Just adding my voice to the vocal internet outcry about the Pirate Bay trial.
It's not just that I feel strong sympathy for the people involved, there's something not quite right about it. It reminds me of Al Capone. Everyone knew Al Capone was breaking the law - but no one could prove it. Ultimately, they arrested him for tax evasion, which they could make stick.
The Pirate Bay is legal...ish. All it does is provide a linking service to where other people have uploaded music. So while it's blatantly facilitating illegal behavior, it's not illegal itself. I'm not a lawyer, not even close - but my understanding of the situation is to have convicted them would require some enormous smudging and squeaking on behalf of the prosecution.
It is not the fault of those four men, personally, that $3.6 million has been ripped off from companies - had they not been there, someone else would have. There's a lie at the heart of the trial, because they are being prosecuted on behalf of every single user of the Pirate Bay. Is this fair, I ask? Yes, they are at fault, and yes perhaps a large example needs to be made. But are the Companies going to hunt down Demonoid, Isohunt, and all those ones not famous enough for me to know the name of after this?
I'm not saying they weren't doing something wrong - but I don't think they should have to pay $3.6 million of damages either. It's like arresting a knife manufacturer, because people have used his products in a murder. Forgetting that it is not his fault how customers use his service, and that knives do have an important and useful part in our society.
And there are ways of using it legally. I've never downloaded anything I would have been willing to buy. I have a pirate copy of Warriors at the Edge of Time, so I can put an album already posessed on LP onto my MP3 player. It is legal to change the format of things you own, and I consider the royalties already passed on. Is it fair for the company to make me buy a product twice, because formats have changed? The same goes for my DVD of King's Demons. I own a video, but can't play it on my laptop at university. When that appears legally, does the BBC want me to pay for it a second time? With format changes, the companies have a real trick: the potential to sell us the same album on record, tape, CD, i-Tunes download, and whatever comes next. Within fifty years, my video collection will be useless and I'll be forced to upgrade.
At it's purest level, I see the potential of web download as redressing this balance. Another way I have used it is for collecting outdated Doctor Who memrobilia - books, magazines, novels. Strictly illegal, but if you choose to think of purchasing a product as a method of paying it's creator, then it is morally fine. There is no way I could aquire, say, So Vile a Sin and get any of the proceeds to Orman and Aaronovitch. Instead, the winner would be the unscrupulous former owner, charging anything upwards of £100 for the damn thing. It's like an unofficial public domain. I can get it for free, or get it off eBay - the original company and creator will still not see a penny of it.
Of course, this presupposes that everyone will consider the morality of downloading, and the majority of people probably do not. This is a shame, because the internet is a fantastic tool, and we need the companies to see how great a way it is of distributing media. Piracy will not be stamped out - instead, it should be integrated. Spotify, iPlayer and 4OD are three examples of the pirate ideology - being able to find and consume media online - being adapted to a legal framework. And they're brilliant!
The way I percieve the legal-piracy of the future - let's call it privateering! - is the internet as
a repository for the lost. If the privateer wants to buy the latest James Bond movie, then he should stop being a cheap bastard and buy it. If he's interested in an avant-garde movie he saw twenty years ago, that's never been released on DVD - that he should be able to find on the web. TV shows which were never released. Books long out of print. With an effective indexing system, copyright authors could even withdraw such materials from the program if they ever wanted to rerelease them.
I'm a romantic - art and knowledge should be free. As Freeware Genius puts it, and seeing the motto gives me an inner boost every time I open the site, "SOME DAY ALL SOFTWARE WILL BE FREE". But I recognise the piper must be paid, and so he should be. The internet is an oppertunity to free up media. Perhaps the companies are just running scared because it also gives individuals chance to liase directly with the artists and cut them out altogether. Take Bandstocks - fans invest £10 or more in an album, to enable it's release, not the companies. I'm so tempted to get involved, because the idea of it is just so beautiful: rum and grog for everyone!
So I'll leave you with the uplifting words of Patrick Wolf, and I'll see you in this future:
It's not just that I feel strong sympathy for the people involved, there's something not quite right about it. It reminds me of Al Capone. Everyone knew Al Capone was breaking the law - but no one could prove it. Ultimately, they arrested him for tax evasion, which they could make stick.
The Pirate Bay is legal...ish. All it does is provide a linking service to where other people have uploaded music. So while it's blatantly facilitating illegal behavior, it's not illegal itself. I'm not a lawyer, not even close - but my understanding of the situation is to have convicted them would require some enormous smudging and squeaking on behalf of the prosecution.
It is not the fault of those four men, personally, that $3.6 million has been ripped off from companies - had they not been there, someone else would have. There's a lie at the heart of the trial, because they are being prosecuted on behalf of every single user of the Pirate Bay. Is this fair, I ask? Yes, they are at fault, and yes perhaps a large example needs to be made. But are the Companies going to hunt down Demonoid, Isohunt, and all those ones not famous enough for me to know the name of after this?
I'm not saying they weren't doing something wrong - but I don't think they should have to pay $3.6 million of damages either. It's like arresting a knife manufacturer, because people have used his products in a murder. Forgetting that it is not his fault how customers use his service, and that knives do have an important and useful part in our society.
And there are ways of using it legally. I've never downloaded anything I would have been willing to buy. I have a pirate copy of Warriors at the Edge of Time, so I can put an album already posessed on LP onto my MP3 player. It is legal to change the format of things you own, and I consider the royalties already passed on. Is it fair for the company to make me buy a product twice, because formats have changed? The same goes for my DVD of King's Demons. I own a video, but can't play it on my laptop at university. When that appears legally, does the BBC want me to pay for it a second time? With format changes, the companies have a real trick: the potential to sell us the same album on record, tape, CD, i-Tunes download, and whatever comes next. Within fifty years, my video collection will be useless and I'll be forced to upgrade.
At it's purest level, I see the potential of web download as redressing this balance. Another way I have used it is for collecting outdated Doctor Who memrobilia - books, magazines, novels. Strictly illegal, but if you choose to think of purchasing a product as a method of paying it's creator, then it is morally fine. There is no way I could aquire, say, So Vile a Sin and get any of the proceeds to Orman and Aaronovitch. Instead, the winner would be the unscrupulous former owner, charging anything upwards of £100 for the damn thing. It's like an unofficial public domain. I can get it for free, or get it off eBay - the original company and creator will still not see a penny of it.
Of course, this presupposes that everyone will consider the morality of downloading, and the majority of people probably do not. This is a shame, because the internet is a fantastic tool, and we need the companies to see how great a way it is of distributing media. Piracy will not be stamped out - instead, it should be integrated. Spotify, iPlayer and 4OD are three examples of the pirate ideology - being able to find and consume media online - being adapted to a legal framework. And they're brilliant!
The way I percieve the legal-piracy of the future - let's call it privateering! - is the internet as
a repository for the lost. If the privateer wants to buy the latest James Bond movie, then he should stop being a cheap bastard and buy it. If he's interested in an avant-garde movie he saw twenty years ago, that's never been released on DVD - that he should be able to find on the web. TV shows which were never released. Books long out of print. With an effective indexing system, copyright authors could even withdraw such materials from the program if they ever wanted to rerelease them.
I'm a romantic - art and knowledge should be free. As Freeware Genius puts it, and seeing the motto gives me an inner boost every time I open the site, "SOME DAY ALL SOFTWARE WILL BE FREE". But I recognise the piper must be paid, and so he should be. The internet is an oppertunity to free up media. Perhaps the companies are just running scared because it also gives individuals chance to liase directly with the artists and cut them out altogether. Take Bandstocks - fans invest £10 or more in an album, to enable it's release, not the companies. I'm so tempted to get involved, because the idea of it is just so beautiful: rum and grog for everyone!
So I'll leave you with the uplifting words of Patrick Wolf, and I'll see you in this future:
"My roots in the music industry have always been firmly placed in
independent music. As a teenager I was inspired by visionary labels such as
Digital Hardcore, Fierce Panda, Planet Mu, and Tigerbeat 6. As an 18 year old, I
was given full creative space by the small label Faith and Industry to grow and
to make the records and sounds I had to. After two independent releases I
decided to experiment to see what would happen when a major label and my third
album collided. It was very beneficial and a great learning curve for me, but I
am very happy to be back in the creative, free world of independent music; on my
own label, Bloody Chamber Music (A bloody chamber being a heart, a tribute to
the book "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter), started earlier this year.
So, here I am. Album four with my own record label. With the old world
recording industry a rapidly sinking ship; recording studios closing weekly,
free downloads daily, more musicians hitting the long road than ever before to
feed themselves, I am happy to have come across a new intimate system of
audience and artist participation called Bandstocks. This will be funding Bloody
Chamber Music, and the international physical and digital release of my fourth
album, Battle, and its collective singles. It’s an exciting game we can play
together; you get to be an investor and stakeholder in the album. You will get
special editions, first copies of the album, private privileges and mixes... and
we get to conquer the world together and show that independence and self
sufficiency are the two ways forward and out of the mess the industry is in.
When I pressed my first EP we made one thousand vinyl copies. We sold these
at friends’ shops across the UK, and with the money made we funded the mix of
Lycanthropy. The music industry needn’t be so complicated or Wizard of Oz. It’s
time to drop the curtain and stop relying on a stale patriarchy. I'm excited, I
hope you are too. Welcome to the future!
Patrick Wolf. 9th.December 2008
Comments (2)
I adore bandstocks. My policy has always been that I'd happily hand the artist a tenner for a CD, so long as the record company gets nothing, so it's ace. The money pays for the record and publicising etc. Same thing with spotify- the artists get money when I listen to music! Every time, even if it's only a penny, which they don't with CDs.
I'm being a bit sneaky and keep playing Straw's back catalogue on repeat, muting the laptop and leaving it on. NO-ONE remembers Straw and they actually get royalties this way, how good is that??
Simon Indelicate's written a brilliant essay/article on the music industry here: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=74692746895&h=hLAp1&u=L0vRM&ref=mf
Also- only a month till the Manics!!
Next time youre home grab the punk album and listen to Bow Wow Wow's C30 C60 C90 which is all about the joys of bootlegging Top of the Pops on tape casettes.
Also reminded of Voltaires line about the execution of Admiral Byng, viz it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to inspire the others. If by a token execution the record industry can deter a % of pirate sites from operating or a % of the public from dowloading then their profits are sustained.