RIAA's statement on the closing of Megaupload...

[kungfuwaynewho]

...just demonstrates how stupid and out of touch these people are.  From this article, some idiot who doesn't understand how causation actually works says that "digital music sales rose after file sharing service Limewire's shutdown in 2010."  First of all, who the hell was still using Limewire in 2010?  But second of all, how on earth could you say that one led to the other?  This is like that whole sea piracy/global warming thing.  "Collectively, this evidence strongly suggests that the shutdown of illegal sites helps create a thriving and diverse digital marketplace."

No.  What it does is force new alternatives.  Napster gives way to Kazaa that gives way to Limewire that gives way to torrents and from there to Megaupload and its ilk, and now that the direct download sites are under attack, something new will pop up.  Why?

BECAUSE I DO NOT BUY SHIT IF I DON'T KNOW IF I LIKE IT OR NOT.  I don't know why this is so hard for these people to understand.  I am not just going to buy a DVD or a CD without having seen or heard it first.  I don't have the money to throw around on a whim, and most other people don't, either.  I've purchased things I never would have without downloading them first, because I never would have known those things existed.  When was the last time you heard Gogol Bordello on the radio?  Exactly.  But I have four of their CDs and have gone to two concerts, and I guarantee you I never would have even known about them at all if I hadn't been exposed to their music online.

Also, I rarely buy books.  I read them for free from the library.  How come no one's shutting down the libraries?  What's the difference, really? 

If I had to actually purchase all the media I consume then I simply wouldn't consume much at all.  That's what these imbeciles don't get.  I have a finite amount of money.  I'm not just going to magically have more because you shut off my access to popular culture.  If the only way I can listen to that song that I'm so-so on is to buy it then I just won't buy it.  I don't download movies, so if something comes out and it doesn't excite me enough to go out to the theaters, then I just fucking wait till I can watch it for free when the library buys the DVD.  The end.  I don't even Redbox that shit.  BECAUSE I CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY ALL MY ENTERTAINMENT.  Sorry, media.  Sorry, studio execs and producers and everyone else.  That's just the way it is.

They act like it's a zero-sum game and it's not.  If I download an episode of American Horror Story because I missed it and I'm so far behind the episodes aren't up on Hulu anymore, I haven't stolen anything.  Nothing is missing.  I already missed the live airing so I'm not counting in the ratings anyway and whether I watch it six weeks later will have no impact on their ad sales.  But if I have the chance to go ahead and watch it by downloading it?  I might end up buying it when it comes out on DVD.  I certainly won't buy it sight unseen, that's for damn sure.  I don't know why they can't see this fact.  It's not that hard to figure out.

(I have been thinking countless iterations of this rant since last week.  Reading that article finally put me over the edge.)

Comments

[jerusha]

WORD. One of the bands I'm very, very into--as in, buy all the albums, go to whatever concerts I can--I wouldn't have known about them except that I saw an X-Files fanvid. And then I downloaded every song I could find of theirs on Napster (when it was still available), and now I have purchased every album of theirs I could.

This is true of movies, of TV shows, of music, and of books. I'm a little more free with my book buying these days, but I still tend to read the first and last chapter of books I'm thinking about buying before I do so. And I tend to buy books more often when I know I love them and will read them again. I tend to buy TV shows when I know I'll watch them multiple times, or movies. Nearly everyone I know feels the same way. They test things out before buying. We can do this with so many other things in life; why can't we do this with media like TV and movies? I just don't get it.

[naushika.livejournal.com]

EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS ACCURATE AND I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY.

This statement from Neil Gaiman has been making the rounds lately. I wish more people got it like him!

"When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to take it down, you would lose your copyright, which actually, is simply not true.

And I also got very grumpy because I felt like they were pirating my stuff, that it was bad. And then I started to notice that two things seemed much more significant. One of which was… places where I was being pirated, particularly Russia where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading around into the world, I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. Then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia, it would sell more and more copies. I thought this was fascinating, and I tried a few experiments. Some of them are quite hard, you know, persuading my publisher for example to take one of my books and put it out for free. We took “American Gods,” a book that was still selling and selling very well, and for a month they put it up completely free on their website. You could read it and you could download it. What happened was sales of my books, through independent bookstores, because that’s all we were measuring it through, went up the following month three hundred percent

I started to realize that actually, you’re not losing books. You’re not losing sales by having stuff out there. When I give a big talk now on these kinds of subjects and people say, “Well, what about the sales that I’m losing through having stuff copied, through having stuff floating out there?” I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.”

What you’re actually doing is advertising. You’re reaching more people, you’re raising awareness. Understanding that gave me a whole new idea of the shape of copyright and of what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web is doing is allowing people to hear things. Allowing people to read things. Allowing people to see things that they would never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that’s an incredibly good thing."

[ghanimasun]

I am right there with you. I don't have cable or any access to actual tv, so all my media consumption comes from the internet, legal or illegally. And not surprisingly, I have watched many shows illegally which has....(you guessed it)....led to me buying that show on DVD!

[dref22.livejournal.com]

OMG THIS. ALL THIS.

LOLOL I never used Limewire in my life and I consider myself an internet person. LOL seriously! If they think the sales rose after Limewire, they are: a-)Either stupid b-)Lying.

Seriously, they destroyed Kazaa and what happened afterwards? We got more than one way of file sharing.

All I know is: Shutting down file sharing sites or even baning the whole internet won't make me buy more movie tickets or music albums. It's not going to happen. If they think people will go and suddenly start their money on them, they are being delusional.

[singer-shaper.livejournal.com]

You may thing you're ranting, but with all the SOPA/PIPA protests blowing up the interwebs, I really do appreciate that you've simplified the issue. Not that I'll necessarily buy things I watch/listen to online, but ITA that I certainly wouldn't buy them if they weren't also available for free.

[la-loony.livejournal.com]

All of what you said up there!

Also, I rarely buy books. I read them for free from the library. How come no one's shutting down the libraries? What's the difference, really?

Made me laugh SO MUCH! Maybe we should start a petition to demonstrate how incredible ridiculous it is what they are doing.

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

They do take a run at libraries periodically. Look at the current e-book lending fiasco. And I'm old enough to remember the attempt to ban videotapes...and cd's.... These are dinosaur industries clinging to out-dated models. The publishers are next.

I remember taking a flyer on music with no idea what it sounded like beyond what the bin in the record store was labelled. I read a lot of reviews in newspapers and trade magazines in those days. But mostly it was radio or word of mouth or the cheaper 45's that got you to give some new act a shot. Summers were fun because they showed a lot of potential tv shows, failed pilots which might get a second chance as mid-season replacements and previews for the fall alongside the inevitable re-runs.
Miss an episode and you waited until the summer. Ick.
Of course there were no dvd's. And vcr's were wicked expensive. The only ones I knew of that were privately owned were used for porn. :) The leading edge of every technological advance, porn is.

The guys in Monty Python decided to forego DMCA'ing their stuff on YouTube, instead insisting that a link to a place to buy their cd's, books, and dvd's be shown next to each clip. Sales went up. Huh.

And I know my own renewal of interest in music has come from fanvids and fanmixes. I view them as sampling, really, like the tiny snippets on Amazon or the free downloads on radio websites or the one free song on the band's website. I buy downloads and cd's. My casual dvd buying is almost non-existent at this point due to space issues, but if I love something I want a hard copy. Or two.

Gaiman is wrong in one way. Copying is not lending. It just isn't. It's new, this ability to perfectly record and broadly distribute content. But you are right that it is also not a lost sale. And as long as the artist gets rewarded enough to keep making art/music/stories, the brave new world is going to win out.

I just hope the dinosaurs don't break the internet with their flailing about trying to fight it.

[ufgator1977.livejournal.com]

Not that I want to get you anymore upset but have you seen the ACTA fiasco yet?

It's not over by a long shot.

Is it lame to say I couldn't agree more with your entire pot? Because I do.

[openended.livejournal.com]

BECAUSE I DO NOT BUY SHIT IF I DON'T KNOW IF I LIKE IT OR NOT.

This. So much this. Especially if it's something that's only available via purchase because it's been out for so long. I mean, the WB has season one of B5 up on their site for instant viewing (that they cut off the last five minutes of the first episode is another matter); but if they hadn't - downloading the episodes was going to be the only way that I had a clue that I was going to enjoy the show.

And the reality is, a lot of people I know end up buying the shows they've downloaded...even if they've downloaded them in full. Because they love them so much and want to rewatch them away from their computer or they want the bonus features or what have you. If people like stuff, they're going to buy it. But for a lot of things, there's no way to know if you like it until you download it.

Your point about AHS is perfect. It's such a ridiculous system that's online now, where some series' only allow sites like Hulu to show five episodes at a time (regardless of how many episodes are up that season), or even don't allow Hulu to show any current season episodes at all. What happens if you miss that week because you're on vacation, have a date, sleep through it, etc.? Not everyone has a DVR.

For that matter, not everyone has cable. I don't shell out for TV because I know that I can get everything I might possibly want to watch via the internet, and mostly legally. I wouldn't be counted in any initial viewings anyway.

From a television standpoint, what they need to do is make everything available, globally, immediately. This bullshit about airing some things in the UK six months before the US (Downton Abbey, I'm looking at you), and some things in the US six months to a year before the rest of the world (pretty much our entire exported lineup) is ridiculous. People will find a way to watch these shows the day they air in their respective countries. Stop making things available online in country-specific sites; make it global. Stop making things available the day after or the week after; make it immediate. And if you offer it for a relatively cheap subscription - or even stick Hulu-type ads within it - people will go there to get their entertainment cheaply and easily.

No one's downloading things because "ooo look at me I'm being illegal it's so deviant hehe." People are downloading things because it's the only viable option.

[roseandheather.livejournal.com]

I love you, please marry me.

It doesn't help that some of my favorite bands - Runrig, for instance - are not even sold in my country. Ditto half my favorite TV shows (hi, Borgen!) and even some of my favorite films. How else am I supposed to get a hold of them?

Nnnngh. So much love for you.

[congo]

So say we all! I wish the industry would get this, that we're actually doing them a favour by sharing things. If not for downloading, I never would've gotten into BSG, Stargate, B5, or any of the other shows I now own the DVDs and books and merchandise for. It's so ridiculous.

[indigoviolet.livejournal.com]

Weeellllll, I mostly agree, I'm just not sure about the idea that piracy actually does creators more good than harm and they should just stop complaining about it. Isn't it more of a double-edged sword?

I'm not lecturing anybody here, I'm like everyone else here in that I download a hell of a lot on a trial basis, and if I like it I'll buy it because I want the actual tangible thing. But I don't think you can honestly say that a large chunk of pirates aren't just freeloaders.

Okay, the internet is a great source of publicity and it's given artists the opportunity to cut out the corporate marketing/publishing middlemen and get their stuff straight to the audience. What they need to be doing is having a strong web presence and communicating with fans, giving them a legit source of the convenience they get from an illegal download, free samples, an easy-to-access product that's of better quality than the pirated stuff. When/if this becomes the norm, though, when the excuse for piracy is gone, will piracy vanish? I doubt it.

And come on, Radiohead and Neil Gaiman are both huge, established artists and neither were doing too badly for themselves before the digital revolution. I wonder if fledgling creators trying to build their fanbase see it the same way.

100% with you about SOPA etc being about corporate greed more than intellectual property :)

[styromgalleries.livejournal.com]

Yes to this whole post. This whole thing just makes me so mad.