More People Realizing That Infringement Can't Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It
from the seems-like-a-good-idea dept
Mitch Wagner points us to a blog post by a fellow blogger at the CMO site, Scott Kinoshita, who explains why fighting against infringement is a losing and wasteful battle. Basically, Kinoshita comes to the same conclusion many of us have: that you simply can’t stop what the technology allows and what the people want. I actually think Kinoshita’s arguments are a bit weak, claiming that “the pirates will win,” because (1) you can’t compete with free, (2) the technology “favors the pirates,” and (3) dinosaur industries are way too slow to change. Of course, you can compete with free, by offering something better. People still go to theaters despite being able to get movies for free, because the experience is better (sometimes). People still pay for things all the time when there are free or cheaper options. If you can truly differentiate a scarce good, you can always “compete” with free. Where you can’t compete is when you’re offering an identical commodity good that’s free… On the second two points, I agree, but it feels like a little more detail and data would have made the argument much, much stronger.
Filed Under: business models, copyright, infringement
Comments on “More People Realizing That Infringement Can't Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It”
I think that the number of people who watch movies at a theater are doing so for reason that have little to do with piracy. Those who choose to pirate generally are choosing not to pay for things, and they won’t show up.
I think many people are in the same place I am: the pirated version of movies online at the release date are usually poor, low end, incomplete, or any combination of those features. Piracy isn’t something that hurts the theater business as much as it hurts the retail DVD / Bluray sales market, because at that point you are competing with 100% correct and perfect copies of the original. That is a very different proposition.
If every theater release movie was widely available online in a perfect, digital from digital rip of the finished product with all the sound, the sub titles, and everything intact and functional at a 1080i or 1080p level, there might be more people shifting. But the online versions at the US release dates are generally not as good as what you pay for.
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What proof do you have that piracy is hurting DVD sales?
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Netflix obviously.
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No, when the theatres are doing it right, people go to the theatre to:
– get out of the house for a while (theatres are competing with multiple forms of entertainment for this aspect, including live entertainment)
– see something on the big screen (applies more to action movies than to dramas and comedies)
– see something with friends (there are many reasons why this may be preferable to gathering at someone’s place, starting with nobody in a particular group of friends having both a big TV and space for everyone to sit comfortably)
I also dispute your premise that day-of-release downloads are typically poor quality (studios leak like sieves, so high quality rips are often available quite early, regardless of attempts to enforce windowing). However, I cannot offer concrete evidence of that, as doing so would be illegal.
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Other possible reasons that people may go to the theater are to:
1) spend lots of money
2) eat junk food
3) be treated like a criminal
4) be irradiated with infrared
5) mingle with irritating people
6) get an update on the latest piracy threats
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Irradiated with infrared? Dude… a little extra heat isn’t going to bother you, unless those ice cold theaters are your idea of a perfect temperature.
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Japan Foils Movie Pirates With Infrared
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/japan-foils-movie-pirates-with-infrared/
… and yes, there is the potential for eye damage.
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ABC,
I mentioned something like this long ago to a few techies..
But I added something..
MOST cameras..tend to use IR ore UV to range and set speed.
I suggested messing it up..A ring around the display. in the format the cameras use. It makes them focus at 1/2 range and messes up most ranging and speed control. As most CCD can see IR and will interpret it as LIGHT it will think the display is Bright and darken the display..
Even with MANUAL setting The LED/Other lighting will be visible to the camera.
Another thought was in Digital films, encoding the IR/UV tag into them..Easy to trace that way.
Its amazing that the Film/movie industry hasnt done it YEARS AGO..
But, even over the years, they have only let FILM lay in vaults and DIE.. They NEVER recoded/re-recorded MOST of their stuff. MOSt of it is lost to time. And you can forget even MORE before about 1955-59.. The only thing that SAVED those older shows/movies was getting them on VHS/BETA tape, and ONLY the movie industry SELECTED what you could see/watch.
Movie/Audio undustry has been the same for to long. They didnt see the advances in the past, and STILL dont see what is HERE NOW..
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Pretty much agree on all points. there are things I would pay to see even if the home version was in my hand in 1080p. I really want to see the newest Harry Potter on a screen the size of Montana. I have a nice home theater setup, but sometimes you just want the best possible experience, you only get to see it the first time once.
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I really want to see the newest Harry Potter on a screen the size of Montana.
No you don’t – it’s rubbish!
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I don’t know what ones you are getting but the ones i have seen are perfect digital rips. Though subtitle would be nice, they are harder to find on release day.
Re: Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_piracy_does_not_deter_the_production_of_music_books_films.php
This study in 2009 shows that piracy does very little in actual losses to the music and movie industry and to claim that one download = one lost sale is highly erroneous. In fact it was found that downloaders are often times the music and movie industries best paying customers. It is a myth that downloaders get all their music and movies for free and those who do will not pay even if downloads were not available.
Re: Re: Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated
On page 16, the study said that the typical displacement rate for the music industry is 20%.
Re: Re: Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated
Few people would claim that one download = one lost sale, rather that one download = diminished chance of a sale, especially when you talk about a view once product, like a movie. Once you have seen the movie, you are significantly less likely to pay to see it again. Some do, but there is a diminishing factor.
The study is also covering a period from 2003 to 2009, yet anyone versed in the internet will know that the last 2 or 3 years have been significant for file sharing, as more and more people get high speed internet connections and can share files at a reasonable speed. What was happening in 2004 is no longer relevant today, nor is it a valid guide. Things have just moved so much. In the time it takes to measure and quantify the situation, it has changed.
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“Few people would claim that one download = one lost sale”
however, those few people seems to have a large audience
“as more and more people get high speed internet connections and can share files at a reasonable speed.”
presumption of guilt
“Things have just moved so much. In the time it takes to measure and quantify the situation, it has changed.”
and therefore everyone should just accept what the industry says as fact
Re: Re: Re: Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated
The study is also covering a period from 2003 to 2009, yet anyone versed in the internet will know that the last 2 or 3 years have been significant for file sharing
not much has changed in the last 10 years. pirates keep pirating, and hollywood keeps pissing and moaning about it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8560118020709409855&hl=en#
and yet they’re still here, still losing “billions” every year. funny how piracy has been killing them for 10 years and they’re still alive.
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But the online versions at the US release dates are generally not as good as what you pay for.
i totally agree. but a 700mb dvd rip is good enough, and screeners and r5’s are usually available a couple of months ahead of DVD/blue ray release.
that’s a big part of hollywood’s problem, they are still making the same product they made 20 years ago, when they should be looking at the reality of the market and adjusting their products accordingly.
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I don’t know. My neighbours usually complain when I turn the sound up just beyound barely audible. Besides, I can’t pirate. I don’t own a boat.
Or worse
Where you can’t compete is when you’re offering an identical commodity good that’s free…
Or, as happens way too often, when you’re offering a *worse* commodity than the free option.
Calling it “Piracy” fundamentally misses the point about what is going on here.
It comes from legacy industries trying to use business methods optimised for scarcity to mediate the relationship between creators and fans… rather than giving the fans the tools they need to envangelise.
It’s not just a failure in enforcement, it’s a failure in marketing… and market research, come to that.
Some people will always pay for convenience
There is one scarcity that at least some people will always be willing to pay money for: their own time.
Why do automated car washes make money? It is quicker and easier to pay up and drive through than it is to break out the bucket and hose and do it yourself.
Why do yard care services make money? It is quicker and easier to get someone else to do it for you than it is to obtain the necessary equipment and spend the time to do it yourself.
Why do cleaning services… etc, you get the idea.
What iTunes and Netflix offer is a system that is comparatively easy for a customer to use. You can subscribe to things and have them just turn up whenever they become available, and know that you’ll be getting exactly what you asked for.
The free competition, on the other hand, requires remembering to search for things you want when new releases may be available, checking them to be sure they’re what the claim to be, hoping that they’re good quality (e.g. no video/audio sync issues).
However, the free version also comes with some big bonuses:
– available globally immediately on release
– absolutely no DRM of any kind
– no copyright warnings that talk down to paying customers like they’re naughty puppies
You know the interesting thing about those major benefits of the free product? They’re all related to removing things that the big content companies *chose to add* to their products. Windowing, DRM, copyright warnings – none of that is inherent in any of the content they’re providing, it’s just customer-hostility in a pre-packaged portable form.
Remove those annoyances from the paid versions and suddenly the free alternatives become significantly less compelling.
Re: Some people will always pay for convenience
Exactly. Convenience is a huge advantage for rights holders to leverage. But that’s also why I think said rights holders need legal tools to fight piracy, even knowing it can’t be wiped out completely — by making piracy difficult and somewhat treacherous, they make the legal offering [so long as it’s relatively pain-free] more compelling. Where I get riled up is when rights holders push for legal tools that, while more effective than current ones, begin to stomp on individual liberties and stifle innovation. Rights holders deign to recognize the balance they need to strike, and this failure is what undermines so much of what is otherwise a sympathetic cause.
Re: Re: Some people will always pay for convenience
The problem is, if they get what they want they will have enough tools to make pirating treacherous enough that they can wait another 10 years to think about providing the service people want.
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“…rights holders need legal tools to fight piracy, even knowing it can’t be wiped out completely — by making piracy difficult and somewhat treacherous, they make the legal offering [so long as it’s relatively pain-free] more compelling.”
Not true. Those “legal tools” do not make their own offering “more compelling,” they only make the other options more risky. They still have the same product, with the same pros and cons. They have simply made other options have more cons (i.e. greater potential risk).
If people are willing to accept that risk, then these “rights holders” have done nothing. Free/”pirate” options are successful insofar as they undercut the “legal” versions by being more useful, convenient, etc. The “rights holders” need to better their products rather than focusing on attacking everyone else.
Re: Re: Some people will always pay for convenience
You’re thinking about it backwards. The labels don’t need a way to fight the convenience of other services, they need to make THEIR services (or the services of those they license to) MORE convenient.
If, for example, studios started offering a service similar to Netflix that made movies available for streaming within a week of their theater release, sans commercials and piracy warnings before the film starts, would you agree it would be wildly successful? Assuming, of course, that they charged a reasonable (read low) fee for such a service.
Netflix and iTunes are wildly successful because they offer an enjoyable purchasing experience and (in the case of Netflix, at least) offer it at a reasonable price. A price low enough that it’s worth paying that instead of hunting down the content you want on the Internet.
The best part is that no laws were required to make these services happen…
Re: Some people will always pay for convenience
The movie and music industries pay far more fighting piracy than they actually lose through piracy. They are chasing after phantom dollars.
Source:CNN/Fortune: 25 ways of downloading Angry Birds
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Yep you can’t compete with free if you don’t try it, because if you do a good job no matter how much the competition is priced people will come to “you”, there is more to sales then just numbers there is trust, there is bragging rights, there is all the emotional ranges humans have and that makes people do things, and if you believe in people they will believe in “you”. They will reward people who work hard, we all are empathetic, we all want to do the right thing, we all want to be the good guys.
As for piracy, that is not really a problem is it? there are 20 different ways to make money out of imaginary goods and people will continue to make millions despite claims to the contrary.
Lagalize Non-commercial Filesharing
Human beings have been telling each other stories and singing songs to each other for thousands of years. It is called “maintaining the culture”. That activity is part of our human rights. It is a disgrace that laws have been written to make some of it illegal. That is corrupt legislative capture at its worst. All this is being done at the behest of a tiny industry of no economic significance. Seriously, the whole of Hollywood could close down tomorrow, and the US economy would not show a blip.
Filesharing is simply the modern way of doing culture. Non-commercial filesharing should be legal. Offering the providers of content a commercial-only monopoly for a limited time, is more than generous. When they ask for more, they should be firmly told not to be greedy. They should be told, “You are competing with free. Get used to it.”
but … but … theft!
I don’t know if the technology favours the pirates. The industry and pirates have access to the same technology. One of the above is simply deciding not to make full use of it (I’m not going to tell you who!)
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Only one of them has to pay for the content. Movie makers spend millions to make the more, a pirate spends a little bit of their time.
Even with exactly the same tools, one side loses money when they try to play the free game.
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Only one of them has to pay for the content. Movie makers spend millions to make the more, a pirate spends a little bit of their time.
No-one HAS to pay for the content – if these industries feel they can’t make enough return then they shouldn’t pay out to create it in the first place. They are businesses – they should act as businesses and invest where there will be a return.
Their employees (the actors, writers, musicians and technical staff) will have to find another mechanism to fund stuff – but, if you look around, you will see that such mechanisms are already around – eg kickstarter.
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And, as is, the only people who win are Congresscritters who are bribed and lawyers. That’s clearly the way to go backwards.
That blogger still thinks it’s 2003.
I have to ask..
1. how many times did you need to be hit in the head to understand HOW to catch a ball?
2. how long did it take you to Learn something..
In the 2 above instances..
1. 4..records, tape, Cassette, CD
2. THIS TIME? over 10 years..
I wont say HOW MUCH its cost them. we really dont know. I can tell you that it has COST them the opportunity to CREATE their own BUSINESS SITES.
If they had created Napster/itunes/AOL MUSIC/…/…/… They would have been 1000 fold ahead.
My blog post
Hello there — this is one Scott Kinoshita, the author of the blog on the CMO site. I appreciate the feedback; the blog post caused a nice amount of discussion on the CMO site.
I am aware that it is possible to “compete with free”, but that’s a subject for a follow-up post. As to the weakness of the second two arguments, I will admit I skimped a bit on back-up data, and I’ll try to back up my arguments more int he future.
I want to say that @Jesse is correct in modifying my second point; it’s less technology favouring one side and more one side not using the tech to their advantage.
The most requests I got were for a proposed solutions to property holders, and I’m drafting a follow-up post or two that outlines a framework I think could work. When live, I’d like to invite everyone to visit the CMO site and post their thoughts… or if I get mentioned again, feel free to drop input here.
Re: My blog post
Cheers!
I like this guy ^
More to the point - why try?
The entire concept of piracy comes from the fact that our society is crazy. We should be encouraging the greater spread of culture by sharing it around, the more the better. That’s absolutely a good thing for society as a whole.
It is only a bad thing for the people who need to make money off it to survive and/or get indecently wealthy. Instead, we should rearrange society so that money goes away, people’s needs get met by default (food, shelter, health care, education, entertainment) and we instead use the Earth’s resources jointly using things like reason and accounting instead of this crazed hallucination we call money and profit.
Re: More to the point - why try?
Define “culture”. Is it good for society if the culture of White Supremacy spreads? Is it good if the culture of pedophilia spreads? What about the culture of war? Cultures of disinformation–like Fox News? Cultures of hate? Nihilism? Some cultures are diametrically opposed to each other, Futurism vs. Humanism, for instance… how do we solve that problem?
Way to go! You’ve just invented Socialism! I’m sure that nothing can go wrong with it.
And who says people need education or entertainment? Prisoners of War seem to ‘survive’ (heh!) just fine without either.
And then my favorite: Use the Earth’s resources jointly. “Jointly” according to whom? Who decides how much each person should get? I always suspect that people who advocate socialism are secretly harboring the notion that they will be the ones making the call. I have some former revolutionaries cum refugees from Soviet Russia who might want a word with you…
Re: Re: More to the point - why try?
Paedophilia was once absolutely necessary for cultural survival (see, for example, 17-18th C. Marriage records, where the average marrying agew was well below the current ages of consent).
And you have a nice hate-on for Socialism. I think you are missing the point, in that ocialism is actually a humanitarian ideal, rather than a political philosophy.
Can't compete with free?
You can’t compete with free?
Tell that to dasni or fiji any of the other two thousand bottled water companies and they will laugh in your face all the way to the bank.
hmm…
More People Realizing That Infringement Can’t Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It
what about
More People Realizing That Murder/Rape Can’t Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It
why not, same logic set in use
Re: Extremes
WOW, have fun with the extremes..
you need to think about something here..
CORPS give value to CRAP.. Then make a market for it, and sell it to you.
Many of you arnt old enough to remember FREE dog and soup bones.. NOW you pay for them.
The true problem comes with VALUE, and if making perpetual(PAID FOR) products is ALLOWED.
Lets look at ATARI..they have been RE-creating the same programs over and over, to be placed on every computer they can Program for..and making MORE money. Hasbro, got pissed at someone making a Scrabble Computer program for 1 cellphone.
Music/Video corps WANT a product they can sell to you for years…They dont/wont take care of the original, but they will SUE you if you make a copy from Cable/sat/Broadcast..
Corps will sell you 1 penny worth of anything for the right price.. they will even make the ‘1 PENNY worth’ even LESS, and sell it to you. They love to sell you the SAME thing over and over (they even do it in the food market) LESS, value, MORE profit.
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Of course, like Sheldon in “Big Bang Theory”, one could just steal the film from the theator and thus gain access too a high quality full length version. 😛
Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated
I hear a lot of, as Chris puts it “pissing and moaning”, about the so-called piracy of various forms of media. What is not talked about very often is how difficult it is to find older movies, shows, songs or whatever. The laws keep lengthening the copyright terms but nothing is done to ensure that access is not lost. In fact the organizations regularly fail to give access to their media then sue and claim losses when they discover someone downloaded it.
It is frustrating. No sales are being lost, the product is not available for sale by anybody. Yet when a copy is downloaded and discovered you can bet you will hear about how families are going hungry because someone downloaded said product. Perhaps if common sense was legally enforced there would not be an issue.
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lol, are you my brother? That really sounds like something he would say. 🙂
Some people will always pay for convenience
tHERE IS A POINT HERE.
To market something you have to make a product AVAILABLE..
To the right area, person, nation…
THEIR problem is that they have NEVER, advanced the OLD tech products..even to SAVE the old products..
The only time they bring it OUT is when someone is willing to PAY for it..
They would prefer Scarcity over ABUNDANCE of product.
MAKE tons of money on something RARELY seen, over something that can be seen EVERY DAY, for Less.
How many here would love to RE-WATCh beanie and Cecil? Greatest american hero?
Bonanza…Have gun will travel…Phantom toll booth
Then comes another point..WHERE is it, and WHO has it?
It took LOTS of people to get them to release SOME old movies onto DVD..NOW, where was it released? WHO KNOWS..
Its like BEER in the USA..There are releases in certain areas, you will not find in others.. Bohimia, is restricted to certain areas…Mexican beer? is everywhere.
These selected LOCATIONS were created long ago..and CANT be changed.
STUPID.