This article, “Embrace file-sharing, or die“, is being linked to all over the net. The authors’s main point seems to be that file sharing promotes sales so media companies should embrace it.
Other points they bring up is that consumers will choose the most convenient method. They also claim the media industries are not forward thinking.
It seems to me the authors are the non-forward thinking party here. My friends download music, movies and games from KaZaA all the time. They have collections of hundreds of movies they have burnt to CD or DVD in their collections. Are they likely to buy or rent the tape of those movies?
The forward thinking point that people need to get is everyday it gets more and more convenient for people to get and use media off the net.
My friend recently purchased an LCD video projector. It’s a new model, only $1300. It gives him a wall size display at home and it’s progressive scan. He has a Dolby 5.1 sound system. If he could get a reasonable quality copy of Lord of the Rings: Two Towers off KaZaA the day it came out in the theaters would there be any reason he would go to the theaters? No! Absolutely none.
MP3s may help CD sales today but that is only a temporary effect. Everyday it gets more and more convenient to use MP3s. When that convenience point passes CDs there will no longer be a reason to buy CDs and with things like KaZaA there will also be no reason to buy MP3s either, just download them for free.
I have about 130 CDs at my apartment. I MP3d all of them into my computer. I no longer use the CDs. Since my computer is connected to my stereo it’s easy for me to select music from my MP3 player then to dig out CDs from their cases and stick them in the stereo (and having to put the old ones back). I copied them all to my notebook and put them all on my computer at work. For me, a programmer, it is already more convenient to use MP3s than CDs. In a year or two the same will be true for non-techies. Sony has already come out with MP3 based stereos. Panasonic has a net based stereo that will play MP3s directly off your hard drive over wireless net.
The same thing will happen to video in a few years as it also follows the same convenince pattern until getting your movies off KaZaA is more convenient than renting and the experience of going to the theater can be reproduced at home for a smaller investment in equipment.
The future is not “Embrace file sharing or die”. The future is for media companies is to just “die”. There is no future for them, period.
I agree with the article’s authors in that it promotes things. Given the unreliability of quality and compression and being able to fully download something (I tried to download an episode of doctor for a month but the original ‘host’ must have deleted it from their HD and as such I never got to see it), and how it takes too long (even over my T-1 line) to find everthing, download it, burn it, etc. – especially with FILMS – that I’d prefer to buy the full DVD of a title if one was available. Sadly, a lot of this stuff isn’t available, or in less-than-decent versions. I can think of countless, SUPERIOR parallel imports of films that got crap releases (if even released at all) on DVD in the states. Downloading a DIVX file of it and burning to DVD or a pair of VCDS at least ensures I got to see what I would WANT to pay for, if it had bee ndone right. This is where I agree and disagree with you, Greg.
I disagree with you because it does promote things and helps to create a following for things we are NOT allowed to see in the states(Take Miramax films, for example. They hold the rights to over 100 foreign films that they have sat on and enver bothered to release in America. Many of the ones that do get released are released in shitty, hacked-up versions and are not the original creation the authors wanted us to see). File-swapping preserves the sanctity of art, and if someone likes it, more often than not they BUY it. Maybe you just hang around with hackers and programmers and that’s why they spend loads of dough on gadgets but none of software. Computer-savvy but aesthetic-minded folks do not. We download things and if we dig ‘em we hunt down the real deal. it’s like test-driving a car. I digress.
Going back to the Miramax example and the points I made defending file-swapping and down-loading: I agree with you about killing the “Media Companies.” In the states it’s really bad. AOL/Time-Warner and Disney, Viacom and Sony. It’s all bought out for us and it’s like several arms to the same tentacled beast. The only way to fight such a beast is to beat it at its game. file swapping KILLS the beast. Soon enough average folks will take a stand against hte companies increasingly fascist approach to file sharing. it’s already forcing them to do things like issue payable sites where you can download a movie or music. Without file sharing we’d be nowhere. This is the truth.
The other point is pricing: DVDs are going up in price while quality in the U. S. is going down (they’re VHSing the thing with lame-brainded “full screen” horse shit). Games are insanely priced imo. For music: if the recording industry charged fair prices they’d have more sales of their shitty product. Otherwise people will prefer to invest 5 minutes downloading the single decent song from a 15 song, $20 piece-o-shit CD.
So, another thoughtful blog on your part.
Take care,
Django
I agree with you that it’s frustrating to download stuff *today*. That does not mean it will be frustrating tomorrow. Eventually everybody will have broadband. Here in Japan 100Megbit connections are only $50 a month. That or better will eventually happen in the states. In America you have ReplyTV that can swap movies over the net. It doesn’t require a whole lot of imagination to imagine that at some point getting the movie or music you want over the net will take just a couple of button clicks on your remote control.
So while I agree that *TODAY* sharing may help promote sales that’s a short term effect. A few years from now that will not be the case.
Note: I am not arguing that therefore we should try to stamp out file sharing. I don’t think it can be stamped out. I think big media will pretty much die or at least go under massive change. When it does become just a few remote clicks to trade files and when cancelling commericals is as easy as Tivo and ReplyTV there will be no more money in making movies, videos or recorded music.
i have 30 GB of MP3’s and i haven’t paid for a cd in about 2 years.
but you won’t ever find me trying to convince anyone that what i do helps the industry, because it doens’t.
apoptygma berzerk is one of my favorite bands and you prolly havn’t heard of them… so… w/o free mp3’s i may never have heard of them and that would be less exposure for them… true… but what do they care, i love their music and they still haven’t seen a dime from me.
we are our own worst enemies and we’ll will destroy ourselves because we take.. take.. take.. and don’t give back.
the food chain is broke, those w/o food will die, and everyone else will follow right behind them.
wake up, don’t defend thievery if you are thief. lie to everyone else is you want, but don’t lie to yourself.
Steal means to take something from someone and they can’t get it back. I took no money, nor did others. It’s all virtual. Since you’re so high-and-might about your opinion, then let’s talk about how people pay ungodly sums for CDs in the U. S. (and especially in Japan) and hte artists see very little of it. To imply we are stealing from them is a joke. We “Steal” from the conglomrates if we “steal” at all and I don’t see it as “Stealing” since most of these folks complaining make a whole lot of dough to begin with.
“Scattabrain” your attack doesn’t amount to much. Maybe Lars Ulrich and Metallisuck, er – Metallica – and Sean Combs will give you creedence, but not me, nor will BILLIONS of others.
The revolution is not being televised: it’s being downloaded.
Django
What you take when you steal from others is labor. If you went to a doctor, had him treat you and didn’t pay him did you steal? YES! If you hire a plumber and he clears your drain for you, if you don’t pay him are you stealing? YES! If you hired gardeners and don’t pay them are you stealing? YES!
Why do you pay $5 for a meal at McDonalds. Surely there are not $5 worth of ingredients in your meal. You pay $5 for the labor to make the burger, the rent for the place to sit and eat it, the service, etc. Only maybe $1 of that $5 is for the ingredients.
When you pay for books, music, movies and video games you are paying for the labor to create the story, song, sets, data etc, not for the paper or plastic. If all you were paying for was the plastic then why would you pay more than about 50 cents?
Some of those arguably take more labor than others. It would be possible for me to make a song in 3 minutes. Just pull out the mic and bust out singing. Books take more time but even a single person can write a book in a 1 to 3 months. Some movies can take just a few people but most movies require crews of people. Even cheap movies cost 1 or 2 million just in paying for all the labor and big ones like Lord of the Rings take tens of millions in labor. Games also take 1 to 10 million in labor to make. When you copy them you are stealing because you did not pay for that labor just like not paying a plummer would be stealing.
Some might argue that because music requires the least labor of those things it should be alright to copy it. That arguement doesn’t work for me though. If a plummer is charging too much then you just go to a different plummer. You don’t hire the expensive plummer and then refuse to pay him. If you don’t like the price of the music, don’t buy it.
But, back to the point, so what. The world is not going to be convinced to stop copying and so, in a few years when copying becomes easier than buying for most people buying will stop.
corporate control of music, movies and games. I actually think musicians and filmmakers work HARD for their money. Video game programmers – well, sorry but I don’t consider it “work.” A lot of noodling around. Some creativity - sure, so what? I fully support taking money from the pockets of Southern California gaming types and transplanting it into paying to see live music shows by hard-working, touring independent bands!
ADSL widely available in the US? Not bloodly likely. It’s been lethargic from the get-go, but cable internet will make inroads. Japan is the size of California and it took the last year and a half for it to really make affordable ADSL reality. Even so, it’s faster, cheaper and more widespread in Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Hell, in Hong Kong they even have wireless t-1. I know because I access it on my laptop when I’m in coffee shops on business trips. Japan (outside of Tokyo – which you ened to get to more often, amigo) barely had net cafes, juxtaposed to Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan or South Korea. It certainly wasn’t for lack of scientific know-how or need. Those territories were more savvy. Most, like Japan, have government controlled phone lines (Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan, SK Telecom in South Korea, and Japan has NTT/DoCoMo), so Japan’s lethargy in home net access boggles my mind. Blame it all on NTT.
For the U. S., the telephone deregulation under the Hitler Reagan years really destroyed any chance of ADSL spreading throughout America as it has in other countries, since phone lines are controlled by a shitload of conglomerates rather than one group, but CABLE offers hope for many. Still, for half the speed and double the price – America has a LONG way to go. Even when “IT” does happen – I hope the pilferin’ online has become so widespread that the major companies realize they have to affordably price their overpriced crap. Why doesn’t America rent CDs like Japan does? (I know why, so don’t bother to answer)
Contrary to what you THINK, try to comment on what you KNOW. Why is it that the biggest money-making acts like METALLICA cry foul when folks can download their stuff (and their album sales STILL went up) yet the ones making far less dough are in full support of MP3 and online swapping? It speaks in volumes. Thank god there is a LIMP BISKIUT for every METALLICA. Most record lables rip off the artists and the real dough is in touring. Download Mp3’s – like it, hear the small band is in town and you pay to see ‘em. The band makes a greater per capita profit from a concert (big and small) than an album sale.
I have no sympathy for video gaming though. Sorry. That makes me cold blooded. I admit it. I think most games are gay – not in a sexual way but in a LAME way. So be it.
What I find the download revolution needs to do is eliminate such bullshit as Region-coded DVDs and games. That encourages piracy beyond belief. I mean, why buy the shitty U. S., cut, dubbed pan and scanned version of a foreign film when they can import the Region 2, 3, 4, etc. version that is widescreen, subtitled and uncut in it’s intended form AFTER they’ve downloaded it and realized it was worth buying? Why give them YOUR hard earned money (well, those of us who actually have to put physical energy into our work) when they hold your freedom of choice in contempt? Buy the pirate and you can enjoy the fruits of their so-called labor but in reality you are also exercizing a form of protest. Not buying something doesn’t change things. RIPPING IT OFF does. That’s saying “Fuck you – we want what you got but we’re not going to pay what you think you’re worth because you’re not worth THAT much.”
Stop hanging around with gamers, lamers and programers, bro. You’ll see that most folks who DOWNLOAD stuff DO replace it with the REAL DEAL when it is available in the artists’ intended form, at an affordable price, and devoid of the corporate bullshit that destroys the world mainstream art. I also think broadening your social circle will bring you the elusive Ms. Right. Iv’e got a clue for ya: She ain’t a programmer.
Guess what – I found one of my films available for download on line. Do I get paid for it? NO. I got paid for it when I sold the rights to the company, who then did NOT promote it and let it fall into video oblivion. God bless the fact somoene rememebred it, loved it and decided to share it. It also says “FUCK YOU” to the lamejacks who fumbled the ball. Do I care? Not really. They’re NOT PROFITING from it. Oh, if it means they can download gay vidoe game #12, or porn or whatever – from another guy who wants to see the film – no money exchanged hands and more people get to see it. Maybe someone will even try to find me and produce another feature.
We have to agree to disagree. I think the real thieves are those who pine about money.
Cheers (and lighten up!),
Django
This is a really dumb mindset. Yes, you are stealing, just admit it. This is like saying, “if I steal a car from Bill Gates, it’s not really stealing because he makes enough money so that he wouldn’t even miss it.” Sorry, that doesn’t cut it. You remind me of the guy I saw last weekend on the turnpike. He went through the automated toll gate on the tail of the guy who paid before him so he wouldn’t have to pay. All to avoid a whopping toll of… 30 cents. Talk about a LOSER.
Revolution and thievery are two different things. If you can’t see the difference then maybe we should pilfer you? What kind of car do you drive?
Stealing from Bill Gates (easy target) is not stealing. Do some research into the unfair product pricing around the world Microshit have been practicing for the last decade.
Your “let them eat cake” mentality only encourages us “thieves” more. Keep it up. Maybe “melliemel” has been too many “white lines”?