A common saying you hear now a days in arguments about piracy is “I think people should get paid for their creative work”. Yeah, well I don’t.
I think you should get paid for how well the free market likes you and decides to pay you. It is your job to figure out how to be a businessmen and make money.
But I’m just an author and don’t understand business!
Then hire the person who is supposed to understand these things — a publisher! It’s their responsibility, it is why you hire them, to make money in the marketplace with your creative work. Historically they’ve been quite good at this. Now that the market has been made more competitive (piracy is, after all, just a competitor to the work a publisher traditionally does) guess who are the ones complaining loudest? That’s right, the folks who are supposed to be competing in the marketplace — the publishers. Rather than compete against a competitor they are complaining for regulation to help keep their business afloat.
To paraphrase Gabe Newell’s Piracy is a service problem: If you are being pirated, it means there’s something wrong with the service to begin with. Somebody finds it more enjoyable or values more the experience of pirating your work than to get it via the channels you are offering. Therefore you need to find a way to make your product more valuable than the pirated one. Let me repeat that: It is your responsibility, as the person who wants to make money, to find a way to make your users happy enough that they want to pay you.
I don’t know of any other example of a business where I can launch my business, make money, have a competitor come in and then beg the government to make them go away. Heck, the government does not have the authority to give you that right, either, nor should it. (I’m curious what constitutional scholars have to say about SOPA)
My bottom line: Anybody who is complaining that piracy hurts their business is simply avoiding the problem that they aren’t providing a product that is marketplace savvy enough to make money by giving people something worth paying for. Sure, piracy is incredible efficient so it makes your problem harder but SO WHAT. Technology’s job is to make life more efficient and better for end users, it’s called progress.
So rather than legislate to defend the old business models of a sector which was supposed to be market savvy to begin with, why don’t we let the market be efficient and have people innovate and let the businesses or technology that can provide the most end-user value win?
Discuss.
As far as constitutionality goes, I quote from article 1, section 8, enumerating the powers of congress.
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;”
I believe that this is exactly the right you claim does not exist. Now I do think that current law pushes the balance too far in the direction of copyright holders. What I find very curious is the very different protection terms for patents (20 yrs) and copyrights (life of author + 70 yrs). Does it really take ~5x longer to profit from a copyright than from a patent?
I think you would agree that the extreme case, where after years of your life and/or millions in R&D, a competitor could use and profit from your work (and sell it at a price that could put you out of business) without putting in that money or effort would be a defective system.
| January 17, 2012 @ 10:17 am
I disagree on all counts. Re: Consitution — it provides ‘exclusive rights’ for ‘limited times’. Nothing about ‘guaranteed profits’ or ‘life + 90 years’.
As for your last point — it’s called disruption. It’s what Silicon Valley does. Take a look at Nokia, for example. Something better came along (the iPhone and Android) and their whole business goes away. Progress happens, as a business you learn and change and take advantage, or you go away. If the government hinders this process I claim THAT would be the broken system.
| January 17, 2012 @ 1:17 pm
In the case of Nokia, someone else produced a better product, but what if someone did not improve on your product, but in fact produced the EXACT SAME PRODUCT?
Take the example of a pharmaceutical company that has just spent half a billion dollars developing and testing a drug. They must now recoup those losses (as well as losses for all the failed drugs) to make a profit on it. Now that it’s clear that this drug works, company B immediately comes along and starts producing the same drug at a price that company A can’t match if they ever hope to turn enough profit to develop another drug.
I would call that a situation that is openly hostile to innovation, and that is the kind of case that copyright and patent law is meant to prevent.
| January 25, 2012 @ 8:12 pm
First, you’re talking about patent law with the pharma example. I think the current system for pharma patents works well, the 10 years that they are given exclusive rights over their inventions IMO is a good compromise. I don’t think your argument applies to copyright though, which is what I’m really concerned about as it is the area most disrupted by modern computers & the internet and is the industry fighting innovation the hardest.
| January 25, 2012 @ 8:20 pm
Here’s a somewhat similar story where a municipality in NC decided to create it’s own network and be an ISP. Apparently following a failed lawsuit a new law was passed preventing other local governments from operating their own consumer ISPs (Link to the actual bill in the blog post).
Blog: savencbb.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/wilson-largely-exempted-but-nc-takes-a-big-step-backward/
The main difference here is that the competition being outlawed is exclusively municipal. Then again, there are many places where towns are incorporated entities. Should they be excluded from offering certain services?
| January 23, 2012 @ 9:36 pm
I forgot to mention that this comment is in response to the statement about businesses outlawing competition. There is no opinion or statement made with regards to piracy or intellectual property.
| January 23, 2012 @ 9:39 pm