So…I’m at the swap meet trying to sell my poster (that many people are buying, it’s only a dollar after all, and it took a lot of work to make, so I am very grateful that they like it and are willing to pay for it), and someone else makes copies of my poster and starts giving it away at the swap meet, and I shouldn’t be greatly bothered by this?

You have every right to be bothered by this. Just as you have every right to someone itting outside your booth saying “This artists sucks.”

The question is, what right do you have to do anything aobut it?

In the second case, the answer is: none. Their opinion is protected expression. Protecting their right to say “you suck” is fundamental to democracy.

Similar things have to be considered in the case of someone giving away copies of your poster. Now, these are the actions that the traditional media companies are doing:

1. Sue anyone who took a free poster, for more than what they make in their entire lives.

2. Have jackbooted thugs storm the booths of suspected infringers.

3. Lobby the government to shut down swap meets altogether.

None of these things seem like good ideas.

Also: I didn’t require that it should be “at the swap meet.” We live in an age where every single person can, without leaving the comfort of their own home, make a copy of an artwork, and distribute it as far and wide as they can, without having to go to a swap meet at all.

If anything, doesn’t this sound the death of swap meets?

And if some people get the poster for free who actually like it and would have bought it now get it for free, then I’m out of some dollars that I had a right to, aren’t I?

That’s assuming that they would have bought the posters in the first place. Many wouldn’t have. With those people, you are not out of any dollars at all. The only “harm” to you is that more people enjoy your work.

On the other hand, it’s likely that at least some people only encountered your work because they got it for free. If those people like your work, then they are more likely to buy other posters from you, or pay for the original painting, or even commission an original painting from you. Every dollar you make from those people is a net gain.

And if some people wouldn’t have bought the poster anyway, why are they taking it?

You’ve never taken a free sample at the supermarket, then decided not to buy the product? I find this extremely hard to believe.

It works the same way with content. And if it didn’t – are you actually saying it’s a moral act to make people pay before they decide whether they like something? That someone who samples the latest Top 40 record now has an obligation to pay full price for that record? If that’s what you’re saying, I’m pretty sure morality is not on your side.

Okay, seems to be working now…

Well, to be honest, I find most of what you say confusing.

Just a guess, but I’m betting it’s because you view morality in terms of what benefits you (or, at least, what benefits artists in general). That’s not what morality is about. It doesn’t matter whether free access to works harms you or not. (But for the record, I believe it does not.) It only matters whether it benefits people in general.

It’s also not why copyright exists. This is specified in the Constitution itself. The Constitution does not grant copyrights to authors; it grants the power to Congress – elected servants of the public – to create copyright laws. Or not, solely as benefits the public. “Not that any particular class of citizens, however worthy, may benefit, but because the policy is believed to be for the benefit of the great body of people…” (H.R. Rep. No. 60-2222)

For example. with a library, you have to give the book back within a short amount of time, and if you don’t you have to pay money (a fine).

Also, if the book is checked out, no one else can have it.

This is assuming that there is only one copy of the book, which is not necessarily true. (If a book is in greater demand, libraries will often get more than one copy.) It’s also not “a short amount of time” – it is deliberately enough time to read the entire book, start to finish.

And it’s also completely irrelevant to the point at hand. According to your ethics, everyone who checks out a book is immoral, since people “who actually like it and would have bought it now get it for free, [so] I’m out of some dollars that I had a right to.”

In fact, the very thing you’re claiming is immoral – the ability for anyone, anywhere, to enjoy the entire work, for free – is what makes libraries moral. Equal access to art is such a bedrock of morality, it is almost considered a human right.

Why doesn’t person A say to person B, “hey, you should buy a copy from the guy who made it to support his efforts. He’s talented and works hard and if I give you a copy that won’t help him buy cheese to eat as there is no cheese replicator yet”.

You act like there is a conflict between the two. There isn’t. Person A can say that, and mean it, and still make a copy for Person B. It’s not hypocritical, it’s not immoral, and it’s actually why most people share files in the first place. (That’s why people who share music buy much more music than people who do not.)

As far as the cheese replicator goes, well if and when you can replicate cheese and *everything* else, it seems that to be able to only replicate things like music and art makes life a very uneven playing field

The machines we are talking about – computers – have the ability to copy any kind of data whatsoever. Words, images, video, music, games, business applications, spreadsheets, CAD files, clothing designs, business presentations, classroom assignments, SETI data, cheese recipes – anything.

The problem is not that musicians and artists (or, realistically, the megacorporations that own their copyrights) are on an uneven playing field. The problem is that they are on a level playing field, and want to tip it out of balance in their favor.

Is it okay to copy and distribute money?

That is not a very good question. Of course it’s not OK – for one thing, money’s economic value is directly related to the number of copies in existence. That’s not true of published artworks. For another thing, money isn’t printed for the sole purpose of spreading access to it. That is why copyright exists: so that the public has greater access to artworks.

You’re comparing apples with zebras. It’s a stupid comparison, and it can only be taken seriously by someone who believes that printing a poster is literally printing money. As in, “if I print 10,000 copies of this poster, I’ll automatically make $10,000.” That is ridiculous, and I don’t think for a minute that you actually believe it’s a valid point.

More on public libraries,

they buy all of their books, apparently around 14 billion dollars worth every year. They often have to re-buy books as they become worn. So publishers profit directly from libraries.

The people who share files have to do this too. So publishers are also profiting directly from infringers.

each library has to buy their books, lending books to only that town.

Not exactly true. Libraries are generally grouped into regions; and each library’s region can ship books between other libraries in that region. The Boston Public Library, for instance, is available to any citizen of Massachusetts, and has 26 branches, each of which can share books with each other.

Even in other regions, this is not an intentional policy to protect publishers, but driven by practical necessity. It would be better if this weren’t true, but they just don’t have the resources.

With piracy, one never ending copy can be given to the entire world forever.

In the real world, that’s an exaggeration. It’s doubtful that all of the downloads for one work are from the same source. If you look at the number of library readers per book, and compare it to the number of downloads per single source, they’re likely about the same.

Are they spending 14 billion?

In 2011, iTunes reached a landmark of 15 billion songs sold. (And that’s just one retailer.) Of those sales, the vast majority were purchased by people who also pirate.

So, the answer is “yes.”

Looking at that study, how can they accurately track what people who illegally do? How do they know that they prefer Amazon and Itunes to stores?

And they said people who illegally download would 3 out of 4 buy what they had downloaded?

You’re a bit confused. According to that study, the people who share files are more than 10 times as likely to legally purchase music in general. It says nothing about purchasing music that they have already downloaded.

They “accurately tracked this” very easily. They tracked how many times these individuals shared files; and tracked how often these individuals legally bought music.

Their study agrees with those from here, here, here, here, or here. I’m sure I could produce more, but those are the ones I have bookmarked.

But it does not show, nor does it attempt to show, something as simplistic as “downloading genrates sales.” Nor did I imply that was being suggested. What is shown, explicitly, is that pirates are your most lucrative potential customers.

There is no line to what can be copied and shared, right?

So if someone wanted to copy and share tickets to a live art performance

Of course there is a line to what can be copied and shared. It is the definition of a rivalrous good. For example: you could copy and share tickets to a live performance, but those tickets correspond to physical spaces in that performance. Such spaces are not infinite, so tickets are scarce goods. Thus, when you print a “bootleg” ticket, you’re depriving someone else of their seat.

That is what makes “theft” immoral. It’s not that the “thieves” get something for nothing (or else poor people who dumpster-dive for my beer bottles would be immoral). It’s that if you “steal” something, the original owner doesn’t have it anymore.

Beyond that, there is the moral (not legal) idea that when someone makes money off of your labor, you deserve a cut of it. I agree with that. The problem is that most publishers nowadays want to sue third parties (such as the printing press who took the job to press your competition’s posters), and not the actual infringers.

The ars technica article said:

I guess I assumed that they bought *it*, they downloaded a sample like cheese, and then liked it and bought it.

That was referring to the CRIA (Canadian) study from 2006, not the BI (Norwegian) study from 2009. Here’s a link to the CRIA study. And, if you click through to the (older) Ars Technica article about it, you’ll find more details:

Three out of four P2P users admitted to purchasing music after downloading it online, with 21 percent of P2P users saying that they have bought tracks they have also downloaded on more than 10 occasions. 25 percent admitted to purchasing previously-downloaded tracks only once or twice, while an additional 27 percent claimed to have done it less than 10 times, but more than twice.

So, they bought the “complete product” (the track) after they downloaded the song already. It wasn’t just a “sample” (say, a clip or a stream). That is, however, what they used it for.

The other studies say slightly different things. However, all studies show that pirates buy more music than non-pirates.

Regarding the cheese thing. If anyone can make any kind of cheese for free, then they’ll sample more, different kinds of cheeses. We would have a more “cheese literate” culture. Since people would know which cheese was good and which wasn’t, the demand for high-quality cheese would increase.

Since you can’t do this with cheese, let’s take a real-world example: beer. This is a subject close to my heart, since I do in fact brew my own beer. And, yes, one of the primary reasons I do it is because it’s far cheaper to brew your own beer than it is to buy it at a liquor store (not to mention a bar).

Home brewing has exploded in recent years. Has this hurt the beer industry any? Not at all. In fact, it was coincidental with an explosion in microbreweries. Home brewing simply led to a more “beer literate” culture; and that culture benefitted everyone, home brewers and breweries alike.

Emily, for example, said she only bought 15 albums, but had 11,000 songs.

And how many would she have if she were forced to pay for all of her music? My guess: 15 albums, and 15 album’s worth of songs.

Plus, she didn’t resort to sneaky things in order to get those albums… like take those promos and trade them at used record stores. (When I worked at Tower, pre-Napster, a bunch of my co-workers did this: take some of the multiple promos the labels sent in of Top 40 music, then trade them at a used record store down the street to get the albums they actually wanted.)

Regarding the printing of tickets, if you weren’t taking somebody’s spot, then it would be okay, right?

Here, let’s give a classic example. Tegan and Sara do a show at an outdoor venue, and charge money for it. A bunch of people go to see it, but a bunch also bring lawn chairs, sit just outside the fence, and listen to the concert for free. (This is exactly the kind of thing that happened at a Jane’s Addiction concert I saw. I paid for a ticket, by the way.)

Now, let’s give a modern example. Tegan and Sara perform a show, and a bunch of people in the crowd video record it, using their smartphones. They then post the performance on YouTube.

In neither of these cases should Tegan and Sara give a shit. They can be upset; but in my opinion, they don’t have a reason to. I think it would be a good thing in general, since I don’t mind Tegan and Sara, and think everyone should be able to listen to them.

And you didn’t reply to the T-shirt aspect. If someone wants to copy their T-shirts, design and all, and give them to all of Tegan and Sara’s fans, then that would be great, right?

Let’s say Tegan and Sara design a shirt that is intentionally simplistic – to be “cutesy” or whatever. It’s a couple of stick figures, with some multicolored lettering that says “I love Tegan & Sara.” They perform a show, and to their surprise, a whole bunch of people in the audience had bought blank white T-shirts, and drew stick figures on the shirts themselves in magic marker, again with the multicolored lettering that said “I love Tegan & Sara.”

Personally, if I were Tegan and/or Sara, I would think that was great.

Tegan and Sara can still try to sell their’s to their fans, they still have their boxes of T-shirts that they’re trying to sell, so no harm there and the fans don’t have to pay.

If they want one from Tegan and Sara, then they have to pay. And, here’s the thing: most would pay. Honestly, why do you think fans buy T-shirts? It’s not because they’re chilly.

The thing is, though, is you’re taking these scenarios to different places then intended.

I am “taking these scenarios” to places that more accurately represent how file sharing actually works. It’s pretty obvious to me that you “intended” to present false analogies to make file sharing seem much worse than it is. Sorry if I didn’t allow you to do it.

In every single scenario that you presented, you’re basically presenting it as one or two people making copies for everyone else. You asked what happens if “someone else” copies your poster. But it’s not “someone else.” It’s everyone else. You’re trying to present this as if it’s a couple of bad actors who are responsible for sharing media. That’s not the case. Everyone makes copies. Nearly everyone shares them, because people share the things they like.

Even your latest analogy fails in exactly this way. “If you brew your own beer, that’s not making exact replicas of every manufactured beer readily available to every customer of those beers for free.” No, it’s not; but that’s not how file sharing works, either. It’s not one source “making exact replicas” and distributing them to “every customer of those beers.” It’s like home brewing: everyone makes their own copies, and they usually share those copies with friends. Just like Emily and her senior prom date.

With Emily, you really don’t think a huge music fan like she is wouldn’t buy more albums?

If Emily were forced to buy all the music she listened to, she wouldn’t have been a huge music fan in the first place. How do you think she actually heard the music she liked? By swapping “hundreds of mix CDs with friends,” by her prom date loading her iPod with songs, etc.

This was the whole point of the beer analogy, in case you missed it. Homebrewing creates a more “beer literate” culture. Sharing music creates a more “music literate” culture. In order to become literate in music, you have to listen to a hell of a lot of it – more than nearly everyone can afford. Without file sharing, music literacy was reduced to the independently wealthy, or to professional music reviewers who were sent CD’s and LP’s to review for free (and who, because of that, had an unnaturally cozy relationship with major labels). File sharing allows everyone to be musically literate. It’s how Emily was able to become a fan of music in the first place.

In the short term, musicians may have to lose a little bit of money in order to promote music literacy. In the long run, that music literacy will help everyone. Including people who make money from music: in the past ten years, people have spent more money on music-related purchases than ever before. (Just not on recordings.)

What else does she have to pay for?

A better question is, how much does she have to spend in the first place? Keep in mind that she is an intern, which means she gets paid absolutely nothing. (Here’s a question: why aren’t you up in arms about NPR exploiting her? NPR is getting her labor for free, after all – exactly the basis for your dislike of file sharing.)

She also is apparently a college student (she linked to the college radio station at American University). So, all the things that Lowery criticizes her for spending money on? The tuition, computer (which Lowery presents as an expensive MacBook), and so on? It’s likely that she paid for these things with financial aid. And last I checked, you can’t send your FAFSA paperwork to iTunes.

If she could get *all* of the best brands of these in endless supply, this would have no effect on how or what she purchases or no longer purchases?

If she could get *all* of those things for free, WHO CARES how it affects what she purchases? Free food! Free clothing! Free shampoo! Free toilet paper! Free toothpaste! All of humanity’s material issues would be solved, so who cares if CVS goes out of business?

Musical literacy is an excuse to not have to pay.

Except that those who pirate music pay more than those who don’t. Every independent study on file sharing has confirmed this. These are not people who need an “excuse to not have to pay,” they are people that consume art for free and also pay for it.

And, again, if what you say is true, then libraries would be illegal. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume you don’t think they should be. Here’s the question: Why not? If you think they are good things, why do you think that?

most every person I know had a decent record collection, and they were hardly “independently wealthy”. They were just people who would rather spend money on albums instead of on Starbucks.

I know people like that too. Hell, I am a person like that. I own about a thousand CD’s and probably about 500 vinyl LP’s. And I know a few people who have collections that are much bigger than mine.

But we were always a small minority. Most people simply are not record collectors. Most people decided to spend money on Starbucks (or, realistically, on renting a better apartment, or car insurance, or food that isn’t in noodle form) instead. We’re a very small, insular bunch. The average person, prior to the Internet, probably bought less than 100 albums in their entire lives. They were not even remotely musically literate.

And were it not for the ability to share music for free, Emily most likely would be in that majority.

You’re making it sound like someone shares a few albums with their friends, so if that person has 15 albums, then they share one or two with a couple of people they know.

That’s not at all what I’m suggesting. I think that people share the music that they like. That could be “one or two,” but if so, those people have been ripped off. If you only buy music that you actually like, you’ll want to share your entire collection. And you don’t just want to share it with people you personally know. That’s not how proselytizing works.

The idea that that is how file sharing works on the internet is absurd. Every album ever is easily available to every person on the planet for free!

And you know who put those albums on the Internet? Individual people. It’s not just a couple of guys sitting in a room somewhere. It’s not some corporation selling copies to make money. It’s billions of individual users, sending out the works they love into the ether, so that anyone around the world can share in their appreciation.

I personally can’t see how anyone can view this as a bad thing. Curbing it might be necessary, from a business standpoint, but that doesn’t make it good.

And your last paragraph about everything being free is my point. Everything isn’t free. Nothing is free except all the things that can easily be pirated on the web.

(Easily “copied,” not pirated, but never mind.)

Read Emily’s post again. The vast majority of her free music was not acquired from the web.

And you’re presenting a false dichotomy: allow piracy and don’t get paid, or fight piracy and get paid. In reality, neither of these things are true. There are many, many, many ways to make money, without fighting the ability for people to share art for free. Conversely, a reduction in piracy does not result in an increase of sales. Even though toothpase (or whatever) isn’t free, that doesn’t mean that piracy means that artists can’t find ways to make money to buy toothpaste.

Here’s the thing. I get that people want shit for free. Who doesn’t? But the excuses to make it seem legitimate or okay or acceptable are ridiculous!

So, again: what is your “excuse” for libraries? Or do you think they are “ridiculous,” and that it would be better if they shut down?

Also:

I think you need to look up copyright, public libraries, and what’s legal, and what isn’t.

I am very well versed in copyright law, thanks. For example, 17 USC 108, which places limitations on exclusive rights copyright holders have with respect to libraries.

You still didn’t answer my question. Why are libraries desirable? So far, every single criticism you leveled against file sharing can be leveled against libraries as well. After all, their sole purpose is to let people experience artworks for free. (And if someone just “checks out” the works of the artists they love from a library, that is not supporting them, either.)

Yet, libraries are considered so important, that Congress actually created copyright exemptions specifically for them. Do you think Congress has it wrong?

Why don’t you consider libraries a form of piracy? Why are you so bothered if people read books for free from the Internet, but not when people read books for free from libraries?

I’m being serious here. I would like you to explain if you believe libraries are good things at all, and why.

Libraries are not the same. The main reason being they don’t create copies to give to the public.

You still haven’t answered the question. Forget about piracy for a moment. If you believe libraries are good things at all, why do you believe that?

Let’s say that libraries didn’t exist in the U.S. Would you make a case for creating them, or for not creating them? What would that case be?

If Congress has it right in regard to libraries, then maybe you should ask *them* why they are bothered by Emily ripping the majority of her CD collection, or why *they* are bothered by any sort of unauthorized copying on the internet or anywhere else.

That’s an easy question to answer: regulatory capture. The RIAA, MPAA, etc. have a lot of money, and they’re not afraid to spend millions and millions of dollars lobbying the government to get their way. As a result, when copyright is talked about in Congress right now, members from those organizations are quite literally the only ones allowed in the room. Additionally, there is a “revolving door” policy between Congressional staffers and those lobbying organizations (Chris Dodd is only the most obvious example). Combine this with Congressmens’ general ignorance of new technology, and you have a perfect storm of anti-piracy hysteria.

I see a lot of vitriol on this site towards the music business and “Hollywood”, and therefore musicians, producers, actors, writers, and all the people who work in those businesses.

Your “and therefore” is utterly false. We all support musicians, producers, actors, writers, etc., and want them to get paid. In fact, one of the reasons that the “anti-piracy” talk rings hollow, is that we all know (many from personal experience) that the music business and Hollywood treat artists far worse than many “pirate sites” do.

There are a few commenters who say stuff like “why should artists get paid twice for the same labor?” or some such. But even here, they’re not opposed to artists getting paid. They’re simply advocating for something like an “hourly wage” model, the same model that they themselves must work under. (A model that doesn’t need copyright to exist.)

But these commenters are in the minority, I think. For the record, I’m not one of them. Nor have I ever heard this from Mike (or Leigh or Glyn).

Part of Techdirt’s mission is to help artists succeed in a digital marketplace. Claiming the site “hates artists,” or whatever, is just nonsense. And it is absolutely not what drives any of our opinions on copyright and piracy.

The reason libraries are good would be relevant if I or Congress or anyone thought that libraries and The Pirate Bay worked in the exact same way.

Oh, there are plenty of differences between file sharing and libraries. For example, libraries are funded with taxpayer dollars, and file sharing isn’t; libraries are centralized, file sharing isn’t; and so forth.

There are also plenty of differences between The Pirate Bay and Megaupload. Somehow, if I used those differences to explain how Megaupload is bad, but The Pirate Bay is good, I don’t think it would be a terribly convincing argument.

I get that you think file sharing is worse than libraries. But all that says to me is that you think libraries aren’t as bad as file sharing. For all I know, you still think libraries are terrible, but The Pirate Bay is worse. It doesn’t tell me anything, just like my (theoretical) belief that Megaupload is worse than The Pirate Bay wouldn’t tell you anything.

What libraries don’t do is irrelevant. I’m asking if you think what they actually do is ethical or not.

If your sole ethical criterion is that people shouldn’t be able to experience complete artworks without supporting the artists, then you think libraries are unethical. Full stop. If you do not believe that, then you need to explain (or at least ask yourself) why that is. Once you can come up with the reasons libraries are good or bad, then we can examine the differences between libraries and file sharing, and whether those differences make a moral difference. Until then, you’re just avoiding the issue.

As far as artists getting paid for their work, how much has The Pirate Bay specifically paid to Kelly Clarkson? Dollars-wise? How many copies of her album have been downloaded from The Pirate Bay

You can’t download any content whatsoever from The Pirate Bay; only from other users’ hard drives. (There’s a reason it’s called “peer to peer” file sharing.)

How much have the users who made the Kelly Clarkson albums available, earned dollar-wise? Zero. What percentage of Clarkson’s royalties have they kept? Zero. How many of Clarkson’s recording copyrights do they hold? Zero. How much do they control what Clarkson sings, who she can sign contracts with, or her life story? Zero.

But more importantly for this discussion, how many times did Emily use The Pirate Bay? Zero. Her friends who made mix CD’s didn’t make any money. Her prom date who gave her music didn’t make any money. Emily herself didn’t make any money.

If you believe file sharing is bad because file sharers earn money from it, then Emily and her friends are blameless. That’s certainly not what you were arguing.

For someone who doesn’t want me to avoid your question of why libraries are good, you do a hell of a job avoiding and evading and dancing around *all* of my questions.

I have not evaded a single one of your questions. Not one in this entire thread. I have perhaps not accepted the premises of those questions, but that’s a different story altogether.

We have already been over the general premise of why libraries are good.

No, you have not. You have only said why libraries are not the same as The Pirate Bay, as if that’s actually saying something about libraries themselves. Specifically, about whether lending books to the public for free is, in itself, a moral good. You have never answered that question.

One reason, is they *spend billions of dollars* on books!

See? This is one of the things that I’ve already answered.

The fact is, file sharers also *spend billions of dollars* on media. People who share files buy the vast majority of content. I’ve already linked to many, many studies that show this. So there is no difference between file sharing and libraries in this particular regard.

(Incidentally, according to the American Library Association, you’re incorrect: in 2009, total collection expenditures by public libraries was $1.3 billion, and that includes all media.)

Most importantly: Is spending money on books what makes libraries good things? Is the sole reason libraries are to be tolerated that they benefit publishers? If the publishers decide to disagree, should they have a right to pull their books from the shelves?

What if someone starts a public library that only loans out books that have been donated? Is that library immoral? Should that library be shut down?

Frankly, I wholeheartedly disagree with you on this. Even if no library ever purchased a single book in their entire existence, they’d still be fundamentally moral. Libraries don’t exist to benefit publishers. They exist to benefit the public, primarily through allowing the public to read books for free. That’s why they’re moral.

Of course, if publishers do benefit, then that’s wonderful. But it’s not why libraries are socially valuable.

So you think Kelly Clarkson would be better off if, instead of signing away rights to Idol and an evil record label, and giving up a percentage of her earnings and a percentage of any of her evil copyrights, she just paid for her own recordings and put them up on Pirate Bay so everyone could share them even though no one would even know who she was? And she could beg for people to buy her T-shirts? That seems preferable to you?

If nobody knew who she was, nobody would share her recordings. On the other hand, if people shared her music enough, then she would be more widely known – and more people would buy her albums. Many times, file sharing leads to increased sales. Just ask Neil Gaiman.

I think, instead of signing away rights to her career (not just Idol), she could have developed a fan base herself. She could have performed live (and almost certainly earned more than the $1400 that she made through the “World Idol” performance). She could have put out the album herself – or, better, used one of the many many ways to do it that the Internet makes possible, such as Kickstarter or Sellaband. And she could sell the music herself, if she wanted, through e.g. CDBaby or Tunecore – and make more money than she is now, in all likelihood. Nothing about sharing music interferes with her ability to do this. Sure, she could sell T-shirts if she wants; she could also negotiate synch licenses, use YouTube’s ContentID to earn money (while still allowing people to share those videos), or any one of thousands of different things.

Seems to be working for Rock Star: INXS contestant Jordis Unga. Of course, it worked immensely well for Amanda Palmer. Or the dozens of other musicians that have been profiled here.

It also seems to be the best way to go for the many, many, many, many musicians who aren’t Kelly Clarkson. Like, for example, the 90% of major label musicians, who did not recoup their advances, so made absolutely no money whatsoever from artists’ royalties. (This is according to the RIAA, no less – in 2002.)

Whatever musicians do, they have a better chance of making money now than they did before. Getting famous through file sharing is a crap shoot, to say the very least. But you have more of a chance with that than under the old label system.

You said you “all” support artists and musicians and writers and want them to get paid. So I ask how much file sharing has paid compared to record labels (which you said are “far worse”).

I don’t know. How much do people spend on music? I’d guess that about 90% of those people became fans through sharing music in one way or another. (It’s how I started out, and I’ve purchased hundreds of CD’s, LP’s, and tapes.) And as you keep ignoring, the majority of the money spent on music comes from people who share files.

So, I guess it pays pretty well.

First off, it’s funny that you say you disagree with me on something that you suggested.

“This” refers to the idea that libraries are good because they benefit publishers. I thought that was pretty obvious.

The “suggestion” is just the logical conclusion of your own argument. It is not theoretical, either. To my knowledge, all public libraries accept donations, and loan those donated books to the public – without paying publishers. Is this immoral? Should it be illegal?

Even if it’s not billions, it’s in the billions, and it’s *per year*.

And pirates spend billions per year on media. In 2010, iTunes was selling about ten million songs per day. Most of that music was bought by pirates. And that’s just one retailer – it doesn’t include other retailers, nor does it include the vast amounts that people are spending on music in other ways (more than making up for the drop in sales of recordings).

They *lend* books without making copies and infringing copyrights.

FYI, they are allowed to make copies to loan to the public. (Read 17 USC 108 again.)

But saying they don’t infringe copyrights is irrelevant, because the morality of copyright law is what we are debating. I don’t believe copyright law is moral right now (and I’m not the only one – on either side of the copyright debate). I brought it up to show that free access to art is considered such a good thing, that even our IP-maximalist government supports it. If you recall, it was a direct answer to the question of when sharing art has been “a cool thing to do.”

Most importantly: Why is even lending books OK in the first place? You are adamantly refusing to answer that. On the contrary, according to your own criteria, lending books should not be a cool thing to do. By your own argument, these are not crucial differences. Lending books means lots of people “who actually like it and would have bought it now get it for free,” so publishers are “out of some dollars that they had a right to.” At the beginning of the discussion, that was your only criterion for deciding if sharing was a good thing.

And if that’s not the case: Streaming sites also don’t make copies for people to keep. So, according to your new argument, they’re perfectly OK, and should be just as legal as libraries.

Let’s bring it back to your original scenario. You’re at the swap meet trying to sell your poster (that many people are buying, it’s only a dollar after all, and it took a lot of work to make, so you are very grateful that they like it and are willing to pay for it), and someone else makes buys a copy of your poster and starts giving it away at the swap meet. The only condition is that it be returned after a while, so that even more people can get it for free. You shouldn’t be greatly bothered by this?

Apparently, you think anyone who has bothered to make a poster and go to the swap meet and set up, and try and make their way as an artist, would be greatly bothered and say to that person, “what are doing? Why would you do that?”

And if some people get the poster for free who actually like it and would have bought it now get it for free, then you’re out of some dollars that you had a right to, aren’t you?

As far as Kelly Clarkson being better off doing what you suggest…it’s just ridiculous. You really honestly believe she wishes she was struggling to get known in the fashion you suggest?

Not at this point, no. I think it is a better long-term solution for her though, assuming she’s ever let out of her contract.

Besides: why are you bringing up Kelly Clarkson as if she’s a typical artist? She’s not. Hell, she’s not even a typical Idol contestant. How much has Idol helped Ryan Starr, R.J. Helton, Nikki McKibbin, EJay Day, Tamyra Gray, Justin Guarini, Jim Verraros, A.J. Gil, or Christina Christian? How much did it help all the artists who didn’t make it to the top 10? They all had to sign that same contract.

And how is Kelly Clarkson being famous helping your average musician? It’s not. As I pointed out, the vast majority of artists in the label system have never made royalties from record sales. And that’s just the 0.1% of artists who actually make it into the label system in the first place.

Why should just about every other artist on the planet be exploited just so Kelly Clarkson can become rich (and her production company and label ten times richer)? That’s not even in the neighborhood of ethical. It’s exactly like saying BP is good for the world because their executives make millions of dollars.

You named 2 people, neither of which I have heard any of their music

I certainly named more than two people in this thread. The last two I named were Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman, I believe. Both of them have made millions through making art, without coming down on file sharing. Isn’t that awesome? I think that’s awesome.

Even Amanda Palmer got well known through a deal

This has been repeatedly debunked. By her former tour manager, for one. As to how well that deal served her, let’s let Amanda talk about it herself:

for the record, i actually fronted ALL of the money for this record, because the label wasn’t interested in supporting the effort.

they had a solo stranglehold on me under the dolls contract, basically had the right of first refusal for whatever i came up with. i knew that the record with ben would be brilliant and that if they refused it, i’d asily make the money back putting it out on my own. so i put in my own 200k (much of it borrowed) to make the record. the label picked it up, but i was never fully paid back (long, vil and complicated), which added insult to injury when they did FUCK all to promote the record.

In the end, despite selling 30,000 albums, and despite the label putting not one penny of their own money into the recording, she never saw a single penny from royalties. This is typical for an artist under a major label contract.

how much Kelly got paid *directly* from The Pirate Bay or the like when someone downloaded and infringed her albums for free.

Zero.

And The Pirate Bay or the like made absolutely no money *directly* from Kelly Clarkson. Because The Pirate Bay never offered Kelly Clarkson’s album. Their users did.

Not one of whom made a single dime from putting that album on The Pirate Bay.

A site which Emily, the entire subject of this debate, did not use at all. Nobody that shared music with Emily made any money at all.

You’re demanding that people who share art with others, for no profit whatsoever, owe artists money because of it. Merely for doing something that libraries do every single day.

And you actually expect anyone to view this as fundamentally immoral? I don’t see it. An increasing majority of people don’t see it, either. Even (especially!) the people who actually support artists.

If someone buys 2 albums and infringes 10,000 albums, they spend more than someone who buys 1 album. Twice as many! Do you think that would stand up in a court of law or anywhere else?

Again, the debate is about morality, not whether it would stand up in a court of law. In my opinion, it should stand up in a court of law. Even better, companies should realize that it’s against their interests for it to go to a court of law in the first place.

Here’s why. If someone buys 2 albums and infringes 10,000 albums, they still buy 2 albums. Who cares how many albums they’ve infringed? People who sell albums are still making twice as much money!

You’re saying it’s better to sell one album, and have zero piracy, than it is to sell two albums, and tolerate piracy? Even if you could actually make this choice, all you’re going to do is lose an album sale. How is that better for anyone?

Besides, if you actually accept this argument, then it destroys your defense of libraries. Sure, libraries are spending a lot of money – but that doesn’t mean that publishers wouldn’t make a lot more money if people couldn’t read books for free.

Let’s say it could be proven that allowing people to check out books from the library results in a net loss of billions of dollars to publishers. Were that the case, would shutting down libraries be a good thing?

maybe people who check out books buy more, too. But libraries don’t make copies, and no one can randomly infringe thousands of books. *All* the copies are paid for.

You’re acting like the number of copies actually makes a difference. It doesn’t. Whether people own the books or not, they still get access to the entire book, start to finish, for free. Just like someone would if they watched Iron Man for free from some streaming site, but didn’t download it.

(In fact, that was the whole point of Emily’s article. She didn’t pay precisely because she didn’t think of music in terms of ownership. It was a direct reply to a Bob Boilen article called “I Just Deleted All My Music.”)

What unquestionably is the case is that people who check out books read more. And that is why libraries are good. It is the entire reason libraries are good. Not because they make people buy more, but because they let people read more. If libraries benefit publishers, great; if not, tough shit for the publishers.

As I said: even if a library bought zero books in its entire existence, it would still be better for everyone if that library existed.

Just like it is better for everyone that people like Emily’s prom date can load up iPods with music. As a result, people like Emily listen to music more. That is awesome. If that lets everyone become an “avid music listener, concertgoer, and college radio DJ” like Emily, then the music world as we know it would be a far better place. In the long run, it would be better for musicians, too.

We are going around in circles, as these arguments always do.

True. In my defense, I answered all your questions, and explained my reasoning. You don’t have to accept it; but in the future, hopefully you can at least understand it.

I don’t even understand why the argument goes into areas like whether record companies are “far worse” for musicians

Because you brought up Kelly Clarkson and The Pirate Bay. If you don’t want the discussion to go in that direction, don’t bring it up.

And the fact that most musicians fail, whether they are signed to a label or a TV show, or whether they are hoping people will share their music on the internet for free and buy their fricking T-shirts is also beside the point.

It is not beside the point at all. You’re the one who brought up “money owed” to you. That’s a business topic.

And the fact that it’s just “people” uploading movies and albums, and cracking software, and not making money from it (that’s a whole topic that I don’t want to get into) is also beside the point.

It certainly seems apropos if you believe that “people” who make no money, and who are often acting as grassroots promotion, “owe” you income for doing so.

In fact, it’s very curious to me why some people (like a place like Techdirt) seem *so bent* on making a case for file sharing and “helping” musicians and tearing down record companies and copyright when they apparently have nothing to do with any of it.

Many of the commenters here are artists. (I am a musician; not a professional one, but I do have a couple albums out on tiny underground labels. Most of my friends are also musicians; some of them have been on major labels.)

It concerns me personally. And it’s why people like Lowery make me furious. He’s doing nothing to actually help musicians navigate the “new” music industry. His only “solution” has been to talk up how good things were under traditional labels, and that’s no solution at all.

As far as Techdirt is concerned: part of their business is acting as a consultant to musicians, so that they can actually succeed in the changing musical landscape.

Far from having “nothing to do with any of it,” most of us here are affected by the debate on a personal level.

(Would Techdirt mind if someone copied any and all of their stuff? Is it all free of any sort of copyright? Can someone create a website, and take all the articles and anything else here and use them? How does Techdirt make money, btw? Do all the people here work for free and pay their rent through T-shirt sales?)

Mike does not mind if someone copied any and all of their stuff. He has said, repeatedly, that he considers everything on Techdirt to be in the public domain. And lots of websites do take everything Techdirt writes, and posts it verbatim on their own websites. You know what happens? Everyone stops reading those websites, and comes to Techdirt instead.

Now, when you’re asking how Techdirt makes money, you’re finally asking the right question. Since I’m not involved with Floor 24 (Mike’s company), I can’t answer that with any authority. I would start by looking at the Insight Community, though that’s hardly Mike’s only source of income.

But when someone is working hard putting out a “product”, an album or whatever, and they want a dollar for it, and tons of people take it *because they want it* without paying that dollar

Again, you’re phrasing it in a very distorted way. First, nobody “takes” anything. Let’s phrase it accurately: “When someone is working hard putting out a ‘product,’ an album or whatever, and they want a dollar for it, and tons of people make copies of it *because they want it* without paying that dollar…”

Doesn’t quite have the horrible ring to it now, since they can do exactly that with something like a chair (or a recipe, or a pair of socks, or whatever), and nobody in their right mind would find it even vaguely immoral.

The guy down the street owns a pizza shop. It’s pretty good pizza, and it’s pretty cheap. But if I can make a pizza at home that tastes exactly like his, then I’m going to make that pizza. And I’m not going to feel one iota of guilt for doing so. Nobody in their right mind would. Even if that means his pizza shop goes out of business.

And besides, there are already tons of times when people do this, completely legally. For better or worse, most people could always enjoy art for free. If that’s how you decide what is “immoral,” then human culture has been “immoral” for a long, long time. I’ve brought up libraries, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

People who watched over-the-air TV shows, without buying the DVD sets, would be immoral. People who listened to that one good song on the radio, without paying for the album, would be immoral. People who enjoyed Shakespeare In The Park, without paying to see it in the theater, would be immoral. People who download “Moby Dick” from Project Gutenberg, without buying the Dover edition, would be immoral.

It is simply not immoral in any way to enjoy art for free. It never was.

In fact, the reason copyright exists in the first place is so people can “take it *because they want it* without paying that dollar.” Or copy and sell it, or use it in their own works, or what have you. The entire point of copyright was to create a larger public domain (in the long run). Copyright’s purpose is to benefit the public; granting the copyright monopoly is simply a short-term incentive to make that happen.

it seems to me, and I’m guessing most anyone with a conscience, that it’s just not really a cool thing to do.

I’d say that rights holders are the last people on Earth who have the right to talk about a conscience. Whatever your stance on piracy, the corporate rights holders have been much, much worse for society in general. And Lowery is such a scumbag, that he actually exploits the deaths of Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt to advance his agenda, despite Emily’s actions having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with their deaths.

Obviously, most rights holders are nowhere near that bad, but they’re not in particularly good company. Fortunately, most artists don’t particularly give a shit about file sharing, or at least accept it without being sanctimonious dochebags. The opinions of Amanda Palmer, Steve Albini, Travis Morrison, or Dave Allen are far mor typical of what most artists believe, in my experience.

As far as Emily is concerned: if she is an avid concertgoer, then she is supporting artists far better than she would if she bought all the music she listened to.

Found this, coincidentally:

That is funny!

But it’s really a completely different scenario. That’s sort of an undercutting issue.