For a long while, I've been craving a discussion about copyright. These discussions are rare, and there are probably numerous reasons for this. If I had to guess, I'd say the biggest reason is that so many people are regularly downloading music, movies, and television programs. They know it's not legal, and they're hesitant to talk about it. So despite the lack of actual immorality, people choose to err on the side of discretion. I get that. While Joe Public may mention at the water cooler that he gets his episodes of Duck Dynasty via torrent, he's less likely to mention the same thing on Facebook.
But I think there's another reason for the rarity of the dialogue about copyright. We explore so many of society's problems via fictional stories. There are movies, books, and TV shows that confront racial issues, the problems with Wall Street, and all manner of abuses of authority. But show me a movie about the problems with copyright. The only thing we see from Hollywood are those ridiculous you wouldn't steal a car videos that ineptly attempt to conflate watching Bad Grandpa on your laptop with violent crime. This is why I was so pleased to see the Simpsons episode "Steal this Episode" last month. It wasn't a real discussion, but it poked at a lot of real issues - at least it was something.
I'm not trying to say that pirates are in the right, I'm just trying to say that jailing them or fining them until they're destitute isn't the answer. There has to be a better solution. I'm not trying to say that creators shouldn't be compensated for their works. But there seems to be a prevailing mentality out there among the Hollywood set that should copyright law change in any way, musicians, screenwriters, and everyone else employed in a creative field would suddenly be unemployed, and that movies, music, and television as we know them would cease to be. That's... hard to imagine. It doesn't hold water for me. Would change to copyright law be disruptive? Of course. Would that mean The End of Everything? No.
If a guy in the subway is selling bootleg copies of Frozen that he made at home, then sure - bring that guy in, bust up his operation, and fine him to negate some of his ill-gotten profits. But going after the regular guys, even with civil lawsuits or the six strikes policy, that doesn't feel just. Suing a fast food employee for three million dollars because she downloaded Beyonce? That's what should be against the law. That is what's immoral.
I'd now like to cite John Walker's editorial from last week entitled Why Games Should Enter The Public Domain. He's speaking about copyright specifically as it relates to video games. Video games are unique in that while a book may be relevant and potentially profitable many decades after its original publication, this is less so for movies, and far less so for video games. What ten-year-old video game can you name that's still playable, much less relevant? Yes, I know, they do exist, but hopefully you understand my point. Technology advances far too quickly. John talks about how games should enter the public domain and thus become free to distribute far sooner than is currently the law. And he also examines the state of copyright in some excellent detail.
It should be patently obvious in 2014 that many people around the world are watching television programs and movies, listening to music, and even downloading software from sites that circumvent copyright. This is being framed as theft, but the truth is less clear than that. Increasingly, I'm seeing it termed as infringement, which is really the correct term, as in these cases there is nobody who's being deprived of property. Once again, I'm not pushing the argument that infringement is okay, I'm simply trying to have a monologue here in which I evaluate the issue.
If you have an antenna and watch broadcast television - because it does still exist in 2014 - you are in theory compensating the show's creators by watching the advertising. But leaving the room during the ads has never been considered illegal, nor has fast-forwarding the commercials of DVR'ed programming. This is murky ground.
And this brings me to the realization that I had this morning, which has led me to write this post: Copyright is seeing the same kind of widespread and culturally accepted civil disobedience once evidenced during prohibition. People are downloading copyrighted content, and if a neighbor of mine admitted to doing so, I wouldn't react the same way as if he told me he'd slashed someone's tires or left a restaurant without paying. That is to say, I wouldn't think less of him for it. I don't necessarily think that this means we'll see an imminent repeal to the prohibition of copyright, but were they to scale back copyright protections from life plus 70 years down to perhaps just 10 years, I'd be pretty happy with that. And I really don't think it would cost creators as much money as they'd claim. Without having done any actual research, I feel fairly confident that 80% of the money any song, movie, or video game will ever make is earned during the first year. And after the first couple years, you know that the original creators are rarely seeing a dime of the royalties. Instead, it's someplace like BMG, Universal Pictures, or Activision pocketing the proceeds. In the end, these laws only exist to protect corporate profits.
The Copyright Industry cites piracy's "Corrosive effects on legitimate markets" and states that illegal downloads are "stunting the availability and growth of legal alternatives". I can accept that piracy does eat into profits of legal sales to some degree, but I'm hesitant to accept that a large portion of the content that's downloaded would be otherwise purchased. My guess would be somewhere south of twenty percent. That is to say - each download is not a lost sale, but one of every five downloads may be a lost sale. As far as stunting the growth of legal alternatives, I call bullshit. I've seen numerous reports citing that as more legal options become available, the frequency of illegal downloads decreases. I personally pay for Hulu Plus, Netflix, and HBO Go, although I am completely unwilling to pay for overpriced cable television. Between these options, I'm currently able to see nearly everything I want, although I have to wait for some of it to become available on DVD.
If the law surrounding intellectual property doesn't change, things are going to get a lot worse. As CG improves, I can easily imagine a mad rush to purchase the likeness rights of deceased actors, followed by studios producing movies featuring CG-rendered virtual actors instead of actual human beings. Imagine a movie starring Humphrey Bogart, Heath Ledger, and Audrey Hepburn. Sure, it's cool, but I don't like the feel of that particular trend.
There are a plethora of unjust laws involving intellectual property, whether it has to do with unlocking phones, breaking DRM, or ripping a copy of my own DVD for personal use. The fact that I.C.E. has become involved is unsettling. This means that taxpayer dollars are being used to enforce and ensure corporate profit.
I could go on and on about how the DMCA is bullshit, but perhaps I'll save that rant for another day. This one is long enough.