Ack -- living at home, while it has its plusses, sure has its minusses, and this modem falls under the latter category. Until DSL gets installed, it's going to be less than smooth sailing on the Net for me. Seriously -- I never realized how spoiled I was for five years, having an Ethernet connection.
You know, I realize that if I ever do go back to China for the long term, I will have much more re-adjusting to do than I ever imagined at first. =P
Now, onto one of the Hot Topics that seem to be pervading thought pages recently: piracy, Napster, DeCSS, and friends.
Where do I stand on all of this? First of all, as a software developer myself that relies on sales of my company's product to earn a living, I am definitely concerned that the intellectual property of me and my company are defended under copyright law. So, yes, I do think that piracy is wrong, and I do disagree with the radicals who advocate the total banishment of all intellectual property law.
So, what do I think about Napster, etc? It might seem strange, given what I just wrote, but I disagree almost completely with Danny on this issue.
Yes, Napster and DeCSS faciliate copying.
However, Copying != automatic piracy. First, the copyright law of the US and, in fact, most of the civilized world specifically extempt fair use in the context of academic scholarship, criticism, etc -- eg, it is legal for a film student to use portions of a movie in a multimedia class project analyzing it or a music reviewer to incorporate audio clips in his or her review -- it is just as legal as quoting excerpts from a book in an English paper.
The litmus test for fair use is essentially whether one is using that work in a manner, or quantity, that they're essentially trying to supplant the experience provided by the work itself (eg, would you still buy the work afterwards?). Thus, what Danny wrote about clips being piracy is not entirely true either.
Having such copy protections in place, such as CSS for DVDs, would impede legitimate scholarship and criticism. What is meant as a deterrant against pirates becomes an obstacle to perfectly legal activity. In this sense, yes, free speech could be relevant. I can give the relevant case law citations if you want, even though I'm not a lawyer.
Thus, it's important to remember that Napster and DeCSS, while having the potential to aid copying -- which could be for the ends of piracy -- they are much more than that.
Furthermore, the study that Danny cited showing declining CD sales in college towns is an oft-cited one by the industry, but it is incomplete, as it did not account for any sales through online stores. While it might be tempting to automatically point fingers at Napster for this, it seems equally worth investigating the possiblity that this tech-saavy segment of the population might simply be buying more stuff online, including CDs.
Moving on, Danny's main contention is that:
So, I really think if this new music system goes unchecked, the music industry is going to go under. And I think this is ultimately bad for me. Like the current system or not, it's the only way an artist can support him or herself. There is no way, if the current system goes unchecked, that artists will be able to survive. No one will support new artists; they just rip off the MP3s somewhere. That is not good.
This assumes some bold things, such as that everyone automatically, if given a choice between illegally obtaining something for free, and legitimately paying for it, will choose the former option without regard to the law and their conscience. Danny doesn't cite any examples to support that argument, but I will cite something. Consider the shareware model, where software is freely distributed with the stipulation that if you want to use (or continue to use) the full product, to pay the fees. Take id software, makers of Quake, Doom, and other groundbreaking games. Most of their games are distrubted using the shareware model -- have the first few levels available to download for free, then if you like it, pay them for the full version.
According to Danny's prediction, id would probably gone under quickly as people pirate the full versions and deprive them of their income. Quite the opposite. id is wallowing in profits, and John Carmack, the main programmer, has three Ferarris. Not one, but three. People download Quake or Doom, get hooked on it, and then pay for the whole thing. Do people still pirate it? Sure. Is id in dire straits? I don't think so. The point is that empircally, the software industry illustrates that it is possible that people will pay for quality work, and that a viable free distribution model is possible to some extent (eg, distribute the first few levels of a game, or the first few tracks of an album), even though the potential to pirate exists.
And if you think that software piracy is much more difficult than music piracy via Napster (cf. Danny's argument that Napster removes the difficulty of piracy, ergo, the music industry must go under), much of the potential audience of Quake do have the wherewithal and knowhow to pirate it, so to them, piracy has been pretty easy, in relative terms. And yet, these people are the bread and butter of id's customers, the ones that give them their revenue stream.
Also, even if something is technically "dubious," good could ultimately come out of it. For example, what if a student in an underground church in China or North Korea used Napster to anomymously download spiritual music or hymns, and then secretly share it with fellow college students in their country? Now, unlike Americans, they obviously can't buy the CD legally in their own country, so Napster or a Napster-like service would be the only viable way for them to listen to such songs. Yes, it's technically piracy, but I think that it would take a incredibly cold-hearted artist to call them wrong for doing what they did.
Danny, if you're going to rant about piracy and shutting down Napster, at least write something interesting and personal about it (eg, expound on why you think that "this is ultimately bad for [you]" and tell us about your own artistic aspirations), rather than just repeating the party line of what the RIAA and MPAA say on their websites. And also, even though it may not be directly relevant to the argument, I think it interesting to provide full disclosure, such as the number of pirated Chinese VCDs you have (it's more than zero, last time I checked). I myself have 11 of them, in case anyone is interested, so yes I must admit that my morals are not entirely pure. I am also aware that it might be harder to go to China than to download sometihng from the net, and that your main contention is that Napster makes piracy easy, but piracy is piracy, right?
Oh well, that was a tangent. But, basically, what I personally believe, and what it all boils down to is that the whole Napster/DeCSS debate is not as black and white as the industry would like you to believe. Yes, as Danny mentioned, many artists dislike Napster. Many artists on the other hand, are for it. There's no consensus on this issue. It's up to the individual artist to decide whether or not Napster is evil, or a revolutionary new distribution medium, and not have the major labels impose their fiat on everyone by shutting down Napster or DeCSS.
More should be spent on enforcement and education to combat piracy, and going after those abroad who really account for most of the piracy -- ie, the professional pirates abroad. Last summer when I was in Asia, one could get pirated VCDs, DVDs, and software everywhere -- it seemed every street corner in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan was teeming with them. It was harder to avoid them than to seek them out. My bold claim is that in China, as things stand now, the end of Communism will come more sooner than the end of mass piracy.
Now, this is obviously blatant piracy, that oversteps the bounds of fair use. If the industry focused their efforts not on suing Napster or the DeCSS authors, but rather, pressing for international policy changes and greater enforcement in parts of the world where real piracy is the worst, that might have a greater impact on the bottom line, don't you think?
And yes, I do believe that Napster should change in some way. For instance, Napster should make it easier to search by genre, so that an unknown artist can use Napster as a distribution platform to get people acquainted with their work, as Napster likes to champion itself as.
Furthermore, Napster should be quickly and promptly responsive to complaints lodged by copyright holders. For instance, almost no one uses well known web sites such as Geocities or XOOM as a venue for distributing pirated material, because if they were to do so, their site would be shut down in short order. If Napster was more receptive to complaints and removed/banned offending users without the industry having to resort to a lawsuit, it would improve their own image as well.
Anyways, that's what I'd do if I were in Napster's shoes. So yes, Napster could and should change from its status quo -- but shutting it down completely is insufficiently justified.
Alright, flame away! =)
| Mark Wang <mwang@cs.stanford.edu> | Last modified: 2000.7.8 |