RIAA Piracy Tax?
On this week’s edition of Copyright 2.0, I learned of a new idea that is gaining interest among the heads of some record companies: A “piracy” tax. As reported by Wired:
At the music industry trade show MIDEM last year, John Kennedy, the head of IFPI — the RIAA’s international affiliate organization — offered modest support for the kind of licensing fee Griffin and Jenner propose. “It’s a model worth looking at,” he said at a press conference. “If the ISPs want to come to us and look for a blanket license for an amount per month, let’s engage in that discussion.”
Jonathan Bailey, one of the hosts of Copyright 2.0, was open to the idea. Charging a flat rate to everybody (five dollars is the amount being discussed today) for the “right” to download your music sounds better than the losing battle the RIAA is facing today, right? There is some precedent for the idea of forced royalties and compulsory licenses, too. Bailey didn’t totally endorse the idea, but he said that it might be a good place to start until a better idea comes along. I enjoy hearing and reading Bailey’s opinion, but this time I have to respectfully disagree. I think this is a horrible idea that completely shreds the idea of copyright and intellectual property.
I think the problem becomes self-evident once one brings the definition of “copyright” into the issue. A copyright is the right to control the distribution and use of a piece of intellectual property. This right is initially secured by the creator of that property simply by the fact that he created it. Since he did the work to create it, he or she gets to decide what is done with it. Like any right over material property, it can be sold, exchanged, or given away. The owner owns it, so he gets to decide. That’s what copyright is about.
Now apply this concept to the idea of allowing everybody to use a compulsory license to download whatever music they want, in exchange for a $5 tax that is collected and distributed to copyright holders according to some process. Obviously, there are some conflicts. Copyright says that the owner of a creation gets to decide how to use that creation, but a compulsory license says that paying a tax allows anybody can download the copyright holder’s property — with or without permission of the copyright holder. Copyright says that a the owner of a creation can charge whatever he or she wishes for his music, but the compulsory license establishes a set rate for everybody — with or without permission of the copyright holder. All of the “benefits” that a compulsory license might bring about are at the expense of the artist’s rights.
When copyright is discussed today, I think too much focus is placed on the idea of making sure that artists receive some form of “fair” compensation for their work (I don’t mean to include Bailey in this group, now I’m just talking in general). When they’re not constrained by the rights of artists, people are free to imagine all sorts of “new models” that might bring more money to the artist than today’s system. And the funny thing is, some of these imaginary systems might, in fact, bring in more money for some artists if they were ever put in action. Some artists might even prefer it over today’s sytem, too. I doubt it, but I guess it’s possible, especially if one cherry-picks the right examples. However, any additional income will be at the cost of something that’s priceless. Control over one’s work is something that nobody should be forced to give up.
There are a number of other problems with a tax like this. How is the appropriate rate established? How would an artist receive compensation from a tax like this? How can one accurately measure downloads, anyway? These are questions that have no good answer. Like most “new models,” the system becomes pretty arbitrary when the details are established. It probably doesn’t matter, anyway: I doubt the RIAA would ever agree to a blanket, compulsory license in exchange for this tax, even if they were allowed to control the income. If the RIAA pushed a tax, it would be to make up for their losses from illegal file sharing. In other words, it would still be illegal to download music, but you’d pay the tax anyway. Even if you didn’t illegally distribute or download music.
The main source of the music industry’s trouble is the lack of understanding and/or respect for intellectual property, by both consumers and the recording industry. Gimmicks like this tax aren’t going to solve anything.
Tags: [copyright 2.0, isp, isp tax, piracy, plagarismtoday, riaa, tax]Comments
Piracy has no place in a free market
Jerry Kirkpatrick wrote an article titled “The Market Function of Piracy” and posted it at his blog and at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. In it, he argues that pirating copyrighted products brings a marketing benefit to the sellers of those products. He compares pirated copies to “free examples” and tries to explain how those samples can help to increase knowledge and interest. He also states on his site that he believes in laissez-faire capitalism (for economic and moral reasons) and that his interest is in applying them. I think that his positions on the “market function” of stealing property is not consistent with his stance on capitalism, and I’ll explain why. It might be easier to start by explaining what some of the terms in question mean.
A free market is a market where individuals can sell or purchase products only by mutual, voluntary consent. The “free” in “free market” means that all people are free to exercise their own judgment, and that no individual has the right to force another individual to do something without his consent. A seller offers a product for a price that he chooses, and a potential buyer’s only options are to meet the seller’s price or walk away. In a free market, no individual may be forced to do anything against his own will.
Piracy is a term usually used to identify the theft of intellectual property. For example, if you download or upload a movie or song illegally on a p2p network, you’re “pirating” that product. Piracy is stealing.
Just looking at what these two terms mean, it’s obvious that the two can’t go together. Theft has no place in a free market. A free market depends on individuals being free to set their own prices for their own property, and piracy is the theft of someone’s property without their consent. A “pirate” does not want to meet the creator’s terms for the products they want, so they take it and run.
So how do people get around these obvious contradictions? Based on what I’ve read from Kirkpatrick’s article and others, I’d say that most people seem to change the definition of “piracy” to something that boils down to “a harmless act of sharing movies and music between a small minority of people.” Some people believe that it is harmless because the creators of the music and movies never had the right to own them, while others believe that it is harmless because it doesn’t really cause the creators to lose any money. And some in the latter group, like Kirkpatrick, believe that the piracy might even be beneficial to the creators. He wrote:
The pirated product functions as a free sample that the innovator does not have to fund.
Treating a stolen copy of a product as a “free sample” ignores the owner’s right to that product. A free sample is a product that is offered voluntarily by someone, while a stolen copy of a product is a copy of a product that was taken from the owner involuntarily. Kirkpatrick may be trying to get around this by claiming that the stolen copy “functions” as a free sample, but his wording does not change the fact that it is a a stolen copy that was taken without permission from the owner by means of force. I think that a requirement for any advocate of laissez-faire capitalism (which I consider myself) is a zero-tolerance policy on theft.
He also wrote (emphasis mine):
Knock-offs are pirated products. Because they are usually cheaper than the original, knock-offs tend to appeal to a more price-conscious segment of the market; that is, the buyers of pirated products are probably not legitimate prospects for the innovative new product, either because they cannot afford, or do not want to pay, the higher price. Message to the innovative marketer? Either drop the price of the new product or produce a cheaper version—or be the first to exploit a new technology, something the movie and recording industries chose not to do.[2] Many, including these two industries, would rather sue than practice good marketing.
I’ll see if I can explain this correctly: People steal movies and music because they want the product without paying for it. Who is to blame? The music and movie industry, because they didn’t market their product to the pirate segment of the population properly. This segment offers a unique marketing challenge in that if they don’t like your terms they’ll take your product anyway, but hey, that’s the industry’s problem. The industry needs to reach out to these thieves to persuade them to purchase the product legally.
Tags: [intellectual property, piracy]Comments
More on Canadian camcording
I’m surprised that there are people who are against Canada passing a law that outlaws camcording in movie theaters. Has the idea of “fair use” and the desire to create “backups” extended to where some people think an individual is within his rights to record what he sees in a movie theater?
From michaelgeist.ca
The question demonstrates the impact of the media blitz on camcording - there has been no independent evidence put forward about Canadian industry or government losses (nor any reference to India that I can recall) yet that is how the question is framed.
I don’t think there is any “independent evidence” about losses taken on by the movie industry that would stop movie pirates from copying movies. I also don’t know how the movie industry determines what is a “loss,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie industry loses more than it claims. When movies are copied and distributed online without permission, the movie industry loses more than the just price of the tickets they would have sold had a viewer saw the movie in the theater. They lose their right to the movie itself. People who want to see the movie no longer have to deal with the movie industry to watch a movie; they can instead just go online and get a copy from a pirate. The movie is, in essence, taken out of the free market.
Sure, the percentage of people who would watch a movie online illegal is pretty low. The vast majority of people are still going to meet the movie industry’s terms if they want to see a movie. However, if governments do not protect intellectual property, I think it’s only going to get worse.
And by the way, what “media blitz?”
A question that needs answering is not whether camcording is a good thing - it obviously is not (particularly in the way that it degrades the quality of the film) - but rather whether there is an impact on the Canadian film industry such that this issue should leap to the front on the line for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Note how the main objection the author raises about the illegal copy is its quality.
I think it is valid to question whether a law against movie camcording should be enacted, but only on the grounds that camcording in theaters is already made illegal by existing copyright law. And, most importantly, that the government of Canada enforces that law.
Tags: [intellectual property, movie industry, piracy]Comments
Canadian movie recording
The Canadian government is considering a law to ban camcording movies shows in theaters. Not surprisingly, piracy advocates are unhappy. The first sentence I read about this is the funniest:
From p2pnet.com:
Can you castigate an entire nation for the ill deeds of a few? Hollywood says you can and so, apparently, does the current Canadian government.
Castigate? How will a law that criminalizes the recording of illegal copies of movies “castigate” the entire nation? How many people use a camcorder in movie theaters for legal reasons? How many people use a camcorder in a movie theater at all?
But wait, the author of the above quote states how it will:
I’d also suggest the techniques being used to apprehend the alleged criminals are likely to cause more trouble for the audience than the bad guys.
Sending ushers equipped with night vision goggles creeping down corridors trying to spot camcording criminals is far more likely to interfere with the audience viewing pleasures than to result in the capture of illicit copiers.
I’d say that the cause of the night-vision-equipped ushers were the illegal recorders. But this example of his is not a real, and piracy advocates are not trying to save movie-goers from Rainbow Six ushers. They want to prevent the passage of laws that will explicitely forbid this obvious method of violating the property rights of movie makers.
Tags: [movies, piracy, property rights]