seem that the industry has a strong moral and legal justification to ask the government to enforce copyright law more effectively.
Such passion, such sanctimony! The only way that piracy actually harms the music industry is if the illegal downloads cause fewer legal copies to be purchased. One then has to balance that to the increased number of legal purchases caused by more audience exposure to the music (Sally goes to iTunes and purchases her own Ledtallica album after hearing Johnny's pirated copy).
I find particularly precious the concept that Katy Perry is "tormented" that some kid in Des Moines downloaded one of her "songs" (can such caterwauling be properly categorized as music?), then subsequently purchases all the albums at the local WalMart.
What is particularly irritating about this piece is the fact that for the millions of folks like me (won't pirate but also won't pay $1.29 (!) for one song), listening to billionaires crying in their victimhood, is the fact that if music were reasonably priced, I would likely spend several hundred dollars per year buying music. As it stands, I'm not going to shell out such outrageous prices (and since I won't pirate either) and remain a music lover living on Pandora and XM radio. (Which is hardly living.)
$1.29? Perhaps you should become a better consumer. There is a world beyond iTunes. But even at a $1.29 for a 4 minute song works at to $1.29 for an hours worth of entertainment if you listen to it 15 times, and frankly if you aren't going to listen to a song at least 15 times why buy it?
Goldberg, I like your post, and I completely agree. I go to a rummage sale at a local church where I'm frequently pleased to find good, used, classical CDs for $1 a piece. Am I a criminal for not sending some extra dollars to the recording artists and studio? Written, sung, filmed and photographed material has been shared and recorded for longer than my lifetime. An artist who produces a product of quality will get attention and probably make good money to boot.
I just can't muster any pity for Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Madonna, or any of the crummy movie producers and Hollywood actors who live in a bubble outside of the reality of the lives of most of Americans. Hollywood is losing more money for the crummy movies they make than from piracy. Movie theaters aren't full to see the latest liberal propaganda film created in Hollywood.
BTW, as a nurse there is plenty of work that I do and don't get paid for, such as working an hour and a half after my shift to give report, do a med count, do rounds, and finish paper work and charting. I chose nursing as my career. I like being a nurse. Lots of people work hard for less compensation than they're worth in real value. So what if the precious artists get a taste of living like the rest of us.
Crime victims to appease their tormentors? By crime victims you mean the consumer and tormentors you mean the greedy pagan fiends who make hundreds of millions of dollars working half as hard as people in real industries?
Why doesn't Savons sell me my pencils for $14.00 each and then tell me I'm an evil criminal when I refuse to pay because it would literally bankrupt me if I paid that much for pencils?
It's not criminal to sell a 40 cent CD for $15 all those years? I'm evil if I refuse to get fleeced but still want to participate in my country's culture?
Give it a rest. Everyone is broken in this world and the people who mind their own business and download a few illegal movies aren't half as bad as the corporate types who spend all their energy scientifically studying how to fleece regular people in the most efficient manner. That is why God talked about the difficulty of RINOs, I mean rich people, getting into heaven.
In your opinion, is anyone who sells something for more than you want to pay, evil? Or just the movie/music industry.
That 40 cent CD only covers the cost of the CD itself. It doesn't pay the salaries of any of the hundreds of people needed to get that CD to the store, nor does it cover what the artist gets.
I'll leave it to others to reply to your general whininess. I'll just point out that His disciples realized that basically no one would be able to meet the requirements, to which His response is that while it would be impossible for man to do this, "with God all things are possible."
Even accepting your loaded example and ridiculous math, no, you're not an evil criminal because you "refuse to pay $14.00 for a pencil." You're a criminal because you steal the pencil.
You make it sound all high-minded and noble, that you're just "refusing to pay an unfair price" when you steal a pencil or a song. No, the guy who does without the pencil is doing that, refusing to pay a price he finds unfair. And no one is criticizing that guy. Who we're criticizing is the guy who steals pencils.
“Moreover, in no other industry do we allow consumers to force prices down by taking products for free whenever they, personally, think the legal versions are too expensive or inconvenient.”
This analogy ignores the important distinction between infinitely replicable digital IP and tangible personal property. That’s why IP will always be balancing incentives for innovation vs. the free exchange of information, rather than the “bundle of rights” rightly afforded to real and personal property. Our copyright laws are still designed for a 16th C publishing technology, but digital distribution beginning in the 1990s has fundamentally shifted that incentive/free exchange balance by radically decreasing the costs of distribution. IP should be protected, but quite a bit less than either SOPA or Hollywood would like (Rather than 70 years, think in term of single digit years). IP should NEVER be afforded the same protection as tangible property, and it's wrong for the authors to argue otherwise.
This is spot-on. Theft of real and personal property is malum in se. Theft of intellectual property is malum prohibitum. I would also add that what the authors don't seem willing to accept is that distribution technology may very well have made it not just difficult, but impossible to enforce copyright meaningfully without dragooning third-parties into enforcement and violating privacy in ways that are antithetical to the Anglo-American legal tradition.
I disagree. Theft of the product of the mind is wrong in and of itself, not just because it is illegal. When IP rights are violated it is not the ones and zeros that are stolen, it is whatever the owner of the IP would have bought with the profits.
No one dies because they do not have the latest hit song on MP3, people who pirate do so in order to get benefits from someone else's creativity without paying for it. In my book that is morally wrong.
As others have already pointed out, IP theft is wrong, but it is not wrong in the same sense as breaking into someone's house and stealing the silverware. Treating IP theft the same as physical theft is a non sequitur, and results in an abrogation of personal liberty without a concomitant increase in personal safety. I have long analyzed this issue, and the only reason I can find for a person to advocate this non sequitur is to protect an entrenched business regime that deserves no such protection.
I disagree wholeheartedly about physical vs IP theft. (And, I'm not trying to protect any kind of "business model".) It is the theft of the product of my mind and labor. I really don't see how treating IP theft the same results in any abrogation of personal liberty. (The method of such protection might do so, however.)
The method of such protection could *easily* abogate personal liberty and so you and I are in perfect agreement.
I think that the entertainment industry should be forced to develop their own solutions in the commerical arena just as software publishers have done. Their use of government power should be confined to established copyright law, and as a matter of practice such enforcement should target large-scale criminal enterprises and should leave individuals alone.
This idea that you will always be rewarded for the “product of your mind and labor” is bunk. Many people work hard and do not receive adequate compensation. Ideas are put forth every day that have value, yet the originator may never see a cent. If I perform in a park, I may have talent and present a performance that was the result of hard work; I will not be financially compensated. If I perform in a bar that can charge at the door ( and keep non-payers out) – I will most likely make some money. The IP is the same but the method used to extract the rent has changed. Unfortunately, big entertainment would like to use leather boot tactics to extract those rents. However, is this really a surprise? Liberals such as those in Hollywood like dictators at the end of the day.
The ability to make money from IP is an extremely valuable skill and an admirable talent. People with no skill or talent want to replace this ability with a big government sledgehammer. Going along with such an idea could not be more foolhardy.
The morality of violating an IP holder’s right would be an interesting debate, but ultimately an irrelevant one. The real question is what should that right be in order to maximize science and art? Unlike the protection of Individual rights, IP protection is expressly Utilitarian. Article I, Section 8 basically gives Congress the power to grant a monopoly for a limited time in order to promote science and the “useful arts.” So the Constitution and the Founding Fathers understood IP to be different than “property” 1) IP is a monopoly grant, 2) that monopoly is limited in time, and 3) the express purpose of this monopoly is creating an incentive to create and advance science and “useful arts.” This is quite different from physical property rights, which are not monopolies, do not expire and don’t exist for the sole purpose of promoting progress. Congress originally granted a 14 year monopoly, but today its 70 years. The controlling question should be where the sweet spot is between creating a profit incentive, and allowing the free flow of information, not how much money the RIAA can shovel at Congress.
I agree with your utilitarian argument, but as GWB points out on this thread, there is also a justice argument to be made. It is unjust to steal the IP of a creator, and there are lots of good reasons for upholding that principle. Unfortunately, some IP creators demand an amount of protection that abrogates the rights of others. For example, if I buy a book, read it, then give it to another person, some would demand that the other person pay for the book again. Of course they *wish* for such an additional payment, but their claim is preposterous. That is the level of control that some IP owners advocate, and frankly I wish that people would stop facilitating such coercion.
Along the same lines, for all of this talk of theft, the US Supreme Court has ruled that copyright infringement is not theft. It is exactly what it sounds like…right infringement..much like not being able to use my driveway, as someone is parked there. (I still own my driveway though) Copyrights and IP are a product of technology with the printing press; the absolute amount of profit made from IP is a function of technology (distribution scope); finally, the absolute limits on the profitability of IP will also be a function of technology. This is something that the entertainment industry does not want to accept.
