Alternative to SOPA and PIPA - Make Piracy your Friend

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The world has changed in the last 50 years. We used to have radios and records, then 8 track tapes, then cassettes, then came the CDs. Now we have the Internet which is the greatest advance in human evolution since language. The potential to make money is greater now that it ever has been but you can't do it if you're stuck in the past.
The world has changed in the last 50 years. We used to have radios and records, then 8 track tapes, then cassettes, then came the CDs. Now we have the Internet which is the greatest advance in human evolution since language. The potential to make money is greater now that it ever has been but you can't do it if you're stuck in the past.
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With the new technology the IP holders could have decided to take advantage of the new technology to make more money and reduce their costs, but instead they used the new technology to try to enforce punitive laws. Instead of promoting new technologies and ways of using innovation to take advantage of opportunities they have spent billions to influence Congress to implement draconian laws to punish customers. If your customers hate you - is that a good marketing plan? I don't think so!
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The RIAA and MPA need to step up and adapt to a new world and a new reality. What they need to do is look at what is working already and go with what works. The suggestions here are not untested theories. It works for Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Pandora, and many other companies. It could work even better if the RIAA and MPA would just wake up and embrace it rather than fighting it. What they want doesn't even work, so to call them greedy bastards would be generous. It's time to embrace what does work and make it work better. Law makers should just tell them to modernize and go away.
== Conclusion ==
== Conclusion ==

Revision as of 14:01, 16 January 2012

Contents

Solution to the problem of copyright piracy and protecting civil liberties

The United States Congress in order to address the concerns of copyright holders like the RIAA and the MPA have made several attempts to pass laws to protect intellectual property. Many of these ideas have led to terrible laws and proposals the totally break the Internet.

BTW - Copyright by Marc Perkel - public domain. Use this as you wish! Spread it around. Please link to this web page.

Make Piracy your Friend

Here's an idea for a solution to the piracy problem that is a win/win solution. This eliminates the need for SOPA. It is an outside the box solution so think deeply. The idea is:

Don't try to stop piracy. Make piracy your friend!

What we now call piracy - people copying movies and songs over the internet - can be look at as a free advertising and distribution system. Allow files to be uploaded - downloaded - copied - and distributed. The more the better.

Copyright ID Tags

All files will carry ID tags and public keys etc that identify the copyright owner, rights information, how and where to buy the product, web site of copyright holder and/or artist.

Media players will recognize these ID tags and be able to allow user to immediately purchase anything with a single click that is tied in through Paypal or Google wallet or iTunes and apps store or any number of micro payment system.

Those who provide music players would have an incentive in getting a small piece of the transaction giving them an incentive to install that capability.

Piracy becomes free distribution and advertising

The idea is that this is a new paradigm. Piracy becomes free distribution and advertizing. Kids download - they like it - they pass it on - they blog about it - and because it is both cheap and easy - they buy it. At least enough of them buy it that the RIAA makes a bigger profit than they are now.

The model assumes that higher volume at lower costs is more profitable. 1 movie at $10 is the same as 10 movies at $1. The RIAA and MPA also eliminate their advertizing and distribution costs. No CDs on plastic being shipped. All money is pure profit.

The paradigm shift is - yes - there will be piracy. There will be a LOT of people who don't pay. There will be more who don't pay than those who do pay. but that's OK because the real test is if the amount of profit in the new system is greater than that of the current system. I say it will be. And I have evidence to support that.

Even those who don't pay benefit the copyright holders. They download it and play it for free. They like it and pass it on to 10 friends and 2 friends pay. Thus the one who didn't pay resulted in 2 sales. The person who didn't pay likes the music and uploads it to a popular blog and thousands download it resulting in hundreds of sales and even greater distribution.

In this model all the copyright holders need to do is put it out there and spend the money that is automatically deposited in their bank account by the system.

Will it Work?

I came up with this idea back in 2002 and presented it to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org. This idea was very radical and untested at the time. However since 2002 a number of things have happened in the world where this model is already working. Several major players are already doing similar things and it works. New infrastructures are in place. This is a PDF I had made to explain my idea at the time:

http://www.perkel.com/piracy.pdf

Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Broadcast Television are doing it

We are all familiar with Apple iTunes and the 99 cent songs. Google is now selling media through its app store. Amazon is doing it. Then there are the unlimited subscription models where you pay $8/month for all you can eat such as Netflix, Pandora radio, etc. There are advertizing supported models like broadcast radio and TV. No one wants to throw me in jail for watching "Desperate Housewives" on my TV without paying.

Will people pay if they don't have to?

But - you ask - why would people pay if they don't have to?

Piracy would still be illegal. But like possession of small amounts of marijuana in California it would be at best an infraction. You don't have to pay, but you are expected to. Much like leaving a tip at a restaurant in America. You don't have to tip, but people do it anyway. AND - this is important - the media players make it both cheap and easy to pay. It's one dollar and one click. It can even be less than a dollar. When I divide how many shows I watch on Netflix in a month into $8 it come to like 25 cents a movie.

And .... this is also important - the music industry is your friend - not your enemy. The business model where the recording industry sues the customers for uploading a baby video with music to YouTube - how does that make sense. That's not marketing - that terrorism. And we all know it's not working.

Example:

Proposed law - penalty for singing a Michael Jackson and uploading it to YouTube - 5 years in prison.
Killing Michael Jackson (manslaughter) - 4 years in prison

How does this make any sense? Or penalties of $250,000 for downloading music? Make your customers hate you? Does this make sense? Not in my reality!

My Personal Experience

In the 1990s I owned a small software company. Had 3-5 employees and sold about $2 million in network control programs to companies like PG&E, Wells Fargo Bank, Chase Bank. I had online trial downloads and I exhibited at trade shows.

It quickly became apparent that there ware people pirating my software. I tried to fight it at first but I soon realized that 2/3 of my business was coming from piracy. People were copying my programs and passing them around and they were ending up in major companies who were sending my large orders. And in my case these were not inexpensive programs. So as weird as it seemed at the time - this was working. Piracy was my friend. Without piracy I wouldn't have been successful. Piracy worked for me!

It's OK if most people don't pay

Yes - you have to accept that a lot of people aren't going to pay. It might be that most people don't pay. So what? In my case I knew that there were probably more hot copies of my program out there and copies that were paid for. So what?

If at the time there were some perfect form of enforcement where I could collect for every copy I would have less money that with most people stealing it. I actually came out ahead. Why you ask? Because if the perfect enforcement existed then my software would not have been passed around and the big customers who bought it would never have seen it. I am money ahead because of piracy, so why would I want to stop it?

What's more important? Making more money or getting every copy paid for?

Think Different worked for Apple

We all remember the late Steve Jobs and Apple whose motto is "Think Different". Apple did think different and created iTunes and started selling songs for a buck each. And it works! Apple has been (briefly) the county's largest corporation and it came in part by Apple recognizing the the world has changed and that it takes a different paradigm to take advantage and adopt to a changing world.

It is now time for the recording industry to get with the times and realize that we're not in the 20th century anymore and that we are living in a new world that has new opportunities for those who are able to adapt. The era of demanding that every piece of intellectual property is over and the the social aspect of the Internet as well as the bandwidth is an ideal platform for marketing songs and movies in a new way. It's not piracy, it's free advertising and distribution. Links are your friends, not your enemy. You want people to download and copy your music because it get's it out to more customers.

The solutions have to be simple

What is necessary to make this work is keeping it simple. Media apps will help you find the tunes, download the tunes, rate the tunes, and pay for the tunes. It has to be cheap, counting on bulk to make a profit, and is has to be easy, one click and it's done. It also has to be flexible. There needs to be "pay for song" model. Maybe a penny a play model. Subscription model, bulk model, advertiser sponsored model, and other models yet to be invented.

It also need to be secure so that the identity information in the file is protected to make sure the right person gets paid. Files should contain encryption keys so s that it only works with legitimate vendors. There should be enough fields to communicate to user software if the file is public domain, creative commons licenses, for sale, by who, what are the terms, etc. These systems need to be standardized so that all players and vending systems are all playing by the same system.

There should also be alternatives to paying money such as advertising delivery. Agreeing to provide marketing data instead of payments. Credits for rating movies and songs so that if you rate a movie and give comments then you get $$$ credits towards future purchases. Especially if others "like" your comments. You get free stuff for talking about what you like/don't like.

There also has to be incentives instead of laws. Rather than mandating that media players have to allow X or prohibit X and other requirements, create incentives so those who write the player software get a piece of the transaction for playing the music and connecting to those who sell it. Make it so that market forces make people want to to the right thing instead of forcing them with prison.

Piracy is good for society

The thing about intellectual property is that it costs nothing to reproduce. if someone who has no money listens to a pirated song it doesn't cost the copyright holder anything. But suppose a company is selling online courses teaching them subjects like math, science, accounting, or any number of skills, and poor people start learning for free? Then they can go out and get jobs, earn a living, pay taxes, reduce unemployment, pay down the national debt, get off drugs, and become a productive member of society. Maybe once they get a job they can start paying for intellectual property?

So if we let the poor listen to music without paying for it - what harm does that do? Of if a homeless person gets to watch Avatar without paying for it - who cares? it's really no skin off the motion picture industry's butt if people who never pay anyhow get to watch a movie for free. The recording industry will pay less in taxes because they don't have to feed these criminals in jail.

Think about it. An 8 year old sings "Happy Birthday" - a copyrighted song - and goes to prison for 5 years - till they are 13? And that makes sense? Maybe we should tax the IP community if they want this kind of enforcement to pay for the law enforcement costs and prison costs to punish all these people who are singing illegally?

The RIAA and MPA have been unreasonable

The insistence that every piece of intellectual property be paid for every time is ridiculous. I remember when people were paying radio stations to play their music (payola) as a way of getting people to hear their songs and want to go to the record store and buy them. They actually paid for the opportunity to give away their music for free. Now with the Internet and downloading it makes free distribution even easier. And they don't have to go to the record store all they would have to do is click a mouse.

The world has changed in the last 50 years. We used to have radios and records, then 8 track tapes, then cassettes, then came the CDs. Now we have the Internet which is the greatest advance in human evolution since language. The potential to make money is greater now that it ever has been but you can't do it if you're stuck in the past.

With the new technology the IP holders could have decided to take advantage of the new technology to make more money and reduce their costs, but instead they used the new technology to try to enforce punitive laws. Instead of promoting new technologies and ways of using innovation to take advantage of opportunities they have spent billions to influence Congress to implement draconian laws to punish customers. If your customers hate you - is that a good marketing plan? I don't think so!

The RIAA and MPA need to step up and adapt to a new world and a new reality. What they need to do is look at what is working already and go with what works. The suggestions here are not untested theories. It works for Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Pandora, and many other companies. It could work even better if the RIAA and MPA would just wake up and embrace it rather than fighting it. What they want doesn't even work, so to call them greedy bastards would be generous. It's time to embrace what does work and make it work better. Law makers should just tell them to modernize and go away.

Conclusion

When you have a system that isn't working it's time to rethink everything and come up with a completely new paradigm. One thing that everyone agrees on is that what we have not doesn't work. Everyone is unhappy.

The new paradigm suggested here is now proven to work. Netflix, Apple iTunes, Google, Amazon, Pandora, all working. Making money - happy customers. If you changed the distribution to include piracy - it would even work better.

For example - now you have to download iTunes songs through iTunes and you're limited to that source and what they sell. But suppose you download a song from a web site that was just recorded yesterday? You play it on your iTunes player, you like it, and you can immediately purchase it through iTunes because the artist has embedded information into the song file to do that. Apple not gets a new sale and $$$ without even having to do anything. And the new purchase is automatically added to Apples inventory and is now searchable. The possibilities of ways to market media are endless once you get rid of the idea that a lot of people are going to not pay.

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