Until that lesson sinks in with the other industries—e-books, movies, television, computer software, maybe even the Transportation Security Administration—I hope Saturday Night Live someday remakes that talk-show skit. Can’t you just see the list of modern Ruining It for Everyone guests? The guy who wrote the first computer virus, the very first spammer, the first person who tried to sneak a bomb through airport security in his shoes....
This article was originally published with the title The Perils of Copy Protection.
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19 Comments
Add CommentI heard on the fly that Saturday Night Live is coming out with their 25th Anniversary edition and it will be in the e-book format and that Davis E-Book Publishing, www.davis-publishing.com, the largest and most recognized digital publishing company in the world, who publishes authors all over the world, and who only publishes in the e-book format, is the company chosen by Mr. Tony Colao, president of Mastermedia Speaking Bureau who represent Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, co-authors of the widely heralded nonfiction work, SATURDAY NIGHT: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, published by Random House and in print book forma, to publish their 25th Anniversary edition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also heard on the same fly, that it will be discussed today, in e-mail, with Mr. Tony Colao to list all 1,300 + or - Saturday Night's shows for the last 25 years so that the pirates and the honest people who buy the e-book can view each show in its entirety. So, if you want to watch any of the shows for the last 25 years, all you will have to do is click on a link in your e-book, sit back and enjoy all of Saturday Night Live's shows.
It seems that Davis E-Book Publishing has never been afraid of the big bad pirate because they know that pirates are a great source of free advertising and there are more honest people out there in the world, with a conscience who knows that that is how authors makes their living and everyone has a right to make a living in America, who will buy the e-book so the author can make that living. I think it was a very wise decision Mr. Tony Colao made when he chose a digital publishing company like Davis E-Book Publishing instead of a print publisher like they did with "Saturday Night - A Backstage History Of Saturday Night Live". I think their e-book sales and show ratings will go through the roof.
I would also like to point out, It would be kinda hard to show the first person to pirate music, because it began when you were first abl to record it on reel to reel tape back in the 1960's, or maybe even before... Sony wants to be the copyright police, they even tried to put a digital marker on cassette tapes back in the 80's, (that litle tone you hear when the tape starts), they came out with digital cassette players and the player would look for that set of tones and could tell it if it was the orginial. Even now, Sony has designed Cinavia for the ps3 and other blu-ray players to reconize if the audio and video of a movie does not match, which happens with most camcorder copies on bit-torrent sites..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI happen to agree with your other readers tho.. There are even a few music labels releasing songs directly to bit-torrent now. It is the best and cheapest way for new artist to get their name out. Music groups who sell cd's through the big labels usually only get $23 per $1000 sold of a cd, they make their money in merchendise at their shows while touring, and what better way to get a big crowd at your show? Let the whole world hear your music... The groups releasing content for free ask for donations if you like it, they have ended up making more then if they had sold the cd through a label.
The MPAA and RIAA doesnt like this business model because it cuts them out of the loop. I mean, in their case they would no longer be able to push crap on the public at large, once everyone knows its crap, they tell their friends and the movie looses money, with the internet, that happens for free and faster then in the past.. before they could count on that first box-office weekend before the public would know they were swindled to begin with. Not to mention, These people are not the creative part of the puzzle anyway, they didn't write the scripts, or act in the movie or make the music.. but they get their cuts upfront. Many music Artist have labeled the RIAA as a bigger thief than any internet pirate.
And now they want to sue Grandma and send her threatening letters for downloading Beavis and Butthead because her wi-fi address recorded the download. Where is this world headed? the Law-makers in DC even help these guys...
Even in France a 54-year-old school teacher appeared to be one of the first users to be disconnected from the web under HADOPI legislation. However, he has no idea how to download illegal copies of copyrighted content, saying that he became the victim of Wi-Fi hacking.
So where do we go from here?
I work in computer security. A few years ago, I found a hacked computer serving a collection of German-dubbed pirated movies. One of these, Tarantino's "Kill Bill", I would never have sought out, rented or even read a review of. But after watching some of the video, I rented an English copy and subsequently bought both it and the sequel on DVD.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo I can easily believe that piracy may boost sales.
And it's not just copy protection. Every time I buy or rent a movie I have to watch a clip from the movie company that basically calls me a thief. Some time I have to see it in English and French. Are these the only countries with bad people who steal movies. What about Germans and Spanish? Does the message stop piracy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMusic and video "intellectual property" is also a cause of trade friction. It hasn't led to a shooting war yet but who knows? Wars have been fought over really dumb reasons before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like this article, and I do agree with your conclusions. I always believed that the losses claimed by the music, movie and software industries never existed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the first virus writer started the whole antivirus industry, I am sure there is an incestuas relasenship between the two
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way - I presume you know that many of the articles included in Scientific American are only available on this site in shortened 'teaser' format without a paid subscription, and that the related journal Nature requires subscription or a one time charge of $32 to access virtually any of its articles? Nature's articles are repeatedly referenced in SA articles - almost like a promotional gimmick...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
You really need to talk to Eric Flint at Baen's http://www.baen.com/library/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEric and Dave Weber have been doing this for at least 10 years, have the arguments that show the logic, and the proof that sales actually increase.
Great article... I totally agree with you. Music industry is already suffering from piracy and there is no other option than either 'enforcing' laws against it or simply forgetting the music business (and make everything free LoL ). You should also see this..kinda relevant to point you are making here..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/02/19/experience-dvd-pirate-vs-paying-customer/
I agree wholeheartedly with the concept. I avoid places that make the assumption that all of their customers are crooks whenever I can. Hotels that have hangers that can't be removed from the rod top the list.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterestingly, I tried to find a clip of the Saturday Night Live skit only to discover a message stating that NBC had forced its removal due to copyright.
If a person is truely motivated to steal something they will eventually succeed. I personally boycot Sony because they are scumbags that violate the very laws they claim to support. Besides, any music is available free on various radio or vidio share sites. If it isn't free then I'm not interested.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't bought a book in years - I borrow them or check them out from the library. When it comes to digital form books we just print the screen and OCR and end up with a nonprotected copy. Then we can share all we want. We can also OCR printed books and end up with unprotected digital files. None of this involves the internet and the publishers will never know. As for the Baen authors, I recommend them all of the time and have talked several people into buying their books. If they ever do a convention near me I'll show up and buy an autograph. I make sure that the local library buys a copy of every Weber or Flint book.
Nature charging money to view content on its site is much like Amazon charging $1 to download a music track -- neither is particularly copy-protected (you can save-as any Nature article you'd like), neither allows you to preview the whole thing first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCharging a subscription or a one-time cost to use services (which includes using a download server to grab files) is perfectly legitimate, regardless of how detestable copy protection is once you have the file.
An excellent article from David. It is a major step forward when a guy like this 'gets it'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would just like to pull him up on one statement:
"Piracy was rampant. The book was everywhere online."
People need to realise that appearing on Pirate signs is NOT evidence of actual downloading.
People also need to realise that download statistics on Pirate web sites are COMPLETELY FICTITIOUS. Yes, the pirates just make them up ! Amazing isn't it !
Anyone who has been even peripherally involved with web site design knows how these stats work. The Pirates want site visitors to THINK that thousands of people are downloading. This makes them feel more comfortable about doing it themselves.
This is all part of the fiction being peddled by the Music and Film industry, as well as the Publishing industry now. It suits them enormously to inflate their claims about piracy. They get to justify high prices. They get to whine to governments to have even more restrictive and onerous laws passed.
Piracy by individuals is many orders of magnitude less than they claim.
1) Tim O'Reilly came to the same conclusion so O'Reilly E-books are DRM-free (see http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0411/focus-tim-oreilly-media-e-book-antipiracy-steal-this.html).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2) Most people willing to pay for something are still willing to pay for it even when pirated copies are available for free.
3) It follows that the gazillions of dollars that publishers claim they loose to piracy are a (disingenuous) fantasy.
4) It follows that music execs should stop blaming pirates for their companies' financial woes and look for someone else to blame, preferably in a mirror.
P.S. It's ironic but appropriate that the term "piracy" comes from the "pirate" radio stations that competed with Europe's state broadcast monopolies, often from ships in international waters (hence the nautical reference). Stations such as "Radio Caroline" were a thorn in the side of the BBC and others because their playlists were based on what their listeners actually wanted to hear. Then, as now, "piracy" exists largely when "legitimate" providers are unable or unwilling to meet consumer demand.
Pre-internet days stealing was quite different. In order to steal something a number of conditions had to be met. The two most basic were:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Be close, or be able to get close, to the object desired to be stolen
2) Have the tools and brains and resources to steal the object
In the movie “The Italian Job” the thieves steal 35M in gold bullion. Note that they had to get really close to the gold to steal it. They couldn’t do this from far away…say from Bangladesh.
For digital stuff, the entire world of 7 Billion people are “close” to it! Out of that 7B only one needs to have the desire for that obtain it, and the technical ability to perform digital theft.
So the internet puts 7B people in close proximity to digital stuff of value and additionally, thru free educational services e.g. MIT OpenCourseWare:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-876j-advanced-topics-in-cryptography-spring-2003/
provides them with the expertise.
My prediction is that a few years from now everything that can be digitized will be napsterized. The Paywall, all types, will fail. It’s impossible to fight this given that the internet has enabled thousands (millions?) of would-be hackers, living in the most impoverished countries to the most wealthy countries, to get what they want, or what will bring them fame, or what will impress their friends. And to confound matters for those that believe “stealing is stealing” – some of these people believe very differently and have the mantra of “information wants to be free“.
So rather than fight the inevitable we should embrace it, even if we don’t “like” it.
Creating a new social norm where people monetarily support the open web voluntarily could turn out to be a lot less effort and money than try to keep the genie in the bottle.
Full post at:
http://blog.kachingle.com/2011/07/stealing-is-stealing-versus-the-italian-job-musings-on-jstor-and-internet-piracy/
I assume you are a US resident and therefore have not yet found Spotify.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpotify is a real "piracy killer" when it comes to music. First released in Sweden and shortly after, in a selected number of European countries, you could get virtually millions of songs for free. For a monthly fee of $8 you also got it without the drawbacks of the free subscription (ads and limitations).
I believe it is now finaly released in the US for an even lower price ($4,99 ?). The music companys seems to have been kicking and screaming all the way during negotiations for the US market but you should now also be able to get virtually all the music you could ever wish for in your PC, iPhone or Android phone(even some receivers have a built in client).
I know you won't find EVERY song you want but then again, where else do you get that in one (legal) place?
The paid subscription also gives you off-line mode so you don't have to be connected to the internet all the time. You can create your own playlists or download them from websites and community sites like facebook where you also can share your own play lists or single songs with a click. Go ahead and try it, you won't be disaponted!
Now if we could do the same with movies and e-books.........
Hello, and thank you very much for the article. It was a pure pleasure to read you - witty and informative. This is why I wanted to check out your website...but before I knew it, I was here, being asked to register for a Scientific American account. So I did, I am a reader, after all. And while doing so, I lost the thought I initially wanted to share pertaining to the copy protection issue. But I got a nice quote, which I cannot quote texto, since I am logged into my account and I cannot access the "Terms and Conditions" field from the same device which I am using to type this message. I guess I could play a bit with the site and overcome the problem, but I think my time will be better spent resuming what I have found and just trying to brief you in on what I have read. Because yes, I am one of those people, who (in rare circumstances, I admit), do read "Terms and Conditions" of anything, instead of just scrolling down the long long list of legal terms in a tiny font, check "I agree" and click "continue". This time I have read what I was signing. And I am glad I did. The last paragraph was quite interesting in the light of your article...basically, as most of us members probably don't know, unless we read the fine print, we have all agreed that whatever content we submit to the page may be altered, used and reused, edited and further propagated by : 1.Scientific American, in which case we are entitled to some royalties and our name will appear as we remain the owners of intellectual property...but : 2.any member of this site can also do the above and more, i.e. distribute, reuse, (abuse?) and alter any material we post. This may be done freely because we have, more or less implicitly, relinquished our rights to intellectual property and simply because even if the "property" part is much larger than the "intellectual", the "Terms and Conditions" say it all. Reference? : the "sign up" page, section "Terms and Conditions". I see a peril in this non-protection of my laws : I have nothing to sell, plus all I post can be used against me, and legally...anyone can take my post, sever it, mess up the parts, then add ideas, and voilà. Depending on the intellectual value of material posted, some may wish to seek relevant laws in their state of residence and try to bang their head against the wall fighting for justice while their writing and possibly their name will be flying free in the cyberspace. Bottom line : speaking up is a risk, but no greater than silence. Assuming all risks involved, I'd rather regret losing than not having tried.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe annoying thing I find isn't just the locking of said ebook files, it's the fact that they're not compatible with every device. I have a Kobo and I adore it, there's approx 0.01% chance of me ever switching to a kindle or sony but that automatically limits me for where I can buy ebooks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's books I want to read that are only available on Amazon, thus I can't get it & am forced to go looking for it elsewhere~ I would be perfectly happy to give Amazon my money for the book but if it won't go onto my preferred erader why should I go through the bother of striping the DRM myself? I can just go find a copy that someone else has done the hard work on.
And in fact on the subject of locked files, if a friend were able to send me a .epub of a book they enjoyed I'd be more inclined to either buy it myself to support the author or go buy a print version.
I've had my kobo for four months now & in that time I've bought approx £100 of books (e- & paper) on the other hand I read the Hunger Games in three days thanks to a downloaded copy of them and promptly went out to buy the books, in fact I somehow own all three twice because they re-did the covers. Take that copy protection~
(sorry this is so long & turned a bit ranty)