Kim Dotcom and Piracy Podcast

In this Podcast, I am talking about Kim Dotcom, well-known for his involvement in a 'piracy website'. I will be focusing on an interview that took part between Dotcom and the Russia Today Network. Dotcom raised a few points in his interview that I found extremely interesting, such as how Hollywood encourages piracy through their behaviour. He highlighted how the United States government is handling the subject of piracy. I found it interesting when Dotcom explained that

"I am not for copyright infringement. People need to understand that. I’m against copyright infringement. But I’m also against copyright extremism. And I’m against a business model: the one from Hollywood that encourages piracy.

I’ve always created products that people like. And that’s why I’m successful. I’m not successful because people have used Megaupload for copyright infringement… We don’t believe that 50 million users a day are all just transferring piracy. That’s wrong. A lot of people have used it to back up their data, to send a file quickly to a friend. Young artists have used it to get traction, to get downloads, to get known. There was a lot of legitimate use on Megaupload. It’s a dual-use technology, just like the Internet.

You can go to any ISP right now, anyone who connects customers to the Internet. And if they are honest to you and you ask them the question ‘How much of your traffic is peer-to-peer piracy?’ anyone who will tell you less than 50 percent is lying to your face. This is a problem of the Internet and not Megaupload".

I chose to focus on this quote to illustrate how complicated and contradicting the situation surround piracy really is. Yet, the solution could be simple with some compromising of both sides.

This is my podcast!

If you would like to watch this interview in full, you can find it here.

References

RTAmerica. (2013). Kim Dotcom wants to encrypt half of the Internet to end government surveillance (RT INTERVIEW). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JKGAt1__-Q.

Wikepedia. (2013). Aaron Swartz. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz.

Wikepedia. (2013). Kim Dotcom. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom.

Summary of Rationalism and Piracy

Similar to Brandon Elson, I too believe that I should have the right to preview the product before investing and purchasing it. He states that downloading websites such as hotnewhiphop, offers consumers the availability and urge to sample music that corporations like the Big Five are trying to dismantle. As Brandon Elson and Jeff Luciano pointed out, this is the behavior of many, if not the majority, of consumers. With this said I agree with Jeff Luciano, that new technology is making it easy and quick to pirate things like music and thus, creating a bigger problem for copyright holders and/or label companies to tackle. Therefore, it is in my opinion that, this will force label companies to come up with alternate options, such as reducing their prices, since current copyright laws are not totally effective in eliminating piracy.

While the issue of copyright is still an ongoing dilemma, I believe that copyright laws need to be adjusted. In my view, these laws give copyright industries the ability to claim total control of future intellectual property and profit distribution. This in turn, can and has dismantled the continuity of creators through improper monetary compensation. And, as a result, can and has had the ability of creating a null feel to the continuity of cultural innovations. This coincides with Chris Ruffolo’s opinion that the idea of copyright intellectual property will create a read-only culture versus creative one. I further argue that piracy will continuously flourish with the presence of the new technology which makes it easier to consume pirated material.

According to the articles that were read, I came across several points that I found very interesting and surprising. Each of the articles highlighted the problem of piracy and their foundations. According to Condry’s article (2004), he discusses the differences between the U.S and Japan in regard to piracy. While in U.S, piracy is considered a huge crime, publishers in Japan avoid lawsuits concerning copyright infringements. In fact, Japanese publishers understand that their sales are not damaged by the dojinshi markets, but, that the outcomes are beneficial to their sales i.e. free promotion. Condry (2004) further argues that copyright holders in Japan avoid proceeding with lawsuits that may hurt the reputation of mainstream artists, also it requires a significant amount of resources and effort, but rather direct it towards something more beneficiary to the industry. Furthermore, he states “US record companies may be fighting the wrong battles”. This attitude assumes that if the U.S. is to follow the Japanese model, it will help boost the mainstream industry, thus creating stable careers for musicians, producers, artists, and publishers.

The majority of my group’s comments were highlighting the unfairness of profit distribution among the record industries: 47% goes to the label company, 7% to the artist, 3% for the producer, and 8% to the publisher. The study that was conducted by Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013) highlighted very essential points that would allow the law makers to understand the main reasons behind piracy, which in my perspective if they address those reasons it might help them find proper rational solutions. According to Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013), piracy is needed for sampling the content before its purchase, obtaining unaffordable contents, and/or undermining the current copyright regime. Yes, they view those laws as a regime, which can indicate their understanding in how to justify piracy i.e. fighting against a bad regime is a ‘good’ cause. Moreover, pirates see no actual victims, however, this argument contradicts some of their beliefs where they favor private ownership and they see that stealing from intellectual property holder is not depriving the owner of the actual object. Yet they recognize the human effort and/or labor that was put in for the creation of the content.

What surprised me was, how well structured the piracy’s culture is. They have names and/or titles for pirates such as: leecher, trader, and citizen who upload content for the purpose of benefiting the larger file sharing community. The legislative acts that were passed earlier in the U.S, like DMCA (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) extended the existing copyright laws protecting intellectual property for an additional 75 years and 95 years for the corporate owned IP. The Big Five are steering the wheel of legislation into their direction to their benefit, for instance, the Napster case as McCourt & Burkart (2003) stated “was not a response to falling profitability due to piracy, but instead a successful counter strategy to relieve anti-trust pressures while legally securing a claim to the Internet as an alternative delivery system to retail outlets.” It is just showing the corporations efforts to handle the outcomes of this new Internet era and thus, they are not adjusting their views to the facts that the new technology is bringing along the way. I am not pro-piracy but I see the wrong and the greed of those corporation’s behaviors, damaging the good potential that will occur from Internet.

References

Condry, I. (2004). Cultures of Music Piracy: An Ethnographic Comparison of the Us and Japan. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 7 (3), pg. 343-363.

McCourt, T. & Burkart, P. (2003). When Creators, Corporations and Consumers Collide: Napster and the Development of On-line Music Distribution. Media, Culture & Society. 25 (3), pg. 333-350.

Steinmetz, K. & Tunnel, K. (2013). Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: A Study of On-Ling Pirates. Deviant Behavior. 34, pg. 53-76.

Rationalism and Piracy

The culture of file-sharing has forever been an issue between consumers, pirates, and corporate copyright holders. It is one where each side possesses valid arguments for their actions, and one where each of their arguments stands “invalid”. While articles written by Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013) focused on a study of On-Line pirates and Condry (2004) focused on the culture of music in the United States and Japan, both were comparable in: sampling, pirate network distribution, and the cost of content. According to Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013) pirates have argued that Ink, a small independent film, would not have been popular had it not been for piracy:

yet pirates claim that internet file distribution actually increases the popularity of independent, smaller studio films. As example, at the time of our research, participants were discussing file sharing’s effects on the success of the independent film Ink (p. 61).

They further argue that, “Ink would have been ignored and remained obscure if not for pirate network distribution” (p. 61). Similar, Condry (2004) argues that dojinshi “take their characters from mainstream manga in clear violation of Japanese copyright law, and some of these fan artists can support themselves on sells (p. 354). To coincide with Steinmetz & Tunnell’s (2013) argument, Condry (2004) states “that manga publishers realize that the dojinshi markets do not substantially hurt sales, and in fact, if a particularly racy fanzine causes a stir, it helps sales of the mainstream manga” (p. 354). In my opinion, this is the only benefit that results from piracy.

However, McCourt & Burkart (2003) concluded, stating that pirating infringes on their rights and urged for stronger copyright laws:

we conclude that the Big Five [EMI, Universal, Sony, Time Warner and BMG] seek a trans-dimensional extension of copyright law and leak-proof control of distribution channels through legislation, litigation, merges and acquisition, and anti-copying technologies (p. 334-335).

In contrast, Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013) performed a study in which they explored the subculture of pirates. Accordingly, they came to several findings, one of them being that young people choose to pirate content because it allows them to make discretionary decisions on how to spend their funds, or that they were hesitant purchasing the product, were not able to afford it, or they simply had access to the material (Steinmetz & Tunnell, p. 58). Similarly, Condry (2004) argues that students believe that CDs are too expensive and that marketing is deceptive, thus giving them ample reason to pirate. Instead, they argue, that sampling a CD should be permissible as it gives them an opportunity to ‘test’ the product before its purchase. According to Condry (2004), CD production costs are well under a dollar. Which makes me question how those label companies price their products? What type of relationship that exists between the retail price and the cost of production? When do they, label companies, achieve their targeted profit for each intellectual work and do they have a reasonable target? And, when is it possible for label companies to decrease the price of the product? With existing laws, it seems to me that they, corporate copyright holders, will never be forced to decrease their prices, as they will continue to hold the belief that “goods and services are only worth what people are prepared to pay for it” (Steinmetz & Tunnell, 2013, p. 62).

If we look at Table 2: Sales of 99 cent songs from Apple’s online iTunes Store, it shows that they, the corporate copyright holders are the main beneficiary in the system, they are making most of the profit, while downgrading artists’, producers’, publishers’, and songwriters’ profitability. According to Table 2, it points out that label companies make 47% while artists make only 7%, the publisher makes 8%, and the producer makes only 3% (Condry, 2004, p. 357).

With that said, I believe that the US needs to consider how it approaches its copyright laws and in turn, take a more positive and realistic avenue, like Japan, when dealing with these copyright issues. In addition corporate copyright holders need to squeeze the gap between their sales market and the piracy market to a minimum. In doing so they will create an affordable financial alternative to consumers, i.e. giving young users the choice of purchasing high quality product versus low quality content for a small or reasonably enough difference in price. In realizing this, I argue that corporate copyright holders will manage a break through if rational solutions are sought out were they will dry out the demand for piracy. They should tackle this issue from its source, realizing that their actions have lead to the existence of piracy. If they, the corporate copyright holders refuse a change, I coincide with Steinmetz & Tunnell (2013) in that “trying to make digital file uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet” (p. 60) and that the problem would continue and they must face reality. One could argue further in saying that even if they seek rational solutions and prices are reduced, would it stop piracy?

References

Condry, I. (2004). Cultures of Music Piracy: An Ethnographic Comparison of the Us and Japan. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 7 (3), pg. 343-363. McCourt, T. & Burkart, P. (2003). When Creators, Corporations and Consumers Collide: Napster and the Development of On-line Music Distribution. Media, Culture & Society. 25 (3), pg. 333-350. Steinmetz, K. & Tunnel, K. (2013). Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: A Study of On-Ling Pirates. Deviant Behavior. 34, pg. 53-76.

Copyright: How far will we let this go?

The video that I created contains one of the issues that surrounds the copyright laws and their implications on society. I created it using the "Popcorn Maker" program, including images and articles found through research, and music from Soundcloud. I Hope that you enjoy and learn from it.

You can find my video here.

http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/15fh

Summary of Thinking

Copyright??? This term appears welcoming to big corporations. When they use others, no problem!, but when others copy them, it becomes a BIG problem. This is evident with major corporations like Disney, whose cartoon stories are copied by traditions and cultures i.e. Pocahontas or with Apple, who copied Xerox. As Kirby states, everything is 'copied, transformed, and combined' and for corporations this means a profit without limitations. However, if society were to realize the fact that creativity depends on existing work and that as consumers we deserve to have free access to it, this would be our assurance to the continuity of development. But, if society ignores the obvious, then its original ideas will become the advancement and financial greed of others. Like Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, Henry Ford, as Cour Sem stated, 'observes society and listens intently to seek out the significant needs and demands of the culture he targets.' Moreover, I too agree with Brandon Elson's statement, that the videos on "Everything is a Remix" are creative, but interesting to see and understand how literally everything that incorporates the media is a continuation of the process. It is in my opinion, that restrictions can and should protect the rights of creators and in this way they encourage the contribution for new creators. Moreover, the questions that society needs to ask is: how to define people's original work and when it should become public (considering time restrictions).

Cultures and Copyrights

The “Everything is a Remix”1 videos were excellent in demonstrating what is basically at steak at the moment. Kirby pointed out how things have changed from good intention to bad intention. Those copyright laws were introduced for the purpose of helping the creators to generate their development’s costs and most importantly they had the intention of Common Good. This is very essential to the continuity of major advances on existing ideas. Kirby displayed so many important examples which they truly fit in this sense of building on existing idea for further advancement such as improving the steam engine and the Henry Ford’s invention of Model T vehicles. Henry Ford did not invent the Assembly line, Interchangeable parts, and the Automobile but he copied, transformed and combined all those elements to get to his invention. Kirby finally points out how the system of law values ideas as assets totally ignoring the “nature of creativity”2 threatening the culture system to fail. He is a person who really needs support, lots of it, since he is touching on a very hot subject the domain of the most powerful of corporations. According to Miller “The world’s Culture Structures are dominated by nine Corporations: General Electric, Bertelsmann, Time Warner, News Corporation, Sony, Liberty Media, Disney, Viacom and NBC. They own 85 percent of world music, all the major Hollywood studios, most satellite and cable services, much of book and magazine publishing and a vast array of broad-cast TV.”3 Highlighting what at steak was also pointed out by Jenkins in the article “There is an enormous demand right now for public intellectuals who can help the public, policy makers and industry alike understand the stakes in these power struggles. In order to play that role, we will need visibility address large and diverse publics, credibility to get our ideas heard in the corridors of power, accessibility to ensure that our perspectives are clearly understood and widely embraced and pragmatism to develop solutions that acknowledge the legitimate interest of all stake holders.”4 The struggle to produce a productive dialogue with the media industries will be greater and will not ease up in the future. I think that YouTube would not have survived till now without being purchased by Google. Even though YouTube was a success form day one but the threat of fighting these giants was never far from happening. YouTube created a new public domain as it was highlighted “It is not about the video. It’s about creating a community around the video”5 and it is very true. The whole world is somehow connected to this site in a way, checking out certain events or to enjoy a laugh on something foolish being the center of world circulation. In conclusion, I realize how important is to balance common culture and commerce culture, in other word putting restrictions and copyright restrictions so it will not transform the common to commercial dominated by greed.

Reference:

1 Kirby, Ferguson, “Everything is a Remix”, http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/25380454

2 Kirby, Ferguson, “Everything is a Remix”, http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/25380454

3 Toby Miller, “A view from a fossil,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7, no. 1(2004): 55-65

4 Henry, Jenkins, “The cultural logic of media convergence,” International Journal of Culture Studies 7, no. 1 (March 2004): 33-43

5 Lucas, Hilderbrand, “Youtube: Where Culture Memory and Copyright Converge,” Film Quarterly 61, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 48-57

Reliability of Wikipedia

Whether Wikipedia is a reliable source or not? There seems to be no answer to this question, the more I read through related articles to this matter I get more distanced from the answer. Professors tend to push students away from using Wikipedia, this is not based on their personal feelings toward this site but rather it is based on their acknowledgment of its unsafe source of information, indicating the reputation of Wikipedia in where it is based on previous errors or false presentation of information. They argue that it is possible to edit and change the content of an article freely, but looking at the way Wikipedia is structured and how editing is made it will be hard to make improper change on an article. The fight with ‘frontier criminals’ as the article Military History on the electronic frontier points that Wikipedia uses “Kangaroo Courts where the accused are brought before a self-constituted jury…The severest penalty is a ban(exile) for a period of time, or permanent banning.” It is also a successful method to settle a dispute in the talk page. The talk page can be a hot debating place depending on the subject however if it contains perspectives and opinions they can have an overtly political slant. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/380070777/ . . . Editors in Wikipedia “They pride themselves in adhering to Wikipedia’s NPOV rule: all articles must reflect a Neutral Point of View and POV, or bias, is a misdemeanor that is regularly removed.” Richard Jensen, Military History on Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812. They make great effort in providing good materials and articles that are prone to vandalism are usually locked. Wikipedia locks some articles down but most are open to mess with, one could argue the possibility to publish an article on the internet with twisted lies, reference it on Wikipedia and it is likely to stay up because it is referenced. There are Four Million articles on Wikipedia but only 15,572 are honored “Good articles” meaning that they are “written very well, contain factually accurate and verifiable information, where possible, by relevant images with suitable copyrights licenses.” Richard Jensen, Military History on Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812. Basically Wikipedia is a place to start a quick view but for further depth in research, other sources will be needed as mentioned in the article of what’s on Wikipedia and What’s Not...? Assessing Completeness of Information, Shariatmadari (2006) found that “Wikipedia is specifically intended as work reference, where as using a search engine is not.” The following is an example of on going debate on what to call the opposition group to the government of Syria, the rebel’s faction legitimacy and the government’s current situation. This talk page followed the Wikipedia guide lines, participants used proper referencing and footnotes backing up their arguments and most were aware of not granting an equal status between the rebel’s faction and the current government of Syria fearing that it can very easily be perceived as bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Syria