Content owners: Use web-based distribution now

(This post is for content owners, such as recording and publishing companies and independent artists, as well as for consumers. While it is aimed primarily at content owners because they are ultimately the people who decide how content is distributed, it is important that consumers also read it so they know how to facilitate the changes I propose.)

The Internet and its widespread availability to the general population (not yet true in many countries, but hopefully changing soon) have made distributing digital content to large numbers of people very easy. Books, academic journals, music, videos and many other creative works can be transferred from one computer to many others in a matter of minutes or often just seconds. However, most of that content is not allowed to be transmitted in that way. Why not? What can content owners and consumers do about it?

Copyright law in most countries prohibits any copying of creative works unless explicitly permitted by the copyright holder, which is the author of the works by default. This allows copyright holders to earn money by selling copies of their work, which cannot legally be copied and given to someone else without the copyright holders’ permission. Most copyright holders choose to distribute their content using physical media, such as DVDs, CDs, and hard-copy books. Why would they do that when they could distribute it over the Internet, which is much easier and less expensive?

There are a variety of reasons; I will attempt to outline the main ones here. The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their content over the Internet is piracy. Piracy is the action of copying a creative work where such copying has not been explicitly permitted by the copyright holder. For example, someone that gets a copy of a regular movie DVD from a friend is pirating the DVD. Making content available in an easy-to-copy format inherently makes it easier to pirate. While DVDs, CDs, and hard-copy books can be converted into an easy-to-copy format, only a small percentage of the general population knows how to do this. As a result, copyright holders consider it more-or-less safe to distribute DVDs, CDs, and hard-copy books.

In some cases, consumers may prefer physical media to purely digital copies, although this preference is in most cases dwindling. For example, consumers may prefer reading a book from printed pages than reading it from a computer screen. Advances in e-paper are already minimizing the difference between these options. The Amazon Kindle, which is becoming quite popular with consumers, uses e-paper.

Lastly, there is already a significant installed base of players for physical media. For example, most households in developed countries have a CD player and a DVD player. This is attributable mainly to the availability of physical media, not so much the preference of users to using such players. In fact, many users are frustrated by the need to find a particular CD or DVD and put it in player and would much rather be able to select the CD or DVD from a list. Media centers make the latter possible if a user copies their CDs and DVDs to a computer. Internet-based distribution would eliminate the step of copying from physical media, making media centers a hassle-free alternative to DVD and CD players, provided the interface for finding and downloading content is easy to use.

From the above discussion, it seems that piracy is the biggest reason that Internet-based distribution isn’t widely-used yet. Is lost revenue due to piracy sufficient reason to maintain the status quo of physical distribution for creative works when Internet-based distribution, a much better solution, exists? I don’t think so.

I believe that Internet-based distribution will eventually become the norm. Consumers simply will not put up with physical media when they learn about the benefits of Internet-based distribution. Content owners must realize this now and adjust their method of distribution accordingly.

First and foremost, content owners must distribute their content to consumers in a format that allows consumers to use the content on any device they wish. This means distributing content without technical control measures (TCMs). Content owners like EMI, Universal, and Nine Inch Nails are already doing this.

Secondly, content owners must work with software developers and hardware manufacturers to make media centers easy to use and to allow content to be purchased directly from the media center.

Lastly, consumers and content owners must respect and trust each other. Consumers must respect the wishes of content owners and avoid piracy and content owners must trust consumers (at least the vast majority of them) not to pirate their content. Part of the responsibility of content owners is to educate the consumers about why they should avoid piracy. Content owners should focus on the value of their content to consumers as the major point (ie. “if you pirate, we can’t make more movies”) rather than using “it’s stealing” or pleas to save jobs.

I hope this post encourages consumers to demand Internet-based distribution and to respect copyright law by avoiding piracy. Most of all, I hope content owners will trust consumers, listen to their wishes, and start using Internet-based distribution right now.

49 Responses to “Content owners: Use web-based distribution now”


  • I actually prefer to have a physical disc for content I enjoy enough that I want to own it. It provides a nice backup, isn’t prone to deletion by viruses, hardware failure, etc. I don’t like the idea that I own some imaginary piece of music that I have to download again to get it back. And I don’t think anyone likes reading books on a screen.

    But I do prefer the Internet method for 2 things. Renting movies, and trying music to see if I like it. I agree that if you just want to find out if you like something, it’s an incredible hassle to go to a store to get it. And I agree that piracy is the main reason we still have to.

  • Gotta admit – I think you’re wrong on the books thing as well. I want my books to not be digital. I am a massive bibliophile though – so it might just be me (and Adamn above).

    I tend to also like something along the lines of a DVD/CD to hold a backup – something that’s not easily rewritable – especially since there’s no easy system to redownload lost music (say during a formatting). It’s not as easy a question as you make it out to be. However – I agree with the concept on the level that internet distribution should be more commonplace for most things. I could easily burn the content to discs myself. Although that brings up that levy.

  • Huh? I’m sooo confused about _why_ you made this post. I’ll get on to
    specific questions later, but first off.. What is your goal? Why do you want
    people to use the Internet as a distribution mechanism? I can think of two
    obvious potential reasons:

    a) /You/ prefer media when you can get it online. In which case, you’re
    encouraging people to prefer digital media because you prefer it, which seems
    a bit selfish, and just kinda strange. Why not let the market decide what the
    market prefers?

    b) Environmental concerns about the needless distribution of physical media.
    In which case, I’m surprised you didn’t mention this at all. It’s good to be
    up-front with your motives, especially since this would have been a strong
    argument in support of your cause.

    We _know_ the “digital revolution” is happening, has been happening for a long
    time, and _is_ actively taking over the entertainment industry (for example).
    Noone can stop that now. The people with money and power will stay in power.
    So what’s your motive for encouraging it?

    Perhaps you’re trying to dethrone the physical media production industry…
    where does that even take place for the mostpart? Taiwan? Regardless of the
    transport mechanism, you’re (for some reason) encouraging the MPAA and RIAA to
    stay in power (over channels that put up with copyright law, anyway).

    You pose the question: “However, most of that content is not allowed to be
    transmitted in that way. Why not? What can content owners and consumers do
    about it?”

    But you didn’t really follow-up: the reason the content is not allowed to be
    transmitted is because of outdated copyright law that prevents consumers from
    making and using digital content. I can lend a book to a friend, but I cannot
    scan the book and email a digital copy. Copyright is the only barrier to our
    freedom to share digital content, and copyright law needs to change to
    encourage the publication and transmission of this new era of media. The
    status quo requires a cumbersome effort of a copyright holder to encourage the
    digital expression of their content; and trivial actions make criminals out of
    the consumers, usually unbeknownst to all parties involved. This is not a
    healthy state, and is certainly a problem for the digital landscape you
    encourage.

    Anyway, on to more nitpicky details..

    “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their
    content over the Internet is piracy.”

    I think you’re wrong. There are two (relevant) types of copyright holders:
    those wishing to sell their content, and those wishing to share it. Those
    wishing to sell it, follow the market; there is still a very large market for
    physical media, so this is the primary channel. As the Internet grows as a
    market, it becomes relevant to these copyright holders, and they _do_ use it
    to sell their media. Piracy hasn’t stopped people from using the Internet to
    sell; it just means (presumably) that fewer people buy (in any format).

    Also, many of both types of copyright holders do not distribute their content
    over the Internet because they simply haven’t migrated yet. It takes time,
    and that’s to be expected, and will happen more as it grows in marketshare.
    My point is that where Internet-based distribution is not used, it’s because
    of convenience and aptitude, not piracy.

    “Consumers simply will not put up with physical media when they learn about
    the benefits of Internet-based distribution.”

    No, for _many_ consumers, Internet-based distribution is not better than the
    other options available to them. Computers are expensive and tedious and
    inconvenient, in many circles. It’s not that they haven’t “learned” of the
    benefits… it’s that they haven’t yet migrated. (And many never will.)

    “(…) and to allow content to be purchased directly from the media center.”

    Instead, why don’t we encourage people to share their content?? What is it to
    you, if there is a business model or not? Shouldn’t sharing be the status
    quo? Heck, shouldn’t sharing be _legal_, and encouraged?

    “Part of the responsibility of content owners is to educate the consumers
    about why they should avoid piracy.”

    No, it’s not. It’s up to them to provide alternatives. It’s up to the
    consumers alone to respect the law, or choose to break it. It’s up to the
    government to recognize that an outdated law needs to be upgraded to respect
    consumer freedoms in the digital landscape; otherwise the law becomes a farce.
    Alternatively, you might argue that it’s up to the government to educate its
    people about its laws, and perhaps discipline citizens for breaching
    copyright. However, I think this is ill-advised; the people have spoken en
    masse; after all, the law exists to uphold the freedoms of the people.

  • Also, your blog software should offer a “Preview” button, as it’s not clear how it interprets comment text; newlines, in my case. Although it matters little, as your blog is not horizontal-friendly anyway. (That search bar is _especially_ horizontal-hungry!)

    Also, it seems to use a funny timezone.

    Just sayin’ 😉

  • Regarding why piracy is the cause of companies not distributing content electronically. I think the point is that if people didn’t pirate, there would be no economic incentive for DRM junk. If there’s no economic incentive for DRM junk, then it’s more feasible to distribute content electronically, because people don’t like DRM junk and therefore don’t buy content that has it.

    In other words, if a company could sell you a plain .mp3, that you could do anything with, and they trusted that you wouldn’t distribute it, then they’d be much more willing to do so.

    “Heck, shouldn’t sharing be _legal_, and encouraged?”

    It is.

  • Also, narrow text is easier to read anyway. 🙂

  • @biggz – on sharing. I think there is a difference between sharing “To give part of what one has to somebody else to use or consume.” and piracy, where you copy what you have before ‘giving’.

  • Stephen, there is something subtly worrisome about your text. You describe piracy as “where you copy what you have before ‘giving'”. While that text does often describe piracy, it also describes *many* other important uses of the word “sharing”, which I fear you have ignored.

    When I *want* to share text with somebody, (perhaps I have authored it, or otherwise I have the legal right to do so); then it is perfectly valid to make a copy for another. What about sharing ideas? I can’t take away an idea from my head, to ensure that there is one unique material instance of the idea in the world.

    So I consider your dichotomy of the word “sharing” to be erronous, or perhaps just your concept of sharing is too limited for this conversation. Sharing bits is not the same as sharing atoms, this is certain; so although the word “sharing” may be used in either case, its meaning is quite different. Sharing might mean an exchange of a material. It might mean I volunteer information. It might mean I volunteer information, and then make efforts to remove any instance of this information from the tools at my disposal; as awkward as that might be. And yes, sharing in any of these situations might be a violation of a contract, law, or someone’s expectation.

    As an aside, to express my worldview further…….
    My memory is so faulty…. I often write ideas down. I might have a song in my head, and maybe I’ll write the lyrics down, so I won’t forget them. I consider the semantics of that-which-is-in-my-head, and that-which-is-information-materialized-at-my-disposal, to be virtually equivalent. This is part of why I think that people have rights over the information with which they come into contact. When I see some code, it might very well enter into my thoughts about how to solve a problem, and then I will be hard-pressed to find an alternate solution. When I hear a song, this will directly impact the songs I myself will come up with. When I read a book, I will write stories that extend naturally from the text I have observed. When I come into contact with information, it becomes a part of me; a part of the vocabulary in which I will express myself; and I have a right to do this. So to ask me not to copy parts of a work is to tell me what I am not allowed to remember… what ideas I am not allowed to share and extend and share extensions of. So yes, I think that instances of what is called piracy can also be considered instances of a sharing of an idea. And I think the shifting-around of bits is equivalent to the expression of thought itself.

    Also, I do think that verbatim copies of another’s work are within the same class as works in which I use and extend another’s work. In both cases, it is a thought within my own domain (either my mind or memory-storage, equivalently). The entire concept of an “original” or “source work” is IMO entirely artificial and moot. Every “copy” is unique, and no “copies” exist in the material sense. The information is just information; it is as a fleeting memory, or a piece of communication.

    🙂 just sayin’.

    (also, I don’t mean to suggest that any of this is new to you; I know you know lots about copyright and the importance of “sharing information” and whatnot… heck, you’re more of a creative-commons geek than I am 🙂 but I felt I needed to address the text as stated, is all.)

  • biggz: Paragraphs 2 through 4 of your post condemns patents and argues for fair use, rather than dealing with copyright. The right to extend and improve on a work is different than the right to copy it, and the former is hampered by patent law, which I don’t think should exist, especially for software. Only in paragraph 5, I think, do you attempt to apply those arguments to copyright, by saying:

    “In both cases, it is a thought within my own domain (either my mind or memory-storage, equivalently). … Every “copy” is unique, and no “copies” exist in the material sense. The information is just information; it is as a fleeting memory, or a piece of communication.”

    But I don’t understand why that’s relevant. Just because there’s no physical difference between an original idea and a physical copy of it doesn’t mean there’s no abstract difference. Rights are always based on the abstract, aren’t they?

  • “Paragraphs 2 through 4 of your post condemns patents”

    No, patents aren’t even mentioned. The text could be used as an argument against patents, it’s true, but I wouldn’t say that as stated it condemns patents.

    “and argues for fair use”

    Ehhh… that’s worded a bit too informally for my liking. I can interpret your statement to mean that, I argued that many things which are not necessarily considered fair use should be considered fair use. I would agree to that. But I was not just saying “people should make effective use of their fair use rights”. Just…. to be clear.

    “The right to extend and improve on a work is different than the right to copy it”

    as I say in “paragraph 5”, I think the two should be considered equivalent. I think all attempts to separate the two, will come down to someone’s arbitrary decision barring me from expression of thought. In some sense I would say that “copying” is nonexistant, so discussing someone’s “right to copy” doesn’t make sense; you’re either talking about their right to think about it, or their right to discuss their own thoughts with others.

    “Just because there’s no physical difference between an original idea and a physical copy of it doesn’t mean there’s no abstract difference.”

    I was saying that there’s no abstract difference. My argument wasn’t so much that the “copying” is immaterial as in bits, but that it’s no more meaningful to discuss the copying of bits than to discuss the “copying” of electric charge that might take place in a natural discourse between one’s neurons.

    So here’s a question. It sounds pretty contrived I guess but I just want to know what you think. Suppose the pages of a poem listlessly blow onto my yard on a windy day. I read the poem, and discard the weathered pages. The next day I write two copies of the poem, and mail one to a friend. Let’s assume I didn’t violate a patent (on ideas expressed in the poem, say)… I’m pretty sure I did violate copyright law, though. I’m not sure when — is it a copyright infringement when I read the text, when I write it down once for myself, when I write it down twice for myself, or when I mailed a copy to a friend? In my posts above, I would consider this an example of “sharing”, and I suspect it is disallowed because of copyright law.

    Also, my letter may have consisted of something like “Dear friend, check out this cool poem. (poem text) Here’s what I think it means: blah blah blah. From, biggz”. In this case, the letter is IMO an extended work, even though the poem is in there verbatim. It is an integral part of a larger whole that would not make sense without the part.

    I … hope that helps explain things a bit.

  • “My argument wasn’t so much that the “copying” is immaterial as in bits, but that it’s no more meaningful to discuss the copying of bits than to discuss the “copying” of electric charge that might take place in a natural discourse between one’s neurons.”

    Yes, but you haven’t said why. My point (or the point I was trying to make) is that different intentions make for fundamentally different situations. Seeing a recording of a song, copying it, and listening to it without the permission of the inventor of the song is different than seeing a song, being inspired by it to create a new song, and letting people listen to that new song. All you’ve done, as far as I can tell, is insisted that it’s not different because it’s not mechanically different, since information is just information. But that’s non-sequitur, because there are other differences between things than mechanical differences. In particular, there are differences of intent.

    To use an analogy, I recall a Simpsons’ episode where Homer raised his leg as someone was running toward him. When the person accused him of kicking them, Homer pleaded that he didn’t really kick them, that they just ran into his leg. Maybe I’m not understanding your argument, but it seems to have the same form as Homer’s. And people make those kinds of arguments all the time, especially companies – using technical loopholes to do something that the people making the rules hadn’t thought of, that they really shouldn’t be doing. Saying something that’s technically true, but that’s intended to deceive. Doing something that’s technically sharing information, but is intended to avoid paying for a service rendered. Etc.

    Also, you don’t have the right to share any information you have. You don’t have the right to gossip about someone, for example, or to volunteer information that might lead someone to harm, etc..

    Finding a poem is like finding a penny. If I find a penny, may I keep it? Of course; likewise a poem. That’s assuming, of course, that there is no way to find out the author of the poem, and in particular, whether the author chooses to exercise his/her right to prevent use of it. If he/she did, it would probably have a copyright symbol on it.

    On the other hand, publishing the poem and selling copies of it would be wrong. If the author can’t be determined, then it belongs to everybody in general. Likewise the penny probably shouldn’t be kept for my benefit, but given unto a means to benefit everybody. (Although keeping a penny is certainly not nearly as bad as selling copies of the poem.)

    But the poem is a special case.

  • @Biggz – I would consider your letter to be a new work, but the embedded instance of the verbatim poem to be copyright infringement.

    @Adam – “probably have a copyright symbol on it” is pretty loose. Unless a work *explicity* denotes that it is somehow *not* under “All Rights Reserved” licensing, it must be treated as such, and such does not say you may not keep it, but may not “share” (as @biggz has put it above) verbatim copies

    @Biggz, yes, I would still maintain that distribution of a verbatim copy is not really ‘sharing’

  • Stephen: You’re right that it would be illegal to share the poem even if it doesn’t have a copyright symbol on it, but we were discussing whether it would be moral. I maintain that it would be moral, though illegal. In contrast, copying of works which the copyright holders don’t want you to copy is both illegal and immoral (specifically, it’s unfair). I.e. some form of copyright law should exist, since in many cases piracy violates the freedom of the creators, but forcing people to explicitly revoke their copyright before they can have their work distributed by others is also a violation of freedom.

  • Adam, I wasn’t particularly discussing what was moral. I was discussing my ideals, about what rights we should have vs. what rights are sacrificed by The People for the sake of some higher purpose. In the abstract I don’t think of it as a question of morality or intent; it’s discussing what expectations there -should- be in play.

    “Also, you don’t have the right to share any information you have. You don’t have the right to gossip about someone, for example, or to volunteer information that might lead someone to harm, etc..”

    No, you /do/ have that right. Well, in this country it may or may not be against the law or something depending on the situation; that’s for a judge to rule depending on the context, and IANAL. But freedom of expression -does- seem to suggest a right to gossip and even insult people.

    However, it might not be /moral/. I think I should have the _freedom_ to commit immoral acts, and I have the _responsibility_ not to.

    Stephen:
    “@Biggz – I would consider your letter to be a new work, but the embedded instance of the verbatim poem to be copyright infringement.”

    Yes, presumably this is what would be ruled by current copyright law. But of course, I don’t think it should be.

    Adam:
    “I maintain that it would be moral, though illegal.”

    Huh. So you think it can be moral to break the law? Or do you just mean that the situation isn’t necessarily _immoral_ in particular?

    “In contrast, copying of works which the copyright holders don’t want you to copy is both illegal and immoral (specifically, it’s unfair).”

    Well now that we’re both talking about morality…… your statement is one of *opinion*, and there I can disagree. Well, it may be immoral because it’s illegal, but I think the law should be changed; and I don’t think it’s unfair. It’s unfair for the copyright holder to restrict my freedom of expression. In the example from before: I think there is nothing unfair with sending my letter to a friend, even though it is copyright infringement. I think it’s unfair that I’m not allowed to mail it.

    “I.e. some form of copyright law should exist, since in many cases piracy violates the freedom of the creators, but forcing people to explicitly revoke their copyright before they can have their work distributed by others is also a violation of freedom.”

    Forcing people to abide by some arbitrary legalistic notion of the “creation of a work” and “copyright holders” and “derivative works” etc. is a violation of freedom. We’re just going to have to disagree on this. I don’t grant much freedom to creators over the freedoms of everybody else. I also don’t think it’s a necessary condition for a functional society; indeed, I think the music doesn’t stop, but that it flourishes.

  • “Adam, I wasn’t particularly discussing what was moral.”

    Well, we were discussing what laws are moral (i.e. what laws should exist), I think.

    “But freedom of expression -does- seem to suggest a right to gossip and even insult people.”

    That’s true; good point.

    “So you think it can be moral to break the law?”

    Yes. But:

    “Or do you just mean that the situation isn’t necessarily _immoral_ in particular?”

    Yes, that’s what I meant. (And I further think it would be a good deed to distribute the poem, lacking an author or copyright indication.)

    We have a moral imperative to obey the law, unless it requires us to do something that’s normally immoral. Further, the law should protect freedom and prevent unfairness, and should not enforce morality. Any other kind of law is immoral (though we still have a moral imperative to follow it (unless it requires us to do something that’s normally immoral)).

    “your statement is one of *opinion*”

    Actually, it wasn’t. It’s an absolute fact that it’s unfair to pirate something that its owner doesn’t want you to pirate.

    But we already know why we disagree about that – I believe that Locke’s ownership axioms are moral imperatives (and that their violation is unfair and a restriction of someone else’s freedom), and you don’t.

    By the way, I think you can use underline HTML tags, rather than _X_. Just sayin’. 🙂

  • “Well, we were discussing what laws are moral (i.e. what laws should exist), I think.”

    I’m not sure what it means for a law to be moral. I don’t consider the question of “what laws should exist” to be particularly moral, though, it’s perhaps something of a practical matter but with moral implications?

    “It’s an absolute fact that it’s unfair to pirate something that its owner doesn’t want you to pirate.
    But we already know why we disagree about that – I believe that Locke’s ownership axioms are moral imperatives (and that their violation is unfair and a restriction of someone else’s freedom), and you don’t.”

    Yep, I guess you’ve pinpointed the problem. Now that we’ve established why I can’t “agree” with your “fact”, however, I’m not sure it’s appropriate in conversation to use the word fact. Since we now have different sources of meaning for the word “fairness”, etc. But at least we’ve figured this much out.

    “By the way, I think you can use underline HTML tags, rather than _X_. Just sayin’. :)”

    Hehheh… thanks. The problem is, I wasn’t sure and can’t tell, because there’s no Preview button on Denver’s blog 🙂 It even translates my smilies into stupid images, grr. Also, I suppose there are a lot of messy technical problems with people inserting bare HTML into another’s document; for example, this blog seems to be written in xhtml 1.0 transitional, so I guess I should have to be mindful of that when I post, too? The web is a straaaaange place.

  • Adam Richard wrote:

    I actually prefer to have a physical disc for content I enjoy enough that I want to own it. It provides a nice backup, isn’t prone to deletion by viruses, hardware failure, etc. I don’t like the idea that I own some imaginary piece of music that I have to download again to get it back.

    Sean Howard wrote:

    I tend to also like something along the lines of a DVD/CD to hold a backup – something that’s not easily rewritable – especially since there’s no easy system to redownload lost music (say during a formatting). It’s not as easy a question as you make it out to be. However – I agree with the concept on the level that internet distribution should be more commonplace for most things. I could easily burn the content to discs myself.

    It’s true that downloaded digital content is more easily lost or destroyed than a physical disc. But a web store doesn’t have to force you to re-buy the content if you lose it. They can keep a record of your transaction and just let you re-download it whenever you want free of charge.

    This does bring up the issue of what happens if the store goes out of business. That could be solved by copying the lost or destroyed content from a friend, which is much easier with digital content (particularly because most physical media is encumbered by TCMs and I am suggesting TCM-free distribution). This makes it slightly harder to establish who has the right to a particular digital file, but that could be solved by a central ownership database.

    Adam Richard wrote:

    And I don’t think anyone likes reading books on a screen.

    Sean Howard wrote:

    Gotta admit – I think you’re wrong on the books thing as well. I want my books to not be digital. I am a massive bibliophile though – so it might just be me (and Adamn above).

    I think this will change as e-paper and reflective screens (such as the display on the OLPC XO-1) become more prevalent. These are quite nice to read and don’t have a light shining in your eye like traditional screens.

  • biggz wrote:

    Huh? I’m sooo confused about _why_ you made this post. I’ll get on to specific questions later, but first off.. What is your goal? Why do you want people to use the Internet as a distribution mechanism? I can think of two obvious potential reasons:

    a) /You/ prefer media when you can get it online. In which case, you’re encouraging people to prefer digital media because you prefer it, which seems a bit selfish, and just kinda strange. Why not let the market decide what the market prefers?

    b) Environmental concerns about the needless distribution of physical media. In which case, I’m surprised you didn’t mention this at all. It’s good to be up-front with your motives, especially since this would have been a strong argument in support of your cause.

    After some reflection on my reasoning and motives, I think the main reason I want digital content distribution is because I prefer it, which would be a). The incident that sparked this was my inability to find a particular (recent) song in digital form online. I didn’t spend sufficient time considering other users, but that’s not to say I didn’t think of them.

    Currently, you have to be somewhat savvy to get the full benefit of digital content. Setting up a media center to browse content takes work and know-how. The prevalence of digital content and efficient ways to use it is a chicken and egg problem. Without lots of digital content, there’s not much incentive to make easy-to-use media centers that take advantage of it. But without such media centers, it’s hard to sell digital content because it’s just as hard for people to use as (if not harder to use than) physical media. Theoretically, digital content will be easy to use, but I didn’t adequately account for the current know-how required to get such ease of use and the lack of such know-how in the general population.

    Markets don’t work properly when property rights are not respected. A good example of this is content providers using TCMs despite no one wanting them. Content providers are forced to weigh the cost in lost sales of implementing TCMs and the cost in lost sales of not implementing them. Such a decision would be unnecessary in a properly-functioning economy.

    The title of this post suggest that it is intended only for content owners, but the intro notes that it is also for users of content. I wrote this post not only to get content owners to release content digitally, but to promote respect for property rights by content users, which allows the markets to work more effectively and speeds the transition to digital content.

    We _know_ the “digital revolution” is happening, has been happening for a long time, and _is_ actively taking over the entertainment industry (for example). Noone can stop that now. The people with money and power will stay in power. So what’s your motive for encouraging it?

    Perhaps you’re trying to dethrone the physical media production industry… where does that even take place for the mostpart? Taiwan? Regardless of the transport mechanism, you’re (for some reason) encouraging the MPAA and RIAA to stay in power (over channels that put up with copyright law, anyway).

    I don’t believe that the people with money and power will stay in power with new digital distribution mechanisms. One of the main problems with physical media distribution is that it favours those with money because they can make more people aware of their content through placement of their media in lots of brick and mortar stores. There is a huge disconnect between the music that is produced and the music people know about (and will purchase, as a result) when the number of stores you can sell in is based on how much money you have.

    Distributing content digitally significantly reduces this disconnect. Users can search for the types of music they want and more easily find artists that would have been entirely unknown to them under the physical media distribution system. This doesn’t mean users will have perfect information, but at least they’re much closer to it than they are in the physical media distribution system.

    You pose the question: “However, most of that content is not allowed to be transmitted in that way. Why not? What can content owners and consumers do about it?”

    But you didn’t really follow-up: the reason the content is not allowed to be transmitted is because of outdated copyright law that prevents consumers from making and using digital content. I can lend a book to a friend, but I cannot scan the book and email a digital copy. Copyright is the only barrier to our freedom to share digital content, and copyright law needs to change to encourage the publication and transmission of this new era of media. The status quo requires a cumbersome effort of a copyright holder to encourage the digital expression of their content; and trivial actions make criminals out of the consumers, usually unbeknownst to all parties involved. This is not a healthy state, and is certainly a problem for the digital landscape you encourage.

    True, outdated copyright law is partly responsible for the disconnect between legitimate uses of content and what is technically allowed under law. My post was mainly aimed at content owners who wish to sell their work, not those who want to distribute it for free. I am starting to wonder whether creative works should be in the public domain by default unless someone attaches a copyright notice to them, which would make it much easier for people to share certain types of content without worrying about the law.

    Anyway, on to more nitpicky details..

    “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their content over the Internet is piracy.”

    I think you’re wrong. There are two (relevant) types of copyright holders: those wishing to sell their content, and those wishing to share it. Those wishing to sell it, follow the market; there is still a very large market for physical media, so this is the primary channel. As the Internet grows as a market, it becomes relevant to these copyright holders, and they _do_ use it to sell their media. Piracy hasn’t stopped people from using the Internet to sell; it just means (presumably) that fewer people buy (in any format).

    I disagree. The digital distribution I suggest (no TCMs) is not widely used because it’s extremely easy to copy such content. Yes, theoretically TCMs don’t matter because all of them have been defeated, but practically they do matter because most people who can’t easily copy their digital content will not pursue the matter further. The same is true with physical media. It is harder to copy so fewer people will copy it.

    With no TCMs, it is much easier for people to share content when they don’t know that what they’re doing is illegal. I think that there is a large enough group of people that don’t know enough to bypass TCMs and don’t know it’s wrong to copy most content that content distributors are concerned about distributing TCM-free content.

    “Consumers simply will not put up with physical media when they learn about the benefits of Internet-based distribution.”

    No, for _many_ consumers, Internet-based distribution is not better than the other options available to them. Computers are expensive and tedious and inconvenient, in many circles. It’s not that they haven’t “learned” of the benefits… it’s that they haven’t yet migrated. (And many never will.)

    That is true. See my above response on media centers and know-how.

    “(…) and to allow content to be purchased directly from the media center.”

    Instead, why don’t we encourage people to share their content?? What is it to you, if there is a business model or not? Shouldn’t sharing be the status quo? Heck, shouldn’t sharing be _legal_, and encouraged?

    Yes, we should encourage people to share their content. But I don’t agree that we should force people to share their content. I’m not convinced that removing copyright law would promote a better society.

    All developed countries have copyright law and enforce it. There must have been good reason to implement it. Although it may be that it is no longer as useful as it once was. And maybe developed countries aren’t very smart.

    “Part of the responsibility of content owners is to educate the consumers about why they should avoid piracy.”

    No, it’s not. It’s up to them to provide alternatives. It’s up to the consumers alone to respect the law, or choose to break it. It’s up to the government to recognize that an outdated law needs to be upgraded to respect consumer freedoms in the digital landscape; otherwise the law becomes a farce. Alternatively, you might argue that it’s up to the government to educate its people about its laws, and perhaps discipline citizens for breaching copyright. However, I think this is ill-advised; the people have spoken en masse; after all, the law exists to uphold the freedoms of the people.

    The law is designed to protect some freedoms (presumably beneficial ones) by restricting other freedoms (presumably less beneficial ones). For example, the freedom to live is protected by restricting the freedom to kill. It’s more important for people to live than for people to be able to kill whoever they please.

    So the question really boils down to: Is it more important to protect sales of copies of creative works than it is to allow everyone to copy whatever they want? Copyright proponents would say that protecting sales of copies is more societally-beneficial because it leads to higher-quality creative works (with monetary incentive) than would be created otherwise. Copyright opponents would say that free copying is more societally-beneficial even if the quality of creative works is lower than it would be with monetary incentive.

    Who is right? I don’t know. It depends on what you define to be societally-beneficial and how much people are influenced by monetary incentive to produce creative works. I personally believe that there is some societal benefit in copyright law. See my example on movies (second last paragraph).

  • “The incident that sparked this was my inability to find a particular (recent) song in digital form online.”

    Did you try YouTube? 🙂

    “Currently, you have to be somewhat savvy to get the full benefit of digital content.”

    It’s not just savviness… many people don’t have (and can’t get) internet access, for example. Erk, the term “digital content” is a misnomer anyway (CDs are digital), but I’ll assume you use “digital content” to mean internet-distributed… (although I guess non-Internet systems would work too, like BBS’s…. hmmmm…)

    “The prevalence of digital content and efficient ways to use it is a chicken and egg problem.”

    The chicken+egg problem you describe has been solved, and it’s an enormously active industry. Have you *seen* YouTube? It’s an easy-to-use digital content distribution system with an enormous amount of content… and lots of competition. But there’s a catch… the content isn’t being *sold*, as per the antiquated business model you encourage.

    “Markets don’t work properly when property rights are not respected.”

    That depends on your definition of “properly”. What’s so bad about the Chinese media industry? If our model is outdated.. I guess it just depends who you blame. The “properly-functioning economy” you envision isn’t something I would support.

    “I wrote this post not only to get content owners to release content digitally, but to promote respect for property rights by content users, which allows the markets to work more effectively and speeds the transition to digital content.”

    It’s possible that piracy speeded the transition to digital content more than anything; ie. CD-burners got cheap, users demanded bandwidth, the Internet becomes an enormous market. Also, YouTube + co. is an effective market, and doesn’t require a lot of obvious intrusion of users’ rights to be successful.

    “I don’t believe that the people with money and power will stay in power with new digital distribution mechanisms. One of the main problems with physical media distribution is that it favours those with money because they can make more people aware of their content through placement of their media in lots of brick and mortar stores.”

    By encouraging adherence to copyright, you encourage a model in which a few large companies aggregate copyright ownership of media, with the large advertising budgets (and behind-the-scenes deals of all sorts) to make it prevalent everywhere and available (for purchase or whatever) through all media distribution channels. Replacing CDs with iTunes doesn’t change that. The big four will keep their music in the public conscience, and so will remain in power.

    “Users can search for the types of music they want”

    They’ll do this using a privately-owned search mechanism, like that of iTunes. The most prominent music will be that which is owned by the large companies. This isn’t necessarily a problem.. and yes, they will find new artists.

    “I am starting to wonder whether creative works should be in the public domain by default unless someone attaches a copyright notice to them”

    I concluded that a long time ago 🙂

    “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their
    content over the Internet is piracy.”
    (…)
    “The digital distribution I suggest (no TCMs) is not widely used because it’s
    extremely easy to copy such content.”

    OK, so your statement should have been “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their content *TCM-free* over the Internet is piracy.” In which case that’s a much weaker statement. But also, your statement only makes sense when “copyright holders” is reduced to “big media companies”, since they’re the only ones using TCMs, and they are but a few of the copyright holders distributing media on the Internet.

    “Yes, we should encourage people to share their content. But I don’t agree that we should force people to share their content.”

    We’re not forcing anybody to share their content, we’re allowing them. Your use of the possessive pronoun (“their”) is incorrect. Allowing me to share my content means letting me send a sequence of bits to a friend. It doesn’t matter who was the first person on Earth to put that sequence of bits in that order on a storage device. They don’t own my bits; the bits are on my computer, and the communication between me and a friend is a private affair. 🙂

    “I’m not convinced that removing copyright law would promote a better society.”

    Fair enough; neither am I. Also, protecting the individual’s right to distribute information does not necessarily mean removing copyright law altogether.

    “All developed countries have copyright law and enforce it. There must have been good reason to implement it.”

    Your second statement is false, and does not derive from the first. Come on, you should know better than that. Particularly since you’re the person who taught me that copyright law is miserably outdated and needs to change.

    “Copyright opponents would say that free copying is more societally-beneficial even if the quality of creative works is lower than it would be with monetary incentive.”

    You’re kind of misleading things here. Copyright opponents might just as well say that free copying is more societally-beneficial because it leads to higher-quality creative works than would be created otherwise. Perhaps even with monetary incentive.

  • “By encouraging adherence to copyright, you encourage a model in which a few large companies aggregate copyright ownership of media, with the large advertising budgets (and behind-the-scenes deals of all sorts) to make it prevalent everywhere and available (for purchase or whatever) through all media distribution channels.”

    Something is being forgotten here. No business model works properly as long as humans are corrupt. As long as single individuals are looking for ways to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else, society will not be happy. Therefore, the question of which model “works better” or leads to a “happier society”, from a practical perspective, is meaningless. The important question is which model is fair, not which model is likely to result in a fair and equitable situation. The latter cannot exist under any system, because the system will always be complex enough that people who want to benefit themselves at the expense of others can find an obscure way to do so.

  • “No business model works properly as long as humans are corrupt.”

    I don’t see why this is necessarily true. In particular, I’d say that many humans are corrupt, but many business models seem to still work. Perhaps you have a very stringent definition of what it means for a business model to “work properly”? … I don’t get it.

    “As long as single individuals are looking for ways to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else, society will not be happy.”

    People rarely look to benefit themselves at the expense of others. More typically, a person looks to benefit themselves, *indifferent* to the way it affects people they don’t know. That’s very different.

    “The important question is which model is fair, not which model is likely to result in a fair and equitable situation.”

    If a model results in chaos and/or injustice, I’d have a hard time saying it’s fair. The notion of fairness is intimately tied with the results it produces; but sure, I’m not willing to say that the result is all that matters. Just because there is no “perfect” system doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and have one that works reasonably well in practice. Anyway, I’d say that the current system of copyright is unfair because it infringes on my rights that should be protected instead. I know you think it’s fair, but I don’t, and it’s a matter of opinion; unless we’re both willing to accept some set of axioms about a rigid definition of fairness, but we’re not likely to agree on those.

  • “In particular, I’d say that many humans are corrupt, but many business models seem to still work. Perhaps you have a very stringent definition of what it means for a business model to “work properly”? … I don’t get it.”

    I claim that a business model works properly if and only if it causes good products to be produced (the products that people want) and if those who produce those products are rewarded, either to the point where they can live a reasonable quality of life, or as much as they want to be rewarded, whichever is least. I further claim that such a business model does not exist, unless humans stop being corrupt.

    You’ve already explained why our current business model doesn’t work. Generally, the problem with a system with heavy restrictions is that the producers are rewarded, but they produce bad quality products – products that people don’t want. Their reward is too great, and the public’s is too small.

    In the case of a system with no restrictions, where everyone can use everyone’s creations, there’s the opposite problem. Good products can be produced, but few producers can produce them because they aren’t rewarded enough to be able to live. I want to produce a programming language, for example, but it’s very hard because I can’t make any money from it – even though a good programming language is a product people want. Or consider Linux. GNU/Linux is trash. Not that there’s anything better – it’s the best operating system there is – but it’s trash. It’s not what people want. Programmers want a high-quality IDE, but GNU/Linux developers can’t produce one, because it would require banding together on a large scale, and they can’t be rewarded for doing so. In short, the problem with no restrictions is that the public benefits too much at the expense of producers, because even when the producers want to be rewarded, the public uses their products but refuses to reward them.

    But rather than all this speculation, why don’t we examine the evidence. Suggest a business model that works, and show some content it’s produced that doesn’t suck. Wherever I turn I see software that sucks, music that sucks, movies that suck, gadgets that suck, video games that suck. Why is content that people think they want being produced, rather than content that they actually want, and where is the business model that results in the latter?

    “People rarely look to benefit themselves at the expense of others. More typically, a person looks to benefit themselves, *indifferent* to the way it affects people they don’t know. That’s very different.”

    That’s true. But it frequently results in harm to others, simply because they get in the way. “All that’s required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

    “I know you think it’s fair, but I don’t, and it’s a matter of opinion”

    I certainly don’t think the current copyright system is fair, and I’m not sure where you got that idea. For example, works should be public domain by default, not copyrighted by default.

  • Adam Richard wrote:

    In the case of a system with no restrictions, where everyone can use everyone’s creations, there’s the opposite problem. Good products can be produced, but few producers can produce them because they aren’t rewarded enough to be able to live.

    This is getting dangerously close to the common idea that strong copyright proponents (particularly copyright conglomerates like recording companies) try to push in their lobbying efforts: “people won’t get paid for creative works if we don’t have copyright” with the added implication that “we won’t have creative works if we don’t have copyright; do you really want that?”.

    There are lots of alternate business models that will allow people to be compensated without requiring the spread of information to be constrained in any way. Ubuntu and Red Hat chose the support model, musicians are choosing various models such as micropatronage and concert-only revenue.

    When you argue that copyright is required in order to pay creators, you must also show to me that there are not alternate business models to pay creators (while at the same time not using copyright to protect works) and that it would be hard to make a business model to pay creators.

    Or consider Linux. GNU/Linux is trash. Not that there’s anything better – it’s the best operating system there is – but it’s trash. It’s not what people want. Programmers want a high-quality IDE, but GNU/Linux developers can’t produce one, because it would require banding together on a large scale, and they can’t be rewarded for doing so.

    I think the problem with GNU/Linux (and software in general) is that it is difficult to organize people to do a particular task and that it is hard to determine what particular tasks need to be done. It is very difficult to translate “make a good operating system” into specific tasks such that developers can do.

    Proprietary software suffers from a mixed agenda. The goal of such software is to make the user want it just enough so that they will buy it, but not so much that they will use it extensively because that would incur support costs.

    In short, the problem with no restrictions is that the public benefits too much at the expense of producers, because even when the producers want to be rewarded, the public uses their products but refuses to reward them.

    If you are talking about monetary rewards, then maybe you have a point. But still, the producer could still choose to use a business model that does not require copyright.

    There are many rewards that are not monetary, though, and those are the kind that drive me to write open source software. I want a specific feature in Wine but I don’t want to maintain it so I make a patch and get it into the Wine tree. I receive the reward I want (the feature is implemented) and as a very useful side-benefit, everyone in the world also gets the feature I implemented.

  • “people won’t get paid for creative works if we don’t have copyright”

    I’m not saying that – I’ve explained that copyright has problems too. I’m saying there’s no business model that works, as long as humans remain corrupt.

    “Ubuntu and Red Hat chose the support model”

    The support model doesn’t work, if the creators of Ubuntu and Red Hat are corrupt, because then they’ll introduce bugs or difficult-to-use interfaces to drive up support revenue.

    “musicians are choosing various models such as micropatronage”

    Micropatronage is a lot like selling someone your software, but showing them the source code too – the latter is better than micropatronage if you care about money, because then you’re explicitly requesting to be paid. That would work fine, if customers weren’t corrupt, but since they are, and they don’t have an incentive to pay the producer, not as many good things get produced because producers can’t be paid enough.

    “and concert-only revenue.”

    Concert-only revenue would work fine, if musicians also produced CDs and gave them away – but if they’re corrupt, they have no incentive to do so, because that would detract from concert revenues – a CD is competition for a concert because they provide a similar form of entertainment.

    “There are many rewards that are not monetary, though, and those are the kind that drive me to write open source software.”

    I agree – that’s why I write it too. But people have to make a living, and, as much as they want to produce good products, they sometimes can’t do so without running out of money. I can’t spend the rest of my life writing open source software, even if it would result in the products people want – I have to spend some of my time doing things that people don’t want as much but will pay for, because there is no model that works as long as humans remain corrupt.

  • biggz wrote:

    Also, your blog software should offer a “Preview” button, as it’s not clear how it interprets comment text; newlines, in my case.

    I’ll look into that. Anyone have suggestions for WordPress plugins that do something like this?

    In general, pretty much any valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional code will work in comments, although I would prefer you stick to XHTML 1.1-compliant code. As an example, the <blockquote> tags (which I have been using) work quite nicely for quoting text.

    Although it matters little, as your blog is not horizontal-friendly anyway. (That search bar is _especially_ horizontal-hungry!)

    Is it any better now? The search bar is gone and I’m using a new version of K2.

    I hope no one misses the search bar; I suspect most people would do a “site:ossguy.com search terms”-style search if they wanted to find something on my page. Much of the content isn’t on the WordPress part of the site anyway.

    Also, it seems to use a funny timezone.

    Fixed; it is now using UTC. You may not consider that a less funny timezone, but at least it’s standard. I prefer for the time to remain location-agnostic unless I can set it on a per-user basis, which does not appear to be easy to do. It used to use Pacific Time because that’s the timezone set on the DreamHost servers, which are located in California.

  • Adam Richard wrote:

    Stephen: You’re right that it would be illegal to share the poem even if it doesn’t have a copyright symbol on it, but we were discussing whether it would be moral. I maintain that it would be moral, though illegal. In contrast, copying of works which the copyright holders don’t want you to copy is both illegal and immoral (specifically, it’s unfair).

    Looking for a copyright symbol is an odd way of determining whether the copyright holder “wants” you to copy their work. Since the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, nearly every creative work is All Rights Reserved by default. Because people are allowed to assume this default on works they create, many people will assume that you will not copy their work without their permission even if they did not include a copyright notice. So I believe it is immoral to copy a creative work even if it does not have a copyright notice. I hope you change your mind on this matter; I don’t think it’s fair to assume people will attach a copyright notice if they want their rights upheld.

    As an example, my blog did not contain any copyright notices until yesterday. But I would have been mighty ticked off if someone had used it as if it were in the public domain. I relied on the default copyright protection because I just hadn’t had a chance to make my wishes explicit yet.

    If you believe that sharing a creative work without a copyright notice is moral, then you have to draw the line as to what constitutes “sharing”. Should I consider making exact copies to be moral? Is making derivative works also moral?

    I.e. some form of copyright law should exist, since in many cases piracy violates the freedom of the creators, but forcing people to explicitly revoke their copyright before they can have their work distributed by others is also a violation of freedom.

    I agree that works should be in the public domain by default (I think that’s what you’re saying). Unfortunately, the implementation of the Berne Convention almost worldwide means that even if we make public domain the default now, we cannot assume works without a copyright notice are in the public domain until at least the end of my lifetime due to the “shall not be subject to any formality” clause.

    As for whether copyright law should exist, I am becoming more and more unsure of whether it has a useful purpose. I don’t know if any government-sanctioned monopoly (in this case, the monopoly on publishing a creative work) is a good idea as it (by definition) restricts the availability of the monopolized item to the public. Maybe this made sense when it was already costly to make a work available to the public but I can hardly see a case for it now, when making a work available is trivial with the Internet.

  • ossguy wrote:

    I would have been mighty ticked off if someone had used it as if it were in the public domain. […] I am becoming more and more unsure of whether it has a useful purpose.

    I realized after posting my last comment that these sentences seem to be quite contradictory since copyright law is exactly the thing that protects my work from mis-use (in my case, not attributing or sharing changes). However, upon closer consideration, they are not actually that contradictory. If all works were in the public domain, then all works would implicitly be share-alike.

    This doesn’t quite work the same for public domain software since you could still hide the source (I don’t think legislating open source is a good idea) and yet I still feel licenses such as the GPL are important so I suppose I am still in the share-alike camp. In a world with no copyright law, perhaps I could just put up with the companies that improve on source code and don’t release it knowing that I could legally copy and reverse-engineer it if I really needed to (which I think should be legally allowed if copyright law were dropped).

  • I don’t have time to respond to lots of stuff now but I’ll respond to a couple of things 🙂

    The website improvements are happy. Horizontal scrolling: the text still uses a fixed size (so doesn’t respect browser-width; at least in ffx3

    “I would have been mighty ticked off if someone had used it as if it were in the public domain.”

    Why?

    “Should I consider making exact copies to be moral? Is making derivative works also moral?”

    Yes and yes 😀 (barring other knowledge of a particular situation at-hand, of course…. IMO morality depends very much on situational particulars!)

    “I realized after posting my last comment that these sentences seem to be quite contradictory since copyright law is exactly the thing that protects my work from mis-use (in my case, not attributing or sharing changes).”

    I don’t believe that making full use of a system while it exists is contradictory with believing that the system shouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, n00bs tend to argue that one’s use of a system is a vote in its favour; but this is totally false. However, there *is* the argument that making up new and wild copyright licenses encourages and can even extend the reach of copyright law….. but that’s all kind of convoluted and uncertain. And tragic 😮

  • ossguy wrote:

    Because people are allowed to assume this default on works they create, many people will assume that you will not copy their work without their permission even if they did not include a copyright notice.

    Hmm, I didn’t realize that. I thought if people cared about something, they would explicitly copyright it. In that case, what’s the point of agreeing to all those license agreements when installing freeware software I used to use?

    I guess I’ve changed my mind about that, but I still think the poem biggz mentioned is a special case, because the author can’t be contacted to find out how they’re permitting people to use it.

    ossguy wrote:

    But I would have been mighty ticked off if someone had used it as if it were in the public domain.

    I think it’s absurd to say that people can’t copy and distribute words people post on the Internet, as long as they aren’t modified and as long as credit is given to the author. Unless I see a notice saying I can’t distribute someone’s post, I think it’s morally acceptable to distribute it, as long as it’s not an artistic work.

    ossguy wrote:

    I don’t think legislating open source is a good idea

    I think it probably is. If software had to be open source, then it would become practical to sell open source software, because if someone tried to steal it and sell it as their own, everyone would be able to see it had been stolen.

    biggz wrote:

    Unfortunately, n00bs tend to argue that one’s use of a system is a vote in its favour; but this is totally false.

    Strictly speaking, yes. However, helping to pay the salaries of someone responsible for a system is a vote in its favor, because then you’re partly responsible for its existence. For example, buying a copy of Windows makes you partly responsible for the existence of Microsoft, and if you believe they shouldn’t exist, then you must also believe that buying a copy of Windows is immoral.

  • Unless I see a notice saying I can’t distribute someone’s post, I think it’s morally acceptable to distribute it, as long as it’s not an artistic work.

    What do you mean by ‘artistic work’? I consider all my IP (and thus all my posts) to be a part of my art form. While I certainly have no problem with others using it (it’s licensed CC-BY) – I do believe that any author who wants their work protected should be able to have their wishes respected. Just because they choose to publish on the Internet, that should not reduce their rights.

  • @ossguy Your CSS makes my <q> tag look like nothing… 🙁

  • What do you mean by ‘artistic work’?

    Some kind of creative or useful entity that the artist has put effort into creating. Obviously that’s not formal, and obviously the concept can’t be defined formally, but that doesn’t matter because people have the ability to use enough charity to distinguish art from conversation.

    I do believe that any author who wants their work protected should be able to have their wishes respected.

    So do I, as I’ve said.

    The reason I think it’s ridiculous to say that someone can’t copy something I’ve written that describes my beliefs or thoughts about something is that it’s not fundamentally different from telling someone about a conversation they’ve had with me. What’s the difference whether the conversation is written or spoken? Yet if you’re going to claim that I can’t even quote something I’ve heard someone say without going and asking them, unless they’ve told me not to repeat it, then I’m going to call you a Nazi.

    Of course, a fictional story or poem posted on a blog is an artistic work.

  • then I’m going to call you a Nazi.

    Be careful what you call people – you may find they are nearer your intended name-calling than you think 😉

    I think the problem is that a written conversation is a research paper in the limit – so at what point is it worth protecting and at what point is it not? I believe that point should be chosen by the content creator.

  • a written conversation is a research paper in the limit

    But it’s not. It’s just there is no deterministic line between a research paper and a conversation. Something intended as research is research, and people have the ability to discern people’s intentions.

    I believe that point should be chosen by the content creator.

    Again, so do I.

  • Stephen Paul Weber wrote:

    @ossguy Your CSS makes my <q> tag look like nothing… 🙁

    So it does. It looks like K2 modifies the behaviour of <q> so it doesn’t add quotes, which overrides the user agent’s correct interpretation of the HTML spec on quotes. From css/core.css.php in K2:


    blockquote, q {
    quotes: none;
    }
    blockquote:before, blockquote:after,
    q:before, q:after {
    content: '';
    content: none;
    }

    For <blockquote>, K2 later specifies indentation, but the CSS never refers to <q> again. The K2 people would probably appreciate a bug report on this. I will leave that up to you as the bug finder :).

    I have changed your <q> to a <blockquote> for readability. I’m not sure if you have rights to change your comments after submission.

  • I have reported the bug http://code.google.com/p/kaytwo/issues/detail?id=660

    Adam Richard said:
    It’s just there is no deterministic line between a research paper and a conversation.

    Right, and hence I would err on the side of research.

  • biggz wrote:

    “I would have been mighty ticked off if someone had used it as if it were in the public domain.”

    Why?

    This does require some clarification. First of all, people copying the content without my permission are being disrespectful to me and to the country they live in because they are defying the laws that they and I have chosen to live under. Even if they believe strongly in civil disobedience (where infringement usually hurts only governments or companies or no one), there is still disrespect being shown to me as a private citizen who happens to be using the law in a non-profit manner for protection (in this case, primarily temporary protection).

    Secondly, the work may have been used in a way that I didn’t agree with, such as copying and modifying without attribution, before I had a chance to explicitly specify what uses were allowed. A particularly worrisome case is where someone would publish my work for profit in a way that suggests it cannot be obtained in another way (by going to my web site, for example).

    So essentially my reasons are disrespect for the law (indirectly disrespecting me) and going against my implicit wishes (supported by the law).

  • biggz wrote:

    “The incident that sparked this was my inability to find a particular (recent) song in digital form online.”

    Did you try YouTube? 🙂

    No. See below for more comments on this.

    “Currently, you have to be somewhat savvy to get the full benefit of digital content.”

    It’s not just savviness… many people don’t have (and can’t get) internet access, for example. Erk, the term “digital content” is a misnomer anyway (CDs are digital), but I’ll assume you use “digital content” to mean internet-distributed… (although I guess non-Internet systems would work too, like BBS’s…. hmmmm…)

    Good point. I should have explicitly stated that we must also work on closing the digital divide. And yes, in that case I was referring to Internet-distributed digital content.

    “The prevalence of digital content and efficient ways to use it is a chicken and egg problem.”

    The chicken+egg problem you describe has been solved, and it’s an enormously active industry. Have you *seen* YouTube? It’s an easy-to-use digital content distribution system with an enormous amount of content… and lots of competition. But there’s a catch… the content isn’t being *sold*, as per the antiquated business model you encourage.

    It is true that users are not paying for each copy of the videos they watch. But the YouTube model is not without problems.

    First of all, the YouTube model expropriates content from people who don’t necessarily want their content available for free. YouTube relies on content owners to browse their site to check for infringing content. This may be cost-effective for the big four, but it certainly isn’t for an independent artist and I believe that if the big four is allowed to restrict access to their content, so should an independent artist be allowed.

    It should be noted that YouTube usually tries to purchase rights to show content from content owners who don’t want their content available for free. This means the big four get money from YouTube views because they have the resources to find content of theirs and the power (in terms of legal threat) to make YouTube license from them, but independent artists have no such resources so their content is available without charge even if they don’t want that.

    Secondly, YouTube does not permit redistribution, which should be a fundamental property of free content. To clarify, you are not permitted to download a video from YouTube and post it on your website. You must use their embed tags to do this.

    Restricting distribution means that YouTube decides which videos are available and which are not. If someone tells YouTube to take a video down, it is effectively gone unless someone has infringed copyright by downloading it from YouTube. Furthermore, it means that YouTube can add ads to videos whenever they want and there’s nothing you can (legally) do about it because they control the content.

    While YouTube does not currently appear to run ads, running ads is the likely eventual state of the service in order to make it profitable. At that point, people will see YouTube for what it really is. Perhaps then people will start caring about redistribution rights. But, as always, if it doesn’t affect them now, they don’t care. There’s little you can do to persuade them that things will soon change for the worse.

    “Markets don’t work properly when property rights are not respected.”

    That depends on your definition of “properly”. What’s so bad about the Chinese media industry? If our model is outdated.. I guess it just depends who you blame. The “properly-functioning economy” you envision isn’t something I would support.

    I was referring mainly to traditional economic theory, which I’m starting to disagree with more and more. The theory is based largely around selling units of goods, which in the case of digital content amounts to selling copies of content. My opinions are changing as to the benefit of using that theory as a basis for making policy decisions.

    “I wrote this post not only to get content owners to release content digitally, but to promote respect for property rights by content users, which allows the markets to work more effectively and speeds the transition to digital content.”

    It’s possible that piracy speeded the transition to digital content more than anything; ie. CD-burners got cheap, users demanded bandwidth, the Internet becomes an enormous market. Also, YouTube + co. is an effective market, and doesn’t require a lot of obvious intrusion of users’ rights to be successful.

    To some extent, I think you’re right that piracy speeded the transition.

    As stated above, YouTube intrudes on many users’ rights, but in primarily non-obvious ways.

    “I don’t believe that the people with money and power will stay in power with new digital distribution mechanisms. One of the main problems with physical media distribution is that it favours those with money because they can make more people aware of their content through placement of their media in lots of brick and mortar stores.”

    By encouraging adherence to copyright, you encourage a model in which a few large companies aggregate copyright ownership of media, with the large advertising budgets (and behind-the-scenes deals of all sorts) to make it prevalent everywhere and available (for purchase or whatever) through all media distribution channels. Replacing CDs with iTunes doesn’t change that. The big four will keep their music in the public conscience, and so will remain in power.

    Large advertising budgets are starting to mean less and less in this day and age. People are beginning to care more about what their friends think (because they have a high-trust relationship) and less about what billboards tell them (no trust relationship).

    “Users can search for the types of music they want”

    They’ll do this using a privately-owned search mechanism, like that of iTunes. The most prominent music will be that which is owned by the large companies. This isn’t necessarily a problem.. and yes, they will find new artists.

    Not necessarily. Jamendo is a good example of this. The music that is popular is that which a lot of people listen to. It has nothing to do with which companies own their music.

    “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their
    content over the Internet is piracy.”
    (…)
    “The digital distribution I suggest (no TCMs) is not widely used because it’s
    extremely easy to copy such content.”

    OK, so your statement should have been “The primary reason that copyright holders choose not to distribute their content *TCM-free* over the Internet is piracy.” In which case that’s a much weaker statement. But also, your statement only makes sense when “copyright holders” is reduced to “big media companies”, since they’re the only ones using TCMs, and they are but a few of the copyright holders distributing media on the Internet.

    Fair enough. But I suspect the major reason more independent artists aren’t using the Internet for distribution (or are distributing their content for free on the Internet) is that they can’t rely on customers to pay for their content when they are asked to.

    “Yes, we should encourage people to share their content. But I don’t agree that we should force people to share their content.”

    We’re not forcing anybody to share their content, we’re allowing them. Your use of the possessive pronoun (“their”) is incorrect. Allowing me to share my content means letting me send a sequence of bits to a friend. It doesn’t matter who was the first person on Earth to put that sequence of bits in that order on a storage device. They don’t own my bits; the bits are on my computer, and the communication between me and a friend is a private affair. 🙂

    When people believe the law means something, then you are forcing them to share their content by copying it without their permission. If the law means nothing, then I guess you are right.

    “I’m not convinced that removing copyright law would promote a better society.”

    Fair enough; neither am I. Also, protecting the individual’s right to distribute information does not necessarily mean removing copyright law altogether.

    Do you have some specific suggestions?

    “All developed countries have copyright law and enforce it. There must have been good reason to implement it.”

    Your second statement is false, and does not derive from the first. Come on, you should know better than that. Particularly since you’re the person who taught me that copyright law is miserably outdated and needs to change.

    Thanks for calling my bluff. That comment wasn’t sufficiently thought-out. Why copyright law exists as it does today is the topic for a much longer article than I’m willing to write here.

    “Copyright opponents would say that free copying is more societally-beneficial even if the quality of creative works is lower than it would be with monetary incentive.”

    You’re kind of misleading things here. Copyright opponents might just as well say that free copying is more societally-beneficial because it leads to higher-quality creative works than would be created otherwise. Perhaps even with monetary incentive.

    Yes, that’s true. It is wrong to assume that getting rid of copyright law would lead to lower-quality works (that wasn’t really assumed, though it was sort of implied).

  • Adam Richard wrote:

    I think it’s absurd to say that people can’t copy and distribute words people post on the Internet, as long as they aren’t modified and as long as credit is given to the author. Unless I see a notice saying I can’t distribute someone’s post, I think it’s morally acceptable to distribute it, as long as it’s not an artistic work.

    Stephen Paul Weber wrote:

    I do believe that any author who wants their work protected should be able to have their wishes respected.

    So do I, as I’ve said.

    The reason I think it’s ridiculous to say that someone can’t copy something I’ve written that describes my beliefs or thoughts about something is that it’s not fundamentally different from telling someone about a conversation they’ve had with me. What’s the difference whether the conversation is written or spoken?

    These are good points which make a lot of sense. I would definitely support the inclusion of what you describe in fair dealing/fair use laws.

    The point would become somewhat moot if we just had a public domain default on works that don’t have an explicit copyright notice. I would be in favour of such a change.

    On the topic of copying written work versus quoting a speech, the law definitely sees them as different even if common sense tells us they should be seen in the same way. Copyright law only applies to that which is “fixed” (written down or recorded). You may have known this already, but I thought I’d clarify for all readers. This does not mean I support this differentiation; I’m just describing the way things are.

    Hopefully my responses are becoming a bit more palatable. I see that I’ve probably made things seem more black and white than they really are in some of my posts (though your post was not directed at me specifically).

  • ossguy wrote:

    I see that I’ve probably made things seem more black and white than they really are in some of my posts

    No, I don’t think you do that; I was referring to certain other posters who shall remain unnamed :), as well as also mocking myself, who is probably the most mathematically-minded geek bent on rigorous definitions I know of. (At least, that’s how I imagine I appear to others.)

  • ossguy wrote:

    It is true that users are not paying for each copy of the videos they watch [on YouTube]. But the YouTube model is not without problems.

    First of all, the YouTube model expropriates content from people who don’t necessarily want their content available for free. YouTube relies on content owners to browse their site to check for infringing content. This may be cost-effective for the big four, but it certainly isn’t for an independent artist and I believe that if the big four is allowed to restrict access to their content, so should an independent artist be allowed.

    It should be noted that YouTube usually tries to purchase rights to show content from content owners who don’t want their content available for free. This means the big four get money from YouTube views because they have the resources to find content of theirs and the power (in terms of legal threat) to make YouTube license from them, but independent artists have no such resources so their content is available without charge even if they don’t want that.

    Secondly, YouTube does not permit redistribution, which should be a fundamental property of free content. To clarify, you are not permitted to download a video from YouTube and post it on your website. You must use their embed tags to do this.

    Restricting distribution means that YouTube decides which videos are available and which are not. If someone tells YouTube to take a video down, it is effectively gone unless someone has infringed copyright by downloading it from YouTube. Furthermore, it means that YouTube can add ads to videos whenever they want and there’s nothing you can (legally) do about it because they control the content.

    While YouTube does not currently appear to run ads, running ads is the likely eventual state of the service in order to make it profitable. At that point, people will see YouTube for what it really is. Perhaps then people will start caring about redistribution rights. But, as always, if it doesn’t affect them now, they don’t care. There’s little you can do to persuade them that things will soon change for the worse.

    I forgot to mention that Jamendo does not suffer from any of these problems that YouTube has. Firstly, all content on Jamendo is there because the copyright holder put it there; no one is expropriating anyone else’s content. Furthermore, Jamendo will share 50% of its advertising revenue with artists if artists choose to do so (this is on top of any donations the artists make through Jamendo). While YouTube has a very small number of ads, its revenue is not shared with content owners (that I’m aware of). It will be interesting to see whether revenue sharing is introduced when YouTube starts aggressively using advertising.

    Secondly, all content on Jamendo can be legally redistributed for free. So if Jamendo starts using too many ads on their site, anyone is free to start a website with all of Jamendo’s content available ad-free. Additionally, you are free to use content from Jamendo off-line and even to give it to your friend. None of these options are (legally) afforded by YouTube.

    The model used by Jamendo also solves the problem of takedowns and inaccessibility. If Jamendo for some reason goes down or starts removing large amounts of content, those that have downloaded content are free to distribute it or setup a site like Jamendo to keep the music alive. But if YouTube goes down, all the content it hosts dies with it since you are not legally allowed to download it and even if you were, you are not legally allowed to redistribute it. It is possible that content owners will make their content available through other means (if they still have a copy), but the users have no control over what is and is not available.

    I hope that people will start realizing the points of value I’ve outlined for services like Jamendo and, as a result, will start substituting away from services like YouTube toward services like Jamendo.

  • ossguy wrote:

    I was referring mainly to traditional economic theory, which I’m starting to disagree with more and more. The theory is based largely around selling units of goods, which in the case of digital content amounts to selling copies of content. My opinions are changing as to the benefit of using that theory as a basis for making policy decisions.

    Economic theory isn’t something you can disagree with – it’s a description of how people act unless there are regulations making them act otherwise. (And it’s necessarily an overly simplistic explanation – much like the laws of physics are necessarily overly simplistic – often making such unrealistic assumptions as rationality and perfect information, for the benefit of greater understanding.) What I’m guessing you meant is that you’re starting to disagree with, or question, ownership – who’s allowed to own what and how it comes about, and the associated rights.

  • blargh, there’s a lot more I need to reply to here, but this one statement irked me and I has a single moment to spare:

    “Economic theory isn’t something you can disagree with”

    Yes, it is. There are many different schools of thought in economic theory, and they often conflict. You say that economic theory is overly simplistic — if this is the case, then it may be correct to disagree with the way an economic theory might be applied to a particular situation, which is all Denver was doing anyway.

  • There are many different schools of thought in economic theory

    What are they?

  • OK, but those are all still theories that are all true with certain assumptions, and all false in reality, but more useful than the real facts, as with string theory or gravitational theory or any other theory. In particular, they aren’t claims about how something should be. My point was just that you can’t disagree with a theory the way you disagree with a philosophy – a theory is something you go and disprove, not something you sit and think about. Yet it sounded like he was saying “I’m starting to disagree with economic theory” in the same sense that someone might say “I disagree with anarcho-primitivism”. Perhaps he wasn’t, but I thought it wasn’t that clear, and also the fact that lots of people make that mistake regarding economics made it seem worth pointing out.

    In other words, it sounded like he was disagreeing with it in a moral sense, when in fact a theory can only be disputed in a factual sense.

  • “I was referring mainly to traditional economic theory, which I’m starting to disagree with more and more. The theory is based largely around selling units of goods, which in the case of digital content amounts to selling copies of content. My opinions are changing as to the benefit of using that theory as a basis for making policy decisions.”

    It very much sounds to me that he is disagreeing with the application of a goods-based economic model to discussions about the economics of digital content. Not some moral disagreement with economic theory.

  • Correct. Specifically, I disagree with introducing artificial scarcity just so that all the neoclassical economic theories based on scarcity work “properly”. I suggest reading Chris Anderson’s discussion on this topic.

    Any government-sanctioned artificial scarcity must be thoroughly justified and re-evaluated as technologies change because artificial scarcity naturally reduces the net benefit of a constrained good to society (whether it promotes creation of such goods is another question). And I don’t feel comfortable with the level of justification currently offered to us by leaders such as Jim Prentice as to why artificial scarcity laws (specifically copyright laws) must become more restrictive rather than less.

  • The topic of this blog post has been discussed by Russell McOrmond on his itWorldCanada blog:

    http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/2008/06/28/buy-me-now/ (alternate link)

    Russell notes that by refusing to distribute their content online in DRM-free formats, content owners may actually be encouraging piracy. Taken along with my post, we see that piracy is both causing and caused by content owners’ refusal to distribute content online (at least to some extent).

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