SOPA

[Balta1701]

They are lending a bought and paid for item. Again, I am fine if someone loans someone a download as long as only one paid copy exists. The problem becomes when one paid copy is then copied and now there are 1 paid copy and hundreds or thousands of unpaid copies out there. It seems like an obvious difference.

 

People buy because they want ownership and being able to use something when they want to. If the library has the item checked out they would have to wait. Plus libraries sometimes trim their collections and the item is no longer available.

Should Xeroxing large sections of a textbook be a crime?

[Balta1701]

Yes, I'm going to pirate a full article here, in order to avoid the deadweight loss of continuing this conversation.

Congressional bill names are a reliable indicator of the state of conventional wisdom in America. That Congress is weighing bills called the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act tells us that, at a minimum, the idea of stopping online piracy is popular.

 

It shouldn’t be. There’s no evidence that the United States is currently suffering from an excessive amount of online piracy, and there is ample reason to believe that a non-zero level of copyright infringement is socially beneficial. Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.

 

Much of the debate about SOPA and PIPA has thus far centered around the entertainment industry’s absurdly inflated claims about the economic harm of copyright infringement. When making these calculations, intellectual property owners tend to assume that every unauthorized download represents a lost sale. This is clearly false. Often people copy a file illegally precisely because they’re unwilling to pay the market price. Were unauthorized copying not an option, they would simply not watch the movie or listen to the album.

 

Critics of industry estimates have repeatedly made this point and argued against the inflated figures used by SOPA and Protect IP boosters. But an equally large problem is the failure to consider the benefits to illegal downloading. These benefits can be a simple reduction of what economists call “deadweight loss.” Deadweight loss exists any time the profit-maximizing price of a unit of something exceeds the cost of producing an extra unit. In a highly competitive market in which many sellers are offering largely undifferentiated goods, profit margins are low and deadweight loss is tiny. But the whole point of copyright is that the owner of the rights to, say, Breaking Bad has a monopoly on sales of new episodes of the show. At the same time, producing an extra copy of a Breaking Bad episode is nearly free. So when the powers that be decide that the profit-maximizing strategy is to charge more than $100 to download all four seasons of Breaking Bad from iTunes, they’re creating a situation in which lots of people who’d gain $15 or $85 worth of enjoyment from watching the show can’t watch it. This is “deadweight loss,” and to the extent that copyright infringement reduces it, infringement is a boon to society.

 

After all, things like public libraries, used bookstores, and the widespread practice of lending books to friends all cost publishers money. But nobody (I hope) is going to introduce the Stop Used Bookstores Now Act purely on these grounds. The public policy question is not whether the libraries are bad for publishers, but whether libraries are beneficial on balance.

 

By the same token, even when copyright infringement does lead to real loss of revenue to copyright owners , it’s not as if the money vanishes into a black hole. Suppose Joe Downloader uses BitTorrent to get a free copy of Beggars Banquet rather than forking over $7.99 to Amazon, and then goes out to eat some pizza. In this case, the Rolling Stones’ loss is the pizzeria’s gain and Joe gets to listen to a classic album. It’s at least not obvious that we should regard this, on balance, as harmful.

 

Meanwhile, the benefits of forcing copyright holders to compete with free-but-illegal downloads are considerable. I am not, personally, in the habit of infringing on copyrights (though I will cop to some book lending and the fact that my fiancée and I, like any sensible couple, share Netflix and Hulu subscriptions) but recently have found myself firing up btjunkie.org again. Why? Because the BBC in its infinite wisdom decided to start airing Season 2 of its excellent program Sherlock in the United Kingdom without making it available at any price to Americans. That’s dumb, but until relatively recently it was a universal problem. It used to be that studios and labels didn’t make their wares available to people willing to pay for them. That created an underground market for pirated TV shows and music. The pirated market, in turn, pressured the entertainment industry to create legal options such as iTunes and Hulu. The illegal competition is a valuable consumer pressure on the industry.

 

This is not to say that we should have no copyright law or that there should be no penalties for piracy. Used book stores may slightly depress sales of new books, but they don’t threaten to destroy the entire publishing industry. Large-scale, unimpeded, commercialized digital reproduction of other people’s works really could destroy America’s creative industries. But the question to ask about the state of intellectual property policy is whether there’s a problem from the consumer side. If infringement got out of hand, we might face a bleak scenario in which bands stop recording albums and no new TV shows are released.

 

But we’re clearly not living in that world. There are plenty of books to read, things to watch, and music to listen to. Indeed, the American consumer has never been better-entertained than she is today. The same digital frontier that’s created the piracy pseudo-problem has created whole new companies and made it infinitely easier for small operations to distribute their products. Digital technology has reduced the price we pay for new works and made them cheaper to create. I can watch a feature film on my telephone.

 

The American economy has plenty of problems, but lack of adequate entertainment options is not on the list. SOPA isn’t just an overly intrusive way to solve a problem, it’s a “solution” to a problem that’s not a problem.

[StrangeSox]

Why? If piracy isn't wrong, and doesn't hurt anyone, why support the law?

I haven't said piracy isn't wrong. I have said that it isn't that big of a problem.

[StrangeSox]

Or what balta just said.

[Texsox]

I haven't said piracy isn't wrong. I have said that it isn't that big of a problem.

 

Agreed.

[mr_genius]

apparently, i am the only person left that still pays for music.

 

i'm kinda surprised.

[Texsox]

apparently, i am the only person left that still pays for music.

 

i'm kinda surprised.

 

I pay for it also.

[Texsox]

apparently, i am the only person left that still pays for music.

 

i'm kinda surprised.

 

I pay for it also.

[bigruss]

I pay for it also.

I purchase music I want on Amazon, they have a lot of music that goes on sale (albums or songs for 69cents).

[farmteam]

Yes, I'm going to pirate a full article here, in order to avoid the deadweight loss of continuing this conversation.

 

I am in full agreement with this.

[mr_genius]

I purchase music I want on Amazon, they have a lot of music that goes on sale (albums or songs for 69cents).

 

i pretty much buy all my music from Amazon.

[Balta1701]

apparently, i am the only person left that still pays for music.

 

i'm kinda surprised.

I pay for it also. I still prefer cd format even.

 

I'd buy more if it were cheaper. Hence...deadweight loss.

[Quin]

I pay for it also. I still prefer cd format even.

 

I'd buy more if it were cheaper. Hence...deadweight loss.

 

This.

[StrangeSox]

I pay for it also. I still prefer cd format even.

 

I'd buy more if it were cheaper. Hence...deadweight loss.

Same.

[Texsox]

I'm confused by the I'd buy more if it were cheaper comments. Are y'all suggesting pirating is less of a crime because the prices are too high? I'd have a Mercedes G Series in my driveway if the price was cheap enough. I'd have Dish and Direct if the prices were cheaper. I'm not certain what y'all are driving at.

[Texsox]

I'm confused by the I'd buy more if it were cheaper comments. Are y'all suggesting pirating is less of a crime because the prices are too high? I'd have a Mercedes G Series in my driveway if the price was cheap enough. I'd have Dish and Direct if the prices were cheaper. I'm not certain what y'all are driving at.

[Balta1701]

I'm confused by the I'd buy more if it were cheaper comments. Are y'all suggesting pirating is less of a crime because the prices are too high? I'd have a Mercedes G Series in my driveway if the price was cheap enough. I'd have Dish and Direct if the prices were cheaper. I'm not certain what y'all are driving at.

Tex, I'm going to assume you're trolling here, but I'm going to do the comparison anyway.

 

I want a car. I have x number of dollars to spend on a car. If the Mercedes is higher than that amount but the used car is less, I purchase the used car.

 

I want entertainment. I have x number of dollars to spend on music. If the music I'd like to purchase is priced higher than what I am willing to spend, I can't simply purchase a version of it to do the same job at a lower price. I'm effectively unable to purchase anything.

 

And furthermore, the cost of producing 2 cars is probably similar, even if the price is different. The cost of producing an additional copy of entertainment is virtually zero in a digital world...the cost is the same whether I purchase the product or not. That's the definition of a deadweight loss. To repeat the clause you skipped earlier:

Critics of industry estimates have repeatedly made this point and argued against the inflated figures used by SOPA and Protect IP boosters. But an equally large problem is the failure to consider the benefits to illegal downloading. These benefits can be a simple reduction of what economists call “deadweight loss.” Deadweight loss exists any time the profit-maximizing price of a unit of something exceeds the cost of producing an extra unit. In a highly competitive market in which many sellers are offering largely undifferentiated goods, profit margins are low and deadweight loss is tiny. But the whole point of copyright is that the owner of the rights to, say, Breaking Bad has a monopoly on sales of new episodes of the show. At the same time, producing an extra copy of a Breaking Bad episode is nearly free. So when the powers that be decide that the profit-maximizing strategy is to charge more than $100 to download all four seasons of Breaking Bad from iTunes, they’re creating a situation in which lots of people who’d gain $15 or $85 worth of enjoyment from watching the show can’t watch it. This is “deadweight loss,” and to the extent that copyright infringement reduces it, infringement is a boon to society.

[StrangeSox]

Right, physical goods and digital copies are not the same thing, which is why many people feel that our copyright laws are outdated.

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

Those clips of the congressmen just reminded how f***ed up it is that we have people creating laws where they have absolutely no idea what they are legislating for/against.

 

 

You're right, they don't. Good thing whoever has their pockets knows precisely what they are legislating for/against.

 

The fact that Megaupload was taken down, and arrests were made outside of US borders because of it ought to call light to the redundancy of SOPA/PIPA. It won't, though, and these two bills will be repackaged, given an innocuous-sounding name (along the lines of Help Starving Infants, or Save Kittens and Puppies from Nukes in Iran- so as to vilify anyone who has the gall to oppose and to garner support from those who don't bother looking into the content of the bills), and reintroduced- probably buried under a pile of bills that get more attention.

 

My biggest fear: SOPA/PIPA weren't shelved because of a cutesy cartoon that oatmeal.com made (I've never even heard of oatmeal.com before this past week), or because eleventy billion people "liked" an anti-SOPA/PIPA page that someone created on Facebook, or because of an online petition. They were shelved because while MPAA and RIAA have the pockets of our fine politicians, so do Google, and others who saw just enough in these proposed bills that worked against their interests that they brought attention to it themselves. My fear is that when these bills are re-packaged, just enough will be stricken from the originals that perhaps Google (and other big names that were against it) won't find anything contrary to it's own interests, and therefore won't be so vocal about next time around.

 

One thing is an absolute given, IMO. These bills will eventually pass- whether that be as multiple smaller bills spread out over a longer period of time, or whether they be disguised as something innocent like I mentioned earlier. $$$ talks.

[Balta1701]

The one thing worth remembering though...the good news if there is some...there's a whole lot of money, and even more potential, in the companies that are able to exist because those laws haven't passed.

[Quin]

I'm confused by the I'd buy more if it were cheaper comments. Are y'all suggesting pirating is less of a crime because the prices are too high? I'd have a Mercedes G Series in my driveway if the price was cheap enough. I'd have Dish and Direct if the prices were cheaper. I'm not certain what y'all are driving at.

 

I think their point may be that you have alternatives to Mercedes and Dish/Direct.

 

With music, the RIAA basically controls the entire industry and sets prices.

[Balta1701]

I think their point may be that you have alternatives to Mercedes and Dish/Direct.

 

With music, the RIAA basically controls the entire industry and sets prices.

And in basic economics, prices are set by competition between the alternatives. Copyright protection by definition is the removal of basic economic competition.

[Soxbadger]

The same way patents are, but society determined that in order to give incentive to inventors, you have to allow them to protect their idea for X period of time, which is why patents/copyrights are not forever.

[Balta1701]

The same way patents are, but society determined that in order to give incentive to inventors, you have to allow them to protect their idea for X period of time, which is why patents/copyrights are not forever.

Of course, in this country, we've changed that rule since the 1920's, to protect a mouse.

[Texsox]

Tex, I'm going to assume you're trolling here, but I'm going to do the comparison anyway.

 

I want a car. I have x number of dollars to spend on a car. If the Mercedes is higher than that amount but the used car is less, I purchase the used car.

 

I want entertainment. I have x number of dollars to spend on music. If the music I'd like to purchase is priced higher than what I am willing to spend, I can't simply purchase a version of it to do the same job at a lower price. I'm effectively unable to purchase anything.

 

And furthermore, the cost of producing 2 cars is probably similar, even if the price is different. The cost of producing an additional copy of entertainment is virtually zero in a digital world...the cost is the same whether I purchase the product or not. That's the definition of a deadweight loss. To repeat the clause you skipped earlier:

 

What I am asking is this, it appears that some people are saying, the prices are too high for something that should be cheap, so pirating is OK. If it was cheap enough I would buy it, but because it is too expensive, I have to steal it.

 

The problem with copies are free, is it does not address the cost of the first item. If you sell the first one for $10, the rest can't be free. If you sell the first one for $1,000,000 then I agree, the rest could be free. It seems simple enough to me. If it cost $X to produce an album, you need to recoup that investment and make a profit so that the company can grow. You also have to cover the cost of albums that do not make a profit so your company can survive. Using simple numbers, if it cost $100,000 to produce and album and you expect to sell 100,000 copies, you can sell it for $1 plus profit. Now perhaps you could hope to sell 200,000 at $.50. However, you have to be certain there that large of a total available market. Now if technology comes along and now you are only going to sell 75,000 and 25,000 will be copied, you have to raise the price for those 75,000 to recoup your $100,000 and then the 25,000 other people can just pirate a copy. And after all, copies are free and the owner can keep the original. Will skip over the part that the original owner (and to me that means the person who actually paid for the product) is subsidizing all the stolen copies that are out there.

 

So the solution to those 25,000 pirated copies is to lower the price to the 75,000 who are already buying it and hoping that the 25,000 will come back? If you owned a retail store and people were stealing from you, would you really sit there and say, damn, I am losing $X dollars to shrinkage, I better lower my prices or I will go out of business? The simple solution is you stop people from stealing your product.

 

The more complex solution is music becomes advertising driven. Again, you have to stop technology. This time from from striping the ads from the content. You will also have to contend with music being advertiser driven. Imagine no religion, No Taco Bell to. No hell below us, above only United Airlines . . .

 

Someone has to put money into the system. Through history that has been wealthy patrons, advertisers, governments, and consumers. Pick which one you want in your business model, but make no mistake, someone has to put money into the system. If it isn't the consumer, then be willing to accept the music and movies that come out because you will have very little influence.