Guess what guys. The Obama Administration recommends that streaming copyrighted stuff is now a felony (the article only says video, but the actual paper is not specific to video: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ip_white_paper.pdf ). Well, if you thought YouTube's deletion of videos with "copyright violation" as the cited reason, if this passes, then it will be far, far worse.
But my opinion is different. I mean, free stuff is great, but I have always hated piracy, and preventing illegal distribution by streaming definetely helps. As a indie game and software developer myself, I am the one who gets affected by this sort of thing. It's like shoplifting, only online. Please support the artist, especially if the stuff is not free!
On the other hand, making streaming copyrighted media a felony does seem a bit harsh, even if I do support stopping this offense. What are your thoughts?
17 comments:
Although I personally do like free stuff as well, I think this issue is very similar to patents. If people are able to just stream copyrighted stuff illegally, it would discourage people from making new and novel videos and other online media. Other people shouldn't be able to freely take and use media without compensating the artist.
This does seem harsh, especially if there is still no consistent way to enforce the law. If very few people get caught, and those that do are going to be punished very severely while everyone else gets off free, it hardly seems fair.
While the moral ground for streaming copyrighted material is questionable, let's remember that people who stream these things are repaying the artist in a much broader, and perhaps more rewarding sense: in reputation. Remember that many musics began as relatively unknown, and unknown bands and music suffer from a low likelihood of being discovered if it cost money to be discovered. On the other hand, Streaming and piracy are free, and would introduce this type of music etc. to the general mainstream.
As an indie game and software developer, Charlie, I would imagine that, to you, the popularity and fame generated from having your games or software becoming widely distributed would be worth the insignificant amount of royalties you'd be getting from the sale of your products anyways.
I agree with Dan. The name recognition that these artist get will benefit them in the long run in concerts, and merchandising. A lot of underground artists were only found out because other people posted their merchandise for free.
I like my free stuff :(
I think Dan has a great point regarding gaining reputation. It's like the barriers to entry in a our economic market. People who try to start up small businesses often fail because they cannot gain the momentum (i.e.: money), thus many people are shot down before they have a chance to show of their talents. It's the same for copyrights for artists. It's a trade off for them. They can either get paid (maybe not even that much due to paying for publicity, the record company and other costs) or get something that they can't directly buy with money: popularity.
I think streaming media should not be considered a felony because people aren't copying the music/video and saying that it's their own. They are simply giving the public a different source to view them. I think it's a problem when people actually copy from other artists, but streaming is a different deal.
I agree with the general principal, just not the severity of the punishment. I think it should be an infraction at most. But to charge people in federal prison for redistributing a video seems... annoying, especially because most people aren't capitalizing on the videos they re-upload.
@Dan: Very good point, and it is one that I have heard often.
However, many starting developers distribute their products as freeware to enhance popularity and future sales because they know that very few people even know they exist. The main problem is that piracy's increase in reputation is negligible if the product is already popular. And when a significant percentage of a customer base obtained their product for free, the producer has just lost very significant portions of profit. Streamers streaming Inception aren't really increasing the popularity of the film, right?
@Jason: Even if the uploaders don't capitalize on the products, the audience definetely does. This therefore is a form of shoplifting. And as accomplices to shoplifters, streamers should be prosecuted by the law.
Even if I like the ideas behind the law, however, I agree with most of the comments that the law seems unnecessarily harsh. Worse is the inability to enforce it consistently. Police have limited time, and therefore tend to focus their efforts on more serious and profitable offenses. So how should we prevent streaming copyrighted media without going to such extremes?
By the way, there are methods of finding your identity even if you are anonymous on the Internet, so this is not completely impossible to enforce. Just difficult.
Ooh, this is relevant to my paper topic.
Copyright is designed to encourage inventiveness and creativity by guaranteeing creators an exclusive right to profit from their works. However, the original Copyright Act had a time limit of 28 years, after which content entered the public domain and was free to use. This was done in order to prevent creators from monopolizing works indefinitely and to strike a balance between profit motives and a vibrant public domain, both of which are needed for creativity to flourish. (Currently, after several extensions, copyright protection is effective for a much longer period: the duration of the creator's life plus 70 years.)
Copyright law as it is applied now is too broad and too extensive. Just about any form of expression, even such as this comment I am writing now, is automatically copyrighted, and a vast majority of this does not serve to create monetary incentives for creativity, especially not for 70 years past the creator's death.
Instead of motivating creativity, copyright law as applied in situations such as this raises undue barriers to creativity. Most creative works don't come from thin air; they draw on other works and the surrounding culture. This is not stealing, it is inspiration, and it goes back a long way. Shakespeare based his plays on legends and stories of contemporary culture. Walt Disney made film adaptations of folktales such as Cinderella. (Ironically, Disney is now opposing "illegal" usage of Mickey Mouse and other copyrighted characters of its own in others' works.)
With the Internet comes a vast potential for a huge, rich public domain that can spawn a vast array of new works, as well as an unprecedented capability to distribute those works. The application of a dated copyright law to this environment has the effect of neutering the creative potential of the Internet, limiting the free distribution of ideas and making it harder for creative communities to proliferate.
[Apparently my comment was too long or something. Sorry for rambling; this is a good exercise in rearticulating some of the material I've been researching.]
Of course, a lot of legitimate stealing does occur due to the ease of streaming and downloading media. Every person who listens to a song on YouTube or rips it from a torrent is a person not paying $.99 for it. (Which would mostly go to the record companies and not the actual artists, but that's another matter entirely.) However, that's yet another issue that has to be dealt with, and the solution is not to view the Web as the enemy and impose unduly harsh punishments.
The question of how to make sure artists can get compensated for their work in such a pervasive attitude of "it's okay to steal on the Internet" is a tough one. But surely, developments such as this are little more than blank threats to the vast majority of people (and financially crippling to those who get caught and fined in the hundreds of thousands). If the problem of piracy and theft is to be resolved, the Obama administration will need to try new tactics to dampen the widespread nonchalant attitude toward theft (because that is what it is), and content creators will need to adapt to the rapidly changing technological environment and find new ways to profit from their works.
Dan makes an excellent point; free streaming helps individuals get their name out quickly. The example of Rebecca Black shows how fame can be achieved overnight (positive or negative). Hosting media and other copyrighted material should be a felony; this means you actually acquired the file and promoting the content as your own. But streaming, though discouraged, should not be punished.
Again this is just an excuse for the privatization of the internet. From a loose network of communicating bodies to the multi-billion dollar commerce medium it has become, the internet has defied all attempts to tame/control it. The media industry is dying, and the idea of controlling the content on the internet as a possible new source of significant revenue is too much for these moguls to pass up. Unfortunately, these same floundering companies have ties to the government strong enough to lobby for such a policy directive that will undoubtedly cause thousands to go to jail for such a ridiculous offense. America already has more people in jail per capita than any other country, why do we need to add more ways for people to be locked up unnecessarily. Keep our people and the internet free from the new tyranny of those who would like to control the government through lobbying.
I totally agree! it is not fair to have the producer get no profit from their produced good...and therefore should and deserves to be compensated by people BUYING not cheating the system!
This all ties back to what used to be the next big thing to what is now THE BIG THING.
Well... if you do figure out how to privatize the internet and put downloading undercontrol well, people just seem to figure there way around it.
Think of it as a cyber black market that you have access to for as long as you know where to go.
Remember when limewire shut down? people still found a way around it. i bet a lot of people just went somewhere else for music...
as long as computers are being built with "copy" "paste" "download" and there are programmers who create applications/programs to get around it. well, we're out of luck.
We all have this mindset, "It's only illegal if you don't get caught" .... the government needs to find a way to stop everything at once. or be able to enforce its law on not just a few people but everyone that breaks it.
It's like going back to days of prohibition, they just couldn't enforce it
Best comment on this post me thinks ( if I there was a “ like “ button on your comment I would hit it)
Anyways I am AGAINST privatization of the internet, Ray’s comment basically sums up what I wanted to say. Furthermore what about website domains that are based in other countries? If I can’t get a song, game, or program from a website based in the United States, what is stopping me from getting it from another based in China or Russia. Remember the internet connects the world, it brings everyone who has access to it, to one place. This topic is much more complicated than it seems. Ray said it best, “It's like going back to days of prohibition, they just couldn't enforce it.” +1
I agree with Dan; it not only benefits the people who want these copyrighted materials but also the artists who essentially created it. I've never witnessed people streaming copyrighted material in attempt to take credit for it but rather because they simply like it and want to share it with others, and I personally really enjoy that aspect.
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