So half the internet (and by that, I primarily mean Wikipedia) is going offline as a protest against SOPA. For the record, this has made researching this blog really, really difficult.
This topic is actually so big, and I have so much to say, that I don't know how to organise my thoughts, so apologies if this isn't very articulate.
First of all, SOPA is a really, really, really bad idea. It will kill this wonderful thing we know as The Internet. It will kill innovation. It will kill creativity. It will kill progress. Think of the Arab Spring. If there were no Twitter, and no Facebook, countries such as Egypt and Libya would still be under the rule of dictatorships. SOPA would kill both of those mediums.
Sure, we would still survive without the internet. We might get a little bit smarter, and a lose a few kilos, but we would also lose much of what is brilliant about living in the 21st century.
Communities I have become involved in on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter would wither and die when faced with the restrictions they are facing under the acts currently being debated in the United States. This isn't like New Zealand's piracy bill, it is much bigger, and has global ramifications.
Do I believe piracy is a problem? Yes and no. I believe that content creators deserve credit and income where it is due. But I also believe that the problem does not lie with the general public. I believe the problem lies in the large corporates who are still clinging to old definitions and business models.
The internet (and, in particular, high speed broadband) has fundamentally changed the way we consume media. We can 'try before we buy' and we can pirate. We can watch US TV the day it is screened, we can download movies, we can watch music videos and comedy sketches on YouTube. We can share and spread the word. We can laugh, cry and be outraged together even though we are thousands of miles apart.
President Obama recently issued a challenge to the internet community:
"Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue Web sites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge."
A great response to this challenge can be
found here.
The fact is, Mr. Obama, is that every tool you need is already at your fingertips. Rather than challenging the internet community to come up with ideas, why don't you challenge the corporates to harness this ready and willing audience and give us an affordable and easy way to get what we want? America is founded on the principals of the free market, and yet right now it is completely ignoring a ready and willing one.
We know that the internet can turn people such as Susan Boyle and Justin Beiber into multinational, top grossing stars overnight. We know that the internet is a faster and cheaper distribution medium than traditional music, book and entertainment stores. The internet is global. Business models need to be global too.
When FOX releases Glee on Hulu, it needs to be available globally. The studios need to realise that the spoilers are available immediately - even when you are not looking for them. Today I was hit with a massive one while just looking at my Facebook feed. You want to know why we pirate? Because the information is there, and because the borders of our country still matter to the business process, even when the Internet has completely blurred them.
There are many case studies of content being made available at a low price and making an absolute killing.
Here's one,
here's another. When you remove the red tape - the promotion channels, the physical printing, distribution, stocking and retail process - you can afford for the price to be low. If the content is good, word will get out, because that is precisely what the internet is designed to do. If you remove the high prices, people will pay. If things cost less, we can buy more. If we buy more, we support more artists. $5 an album might not sound like much, but when you think about half a million people (which, in the context of a global distribution method is a small percentage of people) paying $5, and at least $4 of that going directly into the artist's pocket, it sounds to me like it might be more than they get now.
On the flip side, to buy a top-10 album on iTunes costs around $18. That's very near the same amount I would pay for a physical disc at my local music store. Why? There is still room for a physical product to live in our digital world, but it's highly likely we will reserve these spots for our very favourite things. In this age - where we are worried about food miles and resource availability, why are we still encouraging physical goods where a digital medium is appropriate? Why is it that the only way I can buy a digital copy of, say, Harry Potter, is to buy the DVD and the BluRay as well? Why on Earth do I need three copies, when a single digital copy would suffice?
Further, there are many, many cases of the internet creating new fans. Take John Green. He's a young adult fiction author and a vlogger. He has a whole community of fans who have sent his career into the stratosphere. He works hard, but there aren't many fans who would even consider pirating his material, or making it available to piracy. Why? Because he understands his mediums, and his fans. He respects us, he works hard to entertain us - whether that be in a video blog or in a book - and we reward him with income from his YouTube channels and by buying hundreds of thousands of copies of his books.
Smart people have the ability to make a lot of money via the internet and it's endless possibilities for media distribution. It seems wholly unfair to both them, and their legions of loyal fans, to pull the plug on everything we have created in the last 20 years.
The average age of a senator at the beginning of the current Congress (the people making these laws) was 62.2 years of age. While I hate to sound ageist, would you trust your grandparents to regulate the internet? While some of us know people in that age bracket who have taken to the internet like ducks to water, I'm sure we all know many, many more who just don't get it. It's reprehensible that a bunch of people who don't understand this beast, can't use it, and don't care to learn, can legislate against it and cut out it's very heart.
In summary, regulation is not the answer to this problem - or at least, it's not the answer right now. The answer is to change the business model. To look at the internet for what it fundamentally is - a global web of connectiveness. Stop enforcing regional boundaries and begin thinking bigger. Create to your heart's content and encourage people to share your creation. Charge the global community a fair and reasonable price, but most of all, just make this stuff available. When you have done all that, look to see if there is still a problem, and then make legislation that makes sense.
Because, quite simply, the reason I pirate is because there is no other reasonable, timely, and affordable legal alternative.