Thou Shalt Not Steal...Unless It's Digital
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Mount Laurel native Kandice Zimbleman was a child prodigy. By the time she was a teenager, the art she’d drawn with her highly gifted hands was hanging on the walls of Congress and she’d won two medals from NASA for painting and writing. Other awards soon followed, including a summer scholarship to the University of the Arts. She teamed up with a group created by Al Gore and worked on a project called “Globe,” a science initiative for kids. Celebrated as a very talented young woman, her future in fine art seemed bright.
Her dream was to build a career doing what she loves, but Zimbleman can’t make a living as an artist. The current cultural norm of accepting digital piracy has stolen that ability from her. Lately, she’s been making regular trips to the local food bank to stock up on basics for her family. She still does her art out of love, but being the victim of online theft has left her nearly bankrupt financially and emotionally.
“People take my work, claim that they are me and they sell it on Ebay” she says. She’s found her art on websites of “various kinds of companies similar to Cafe Press.” Worst of all, she says that some people have opened entire online galleries of her work and nothing else, impersonating her for profit. Warnings by fans around the world alerted her to the practice, and she has found at least 20 instances where the situation warranted her pursuing further action. While some of the time, she’s able to get the perpetrator to shut down their site, constantly staying on top of the thieves is exhausting. She has to go through a large amount of red tape and hassle just to prove who she is, and the sheer number of offenders can become overwhelming. “There are so many of them that sometimes I don't even bother,” she says.
It’s not just the pirates who have prevented Zimbleman from supporting herself, it’s the very perception of what art is worth in modern times. “It’s a cultural thing” she says. “People get upset because they want to pay me $5 when they want $5,000 worth of work and quality. The creative side of things is not doing very well right now in general. I don't have money to market myself.” Besides the perspective of the financial value of art, there has been a major shift in the societal outlook on creative people in general, Zimbleman says. “I was working in a bank and when people found out I was an artist they would say ‘oh, you're “creative.” They said it as if I was schizophrenic. People sneer at creatives and sneer at art but when they're in the presence of it they are impressed.” The experience has left her shaken, and unsure about the future. “People don't buy on impulse anymore like they used to. I’ve been asked where I see myself in ten years. I don't know. I have zero income right now. At this point, I don't know what to do.”
She had friends who let the despair of being undervalued destroy them. “I know creative people who took their own life because they could not make a living doing what they wanted to do” she says. “I've gone through the mindset that I'm not good enough. People assume that you don’t have to get paid. I have gone through depression. It's frustrating.”
Cynthia Bennett, from Atlanta, Georgia, feels the same way. She started out learning the violin, but the moment she heard Aerosmith and picked up an electric guitar, her life changed forever. She played bass in a band called Mosaic Nation, performing for enthusiastic crowds and eking out her identity as a musician. Her ultimate dream is to be in a band full time, but the current culture of digital piracy may prevent that. “It makes me fearful and skeptical of the industry” she says. “If people can just go online and steal what you create, it defeats the purpose of being a struggling artist. I want to make a living. It’s hurtful and makes you very scared sometimes to find out that you may get there and there's no money, people are stealing my products, and I'm not getting what I'm supposed to be getting.”
She’s disillusioned with pursuing music full time. “The way the internet is set up, people think they can get the milk for free without buying the cow… they just come behind you and steal your work. I hear people say ‘oh I just go online and burn it, I don't buy that stuff anymore. Why should I spend $10-$20 on the CD when I can just take it?’ They're not understanding what they’re really doing. Yes, times are tough but it does not merit stealing in any way.”
Even her own friends evade the question when asked if they will support her music, or if they will simply burn free copies. “I ask if they'll steal my album or if they'll pay for it and they never give me a straight answer. They're going to do it even if it really hurts someone. I fear they will go behind my back and just download the CD. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but I hope they can answer me… I would hope I'm wrong.”
Kyle Carrozza of Burbank, California, has crafted his musical career by planning ahead for digital piracy, and exerts significant time and energy to do so. It seems the days of artists being free to focus exclusively on their art are long gone, and instead they are forced to find innovative ideas to not only stay one step ahead of the thieves, but also to keep honest people’s interest from waning. Carrozza sometimes adds incentives to his songs or albums, even going so far as to give out freebies in an effort to get people to buy.
If albums were still on vinyl, piracy would be obsolete, but vinyl is extremely expensive and therefore impractical. “I would do it myself if I could afford to get vinyl pressed up” Carrozza says. “It’s a great way to prevent piracy, and I absolutely love vinyl. It doesn't cost anything to release things on digital, but an LP costs thousands of dollars to produce.”
Instead, he takes extra steps to prevent the desire to steal his work, such as releasing new pieces the moment they are ready and keeping song prices very low. He, like so many other independent artists and musicians, does not make a living practicing his craft, but instead holds a regular day job to support what’s now a hobby.
Philadelphia native Ed Hall, a graphic designer, has plenty of experience with piracy, and has suffered financially because of it. “In one instance,” he says,” I had somebody do a direct copy of a website I designed. I’ve had personal artwork stolen and presented by other people as if they were me, and I wasn’t credited for it. Some of it has even gone viral. It's troubling. I see it all over the place, and no one acknowledging it…as a freelancer it is really challenging.”
Having his work populating the internet without his name on it takes money directly from his pocket, because much of Hall’s business comes from people who have previously seen a properly credited piece he’s done. “My work is how I make my money” he says. “If it gets spread around by thousands and thousands of people, that's work I have lost. Some things I've seen on Pinterest and Facebook, and each time there are several thousand people who have shared it and liked it, and I’m not credited for it. I could be losing anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per piece. I could have gotten many potential clients from that work and now I have nothing.”
Pursuing the thieves is extremely costly, and would put a significant financial strain on him. “I haven't (gone after them) because it's not feasible for me. I make enough money to survive but I don’t have the kind of money to take out a full lawsuit against someone because it's timely and it's costly. It’s not designed for a small guy like me.”
To add salt to the already painful wound, Hall has been blamed for the piracy by his own friends and acquaintances. “Some people say ‘that's what you get for putting your stuff on the internet’ or say I should put a watermark on it, but I want to be able to share my work how it's meant to be seen without having to alter it. It’s how I make a living.”
Joyce McAndrews of Seattle, Washington, has been an artist for the past 20 years. Her talents are manifold and include illustrating, app development, set design, brand strategy and textile design. Her friend alerted her to the fact that her artwork was being used on notecards being sold at Target. “This publishing company had taken my work and tweaked it a bit,” she explains. “I fortunately had copywritten the artwork they had stolen. They had stolen my art before and were selling it in Saks. They even had some proceeds going to a nonprofit for children. (In that instance) I couldn't sue them because I hadn't registered the images with the copyright office. I have created thousands of images over the years and I couldn't possibly register all of them…I couldn't afford it.”
McAndrews had never signed a contract with the publishing company and got a variety of excuses from them regarding why the work was taken without her permission, such as “We were eventually going to pay you”, “We had a contract made but forgot to send it out,” and “We thought you were okay with our publishing your work.” After involving attorneys and going through legal hassles, the case was eventually settled out of court.
She no longer works with publishers and still finds her work “all over the internet.” The experience shook her so deeply that it took her five years to resume illustrating. “The infringement case consumed me and…greatly affected my creativity. I stopped drawing for years. I was never going to share my work again, never be published again because I didn't trust the system.” Now, she says, she has finally recovered and is producing again.
A musician questioning whether or not to pursue music, an illustrator debilitated for five years, a fine artist making regular trips to the food bank, a singer giving work away for free and a graphic designer being robbed of many thousands of dollars represent just a tiny fraction of the pain and financial suffering of independent artist of all kinds at the hands of digital pirates. The problem is, it’s not just the pirates who are to blame, it’s the normalization of piracy in our culture. People who are able to afford artwork, illustrations, graphic design, music and movies feel totally justified in downloading illegal copies. Widely-used excuses on social media include:
-“They make too much money anyway.”
-“It’s not stealing because it’s digital.”
-“Why do they think they can charge $15 for a cd? That’s too expensive.”
-“It’s only a copy, so it’s not stealing.”
-“This is what we do. We share. It’s how we live.”
-It's something I wouldn't have otherwised purchased, so therefore, it's not stealing.
These statements come not from impoverished students, but from working adults who think that they get to decide who makes “too much money.” I would suggest to them that “too much” is relative. Surely a homeless person would think anyone reading this article makes “too much” money, so would it be ok for that person to come into your home and steal your things? What if he found something in your home that you wrote, let’s say a short story, and “just made digital copies” of it, then sold it for a profit? According to the prevailing logic, that should be just fine. Similarly, it should then be ok to steal just about anything you "wouldn't have otherwise purchased." How about going ahead with that idea and stealing some expensive office equipment tonight? Most people probably wouldn't have otherwise purchased that, so would that be alright?
Stealing from the “fat cats” such as major music producers and Hollywood executives leads to a trickle-down effect. Because piracy has slowly become normalized, and is now widely accepted, no one is off limits from theft, including millions of independent artists just trying to get by in the world.
Theft has become so rampant that any efforts to stop it are shot down by large corporations who brainwash the public with blatant lies, which is what happened in the case of the SOPA bill. Google, Youtube and Wikipedia teamed up to push the message that the government was “trying to censor the internet.” Millions of people took up the cause on Facebook, and “stop SOPA” groups popped up by the second. The outcry was so immediate and overwhelming that the bill got shot down. Unfortunately, it appears that no one actually read SOPA to see what was being proposed. If they had, they would have seen that there is an already existing bill that has been in place since 1998 and is exercised every single day here in the United States. That bill is called “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” Under the bill, many thousands of videos and millions of pieces of content are pulled or blocked from the internet and many Websites are shut down, including the famous case of the site Megaupload.com, which was taken off the Web during the time of the SOPA furor. Many people mistakenly thought that the site was closed because of SOPA, but SOPA had not even made it to the Senate floor, and never did.
SOPA would have only extended the ability to prosecute pirate Websites overseas, where many illegal websites operate, and would have prohibited and penalized companies here from doing business with those websites. That’s why big business stepped in and started their campaign of falsehoods. Google certainly would not want its traffic slowed even more for failing to provide access to free music, art and movies. Since Youtube is owned by Google, of course they got in on the action, campaigning aginst the bill. Google and Youtube already get sued many times each year and pay out substantial amounts of money for copyright infringement in the US. They already block content and are penalized if they fail to do so. Obviously, they did not want SOPA to pass because it would have meant being forced to serve up even less content, deal with more lawsuits and ultimately, suffer more significantly reduced profits.
According to the bill's author, Lamar Smith:
The activity these foreign websites are engaged in is already illegal in the U.S. But because they are operated overseas, the sites are out of reach of current U.S. laws that protect intellectual property. The Stop Online Piracy Act simply applies to foreign illegal websites similar standards that are already in place for domestic sites.
...SOPA only applies to foreign illegal websites...why are Google and Wikipedia opposed? Unfortunately, one of the reasons why you can’t believe everything you read about the Stop Online Piracy Act is because some critics of this bill have generated enormous profits from illegal websites that sell stolen intellectual property.
The saying goes “ignorance is bliss” and misinformation about SOPA was so prolific that the vast majority of people speaking out against it had no idea that the 1998 bill already provides for lawmakers to prosecute violators here in the US and that SOPA would have merely extended that same ability to foreign websites. Smug techies everywhere seemed terribly satisfied when they proclaimed that lawmakers “don’t understand how the internet works.” In reality, those techies just didn’t want their ability to steal to be further infringed upon. Those who think that SOPA was some kind of attempt for the government to “censor the internet,” or that Google and Youtube’s motives were driven by anything but their own financial gain, have not read the 50+ pages of the SOPA bill. Instead, they chose to buy "Big Corporate's" story hook, line and sinker without doing any research.
Interestingly, there were no widespread protestations against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it passed unanimously in 1998 or when it went into effect in 2000. Perhaps people still thought stealing was morally wrong back then.
The situation has gotten so bad that some people look upon piracy as a form of social justice. The late Aaron Swartz was a key proponent of this idea, and was instrumental in defeating SOPA. A Slate article details how he believed in “copyright reform, collaborative culture, open access to data, (and) political activism.”
His suicide represents a tragic end to a life that could have been brilliant, but nonetheless symbolizes what can happen when piracy is taken too far. As prosecutor Carmen Ortiz put it- "Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar." Of course, this statement is widely decried by many who feel that “stealing is not stealing” because “Swartz merely hooked up his laptop and made a copy of something that wasn't his.” Actually, he stole millions of pages of documents in clear violation of laws and policies, but this simplified version is another example of justifying digital theft. The idea that everything ought to be free has taken such a hold on the American psyche that questioning it can cause one to be viewed as a social pariah.
Swartz and many like him thought he was fighting for access and social justice, but where is the justice for Kandice Zimbleman, Joyce McAndrews, Ed Hall, Kyle Carrozza, Cynthia Bennett, and thousands of other artists who are forced to live in a world where theft is excused as “just making a copy of something that isn’t yours?”
While all of the artists interviewed stated that they are open to collaborative culture and fair use, (for example, Zimbleman doesn’t mind when fans re-use or re-mix her art for personal purposes, especially if the fans are children) they realize that piracy is personally and professionally harmful.
“Would you go to the grocery store and take the groceries?” asks Hall. “Would you go to the doctor and not pay them what they’re worth? Would you ask them to do the service for free? It's doesn't work that way. If you wouldn’t steal groceries, what makes it ok to steal someone’s artwork or movie?”
“Fraud is fraud and it is illegal” says Zimbleman. “You can't claim to be someone you're not, and you can't make money from someone else's work.”
She doesn’t want much, she says, just the ability to put a roof over her daughter’s head and some food on the table. “I don't need to be rich. I just want a decent wage, healthcare, and be able to live comfortably.”
Cynthia Bennett says people do not consider how what they’re doing affects others. She’s still not sure if she’ll ever pursue music full time; piracy is too prolific and threatens her livelihood to a degree that makes her doubt her ability to support herself. “Across the board, don't steal,” she says. “There's no excuse for you to be taking anything. Don't steal…I can't starve all the years of my life.”
Kyle Carrozza's Website can be found at: www.tvskyle.bandcamp.com
Kandice Zimbleman's Website can be found at: http://blackunigryphon.deviantart.com/
Ed Hall's Website can be found at:
www.eddidit.com
Joyce McAndrews' Website can be found at: http://www.joycemcandrews.com/
Shachi
12:52 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Great article! Very insightful. There should be stricter laws on digital piracy. Specially when its stolen for monetary gains.
john r
12:52 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
When it comes to music piracy, I don't think people realize just who they are hurting, it's just not the big record companies
Larry Johnston
2:51 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I used to be guilty of this, but my perspective has changed. Stealing is wrong and the more you do it the more easy you can rationalize in other aspects of life.
Rebecca Savastio
2:54 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
That's great to hear, Larry! Good to know there are people left in the world who still have morals and can tell right from wrong :)
patrick
3:09 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I think this is not so cut and dry. Who really owns intellectually property? Is it fair that someone can copyright a thought? I think that some artists are lazy. Lets take the musician as an example. She wants her music broadcasted( for free, to her) to open a market. Does she then deserve to close the market when it could become profitable? No. Release your album and then get to work touring the album. That's the payoff. Artists, not all, assume that the creative process should be retroactively paid for. Why, does a designer, mason, architect,.... get paid for a proposal that isn't accepted? Lots of grey area here.
Rebecca Savastio
3:19 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Patrick, the musician in this case already opened a market by playing out in public, and has fans, but she's afraid that they simply won't pay for her album because not paying for it has become so normalized in our culture. If the musician has a product (an album,) why should people be allowed to have that product for free? It's not a proposal. Musicians should be allowed to make money from album sales. Everyone deserves the right to make a living.
patrick
3:37 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
My point is that nothing is really original. Is she going to pay the person who first came up with the chord progression that was used. She didn't invent it. The gov't may have given her the copyright, but it wasn't an original. It may have original lyrics, but the framework is copied. She may have used major chords in a rock progression. Who owns that? Probably, Sony if you had your way. Intellectually property should not be owned. None, not art, math, science or others.
Mary Kay
3:32 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The story of the artist interests me. I am going to forward this to my friend Peggy in Portland. She has been a struggling artist for nearly 30 years!
Rebecca Savastio
3:53 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Patrick: so basically you're saying that artists, writers, etc. have no right to make a living because what they create with their minds should not be owned? So everything should be free, then? What should they do? Should they give up trying to make a living and get a day job; stop doing their art so they can eat? Or should they simply starve to death while continuing to do their art? Or perhaps we should all simply live in a world with no art/music etc.
patrick
4:14 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
No, I'm saying there's a lot of grey area. Many times art is not created independently. It is an expression of a collective consciousness and to give ownership of it to someone is wrong. Art will never stop. (I do not use the word never often.) There is a reason why parents want their artistic kids to get a "back-up" plan if their dreams don't succeed. Art doesn't reward similiarly to other employment. It is a gift to have these talents, but they have not been rewarded monitarily throughout time. Do you think the caveman argued over the intellectual property of their cave paintings? Or did they stop painting due to piracy? We don't know the answer to that.
Mom of DnNnD
4:26 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
First, I’d like to offer a correction to your article. In reference to Aaron Swartz, you said “his suicide represents a tragic end to a life that could have been brilliant”. It should read: his suicide represents a tragic end to a life that WAS brilliant.
BTW, Aaron returned all downloaded content, but also ensured it "was not and would not be used, copied, transferred or distributed." Also, Aaron accessed MIT and JSTOR computers over an extraordinarily open network policy and with his legal access to JSTOR content.
Aaron and others like him ARE fighting for open access and social justice. The other artists in your article are fighting for income. These two situations are not comparable.
Rebecca Savastio
4:30 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Patrick, by this logic, everything should be free, since everything we have is borrowed or modeled upon that which has gone before us- all food that is farmed, architectural plans for houses, lighbulbs, all books ever written. All of these things are products of collective consciousness. I guess it's easy for someone who's not attempting to make a living as an artist to say that art should be free.
patrick
4:56 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I don't like to use never, everthing, always,etc... very unempowering, but you get my point. Some of the things that you listed are not copyrighted. Does the architect send payment to Pythagrea's family every time that his math theorems are applied? Also, wouldn't it be more logically to assume that I was an artist (due to my many responses)? More importantly though, I try to obey the law( civil disobiediece non-withstanding) and I do not download for free, but mostly because of the viruses. LOL
PS. Rebecca, I went to Temple U(early 90's) with a Rebecca Savastio and your pic looks close. Could it be the same person?
Rebecca Savastio
4:57 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Mom of DnNnD- Thank you for your input. Aaron's outlook on "open access" and his fight against the SOPA bill assisted in leading to a cultural idea that all art and all intellectual information should be free. This puts millions of people into a position where it is very difficult for them to make a living, and that is what I object to. One begets the other, and therefore, they are relateable. It's a classic fight between technology evangelists and artists. Technology evangelists have little or no respect for art, the artistic process or artists themselves. They have no concern for who they hurt. It's easy for them to make a living in technology and they have no qualms about creating a culture where it is impossible for artists to do the same.
Rebecca Savastio
5:02 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Patrick- I am 100% the same person, because there is only one other Rebecca Savastio in the country and she did not go to Temple. I was there in the 90's. What's your last name? You can email me at bsavastio@yahoo.com if you want to keep it private. Thanks very much for the discussion.
Aaron Kuhn
5:26 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Hi,
"Technology evangelist" here, who still buys PC games, music, and movies. You've got absolutely no basis here generalizing an entire population and trying to frame this as some "geeks vs artists" framework.
You also show absolutely no respect for Swartz in this article with this completely asinine statement:
"His suicide represents a tragic end to a life that could have been brilliant, but nonetheless symbolizes what can happen when piracy is taken too far"
He committed suicide because he took piracy TOO FAR? Are you really suggesting this? And COULD have been brilliant? Should we just ignore all his other contributions during his lifetime?
Your co-opting of his death to make your spurious points and condescending remarks sickens me. Apparently you also think we're all puppets who are just going along with Google and Wikipedia's interpretation of SOPA and haven't read the text of the bill. I have read it.
The objection to SOPA is that it calls for entire DNS trees/domains to be blocked based on receipt of an " alleged violation." Not an actual violation, but merely the receipt of a notice of a perceived violation.
It's preemptive censorship designed to take any content offline prior to said content actually being proven infringing in any court of law. In other words, it's the digital equivalent of a shoot first, ask questions later policy.
Rebecca Savastio
5:42 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Aaron, thank you for your input. What I meant by "could have been brilliant" was that he did not live a normal life span, and that had he survived, he could have made many brilliant contributions. Since i strongly disagree with his stance on SOPA and on intellectual property, which is what I am discussing in the article, I don't feel that his contribution in defeating it was a good thing. I did purposely link out to the Slate article for the sole purpose of letting people read ALL of the things he did during his lifetime. Now with regard to SOPA, the author of the bill, I believe, is probably the best authority on its intent. I, too, read and carefully studied the entire thing, and found it to simply be an extension of the 1998 bill, just as the author states it is. I choose to believe the person who wrote the bill, combined with my own study of it, over the word of big corporations who stand to lose should it have been passed.
Aaron Kuhn
7:47 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Also, nobody tell Kyle Carrozza that my turntable has a USB Port that allows me to dump raw WAV output of vinyl records to my computer. SHHHHH ...
patrick
9:51 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
You know, in our day, we had to stick paper over a hole to copy cassettes.
Jeff Lugar
8:04 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
It really is the lack of something physical and tangible to hold on to that makes all the difference. If you asked someone who downloads free song copies illegally if they'd walk into a music store, take a CD off the shelf, and walk out without paying, they'd get a sour face and say, "I'm not a monster... THAT WOULD BE STEALING!"
Rebecca Savastio
11:58 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Jeff, I completely agree. It's disheartening to know that people perceive the value to be in the 16 grams of plastic rather than in the artist's work.
Niki Barnes
9:03 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Very provocative and well thought out article. However, I do think the situation is an extension, or, perhaps an exacerbation of a problem artists, scientists and other deep thinkers have faced for many years. Patrick's comment about the caveman is a point well taken. Having said that, I applaud your efforts and thank you for having made me think deeper about a cultural problem that seems to have no easy answer. Keep the debate alive!
Mike Shortall
9:26 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I spend some money on iTune music, but every chance I get I build my iTunes library by going to THE library and downloading selected music - for FREE - from their limited - but FREE - collection.
Where does that put me, as one of my favorite mottos is "If it's free, it's for me!"??
I never download "pirated" music or movies. So I'm not stealing ... But also not buying wherever I can avoid it.
Rebecca Savastio
11:54 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Mike, I would say that if a company specifically offers something for free, then it's a completely different story and is definitely not stealing. It's similar to what Kyle Carrozza does. They offer "freebies" as incentives to get people to purchase more. I see nothing wrong with it, except I feel bad that it should HAVE to be given away for free, almost like a bribe in a way. So, no, you definitely are not stealing, that's for sure. What I would say, though, is after you get a free song, consider the music, and if you like it, go ahead and purchase the rest of that artist's work. Consider why it is free and act accordingly. It's similar to getting a free makeover at the mall. Everyone knows you're then expected to buy SOMETHING afterwards. I've got no problem as long as no laws are broken, but I would hope it would have the intended effect which is to lead to purchases down the line.Thanks for the discussion! :)
Mike Shortall
2:08 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
So then, let's assume I buy a CD, download it for my use, then pass it along to my many, many friends (OK .. an exaggeration) for their FREE download and use. Is this acceptable?
If it is, then what's the moral difference from someone doing the same thing over the internet. (Of course, then we'd have to have a discussion about what constitutes a "friend", but nonetheless ...) You can argue this is exactly what the Horsham Library (not to single them out) is doing, on a much smaller scale. And the chances are the Library did not have paid anything for SOME of its music collection, as it may have been donated.
The thought that one would/should consider buying an artist's work after listening to a free sample is a nice sentiment with absolutely no real basis for such an expectation. It MIGHT happen - in my case - but only if I were desperate for siad artist's work or simply looking for specific works not available to me FREE from somewhere else.
My point is that once "intellectual property" is out there, especially in a mass audience format, it's almost impossible to restrict its use unless there's commercial, for-profit usage that can be tracked to an individual entity(s).
Brooke
12:14 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Rebecca, maybe it's just me, but I am annoyed by your constant input. It is not your job to try to shut down anyone who doesn't agree with you. Jeff, I like your point. Would you also agree that every time my taxes are raised because we don't know how to control our spending, it's like putting someone's hand in MY pocket and taking MY hard earned money! This society has become an entitlement society. People don't appreciate the hard work and perseverance other people put into their success...somehow they deserve a piece of it. I think it's ironic that most artists are liberals.
Rebecca Savastio
12:30 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Brooke, The purpose of Patch is to have community discussion. Everyone's input is welcome and no one has been shut down. I posted the article in order to converse and think about ideas and I enjoy interacting with people who read my articles. If you find it annoying maybe my articles aren't your cup of tea.
Brooke
4:11 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Rebecca, You have almost half the posts here. You are NOT my cup of tea. You are missing the community in community discussion! Sorry you couldn't handle the critique. I will move on!
Rebecca Savastio
2:39 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Mike, I think the most important thing is the intent of the artist/company giving away the free content. In the case of iTunes, they say: "You may download previously-purchased free content onto an unlimited number of devices while it is free on the iTunes Service, but on no more than 5 iTunes-authorized computers." I would hope that people would simply abide by that rule. In a way, it makes us seem that we have no impulse control if it's true what you say that once the content is out there it's impossible to restrict. I don't find it difficult to say "oh well, it says I can't do xyz so I won't do it." I don't agree that it's morally ambiguous just because technology is moving faster than people can write guideline for every single situation. I personally really enjoy supporting and paying for movies, music and art because I want artists to make a living so they'll continue doing their art. I feel that people who say it's grey or ambiguous are sort of being opportunists. In most cases there are guidelines written which need to followed. The other angle I didn't go into in the article is that because the internet disconnects us so much as people, it makes it easier for us to treat each other badly. Just look at some of the comments here. If I were discussing this in person, I doubt someone would call me assinine and sickening to my face just because I have a different opinion than they do. It makes it easy to not care about the person behind the screen, artist or otherwise.
Larry Johnston
5:28 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Brooke-Good riddance to your rude attitude.Rebecca is responding directly to questions or comments directed at her. If she didn't respond you'd snark about that. She wrote a post about a topic and is interacting.I wish more folks who wrote online articles did that. What many forums do is take down posts that disagree, she is debating. If you don't want your ideas challenged, don't post.
Billy Pilgrim
5:48 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I agree that stealing music and art is truly rotten. Not only are artists denied the money for their effort, but taxes are being subverted too. It also makes areas that were once black and white more grey. But.
Aaron Swartz was clearly different. The documents that he was DLing were court documents that are public domain. There is a "nominal fee" required to get access to each page that should only cover the cost of paper, but actually LOTS of money is made off of those documents. In addition to that there were over 1600 privacy issues that were discovered in the pages that he accessed. Yes, what Aaron did was technically illegal, but it begs the question are the laws that in place legal in the first place? and why isn't the private information being redacted? Seems like they went after Aaron with a vengeance because he peeked behind the curtain.
PhilM
7:04 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Rebecca - Something that I feel has been glossed over is the exorbitant length that Copyright has been extended to. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0123105835.shtml
Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
That "limited time" has been extended in the US from the natural/common law length of a generation, to Life plus 70 years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_length - and as others have noted stifles new creativity. Very few artists in prior ages survived on their own productions, unless they were supported by a moneyed benefactor. Since most music and film/video copyrights are held by corporations that never die, there is no more "promote the Progress" from this government.
Rebecca Savastio
10:57 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Really thought provoking point, PhilM. How do you feel having a shorter copyright time would promote creativity? Are you speaking to collaborative/remix uses?
Richard Weisgrau
10:32 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I write five books, available for sale today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Recently, I experienced a drop in my royalties. Pricing for used books was part of the decline. OK, that's the marketplace, but it did not account for the drop I experienced.
A Google search came up with 17 web sites where copies of my books could be downloaded for free. People had scanned the printed books or converted the digital books to PDF files and uploaded them. When notified the websites did delete the infringing copies. By law that is all they are required to do.
Later, I revisited the websites. Two of the books had been uploaded again. They were taken down again. Now I have to go back every month and check again.
I make a 5% royalty on the cover price of a book (about $1 per book sold in print and half that for a digital book). My estimate of loss based upon prior reportescsales is about $3000 over 2 years.
I write trade books based upon decades of experience in the photography business. My publisher asked me to write a new book on a topic on which I have developed expertise over the past 5 years. I declined because spending 6 months at the computer writing and editing will just not be worth the return I will get. When you read that theft of intellectual property inhibits creation be assured it is true.
Rebecca Savastio
11:00 pm on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Richard, thank you so much for sharing your story. One of my main concerns is that we will all lose out on art/expertise because of exactly what you have described-"theft of intellectual property inhibits creation." I can think of nothing more disturbing than this future reality.
Shachi
12:37 am on Thursday, February 14, 2013
Rebecca, don't worry about the rude comments Brooke made. She seems bitter and angry for no reason, and doesn't seem to understand the Patch environment. I think responding and debating is thought-provoking, actually. Don't sweat it. Keep doing what you're doing :)
Kim
8:39 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
Boy Sachi, I'm guessing the culture you were brought up in doesn't appreciate a woman having a different point of view from you. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Bitter and angry...really?
Morgan King
4:53 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
There's a huge difference between copyright violation and forgery. Reselling the content is a completely different issue than not paying to experience it. Forged eBay prints of a $5k painting are going to be terrible reproductions, and the audience for that aren't buying the original work in the first place. If you want to combat that, sell reasonably priced prints that are great reproductions.
As a whole, savvy content creators are seeing huge benefits from the post-scarcity markets that digital content creates. It lowers, or eliminates, the barrier to entry and exposure, and creates the potential to reach audiences vastly larger than physical media ever could without massive expense. The big bands of tomorrow are giving away, or at least streaming for free, their music through youtube, bandcamp and spotify. Free-to-play games have dominated mobile and PC gaming markets, filmmakers are turning to Vimeo and unlimited-access subscription-based cloud services, writers are reaching new audiences through self publishing and serializing. Art in the digital space simply is a different market than physical markets - one where unlimited supply competes for real demand - and artists who want to flourish in that space need to understand the differences, not complain that it's different from what they are used to.
Making a living with art is really hard. As a creator, you can have 100 paying customers, or a non-paying audience of 10,000 - learn to take advantage of that.
Richard Weisgrau
6:33 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
@Morgan Kong, in theory what you wrote ought to be true. In reality is is not. The missing links are threefold:
1) The value of content has shrunk to a point where it is now worth less to the creator than it was in the 1960s (of course the Stars do not experience the reality of the norm).
2) "Free-to-play" as you describe it is just that. "Free" does not reward the creator of a work. When I find my any of my five books downloadable for free on the web, I am not being rewarded for my work. When I find one on my photographs being used without authorization on the web, I am not being rewarded for my efforts. Yes, there us a greater demand for content than ever before, but the reward for supplying content is lower than ever before.
3) it is easy to reach an audience at no cost to the audience. Vimeo is a perfect example of that. However, the creator cannot pay the phone bill with Vimeo hits.
3) When you say "Making a living with art is really hard. As a creator, you can have 100 paying customers, or a non-paying audience of 10,000 - learn to take advantage of that." I really want to now how to do that. Can you guide me?
Morgan King
8:09 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
The value of content has changed, certainly - technology has changed they nature of reproducible media. It's less valuable per-unit, but the per-unit costs for many mediums are also much lower - creation costs may have only dropped slightly, but manufacturing, distribution, and promotional costs start at $0 for many mediums. There were plenty of writers, painters and musicians who couldn't make a living in the 60s, too.
Free-to-Play makes it's money by providing 99% of the content for free to a gigantic audience, and selling the remaining 1% of content to the tiny sliver of the audience who really want it. In games, it could be a unique avatar outfit, in music it could be rough demos, for a podcast it could be an extended interview, for an author it could be access to raw data or extraneous chapters, for an illustrator it could be a .pdf of sketches.
People downloading a pdf of your book are the same people who were extremely unlikely to have purchased it anyway. If it wasn't there, they'd have chosen a different free source. Same for photos - if they had to pay, they'd just use a free image, or no image, instead. The virtually infinite amount of content allows an interested audience to pass over it if there's an obstacle - If there's 2 folk singers of equal quality, and one guy's album is $16 and the others is $0, the $0 guy is going to have a lot more listeners, a greater potential audience for shows, and therefore a larger pool of people who might also buy a shirt.
Richard Weisgrau
11:48 pm on Monday, February 25, 2013
Morgan I don't disagree with much of what you say. Especially that the people who illegally obtain on of my books would have otherwise bought them. I also agree that many creatives did poorly in the 60s and in every other decade. What I do not agree with is that distributing work for free is going to result in some parallel bonus for the creator of a work. That is an hypothesis for for which I can find no evidence in support. That profitability from 1% of the audience paying with all others getting a freebie is not supported by fact.
Your thought that the "creation costs may have dropped slightly" is true. They have except for the creative labor. My personal labor cost increases every year as the cost of living goes up. I can do typing and photographic processing faster with digital technology, but is not where the value in what I do lies. The intellectual property that flows from my mind into a tangible work is the more valuable part of my work product. There is no way that technology reduces that effort. The knowledge, skill, talent, etc. that go into the product do not flow from technology. What you are saying is true for the people who publish my work, but not for me, the grunt who produces it.
I must say that it is nice to quality comments like yours here, even if I disagree with some of them.
Stacy Litz
6:40 pm on Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Aaron's story also shows how the criminal justice system can drive one to suicide... so what is the correct punishment for these "thefts?" Jail? That obviously works.
Most $ made by artists is from touring, actually.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/502623/musics-top-40-money-makers-2012
And has technology not HELPED artists? Back in the day, sure, you could buy records, but you couldn't buy digital copies on iTunes. Surprisingly, a lot of people DO still purchase music. And enough do that these artists DO make money.
Adaptation. Surprisingly it works. Or you could cry about it all day long and look towards the, for a lack of better words, tyrants in power to lower the boom on people.
Maybe government sponsored music is just about as good as government sponsored liquor stores. Yum.