..the wind is in your hair, you can smell the salt in the air, you are riding the ocean waves. Travelling this route is something you've always done. You sell your cargo at one port and then buy some more with the profit you make. You are a merchant, plying your trade. It's an honourable life. Suddenly, out of no-where, you find yourself sailing into a fog bank. The dark whisps of mist crawl over you and you can hear nothing but the waves slapping against your hull echoing dulling back to you. The fog makes dark grey forms around you, changing smoothly like oil in water. One of the dark shapes catches your eye: something isn't right. As you squint to see better, the mystery solves itself, a blackend headmast rears out of the fog, she turns, revealing a row of cannons. The fag parts slightly and you can see the mast, and the ships flag, a grinning skull meets your eyes as the blood drains from your face: The Jolly Roger. Pirates! The techo-pirates are here, router in one hand, P2P network in another... as you stare into the pale grinning faces you realise that your whole livelihood is going to be destroyed. The horror... the horror...
Or so some people would have you believe.
The fuss over computer piracy is, like many things computer related, missing the point. The internet doesn't do anything new, web-sites don't do anything new, blogging certainly doesn't do anything new. The key to all these things is not their uniqueness, or originality, but the fact that they make things easier.
The internet makes communication easier. Part of communication is not just talking to someone, but sending things to someone. As long as these things are digital, the internet makes that easy too. Just like regular networks did before it, but on a global scale. What happens when you make it easy to send people things? Well people send stuff to other people, or they sell it to other people, or they give it away to other people.
The internet is basically a big combination of a middle eastern bazzar and an English pub on a Friday night, except there are no market inspectors or landlords.
And, just like a pub or bazzar, you can find people selling, giving, or taking, things that they shouldn't be. This is all natural, to be surprised by it is to be very naive about the way people's heads work.
What I would be worried about if I was an industry with an internet piracy problem is not the piracy, but why piracy of our products had become so attractive to people. It's not the product itself, because there is obviously demand for it -- if the demand wasn't there wasn't then people wouldn't pirate it.
What makes ordinary people decide to pirate movies, games, music, or in fact anything you can find on the net? Part of the reason is availability: it is not hard to find pirated content. However it is only easy to find if you are looking for it in the first place. The trick for the industry is not to supress the pirate content -- that has never happend, and never will, effectively -- but to make legitimate products and avenues so apealling that consumers not only don't need to find pirated content, but don't want to.
How to do this? Well there are many avenues, certainly there are some obvious ways not to do this. Sadly these seem to be the popular routes. For example, the following are some things currently done to stop piracy that are obvious to the general public:
- DRM - Taking away functionality of merchandise is, frankly, dumb. The number of flawed ideas inherent in DRM are discussed far better elsewhere. The most stupid however is that it doesn't stop piracy! In fact many people I know who have bought crippled cds like this have returned the cd and downloaded the tracks in frustration. Not only have they lost a sale, they have also likely lost future sales, because now the customer both has the means and motive to go elsewhere.
- Lawsuits Against Minors - Want to get people supporting your cause? Don't victimise young children. It never goes down well and makes you look like a large unfeeling corporation or conglomerate that doesn't care about people and prefers to bully them. Even if that was true, you don't want it to look like it is true. Hearts & minds people, hearts and minds.
- Annoying Your Paying Customers - Every time I have actually decided to drop £6-7 on a movie I see a stupid, over the top, or just plain inaccurate advert saying that piracy is wrong and I shouldn't do it. I'm in your goddamn theatre! I just spent good money on your product! Why the hell are you telling me this? Now I a) am annoyed at you b) reminded I just spent money on something c) now know there is an alternative that costs less. Thats like having a Coca-Cola rep slap me in the face after I buy a coke from him and then telling me Pepsi is cheaper and better for me. Stupid!
I could go on, but my point has been made. The thing is... the legitamate product is better. CD's have artwork, liner notes, an actual physical presence. If I then rip them, that's cool, but I have all this additional content that an mp3/m4a/ogg doesn't have. A movie experience is almost always better than a dodgy downloaded dvd screener (though in the case of Catwoman, this is probably not the case). A good DVD has loads of extra content on it that makes it not just about the movie, but about the world of the movie. This is what companies should be promoting.
Instead they raise prices on this content, effectively decreasing its value. This is especially bonkers when there really isn't much of this extra content. The best example of this contrast is in DVD's where, for example, on my shelf I have Evil Dead: Book Of The Dead Edition, and Equilibrium. The comparison between the two is striking. One has a lush, custom designed, package. Liner notes and extras abound. The other one uses the basic movie poster. One has great documentaries and features, the other has the trailer and a HBO making of programme. This is made worse when you realise that they both cost the same price.
Companies aren't just victimising their customers, they are selling their products short.
The really amusing thing about this though is when someone quotes some statistic, always phrased the same: "We are losing X billion a year to piracy." Bullshit.
Most pirated data costs the companies no money because it wasn't going to be bought in the first place. Be this students with copies of 3d Studio Max, or an iPod with Dave Mathews Band's latest CD.
The vast majority of pirates either weren't going to buy your stuff, or pirate to be exposed to things that they want to buy but aren't sure about. When they are sure, they buy. IF they can't afford to buy, then you still haven't lost any money. I own many CD's and DVD's because I first was sent an mp3 by someone and then downloaded the album to see what it was like. If I found out that it was good I bought it (usually having to import it first) from my local store. Without piracy I wouldn't have bought albums by Snake River Conspiracy, Tegan & Sara, E.S. Postumus, Orbital, Juliette & The Licks, Daft Punk, Sepultura, Lamb, and many many more.
Which brings me to my final point: companies need to build faith in their products. Just like I wouldn't buy a car from someone that obviously sold a lot of rusty old bangers, I won't buy music or movies from someone who has demonstrated they have no clue what makes a good song or movie. Half of modern albums are filled with... well.. filler. Most movies are awful (Catwoman again, or how about Stealth as another good example?). I can now try before I buy... if I want to. And I do: because I have no faith in the product. That faith has been eroded by years of awful marketing, dross in the market place, and just plain poor product.
I want to buy your products, because I want the artists, actors, directors, programmers and everyone involved with the products that bring me joy, wonder, and entertaiment, and that make my life easier to be rewarded. What I need from you is:
- Prices that make your product good value. 99p for a mp3 is still too much, concidering what we don't get. Especially as CD's are far too expensive as it is.
- Let me use what I've bought. Let me rip, burn, and play the product I've bought as much as I like (for personal use). Be sensible about sampling and remixes. Let people love your product as much as you love the revenue from it.
- Don't treat me like an idiot. Don't patronise me, as a customer I'm going to respond to being treated with respect. If I've bought your product then don't treat me like a thief.
- Give me a reason to own your product. Add extra content to things, it doesn't cost you much at all to have a thick section of liner details or stick high resolution music videos as a bonus disk, but it wins you many brownie points. Lip service on this score is worse than nothing: it feels like you aren't trying.
Piracy has always happened, and always will. Trying to stop it is short sighted and silly. I'm not pro-piracy: I think people should be rewarded for what they do. However when I feel my money isn't doing that, of course I'm going to look for other means.
To people like the RIAA and MPA I, along with many other people, say this to you: your failed business model is not my problem. Work with us, not against us, and we will be your friends. Work against us, and you can only lose. Because we are the ones that built you, power you, run you, we are you. You just don't know it yet.
Gregory Wild-Smith tries to write fiction, code, and useful things on his website. Whether he succeeds is kind of up to you.
