However, there are flaws at the heart of the any estimate of revenue lost to piracy. The figures quoted always seem to be based on the premise that every download of a copyrighted piece of work constitutes a lost sale. This is, of course, rubbish. To state that every person who downloads something without paying for it would have bought that work has they not downloaded it is clearly a massive overstatement. I do not deny that there will be lost sales there, but actually gauging the percentage of these downloads that would probably have cost a sale is quite probably impossible.
Anyhow. I'm starting to digress here from the main point I was really going to be making with this blog post, and that's to do with the question of the ethics of downloading from non-legitimate corners of the internet; when is it okay to do so, and when is it not okay to do so?
Now, I know there will certainly be some reading this who will say it's never ethically okay to download something from a non-legitimate site, and I respect that opinion. It is not an opinion I agree with, and here are some examples as to why not;
You will never be able to convince me that a person should not download a copy of an off-air recording of a TV show. If there's a TV show someone wants to see, and it's available as an off-air recording, then they're downloading it. This is no different to borrowing a VHS or DVDR recording from a friend. If it's the latest episodes of a US TV show not yet aired... well, again it's no different to a friend over there taping it and mailing it. It's all the same thing, just via a quicker, more efficient, method. In no way can the copyright holders be said to be losing out here. If something's broadcast on the television, it's going to be recorded, kept, and copied. It's inevitable.
You will note in the above I specifically refer to "off-air"; this is to differentiate between this and a copy of a commercially released DVD. The downloading of a commercially released DVD can never be justified; if you can't find an off-air of a show, and only a dodgy DVD copy you should go out and buy the DVD... No question. Ditto any material exclusive to the DVD release; you should buy the thing.
Mind you, sometimes the off-air version of a show is superior to the version released on DVD; music substitutions sometimes blight a release with inappropriate music used in place of the originally aired songs. (In extreme cases, it can lead to whole scenes - sometimes important ones - being excised from the DVD.) The wrong music may seem a minor, trivial, issue; but it can have a massive impact on the scene. A notable example being the replacement of the song Georgia On My Mind with some generic plinky-plonking in the episode of Quantum Leap called MIA on the US DVD release; it completely ruined the impact of the scene, which is one of the most tender, sad, moments in the show. Fortunately, the UK version had the correct song intact.
And music... Music is a veritable minefield, but there are certainly examples that can be cited. Most notable is when you're a dedicated fan of a particular band. You'll want everything they release, and you'll buy it all. But there will come a time when there will be things unreleased. Those obscure radio sessions. Bootlegs of gigs. Interviews. Live TV performances. Now, being the dedicated fan that you are, if such goodies were released you'd buy them in a shot. But they're not... so, really... realistically if you find a website with those rare, unreleased, not repeated for 20-odd years, Peel Sessions (for example) are you really going to say "ooh, no; mustn't download these, must respect copyright..." Nah... of course not. You'll be downloading them in a shot. As a dedicated fan you just must have copies.
I would also say it's possible to mount a defence for downloading an album to see if you like it. The outcome here is obvious; if you decide you like the album, you buy a copy. If you don't like it, you delete it. I would suggest this is defensible purely on the basis that this is not really any different from borrowing a copy from a friend. Of course, if you decide you like it and don't buy a proper copy, keeping the dodgy one, you're clearly in the wrong. Obviously, opinions will vary here...
The trouble is, copyright is so often seen as a black and white issue, with no shades of grey in the middle. This is unfortunate, as it's clearly not an issue that can be polarised like this. Yes, there will be those people who never pay for any of the media they consume, and this is clearly wrong. But I do put it to you that there are examples - some of which are outlined above - where although copyright is breached there is no financial loss to the copyright holder, and these should not be bracketed with those breaches of copyright where the intent is to deprive the copyright owner of the remuneration they are due.
One final thought; there are currently 106 episodes of Dr Who missing from the archive. There are vast numbers of episodes of other TV shows missing, too. Loads of early Peel Session. Virtually everything the Beatles ever did for Top of the Pops.... I could go on... Just think... if the means and methods we have today for "breaching copyright" were available back then, the gaps in these archives would have been so much smaller...
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1 comment:
"people who never pay for any of the media they consume, and this is clearly wrong."
I think you're looking at the issue the wrong way round.
Because there are limited numbers of hours in the day in which you can consume your prefered media the proliferation of media sources has devalued output to virtually nil.
Consumers are merely reacting to the change of market conditions and negotiating a fairer price.
Producers are faced with covering their costs and are discovering that the changed economics has created a shift in market function.
Concentrating on music, 'produced' acts which only exist in the studio after Simon Cowell has manufactured and moulded them to within an inch of their pristine pop life and sucked any artistic integrity out are dying. And everyone should be glad.
Back in the day, the Peeler always bemoaned the rise of pop culture as artificial. Not only was it soulless vapid entertainment, but the royalties were funneled away from the artists to the corporate rights holders.
Real artists are the performers, like James Brown, who maintain a strong connection to their audience whose emotions they channel, synthesise and represent.
While record companies are complaining about reduced profitability from their pop stable, these artists are enjoying a halcyon period with packed audiences paying premium prices for tickets for the experience.
Income from live gigs can now subsidise the studio time for recordings which acts as advertising, whereas in the pre-internet era records subsidised tours which were the primary adverts for a new single or album.
The problem for the pop acts is that they may only have one song and can't tour.
Live music is where the money is at - you won't get the Sex Pistols playing to a dozen people at Manchester's Free Trade Hall today, and they wouldn't be forced to sell out to EMI to become cartoon representations of themselves either!
There's a whole heap of politics involved, so that should get you started... if you want a discussion on it.
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