Content owners bring piracy on themselves

Readers' comments (3)

• Anonymous | Wed, 4 Nov 2009 9:41 am

  If I understand Nic Howell's comments correctly here - the logic goes that if something is not available to buy then that something is OK to steal.
  
  Sounds good to me. I've waited a long time for that Mona Lisa painting to go on sale and I'm not waiting any longer. I'm off to Paris.
  
  Sorry, but this article is wrong. Content theft is theft - you can't dress it up as somebody else's fault. The implication that it's OK to steal because it's not available or was released early elsewhere, etc, etc is not valid any more than arguments such as the woman deserved to get attacked because she wore a short skirt or the car deserved to get vandalised because it was left in a dark place and so on. 'They asked for it' is not a reason.
  
  The comments alluding to the fact that somehow because someone spent a long time helping you steal it makes it OK are so surreal that I can't even comment.
  
  So in answer to your question Nic, 'why not download it?', the answer is : because it's theft.

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• Dan Price | Wed, 4 Nov 2009 3:34 pm

  Anonymous - (If that is your real name), I feel I have to take umbridge with your comments above. I think you have fundamentally misunderstood this whole 'illegal download' business.
  The point being made in the article is that the model used by record companies et al is one that is unworkable in this day and age. Production costs are down, but they are very reluctant to pass this on to the consumer. Downloading a film or a cd isn't stealing in the same way that it would be if I went into a shop and stole a CD, made a break for the exit, dodged a security guard and elbowed a granny on the way out. There is strong evidence suggesting that downloaders, in particular music downloaders, buy more music than non illegal downloaders, and attend more gigs.
  The numbers plucked out the air about lost revenue are laughable... illegal downloading actually increases the potenial audience, people experiencing things they wouldnt normally pay for, prompts them to then go to the gig or buy the t-shirt.
  Downloading is the democratization of content.
  Its disingenuous to suggest its comparable to stealing the Mona Lisa, and unhelpful when looking at the real serious issues of how our creative industries adapt to the reality of content in C21st.

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• Nic Howell | Wed, 4 Nov 2009 6:03 pm

  Hi Anonymous
  
  Thanks for your comments. I'm not saying that it's ok to steal. I'm really saying that, right at a point where I was ready to hand over money for content, it appeared that market mechanisms had failed, because the legacy business of the record label concerned hadn't been able, or been bothered, to make the content available to a paying customer. It seemed to me to be leaving money on the table.
  
  Did the artist concerned sign over all their rights to all future possible earnings from the content for perpetuity? Even if it was right back in the Seventies, would it be right now?
  
  I don't quite follow your analogy about women getting attacked or cars getting vandalised. I thought the debate to be one of economics and the long tail rather than violent crime and saying that victims get what they deserve.
  
  If a book goes out of print you can buy it second hand. The publisher and the author receive nothing. Likewise when a vinyl LP goes out of print, the label is effectively saying that its market worth is zero. So if an enthusiast rips an out-of print jazz LP, are you saying the act of sharing or downloading it is the moral equivalent of attacking a woman or vandalising a car? My newspaper is selling USB turntables by mail order - are they accessories to a hateful crime?
  
  The question I posed was supposed to be very much in the context of music that's "out of print" as far as a label is concerned but is now circulating on the Internet due to fans' actions . I'm not even saying that it's right to rip vinyl copies of albums that are currently available digitally.
  
  Two wrongs don't make a right, of course. You can't frame filesharing simply as being payback time for alleged bad practice on the part of the music industry. I don't think it's right to steal. In fact in the example I gave I was frustrated that I couldn't pay the artist. And since it costs pennies to make that content available, why isn't it being done? It just seemed to me an example of where the distributor was actually blocking the movement of money between consumer and artist.

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