Piracy is hurting the _____ industry

[charleski]

Originally Posted by sigmax

my two cents, from a third world country:


As we all know, usually the media creator is on one side (insert here music or book) earning a very small fraction of the cake, then you got the "middle layer" which charges and bites obscene amounts of money, and on the other side of the ecuation you got the consumer, which usually paid for the whole party.

The "middle layer", in other times, could hide behind the "distribution and promotion costs".

You're absolutely right. You're pointing out the critical problem in the current management of intellectual property.

I know people who work in the publishing industry. I've asked them how much they think an author should gain from the sale of their work, and it always boils down to less than ten percent of the sale price.

That's just not good enough.

We consumers know that authors need to eat. We value their work and we want to reward them for it. But that becomes pretty hard to justify when you find out that the vast majority of what you pay is actually going into the pockets of middle-men who invested nearly nothing in the creation of the work you're reading.

The real problem that the IP industry faces is its vast inefficiency. It is infested with hangers-on who have no purpose other than to nibble at the cake.

Copyright is fundamentally an issue of respect. If I respect what you do, then I should pay you for it in the hope that you'll do it again in the future. Copyright has become corrupted by the fact that only a tiny fraction of what I pay actually goes to the person whose labours I wish to reward.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by charleski

I know people who work in the publishing industry. I've asked them how much they think an author should gain from the sale of their work, and it always boils down to less than ten percent of the sale price.

That's just not good enough.

Depends... is the book being printed on-demand with profit on each copy sold (not considering the cost of preparing the book), or did the publisher shell out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on huge print runs and promotion?

If the former, depending on the price, perhaps the author should get more than 10%... there might not be much more profit than that though. If the latter, less than 10% is probably perfectly reasonable until the publisher's expenses have been recovered along with some profit. But, I'll grant you, there should definitely be a point (or volume of sales) after which the author's share should come to approximate an equal share of the profits with the publisher. Probably not more... given that the author can basically sit pretty and do nothing if the sales are that good, whereas the publisher keeps printing/supplying/shipping/receiving books, doing accounting, doing promotion (at least for books that sell so well/so consistently), et cetera.

Authors definitely get screwed over by publishers... but let's not pretend most authors have either the money or the knowledge or the competence (at those things) to do all the things their publisher does for them. (Things that may amount little for a small time author who isn't particularly successful, a category writers are less likely to put themselves in than they are to put their publishers in the "evil publisher" category.)

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ahi

Authors definitely get screwed over by publishers... but let's not pretend most authors have either the money or the knowledge or the competence (at those things) to do all the things their publisher does for them.

Or time. An author may be entirely willing to get 10% of the sales in order to spend his time writing, rather than editing and re-editing and formatting the book and figuring out where to advertise it and how to distribute it to stores. Even if he's got all those skills, he'd rather take less of a cut for doing what he loves.

Getting 100% of the profits isn't as meaningful if you can only spend 1/10 of your time producing profitable work, and the rest of your time is spent on admin & distribution.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Most of them aren't now, other than work-for-hire, like any other workingman....

Yes we work for hire, but a big part of the reason our work has value at all is copyright.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by ahi

Are you suggesting that artists would stop making music if sheet music printers did not adequately compensate them? I see downloading in the same category... ultimately of no meaningful impact on the majority of artists, whether or not the MAFIAA eventually decides to buy legislation to compensate them for it. (And, by the way, some countries already tax storage media, from video tapes to CDs, DVDs, and MP3 players [not sure about hard drives] in order to compensate media conglomerates for the possibility of lost sales.)

- Ahi

File sharing is not the same as sheet music printers. The basic issue is that printing (prior to 20 years ago with the advent of laster printers) has always been relatively expensive. That meant that those who printed copyright work were relatively few and could be reasonably sued if they violated copyright.

File sharing on the other hand has the potential of creating a culture where people (and you appear to be already there) believe they don't need to compensate the creator of the work for the effort they put into it. File sharing is cheap and easy and thus anyone can do it. As the music industry has already learned, once the culture becomes entrenched, it becomes very hard to stop.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

You do realise that the largest movie market in the world is the porn industry, right? And yet nobody confuses the medium with the message there (I hope).
Similarly with books (and authors): most works are not meant to educate, or to make one think; they're just meant to entertain. As such, they're fairly interchangeable, and, I dare say, will not be remembered in 10 years time, let alone 100. Books are just a container, after all.. The fact that words are contained in it says nothing about the (quality of the) content.

I am not sure that Porn is the largest movie industry in the world. Certainly Bollywood makes an awful lot of films and a lot of money changes hands in Hollywood for films.

Yes, most novels (substituting it for books) are not not meant to educate... in fact I have never had much time for novels that are meant to educate. And to invoke Sturgeon's law, 95% of them are crap. But 5% of them are worth reading and remembering.

In any case, to my mind, complaining about what the publishing industry is currently publishing (in this thread) seems to be more a rationalization as to why one shouldn't feel guilty about illegally sharing books.

I agree with a lot of what people in this thread have said about middle men, and authors getting too little for their efforts. That being said, the current system at least gets the authors some compensation. Illegal file sharing does not.

--
Bill

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ahi

Well, I've more or less been saying I'd be happy with that... obviously in as much as it is possible in a modern context. The disincentivizing powers of file sharing may well be taking us in that direction. (And if so, I consider it a Good Thing!)

- Ahi

The problem is "modern kings" tend to favor those artists with good political connections, not necessarily the best. We would just be shifting the selection process from the general public to a few politicians (not necessarily people who are in a position to judge the value of a work of art). And, remember, you couldn't support the ones you like, you would have to lobby for the ones you deem worthy with the "powers that be".

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I am not sure that Porn is the largest movie industry in the world. Certainly Bollywood makes an awful lot of films and a lot of money changes hands in Hollywood for films.

Yes, most novels (substituting it for books) are not not meant to educate... in fact I have never had much time for novels that are meant to educate. And to invoke Sturgeon's law, 95% of them are crap. But 5% of them are worth reading and remembering.

In any case, to my mind, complaining about what the publishing industry is currently publishing (in this thread) seems to be more a rationalization as to why one shouldn't feel guilty about illegally sharing books.

I agree with a lot of what people in this thread have said about middle men, and authors getting too little for their efforts. That being said, the current system at least gets the authors some compensation. Illegal file sharing does not.

--
Bill

I fully agree. We often read comments like this: "if we download from the darknet they will lose sales and listen to us". This is really nonsense, since "they" don't even know you are downloading from the darknet and "they" don't know if you would actually have paid for the books. Besides, we are not children, when we want something we must have it, even by illegal means? Speak up, that is what you should do. Why don't we value the writers' contribution and help them make a living off sales (or at least have a chance of doing that) rather than forcing them all become beggars for government or industry handouts?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Piracy can hurt the creators, but, it isn't always as much as people claim.

Correction, it is never as much as they claim, some people would never buy that product, so no sales loss there and some people like your example still buy it to replace the pirate version so no loss of sales there either.

Most people, you give them an easy to use system, that gives them quality content, and they'll time and time again use that over pirating. Why do you think iTunes is as big as it is?

It just amazes me the way the same mistakes keep getting made by companies, you look at all the hoops people go through to try and get the books they want and it reminds me of some of the copy protection systems you see on computer games.

Some of them being so bad that the simplest solution for a lot of people with the proper version was to get a cracked version that disabled the cd-check and if they have had to take that step then whats the next likely one for them to take next time round?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I fully agree. We often read comments like this: "if we download from the darknet they will lose sales and listen to us". This is really nonsense, since "they" don't even know you are downloading from the darknet and "they" don't know if you would actually have paid for the books. Besides, we are not children, when we want something we must have it, even by illegal means? Speak up, that is what you should do. Why don't we value the writers' contribution and help them make a living off sales (or at least have a chance of doing that) rather than forcing them all become beggars for government or industry handouts?

This is all very well, but when the publishers seem to be actively trying to prevent people from supporting authors and assuming all their customers are potential thieves then it is actually no wonder that some people take the easy option and prove them right.

Maybe if the publishers took the novel approaches of trying to give their customers what they wanted and treating them with a little respect rather than as potential thieves then that's likely to have a far greater influence on piracy than stronger restrictions that would only be seen as a challenge by some anyway.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

• The article failed to mention that music sales in the Internet era have utterly tanked and are unlikely to recover. Sales are down nearly 50% since its peak in 1999, including the increase in digital sales. No one has any hard numbers on how much of this loss is directly attributable to piracy, but it is naïve to assume piracy is not a major contributing factor to the decline.

While piracy will account for a share of that decline, it is even more naive for the record industry to try and make the claims that they do that it is the sole reason for the decline when the reality is that quite a lot of the decline will have come from other demands on disposable income in combination with the seeming lack of interest in discovering new acts rather than cashing in on some random reality tv show contestant.

[sigmax]

Music... that industry had more time and harvested more experience on the internet / file sharing paradigm. They kind of adjusted (not that well, as such industries are big enough not to do swift actions) and now you can buy each song for less than 1 U$S. There are also other selling schemas being tested, including the "pay a fixed monthly fee and download all you want".

Now: what is more costly on the creative / human side ? creating a music theme or writing a novel ? I would say that it depends, but there are instances, surely, in which both actions could be leveled. I know a novelist might be writing for months. On the other hand, musicians often work together, and also burn many man-hours.

Anyway ... books on the internet are still on an early stage. We won´t see the pay a fixed fee, download all you want (I don´t think it would be a good idea for books), but maybe authors will grow accustomed to publish their own books by themselves on specialized websites, that would take a big bite (10% 15%) of the book cost (but no the other way around as now happens with current publishers, who LEAVE to the author 10% or LESS).

to sum up, Music industry is already (perhaps badly) adapting.
Movies industry is also adapting: As I understand there is an official website (sadly enough available only for northamerican users) that allows you to download first rate movies, for a cost similar to a ticket movie).

Speaking of wich, other situation to throw in is the "sadly enough only for northamerican people". This means that the system is adapting to a worldwide phenomena as internet, in a local manner.

SO happens with Kindle. Amazon is having a hell time to coordinate and enable its magic to work "internationally".

We are not there yet folks. This will take lots of years. All I know is that the same book you but at -say U$S 10- down here, where probably publishing costs are LOWER- may cost U$S 20 because of publisher "fees".

I know that publishing houses that got branches in different countries, have different pricelists.

I Know that amazon allows to circunvent such thing: I buy in amazon, send those books to a friend´s house or a "private p.o. box" that then sends them to me down here, and on the bulk (3 or 4 books) I save money.

I know that publishers are not at all happy with such thing. They cannot easily stop amazon. But to other internet books sellers, which can be bullied in an easier way, they (the publishers) Monitor them, their sales, their websites, in search of "global pricing policies" and censors them.

This last paragraph I can vouch to it: I designed at least two literature selling websites. One is big enough for the "inconsistencies on selling worldwide from one country" to be a concern.

Is this OK ? I dont know. IT certainly feels awkward and / or weird!

I feel like the publishers want to force a "no loss for us" policy. If we people have a new way of spend less on the same book... well... they dont like that, they "unite" crossing country boundaries, and they try to force you to leave your money on the LOCAL branch, because it would report them more earnings.

You see... for a start internet is global. The establishment "mob" is local.

Regards,

Enrique.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

How much poorer will our culture be in 200 years than it could be if we make sure that artists continue to have a chance of making a living off of their work.

The vast majority of them can't do it right now. And the major enemy of lesser-known artists is obscurity, not unauthorised copying.

And how many other people who develop copyrighted work (Like software engineers) will not bother if they can't be compensated for their work.

Why don't you ask the open source movement? There's an awful lot of software engineers out there working on software which, when released, anyone can copy for their friends. Legally.

There's a simply choice - either business models can adapt, or the book industry can end up in the same situation as the music industry where regardless of the threats made, a third of a generation has no intention of ever compensating them for their products.

Microsoft have talked about how you can't realistically hope to contain darknets.


Also, iTunes is responsible directly for some of the decline of the music industry. How? It's broken the concept of "album". Filler tunes no longer sell.



HansTWM - Eh. The BBC's products tend to do pretty well here (and indeed, worldwide). I'm going to suggest poor production values for Government-owned German TV rather than anything inherent in the concept.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

The vast majority of them can't do it right now. And the major enemy of lesser-known artists is obscurity, not unauthorised copying.



Why don't you ask the open source movement? There's an awful lot of software engineers out there working on software which, when released, anyone can copy for their friends. Legally.

There's a simply choice - either business models can adapt, or the book industry can end up in the same situation as the music industry where regardless of the threats made, a third of a generation has no intention of ever compensating them for their products.

Microsoft have talked about how you can't realistically hope to contain darknets.


Also, iTunes is responsible directly for some of the decline of the music industry. How? It's broken the concept of "album". Filler tunes no longer sell.



HansTWM - Eh. The BBC's products tend to do pretty well here (and indeed, worldwide). I'm going to suggest poor production values for Government-owned German TV rather than anything inherent in the concept.

Apple's dominance is a much bigger threat to the music industry than the darknet is, nowadays. And let us face it, what do people in western countries want to live off, if not the results of creative minds? Be it music, software, movies, books, innovative products. Every physical product is being produced in Asia and whatever factories are left in the old world, their days are numbered. The young pirates in Europe and America that place no value on ideas will all be out of work with no future, because they are killing off the only future they could have. What value can they create, what jobs are left for them, if ideas are always free? Europe and the US are not competitive at producing physical goods anymore. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot here.

And yes, BBC has a lot of great shows -- I would call this a laudable exception.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

The vast majority of them can't do it right now. And the major enemy of lesser-known artists is obscurity, not unauthorised copying.

Yes, the vast majority of artists never make a living off of there work. But some do and most importantly, the artists who become most significant to our culture often do. And the hope for success (both recognition and financial) encourage artists to continue their efforts.

Why don't you ask the open source movement? There's an awful lot of software engineers out there working on software which, when released, anyone can copy for their friends. Legally.

I am quite well aware of GNU and the GPL and the like. I also know that there are an awful lot of orphaned GPL works out there. There are some great projects that work really well because they hold the interest of enough developers to see them through. At the same time, there are a lot of software products produced under the GPL that are left in a half finished state when the author looses interest in them. Products that would likely be finished if there was a potential for profit.

There's a simply choice - either business models can adapt, or the book industry can end up in the same situation as the music industry where regardless of the threats made, a third of a generation has no intention of ever compensating them for their products.

Microsoft have talked about how you can't realistically hope to contain darknets.

I think the basic problem here is that that generation (and I believe it will end up being much larger than a third) has decided that all of their entertainment should be free... they download music and videos and the only thing that is keeping them from downloading more books is that by and large they are not that interested in reading novels for fun.

Also, iTunes is responsible directly for some of the decline of the music industry. How? It's broken the concept of "album". Filler tunes no longer sell.

This is actually something of a virtue in my mind. The music industry made a big mistake when they basically stopped selling singles. They could have been getting $4-5 for a CD with a two songs on it but instead they decided that they were pretty much only going to sell albums which they could sell for a lot more because there was 12-15 songs on it... it didn't matter that most people only wanted one or two songs on the album. Now they are selling those songs for $1.

The virtue is that it now forces artists to make sure that every song is a good one...

HansTWM - Eh. The BBC's products tend to do pretty well here (and indeed, worldwide). I'm going to suggest poor production values for Government-owned German TV rather than anything inherent in the concept.

[/quote]

I enjoy quite a few BBC products, but then quite a few BBC programs pander to popular tastes (In no way shape or form can Dr. Who or Coupling be considered anything other than popular entertainment).