This week's readings deal with the issue of copyright, video, and new media. First, an older article looking at how copyright laws are being used (you'll find this one in your email). Second, an article from the most recent issue of Wired, which questions Hollywood's use of DRM. Next, an article from the New York Times, beginning "A winner has finally been declared in Hollywood's high-definition DVD war. So why isn't there more cheering?" I'd also like you take a look at two very different views on the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and video, one from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and one from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). I've kept the readings short this week as they were posted later than I had planned. For the reading response, tell me what you took away from these readings. Did anything surprise you or cause you to rethink your opinion on copyright and copyright enforcement?
If you are interested in how to embed QuickTime, please check an addition I have made to last week's post.
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Online copyright, which we touched on earlier in the semester with concept of user-generated media, to say the least, presents a problem. As we move increasingly to a Web 2.0 platform, there seems to be less and less room for everyone to make money. If a video is sold as a download online, and it must be cheap, or else it will just be pirated, it gets split up among the distributer, say Apple, the movie company, say MGM and then of course, the writers and the actors. Now this is just an example for entertainment media. But what about news media and photos? News stories seem to get posted and reposted at an alarming rate. Which is good and bad. If these had the same copyrights as a piece of entertainment, this would be piracy (as I understand the definition) but because it is not deemed in the same class as a television show, copying the story is not copyright infringement. There is a similar problem with photos. It is so easy to copy photos from a web page and suddenly, someone’s artistic work is stolen and they get no credit for it. It is a sad thing.
One of the more interesting views, being that its primary election day, is the piracy community, if everything is free and equally shared, seems to be the closest thing to working communism we have seen without a gun. Of course, this excludes those who pirate a film, for example and then sell it; this example simply looks at free sharing. In the spirit of creativity, it seems we are good with sharing what we have with everyone so that all have access to free, quality (in one’s own opinion) entertainment. Unfortunately, its illegal.
What I gathered from the readings and video is that the movie industry is trying to maintain control over the distribution of DVDs. And technology companies, like Sony, are working with the movie industry to create HD-DVDs (Blue Ray disc) that are more likely to appeal to consumers than traditional DVDs. However, there are a couple obstacles the movie and technology industries are facing. First, fewer consumers are buying DVDs, even with the new Blue Ray discs. So both the movie industry and technology companies are suffering and are in a panic. Instead of DVDs, consumers want to have access to videos online because it’s instantaneous and convenient. To stay competitive, companies are being forced to look at other options, such as online movie distribution.
The second major obstacle companies are facing is video piracy. Companies are having difficulties keeping individuals from pirating videos and sending them very quickly throughout the world via the Internet using topsites. I found the video about topsites extremely interesting. I had heard of individuals videotaping movies in the theatre then posting them online. However, I had no idea about the process or how quickly the pirated videos spread.
In an effort to alleviate this problem, companies are going after topsites, which distribute pirated movies online. Companies are also using DRM to protect DVDs from being copied. According to Rose, of Wired, DRM is likely to cause more problems than it will solve, as it did with the music industry. Rose and others contend that DRM keeps individuals from watching videos and listening to music in a convenient manner. And if they do not start offering videos in an easy-to-access format, then pirated videos will continue to be used.
I found the article written by the EFF most disturbing. I didn’t realize DRM had the potential to make a consumer’s life so difficult. I was especially surprised to learn that some of the items the movie industry is trying to push through congress could potentially affect the digital camcorders and high definition televisions. This concerns me because we pay a lot of money for electronic products, so I want them to be compatible and to be useful. According the EFF, proposed laws may greatly affect the function and compatibility of these expensive devices.
What I took away from this week's readings was that the entertainment media industries are a little upset at the Web's potential for making their profits disappear. They are waging legal battle after legal battle to ensure that the consumer is at their mercy. From what I gathered from the Rice article, the legal maneuvering is not entirely ethical, or legal. Ultimately, according to Rice and the "Wired" article, the industries' attempts to ensure short-term profit, will ultimately undermine their long-term success.
I find it interesting that industries on the forefront of technological and informational development are scared of the Web. Corporations like Sony who have always been leaders in developing technologies for entertianment, starting with the Walkman, and who own massive amounts of material (music, movies, etc.) are balking at the opportunities to market their catalogs on the most revolutionary and highly accessible technology available. As the "Wired" article pointed out, they, and other companies, are missing out.
Likewise, the consumer is being trampled in the process. Not only are they being given limited choices, they are being placed in the position to make illegal choices, and not knowing they are doing so. I think most consumers are willing to pay a fair price for their entertainment. Unfortunately, companies are overlooking this. I don't mind paying $15 for a DVD or for a month of Netflix. I don't mind having a limited number of skips per hour on Pandora, or watching a few commercials while I wait for the last episode of "Grey's Anatomy" to download. What I do mind, is being forced to purchase a new, expensive DVD player, and DVD library.
Like it or not, the service-based economy, Web, and advertising trends have developed a consumer/demand-oriented, bottom-up media market. The Web has certainly changed how traditional media function. I think the entertainment companies will have to reqinquish some of the control they hold, for both their own and society's benefit.
The readings assigned this week surprised me some in that the tone given off was that the seemed so put out by the music industry, and quite frankly Hollywood was heading down the same path as well. The music industry obviously thought they had the upper hand in the late ‘90s and chose to cover all of their bases by requiring copyright standards for digital downloads. Unfortunately, however, the copyright requirements backfired and consumers found ways to avoid paying for the copyrighted material – meaning they basically stole the content. Movie piracy has not gotten to the point of free movies being widely available for free, but the restrictions placed on the movies that are available digitally could cause the same wave of piracy. Apple is offering movies to download through the ITunes store, but those movies are no good if you don’t have an Apple TV or other piece of Apple technology with which to view the movie. Likewise, there are several steps that must be taken before a movie can be put onto an Ipod if the movie is downloaded from Amazon or Netflix.
The articles looking at copyright standards and piracy were at drastically different ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, the MPAA is educating people on what piracy is and the way that it hurts the system. At the other end, the EFF is telling people how bad regulation is and how much better life would be without it. There must be some happy medium that can be reached where Hollywood isn’t losing everything they make to piracy, but where there is an ethical standard that consumers abide by when it comes to issues of piracy. This of course is a make-believe world where everyone lives happily together, but this has to be a goal that is strived for. It’s unreasonable to assume Hollywood stop fighting for increased regulation; but, consumers must be willing to pay for the product they enjoy.
For the readings this week I just get an overwhelming feeling of repetition by the entertainment industry. Once again piracy is at the forefront of issues causing them to lose money and they freak. The entertainment industry, particularly film and television studios, as well as media technology companies are not embracing a chance for progress.
Like the Wired article stated, they are making the same mistakes as the music industry did. By using DRM and other applications to disrupt any attempts to steal their product, they are turning off the customer. For instance, I have an iPod and have purchased a good amount of music from iTunes but since they have DRM attached if anything kills my iPod or computer my songs go bye-bye. If I was purchasing movies or tv shows along with music I would be even more ticked off if something ever happened to make them disappear.
The only way for this issue to be resolved is for the movie and television studios, technology companies and retail companies to work out a way to share the power and embrace the media available to them. By using the Internet to make products easily available for low prices and compatible with more than just one type of machine, they will cause the need for bitTorrent and other p2p sites to let up.
"If they fear theft, they'll see piracy; if they're looking for opportunity, they'll discover ways to profit." Out of all the readings for this week, this quote stood out the most to me. It is very clear the Hollywood is up against the ropes with the whole piracy issue, and they were slow to react in my opinion. As one of the articles claimed, the music industry did not do a good job in fighting against piracy, so why wouldn't Hollywood notice that and try to prevent that from happening to them. If they would stop complaining about illegal downloads and start thinking about possible ways to make their content instantly available they could make a substantial amount of money. There will always be those people that will access certain video content, or movies, illegally. But a large percentage of the population do not mind paying for movies, they just want the instant gratification. Places like Netflix and itunes that are making movies available to download are moving in the right direction. If it is available most people will pay the money to access it, they will not go to the illegal downloading sites. This may affect DVD sales but the studios will still be making money, probably more. DVD will still be bought because the downloaded movies can not be moved, and as Brandi said, you have to have certain technology to views those downloads.
I just have one thing I would like to add about the HD war that has recently come to an end. This may just be me, but there was a reason I did not go out and buy a Blue ray player, or and HD DVD player; they were competing. It was obvious that sooner or later one of them was going to lose. There is a reason no one is celebrating yet, no one has been prospering as much as they would like. Now that Blue ray has won, I agree that the sales will sky rocket. People will not have to worry about buying a product that will soon be out of business.
I took away from the readings that Toshiba gave up for no real reason on HD DVD. I actually bought a HD DVD player, which added, onto my XBOX 360. Ridiculous I know, but it pissed me off when they had to have a format war over them. I do not understand why the movie companies and DVD sales people had to fight over it. I guess I would not feel bad if I have bought a Blu Ray player, but I am. I don’t understand the format wars, even back in the day with Beta Max players and VCR; I understand that consumers will decide who wins. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be, not the movie studio’s choice? I will probably be happy when they start to clearance HD DVDs, but until then I am going to wait my sweet time on buying into Blu Ray. Now about the DRM stuff, I don’t know really what to say about it. You can try to stop people sharing and pirating movies and music and all of that stuff, but did the downfall of Napster really affect anyone besides the people who created and worked for Napster? We all still download, and people are still going to keep downloading. All of us have done it at some point, seriously. Movie studios and DVD sales and record executive are always going to try and stop downloading without paying because it takes away from their paychecks. I personally will get online and preview, or download some songs, like them and then go buy the cds because I support the bands, not the labels. I know I am probably one of the few, but that’s because I am a musician and it is nice to be paid for your hard work.
When I hear about copyright issues, I immediately remember Robert Wernsman’s example of copyright issues. He asks his classes if they think downloading illegal music, i.e. not paying for it, is a violation of copyright. While roughly 85% of his class agree; he then asks if given the chance would they still download the music, about 85% of the original 85% say they would.
Basically, from what I noticed is that music and movie companies only seem to really enforce copyright issues when they are losing money. Take for example music. I remember when I first came to Tech and was in the dorms everyone was sharing out their music. That’s how I first got a lot of my MP3’s. There was never really much thought to it. There was Napster (before they started charging) and several other peer-to-peer sites that users could download music and other digital material (movies, pictures, software, etc) from others free of charge. Granted, this is illegal but everyone was doing it. Then when CD sales started to decline the recording studios and RIAA began suing people because they were illegally sharing or downloading music. Why? Because the millionaires were not making as much money.
Now, I am not prmoting the downloading of illegal music or movies, but it seems like people only cared when these big, rich musicians and label companies weren’t making their money. It’s almost the same now with DVDs.
I was surprised about the amount of various copyright laws stated in Rice’s article though. I figured there would have to be many different categories under copyright law, but it seems that there are almost separate laws for all.
I know I have had some dealing with copyright when it comes to selling photographs, especially to a company. Usually, in the contract, there is a limit on how many times the image can be used. I have also included alteration of the image as part of this. However, for a larger fee, the client can use the image more times or even unlimited times.
As far as the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD battle, I am not surprised. Scott mentioned that consumers should be the ones who decide which format wins. This should be the case, however it is not. It is much like the VHS/Beta wars in the 1980s. It was the porn industry saying they are going with VHS that really helped seal the deal. Just like back in the 80s, with both the porn industry and Disney choosing Blu-Ray, the battle is now over.
I personally am in favor of being able to digitally rent a movie without leaving my house. Granted the amount of titles available on such outlets as iTunes and Netflix are still low, they are growing daily. Another plus to this is being able to rent older titles. Sure I can put on pants, get in my car and drive to blockbuster and rent any new hit release or MOST movies released within the last 5 years, but say I want that low budget western from about 25 years ago or some indie movie that only came out in Europe, or many “B-rated” movies; chances are Blockbuster won’t carry them but sometime within the near future I will find them on iTunes. Hell, they may even be available right now. I still think there will be a slow decrease in DVD sales, even with Blu-Ray. The convenience of being able to rent a movie online is going to become more and more popular.
Like the Talisman article says "How much protection is enough, or too much?" This seems to be an issue with digital copyright protection. Like a lot of things on Web 2.0, a lot of content is user created and is subject to 'self-help' regulation, as the article mentions. Also, it is hard to police content across the huge space that is cyberspace. It was interesting to understand the difference between 'counterfeiting' and 'copyright'.
Like someone said "The Internet was meant to be free." I don't agree entirely with that person, but the underlying assumption is that why pay for something that is available to us online? Is this scenario the new Us. vs.Them? Meaning a generation of wired and ready cyber vigilantes who are taking the mega corporations down one by one? Like the anti-war movement in the 60's, this is the big new war. A la the message of the movie Fight Club. The more Hollywood and record companies try to police their content, the more widespread is the problem of piracy. The same companies are being forced to eat humble pie and give the customer what he/she wants, in his/her way. On one hand, it allows democracy and fights the "evil" of money hungry corporations.At the same time, downloading a song you heard on the latest Old Navy commercial by an unknown artist without buying her CD is going to hurt the artist. It's obvious outfits like the MPAA and EFF wish to protect their interests. No one wants to see a big rich corporate entity whine about losing money. However, these are the same outfits that give new talent and artists the platform to showcase their work with their money muscle. It's a strange situation. To get something, you have to give something up.It's good we don't have the monopoly of certain companies in the market anymore, and at the same time this lack of control of content online is disturbing. The number of lawsuits related to copyright protection online has drastically increased. It is a grey area, and will take some very smart minds to solve this problem.
All the reading about copyrights, I think that the speed of the development of technology has been way far than the education or any other the ethics about the technology itself. There were lots of movies that how technology has dark side behind the bright side. I think copyright problem might be the same. At the beginning, pioneer scientists or any other industries did not think the negative perspective. Always, new things come up with how convenient and good to us. Few people warn about the side effects or opposite side, however, it’s just regarded as small critics. Nobody cannot estimate what might be good or bad. There are always lots of variables that hard to predict.
Even before Internet, there was videotape or cassette tape piracy. The point is at that time, 70s, 80s, or early 90s, the speed and the amount of piracy did not damage the sale or even existence of the media companies. However, Internet piracy threats the media companies. So, that why companies try to educate public not to do Internet piracy not because to protect copyright but because they don’t want to loose their money anymore. It seems to me more selfish action than ever. If they had recognized the copyright issues, because it might be go way back to 70s or 80s, they should start the education the copyright issue even the piracy was related to video and radio.
I like how Rose suggested the way to stop piracy: “to make everything available-easily, legally, and at a fair price.” It seems impossible to the reality. But, I’d like to think in bright side of this. If media industries try to focus on their profits a little less and to think and read what users mind, there will be some solution. There are always side effects. But, the important thing is that the way of those side effects have known to people and how do people to recognize and avoid those side effects like dark side of Internet.
Ashley McGee
The issue of copyrights and piracy is something that we are all obviously familiar with we are in the field of mass communications. The issues behind the piracy from a Hollywood stand point is the inability for that industry to figure out how to work with the advancements in technology, please their audiences, and still feed the bottom line. The advancement of the technology was wonderful until the negative aspects of piracy and ethical dilemmas were factored in. The industries utilizing the new technologies to share movies, music, etc. seem to only police the content when it creates a huge impact for them. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was on YouTube and watching videos where people had blatantly taken images from television shows and songs from recording artists and mixed them in their own version of a ‘trailer’ or ‘greatest moments’ montage. It was clear to me that these users either did not care that the entirety of their video was stolen or had the thought that it is such an everyday thing, why would it be a problem.
I think for these companies to have an impact and decrease the piracy and misuse of copyrighted material they would have to decrease the availability of their products on the Web. Obviously, the idea of slowing down media distribution is not in their best favor so, I think continuing to educate the public (the MPAA article) about the actions people are taking by stealing music, movies, text etc is the best route for decreasing copyright infringement and theft. The internet is a large space to be trying to control and the more they (large companies) try to enforce regulation and control the more people ‘vigilantes’ work to undermine the “man.”
The readings from today's week really reflect the everyday situation. From my own experience I know that for instance in Russia, there are some popular web sites from which you can download any movie, Russian or western.
One of the features of the web site is that as a user you have to share a movie from your own collection in return of the movie which you downloaded from the web site.
So the site openly supports piracy and collective sharing of the movies.
Besides movies you can download any computer program.INteresting thing is that on the territory of Russia you can do it without any
punishment. But if I try to donwload a computer program while been in the States,
AT&T (my internet provider) will contact me about unauthorized movie or software
download.
So, I guess, companies are looking for the ways to deal with unauthorized use and distribution of computer programs, movies and other digital content
through the internet.
Copyright law enforcement is really difficult to implement especially on the territories of other countries. And as the internet usage grows
throughout the world - we will see more and more piracy of orginally produced digital content.
Svetlana
March 6, 2008 12:17 PM
Posted to Copyright and New Media
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Copyright issues and the internet has been an on-going problem with no solution (that actually works) for years now. The article, Hollywood's Use of DRM made excellent points that I had never really thought about. The very last sentence "Locks can make you feel safer, but they won't keep you from drowning in a tidal wave," tied everything together and strengthened the main point. Television and film industries are going to continue to screw themselves if they keep going about preventing piracy the same way. With the developments in the internet and people's ability to easily download pretty much anything for free, things like digital locks will not end the problem. I believe these attempts to stop piracy and copyright violation are just a waste of time (it is only a matter of time people will figure out another way to get around it). The article makes a legitimate argument that I really think is the best way to go for film and television industries.
Industries need to seriously consider the concept of "Total convenience and the freedom to watch any way we want." Yes, they won't financially profit as much as they would if they were able completely end the problem, but with the continuous failure to come up with an ultimate solution, it is definitely a better option . Industries need to get over the fact that piracy and copyright violation will be around for a long time and need to stop putting all their eggs in one basket. Learn from the music industries..Yes, the moment Napster was developed, they put a stop to that real quick. But then look what happened...hundreds and hundreds of file sharing programs hit the internet and were downloaded by millions. I know I download music and video quite a bit (mainly music) and the fact that it is against the law has never stopped me. However, I am one of those people that will pay a fair price for convenience and freedom to watch any way I want. That is why I think it will work; I am one of those people industries hate. Industries need to move the other direction when it comes to this issue.
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