The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet

from the and-things-keep-getting-better dept

Announcing The Sky Is Rising 2019: a new report offering a detailed look at the entertainment industry.

A funny thing happened on the way to the internet supposedly destroying the entertainment industry. It saved the entertainment industry instead.

A little over seven years ago, we released our first Sky is Rising report for CCIA. At the time, the key point we found in looking at the state of the modern entertainment industry was that the parts that were whining the loudest about how awful the internet was for content were only representing a very small part of the actual content industries. Recorded music may have been struggling as a business, but every other aspect of the music business was thriving. More music was being produced than ever before. More music was being consumed than ever before. More people were spending more money on music than ever before — just not in the traditional ways. Ditto for video. And books. As we noted back in that original report, if you focused on the supposed true purpose of copyright — to “promote the progress” of content production — it was clear that the internet had made that possible a lot more than “copyright” law ever did.

Today, again in partnership with CCIA, we’re releasing our brand new Sky is Rising report for 2019, again looking at the state of the global entertainment industry. And, once again, it’s thriving. But something big has changed in the past decade or so: even the legacy parts that were struggling when we put together the last report, the parts that were most impacted by the transformative nature of the internet, are now thriving as well. And in basically every case it’s because of the internet that the legacy companies have shunned and complained about (not to mention demanded a continuous, never-ending, new set of laws to “tame” the very internet that is saving them).

A few tidbits from the report, though I recommend reading the whole thing. Despite the doom and gloom statements from the industry about how consumers were just “getting stuff for free” and no longer interested in paying for content, the data shows that consumers continue to increase their spending. There was a temporary drop off… but it coincided not with the rise of the internet, but with the 2008 financial crisis:

The recorded music business is often the poster child for an industry “wrecked” by the internet. And you could potentially have made that argument a few years ago if you totally ignored the fact that more people were making and releasing music than ever before. But certainly, “recorded” music revenue had dropped… until, starting around 2014, that turned around. And it’s entirely due to streaming music, which last year accounted for nearly half of all recorded music revenue, and continues to grow at an astounding clip. Anyone who says that the internet has destroyed the recorded music business is lying to you:

But, that’s not all. As we detail in the report, all other aspects of the music business have continued to thrive — with much of it being because of the internet. The live music business has continued to grow. Music publishing and performance rights have continued to grow. Music merchandising has become a massive business in its own right. It’s literally nearly impossible to find any part of the music business that is struggling these days, despite what some folks in the industry will tell you. Of course, if you’re wondering why the RIAA and others changed their talking points from complaining about “piracy” to the made up concept of “the value gap,” this is why. They realized that things were going great, and all their talk about piracy killing the industry was increasingly going to ring hollow. So they invented this purely fictional concept of a “value gap” which is basically just whining that other industries are too successful and need to be forced to hand over more money. This too is an old playbook for the RIAA labels, who have spent decades trying to squeeze every penny out of any successful online service, continually insisting that if anyone else makes a dime off of music, it should instead go to the labels.

The video world is another fascinating realm. Netflix and other streaming video providers have helped created the golden age of TV-style programming these days. We detail in the report just how much Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming video services have been spending on content, leading to massive growth in original scripted TV programming. But, it’s not just the online streaming services. The number of original scripted TV programs on broadcast, basic cable and premium cable has also risen over the past decade. And this is all happening despite so much competition from other things people can do with their free time:

On the movie side of the coin, box office revenue continues to increase, both in the US and abroad. People are continuing to go to the movies, and more movies than ever before are being created around the globe. There was so much data here, we finally just had to stop adding more to get the report out.

In the past, some people argued that just talking about box office numbers was unfair, because where the internet was really having an impact was in destroying the home video market. There was some amount of irony in that given just how loudly and fiercely the MPAA itself had fought against there ever being a home video market (cue former MPAA boss Jack Valenti’s famous Congressional testimony, in which he declared: “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”). That wasn’t true back then, and it’s certainly not true today either. A few years after Valenti said that, the home video market brought in more revenue than the box office — and that’s still true today. The home video market is growing fast — and it’s almost all because of the internet. Note how much of the market is now subscription based, rather than transactional. That’s Netflix’s innovation, not the movie studios.

And then there’s books. Once again, rather than destroying the market, the internet has saved it. More and more books are being published. Interestingly, in the book market, the story was a bit different than elsewhere. While ebooks and audiobooks are now a significant portion of the book market, physical books seem to be making a bit of a comeback — and a lot of that has to do with the ability to buy them online.

Indeed, what we found in our research is that a tremendous uptick in new books is coming from authors self-publishing (in 2017, over a million self-published books were released for the first time — a massive increase over the past decade). Believe it or not, most of those self-published books are available as paper books, rather than ebooks, thanks to internet services like Amazon CreateSpace, Lulu and Blurb.

Indeed, as we saw back in the 2012 report, a huge part of the story of today’s entertainment industry is how much is now being driven not by the old gatekeepers, but by the fact that anyone can make use of the internet to create: whether it’s video, movies, music, books, or video games, lots of people are using the internet to create, to build an audience, to distribute globally… and to make some money. So many of the new “stars” are coming up via the internet, rather than waiting for some legacy gatekeeper to discover them. That hasn’t made those gatekeepers obsolete, but it’s certainly taken away some of their leverage.

Back in 2011, we noted that so many people kept referring to their being some sort of “war” between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but it struck us as odd that Silicon Valley kept coming up with the “weapons” that seemed likely to help Hollywood thrive. Eight years later, the evidence is in: the entertainment industry is thriving. The sky is rising. And Hollywood should be thanking the internet, rather than continuing to attack it at every single turn.

Go check out the full Sky Is Rising 2019 Report for a detailed look at the state of the entertainment industry today.

Filed Under: , , , , , , ,

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
167 Comments
any moose cow word says:

Re: Give and Take

Some also rather shutdown the internet to perpetuate the control schemes of legacy gatekeepers than let anyone else win. The war on "piracy" is mostly a false-flag used to shutdown or control any perceived competition. However, the gatekeepers losing that fight and some are willing to go nuclear to "win".

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Give and Take

Macroeconomics is not "everyone," but an average or aggregate. The average SAG-AFTRA member makes $6,000 a year and is advised, literally, not to quit their day jobs. The average self-publisher makes less than $1,000 a year. That’s a HOBBY to most. The walls that used to keep people from succeeding also kept them from pursuing their delusional dreams in the first place. NEW content may not even be driving this revenue.

The internet did not magically make any crimes go away, including piracy, and enabled many more, like digital fraud. There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable. What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie, who don’t suffer piracy, and a world without useful books that often take years to compile and reveal valuable formerly-secret information that just remains secret now.

Any good books on tax evasion on the internet? Why not?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Give and Take

"The internet did not magically make any crimes go away"

  • Who claimed it did?

" There is absolutely no justification for piracy"

  • there is no reason for false accusations or assuming guilt before due process or discovery
  • there is no reason to believe the corporation(s) by default

" allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable"

  • Why should the two be mutually exclusive?

"What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie"

  • not sure what sort of boogie man you are attempting to conjure up here nor why you think said handle is taking over the world.
John the Plagiarist (user link) says:

Re: Re: Give and Take

I, John the Plagiarist, care deeply about authros, who write things. Important things. Like me, John the Plagiarist.

My career has been styimied by pirates, who pirate things, and make it ipossible for me to make a living as a writer, who writes things, sometimes things that are not comments on Techdirt. Such as books full of useful information that tke years to compile, like the following, which I wrote all by myself and definitely did not just copy-paste from another source and post as if it were my own work.

When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle,’ as naturalist, I was much struck
with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings in-
habiting South America, and in the geological relations of the
present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as
will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw
some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as
it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my
return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might
perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating
and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any
bearing on it. After five years’ work I allowed myself to specu-
late on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I
enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then
seemed to me probable; from that period to the present day I
have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be
excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to
show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.

My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me
many more years to complete it, and as my health is far from
strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. I have more
especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now
studying the natural history of the Malay archipelago, has arrived
at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the
origin of species. In 1858 he sent me a memoir on this subject,
with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who
sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third
volume of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr.
Hooker, who both knew of my work— the latter having read my
sketch of 1844 — honoured me by thinking it advisable to publish,
with Mr. Wallace’s excellent memoir, some brief extracts from
my manuscripts.

Because of the Internet, and filthy, filthy pirates, I, John the Plagiarist, will choose to take my ball and go home and not share my many brilliant insights with the world, except for the several hours a day I spend commenting on Techdirt for free. People do not write things unless they are paid for them, which is why I write so many things that nobody pays me for, or wants.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

The walls that used to keep people from succeeding also kept them from pursuing their delusional dreams in the first place.

And if an artist fails to profit from their works, so be it. But at least now they have a better chance to try than they did when media was a completely one-way affair.

NEW content may not even be driving this revenue.

So what?

The internet did not magically make any crimes go away … and enabled many more

You could say the same thing about automobiles.

There is absolutely no justification for piracy

I believe in a single justification for piracy: When you buy digital content (or a “license” to that content) but the content is “unreadable” without jumping through a bunch of hoops (or is destined to become “unreadable”) due to Digital Restrictions Management, pirating a copy of the work you purchased is absolutely justified.

[There is absolutely no justification] for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable.

The Internet exists that way because it was ultimately designed to be an information-sharing network. Whether that information is covered by copyright is, and always will be, largely irrelevant. And if you cannot enforce copyright without turning the Internet into a one-way broadcast medium controlled by the same corporations that controlled pre-Internet media in the exact same way, maybe rethinking copyright is the proper thing to do. After all, if copyright can be destroyed by the Internet…well, you know the rest.

What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie

Do you mean “independent artists who make a name for themselves without relying on corporations to do it for them”? Because I would rather have them doing their thing, even if I dislike it, than be force-fed bland corporate slush because independent artists had to be sacrificed on the altar of copyright.

[What you will get is] a world without useful books that often take years to compile and reveal valuable formerly-secret information that just remains secret now

I have to wonder how many such “useful books” were left unpublished because the major book publishers passed on them.

Any good books on tax evasion on the internet?

Try Nintendo’s website; I hear Yoshi is an expert on the subject.

Thad (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

I believe in a single justification for piracy: When you buy digital content (or a “license” to that content) but the content is “unreadable” without jumping through a bunch of hoops (or is destined to become “unreadable”) due to Digital Restrictions Management, pirating a copy of the work you purchased is absolutely justified.

I’ve got another: works that are still under copyright but out-of-print and unlikely to be reprinted in the foreseeable future.

Jack Kirby wrote and drew a comic book series based on 2001: A Space Odyssey at Marvel in the 1970s. It’s never been collected, and it’s never been reprinted. As it was a licensed comic and the rights have long since expired, it is unlikely that it will ever be collected or reprinted.

If I grab a torrent of those comics, none of the creators or rightsholders are losing out on any sales. Marvel and MGM aren’t losing out on a sale, because there is no way to buy the book from them. Jack Kirby, Stanley Kubrick, and Arthur C Clarke are not losing out on their cut from a sale, because they are dead. (And also because Marvel didn’t pay Jack Kirby royalties, but that’s a whole other topic.)

The comic isn’t difficult to find on eBay — I see an auction right now that’s got the complete run in Good/Very Good condition with the bidding currently at $30 with a couple days left to go, and another complete run in Very Fine/Near-Mint condition with a Buy it Now price of $100 — so I suppose that if John the Plagiarist wanted to make a very sincere argument that piracy hurts legal markets, he could argue that piracy is competing with the nice people on eBay who are selling used comic books, and driving down the price they can get for those used comic books. But this would be a foolish argument, as the market for collectors is not the same as the market for readers. Someone who just wants to read Kirby’s 2001 will find it online, sure, but someone who wants to own Kirby’s 2001, for their collection, will still want to buy it; merely owning a digital copy will not satisfy a collector.

(You see the same thing among collectors of other media; for example, there’s a thriving market for used video games — and rare and sought-after ones can get quite expensive! — even though the ROMs aren’t hard for pirates to find online.)

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

I’ve got another: works that are still under copyright but out-of-print and unlikely to be reprinted in the foreseeable future.

Another example is Capcom’s 1994 arcade beat-’em-up Alien vs. Predator. The game was never released on any home console (though it was planned for the Sega 32X at one point), and given the myriad of legal hurdles that would likely be involved in getting those licenses together again for the sake of re-releasing the game, I doubt it ever will be. That means the only legal way to play it is to find an actual AvP arcade cabinet — and a 25-year-old arcade game is likely hard to find these days, never mind finding one in fully playable condition.

JMT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"Do you mean “independent artists who make a name for themselves without relying on corporations to do it for them”? Because I would rather have them doing their thing, even if I dislike it, than be force-fed bland corporate slush because independent artists had to be sacrificed on the altar of copyright."

Couldn’t agree more. A quick check of the 80 YouTube channels I’m subscribed to shows about 90% of them to be independent creators that wouldn’t have been able to do their thing under legacy systems. Personally I find their content is considerably more entertaining and informative than broadcast dreck, which I rarely watch any more as a result.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Give and Take

The average self-publisher makes less than $1,000 a year.

You got data to support that? Also, remember how averages work, one or two who make only a small amount of money drag the average down. So your data needs to show, specifically, that X number of people make less than $1,000 a year, while Y number of people make more than $1,000 a year. Saying the "average" person is meaningless otherwise.

The walls that used to keep people from succeeding also kept them from pursuing their delusional dreams in the first place.

So you’re against people pursuing their dreams? Who are you to decide they are delusional? Some people, like Youtubers, had a dream to do Youtube videos. Some didn’t even care if they made it big or not, they just wanted to. If they were prevented from pursuing that dream, they never would have been on Youtube or made it big like some of the big names out there today.

NEW content may not even be driving this revenue.

Facts, data, and statistics please.

The internet did not magically make any crimes go away

No one said they did.

enabled many more

I’m sorry, are you seriously making the argument that just because some new thing was given to people and that some people used it to commit "new types" of crimes (because of the new thing) that we should never give people new things? I laugh in your general direction.

This completely ignores the massive benefits the internet has brought with it that, quite literally, far outweigh any new crimes or downsides. That’s not to say we should do nothing to prevent those crimes, but saying the internet is garbage solely because some people figured out how to do some bad things with it is preposterous.

There is absolutely no justification for piracy,

Well, actually, there is. Do you recall tape/CD copying/ripping in the 80s and 90s? It allowed people to share new music to friends/family who got introduced to music they liked and subsequently went and bought new albums and concert tickets. Free advertising. Now not all piracy can be justified, but when Ed Sheeran and other artists are encouraging fans to copy and freely share their work, I’d say there is at least some justification for it.

There is absolutely no justification…..for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable.

Human existence makes copyright unenforceable. Are you suggesting the human race should not be allowed to exist because they infringe copyright? That’s cute. Just because there are challenges, doesn’t make it bad.

What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie, who don’t suffer piracy, and a world without useful books that often take years to compile and reveal valuable formerly-secret information that just remains secret now.

Have you heard of Wikileaks? I hear they "reveal valuable formerly-secret information" that is now public knowledge.

And it’s hard to suffer piracy when you give your work away for free, essentially. It costs me nothing to go watch one of his videos and I can even download it for free and share it if I want. Perhaps he found a business model that works better and is more resilient to piracy. Perhaps that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

Any good books on tax evasion on the internet?

Actually, there are.

Why not?

Because you don’t know how to use a search engine?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Give and Take

The average SAG-AFTRA member makes $6,000 a year and is advised, literally, not to quit their day jobs. The average self-publisher makes less than $1,000 a year. That’s a HOBBY to most.

There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable.

I think you’ve lost sight of something here. Copyright does not exist to help provide a limited set of people with a full-time job: it exists to promote progress in design and expression. You do touch on that here:

a world without useful books that often take years to compile and reveal valuable formerly-secret information that just remains secret now.

Now. Imagine a world where ANYONE can publish useful information and get paid for it. Sure, they’re not going to be able to make a full-time living slowly releasing a trickle of "formerly-secret" information to the general public; they’re going to have something that they do in their regular life and are an expert at, and say "hey, I could make a bit more on the side by self-publishing this!" And then suddenly their annual income goes up by $1,000/year and they have incentive to try that again in the future.

What it cuts out is situations where some publishing house says "sure, I’ll publish your information, but it isn’t valuable enough on its own. So sell it to us, and we’ll combine it with similar information we’ve bought from others and sell the whole thing." As a result, that publishing house, which has done nothing other than be a broker, makes a bunch of money, some of the original authors make $1,000/year, and many potential authors never bother to publish their "secret" information.

Then the publication lags in quarterly earnings and the publisher stops doing new runs, and bam! ALL that hoarded information is no longer available.

What I’m saying here is that the arguments you make about monetary reimbursement and motivation, piracy and publication go two ways. Sure, you’ll have some people who will be worse off with digital publishing. But you’ll have many many more people who will be better off because of it. And the gatekeepers who enable the few to make a living off of information brokering also prevent the natural flow of that same information.

In the future, information brokers won’t be needed. What WILL be needed is information analysts and "translators" — people who can find the signal in all the noise.

We can already see that today, with YouTube personalities who tell others things they already know becoming superstars. The information is out there; it’s all about how it’s packaged.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Give and Take

*"The automobile did not magically make any crimes go away, including robbery, and enabled many more, like carjacking.

Fixed that for you.

I’m afraid, Baghdad Bob, that we do not live in the 18th century any more.

"There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable."

You are wrong on both counts. Almost every progress made since the invention of fire has made many acts viewed as unlawful at the time unenforceable.
And justification certainly exists for most forms of unlawful behavior – because if what you claim is true then there is no "justification" today for women being able to vote, or, for that matter, the US opposing and repealing, by force, a silly tax on tea back in its colonial days.

Federico (profile) says:

Their cut of the profits

Ah, you point to the overall revenue but you forget that greedy Google is getting all the profits with its scandalous margins!

Compare
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_sony.pdf
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/ar/ar_sony_2000.pdf

In the golden days (1999), Sony was making a nice 5 % profit margin on its Music department. Now (2017) it’s only… 16 %!

You wouldn’t know how expensive it is to develop streaming platforms and digital restrictions management, compared to printing discs and shipping them around the world.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Their cut of the profits

Yeah, but that was 5% of a disc with mostly filler that people had to buy to get the song they actually wanted, while today it’s 16% of single plays of that one song they wanted in the first place. Meanwhile, they have to compete not just with their own cartel members, but with musicians over whom they have no direct control!

Anonymous Coward says:

‘The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet’
considering how these same industries have fought tooth and nail to get old laws updated and new laws into place, by doing anything and everything possible from bribery to causing deaths (and yes, the fuckers DID cause suicides to happen because of their continuous harassment!), you’d better not tell them this! they have almost achieved their goal of taking complete control of the Internet, just as they have been after for the last 3 decades, destroying anyone and anything that they felt was in their way. now they have almost got what they wanted, you saying they have been flourishing more because of something they didn’t control or own? wow! what a turn up for the books!

Anonymous Coward says:

"You wouldn’t know how expensive it is to develop streaming platforms and digital restrictions management, compared to printing discs and shipping them around the world."

As one who has developed many services for product distribution, the statement you made is definitely misleading.

Physical distribution cost companies huge amounts of money, even to this day as retailers work toward unifying distribution centers as a way to cut those costs.

Digital distribution has far significant lower operational costs, even if there is a startup cost for web design and hosting (much of this is now outsourced as well, including AWS, Azure, and Google).

What makes digital distribution profitable is because it literally reaches billions, provided the PUBLISHER stops being shitheads and puts their products out there.

Back in the day, VCR movies used to cost $99+ dollars. I still remember Indiana Jones costing $129 if I wanted to own it.

Columbia Pictures, yes, that same movie company, broke the mold and dropped prices to $19.99. The consumer market exploded with purchases. Remember your VCR library?

As technology changed, people’s habits also changed. Not too many people rushed to replace their $19.99 VCR tape with a $25 DVD, and yes, prices did go up because movie studios can’t help blaming technology for their woes while pushing the prices up because "technology". Physical Bluray prices are ridiculous and there’s nothing special about them.

More importantly: people can’t stand "movie collections" anymore, and rightfully so. Why deal with having to store movies when it’s accessible online?

Unfortunately, movie publishers still haven’t figured out this internet thing, including Columbia pictures.

The majority of movies we’d like to watch aren’t available online, over a false sense of "piracy" or "lost revenue". Instead, 3rd party companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime are forced to show knock-off movies while trying to get newer releases at a discount.

I remember Reed Hastings once telling shareholders the reason Netflix can’t stream newer releases is because the industry was demanding $16 million.

PER. MOVIE!

This insanity is why movie studios whine about "loss": not that piracy was a problem, because no reasonable person in the world would pay that much to license a movie.

Unfortunately, we’re now back to these fucking retarded gatekeepers putting up silos and charging access to them.

Mason Wheeler (profile) says:

"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

Valenti was probably right… just not in the way he thought.

During the 1960s, the population of Boston was between approximately 640,000 and 700,000 people. Statistically, approximately half of them would have been women, and between approximately 65-70% of Americans were children during that time. A bit of quick math gives us approximately 100,000 adult women.

All those possible targets, and the Boston Strangler murdered a grand total of 13 of them.

The VCR was to the American film producer as the Boston Strangler was to the woman home alone: very scary to talk about, but the amount of actual damage done was negligible.

Shamus O'Masnick and his Irish Bulls says:

Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.

1) This would not occur if Masnick’s loony "give away and pray" or "sell T-shirts" notions were followed. The only way that profits occur is direct paying.

2) The legal measures to enforce "exclusive right" to control copies is the key.

3) Teh internets is only a distribution channel, has ZERO draw for itself. Masnick as ever attributes water coming out the taps as due to the pipe, nothing else.

4) Only content is a draw.

5) You have written this same schtick at least a dozen times, essentially trying to take credit for industry efforts besides claim that piracy can be ignored. Both are wrong and false.

Mason Wheeler (profile) says:

Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.

3) Teh internets is only a distribution channel, has ZERO draw for itself. Masnick as ever attributes water coming out the taps as due to the pipe, nothing else.

4) Only content is a draw.

Ah yes, the old "content is king" nonsense. This is not true, and never has been true. The true value in any communications medium is not content, but rather connectivity: the ability for people to use the medium to communicate directly with one another. This is why the Network Effect is a thing, and why the Internet has grown bigger than broadcast in a far shorter span of time.

Connectivity is king, and always has been. Content is just riding its coattails, and people trying to proclaim the superiority of content are usurpers and ought to be treated as such.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.

Guess a definition of "content" would be helpful here.

One could claim that everything on the internet is content … data being contained on the internet.

However, I suspect that the word content has become a misnomer for copyrighted material put up for sale by big media players and somehow no longer refers to anything made by those who are not part of the big boy media players.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Connectivity is king, and always has been. Content is just riding its coattails, and people trying to proclaim the superiority of content are usurpers and ought to be treated as such.

I wouldn’t treat either side as inherently ‘better’ than the other, as done right they operate in a symbiotic relationship.

Doesn’t matter how good(or bad) your stuff is if no-one can find it.

Doesn’t matter how easy it is to find stuff, if nothing that can be found is something people want.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re:

This would not occur if Masnick’s loony "give away and pray" or "sell T-shirts" notions were followed. The only way that profits occur is direct paying.

If even one artist — just one! — follows one (or both) of those two philosophies and still makes a profit, your absolutist statement becomes meaningless.

(I would recommend preparing to eat some crow, by the by — I’m sure other commenters will have examples to point out.)

The legal measures to enforce "exclusive right" to control copies is the key.

The funny thing is, plenty of high-profile movies, books, games, etc. get pirated all the time — and yet the corporations that own those copyrights still make a profit. (Or do you think Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t pirated because it was profitable?)

Teh internets is only a distribution channel, has ZERO draw for itself.

So what?

Only content is a draw.

So what?

You have written this same schtick at least a dozen times

…and we have become exceedingly efficient at countering your rantings each time one is posted. You should maybe pick up a new hobby. (I suggest craft brewing.)

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"One person claiming to speak for a "we.""

There are at least an even dozen posters on this thread alone which heartily agree with him. So yes. "We".

Whereas you, otoh, have gotten caught sock puppeting so often that by now I’m half-convinced you believe the voices in your head alone serve to make you a majority.

Watching a man standing in a river and trying to push it back up by pissing against the stream is only funny for so long, Baghdad Bob.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.

1) This would not occur if Masnick’s loony "give away and pray" or "sell T-shirts" notions were followed. The only way that profits occur is direct paying.

Yes it is, and people will pay people to have new content created. The ability to tell a story in a compelling fashion is whatever media you choose to use is a valuable skill, and once demonstrated can be the basis for gaining support to continue telling new stories. Give content away. and rely on Patreon is a viable business model, at least if you objective is to make a living. It may not be the way to get rich, but enables people to do what they enjoy as a full time job.

MathFox says:

3) Teh internets is only a distribution channel, has ZERO draw for itself. Masnick as ever attributes water coming out the taps as due to the pipe, nothing else.

The Internet is a communication channel. See the success of WhatsApp, Skype, Signal and other ways to make free (or cheap) video calls.

4) Only content is a draw.

There is a large draw to information, especially to information about how friends and relatives are doing.
And I don’t know why publishers use the word content for the bottled up culture they store in their vaults. It makes it sound that they are just selling a bulk product like potatoes or flour.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The internet has a lot of marketing "information" and MIS-information on it, but quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it.

Content is NOT king, which is why artists have signed away their rights since long before the internet. They want to tap into the large audiences of the big studios and producers.

A thriving industry is macroeconomics that has little to do with the individual. In no way should piracy be justified no matter how well anyone is doing, since that puts money in the hands of organized crime.

Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each is an internet which is already broken. "Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers, those who make what the pirates take.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each is an internet which is already broken.

If 800 books are only worth [does the math] $16, they can’t be very good books. And as for the “internet which is already broken” bit: The Internet was designed to transfer information; whether the information being transferred is under copyright ultimately is irrelevant to that primary function.

"Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers, those who make what the pirates take.

Yes, because the only good Internet is one where information only flows one way and from “approved” sources such as major corporations~. Independent artists will just have to do without all their fancy distribution networks unless they can fork over thousands upon thousands of dollars to become an “approved” source because who gives a fuck about them otherwise~.

(Question: When you kiss Mickey Mouse’s ass, does it smell like cheese?)

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"If 800 books are only worth [does the math] $16, they can’t be very good books. And as for the “internet which is already broken” bit: The Internet was designed to transfer information; whether the information being transferred is under copyright ultimately is irrelevant to that primary function."

Except many of the books that were illegally sold were bestsellers at regular prices, by celebrity authors who are already wealthy and obviously either didn’t want to publicize the piracy or didn’t think they could stop it. It would take the presence of a mainstream, respected journalist to get an answer that isn’t a nonsequitur like that.

The person who stole the books didn’t have to pay for them, and every time someone downloaded that book, they became an "eyeball" for any advertisements, which is also where money is made (just ask Google). What this did was turn e-books into marketing copy for extremely high-priced, personalized instruction that subsidizes it, instruction available to the wealthy, not the masses.

Article 13 passed because governments lose tax revenue every time a work is pirated. Without copyright protection, those who would have created good material simply won’t, leaving the niche to the opportunists and thieves, hardly to the benefit of the public.

It’s like the erosion of housing laws due to "tenant screening." Sure, it’s legal to sue your landlord if a piece of your ceiling comes crashing down in your kitchen and almost kills you, but are you going to do that if merely filing the lawsuit puts you on a blacklist that means no one will rent to you? The tenant won’t complain, will quietly move out, and one day the entire building is going to collapse because no one was there to sound the alarm. Watch the local news and you’ll see buildings that DO collapse, or blow up, or burn to the ground, in part because tenants have no practical power to speak up.

Applied to piracy, an author with no practical power to protect his or her work is going to protect it by only doing work that pays well enough to justify its creation, and with valuable information, that means charging exceptionally high prices for content marketed directly to the wealthy, i.e., patronage, which is also what copyright was designed to stop by making it more available to the masses.

If something isn’t that good, people have the option not to steal it.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

Except many of the books that were illegally sold were bestsellers at regular prices, by celebrity authors who are already wealthy and obviously either didn’t want to publicize the piracy or didn’t think they could stop it. It would take the presence of a mainstream, respected journalist to get an answer that isn’t a nonsequitur like that.

How would having a “mainstream” journalist around get you any better an answer than the one I gave you?

The person who stole the books didn’t have to pay for them, and every time someone downloaded that book, they became an "eyeball" for any advertisements, which is also where money is made (just ask Google).

They might have had adblockers on, you never know. (Also: Adblockers are an actual thing.)

What this did was turn e-books into marketing copy for extremely high-priced, personalized instruction that subsidizes it, instruction available to the wealthy, not the masses.

Yes, yes, we all know that you are a scam artist who is upset that all his “secrets” got leaked on a CD-ROM in Africa for mere pennies. What scam do you specialize in: Ponzi schemes or mail fraud? Or are you one of those pick-up artist douchecanoes that teaches guys how to “persuade” consent out of women who are “playing hard-to-get” by saying “no”?

Article 13 passed because governments lose tax revenue every time a work is pirated.

[citation needed]

Without copyright protection, those who would have created good material simply won’t

[citation needed]

(Also: I consider anything I create to be in the public domain for anyone to use as they wish. If I can monetize it, cool; if not, I can make something new and try again.)

It’s like the erosion of housing laws due to "tenant screening."

No. No, it is not.

an author with no practical power to protect his or her work is going to protect it by only doing work that pays well enough to justify its creation, and with valuable information, that means charging exceptionally high prices for content marketed directly to the wealthy, i.e., patronage

Patreon is already a thing. Try to keep up.

which is also what copyright was designed to stop by making it more available to the masses

And yet, copyright has evolved into a system where a copyright term lasts longer than the lives of everyone who initially experienced a given creative work, which ultimately robs “the masses” of the chance to (legally) use that creative work as a springboard for their own creativity, which is one significant way that culture moves forward. Avengers: Endgame will eventually enter the public domain (and this is assuming no changes to the length of a copyright term crop up between now and then) sometime in the early 22nd Century; how many people going to see it on its opening weekend do you think will live long enough to see that happen?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

"How would having a “mainstream” journalist around get you any better an answer than the one I gave you?"

Well someone here MIGHT say that a book that sold a few million copies at $25 each "couldn’t be that good" if it was stolen and sold for two cents, but if they did, the journalist would have a field day picking apart the logic.

This site put up the article about tenants who had sued landlords being blacklisted, so you’re really just saying the author of that piece was wrong.

Doesn’t matter anyway: Article 13 passed, and piracy will be stopped one way or another, except for those who are simply determined to break the law.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Article 13 passed, and piracy will be stopped one way or another

Article 13 will do nothing to directly target piracy. If anything, it will only target existing legal websites offering legal services that might be used by a small subset of users for the purpose of copyright infringement. Existing “pirate sites” will not be affected because…well, if they could be affected by pre-13 copyright and anti-piracy laws, they already would be.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Remember when you didn’t care about article 13

“except for those who are simply determined to break the law.”

And all those people who break it unknowingly or accidentally. But that’s the first time you’ve admitted 13 won’t do shit. Baby steps crybaby Jhon. But progress is progress bro.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

"Doesn’t matter anyway: Article 13 passed, and piracy will be stopped one way or another, except for those who are simply determined to break the law."

So basically piracy won’t be impacted worth shit because article 13 won’t affect any "sites" pirates would actually use.

Article 13 will be a decisive axe to the neck for legal independent artists and platforms who will no longer be able to carry them profitably, but the only pirates who will be impacted are the few morons dumb enough to try to use open streaming platforms for their downloads and uploads.

Piracy already won the game and the one and only way you get to do jack shit about it will be when the plug is completely pulled on the internet.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

And adding to that comment; Even the copyright cult as a whole has realized that piracy is not going away, nor is it ever going to stop or be reduced.

Which is why every talking point of today’s lobbyists only uses "piracy" as a weight to give credence to actual anti-competitive legislation meant to take out legal competition.

Article 13’s one and only use is to throw a wrench on the independent DIY market model. Nothing else. It’s a blatant attempt to reduce competition over eyeball time and brand awareness.

It gives not a single fuck about "piracy" because that’s not its intended use nor does it have any mechanism which aims at piracy either directly or indirectly.

And that leaves you, a single voice in the desert, braying about "pirates" while every one of your allies except the odd persistent copyright troll have quit the field.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

every time someone downloaded that book, they became an "eyeball" for any advertisements

Yes, an eyeball who saw an advertisement for the author’s work (the book they downloaded) and probably went on to buy more of their work that had not yet been pirated. Assuming they liked it of course.

There are no advertisements in piracy other than for the author’s own work. Saying otherwise just shows you don’t know how piracy works. Pirates don’t advertise themselves or other pirates. It’s kind of counterproductive to keep being a pirate and not landing in jail.

Article 13 passed because governments lose tax revenue every time a work is pirated.

Yes, we know. They were bribed by legacy entertainment industries. To not pass it would have been to cut off all that nice lobbying money.

Without copyright protection, those who would have created good material simply won’t, leaving the niche to the opportunists and thieves, hardly to the benefit of the public.

Tell that to Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Da Vinci, Aristotle, etc….

Sure, it’s legal to sue your landlord if a piece of your ceiling comes crashing down in your kitchen and almost kills you, but are you going to do that if merely filing the lawsuit puts you on a blacklist that means no one will rent to you?

Yes. Because getting blacklisted due to landlord incompetence and holding him accountable for it is not reality.

Watch the local news and you’ll see buildings that DO collapse, or blow up, or burn to the ground, in part because tenants have no practical power to speak up.

[Citation needed]

My local news has had no such stories.

Applied to piracy, an author with no practical power to protect his or her work is going to protect it by only doing work that pays well enough to justify its creation

Allow me to introduce you to all the artists on Patreon, Deviantart, Soundcloud, etc… who don’t get paid hardly anything for their work, they just enjoy creating.

with valuable information, that means charging exceptionally high prices for content marketed directly to the wealthy, i.e., patronage, which is also what copyright was designed to stop by making it more available to the masses.

That is quite the leap of logic you have going on there.

If something isn’t that good, people have the option not to steal it.

They also have the option to not buy it.

Check and mate.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Not all pirated works leave the creator’s name intact. Some alter that information and the public is unaware. I’ve seen this many times.

Just because some create content as a hobby that does not justify piracy. It means that entertainment is a hobby, and the quality of the work shows.

Let’s say someone gave you ten stock picks and nine of them doubled within a year. Now they say they’ve written a book which explains their method. How much would that book be worth? You can’t say "prove yourself" because they just did, and they can spend forever doing that.

Let’s say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?

In a world without piracy, they could publish the book and get rich. In a world WITH piracy, they have no choice but to just dangle the FREE MONEY in front of the public until someone’s greed kicks in and they’ll pay ANY price for the hope of getting rich. Have you seen how internet marketing works? There are entire forums dedicated to giving away e-books or selling them at very low prices to get distribution lists.

Now if you say ALL of these products are scams, that’s a separate argument, but we know they aren’t. Beat The Dealer was published in 1962 and taught card-counting. People made millions for over a decade before the casinos started kicking people out, and even after that the MIT group found another way to do it and made millions more. Someone else found a way to leverage the lottery when it had a jackpot and made millions. If they published their method, what would it be worth?

There is extremely valuable information out there. How to get hired at a big tech company, for one. What’s a six-figure job worth to someone currently making a fraction of that? The whole point of books is to transfer valuable information to people. Without copyright, there’s no profit in using books to teach people. The "new business model" is to drop hints, just enough proof to convince a whale to part with a large amount of money, i.e., a patron, not an audience.

The how-to books you see now contain very little information, and are just marketing copy for more expensive seminars, such as how to get cast in Hollywood, how to get published, etc. Not very easy to call someone a scam if their stocks keep doubling, and if you think no one is going to grab that bait once they see someone doing it, you’re wrong.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Let’s say someone gave you ten stock picks and nine of them doubled within a year. Now they say they’ve written a book which explains their method. How much would that book be worth?

Let’s say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?

Let’s say your examples sound like a scam artist trying to ply his trade. How much would your comments be worth?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Not all pirated works leave the creator’s name intact. Some alter that information and the public is unaware.

Because it’s so hard to tell whether Marvel made that latest Avenger’s movie everyone is pirating. This is dumb beyond belief. A quick internet search is all you need to find out who wrote/created something, and if they plastered a fake name on it, it becomes pretty evident quickly. Which again, defeats the entire purpose of piracy. People pirate content they already know about, they aren’t going to be duped by fake creator names.

I’ve seen this many times.

Name one.

Just because some create content as a hobby that does not justify piracy.

Putting words in my mouth, I didn’t say that. What I did say is that piracy does have justification in certain scenarios, and listed one.

It means that entertainment is a hobby, and the quality of the work shows.

Yes. A work’s quality should stand on its own, not whether it was released by a major publisher, an indie, or pirated off the net. It doesn’t matter.

Let’s say someone gave you ten stock picks and nine of them doubled within a year. Now they say they’ve written a book which explains their method. How much would that book be worth?

About $0. Because frankly, all they proved is that they got lucky 9 out of 10 times.

Let’s say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?

Whatever the public market deems it to be worth. Which could be anywhere from $0 – who knows based on its content.

In a world without piracy, they could publish the book and get rich.

No, they couldn’t. If piracy didn’t exist, there is still no guarantee that anyone would buy their book, which is required for them to make money. Eliminating piracy does not guarantee them monetary income.

In a world WITH piracy, they have no choice but to just dangle the FREE MONEY in front of the public until someone’s greed kicks in and they’ll pay ANY price for the hope of getting rich.

Uh, yeah, that doesn’t change if piracy goes away. That’s how it works. You don’t make money if nobody buys your stuff.

Have you seen how internet marketing works?

I have, but you apparently have not.

There are entire forums dedicated to giving away e-books or selling them at very low prices to get distribution lists.

Yeah, these are all scammers and not legitimate artists. Legitimate artists don’t do that.

Legitimate artists give away e-books or sell them at very low prices and say "hey, if you liked that, I’ve also written these other books, so come check me out!". Nobody legitimate does distribution lists anymore because it’s not an effective marketing tactic.

Now if you say ALL of these products are scams, that’s a separate argument, but we know they aren’t.

No, the majority of them are. Legitimate artists don’t do that. Look at all the artists on Youtube, Deviantart, soundcloud, Patreon, Amazon, etc… Prove me wrong.

Beat The Dealer was published in 1962 and taught card-counting. People made millions for over a decade

[Citation needed] Also, I’ve never heard of that book.

after that the MIT group found another way to do it and made millions more. Someone else found a way to leverage the lottery when it had a jackpot and made millions. If they published their method, what would it be worth?

This is all a very narrow group of content that can be labeled as "self-help" or "get-rich" quick schemes. Or just flat out scammers teaching you how to scam others. This is not the same as actual artists making music, videos, paintings, digital/physical art, or other forms of entertainment.

My take away from this is your "get rich quick" scheme fell through and now you’re mad because you can’t scam anyone with your books because people got wise to you and others like you and blocked all your spam from your distribution list in their spam filters.

There is extremely valuable information out there.

All easily available within five minutes on the internet.

How to get hired at a big tech company, for one.

Unless there is some magic lamp that grants your wish of getting hired at a tech company, there is no 100% fool proof method for this or anything else.

What’s a six-figure job worth to someone currently making a fraction of that?

It’s worth whatever amount of hard work they are willing to put in to make their dreams come true. Anyone selling a "sure fire way" is a scammer.

The whole point of books is to transfer valuable information to people.

As is the point of the internet. And cat memes.

Without copyright, there’s no profit in using books to teach people.

So switch to an online e-book model where there is zero cost to publish.

The "new business model" is to drop hints, just enough proof to convince a whale to part with a large amount of money, i.e., a patron, not an audience.

No, that’s really not it. That’s called a scam and isn’t what the majority of creators on the internet are doing. But advertising yourself and your products is, and always will be, a valid business model.

The how-to books you see now contain very little information,

Because people recognize them for the scam they are and most of that information is now public knowledge and freely available on the internet. Why would they pay for worthless information?

such as how to get cast in Hollywood

Because they hire everyone who follows that method. Right. Not.

how to get published

Create free seller store on Amazon and upload book. There, you’re published.

Not very easy to call someone a scam if their stocks keep doubling

Show me someone who did this and I’ll show you how they got lucky or made wise investments. Neither of which can be found in your "get rich quick" books.

if you think no one is going to grab that bait once they see someone doing it, you’re wrong.

We call those people gullible and people like you selling it to them, scam artists because 95% of people who follow those books, pay more money "learning" how to make it big than actually making it big.

If those books worked, everyone in the world would be a millionaire, but their not and they don’t work.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

"This is dumb beyond belief."

Yes, but not because such things don’t happen. What he means is that after spending so long ranting and raving against what he thinks is being said by people here, he still doesn’t grasp the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.

"Look at all the artists on Youtube, Deviantart, soundcloud, Patreon, Amazon, etc…"

They don’t count because reasons. Also, they don’t use mailing lists to scam people like it’s 1995, so our boy here doesn’t recognise them as valid platforms.

"So switch to an online e-book model where there is zero cost to publish."

He didn’t mention publishing costs. What he means is that it’s harder to scam people by offering rich schemes when those schemes have been shared and exposed to people not on his magical mailing list.

"If those books worked, everyone in the world would be a millionaire"

Oh, they work at their intended purpose (making money for scam artists), just not their claimed purpose (making money for everybody else). Our boy here is just bitter because he had some luck before spam filters did their job properly and before his customer base moved away from email to social media, and he once saw one of his con tricks on a torrent site, so he can’t believe it’s him at fault.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

"Let’s say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?"

Literally nothing, once enough brokers had learned that method to drop the success rate to where out of fifteen picks, thirteen were losses. The stock market, you see, is still basically a game of wagers which consists of winners and losers.

A book like that, once published, assuming the methods works to begin with, would last just as long as it takes for the major brokers to build a counter to those methods into the algorithms controlling the massive scale purchase-and-sell shell game which makes up most of the market transactions these days.

If you believe your theory actually has relevance you need to go back to school and study something called "game theory".

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

"quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it"

  • I call bullshit

"A thriving industry is macroeconomics that has little to do with the individual. "

  • Is this why they seem to not give a shit about their customers?

""Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers"

  • False dichotomy

"those who make what the pirates take."

  • As if no other content was ever created by anyone other than the "producers". What/who is a "producer"? Can anyone be a Producer?
Thad (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

I wanna be a producer
With a hit show on Broadway
I wanna be a producer
Lunch at Sardi’s every day

I wanna be a producer
Sport a top hat and a cane
I wanna be a producer
And drive those chorus girls insane

I wanna be a producer
And sleep until half-past two
I wanna be a producer
And say, "You, you, you, not you"

I wanna be a producer
Wear a tux on opening nights
I wanna be a producer
And see my name, Leo Bloom, in lights

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

The internet has a lot of marketing "information" and MIS-information on it, but quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it.

Really? Then do tell why the INTERNET is the place to go for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and professionals to find relative, accurate information for the various questions they have and to further their knowledge and information of their selected subject.

I supposed all those "how-to" guides and videos are completely inaccurate then? It’s just dumb luck people were able to repair their cars or homes after watching or reading them online?

Content is NOT king,

Make. Up. Your. Mind.

In no way should piracy be justified no matter how well anyone is doing, since that puts money in the hands of organized crime.

Then why are artists constantly giving away their work for free and, in some cases, encouraging their fans to copy and share it?

Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each

Do you not understand how piracy works? Pirated works aren’t "sold" for any amount of money. They are given away free. If someone is selling them then they are either a legit reseller or a scam artist. But NOT a pirate.

an internet which is already broken

Please explain how this is limited to the internet and not something which has been going on since the beginning of the human race. Only then does this assertion hold any truth.

"Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers

And also breaking it for the average joe, ruining what made the internet great and allowed EXPONENTIALLY LARGER numbers of people to make money plying their art. Sorry but producers can eat it. What you want is a few large corporations dictating who wins and who loses and doesn’t stop piracy at all. Or do you not remember tape/disk sharing/copying/ripping?

those who make what the pirates take.

Please cite statistics proving that 90+% of internet users are just a bunch of filthy pirates who don’t pay for anything.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

"The internet has a lot of marketing "information" and MIS-information on it, but quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it."

Ah, so THAT is why there are no consumer reviews available anywhere online anymore…Oh, wait, there are dozens, meaning you can EASILY get more marketing information, from a dozen sources, than you could before the internet where the one and only marketing "information" was the one hyped by the unscrupulous company peddling the flawed product.

"Content is NOT king, which is why artists have signed away their rights since long before the internet."

And have in good tradition signed themselves out at earliest opportunity. The media industry’s slavery/indentured serf contract type is WELL known. The internet offered options, which is what really bugs all those labels unable to say "Our way or the highway. Now drop your pants, sugar" any longer.

"Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each is an internet which is already broken."

Bullshit. Any communications structure which actually works to communicate with will similarly "allow" what you whine about.
Your argument, if applied logically, means that we similarly need to "fix" the road network which allows millions of people to speed every day.

""Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers, those who make what the pirates take."

No. Breaking the internet means breaking it for everyone. By the time the pirates get affected, no other business in the world will be able to operate.
The proportion of pirates in China was some 90% of their online citizenry in 2011…according to the industry. Do note that this is in a country where the draconian restrictions wouldn’t fly in ANY nation with a free speech clause in their constitution.

You can’t redesign the internet so pirates will be so much as hindered. Not and keep it functional. Your option is to pull the plug or watch piracy flourish as well as human nature will allow it to.

So, Baghdad Bob, The anachronistic camp of blowhards who believes the greatest revolution in communication since the invention of written language is an abomination and needs to be abolished? It’s doomed to fail.

And whatever you say and however loudly you whine, no matter which desperately bough farcical laws end up staining the tablets, that simply will not change.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

The best part? Jhon Herrick Smith has already professed his own distaste for customer reviews. He calls them "character assassination enabled by Section 230".

Because if there’s anything any business can’t stand it’s consumer feedback! Oh, wait, no. Only scam artists do that, but Herrick is too chickenshit to admit it.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

"Because if there’s anything any business can’t stand it’s consumer feedback! Oh, wait, no. Only scam artists do that, but Herrick is too chickenshit to admit it."

Well, if his "scams" are at the same level as the writing we usually see old Baghdad Bob farting out so persistently then it would take a kindergarten kid to fall for them.

I can somehow see him as that creepy man waving lollipops at children. Assuming they’re…what was his term…"Aspies"…
He has stated his preference on multiple occasions after all.

Anonymous Coward says:

Digital content is easier to sell, easier to send to the customer,
pc,s ,servers are faster and cheaper to make and to run than in the 90,s .
Through the web , theres a more varied range of product,
old book stores and record stores can only hold a limited range of books, cd,s , dvds.
In central high street locations that are expensive to rent, and insure .
Old cd,s and books had to be scrapped or sold off at a discount.
The old legacy companys dreamt up the value gap
in order to say we need more money from the
new tech companys .google,facebook,youtube,etc who know how to use the internet
and provide ads and service,s , apps that serve the public
other companys .
The money the free market provides
is not enough.
Also the old gate keepers want to return .
Hence the new eu laws designed to block user content
uploads that have not been approved by old legacy corporations .
Too bad if this breaks the web in the eu and blocks fair use
content .
Theres no limited to channels on the internet,
so new artists can thrive even if they only reach a limited audience ,
1000,s of artists are making a living doing podcasts ,streaming
gaming content, making music on soundcloud ,band camp etc
Many comedians, writers started off just making videos on youtube .
And when they attracted fans they were given contracts
to make real tv shows, eg broad city, crazy ex girlfriend etc
This market could be disrupted by the new laws in the eu,
since platforms will now be legally liable for
all content shown on any website in europe .

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The "value gap" is the money made by internet infrastructure companies who take a cut of what people spend on entertainment, by being the new gatekeeper. They are like parasites who have overwhelmed the host with regard to piracy of certain content (high-quality, expensive-to-produce, where the artists are paid scale wages or higher before a single cent in revenue is realized), but not other content (cheaply produced viral videos that make social-media stars).

Search is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. The companies who siphoned all this money off creators are now creating their own material and requiring artists to use them, so not much has changed in that regard. Reviewers (influencers) also make a fortune without ever owning a single copyright, but by directing traffic to those who do. The public generally does not like to think for itself.

Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

The value gap you define is akin to whatever package delivery system the brick and mortar folks used, mail, UPS, freight companies, etc.. They still had to get the movies to the theaters, or the DVD’s to the store, or records, or books. That the Internet does those thing (for digital at least) cheaper is to their benefit, not harm. They haven’t yet figured out how to capitalize on that as yet.

Search engines are like phone books, except they cover a lot more area. When one wanted to find the nearest record store, one could look it up in the phone book. The search engine I use doesn’t have advertising, so blaming search engines for ‘stealing’ those advertising dollars is a misnomer. Have you ever heard of or used the ‘Yellow Pages’? It’s all ads, and none of that ad money goes to producers.

The reviewers you refer to don’t work for entertainment producers, they tend to work for publications, newspapers, magazines, TV or cable or radio channels, and while they might be influencer’s, the bigger one is word of mouth. When the legacy media companies force the take down of anyone mentioning one of their ‘properties’ on the Internet, they lose that word of mouth and don’t even realize they are doing it to themselves.

You may be able to, in your own closed mind, justify any characterization, but that doesn’t mean anyone in the real world is going to buy your reasoning. The rest of use use reality, logic and reason to build our views.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Search engines are more profitable than a lot of what people search for. That’s a "value gap" or a tolltaker taking a cut for something that could be done without them. The internet functioned just fine before Google came along. People got the word out just fine, just not through a bot-driven engine.

If every website on the internet were a search engine, how well would they do?

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

"The internet functioned just fine before Google came along."

So did the abacus.

The reason Google won the search engine wars is simple. The internet works very much better than it did before.

I assume if you have a car it’s a model T, because who the hell would need the new-fangled stuff when the trusty old Tin Lizzie worked so well, right?

Eventually and inevitably someone will come along and build a search engine so much better Google gets outcompeted the same way Yahoo and Lycos were. That doesn’t change the fact that today the internet works a lot better than it used to because Google.

"People got the word out just fine, just not through a bot-driven engine."

Rewriting reality again, eh? They didn’t.
Massive companies got the word out. No one else. Which is why you got five different search results from using five different search engines.

Rocky says:

Re: Re: Re:

The "value gap" is the money made by internet infrastructure companies who take a cut of what people spend on entertainment, by being the new gatekeeper.

It’s amazing how wrong someone can be, you didn’t get one thing right in the above sentence.

I have to ask, do you just take random things and put them into a sentence and hope that it’ll make sense or do you actually believe in what you write? Either way, you need some serious help connecting with reality.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Undisputed heavyweight king of projection

“The public generally does not like to think for itself.”

Hahahahaha – yes, I imagine that is exactly what many politicians think and then use as justification for their nefarious activities. We politicians have to tell the commoners what to do because they are too dumb to think for themselves … what a crock. And then these folk are shocked to find out that some lowly commoners actually know more than they do.

TheResidentSkeptic (profile) says:

You missed an important point here...

The fact that more is being spent per household does NOT mean that more content is being consumed; it only means that the cost is going up – usually for LESS content per dollar spent. As such, the industry itself may not be making nearly as much money as the delivery men are charging so much more…

nerdrage (profile) says:

Re: You missed an important point here...

What it probably means is that yes, more content is being consumed but not necessarily for a higher price. The industry itself is making $$$ but fewer corporations are the ones benefitting and that number is going to fall further.

So the future is: lots of people consuming lots of content for cheap and the money funneling to a small number of content producers/distributors which make insane amounts of money while most of the entertainment industry crunches down to oblivion.

Not sure why this comments section is all about discussing piracy. Piracy is a side issue in this. Frankly I think piracy is a side issue in general. There’s always been piracy, through the rise of Netflix, then Amazon, now Disney is going to join the streaming party, probably one or two others. Piracy isn’t stopping them one whit. Who cares about piracy? Maybe some corporate lawyers and trade associations, that’s about it.

Anonymous Coward says:

The basic question is whether or not piracy should be tolerated, and the answer is no, it should not.

When piracy occurs, the priority is to stop it, not work around it.

Anyone who objects to this priority should take it up with government, but Article 13/17 says they already have their minds made up.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

The idea behind stopping crime is to stop SOME of the crimes, not all. It’s like taking out the trash, as more will pile up, but keeping the pile as small as possible is the goal.

There is no justification for piracy. It is a crime for a reason. It’s the theft of someone’s hard work by a parasite who belongs in prison, or bankruptcy.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Piracy, a.k.a. copyright infringement, is not theft. If it were, the cached version of any website that you store on your computer would technically be theft of that website’s content, seeing as how you probably lacked explicit permission from the copyright holder to create that cached copy for yourself.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

Did you notice Google no longer caches websites?

Ever wonder why?

Of course it’s theft. It’s theft of the content, not the medium. The content is the product of the hard work of its creator, whose right to control its distribution while protected by copyright is absolute. It’s theft of the audience with which the artist is supposed to connect, with that audience and any revenue associated with it going to organized crime instead of someone who legitimately created the work, plus those who steal it are paying less than those who bought it legitimately.

That’s the very essence of crime.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Did you notice Google no longer caches websites?

The Internet Archive still does. How much do you plan to sue them for, given that they will probably end up archiving and displaying your copyrighted material (i.e., your comments) for all the world to read?

Of course it’s theft. It’s theft of the content, not the medium.

Please explain how making a digital copy of a digital file is theft of the “master copy” when making the illicit copy neither deletes the master copy or puts control of the master copy in the hands of the copier.

I’ll wait.

It’s theft of the audience with which the artist is supposed to connect

You really want to avoid admitting that a not-zero number of people who pirate creative works end up supporting the creator of those works, don’t you, Squidward? (Again: I saw The Dark Knight in theaters twice and I bought the DVD, and I pirated the movie to watch it again in the interim.)

with that audience and any revenue associated with it going to organized crime

Please explain how the money I do not transfer to an artist/distributor in exchange for their work — every last cent of the cost of their work that is still in my bank account — goes directly to organize crime if I pirate said work.

I’ll wait.

those who steal it are paying less than those who bought it legitimately

The same could be said of people who buy stuff from thrift stores. Will you now be calling for the closure of those?

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Did you notice Google no longer caches websites?

No, because it still does. I mean, I just looked and they’re still cached.

Ever wonder why?

Because you made up something that isn’t actually true?

Of course it’s theft.

Nah, dog. Courts have ruled caching legal. https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/10/search_engine_c.htm This is why Google still does it.

The content is the product of the hard work of its creator, whose right to control its distribution while protected by copyright is absolute.

Not according to the Supreme Court: https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm

"Without a doubt, the “sweat of the brow” doctrine flouted basic copyright principles." and

Also, Section 107 of the copyright act makes it clear that the protection of copyright is anything but "absolute."

It’s theft of the audience

This is… not a thing.

In short: you don’t know the first thing about what you are discussing, and if you’re not just trolling, you really ought to learn something before posting again. But, we know, you’re just trolling. Thanks for the opportunity for me to help teach others just how wrong your arguments are. Next time, try harder.

Gary (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Sometimes you have to move the goalposts to reduce crime.

It used to be legal to free slaves. Plantation owners made those laws, and the government enforced them.
It used to be illegal to smoke pot.
Bad laws need to be changed.

You can shout "Piracy is a crime!" all day but you haven’t convinced anyone it’s harmful, Smith. Your solution is criminalization sharing and shutting down the interwebs.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

The idea behind stopping crime is to stop SOME of the crimes, not all. It’s like taking out the trash, as more will pile up, but keeping the pile as small as possible is the goal.

This sounds like you’re talking about the "broken windows theory of policing." You know, the theory that was popular in the 80s/90s, but has since been almost entirely debunked:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-problem-with-broken-windows-policing/

The point of copyright law is to enable more creative output. Period. This report shows that the INTERNET is enabling more creative output. As a bonus the industries associated with content are ALSO making more money, though that’s not the official reason behind copyright.

In short, even with piracy, we’re getting a bonanza of content and the industries around it are raking in money. I like how you’re now moving the goalposts (very far) from the earlier talk about how piracy was "killing" these industries. It never was. But you can’t let go so you have to glom onto the debunked "broken windows" theory that all bad stuff is bad. Nope.

There’s a reason lots of stores have basically stopped fighting shoplifting. The cost of doing so greatly outweighs any benefit. It appears the same may be true of fighting piracy. The benefits to embracing the internet are huge. The actual cost of "piracy" is minimal. Focus on enabling more good stuff, and the "problems" of the bad stuff are minimized naturally, without overspending on useless and ineffective "enforcement."

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Copyright enhances the lives of those who enjoy it as entertainment (tons of other stuff is also protected, btw), so it’s not just a "few." The tax revenue funds society, the work creates jobs, etc.

If you have a problem with copyright law, take it up with the government. Article 13 and SOPA show where they stand. All the noise the internet made against Article 13 accomplished…absolutely nothing.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Copyright does little to enhance people’s lives. It does, however, keep decades-old books, movies, songs, and other creative works — works that could be digitized, then endlessly reproduced by and distributed to the public — locked away in a vault to rot and disappear.

A lot of the video games I played as a child would be public domain by now if we still had sensible copyright terms (i.e., 28-year terms). The only reason many of those games still exist in any form is because of people willing to archive and distribute them, even though their efforts to preserve gaming history when gaming companies either can or would not are illegal. Hell, damn near the entirety of the classic arcade gaming scene would be lost without MAME and ROM sharing. And I will not even get into the game-modding scene — which, again, is technically illegal.

So tell me again: How, exactly, does copyright improve the lives of people?

Rocky says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Copyright enhances the lives of those who enjoy it as entertainment (tons of other stuff is also protected, btw), so it’s not just a "few." The tax revenue funds society, the work creates jobs, etc.

The thing is, you are arguing that the rights of the few supersedes the rights of everyone else. You have even said that content not put forth through a publisher is mostly trash or to that effect. Which means you don’t give a shit about everyone else, only the legacy copyright industries.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The basic question is whether or not piracy should be tolerated, and the answer is no, it should not.

Ah, so artists shouldn’t be allowed to give away their work for free as part of a promotion or a marketing ploy? Because, you know, that’s piracy.

When piracy occurs, the priority is to stop it, not work around it.

Better lock up all those content creators who give their work away for free then.

Anyone who objects to this priority should take it up with government, but Article 13/17 says they already have their minds made up.

Yes, they have. They have decided to shut down any creators smaller than Facebook and Google. Meanwhile, in the US, the government says artists are free to give away content if they so choose as part of a marketing campaign to get people to buy their other works.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

"Ah, so artists shouldn’t be allowed to give away their work for free as part of a promotion or a marketing ploy? Because, you know, that’s piracy."

Artists who give away their work for free are not committing the crime of piracy. One has nothing to do with the other.

The artist also makes money off the distribution list, to which they can sell advertising. Network television has made many billions this way.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Artists who give away their work for free are not committing the crime of piracy. One has nothing to do with the other.

Artist A puts a song up on the pirate bay for download. Or fling copies of their albums into a concert crowd for their fans? How is this any different from what pirates do? Pirates get an author’s work for free. Artists putting their works out there for free give said author’s work to anyone for free. I see no difference here.

The artist also makes money off the distribution list

Artists today don’t have distribution lists and they certainly don’t make money off them. Ask any Youtuber, artist on DeviantArt, Patreon, SoundCloud, etc….

to which they can sell advertising

You really don’t understand how artists make money today, do you? Nobody makes money off selling advertising except legacy TV and newspapers who advertising companies pay to run their ads. No individual user is ever going to "buy" an advertisement, they are going to buy a product being marketed by an ad.

Regardless, artists don’t advertise via distribution lists these days. Distribution lists are dead. Get over it.

Network television has made many billions this way.

Yes, network television, which advertising companies, NOT artists, pay to run their ads. This literally has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Network television is a dying breed and plays no part in how the majority of artists make money these days.

That One Guy (profile) says:

All or nothing

While more and more is being created than ever before, with countless people who would have been making nothing making if not a living then at least some extra money they wouldn’t have otherwise had under the previous system, the ‘problem’ is that the parasitic gatekeepers are self-entitled jackasses, who believe that most if not all of it should be going to them, and that they deserve to always make more today than they made yesterday.

If it’s not being created by people leashed to them, then it doesn’t count. If they aren’t getting the lion’s share(if not all) of the profits then they might as well not be getting anything. They could control 99% of all distribution, and get 99% of all profits, and they’d still be declaring that that 1% left was going to destroy them any day now, and needed to be snuffed out before society itself was brought down thanks to it’s nefarious machinations.

In a bit of a warped way, the fact that they are flailing about so much could be seen as a good sign, as it demonstrates just how desperate they’re getting with the various platforms and services allowing more and more people to bypass them entirely, leading to a new flavor of desperate lies in the form of the mythical ‘value gap’ in an attempt to hamstring and poison the perception of those platforms/services and drive people back to them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: All or nothing

Big Tech is the new "parasitic gatekeeper." Also influencers don’t own a single copyright, yet they make money, so it’s not just about rights, but distribution and controlling traffic through influence or technology (the latter can be copied so the former is actually stronger).

There is way too much content out there as it is. Stuff that used to be rejected now stands alongside that which used to be popular. Sometimes that’s good as it gives a voice to those who deserve one, but sometimes it’s just noise. We will always have gatekeepers because the public doesn’t want to sift through the mud to find the nuggets worth keeping.

None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That’s just pure theft.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: You get nothing, good day sir

To what are you referring? Nothing, obviously.

Which mailing list, for which product?

This is why Masnick isn’t taken seriously in journalism circles. His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public.

All the poster proves is it has an axe to grind against those who believe copyrights should be enforced. There’s no need for histrionics, as the lack of them just shows how rabid the poster is in its illogical attacks.

If anyone is gloating now it’s those who supported Article 13.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 You get nothing, good day sir

This is why Masnick isn’t taken seriously in journalism circles.

What journalism circles would those be? The ones that quote him in mainstream newspapers/tv news segments/etc…? I’m sure they only quote him to mock him, right? Right?

His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public.

The only matching all those adjectives and adverbs here is you. Everyone else is pointing out your lies and logical fallacies. Neither of which has anything to do with Masnick’s journalistic street cred.

All the poster proves is it has an axe to grind

Like your axe you’ve been grinding against TD and Mike for who knows how long?

There’s no need for histrionics, as the lack of them just shows how rabid the poster is in its illogical attacks.

And yet in all your rabid rantings and ravings, you’ve yet to provide one shred of evidence that even remotely supports your assertions that we’re wrong. Meanwhile we’ve linked to and provided multiples.

If anyone is gloating now it’s those who supported Article 13.

Give it a few months when their glorious plan horribly backfires on them and we’ll see who is gloating. Because I guarantee you it will backfire.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 You get nothing, good day sir

"This is why Masnick isn’t taken seriously in journalism circles. His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public."

Completely unlike when you called for raping "aspies" én másse with, I noted, gohulish glee and anticipation.

So threatening to sexually assault people with disabilities is, in your book, quite OK, but when someone calls your bullshit it’s "libelous ad hominem"?

Yeah, you know, Baghdad Bob, the reason people keep flagging your sad deluded rants around here isn’t just because you consistently lie, spin, troll and run every bad rhetoric trick in the book…
….it’s also because when you finally get miffed enough to drop your mask you end up sounding like something not quite human. Seek help, before your violent delusions end up slipping into real life.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Also influencers don’t own a single copyright

Um, no. Unless they live in/create their works in a country where copyright is only conferred by way of government registration, their content is covered by copyright upon publication. Thanks, Berne Convention!

yet they make money

Does that mean…copyright is unnecessary to monetize creative works?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: All or nothing

Big Tech is the new "parasitic gatekeeper."

Please provide citations on "Big Tech" deciding who can and can’t make money on the internet. Because as far as I’m aware, all the platforms that people are making money on these days are open to all comers.

Also influencers don’t own a single copyright, yet they make money,

If by influencers you mean reviewers (as you clarified below) they do actually own copyrights. They own copyrights to the reviews that they make. So you’re wrong again.

so it’s not just about rights, but distribution and controlling traffic through influence or technology (the latter can be copied so the former is actually stronger).

And what does this have to do with anything? With online platforms, everyone has equal access to distribute their work to the entire global population.

There is way too much content out there as it is.

That is your subjective opinion. It counts for nothing and proves nothing other than your own opinion. Others, including myself, disagree with you. I enjoy seeing what new things people are going to create. There have been many cool new shows, movies, books, art, etc… that have been recently created by indies that I have enjoyed far more than a lot of recent legacy entertainment produced drivel.

Stuff that used to be rejected now stands alongside that which used to be popular.

So? This is not a bad thing. Different strokes for different blokes and all that. And yes, even what I consider to be legacy entertainment drivel certainly has appeal to someone. Reality shows for instance.

And those things that used to be popular probably still are. But seriously, how often can you watch the same movie over and over and over and over again? And people’s tastes change over time too.

Sometimes that’s good as it gives a voice to those who deserve one, but sometimes it’s just noise.

Noise is neither good nor bad. And everything in that noise will likely appeal to someone but not everyone.

We will always have gatekeepers because the public doesn’t want to sift through the mud to find the nuggets worth keeping.

What gatekeepers? I see no gatekeepers on the internet.

I will give you that SOME people don’t want to sift through the mud, but sometimes that sifting makes finding that nugget all the sweeter. And what may be mud to you, may be gold and diamonds to someone else. The fact that I’m seeing far more quality content than ever before is a testament to the enabling power of the internet for creators. Take that away and you’ve just set artistic creation back 50 years.

None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That’s just pure theft.

Again, tell that to artists who give their work away for free and encourage their fans to share/copy it. It’s not theft if nothing was stolen.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: All or nothing

"Please provide citations on "Big Tech" deciding who can and can’t make money on the internet. Because as far as I’m aware, all the platforms that people are making money on these days are open to all comers."

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18270891/google-eu-antitrust-fine-adsense-advertising

It’s time to do a methodical dismantling of Masnick’s credibility, and highlight both the juvenile nature of his writing, and the comments section, with both its vicious personal attacks, and claims like the above poster’s. The mainstream media will probably eat it up since it shows "internet journalism" to be purely second-class.

Masnick seems more interested in money though, or he’d never let this happen.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 All or nothing

That link says absolutely nothing about Google deciding who can and can’t make money on the internet.

Did you think I wouldn’t read it or was stupid enough to take you at your word?

It’s time to do a methodical dismantling of Masnick’s credibility,

Why? So far he’s been pretty accurate and his facts and assertions are independently verifiable.

juvenile nature of his writing

Show me how it is juvenile.

the comments section

Careful now, you just lumped yourself in that group.

with both its vicious personal attacks

Again, that would be you.

The mainstream media will probably eat it up since it shows "internet journalism" to be purely second-class.

Yes, which is why journalism is increasingly going online and is, in fact, the only place you can read about a lot of things today. Not to mention that "mainstream media" constantly quotes internet journalism sources.

Masnick seems more interested in money though, or he’d never let this happen.

Yes, because he makes so much money doing this.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 All or nothing

Juvenile writing? Swearing, slanted language, etc. Very clearly juvenile and not much respected in high-level journalism circles.

I’m not the one using bigoted slurs against people the way they are used by others against me and others.

As for Masnick’s wealth, one could easily figure it out if the need arose, but he obviously does something for a living, maybe this, maybe something else. He’s certainly not on par with top journalism outlets, and his writing style and what he tolerates in his comments section are symptoms of that.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 All or nothing

It’s nice to see someone you loathe with the passion of a thousand dying suns take up such office space in your head you can’t help but keep reading and posting on a site you say nobody reads or posts on because it couldn’t possibly compare to "actual" journalism.

Guess those police investigations were nothing but pure bluff then since nobody reads this site?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 All or nothing

Swearing

Ah yes, because swearing is so juvenile and isn’t used in any professional speech anywhere. cough movies, politicians, news media, etc… cough

slanted language

Where? You mean the part where he points to industry released numbers that show that profits are better than ever because of internet related purchases and says "See, the internet didn’t destroy the entertainment industry, it helped it!"? Oh yes, very slanted. Damn that pesky truth and reality.

etc

So you got nothing then.

Very clearly juvenile and not much respected in high-level journalism circles.

Again, which circles would those be? The mainstream media ones where he is consistently held in high respect?

I’m not the one using bigoted slurs against people the way they are used by others against me and others.

Umm, yeah, you are. Attacking his writing, his wealth, his associations, his intelligence, his supposed associations, his credibilty….I could go on and on.

All you do is make baseless, fact-less statements, then throw a tantrum and run away when we point to facts that prove you’re wrong. Since you continue to do it after years of this, we are well within our rights to call you an idiot for your idiotic behavior. You have not proven yourself to be anything but.

As for Masnick’s wealth, one could easily figure it out if the need arose

The need has arisen. Please do tell me exactly how much he’s worth and how much he makes every year. I’ll wait.

but he obviously does something for a living, maybe this, maybe something else.

I literally have no idea what you are trying to imply here. TD is his job, what he does for a living. Are you saying he is both writing and not-writing TD at the same time? Are we moving into some quasi-paradoxical discussion?

He’s certainly not on par with top journalism outlets

So? Most top journalism outlets don’t cover what he covers. Besides, I don’t think he’s trying to be on par with them. So your insult falls flat on its face.

his writing style and what he tolerates in his comments section are symptoms of that.

Uh, no, his writing style is his writing style. His comments section is a symptom of having completely anonymous submissions with little to no moderation. If there was, your ass would have been grass a long time ago.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 All or nothing

"I’m not the one using bigoted slurs against people the way they are used by others against me and others. "

Except where you threaten to rape people with ghoulish glee, you mean? And the part where you mentioned you wanted to do this to "aspies" wasn’t dictionary-definition bigotry?

There’s only one deranged lunatic around here who does that Baghdad bob…you.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today

“It’s time to do a methodical dismantling of Masnick’s credibility,”

You have been trying and failing to do that for a year and change bro.

“and the comments section, with both its vicious personal attacks”

Why yes we would all appreciate you stopping your threats to rape people. Even though we all know you can’t get it up, much less force yourself on anyone.

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 It’s Whine Time with Impotent Jhon

"Or have you tossed so many empty threats at so many people you can’t keep track of your sad little revenge fantasies anymore?"

Worse. He’s forgotten which sock puppet he used to post which rant. A few years back he could still reference his OP in his replies. Today all he does is toss a crippled one-liner and go.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today

Ah yes, the "can’t slander an alias" loophole.

There are no aliases in question here.

Nothing has been "tried" yet,

And what exactly has all your ranting and raving been then?

when it is, he’ll know

Yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad. That’s about the level of insult you’ve got going on there.

He’s too much of a gnat to be a top priority.

Yet here you are, every single day, frothing at the mouth. If he’s such a low priority, why don’t you go away?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: All or nothing

"None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That’s just pure theft."

Again, tell that to artists who give their work away for free and encourage their fans to share/copy it. It’s not theft if nothing was stolen.

If the artist does it, it’s not piracy. No matter how profitable it might be for an artist to voluntarily give away work, that doesn’t entitle anyone to steal it.

Article 13 shows your opinion is in the minority.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 All or nothing

Yeah, such a minority that your pimpmasters had to bribe the government to move the election date and change the voting system midway without telling anyone.

You’d think if piracy was such a staggering minority you wouldn’t need to stack the deck, but copyright fanboys have never been able to amount to anything more than scam artists, so why would they start behaving any different now?

Send out any love letters from Russia lately, Herrick?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 All or nothing

If the artist does it, it’s not piracy.

Technically it is. It’s just sanctioned piracy. Which is a thing by the way.

But more than that, please tell me how it’s different if the artist does it instead of someone else? The process involved is identical. Person A uploads content to website, person B downloads content. That doesn’t change whether the artist does it or somebody else. So, please tell me how it’s not the same.

No matter how profitable it might be for an artist to voluntarily give away work, that doesn’t entitle anyone to steal it.

Steal what? No theft has taken place. The artist is still in possession of their created work.

Article 13 shows your opinion is in the minority.

Really? Do tell how a minority of people passing a law solely because they were tricked and/or bribed into voting for it when it was wildly unpopular by the masses they represent counts as being the majority opinion. Please try. I’ll wait.

Rocky says:

Re: Re: All or nothing

Big Tech is the new "parasitic gatekeeper."

You just make shit up as you go, don’t you?

Also influencers don’t own a single copyright, yet they make money, so it’s not just about rights, but distribution and controlling traffic through influence or technology (the latter can be copied so the former is actually stronger).

Yeah, it’s too bad that the guy writing movie-reviews in my local rag get’s paid. Must be horrible for the rights-holder of the movies that he can make money off them…

Stuff that used to be rejected now stands alongside that which used to be popular. Sometimes that’s good as it gives a voice to those who deserve one, but sometimes it’s just noise. We will always have gatekeepers because the public doesn’t want to sift through the mud to find the nuggets worth keeping.

Translation: "Wah! Wah! I want to be spoon-feed things I like!"

None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That’s just pure theft.

Piracy is not theft. But this is something you can’t wrap your head around because it’s so full of shit.

nerdrage (profile) says:

Re: All or nothing

Well sorry to break it to you, but the way streaming is going to work is, all the money will end up going to a small roster of global streaming behemoths, who both make and distribute their exclusive and non-overlapping libraries of content.

And brand names are going to be golden, which is why Disney is going to make out like a bandit when they launch Disney+. The content glut will make brands more valuable than ever because people just get confused by too many options. Show them a recognizable brand, and the confusion is instantly solved.

Piracy doesn’t much matter. People will subscribe to Disney+ for the kids and for convenience. If it’s a few bucks a month, who really cares?

nerdrage (profile) says:

The greater access to content that streaming gives people will increase demand across the board, across the world. Cable and broadcast were always too rigid and expensive and restrictive.

Just wait till all the content producers have their own streaming services and can deliver content direct to customers in exchange for a credit card number. That kind of radical efficiency is what’s driving the explosion in content. Reduce overhead and more money is freed up for content production.

Plus investors smell blood in the water and are in a frenzy throwing money at streamings servcies. I dunno if you guys follow the markets but Disney is doing a dog and pony show on Apr 11, after which I expect their share price to rocket. More money to make more content, which attracts more subscribers and more investor money, etc.

And don’t worry about an annoying explosion of streaming services. As long as subscribers go for just the biggest handful of services, and that’s what they certainly seem to be doing, the number of eventual winners will be limited as the winners gobble up the losers. More industry consolidation to come. Right now, everyone is jostling for position in order to become one of those few winners or die trying.

ECA (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Here is what is happening..
We are changing formats..
From Broadcast
From Cable
From Sat…
To all the companies, owned by the Big corps, being able to do their OWN broadcasting on the net.
WE had…cable/sat.
Then we had Cable/sat/internet..
But it can all goto the internet…

The BIG change is Who gets paid?.
HOW do we pay..
Go out and pay companies for 1-5 channels in the set for $10?? Or pay EQUAL to what cable was charging?? PENNIES!!!..

Have to remember that the SAME corps are charging us for 4 different things.. Internet, Cable/sat, Cellphones, BASE PHONES..
If we could run 1 line to your home, we could pay 1 company 1 price…insted of $100 there, $100 there, $50 there, $35-50 Again.. Almost $300 we pay NOW…for all these services.
The Corps dont WANT to save money, because they can WRITE things off from all of these services, they Dont WANT 1 service that is CHEAP..

Scary Devil Monastery (profile) says:

Re: Spam

"Some call him John – I call him "Failed Self Help Scammer." FSHS."

I call him Baghdad Bob. Much like his namesake he keeps standing in front of his own pulpit and pompously declaring victory for his glorious cause with bombs and shrapnel whistling around his ears.

Eventually his impassioned speeches will turn back the infidel dogs and restore Saddam’s reign. You’ll see.
/s

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...