“Piracy”: at last, signs of change in the entertainment industry
Every now and then I like to look back over at the links I have collected related to a particular subject, and chart the way the conversation about it has developed over time.
For example, the discussion about piracy, as it is still largely, and erroneously, known—and which I prefer to describe as the necessary adaptation of the management of copyright to the digital world—has undergone a radical shift.
Only yesterday, actor and director Kevin Spacey said that the best way to reduce piracy would be to offer all films on line in multiple formats, in other words, and end to the traditional and by now absurd practice of multiple distribution through DVD, pay-per-view, and television: from “only in theaters” to “watch it how and when you want”.
Spacey’s comments affirm what many of us have been saying for years: that the entertainment industry’s problems are the result of its inability to adapt to new media. It is precisely the industry’s own strategies that are responsible for an artificial shortage that in the final analysis is the main reason people download movies and music through irregular channels. These downloads are, as many of us have repeated ad nauseam, a response to the industry’s own policies, the result of its out of date models, and of its aggressive and redundant arguments; the solution has been shown not to be in persecuting, criminalizing, insulting, or trying to change the law: the solution is for the industry to grow up.
Despite the absurd changes to the law, despite the innumerable articles, despite all the lies we have had to hear from the industry, irregular downloads have not damaged the sales of music, or of books, or of anything else. And finally, we are at last beginning to notice a shift in the way key figures in the industry think: after years of pointless blockades, laws dictated by the industry and punishment-oriented approaches, today we can see that the much-maligned practice of piracy has not harmed the industry, and that its aggressive approach is out of date: the only way to prevent people from downloading through irregular channels is the development of more and better alternatives to download through regular ones.
Downloads are never going to go away, but neither will they destroy the industry: there will always be a percentage of people who will never spend the money on buying a product, and who will always opt for the irregular route, but at the same time, they help spread the word, adding value to the product they access. To be the number one illegally downloaded movie or series is a triumph, a recognition more valuable than any industry award, because the real problem isn’t that everybody wants to get their hands on your product; but that nobody does. The enemy is not piracy, it is obscurity.
Today, after several years, we now know, from the mouths of actors, directors, producers and industry executives themselves, that the main problem facing content producers is not being on the lists of most downloaded products, but not being on them.
It has been 14 long years since Napster, but finally, we are beginning to detect some signs of change.
