Anyone?
Right, so, um, it's all about people using Protools in their basement? Not about, you know, shows that need fifty million in cap before they start selling -- maybe?
Mmm. Yes, you're right. That sounds like a much better system. Let's just enshrine that in law.
You know what guys? Enjoy your DMCA bill. You're playing right into it. You wonder why creative artists won't speak up and out -- en masse -- against restrictive protocols and Digital Locks and heavy-handed, draconian takedown schemes? Because you're asking them to drink Kool Aid that has a skull and crossbones floating on top.
For what it's worth, I did get a nice email from Michael Geist, who suggested that perhaps I was asking the wrong question about where the business model comes from for Film and TV. He thinks the current system works fine. Having seen the Music Industry say the same thing for a good five years before they realized just how fucked they were, I'm not inclined to agree. I concede that indie films will always get made. And that Transformers 25 will probably be able to find financing. What I'm worried about is everything I've ever worked on and everything I like to watch -- which is everything in between.
The people who are bloviating about how great it will be when copyright is eradicated still haven't explained to me -- or anyone else -- how anything in the great middle -- those movies that don't have a PR budget equal to their production costs, and most TV shows -- get made. Everything's about this artist and that artist and how much happier everybody is now that they can strap on a guitar and play freely. Well, if one of these kids writing that could put together a decent press kit, or figure out how to run the Genny on a film set, then maybe I'd have more than a shake of the head for them.
I am weary even suggesting this. But if you ARE a Film and TV creator/writer -- know that most of the submissions that they're likely to get in the Copyright Consultation are hippy-dippy types talking about the abolition of copyright altogether, or the brave new exciting world of liberated chicks with guitars, or heavy handed record company types screaming about digital locks and protect the math of the "sorry your first three albums didn't make any money but at least I got to go to Hawaii for six months."
If you want your POV represented -- as workers in an industry where a massive outlay of upfront-cash is the only way to get anything made -- you should weigh in on the official government consultation site before Sept. 13. If you'd like to see the WGC's position, check that here.
And if all else fails, show up on campus and tell the brave copyfighters that their loans are up, the Vig's 3 % a week, and if they want to raise the money they should sell Tshirts.
12 rumbles:
While I agree with you that a copyright law that protects creators and consumers is necessary, TV's problems are not restricted to copyright and piracy.
Reality shows starting appearing before piracy of TV was much of an issue. The reason they showed up had to do with audience fragmentation. The proliferation of channels and the alternatives to TV entertainment (like videogames) reduced the number of people watching any particular show.
Since TV is paid for substantially by advertising, the reduced number of eyeballs makes advertising on TV less attractive and less lucrative.
In addition, TV advertising was forced to take a shotgun approach where now the internet allows for advertising that is much more targeted.
A car company might pay to reach a million viewers, but it was impossible to know how many of those viewers might actually be interested in a new car. Hence, advertising on TV was wasteful. By contrast, advertising on Google for the search "Toronto car dealers" is much more likely to produce results and at a lower cost.
Penny dreadfuls, vaudeville, and radio drama disappeared because new technologies showed up and audience tastes moved on. Their demise had nothing to do with piracy or copyright issues. Television as we know it has already changed significantly since the days before cable channels and it's going to change more as technology keeps changing.
Copyright is an important part of the puzzle, but I think that audience fragmentation is doing more to undercut the current broadcaster business model. If by some miracle you could stamp out piracy but were left with a world where no Canadian show got more than 25,000 viewers, you've still got a major problem.
Mark, nowhere did I claim that copyright was the only problem facing television. It just happens to be the thing under discussion right now.
Thanks for the quick recap of the effect of reality shows, audience fragmentation and the problems of the unstable ad market but to anyone who reads this blog regularly, and follows and works in the industry -- all this is well trod ground.
In fact, what's interesting is that over the last week, I've heard more people parroting stuff back at me that I already know -- right down to the guy on Geist's site who actually -- God love him -- explained who Marshall McLuhan is, and why he was important. You see, he'd just done his thesis on him.
What I haven't seen anywhere -- and I do mean *anywhere* is a discussion about artists' rights or anything that shows an understanding in the "fair copyright" community that the problems, pitfalls and challenges facing artists like Actors, Writers and Directors are completely different than those of book authors, print or radio journalists or artists, or musicians & composers.
Different technology, different medium, different methods of production and scale of capitialization required. It's very different. But the rhetoric skips right over that.
It's wonderful that some people think that it would be great for society if somebody could use a clip from Goodfellas or some TV show in their superspecial new art project without compensating the rights holder and original creator, and that copyright terms of 50 years are too onerous -- but even a successful screenwriter who gets, say, five films made over a career -- which would be a pretty good career, might spend five to ten years trying to get that screenplay made.
Right now, it looks to me like the equivalent of somebody who's seen somebody build a shed going to the town planner and saying "your city plan is completely bogus" and all you do is talk about the fucking shed.
So yeah, the problems with TV are more than copyright. And I'm sure we'll go back to talking about them.
But right now we're talking about copyright.
Only one side doesn't seem to be listening. At all.
hint: it's not us.
"Since TV is paid for substantially by advertising..."
I'm just curious, is this still true? In countries like Canada and the UK (really, most of the world except the USA) a lot of TV production is paid for through a series of grants, tax credits and other government incentives.
Even in the US a lot of TV is financed by cable subscriptions, foreign sales and after market stuff like DVD sales, at least for the kind of scripted shows Denis is talking about. It's different for things like sports that don't have much of a life beyond the first broadcast (although the folks at ESPN Classic would argue with that, I guess).
So, it's a complicated issue to be sure, but from the beginning it's been one of respect - or lack of respect really.
Things are offered for sale and some people say, "I want that, but I don't want to pay for it." Fair enough, there's been shoplifting forever. With this new model, though, there's a lot of stuff offered for free, but not everything.
Right now there's enough music, books, probably even movies, being made and offered online for free to keep people busy the rest of their lives. But people seem to want the stuff that's for sale more.
A lot of people seem to want a kind of communist model in which all art is available for all "the people" equally, regardless of how much demand there is for each particular piece of art. Whether a song or TV show or book is downloaded three million tmes or three times, people would like the same renumeration to the creator. That just doesn't fit any kind of supply and demand, free market capitalist model.
Denis,
I've spent the last 25+ years in the IT sector constantly absorbing (i.e. surviving) one disruptive innovation after another. Reading your blog has given me insight and a greater appreciation of the challenges your profession faces (your posts regarding work product/processes, copyright, the CRTC, etc). It's very much appreciated.
Having said this though, I wonder where this sense of entitlement comes from? Your digital works have access to a worldwide audience numbering over a billion potential patrons (internet pop and climbing); who are primed to be gratified instantly; at a near zero cost of distribution (via the evil internet); and you can't think of way to make a living? Fine, our kids will. I don't know what else to say.
It is your industry that broke the deal. Copyright is intended to foster the arts, innovation, reward the creators so that our culture is enriched. Tell me, what great Canadian works have fallen into the public domain since you were born? It isn't our fault that your business is predicated on the continued suppression of the public domain. Oh, please my fellow Canadians - I am deserving of a MONOPOLY on imagination. I really, really need a 50 year monopoly entitlement. Otherwise, I may have to get a second job to make ends meet. Is this what your saying?
The status quo isn't working. A law which has already criminalized 99% of otherwise law abiding tax payers isn't the answer. If the 21st century is all about the "digital economy" - we as a society must ensure that copyright is structured to regulate COMMERCIAL INTERESTS solely. That's it. Don't get me wrong; I'll be the first one to take up your cause if another was exploiting your work for commercial gain. But I'm not interested in criminalizing teenagers, students, or grandmothers. Suffer the free riders and focus instead on the upper percentile who will PAY.
YES. PEOPLE will pay, and have always paid, to be entertained. We'll also continue to pay for entertainment. You should not need a fifty year monopoly in this age of instant dissemination to a global audience. A more reasonable approach to length would be five years, renewable in five-year increments to a maximum of 20 years. Funding for the arts could be secured by diverting 10% of the proceeds of copyright to a fund to help creators. Each subsequent renewal would further increase this contribution by 20% so that a 20 year copyright entitlement would see 70% of the proceeds go to a new arts fund. These numbers are simply thrown out to foster further discussion. I know little of the monies involved... The principle is to: 1) encourage shorter copyright length; and 2) have established creators fund more directly less established ones.
We may need to allow disruptive influences in your industry. We also need a healthy public domain. It's time the pendulum was allowed to swing the other way. Otherwise, your industry will join our telecom industry as digital backwaters - too much control in to few hands. Stagnate.
Anyhow, I don't mean to sound like a dick. Your blog has made me realise that I don't have an easy solution to this problem. For this I thank you as it's made me revise my position on this issue.
Unfortunately, I'm not sufficiently familiar with your industry's costing to be able to address your 50 million dollar challenge. In my industry an ROI needs to be no more than 5 years but with a potential of a billion customers at zero cost for manufacture and distribution as outlined above - the funding would be there. On a 50 year ROI, I have no idea who would take that chance.
Again, much appreciated,
Marc
"Fine, our kids will." Your argument is predicated on some magical solution being imagined in the future. This brave new digital age stuff where the old rules of commerce have suddenly disappeared is bullshit, it's a utopian fantasy. People who create content for commercial purposes require fair compensation from users. That the technology that enables content theft possible is universally available doesn't justify doing so. That's like saying the cash register was left open, so I am entitled to reaching in and taking what I like.
Digital theft? That's all you come away with? Then I know the current law is broken because that doesn't even make sense.
What exactly is digital theft? Who stole your imagination and how does granting you a century long monopoly on your thoughts advance Canadian society?
A shorter term where part of the proceeds directly fund new art seems more reasonable than simply more of the same but with digital locks.
Where does your sense of entitlement come from? Who the hell convinced you that treating your patrons as criminals was a winning condition? How does criminalizing a teen serve the greater good? Where do you get off talking about theft? It shouldn't even be infringement under any new act unless some *commercial* gain is involved.
People will always pay for entertainment. Somehow, you refuse to acknowledge this point. Copyright can cease to exist today and folks will still pay to be entertained tomorrow.
Not "patrons", customers. There is no sense of "entitlement" when I am making content and offering it up for sale, there is merely an expectation of compensation. You don't want it? Don't buy it. You do? Then pay for it. Does the guy who makes your pizza have a sense of entitlement for wanting you to pay him? I mean, really, we all have to eat. Isn't the right to food greater than the privilage of charging for it? You are dealing in grandiose abstractions. And, yeah, when a teenager steals something, it is still theft.
The thing that strikes me most about this debate is that the rhetoric has advanced so very far while the arguments haven't.
"Your kids will", and admitting that "I'm not sufficiently familiar with your industry's costing to be able to address your 50 million dollar challenge," but not connecting that back to the central point is the problem here:
to me, to people like me, you simply CANNOT put all the stuff you want to put on the table and ask us
to take on faith that "it will always work out."
"People will always pay for entertainment." What are you talking about? What has the whole downloading culture taught us then? There is an entire generation for whom that is not true about music. For all the nose stretchers and truth-distortions the music industry has put out since Napster, they're not wrong about that. The value proposition in music is gone. Destroyed. Otherwise great, moral, decent kids -- children of friends, have looked at me mystified when I told them I paid for songs I downloaded from Itunes. Mystified.
You talk about my sense of entitlement? Well, when I hear about the pendulum swinging back and lets take copyright to five years, all I can wonder is, "are we going to do the same with all inherited wealth?"
Really. If I made money trading securities, or building a woodworking business, and I'm quite rich and I die, I'm allowed to pass that onto my family, am I not? Oh sure, it's taxed. But I can still transfer my mill, or the chain of restaurants, or the computer company I started in my garage to my heirs, correct? I can't just start making a digital music player and call it Ipod because it's five years since it was introduced, right? Is Google going to turn over all its propietary code five years from now?
Of course not.
Now - step away from the rhetoric and don't ask me why I feel so entitled, but you explain to ME why the fruits of an artist's intellectual property is different.
There are a whole lot of things that would be better if they weren't allowed to be corporately exploited for as long as they are. It would be better for Canada if the media wasn't so concentrated. But it is. Are we going to change all law? Get rid of inherited entitlements and wealth? Really? Or are you just talking about screwing over the artists, now?
What about athletes. He's a great pitcher, but Halladay is making a whole lot of ridiculous money. Oh, and those Real Madrid footballers who blew through Toronto last month -- those guys make way too much, too. Why is that right?
There's a particular strain of muddleheaded evangelism that attaches to the internet industries like a wad of gum on the bottom of a shoe.
I covered the early days of the .com internet for a show called MediaTelevision. For about four years I spoke to all the visionaries and freethinkers, and would be geniuses and entrepeneurs. And I'm telling you, the language I heard was very, very similar to what I hear today from a lot of those arguing for "balanced copyright." That says to me two things: 1) that though fifteen years have passed, the arguments haven't advanced, and 2) the last time we took a flyer on the promises and the hype of that crowd, we had the dot com bust -- and billions of venture capital evaporated overnight.
All these boring questions I'm asking now -- "If we do what you're asking, how does the model work?" are very similar to the simple, "hey what's your business model" questions we all asked 15 years ago. We were called negative then, and told we "didn't get it," and all sorts of other dodges.
And ninety percent of those geniuses and visionaries with stock options up the yoni were cast out in the wilderness a while later.
So forgive me if our trust quotient is low. When someone asks you a question you can't answer, or tells you that the answer to the question you've just asked about your ENTIRE LIVELIHOOD isn't relevant, or worse, isn't even their problem -- the desire to listen to what comes next is, shall we say, low. It's amazing to me that none of you seem to get that.
For what it's worth, until you jump off a cliff with calling me entitled and calling for five year copyright, there are general principles that I find nothing to disagree with.
I think that there should be a way to enshrine an expansion of non-commercial uses, and that the main focus of copyright should be to protect commercial infringements.
That being said, the academic view that fair use, or use in education = free is ridiculous. The fact that tenured Professors with job security are demanding free use from freelancers with none is a bit odious to me, frankly. Surely there is a middle ground between "so restrictive it's impossible to use in study" and "free."
Second, I am personally offended by the corporate machinations that have resulted in the extension of copyright beyond 50 years. After that time, with millions made and more to come, I'm not so interested in serving the interests of Mickey Mouse. The public domain is important. Corporate lobbying should not be able to effectively kill the public domain by ensuring nothing will ever pass into it again.
Now those two positions alone -- plus the distaste I have for the punishment and annoyance that digital locks present -- are moves to the middle of a TRULY balanced policy. And if you talk to most artists who are engaged in these issues, you will find a similar, concerted movement to try and rationalize the consumer good with our needs to be able to earn a living.
But here's where you guys are fucking it up:
We float a solution -- maybe not a great one -- maybe not even the best one -- about moving toward collective licensing and a levy/pay system. It's a whole new vision of copyright and fair use. It would be a BEAR to work this out with media corporations, but we think it's worth pursuing.
And what is the reaction to this concrete idea from the supposed "fair copyright" side?
Instant rejection. "Ipod Tax!" "No!" "Not my hard drive!" "Unfair!" "No, no, no!"
Okay -- what's your alternate proposal for us, then? Show us that you actually are thinking about copyright in a "balanced" way that tries to find a compromise that meets everyone's needs?
Oh, um, vague promise, vague promise, and if you can't work it out, your kids will.
I see. In other words: Fuck You.
The myopia of the fair copyright side comes from the fact that you go in with goals that are so radical and different, so "let's blow everything up," that you sound like a lunatic fringe and you make it impossible for anyone who's actually an industry stakeholder to support you.
Arguing against being able to extend copyright to 70, 75, 150 years? Yup, that's a solid argument that I can get behind but...what? Oh no, you want copyright to be 5 years? WTF?
Looking at people who are scared about their livelihood, rejecting their solutions without discussing them, or trying to understand why they've come to that position, and then turning around and saying, "sell t shirts?" That's offensive. And in the face of that, the submissions from a lot of the big corporate media interests are going to seem reasonable by comparison.
There's an unholy coalition around "balanced copyright" that serves it very poorly. The first group are the Internet evangelist who've been talking bullshit for well nigh on 20 years now. And the second group is students for whom this is their "one issue."
The latter know nothing of negotiation, business, the way the world works, economics or just about anything else, but by God they know they should be able to sample and remix that clip from Gossip Girl or Snoop Dogg anyway, anytime they want.
The "Fair Copyright" side, unfortunately, is an echo chamber that in its own way is as closed, as self-serving, and as out of touch as the record labels they love to feel superior to.
And that's what's really discouraging about this debate. I feel the really important -- and DOABLE things, are not going to get done because they're wrapped up in a whole lot of utopianist crazy.
It's not really a sense of entitlement as much as a sense of ownership. Until we move to a communist model where everything is owned by everyone, then the act of creation is where we have to base ownership.
This idea that artistic creation needs to be public domain in order to benefit further artists is just silly. All copyright means is you have to ask the person who created the work (or the lisence holder). It doesn't mean it can't be used, just that you have to ask, and sometimes cut the creator in for a piece of what you're going to make.
Taking the commerce completely out of art is a pretty radical step. If we'e going to that, we should at least talk about it.
Why is it so hard for people to see this as a two-way street? Yes, the creators get access to a large audience and the large audience has some responsibility, too. Afterall, they're also getting access to a huge amount of art.
The manner in which the artwork is offered is important. Much art is now offered online for free. Other works are offered for a small fee. Why can't people tell the difference?
Where does this sense of entitlement that any consumer can decide how the work should be offered in the marketplace come from?
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