Part 6: The Future of the Creative Industries
Jeremy: So America is not manufacturing as much anymore, and that’s because — not always because labor is cheaper overseas, but sometimes because the overseas countries could do something more efficiently. And there are various reasons why that has happened. But anyway, that’s why America decided to bank on its intellectual property, because Americans do have ideas. And so by being able to sell those ideas, or to sell the expression of those ideas, that’s how America could get export income.
Pearl: That’s why redneck Trump voters are really just lazy, because they don’t want to adapt to the times.
Jeremy: But if America isn’t selling so many manufactured goods then, if it has to sell its ideas, it benefits America to be able to have tough intellectual property laws, so that it means no one can use our ideas or our creative expression without paying. And getting other countries to pay us for that instead of paying us for our material goods.
Pearl: Like our inventions and stuff? Yeah.
Jeremy: But not just inventions, also creative works like Hollywood and the recording industry.
Pearl: What do you mean?
Jeremy: Well, since America can’t sell manufactured goods it has to sell something.
Pearl: We do, everybody takes our lead.
Jeremy: Yeah but if we can’t protect that with intellectual property then other people will free-ride on that. So people will copy American movies and American music without paying for it and use them overseas and we won’t get any benefit out of that.
Pearl: No benefit? There’s tons of benefit in that! It’s being given the honor of being from America. Like I know that sounds stupid, but American culture is adored. That’s the benefit. It leads to people wanting to live here. It leads to tourism. And it leads to people wanting to buy our stuff.
Jeremy: So American culture should be used to sell other things, not just itself. Like tourism and stuff.
Pearl: Totally!
Jeremy: OK. Well that’s interesting because that’s why the U.S. State Department, during the Cold War, sent jazz musicians overseas to try and export American culture, and thereby promote their political interests.
Pearl: Exactly. Ideas.
Jeremy: So what would Hollywood movies being seen overseas, what kind of benefits would flow out of that? Do you really think that people would come to America because of seeing Hollywood movies?
Pearl: That’s the only reason people come to America. It’s because we’ve sold them this dream that’s perpetuated in our media and throughout our culture. People don’t know what America’s like, they just see friggin’ Angelina Jolie, and they think “Wow, that’s an awesome life, that’s what I want.” Add so they go to school and their families break their neck to take them there, and they become doctors, and they come here because they’ve been sold that through our movies.
Jeremy: Well Trump is now going back to manufacturing and so our concern is, does that mean he’s going to step away from trying to capitalize on intellectual property, or not? I guess he’s not going to step away from that, he just wants to get manufacturing back as well.
Pearl: But what if that’s just not our schtick, and this is the type of guy who just doesn’t know how to read the country? It’s just not our schtick and you’re stuck in some antiquated idea of what America is. And you’re not progressing, you’re just living in the past. When you could be just excelling. These people fail to figure it out, they don’t want to figure it out. They want to [indistinct] and they want what they’ve always wanted. They’re babies.
Jeremy: But they also have political power. And so that’s why they can force others to perpetuate their monopoly, even though it’s become irrelevant to the times.
Pearl: And that’s what makes us great, is that we excel and we push things forward. You really want to go backwards in time just to make this section of the population happy? It’s survival of the fittest out here. They’re not fit? They can get whacked.
“The Democrats are not going to sell out to big oil or big tobacco or the gun lobby, but they’re happy to sell out to Hollywood because that’s the best of a bad bunch.”
Jeremy: That’s how it should be, but in reality the content owners have a lot of political power, especially among Democrats, interestingly. It’s not mainly the Republicans. Actually it’s both. But when the Democrats were in power, Hollywood controlled them more than anyone. Because the Democrats are not going to sell out to big oil or big tobacco or the gun lobby, but they’re happy to sell out to Hollywood because that’s the best of a bad bunch. So Hollywood lobbyists can get special interest laws passed just to benefit them, even if it doesn’t benefit anyone else. And that includes the life plus 70 year copyright term we got because Disney lobbied to extend it.
Pearl: Say we did that, and we did it well, wouldn’t that lead to world domination where all our corporations just owned everything, and everyone overseas had to pay for it? Ta-da, we win.
Jeremy: Yeah, and it was really done in concert between the U.S. and Europe, because Europe also has a very strong artists’ lobby. So it’s not a national lobby, much of it is an international one, where the Motion Picture Association globally, and the recording industry globally, has a pact to try and maximize the monopoly rents that they can extract. The old media empire of the past is frantically trying to pass new laws to protect itself as it becomes impossible to sell recorded music. And not just music either. The same applies in Europe where the press has [similar power]. Press publishing is failing to make money because people aren’t buying newspapers anymore, they’re just going online. They’re trying to get laws passed that would force Google to pay part of its revenue to the newspaper publishers, basically a straight subsidy.
Pearl: You’re lucky to be on Google, basically. That’s the only way anybody would ever find you. Are they not getting that?
Jeremy: Yeah, that’s what Google says. But they can see Google making money from ads, and they’re not making money from selling newspapers, so they’re…
Pearl: That’s your problem. That’s not Google’s problem, Google’s got it figured out. Don’t worry about Google. Why’s everybody got to lay the blame on somebody else, you know?
Jeremy: So people need to figure out a way they can monetize news. How should the newspaper industry do that, then? How should they monetize?
Pearl: They do subscriptions now. Isn’t it clicks? That’s what we’re made out of now.
Jeremy: So, just online advertising.
Pearl: Yeah, because that’s how they made money before.
Jeremy: But Google can reproduce the headlines and some summaries of news stories.
Pearl: Yeah, but you have to cite. They always cite. Like any other media outlet.
Jeremy: So you followed the link from Google to go to the newspaper’s website and that’s where you’ll see the ad.
Pearl: Yeah, that’s how it works, isn’t it? Google gets paid, you get paid. That’s how the Huffington Post does it, they don’t write all of their stuff but they’ll link to it. And they get more clicks than anyone else, because they know how to lay it out on the page really boldly, and they know how to summarize themselves, and right next to an article from someone else’s website they’ll have their own editorial and some related links with kind of clickbaity titles, but I’ll still click on it. They’ve got it figured out.
Jeremy: Yeah, some segments of the creative industries are figuring it out faster than others. And it’s the slow learners who want to stop you from copying or linking who are losing ground, because they haven’t realized that that’s not where the value is anymore. Unfortunately that it’s also those guys who tend to be the ones pushing the legislative and enforcement agenda. That’s what we’re always up against at EFF.
Thanks Pearl, it’s been a great conversation!
Pearl is the illustrator of articles 1, 3, 4, and 6 in this series. If you would like to find out more about copyright in the digital age, you can visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation or follow Jeremy on Twitter.
