Getting It: In A World Of Digital Abundance, Sell The Scarcities
from the dickens-of-a-good-idea dept
A recurrent refrain from the copyright industries is that you can’t make money from digital goods if they are freely available online. To which Techdirt has been pointing out for years that not only are there many ways of doing precisely that, but lots of people are already coining it as a result. One of the Guardian’s columnists has noticed one of them – that in a world of digital abundance, you can make money by selling associated scarcities:
Earnings from recordings have been plummeting for a decade, while from live they are rising ever faster. Warner Brothers release albums free online to publicise forthcoming concerts. In Britain HMV is closing 40 shops while tickets for a Rihanna concert can cost ?330 [$500], and for Coldplay ?180 [$280]. A seat for Madonna is more expensive than her entire recorded output. A top American performer would reckon to earn between 80% and 90% of revenue from live performance. In the US alone, touring revenue that grossed $1bn in 1995 rose to $4.6bn last year.
The article then goes on to list other manifestations of this trend, such as Tony Blair’s $160,000 fee for a speech “in the flesh”; a doubling of attendances at museums and galleries; 90% audience levels at the UK’s National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company; and the fact that even “humble” authors find “appearances at literary festivals (those that pay) can compensate for dwindling book advances and, in the case of poets, eroding copyrights.”
But one of the most telling examples is the following:
Performers such as Stephen Fry have taken to reading their books in public, Dickens-style
Dickens undertook his American reading tours in part because piracy of his works was rampant there, so he made little money directly from the many published copies. But amidst this unwelcome abundance, he was still able to sell the ultimate scarcity ? his presence ? to earn handsomely from the reputation his pirated works created.
The same is true for countless other writers, musicians and artists before Dickens, who lived when there was little or no copyright, and whose works could thus be copied freely. In other words, people have been using abundance to sell scarcity not just for years, but for centuries. Maybe it’s time today’s copyright industries got the message.
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Filed Under: abundance, business models, economics, scarcity
Comments on “Getting It: In A World Of Digital Abundance, Sell The Scarcities”
Yes, but that takes effort.
When will this blog come up with a solution where big media can just sit back and watch the money roll in?
Re: Re:
It would take effort to come up with such a solution that big media hasn’t already tried, such as legislating and litigating its way to profit, letting the lawyers and lobbyists do all the work – the same way they let the artists do all the work in producing the music and then collect the profits and keep the copyrights.
Re: Re: Re:
Breaking news: Tech heads request return to the 19th century.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
But the internet didn’t exist in the 19th century, so that’s a stupid idea . . .
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Telegraphing books is killing the publishing industry!
Please encourage all artists to release their music for free. I love music, I hate concerts. Win Win for me!!!
Re: Re:
I assume you are being sarcastic here. But I agree, I don’t go to concerts but would love to have every song ever recorded. But for people like us, we just aren’t a customer. Not everyone is your customer and worrying about non-customers doesn’t do anyone any good. Sell to the ones you can and quit worrying about the ones you can’t.
Re: Re: Re:
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic at all. I love music and download songs from iTunes and Amazon all the time. If musicians start giving away their music for free it will save me a lot of money.
I am willing to pay a musician for his music, just like I pay an accountant to do my taxes. If you can convince accountants to do taxes for free, I’m on board with that as well.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I’d pay Stephen Fry to read my tax return.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
When people start trolling you don’t complain.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hypocrite. You accuse pirates of being “parasites”, when they can already download songs for free, yet they’re happy to shell out money to go to concerts and support the artists they like.
Most people have the dignity, sense of morality and common sense to know that if they don’t support the artists they like, those artists will stop making music. You seem to lack those qualities; there was a chance you were being sarcastic, but then you admitted you weren’t!
You even go as far as to state that you don’t want artists to get paid because you can save money. Seriously?
I thought IP lawyers and similar bottom-feeders were playing the sly game to keep artists thinking they’re on their side. Seems like you suck at that game.
Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Great post here, I can only hope congress reads this and gives it some real thought. They are letting a dying industry, which is dying from the laws of economics and changing market place and not from piracy, ruin the internet.
Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
How will SOPA or PIPA “ruin” the internet? By shutting down pirate sites? By forcing companies that allow public postings to monitor those posts?
Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You obviously haven’t read up on them.
Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Oh, but I have.
As for the claims that SOPA will “censor the internet”:
Piracy is not protected free speach. Just like sneaking into a concert or movie theater isn’t free speach.
As for the claims that SOPA will “break the internet”:
DNS registries are updated continuously 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Changing a DNS entry will not “break the internet”.
As for the claims that SOPA “removes the safe harbors granted in the DMCA”:
Sites that rely on user submitted content are almost always user-policed anyway. YouTube will take down content that is reported as offensive, they can add a report button to the page to alert staff of a copyright violation as well. They could make reporting infringing content part of the user agreement.
There are things that are wrong wtih SOPA/PIPA but the fear mongering needs to stop. Complain about the legitimate concerns (like the fact that there is protection from damage claims for companies that falsely accuse) and stop the exagerations.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
*sigh*
Piracy is not protected free speach.
Neither is piracy theft but taking down a website with little or no due process proceedings is prior restraint (ie censorship) on the domain owner.
DNS registries are updated continuously 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Changing a DNS entry will not “break the internet”.
Is this the new talking point? You don’t recognize how changing a ton of DNS entries at random moments makes the entire system less secure? It’s akin to having to purposely fragment a drive, making a system more chaotic for no reason.
Sites that rely on user submitted content are almost always user-policed anyway. YouTube will take down content that is reported as offensive, they can add a report button to the page to alert staff of a copyright violation as well. They could make reporting infringing content part of the user agreement.
Try that with a community like 4chan or Reddit. Try that with having Disqus police all of the comments on all of the sites that use their technology. You seem to believe that the implications of policing aren’t a daunting task. Maybe you should read a little more why people don’t like SOPA/PIPA.
There are things that are wrong wtih SOPA/PIPA but the fear mongering needs to stop. Complain about the legitimate concerns (like the fact that there is protection from damage claims for companies that falsely accuse) and stop the exagerations
And people are raising concerns. Just because you don’t want to see them and pedantically believe others exaggerate the fears is no one’s fault. Reality suggests the problems of draconian copyright enforcement will take away free speech rights of American as well as foreign citizens around the world. These concerns have yet to be addressed by SOPA supporters, showing the deceitful way they hope that “reducing piracy” will lead to more sales.
It won’t. At least, not a lot more. All it does is further display the class warfare and enforce the belief in a high court/low court in American society.
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
” You don’t recognize how changing a ton of DNS entries at random moments makes the entire system less secure? It’s akin to having to purposely fragment a drive, making a system more chaotic for no reason.”
DNS registries are updated continuously, there are constantly new domains being assigned and others being de-listed. This is happening right now as I type this. Go register a domain on GoDaddy and it will happen again. It isn’t any more or less chaotic to de-list a site due to infringement that it would be to de-list that site for failing to pay registration fees to the registrar.
“Just because you don’t want to see them and pedantically believe others exaggerate the fears is no one’s fault.”
I WANT to see them, but you will need to give me examples of these other concerns. I have done my research and every site that complains about SOPA says it will “break the internet” (a lie), it will “make the internet less secure” (another lie), and it will “censor the internet” (another lie). I have explained why these are lies. I am open to hearing other complaints, and I concede that the bill is flawed but not for the reasons which have become the propaganda of the anti-SOPA crowd.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Except for the fact that most of the world will have to blacklist US servers so they don’t poison their own DNS databases, not to mention DNSSEC that will be have to be scraped and not to mention that millions will direct their servers to something outside the US so they can access the free(as in freedom) internet.
So no your BS assertions that it will not cause problems are just propaganda from a troll.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“poison” their dns because scofflaws websites are blocked? Lol
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Another lie is that SOPA will have an effect on piracy, or is target at pirates or anything related to that, since pirates don’t care about SOPA.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Not propaganda at all. Gamers are affected because if Youtube is taken down, then their way to gain an audience is affected.
Human rights groups are similarly affected because there are currently no clauses in how their personal websites might be affected if they use any infringing content.
There have already been studies into the DNS server issue and having Sandia Labs look into the issue and explain how this destroys their 10 years of hard work is rather telling. Further, this doesn’t stop piracy. At all. People will just move from .com and .net extensions. So you’re effectively trying to stop illegal downloading with an ineffective technique that does nothing for the problem.
Windmill > Quixote
The censorship of the net is already occurring. Less due process claims have occurred in these take downs along with a stretching of USC 17 and USC 18 respectively. People can’t fight back for at least a year and a half after a claim and the process is taxing to them financially. The very same things can be said for the problems of civil asset forfeiture. It doesn’t stop demand for drugs and innocent people are more abused as police go after the dime baggers for their departments instead of tackling real crimes.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You really must be clueless as to the nature of humans. Yes the DNS updates all the time. It is happening right now. The difference is that the system is world wide. When it is updated in the US that change spreads through the DNS system to other countries. This law will break that so that updating will have to be much more complex to insure that our removing an entry does not affect other countries. Admittedly this is not impossible to fix but will take major changes to how the system works.
The other issue is that, as we have already seen happening, people will just create work around to the blocks. This is what really breaks the system and is something that cannot easily be fixed. Instead of connecting to trusted DNS servers people will instead connect to servers outside the US or even pirate operated DNS servers. This creates huge security issues because now a pirate running a DNS can suddenly direct http://www.gooogle.com to his infected page instead of to the real page.
Most people are not going to understand the risks they are taking. They will just find a quick writeup on how to get around the filtering. They will then enter whatever DNS the pirate gives them.
Simply editing a few DNS entries will not stop piracy. It will not slow piracy down. It will make the system more difficult to control and maintain. It will also open up a lot more security issues. As things stand most people will never mess with their DNS settings because things just work. If you start filtering the internet then people WILL start looking for ways around that. It does not take an evil genus to see the opertunities this provides for scamming people. Things such as phishing become child’s play if you are able to control a DNS server with thousands of people trusting you to direct their traffic.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“I have done my research and every site that complains about SOPA says it will “break the internet” (a lie), it will “make the internet less secure” (another lie), and it will “censor the internet” (another lie).”
The techs who built the internet say this bill will effectively break the internet. Hundreds of lawyers who are happy to have their names attached to their concerns say this bill will result in censorship that has nothing to do with or any effect on piracy. So please give me even one good reason why I should believe them over you, because an AC claiming “I have done my research” doesn’t even come close to convincing me they’re wrong.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You make a valid point concerning DNS but as SOPA seeks to control DNS in the USA, then then they also seek to control those automated entries that appear during the constant updating of routes, name-IP relationships and so on on DNS servers in the Untied States.
The easiest to control is the DNS server you use through your ISP and as most people don’t change that or know how to that would effectively do what they want.
On the other hand it becomes a game of whack-a-mole where the infringing site simply changes it’s name and IP and there they are, back again!
But this constant whack a mole may cause DNS server owners in the United States. mostly telcos, cabecos and universities to drop out of the automated updates to give them a chance to manually review them so they can protect themselves from the penalties outlined in SOPA.
The rest of the planet won’t be doing this which means that in short order you have, effectively, two Internets. Not completely fractured but from outside the US sites will be available, both legit and shady, that aren’t in the US because of the perceived or real need for a manual review of updates. ou can write a script to eliminate most of the eyeball work but you can’t eliminate it all.
Either way it won’t stop infringement.
As for YouTube part of the terms of use is that you’ll only use copyrighted work within a “fair use”, “fair dealing” concept. Your idea could end up with people reporting what doesn’t need reporting and not reporting what is due to confusion as most lay persons don’t know the difference between fair use and infringement. A lot of lawyers can’t give you a hard and fast rule either because the difference is largely contextual.
The “safe harbour” rule is one of the few good things about the DCMA from a consumer/artist point of view and the reporting structure sounds more stazi-like than anything really that will stop or reduce infringement.
You’re right that there are plenty of other things to be alarmed about in SOPA than these but they’re important too.
It’s the total package that is fatally flawed.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“Piracy is not protected free speach.”
But only a court of law can determine what is piracy, so the private right to action to block payment processing to a site based on an accusation from a rightsholder who may be mistaken or lazy or malicious violates due process. YouTube is “dedicated to the theft of American IP” according to Viacom’s definition of piracy. There’s a lot more free speech on YouTube than the videos that Viacom itself uploaded to YouTube. How would SOPA differentiate in this case? Oh, yeah – it wouldn’t.
“Sites that rely on user submitted content are almost always user-policed anyway. YouTube will take down content that is reported as offensive, they can add a report button to the page to alert staff of a copyright violation as well. They could make reporting infringing content part of the user agreement.”
This isn’t in the bill, so its irrelevant to discuss something that YouTube wouldn’t implement, but… If rightsholders can’t even reliably determine if something is infringing, how do you expect regular users to? And why would it be in the interests of users to do so? Are you familiar with the trollishness of many YouTube commenters? What happens when those same trolls flood YouTube’s content reviewers with false positives because they think the content is stupid rather than infringing.
“There are things that are wrong wtih SOPA/PIPA but the fear mongering needs to stop.”
That SOPA/PIPA are being proposed at all is the biggest problem with the bills. The DMCA is already too restrictive of user rights, such as the inability to legally break DRM for backup or format-shifting purposes.
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“so the private right to action to block payment processing to a site based on an accusation from a rightsholder who may be mistaken or lazy or malicious violates due process.”
Stopping payment equates to circumvention of due process? So when the government freezes the accounts of drug dealers, human trafficers, illegal arms dealers, etc.. they are violating due process? They aren’t throwing these people in jail without a trial, they are stopping payment and temporarily redirecting traffic away from their servers.
“so its irrelevant to discuss something that YouTube wouldn’t implement…”
Are you saying that YouTube does not provide a way for a user to report a video as inappropriate? That is blatantly wrong, there is a “flag as inappropriate” button on every video on their site. They could simply add a “flag as infringing” button to the pages.
Complaining about another piece of legislation does nothing for your agrument regarding this leglation. Stop changing the subject.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
So when the government freezes the accounts of drug dealers, human trafficers, illegal arms dealers, etc.. they are violating due process?
You shoot a hole in your argument right here. It is the government making the determination. Here it is a corporation or private person without the benefit of an adversarial trial.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
It’s still wrong when the government does it. The only one who should be “making the determination” is the courts. When any other branch takes it upon themselves, it violate due process. Although, for some reason, it seems to be allowed.
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
I have three examples here in regards to reasons why it’s allowed.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
What happens when the government seizes the accounts of innocent people?
Oh that is right they get slapped silly, but under SOPA that won’t happen now because the government just will claim immunity and there is no punishment for false accusations is there liar?
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Yes they could and after that they would be trashed by the public for letting idiots like you remove content that is legal.
But of course you don’t care do you?
As long as you can accuse anyone and don’t be held responsible you don’t care who is harmed.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Yes, when government seizes accounts before someone is found guilty, it violate due process. These laws get abused all the time. There are always news items were people are victimized while traveling by local sheriffs. The law says the sheriff departments can KEEP what they swindle, I mean seize. They just take peoples cars, money, etc., and say it was used for trafficking drugs. It would cost people more than it was worth to fight it. Hell, 20/20 has video proof of it happening down southern US.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“Complaining about another piece of legislation does nothing for your agrument regarding this leglation. Stop changing the subject.”
It has everything to do with this legislation. SOPA/PIPA is just another effort on behalf of entrenched media companies trying to legislate their way to profit. Follow the pattern – SOPA/PIPA, DMCA, Copyright Extension Act, and countless other proposals that never made it.
Arguing that already existent legislation is too harsh in order to oppose proposed legislation that goes even further is a perfectly legitimate argument and not changing the subject.
Your logic elsewhere:
You: “I propose mandatory jail time for people who exceed the speed limit!”
Me: “I disagree. I think speeding tickets are already too expensive as it is.”
You: “Stop changing the subject!”
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Piracy is not, but whistle blowing is, political speech is, and a lot of other stuff is and it will be target by SOPA.
Also on that front, we should add that abuse of the law is not protected also so making a law that doesn’t have any safeguards should not even be considered.
Now the fear mongering against SOPA needs to escalate because I don’t think people truly understand what that law will do to them.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Inserting bogus data into DNS servers will just make implementation of planed secure protocols impossible which makes everyone insecure longer, thank you very much for that.
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
What “bogus data” would be inserted? A different IP address? How would that interfer with any secure protocol? Do you even understand the concepts of what a DNS server actually does? It’s like an address book, you send it a name and it sends you an IP address.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Fucking moron.
The DNS has security flaws that are going to be addressed in the DNSSEC protocol which can’t be implemented if legal tampering with DNS lists are allowed because it has no means to discern what is legal or not meaning it will take longer to fix, meaning you are an idiot.
Not to mention that a fractured DNS means nobody knows what to target, there is no more unified system and that means everybody becomes less secure.
Plus millions of Americans can just point their DNS to another place, there will be an app for that the next day that you just click yes and it auto configures your DNS for you, and there will also be the fake was that are from bad people who will try to take advantage of the situation meaning you will expose millions of people to real criminals just because you want to protect artists?
Oh that is rich.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You seem to believe that artists are more important than free speech, security of people who risk their lifes in authoritarian regimes, libraries, the impaired and a lot of others groups.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Lets not forget that DNS lists spread to other servers automatically so the rest of the world will have to block every American DNS server, if they don’t want to have their DNS caches poisoned and only God can know what that will do.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
What’s that you said? Strawmanstrawmanstrawmanstrawman? Oh okay. See you later!
Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Have you not been following the articles here the last few weeks? SOPA is an attempt by entertainment industry gatekeepers to put overly burdensome controls on tech companies. For example, please tell me how YouTube is going to review 48 hrs of video that is uploaded every minute of every day? When content gets through their filters, and it will, the private right of action will allow a copyright holder to have Googles domain shut down, their merchant accounts shut down, etc. All over just 1 video that gets through. Now multiply that by all the videos that will get through and YouTube is out of business.
Next look at Google search. Websites that host pirated content will get through their filters. Instead of going after those sites, you can go after Google. After all, they are a big, rich, successful (i.e. evil) corporation.
See how easy it will be to shut down even the largest of sites? Now think how easy it will be to shut down small sites who can’t afford the monitoring technology nor the lawyers to fight it.
There is no way for companies to monitor posts and really no moral or ethical reason they should have to. They can’t possibly know what content infringes nor is it their place to. If EMI can’t do it in their own lawsuits against YouTube, how is YouTube going to do it for every single copyright holder on the planet?
Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
tl:dr Big Media < Everything Else.
Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
There is a way for companies to monitor user submitted content, Wikipedia seems to do a great job. You get the user community to police the site. It’s effective, it’s cheap, and it’s proven.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You get the user community to police the site.
That isn’t fast enough. With the powers the SOPA provides, an unnoticed video that doesn’t get censored before the copyright holder sees it will be all it takes for the copyright holder to bring YouTube to its knees. The DMCA sucks, but at least it doesn’t hold 3rd parties responsible. That is too much power to give to people and sets a dangerous precedent.
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
For example, someone buys a painting from a local artist and posts a video of it for his family across the country to see. Nobody is going to know or care if that picture is covered by copyright except the painter so nobody is going to report it. Then one day the painter googles himself and comes across the video. With a few strokes of the keyboard he can bring YouTube down taking a valuable service away from billions of people. Is that really something any one person should be able to do without a trial?
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
The DMCA provides for take down notices. No one is going to shut down YouTube. Or if they did it would be a request from someone who was against SOPA trying to be an asshat to prove a point. The public backlash in bringing a false accusation would be enormous, but I do think there should be financial consequences built into the legislation that would further dissuade false accusations.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“but I do think there should be financial consequences built into the legislation that would further dissuade false accusations.”
And this alone should make you oppose the bills, because these consequences will never be introduced and if they were, they wouldn’t be enforced or punitive enough to deter wealthy corporations from abusing it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
The problem with public backlash is it only occurs after the fact. Large sites like YouTube might survive even multiple take downs, but small sites and sites yet to be built will not.
And yes, people like EMI will take down YouTube as often as they possibly can. With no liability for doing so, there is no motivation for not doing so. As I pointed out in my example above, there will be millions of copyright holder with the power to bring down YouTube (and others) with a few strokes of the keyboard so it will be a death from a thousand pin pricks.
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
EMI wont take down anything. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of UMG now, if I am not mistaken.
Re: Re: Re:7 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
The next one to go will be Warner.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
The DMCA provides for take down notices. No one is going to shut down YouTube.
Yes, because Google has money. But the next batch of service providers are going to be harried by the SOPA issues. Places like Justin.tv have to change because ONE video is infringing before a court of law finds otherwise.
Or if they did it would be a request from someone who was against SOPA trying to be an asshat to prove a point.
Like artists don’t abuse the DMCA? That’s happening right now! Here’s a girls sketches. Here is Bryan Ballinger’s blog. How ANYONE can confuse their drawings, I’ve no idea. But somehow Ballinger seems to think that having copyright on the art makes it his. Now can I look at Lynastia’s stuff and figure out if it’s his or not? Maybe if he just wrote about it on his blog or focused on his own work he could do better. So tell me how this process doesn’t lend itself to abuse when it gives all the incentive in the world to take down content before the full story comes out.
The public backlash in bringing a false accusation would be enormous, but I do think there should be financial consequences built into the legislation that would further dissuade false accusations
There are no penalties for false copyright claims. So why should I believe that won’t occur after other claims of enforcement such as the PROIP Act, the Net Act, and the DMCA have all been about strengthening the plaintiffs against citizens?
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
As I have said there are problems with SOPA, primarily with the fact that there is no liability for false accusations. I think there should be a liability clause (instead of the exclusion of liability as the bill exists now), it should levy fines against false accusers and award compensatory damage to the falsely accused, additionally it should charge false accusers for the expenses of enforcement.
FUD certainly does make for great headlines, but it is simply propeganda for the ill-informed.
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
As I have said there are problems with SOPA, primarily with the fact that there is no liability for false accusations
There wouldn’t be much liability needed for false accusations if they can’t ruin a company. The real threat to the internet is that it only takes an accusation to put an end to a company. Even worse than killing existing companies is the chilling effect on creating new companies. What startup could afford to take a risk? It might very well be that the start won’t have the money and means to fight an accusation.
There is no FUD here, only facts that nobody has been able to refute except to say “trust us, this law won’t be abused”. The law needs to be written so that it can’t be abused. I would even argue the law isn’t needed at all.
Re: Re: Re:5 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
There are appeals processes built into the bill, everyone seems to ignore those. You (and many on this site) act as if losing your connection and funding means game over. If you are falsely accused you can fight it.
Ever sane person knows that you can’t wait for a court trial to fight piracy sites. The courts move way to slowly, this fact has been brought up on this site many, many times when the rolls are reversed.
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
If you are falsely accused you can fight it.
Only the giants can fight it, many startups and small sites cannot. So you will have an internet landscape where large sites are up one day, down the next, up one day, down the next. There will be no small sites.
Every sane person knows that piracy is not life and death or even make it or break it so there is no reason for the courts to move at a lightning fast pace.
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“There are appeals processes built into the bill, everyone seems to ignore those. You (and many on this site) act as if losing your connection and funding means game over. If you are falsely accused you can fight it.”
Having to fight a false or mistaken accusation is its own punishment already. Not everyone is a big corporation with a budget for inevitable litigation. Some people who run websites are middle class individuals trying to make mortgage payments who can’t take time off of work to fight false accusations or hire a lawyer to do so.
“Ever sane person knows that you can’t wait for a court trial to fight piracy sites. The courts move way to slowly, this fact has been brought up on this site many, many times when the rolls are reversed.”
Wait, so you’re saying that it is okay for an accused individual to have to wade through the lengthy and costly appeals process, but big media corporations should be able to skip due process?
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Oh let me guess is equal to the most abused law of the all the DMCA, it is a penalty of $2500 dollars against a billion dollar company oh that will show them alright.
Now the little people can’t afford that for sure, so basically all those schemes you talk about are just pure fiction in a matter of fact.
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Ok, So the courts move to slowly for attacking the pirates so instead you say take down the site and then the site can go through the slow court system to get it turned back on? I would like to ask you this then.
If I came and cut off your funding tomorrow. Told you you are not going to get paid again until you go to court and prove you are not doing anything wrong. Would you be able to pay your bills and hire a lawyer, without going majorly into debt while waiting to get the money coming in again?
Re: Re: Re:6 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You’re avoiding the question that all the assurance we have is verbal statements insisting that it won’t be abused. By your insistence that there are countermeasures, are you alluding that abuse of said process and its resultant consequences is acceptable?
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Wikipedia users have a reason to to monitor the site – they desire current and accurate information. What incentive is there for users to monitor Youtube for infringing material? And how are they to determine if a copyright owner is being infringed?
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You can’t crowdsource copyright enforcement, people don’t know what is or not copyrighted and they know even less about exceptions to the law.
What do you want is that people censor everything for ya isn’t it?
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Cool, now where is the “remove comment” button so I can delete your comments … ho-rah!!! no more trolls on techdirt!
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“You get the user community to police the site. It’s effective, it’s cheap, and it’s proven.”
Cool, now where is the “remove comment” button so I can delete your comments … ho-rah!!! no more trolls on techdirt!
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“It’s effective, it’s cheap, and it’s proven.”
Liar.
Haven’t been on Wikipedia lately have you?
They are doing their annual fund raiser, and the amount they need is not “cheap” by any standard.
troll fail.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
There is a way for companies to monitor user submitted content, Wikipedia seems to do a great job. You get the user community to police the site. It’s effective, it’s cheap, and it’s proven.
Except when that community is a bunch of the kind of people that you would call “freetards” (i.e. most of the population) then the results aren’t going to be to you liking.
Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Simple, by trying to do:
but, really having no chance at accomplish that. And, also, having a ton of other (un?)intended consequences you didnt bother to list.
Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
It will effectively end access to TPB from anyone not using a rogue DNS server or a proxy. Also, if TPB can’t get money, they wont be able to pay for servers, bandwidth, administrators, etc…
And see my response to Colin above where I discuss the misinformation that has been flowing from TechDirt.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Your right! Because most people just share to make cash. In fact, I am sure nobody has ever shared anything without expecting to profit handsomely.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Oh, yeah, because a single site is all that will ever be, and it doesn’t take a single google search to look upanother torrent site.
What’s that? Google illegal too? Well butter my bottom, if there ain’t another 300 search engines. All blocked too? Oh geez, we’re going to have to go back to underground and legally unreachable search engines?
What a tragedy. I’ll be completely able to still pirate everything, but I won’t be able to hear gran complain on facebook, (also declared illegal).
Actually, I lie, why use websites? Pure peer-to-peer resources exist. There’s actually a peer-to-peer distributed index I can download via torrent, which lists the URN’s of peer-to-peer files, so I can download them. Need to update my index? The previous index contains the name & release date of the next index.
TL;DR: SOPA nor PIPA will stop piracy in the least. They will, however, hurt legitimate parts of the internet by holding them responsible for 3rd party actions.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
First anybody wanting to access TPB will just need to type the IP address which they can get from anyone in any forum, more people can just post the magnet links, also other P2P options have embeded search functions,
The only misinformation is from the fucking liars like you.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Oh hell, Do you think the rest of the planet will fall in line with SOPA should it pass? I don’t think so. Not for as much as a second, I don’t think so.
And let’s assume, for sake of argument alone, that DNS servers can determine which are and are not rogue sites automatically and not block legitimate ones (almost impossible) and has no extra costs to pass on to ISP subscribers in the United States, the reality is that TPB will still be listed on DNS servers located outside of US territory and possessions.
So much for that idea. TPB will continue on as it has as will other sites. By sheer numbers alone. And by sheer numbers alone that is where most infringement takes place.
So the United States isn’t TPB’s major market. The rest of the planet is. (Mostly due to the perception, valid or not, that American closed source software is far too expensive as are US entertainment products like songs and movies.)
Any attempt will to enforce SOPA on the rest of the world will be, rightly, considered as (yet another) attempt by the United States to apply this law extra territorially. And, rightly, loudly objected to as the United States would rightly object to Kenya attempting to enforce its law in the United States.
That is the danger when fracturing of the Internet is talked about. The United States could have one “Internet”, whatever countries agree to sign on in whole or in part to SOPA will have another and then those who have resisted the temptation will have what we have now.
Even if these Internets can speak to each other (for now) there’s still a fracturing taking place. Eventually they’ll stop being able to talk to one another and all the creativity, business, culture and trade that the Internet has enabled will start to end.
Leaving out the host of other problems with SOPA/IP Protect that alone is very serious. Mix the other problems back in again they’re toxic.
In the end the United States pays. Costs are increased, The entire reason for it — stopping infringement fails as it will not only because of what’s outlined above and not only that but the simple fact that humans really don’t like being TOLD what to do particularly when it all amounts to welfare for two rapidly failing industries.
The worst case scenario is that the USA has it’s own internet that can’t talk to others lest it be polluted by the still alive and very healthy TPB. Compliant countries such as Canada and Mexico will have their own Internets but somewhat more open. Canadians will nod our heads, go sure, then set up private DNS systems that route around what offends us and Mexicans will do what they do best and ignore it and the rest of the world will have theirs.
All of that is why the tech industry is screaming blue murder. (Ok, in Microsoft’s case whispering it but entities like Microsoft and Adobe are the few tech companies that can outspend the entertainment industry when it comes to “purchasing” politicians.)
Put simply, and on every level, these bills will be toxic should they pass. But toxic to the United States not to TPB who will handily survive.
What cheering you do hear for these bills is coming from places like India and Brazil, and to some extent, China, who are just loving this.
Re: Re: Re:2 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“It will effectively end access to TPB from anyone not using a rogue DNS server or a proxy. “
Actually, the whole removing DNS entries, that is where the breaking the internet part comes in. It makes people route around the censorship. You see the internet is built on trust, if you lose that trust people will go elsewhere.
Also, Shutting down TPB is damn near impossible. Here are a couple off the top of my head. They run TPB as a loss leader, and run a separate and independant VPN network to make money. They run their own advertising servers and accept payment in any digital currency like bitCoin. Which would drive people towards using bitCoin and remove some of that digital currencies instability. They distribute the pirate bay across a P2P network, and use a distributed search engine.
Re: Re: Re:3 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Dammit, Hephaestus, stop talking cents to these people!
Not one of the MPAA will pony up the cash for such a smart endeavor!
You know there’s no money in piracy, so locking up the world and controlling the internet is the only option! Cough up the cash, son! We know you’re made of money!
Re: Re: Re:4 Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
“Cough up the cash, son! We know you’re made of money!”
Actually, thats actually just a guy I know, his name is Midas and its actually his wife and she is made of gold.
Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
I agree as I do not in any way support either the RIAA or MPAA.And as far as Big Concerts go I would not ever go to see an Artist who will charge me more than $25 bucks for a night out.
I am an Artist and I have been going to various shows and to tell the truth the best ones are the ones right down the Street in your local Club.
Screw these Concerts by Big Artists who charge you rip-off prices for a ticket.
Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
They aren’t charging you a rip off price for a ticket – they are charging what the market will bear. If you can’t afford it, too bad for you – you aren’t important enough to be part of their fan base anyway.
Welcome to the real world – you are too poor to afford to play.
Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
That is why I pirate and don’t respect copyrights is just to expensive to fallow the law.
Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
No, they are not dying from the laws of economics. They are facing economic competition because technology enables others to finally be able to get a toe-hold in the marketplace with their works.
It is, however, an entirely different matter when some having access to such technology simply throw the rule of law out the window. This is not an economic issue. It is a social issue.
Unfortunately, the record labels and book publishers currently do not get any money from concerts/public appearances/readings. Seeing as how they resist even very small changes to their business models; I really don’t see them getting behind such a drastic change in how they do business any time in the near future.
Re: Re:
“Unfortunately, the record labels and book publishers currently do not get any money from concerts/public appearances/readings.”
The actual creator of the music gets the money!
Stop it now, before the economy collapses!
Re: Re:
pretty sure a signed artist has all sorts of money taken from the tour receipts that go to the labels. And probably a cut to the ASCAP/BMI folks to pay the writers, if not I am sure every venue they play has payed their ASCAP/BMI/SEAC etc monies so the writers can chase them lol
Re: Re: Re:
Historically, no they don’t. Although I have heard that some recording contracts have had such clauses recently. And the ASCAP cut is usually paid by the venue, which does effect the artists cut (but nowhere near as much as a recording contract does), and the venue usually doesn’t make it too onerous for the artist (they want the artists to have concerts there since they make most of their money off of concessions).
The NFL does it too...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577015903150731054.html
Fear of criticism has the league unwilling to make shedloads of cash. Idiots!
In the end, the “scarcities” come with built in problems that concentrate the market into certain geographic areas, and leave many consumers out in the cold.
When musicians are setting up tours, they are looking to maximize revenues and exposure. As a result, they play all the big cities, and cannot justify playing in any smaller areas. Why play 300 seats in some small town when you can play 20,000 seats the same night somewhere else?
The result? Consumers outside of major areas are no longer financially involved with supporting their favorite acts, because they just can’t do it. Instead of their money being spent on recorded music, they spend it in other places, away from the music industry, because they can pirate all the music they want, and the concerts will never get anywhere near them.
You can combined this with higher ticket prices, which again freezes out a significant part of the potential fan base, and you end up with an elitist system where the rich pay for and enjoy the privileges of being a music patron, and the rest of us are on the outside looking in.
It accelerates us down a road where the music choices for a generation are made by a small percentage of people rich enough to pay for the concert tickets, to attend the “scarce” events, effectively becoming the patrons of these musical acts. Soon enough, the acts themselves will realize that they are really working for and playing to a very narrow audience, and the rest of us will be just window dressing, nothing more.
In many ways, it’s the 1%er mentality of music. Good luck with that!
Re: Re:
I am so mad that Beiber will never come to my small town. I guess I will have to go and spend my concert money to watch some local band play…they are good enough.
By the way, +10 troll points for spinning this into a 1%er issue. And thanks for pointing out what most people call the economics of a free market.
Re: Re: Re:
Sadly, your local market doesn’t have many bands, and doesn’t really have any places to play, because, well, there is no real music market. At best, you have a local bar with a “dj” using a laptop to play someone else’s remixes on MP3s.
Welcome to the real world.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The real world doesn’t have copyrights.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, I found out that my “local market” has a lot of bands. I have friends who were literally flooding my facebook page with invites for different local acts. There’s even a few who got record deals. What I find damning of the current music industry is that local radio doesn’t play local bands, and they haven’t for decades. Not even the bands that got contracts had any airtime on the popular radio stations before getting signed.
Unsigned artist are the real competition here, and that’s what SOPA is really all about, using “piracy” as a specter to give legacy publishers the power to shutdown outlets for artist that they don’t control. That’s why they H-A-T-E the internet–they have absolutely no control over who gets published and who gets marketed. They don’t want any accountability for false accusations because that’s really part of the plan all along–to use false accusations to stifle competition. Copyrights have already been used for such in the past, and it’s increasingly common in tech patents too. It doesn’t really matter if the accusations are correct, or even if they stick when contested, the point is to at least inflict pain upon the competition. However, not even patents give the power to completely cut revenue in per-trial injunctions.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
If they can’t control who gets famous and who gets rich, they have no more leverage with artists. The internet lets anyone get famous without their say-so, and that’s why their business if falling apart.
Re: Re:
And guess what, that’s basically the way things were before the recording industry existed. Why do you find it surprising that some of those elements will persist in the post-RIAA era?
Re: Re:
The result? Consumers outside of major areas are no longer financially involved with supporting their favorite acts, because they just can’t do it. Instead of their money being spent on recorded music, they spend it in other places, away from the music industry, because they can pirate all the music they want, and the concerts will never get anywhere near them.
Ever heard of tribute bands? Some I have heard play better than the originals!
Also this just means lots of opportunities for smaller local artists.
Your logic seems to run out the moment it goes anywhere near a conclusion you dislike!
So how does one get famous in the first place?
We can’t all illegally invade other countries like Tony Blair.
You yet again example those who’ve /already/ broken into national publicity, and as always, seem overjoyed to report a “dog bites man” story: that with national exposure money is then thrown at a FEW people.
Now tell us your plan for an unknown to break into even modest following. Yes, you can put music (or Mac-Miller-ism) out for free, and MIGHT be noticed widely. But looks like just chance, and remote chance at that the more people try.
But you don’t have one single example of a movie done that way. (Not even Nina Paley! If nationally known and now able to command bucks for personal appearance is the measure.)
No matter how often you try to pretend that music examples can scale up to multi-million movies, they simply don’t.
==============
By the way, on the Elvis Costello piece last week, you all noticed that the high-priced Costello product was /autographed/ copies, right? As you can’t practically or legally “steal” those scarcities, he was actually poking fun at you pirates while luring you in with the prospect of “stealing”…
Re: So how does one get famous in the first place?
Do you have any examples of multi-million dollar movies that were not profitable due to piracy.
Re: Re: So how does one get famous in the first place?
Or really any examples of piracy making something not profitable?
Re: Re: So how does one get famous in the first place?
Did OOTB make that claim? I certainly didn’t read that in his post.
Re: Re: Re: So how does one get famous in the first place?
You seem to be new. OotB is kind of infamous for saying piracy killed his $100 million movie.
Re: Re: Re:2 So how does one get famous in the first place?
And it certainly isn’t that investors don’t want to look at a total unknown with a script and a dream (nightmare?) who would like $100 million up front, thank you very much, with little else to back it up.
I know! We’ll give him a title! “Nightmare on Techdirt!!”
But the RIAA and MPAA will continue to try and sell sand in the desert. If people don’t want to buy it, the government will mandate we buy the sand, even if we live in the desert.
Re: Re:
Sand in the desert? There is clearly a demand for music and movies. There isn’t any demand for sand in the desert.
Re: Re: Re:
Whoosh! Content can be delivered at a near infinite rate with current technology and we are literally in a desert full of content. So how can you get me to demand your content? Realize that if the price you offer is not a value for me then I will get similar content from somebody else.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Content can be delivered at a near infinite rate with current technology
Sure. Illegally it can.
What’s the point of that?
This is why you, Masnick and all other freetards are so scared of piracy enforcement: it ruins your thesis.
Artificial scarcity goes hand in hand with IP. Always has, always will. Nothing you do or say will ever change that. Nothing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Except the internet. Seriously, law nerds vs. actual nerds, who do you think is going to win?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Oh, right. iTunes doesn’t exist, anymore, or any of the other legal services out there that deliver content at little cost to the rights holders. Gotcha.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
No, legally it can. If only there were more LEGAL options/services delivering content.
Considering how big the market is, it’s kind of pathetic the tiny offering their is. Which just goes to show how underserved the market actually is.
iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Pandora… that’s about it. Hulu has gone down the drain. Netflix has too to an extent.
About the only one’s doing well are iTunes, Amazon and Steam.
Mike and the rest of us aren’t scared of piracy enforcement per se. We’re scared of piracy enforcement at the expense of everything else (rights and innovation, for starters).
When you’re ready to have a talk like an adult, minus the name calling, we’ll be here. For now, get bent moron.
Re: Re: Re:
There is also no demand for the services that labels do for the public since they can do the public have their own distribution channels now.
Re: Re: Re:
Rule #1: Logic and facts do not register with freetards.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I guess you must the most freetarded of all…
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Rule #1: Logic and facts do not register with freetards.
How would you know?
If Dickens came to the US to read his books to the masses, perhaps a major factor was that US copyright law did not extend to foreign works from 1790 to 1909, which neatly spans all of his lifetime.
BTW, when the Act of 1790 was enacted it is my recollection that no country having copyright laws extended protection to foreign works. Thus, the US was not being parochial and unique among nations.
I well understand all this talk of physical vs. digital goods. Where those who argue this distinction changes all rules and authors need to adapt is within those industries where scarcity is not a realistic option, unless, of course, they should get with the digital program by simply merging with a company that does sell scarcity. I am not at all sanguine that this is in the best interests of the consuming public. What say you?
Re: Re:
Between copyright and free speech, security, privacy and a whole lot of other issues, I want copyright to burn.
Re: Re:
What say you?
Let me ask one simple question: Where is the market going? If piracy is untapped market potential that is underserved customers, where do you think people who don’t rely so heavily on physical goods are going to go?
Let’s just ignore copyright enforcement for the time being. The question I think that hasn’t been answered is one that is the easiest to solve: “Where do people spend their time?”
Once that’s figured out, people can learn the rest and learn how to profit.
Re: Re:
Actually the U.S. didn’t sign on to the Berne Convention on Copyright till sometime in the mid to late 1960s. Which accounts for the number of paperbacks around with a long statement about that by Tolkien of the LoTR trilogy and The Hobbit declaring the book by his American publisher legit and all the rest something less than orc poop. So yeah, the US did have a period where it could be termed parochial.
As for the consuming, by which you seem to indicate reading public, I’m not sure that there’s much option left for authors. We have a generation coming along that knows knowing much but digital, Kindles, iPads and its ilk and preferring them over the printed page. I doubt, along with, say, Margaret Atwood, that the printed book will disappear. It will be in considerably less demand the way hardcovers were once paperbacks took off.
This may mean that there needs to be a realistic revision of copyright globally to account for this. For now it seems the first thing run to is the nuclear legislative response. At least something that doesn’t falsely set up the discussion as readers taking food from writers mouths when the citizenry won’t give the publishers what the publishers want which is how it is being framed now.
And the book tour has become a standard part of the publisher’s and writer’s MO when a new book is out which it wasn’t in Dicken’s days. But personal contact with the authour is still the scarcity and the book itself, no matter how published, is the commonplace item.
I have a friend that wants to publish an ebook. Going through places like Amazon will cost her 70% royalties. Why can’t she just make her book available without having to use a publisher?
Re: Re:
She can simply put it on her website in epub format and collect all the money. The trick is getting people to go there and pay for it.
Amazon is a distributor – they make it easy for anyone in the world to go buy the book. That’s what you pay for.
(Is it really 70% – that does seem steep. I have an ebook online and I don’t think Amazon’s keeping 70%. Maybe 70% for a printed book, which makes more sense.)
Re: Re: Re:
That’s because he’s lying. Amazon keeps 30% and the author keeps 70%.
Re: Re: Re:
As Colin said, GR8FL has the numbers mixed up. I believe that LuLu also has a publishing station with a similar split where most of the money goes to the author.
Re: Re:
Even in an open market, stores still can provide worthwhile services. They have the infrastructure to readily distribute products, the name recognition to draw customers, and a sense of security in transactions. Your friends are certainly free to go at it alone, but the choice often will be between a big cut of small profits or a small cut of bigger profits. There’s still a chance of hitting it big without signing with anyone, but there’s obviously the possibility of striking out even if they do. It’s not a choice to be taken lightly. Either way though, they’re still going to have to do a lot of self-promotion.
You’re also right in that much of the internet-publishing is concentrated in a few stores like Apple and Amazon. This is largely because the legacy publishers didn’t understand how to deal with digital formats that allowed others to make copies just as easily as them, and the legacy retailers threatened to boycott publishers that competed with them online. In the end, both got bypassed web companies, which are both publisher and seller. That creates a lot of power that neither had before.
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs on his deathbed, so that his family wouldn’t have to live in poverty after his death. A business partner had stolen his fortune after his retirement and presidential pensions had not yet been invented.
I think that any copyright regime that would cause either (i) Grant to never write his memoirs, or (ii) his family to live in poverty after his death, would be a terrible copyright regime.
Re: Ulysses S. Grant
Pfft…Grant hated the internet anyway.
Re: Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs on his deathbed, so that his family wouldn’t have to live in poverty after his death. A business partner had stolen his fortune after his retirement and presidential pensions had not yet been invented.
I think that any copyright regime that would cause either (i) Grant to never write his memoirs, or (ii) his family to live in poverty after his death, would be a terrible copyright regime.
Lets follow your argument to its logical conclusion. If Pres. Grant had not been robbed by his partner after his retirement than he would not have written the memoirs.
Therefore any legal regime that would have prevented the theft would be a terrible regime. So we should institute a set of business laws that permit or even encourage theft by partners in the hope that it will encourage deathbed memoire writing!
Ever heard the saying “ hard cases make bad laws“?
Re: Ulysses S. Grant
That’s a valid point, but if he had today’s copyright laws, his family would probably still be making money on that book, even though the chance of his great great grandchildren living in poverty without his royalties is close nil. Is that situation much better? Should we simply abolish the concept of public domain? At what point should your ancestors fend for themselves?
And what about all the people whose lives didn’t warrant memoirs that could keep their families fed? Should we pass laws to keep them out of poverty too?
Re: Ulysses S. Grant
The reality of the situation is that Mark Twain gave Grant a royalty of 75% on memoirs, close to an unheard of amount then and since. It did, as you indicate, pull his family out of debt. He had also had his military pension restored by then.
The fact that Twain offered the royalty and Grant accepted it indicates that it was Twain, not Grant that held the copyright. Not that it mattered all that much with Grant getting a royalty rate like that. Nealy half a million dollars in income in those days for the family left them, shall I say, comfortable. Copyright terms were shorter in those days, too.
The reality is that no one knows whether or not Grant would have written his memoirs in the absence of copyright, whether Twain would have offered as much for them or whether or not that was the only way for Grant to pull his family out of debt because (i) copyright existed, (ii) he and Twain made a deal that for Grant would earn guarantee a large return and (iii) his family lived in wealth and luxury afterwords so the statement is moot.
Such deals would have been offered before copyright by a publisher to an author and resulted in wealth for both even tough it would have taken more of Twain’s legendary sales and persuasion skills to do it over the copies put out by “unauthorized” publishers but it likely would have happened pretty much the same way.
The reality is that we just don’t know and never will.