Copyright enforcement has been big this week. First, an old case of file sharing had a jury decision this week. The US Appeals court in Minnesota reinstated a jury award of $220,000 against a casual home user of a file-sharing service that no longer exists. She didn't make any money off the service, and it was never proved that she was actually the one who downloaded the songs at her home. She was one of millions of users of the service, and most of us assumed at the time that if it was illegal, we would simply get shut off, not sued. I know a lot more people were guilty, and have not been summoned to court...yet.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/entertainment-us-copyright-thomasrasset-idUSBRE88A1CH20120911
Today we learn that a person who downloaded academic journals from a non-profit organization is guilty of nine felony charges. He used an open wifi connection at a state university to perform the downloads. And yet he is being charged by law enforcement as if he was a malicious, destructive hacker.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony/
Tim O'Reilly is a major publisher of technology ebooks who profits from copyrighted content. He came out earlier this year against several bills proposed in congress to take harsher measures against copyright violations, including shutting down entire websites for being suspected of hosting a link to copyright material. In toher words, if you searched Google and found a link to pirated material, the feds could have shut down the entire Google service(s). Or if my blog was suspected of plagiarizing, the entire blogspot community could have been shut down. Scary stuff, especially in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Tim O'reilly is thankful for pirates who share his material with markets who never would have heard of him. Those markets are now purchasing from O'Reilly. He prosecutes pirates when they are found, and O'Reilly's customers are his greatest source for reporting pirated material.
https://plus.google.com/+TimOReilly/posts/LZs8TekXK2T
Are we out of control with copyright enforcement, or is it about time we crack down on these menaces to society?
I admit it: I am guilty of pirating. When I was a kid, I recorded hours of tv shows and movies on VHS, and was an artist at producing mix tapes of songs recorded off the radio. And yet, a conservative estimate of how much money I have spent on legitimate tapes, CDs, DVDs, and Blue-Rays with the profits going to the rightful owners is about the same as the GDP of a third world country. I would record a song off the radio and like it so much that I wanted a clean copy of it, with liner notes and the rest of the songs on the album. There were movies I wanted, and didn't want to wait to record it or it wasn't playing so I purchased it. Today, I don't have the time to be a pirate so I pay for what I want. However, there are books I never would have read, songs I never would have heard, TV shows I would never have watched, if it wasn't freely available somewhere.
For example, Hulu is a great sources for movies and TV shows I never would have seen before, but the industry has yet to embrace the model. Moreover, it is a source for commercials I would have skipped if I was watching on TiVo or a cable/satellite DVR. Last night I watched a show called "Honey Boo Boo" that I never would have watched otherwise. I started by watching Saturday Night Live and they did a Honey Boo Boo sketch. I was tired and in the mood for silliness, so I searched for the show. It wasn't on Hulu, so I Googled it but my frame of mind could have been easily distracted, erasing Honey Boo Boo from my consciousness forever.
A distraction did not present itself, and I located Honey Boo Boo on TLC's website. They require me to download an app to my iPad. Normally I would have moved on to something else instead of hassling with a new app, but last night I decided there was nothing better to do. I downloaded the free app and within minutes I was watching Honey Boo Boo and laughing hysterically. With one caveat: I was required to watch a commercial about every 5 minutes, and it was the same commercial over and over again. Not even an entertaining commercial targeted at my demographic: this was a Dove body wash commercial targeted to soccer moms. But I know the commercial by heart, and it was worth the boredom to view Honey Boo Boo clips. So now I am talking to my sphere of influence about a TV show I would never have seen, and I am aware of Dove body wash. THAT is a market-based solution to the problem.
Let's say I was able to obtain Honey Boo Boo from a pirated source, commercial free. It would have taken a lot longer, and I may have exposed myself to malware or worse in the process. Then when I finally saw the show, I would have talked to my sphere of influence about it, and we all would be watching the next episode live, with commercials. I know I only have an MBA, but that still sounds like a win for Capitalism to me.
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