It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Buying a DVD on the black market? Dave, didn
Actually Welly, I buy blackmarket stuff in NY as a journalist. I inform the studios that I have made these purchases. And I offer to give them the DVD for them to follow up on where it might have come from. (A few have taken them over the years)
The only film I have ever seen first on a blackmarket DVD was Crouching Tiger, which I got in China before it opened here. I haven’t watched many to the end, though I did write a piece about how the audience reaction to Dawn of the Dead made me think it would be good for Universal to offer a screamtrack with a real audience on the ultimate legit DVD.
But no, I am not sweating the morality of it as regards my own behavior.
Then again, if the industry relied on me as a consumer, it would be YouTubeCityNews, since I pay for movies about 10 times a year and view, rent or buy very, very few DVDs other than arthouse screeners.
Quality, or lack thereof, is why piracy has never really appealed to me. Maybe I’m an unusual stickler, but those crappy mono 128kb MP3 files on P2P sites sends me happily to legitimate sources. Likewise the horrible quality of bootleg movies makes their meager price still too high for me.
About five years ago I bought a bootleg DVD of “The Hours” on 6th Avenue for $5. I knew better but I was catching a flight and figured I could watch it on my laptop and it would pass a couple of hours instead of whatever Kate Hudson rom-com the airline was trying to foist on me.
The bootleg was apparently the “silent version” of the flick and after 5 minutes of trying to read Nicky’s lips I gave up and listened to Martha in seat 27B go on and on about her grandkids.
I found a copy of “The Butterfly Effect” on the 3 train a couple of years later and I still feel ripped off.
Piracy does not pay.
Dave, surely you didn’t take me seriously?
I’m in Beijing right now doing a commercial…
I was on the streets here last night and saw no copies of Spiderman 3 or 2. Must be a Shanhai thing…
Course… by this time next week…..
Not really, Welly… but you know how it gets in here sometimes…
I’ve watched a bunch of illegal DVDs from places like Bali and Thailand. Basically movies that weren’t out here yet or that I had no interest in seeing at the cinema but for free on DVD I didn’t care.
I’d rather watch a decent quality (as those things go) illegal of Factory Girl than wait another, what? six months? for the movie to be released in cinemas (and it was a movie I really wanted to see as well).
I figure it’s their own fault for not releasing movies simultaneously. I’m refusing to see any other 2006 films in cinemas (except for Golden Flower, INLAND EMPIRE and maybe Painted Veil if I feel like it) because I think it’s downright insulting that I have to pay $12 to see something like HalfNelson in May 2007. Just like I don’t think it’s right that I should have to pay double what americans paid to see the Grindhouse movies because they’ll be seperate here.
Thank god for all the region-coding and other DRM that the studios load their DVDs with nowadays. People would be able to pirate them otherwise.
I have some bootlegs, I quite like them. Though I don’t bother with the ones done by handicam in a theatre. I like the DVD or Laserdisc rips. The quality may not be as good as a regular DVD, but I don’t care. It’s good enough for me. And some real DVDs have pretty pitiful quality anyway. I also like having no commercials or ridiculous menus that take 4 minutes to load.
The ones that I have serached out are movies that took too long to get to DVD, that I got tired of waiting for. The others are just ones that friends have passed on because they’d watched them or assumed I’d like them. They are movies I wouldn’t have bought anyway.
TV shows are a different. I shamelessly watch downloaded HBO shows (Sopranos, Rome, The Wire) because I can’t get HBO where I live. You can apparently get some of the shows on a local movie network, but it’s ridiculously expensive.
I used to be big into buying DVDs. I own a couple of hundred, but I haven’t bought anything in about a year. Partly, I think it’s just me changing, and not needing to own every movie I like. Partly, I am tired of buying shitty DVDs, or buying a DVD for $30 then a month later seeing the new “director’s cut with never before seen footage” for $25. Then two weeks after that the “definitive edition” is released. I just got sick of it.
As for the HD versus Blu-Ray thing. I couldn’t care less. Hi-Def leaves me totally cold. Most of the time I can’t see the improvement between a high-def image and the image produced by an $80 dvd player on a decent TV. And now I’m supposed to start all over again, buying all my favourite movies on HD DVD just in time for IT to become obsolete? Not going to happen.
I have some bootlegs. I quite like them. Though I don’t bother with the ones done by handicam in a theatre. I like the DVD or Laserdisc rips. The quality may not be as good as a regular DVD, but I don’t care. It’s good enough for me. And some real DVDs have pretty pitiful quality anyway. I also like having no commercials or ridiculous menus that take 4 minutes to load.
The ones that I have searched out are movies that took too long to get to DVD, that I got tired of waiting for (Quick Change, Star Wars with the original fx, etc.). The others are just ones that friends have passed on because they’d watched them or assumed I’d like them. They are movies I wouldn’t have bought anyway.
TV shows are different. I shamelessly watch downloaded HBO shows (Sopranos, Rome, The Wire) because I can’t get HBO where I live. You can apparently get some of the shows on a local movie network, but it’s ridiculously expensive.
I used to be big into buying DVDs. I own a couple of hundred, but I haven’t bought anything in about a year. Partly, I think it’s just me changing, and not needing to own every movie I like. Partly, I am tired of buying shitty DVDs, or buying a DVD for $30 then a month later seeing the new “director’s cut with never before seen footage” for $25. Then two weeks after that the “definitive edition” is released. I just got sick of it.
As for the HD versus Blu-Ray thing. I couldn’t care less. Hi-Def leaves me totally cold. Most of the time I can’t see the improvement between a high-def image and the image produced by an $80 dvd player on a decent TV. And now I’m supposed to start all over again, buying all my favourite movies on HD DVD just in time for IT to become obsolete? Not going to happen.
My apologies for the double post.
I used to be a huge DVD buyer, too, until I found Netflix. I realized shortly thereafter that buying whole seasons of television shows is pointless when I’ll never take the time to watch them twice. At this point I buy fewer than DVDs a year.
Typo: “…fewer than ten DVDs a year.”
I really think one of the few smart things the music industry has done in the last few years is take the lawsuits to the individuals, and highly publicize them. It’s gone way past the point where shame works as a detractor; it’s time to enforce copyright laws.
Granted, I think it is ultimately a lost cause, since it has become so pervasive, but it is nice to see them fighting in a way that reveals exactly what the situation is – theft.
I wonder if the music industry’s lawsuits have been more trouble than they’re worth. Every week you read about a little old lady being sued because her six-year-old downloaded a Christina Aguilera song.
People might feel less entitled to steal music if it wasn’t given away for free on the radio, if CDs weren’t so overpriced, and if the music industry wasn’t so grotesquely corrupt.
Exactly,
To be sure, downloading is theft, but in the hierarchy of crimes against others, it is so far down the list to be almost out of sight.
The music industry flat out lied about cd’s. They promoted them saying that they cost pennies to press compared to albums and that the price would go down. This has not happened and back catalogue cd’s are enormously overpriced.
Why in hell should anyone on God’s green earth have to pay upwards of 20 dollars for catalogue albums of Springsteen, the Stones or even many lesser bands? U2 has never even remastered thier original cd releases and the early ones sound like shite. This is what pisses people off and makes them download.
Also… the death of the single seriously hurt the record industry. You used to be able to go out and buy a single of one song if you wanted to just have it…not anymore. Now you have to buy the whole record of some one-hit wonder band with 25 crap tracks of filler next to the one song you want.
I feel little sympathy for the music industry.
As for the film industry, I believe the perception is that the industry itself is so decadent and corrupt that people don’t mind taking the odd rip or two or the odd trip to Chinatown (where the bootlegs are in my city). Of course, the difference is that with audio bootlegs you can get an almost near replication of quality of the source if you desire. Bootleg films, 9 times out of 10, look and sound like crap so it is harder to justify.
It also takes much longer to download or rip a film so I do not think it threatens the film industry in the way they like to say it does.
I think many people also got rubbed the wrong way by those ads a few years back with people like Ben Affleck lecturing them on ethics of downloading etc.
Its a complex issue and it is theft…but the film and recording industries are certainly not babes in the woods who can take no responsibility for the way things have progressed. They have very little moral high ground.
I will always remember the time, about 7 or 8 years ago, when I was walking up Broadway in Manhattan, and at Canal and Broadway, a table was set up with a whole gaggle of bootleg movies. I stopped to peruse the wares along with other passers-by, and i couldn’t help but notice one individual pick up a movie to show to her friend, and exclaim (in a wonderfully thick, southern, out of towner accent), “Look, they have (name of movie here)! But…isn’t this still in theatres? How do they have it already?” Her confusion (and apparent lack of knowledge of the film black market) will make me chuckle till the end of my time.
Nicol, it’s usually not 1 song that kid has downloaded, it’s normally 3,000 or more songs. It’s hard to feel bad for most of the people.
And while many of your arguments are valid, my take has been that most conversations about illegal downloading end up like the conversation from Office Space, where Peter is trying to convince his girlfriend that since he’s only stealing fractions of a penny that it is okay. And she keeps reminding him that it is still stealing.
People know what stealing is, and no matter how hard people rationalize it with cd costs, etc., it’s still illegal. And I hope parents start to realize that they’re the ones who are going to have to pay the $3,000 fine for not paying attention to what their kids are doing on the computer.
Ultimately, it’s not going to do enough to stop the problem, but I think it works a lot better than the ads they have before movies and dvds, asking people not to steal.
Sorry, that first bit should have been directed at Eric.
I can go to a matinee for a first run movie for $6.00 at AMC – why should I get crappy bootlegs? Until the quality of these pirated copies are any good I’ll stick to the real theaters.
Me, I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. A lot of the people that get sued probably do deserve it. But it’s still a public relations fiasco when a corporate behemoth sues the wrong person. The RIAA might get it right 99 out of 100 times, but it’s the 1 misguided lawsuit that makes the news.
And you’re right– pirated music is not morally defensible. But it’s not as bad as stealing, because what is taken is only the potential of revenue. Downloading music is not the same thing as shoplifting a CD, is it? Add in the other reasons I mentioned above, and it’s not really surprising the way things have gone over for the music industry over the last few years.
I can’t believe some of y’all actually side with the idiots at the RIAA. I actually agree with Nicol D — the music industry fucked themselves over. I also barely consider downloading “stealing” any more than I’d consider taping a CD “stealing” — it’s a lower-quality version you can get for free. The RIAA believes they are basically entitled to infinitely increasing profits — even though record labels have ripped off far more artists than any downloaders could ever dream of “depriving.”
I’m not speaking as someone who “doesn’t buy CDs anymore.” In fact, nerds who brag about the movies and music they download for free bother the hell out of me. But not because it’s “wrong” — because it’s smug and, with movies, it’s just a lousy way to experience art (or attempted art). I go to the movies all the time and I spend a pretty decent chunk of money on music.
(Of course, a lot of that is for used CDs or concert tickets,so of course the RIAA doesn’t give a shit about me or many others who actually love music way more than the teenagers they’re hoping to intimidate into buying the ENTIRE Fergie album.)
Downloading music from Limewire, for many people, increases awareness and interest in music. If I download a few songs by a new artist and I wind up really liking it, I’ll probably buy their next album the day it comes out. Obviously that’s not true of everyone, because CD sales have dropped. But the record industry absolutely refuses to look at a new model of business — say, where recording an album costs a lot less, and something can turn a profit by selling 25,000 copies instead of several million. They would rather spend energy filing lawsuits against 15-year-olds and trying to pressure them into questionably legal $3,000 insta-settlements. Does no one else find this incredibly sleazy?
I picked up a bootleg copy of FINDING NEMO in Koreatown when it was out in theatres, hoping to avoid the throngs of kids. It turns out that it was a pre-release version – filled with slugs, sketches and oftentimes repeating loops of footage under the completed audio track. It’s become a cherished possession – for which I am sure somebody’s head at Disney, Pixar or a vendor/filmlab rolled!
I think the notion of ‘potential’ revenue is also an interesting one that was brought up.
If one steals a cd from a record store, they are stealing actual revenue.
What if one downloads a song that they would otherwise never buy the complete album for? Let’s say you like ‘My Humps’ but otherwise can’t stand Fergie/Black Eyed Peas. You download the song, listen to it for a month or two and disgard it.
Now the argumemt would be you should have bought the whole album…but what if that was never really an option? That you were never going to buy the whole album. Is that the same as stealing the entire cd?
I would argue it is perhaps theft of a sort…but not the same as stealing an actual cd.
If I borrow an egg from my next door neighbour is that the same as stealing a dozen from the supermarket?
I’m just saying the ethics of this issue are no where near as cut and dry as the entertainment industry would like them to be.
I agree, Nicol D. There are certainly unethical aspects of downloading but I’m shocked and saddened by how immediately the media accepted the industry-approved terminology of “stealing.” The RIAA must’ve said it enough times that it became fact. But I remember when this stuff was first coming up in the late nineties and early aughts, it was never framed as “ILLEGAL” downloading… just downloading. The labels are just gonna have to trust me when I say that there was no potential revenue they lost when someone likes me downloads the new Avril Lavigne single.
While I find the numbers the RIAA posts about lost revenue to be completely inaccurate (and ridiculous), for the reason you all mention – who knows whether someone was going to buy something (the whole record, or even the song) – the notion that illegal downloading isn’t stealing is a ridiculous rationalization.
You’ve obtained, illegally, copywrited (copywritten?) material and are using it for personal use without compensating the holder of the rights. Just because it isn’t tangible doesn’t mean it isn’t stolen. Just because you stop listening to it or delete it in a month doesn’t mean it isn’t stolen. Just because it is inferior quality to what you’d like doesn’t mean it isn’t stolen. You don’t have a right to it, but you took it anyway. That is stealing.
“The labels are just gonna have to trust me when I say that there was no potential revenue they lost when someone likes me downloads the new Avril Lavigne single.”
Trusting you with all their heart and soul doesn’t make a difference to them because it isn’t the individual guy or girl that wouldn’t buy her song otherwise that scares them into a fury. It’s everybody else that would’ve but didn’t have to because it was just as freely available to them as it was to you.
“If I download a few songs by a new artist and I wind up really liking it, I’ll probably buy their next album the day it comes out. Obviously that’s not true of everyone, because CD sales have dropped.”
You and I share the same attitude, but from my experience, we’re in a shrinking minority. Most of the people I know in their early twenties or younger laugh their ass off at the very idea of actually BUYING a CD or a DVD. I’ve heard some naive claims that the bands are rich enough anyway, but they do the same thing to some brand new struggler that they to bands who already made their millions.
“But the record industry absolutely refuses to look at a new model of business — say, where recording an album costs a lot less, and something can turn a profit by selling 25,000 copies instead of several million.”
Not that you’re wrong by pointing out the industry needs to adjust to the new status quo, but recording costs are just a sliver of the overall expense of producing music. It also costs plenty of money to promote the artists, make videos, etc.
Me and Hallick, what about taping songs off of the radio or from your friend’s CD? Also stealing? Also immoral? What about listening to your friend’s CD over and over? If he didn’t have it, you wouldn’t be listening to it, and clearly you want to listen to it, and it’s under copyright. Does he have to be in the room with you? If you borrow it for six months (similar to if you download a song and delete it after a few months), is that also stealing?
Also, Me, I know this wasn’t the focus of your argument but you’re basically saying that downloading is/should be illegal because it is illegal.
Hallick, I honestly think the labels don’t want to differentiate the difference between the people who would or wouldn’t buy the CD otherwise. If they honestly admitted that doing so is basically impossible, then they wouldn’t have the goal of suing everyone who downloads anything.
One of the biggest byproducts of downloading has been people feeling reluctant to pay $15-20 for a CD they’re not sure they want. That this inspires fury and not any kind of creative business thinking (apart from, many years too late, “let’s charge only a little bit less for our own downloads!” — charging ten bucks for something that costs nothing to manufacture is only slightly less of a ripoff than charging $18 for something that costs $2 to manufacture) is indicative of the industry’s sense of entitlement. That term is usually thrown around to describe kids who feel like they can download whatever for free, but the record companies have it just as bad: they feel *entitled* to unlimited growth.
“Not that you’re wrong by pointing out the industry needs to adjust to the new status quo, but recording costs are just a sliver of the overall expense of producing music. It also costs plenty of money to promote the artists, make videos, etc.”
True — but promotions wouldn’t be so expensive if albums weren’t expected to routinely sell tons of copies. There are plenty of high-level bands who can sell in the 100k-500k range every time out, but that’s still considered disappointing and deflated. More bands with a real following, moving that many units (or even less) *consistently*, would be a major boost for the industry. Maybe some A&R people are starting to go in that direction (it’s great to see Arcade Fire and the Shins and Modest Mouse hitting the top ten, even if it’s less difficult that it would’ve been five years ago)… but I’m not holding my breath. Lawsuits are so much easier for labels to grasp.
“Hallick, I honestly think the labels don’t want to differentiate the difference between the people who would or wouldn’t buy the CD otherwise.”
How would anyone be able to make that differentiation? The honor system? Having one of those useless internet cover-your-ass pages (like the “instant fake ID” gatekeeper on porno sites)that ask the visitor if they do or do not plan on buying the product? Personally, I’m sure labels probably don’t care whether they’re hounding somebody who’s “just browsing” or not. But even if they did care, with a bleeding heart on both sleeves, like you say – there’s no f-cking way to do it.
“If they honestly admitted that doing so is basically impossible, then they wouldn’t have the goal of suing everyone who downloads anything.”
Sure they would. For exactly that reason. They can’t tell the casual listener apart from the consumer listener (for lack of a proper expression) so they just have to go after everybody who’s making unauthorized downloads. I don’t think it does anything effective and it’s probably more futile than the war on drugs, but considering how free downloads are becoming more and more the norm, what else can they really do? They’re f-cked and they know it. Even the I-Tunes of the world will eventually be screwed by the initiative and subversive glee of the downloaders.
“Me and Hallick, what about taping songs off of the radio or from your friend’s CD? Also stealing? Also immoral? What about listening to your friend’s CD over and over? If he didn’t have it, you wouldn’t be listening to it, and clearly you want to listen to it, and it’s under copyright. Does he have to be in the room with you? If you borrow it for six months (similar to if you download a song and delete it after a few months), is that also stealing?”
The difference in scale is a problem with these analogies. If I take a quarter out of somebody’s coin purse, yeah, it’s stealing, and yeah, it’s technically immoral, but on a scale so miniscule that the owner of the coin purse probably isn’t all that put out; and I’m probably not on my way to the seventh circle of hell over it.
But with the way things are today, it’s like having a bank account that’s open to the fingers of an entire world of technology users, and even if people were limited to only taking a single penny each from that account, that account holder is still f-ucked in a big way.
This is a different world that’s way beyond passing one CD from one friend to another, or making a few copies among a circle of friends. And shoot – I’m not saying I don’t participate in this game like everybody else. But I’m also honest enough to say it’s still theft when and if it is.
The pittance that I have downloaded doesn’t nearly constitute grand theft, but the problem for the record labels and film studios is that the grand theft still happens since everybody else’s pittances out there eventually add up to a whopper of a problem that’s only been growing exponentially.
I believe the supreme court ruled on this, and without doing any research, so bear with me if I’m wrong, I believe they found that fair use of the copyright was for taping, as the quality was distinctly different (a lot moreso that 128 vs. 190 bitrate), and for trading amongst a small group of friends. When distribution became widescale and anonymous (napster, limewire, peer-to-peer), it constituted a greater distribution than just among friends.
“Also, Me, I know this wasn’t the focus of your argument but you’re basically saying that downloading is/should be illegal because it is illegal.”
No, I believe I’ve been saying that downloading is theft and should therefore be prosecuted by rightsholders to the maximum punishment under the law. If you’re rightsholders and not willing to fully defend your rights, your rights will become worthless.
So then, let’s ask oursleves: if we snapped our fingers and tomorrow morning, just like that, a full length feature film was as quick and convenient to download as an MP3 is now.. as a JPEG is now.. What would the industry look like in 36 months? Because anyone that’s concerned with making a living in this line of work should be running that question through their heads.
And I’m not talking about a bootleg from a shaky camcorder in the back row. I’m talking about the real, full-quality deal. How far off are we, really? What have we gleaned from those with their trough three feet underwater?
…or does it matter?
One thing we need to acknowledge in this discussion is that the morality of downloading music is irrelevant to the problem at hand. I mean, pretty much everybody knows it’s not ethical. That doesn’t seem to stop them.
The record industry’s business model is not sustainable when their product can and will be replicated at zero cost. What they need to figure out is how to stay in business in a world in which people will gladly download the songs for free. Right or wrong, legal or not, that’s the situation as it is.
“What they need to figure out is how to stay in business in a world in which people will gladly download the songs for free. Right or wrong, legal or not, that’s the situation as it is.”
Maybe an “Idol Gives Back” for the music industry next season?
Sorry, folks, but what I’m reading here is a lot of lame-ass rationalizations. If I take something that belongs to someone else without that person’s permission, and don’t pay that person for the object — a movie, a song, a book, an archived magazine article, whatever — I am stealing. It’s that simple. And please don’t give me any moral relativism b.s. Yes, illegally downloading a song isn’t on the same level as committing murder. So what? Punching someone in the mouth for no good reason isn’t a crime on the same level as committing murder, either. Do you mind if I walk up to you and punch you in the mouth, as long as I don’t shoot you?
Joe (and others), I still haven’t heard a convincing argument about why downloading a song is all that different from taping a song off the radio. One was supposedly ruled fair-use and one was ruled theft; my question is why? It’s not as if taping only involves excerpts of songs.
I used to tape radio and friends’ CDs all the time to make mix tapes. Now I’ll download a song to make a mix CD. Yes, it’s somewhat easier to do than spending an hour waiting for a hit song to come up on your radio station; and yes, because of that, more people do it. But is that really the argument — that the only reason taping a song off the radio isn’t stealing is because fewer people do it?
In my life I have only bought albums from two bands: Rage Against the Machine and Propagandhi (Canadian punk anarchists). Ironically, I was booted off Napster back in the day because I had downloaded a Rage song. It was one of the few songs where I actually owned the album.
The only thing I’m worried about is that the police might conceivably enter my home for another crime, maybe something a roommate did, and then I’ll get busted for all these illegal MP3s. I also own what I think is a bootleg Harry Potter DVD. I found it on the street, and threw it in a drawer. Still haven’t found it.
The U.S. Constitution maintains intellectual property rights are granted (temporarily) for utilitarian reasons. It’s hardly “stealing” in any conventional sense because my consumption of a song or movie does not diminish anyone else’s use. The basis for IP is to give creators an economic incentive to generate new ideas; in return the government grants a temporary monopoly on the profits derived from an artistic or scientific contribution. Unfortunately, the original intent of the Constitution has been grossly distorted. What was initially supposed to last for 14 years (renewable for one more 14 year term) has been extended to 70 years *after death*.
What’s weird now is that if I really want to bother getting a new song I can go to Myspace or YouTube. Those are commercial websites, hardly the BT, DC, LW p2p networks people complain about these days.
Eric, you’re right – the question is what to do to change the business model?
For the record industry, I don’t know. I’d like to think that ramping up the lawsuits would work as a deterant, but I don’t. I think we can all acknowledge that they’re screwed. Personally, I think they’re eventually going to have to discard the idea of making money on recordings and try to set up a model based upon live performances – the only thing that can’t be replicated digitally.
For the movie industry, I think they need to acknowledge that they’re next, as technology improves at an alarming rate. You can see that they’re trying to jump to the next technological platform that’s out of the reach of consumer-copyable technology by jumping to Blu-ray. But I tend to think that they’re just delaying the inevitable. They too might ultimately have to shift their model to make theatrical all the more important (despite Disney’s belief that heading toward day-and-date is the solution), as that’s one of the few areas that can’t be replicated at home (except for those of you with thousands of dollars worth of home theaters).
Me, putting aside the idea of whether or not downloading is stealing/unethical/whatever, are you such a moral absolutist that you would really “like to think” (which is to say hope?) that the lawsuit thing would discourage people? That is to say, why would you be rooting for the recording industry’s business model? Do you have any concept of how badly this model screws over anyone but the record label itself? Is there another facet of the entertainment industry where your “advance” is not just considered a portion of your royalties paid upfront, but the entire cost of *making* your album?? I’m also pretty sure that artists get their royalties as a percentage *after* the record company takes an initial cut of their own. (That is, they get, just to use a simple example that probably has no bearing in real life, 2% of 90%, rather than 2% of 100% — I could be wrong about that but I think that’s the case.) And of course the first jillion royalties they get — after the record company has skimmed an initial cut — are “owed” back to the record company anyway, to pay for the album!
I work in book publishing and if we tried to pull that with our (not-even-remotely-famous, non-superstar, moderate-royalty-rate) authors — “you don’t get paid until we recoup the cost of the book, which you paid for by borrowing from us” — we would be laughed/driven/self-screwed out of business. I have a lot more sympathy for the movie industry: partly because I think watching pirated movies is just fucking lame; partly because at least the people who make the movies tend to get paid upfront. But please don’t shed a tear for the chipping away of the RIAA status quo.
Jesse, I have no love for the RIAA, but their business practices with artists aren’t solved by the destruction of their business model. Let’s say the artists are getting 2% of 90% – how are they better served by that 90% becoming worth less and less? I’m all for the artists fighting the system and establishing better practices. What I’m not okay with is consumers stealing under the completely self-serving guise of sending a message to the record companies.
Protests stop having meaning when they become a guise for looting.
Me, you’re thinking along the right lines. The music industry’s new sustainable business model will most likely be based on revenue from ticket sales for live performances.
Right now, the record itself is how the label makes its money. But I suspect that soon the record will simply be considered a “loss-leader,” something expected to lose money in order to get consumers interested in the profitable item.
The natural consequence of this will be that less money is spent on recording and promotion of the record.
So why does this scare the industry? I think it’s because they’ve become complacent with the current model, in which an artist can sell a million copies almost regardless of the music. Spend a ton of money on producers and marketing, and anything will sell. But that won’t work if the consumers go to a concert and expect to see actual musicianship. Britney Spears is obsolete in this new model. A touring band like DMB or Wilco is the future.
But do you see how consumers might not feel particularly bad about stealing when that (supposedly) lost revenue wouldn’t really reach the artist? Some people do download indiscriminately. But if the recording industry wasn’t run by, oh, I don’t know, four or five giant corporations (or is down to two or three yet?), maybe there would be a greater sense of accountability.
For example: the band They Might Be Giants has stuff on iTunes, but also sells soundboard recordings of many of their concerts for $10 a pop on their website. They’re just MP3’s with no DRM. They ask that people please don’t fileshare these concert-albums, but have no way of enforcing that and don’t seem to be planning any lawsuits (I know I at least react a lot more positively to some dudes in a band I love saying, hey, we’re selling these directly, we’d appreciate you not giving them away… rather than saying you better not even think of filesharing or we’re gonna charge you $3,000 for not buying more $18 CDs — but that’s just me).
Despite these direct-downloads and lack of punishment for violators, who do you think loses more business to pirates: TMBG or, say, the Black-Eyed Peas?
Granted, TMBG isn’t a Top-40 artist so the demand isn’t as high. But maybe it’s especially relevant in that case, because I tend to think that filesharing tends to ding the sales of huge artists, rather than destroy the sales of less established, less popular, or less familiar ones. At least in theory, a smart company should be able to break a band with or without piracy.
Is it regrettable that those dings happen at all? It’s hard for me to say. It would seem a lot more so if labels cultivated more of a relationship with music fans.
Are you saying that fighting for artist rights can’t work until whatever business model the record labels want to use, no matter how stupid, succeeds?? That seems sort of naive — even counter-intuitive — to me.
I guess my point is that piracy should be considered a nuisance, not a scourge.
Eric, that is a great point about bands like DMB or Wilco. It’s also funny that slipping CD sales bring about talk of “the death of the album,” when some of the more consistent sellers in all of this turmoil are album-oriented rock acts like Beck, the White Stripes, Radiohead, and the Shins. Fans of these bands often do pay money for their albums (sometimes even after downloading leaked copies early), usually in the 250k-500k range, and most Radiohead fans are not techno-phobic boomers.
Touring is also going to be a big piece of the puzzle, but if labels showed interest in growing more strong, unique acts with dedicate fan bases, and fewer MEGAHITS!, albums can still make money. Marketing albums to people who are really into the Black-Eyed Peas or Britney or whoever is probably going to be a losing proposition when that gum loses its flavor in a few years.
But the industry sure likes their established model of 10-12 MEGAHITS! each year, and everything else losing money or breaking even or just getting ignored one way or the other.
Jesse, while the notion of you not filesharing TMBG tracks because they sold them directly to you and asked you not to is admirable, I think you’re naive if you think that this approach would really be an effective deterant of massive downloading (much like those who make the claim that iTunes would deter filesharing).
Like you said, for small bands this might work, since finding someone with the tracks is tough, but for the industry, it won’t work. It takes one person to put the files out there, and if people look to peer-to-peer, limewire, demonoid, etc., before ever checking the artist’s site, they have no idea about the artist’s request not to fileshare. The honor system, in whatever form, does not work.
Look, I know the record companies are ripping off the artists. But I also know that no one held a gun to their heads and said sign this contract. If they’re able to, such as TMBG, they should find a new model to work outside of the mainstream companies. And if you really want to fight for artists’ rights, don’t buy their cds, only go see them in concert.
But to suggest that people stealing from the record companies and artists is “fighting for artists rights” is really just a pathetic, self-serving rationalization. Please ask any artist if they’re okay with you stealing their 2% of 90% on their music and see how far you get with that argument.
I’m not saying that downloading is an *act* of fighting for artists rights — just that I’d feel a lot more guilty if more music came directly from the artist rather than from a huge conglomerate that hides behind “just protecting the artist!” far more than any downloader I’ve known.
And, again, it’s easy for people to feel that they aren’t taking *anything* from the artists because they wouldn’t bother buying a CD to get access to “Girlfriend” or “Irreplaceable” or whatever if downloading didn’t exist. I know that not every downloader thinks that way, and you can’t expect record companies to differentiate: “well, this guy downloaded 44 songs but bought 16 albums last year, whereas this guy downloaded 200 songs and bought 1 album, and how does that compare to the guy who downloaded 700 songs but bought 40 albums,” etc.
But I think I can expect them to not decide one thousand individual lawsuits is the best solution. The attitude I get from the record companies is: “We went to the trouble of screwing these artists out of money. Now we’re owed profits, dammit.” It’s not a question of me taking a moral high-ground so much as the record companies *not* doing the same.
Filesharing has also become a huge catch-all for blame when in reality there are many factors that contribute to filesharing rather than vice versa. So I’d tell any artist who felt like they were losing big money because of filesharing that he or she has been snowed by their bosses.
Jesse, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on the morality of illegal downloading, as I really can’t get my head around the moral stance of two wrongs make a right.
But I am curious about your take on what you think the record companies should do. I mean it is all well and good to say that they’re evil and whatever, but what if your job was to be in charge of the Black Eyed Peas’ catalog? What would you do to try to protect your profits (and your job) in the face of overwhelming losses to illegal downloading (whether you believe only 25% would have bought the whole album or whatever)? Pop is your product – how do you protect it or change it to continue making profits?
Again, I’m not saying two wrongs make a right — I think I’m just being realistic about the RIAA-fueled (and media-supported) idea that if it weren’t for big bad downloading, the music industry would be booming and all would be right with the world — and that once said booming prosperity was achieved, then we could talk reasonably about the labels providing more fair-minded and/or intelligent business models. Trying to sue everyone, to me, is like cops writing $2,000 tickets for speeding.
Anyway: I don’t know that I accept your premise — that pop is the product record labels *have* to work with. Or rather, I don’t know that *disposable* pop product has to be what you’re working with; there’s nothing wrong with pop music but the whole idea of basing your business on getting people who don’t particularly like music to pick up a few albums is stupid. As mentioned above, if I ran a major record label (though I am not even remotely qualified to do so), I would focus on getting a roster of acts that seem capable of developing a loyal following, so making an album isn’t a money-losing proposition. Release music in different formats. Though I hate the DVD-style double-dipping, I think the idea of putting out a “special edition” of an album day-and-date with the regular version — charge $10-15 more for something that includes a DVD of music videos or a concert, or a T-shirt, or something else cool bundled with it — could work really well. Right now “special editions” are often utilized to get people who didn’t bother buying the album the first time to go back and buy (and maybe get the hardcore fans to re-buy it).
I’d also encourage a process that has artists putting out albums more often than every 3-4 years. I know the thinking at record labels is that it dilutes the “brand” to put out too much at once, but Beck put out albums 18 months apart and did quite well (again, if you’re fine with selling, say, 300k units each time out). Maybe it wouldn’t work for everyone, but I’d encourage it for more prolific artists.
A point above with the Black-Eyed Peas is that the acts that seem (to me, anyway) most likely to be affected by downloading are those that also do fine sales-wise anyway. So if it was my job to sell the Black-Eyed Peas, I’d probably say “hey, guess what? We just sold 4 million [or however many it actually sold] copies of a CD that totally fucking sucks. Who cares if five or six years ago we could’ve gotten it to 8 million?? We made crap and it sold. Now let’s try to make this crap a little less expensive next time, so if it only sells 2 million we won’t be screwed.”
But that’s why I would suck at being exec; I don’t believe that it’s natural to have unlimited exponential growth. Working in the corporate world, I’ve come to see what is more or less what the higher-ups want.
I like your idea of “special edition” cds, with extras that can’t be reproduced digitally. I know that would mean a lot to me for the bands I’m a fan of.
I just wonder if your reference to pop music will ultimately make the transition to popular movies. It won’t be movies like “The Queen” that are going to lose a whole lot of revenue to downloads, it’ll be the Spider-Mans. And if the money isn’t there to be made, will they invest $300 million to make any more?
Living in Australia I feel sometimes that I don’t care if I download music or watch an illegal DVD because it’s their own fault for not releasing it here sooner. If they want people to start buying singles more then maybe make them more worth while spending my $5 for something that I’m instantly going to discard once I put it on iTunes. Also, if they released songs to buy as soon as they become available to radio then less would download. Why wait THREE MONTHS to legally purchase “Umbrella” by Rihanna, when I can download it straight away. I heard that song back in February. It’s only now available for digital download. That’s fucked up.
That being said, I write about music for a (part of my) living so I get a whole swag of free music and I do occasionally buy entire albums but I’m not going to go out and spend $20 on an album from the 1980s.