Awkward Utopia

This week’s topic: Intellectual Property Rights & Music Piracy

AB: Anybody who illegally downloads [here, d/l's] music should have his computer forfeited and be sent to jail. Without a trial.

MM: That’s a bit harsh. Lawsuits count the songs people have illegally distributed and fine them that way. That sounds good, although it overstates their losses.

SC: The owners should encrypt their music, but it should not be punishable by law.

VR: The idea of intellectual property [here, IP] rights is flawed.

FC: How do you incentivize production then?

VR: In the music industry, through profits from concerts.

FC: What about the pharmaceutical industry?

VR: My position when it comes to patents is there are plenty of existing incentives (like being the first in the market and brand naming).

FC: The supply would decrease.

VR: I think it would increase.

Nuri: You shouldn’t have to buy an entire CD to get one song. Artists should have to make more good music so people want to buy the entire thing.

anon: The big losers are the distributors. Artists make their money from concerts and merchandise. This shows an inefficieny in corporations. New distribution systems like iTunes are growing, and people are d/l’ing legitimately.

Harsha: It’s hard to enforce in other countries.

MM: There is no debate on whether it is wrong. It is stealing, just like taking someone’s TV from their home. The industry structure might be unfair, but that is irrelevant. It should change, and it is. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still theft. The question is, what rights are you buying when you purchase music? The right to copy it for other people or just to listen to it for a period of time? It was hard to tell. They are starting to clarify with DRM. The issue of software licensing is similar.

VR: Theft is how we define it. When you d/l music, you don’t take it. You copy it. That’s not stealing. Record co’s are middle men, like travel agents, who are losing ground due to the internet.

DG: You should buy music to support artists you like.

SC: Maybe radios should be illegal. That’s distributing music.

BL: Actually, there’s a case where shopworkers are being sued for playing their radios too loud. It acted like a broadcast and they didn’t have a license.

anon: The issue is that the benefit is less than the price for each CD.

MV: The music industry is evolving. For example, the Bear Naked Ladies are selling their songs on their site directly. It’s easier to get well-known with myspace, etc. But record co’s do a better job. The most common form of piracy uses torrents. One site is shut down and four more pop up. It’s hard to police.

FC: I’ve never done anything illegal. But the companies are not showing that piracy is hurting them.

ZT: It is less serious than stealing someone’s TV but it is still stealing. With IP, two companies compete and one has instant access to the other’s innovations. It’s like a nash equilibrium. You end up with people sitting around waiting for someone else to do something.

MM: Also, if somebody walked into your house while you weren’t home and hung around for five hours, it would still be wrong even though they didn’t take anything from you.

VR: It would be wrong beacause it’s breaking and entering, not stealing.

MM: It’s stealing access to your goods.

VR: I don’t believe in IP.

AB: What about the lack of incentive issue?

VR: As earlier, there are enormous advantages to innovation. Look at Bandaids, Kleenex, Q-tips, etc.

BL: If you’ve invest billions into a series of failed drugs, and you’re relying on a new one, you do not want to operate in a competitive market the way those companies do.

SC: There is a market for music. There is a market for everything (…even prostitution).

anon disagrees with VR: Drug co’s and record co’s are two very different things. Most artists are not signed to a label. They sell merchandise instead.

CW: Not the way current U.S. copyright law works.

Harsha to VR: Wouldn’t you be pissed if someone ripped off your amazing invention?

CW: What do you get when you buy a CD? The right to some sharing, but nothing commercial. You can’t “usurp the market.” They have to prove damages, and they have.

ZT: Where there are very high innovation costs, they might not make them back during a temporary monopoly situation.

MM: Despite the fact that it is stealing, some criminals are rational. Nothing about some bands offering their music for free makes illegally d/l’ing music owned by Sony okay.

BL: The govt has gone overboard in the length of copyright protection. The first real law was in 1710 and established a 14-year period. Now it’s 9-10 times as long. It’s been derisively dubbed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act and it defeats the purpose of improving public welfare. It doesn’t weigh the benefits to the body politik, just the copyright holder.

CW: There’s a blog (WilliamPatry.blogspot.com) that deals with the same issue. If you weigh the actual benefits, the period would be more like 7 years. Although you can repackage and rerelease music seamingly forever and still make money.

Stephen R: How do you set a time limit? Is it in the Constitution?

CW: It has to be “reasonable.”

SS: You can’t just say “well, d/l’ing music only hurts the evil record label and not the artist itself,” because the record label provides important services or else bands wouldn’t want so badly to get signed. The market hasn’t come up with satisfactory substitutions yet, but I do think it will.

CW agrees: Companies will arise to take over record label’s responsibilities. Nowadays that means giving a stamp of quality.

SC: Corporations are the capitalists. They have the machinery to publicize that an artist doesn’t have.

VR: Coming from an anarcho-capitalist perspective, I always begin by asking “how can the government screw this up?” [A glimmer of pride appears in Admiral's eye.] Again, copying is not stealing. I don’t support copyrights or patents at all. Not many products remain as are over time. If HP invented the first PC, they could improve it by the time Dell could copy it. The FDA creates costs to drug co’s. It should be abolished. Copyright laws don’t work abroad, and it disadvantages the U.S.

CW: Copyright protection is government intervention, but Austrians also support property rights. I tend to disagree. Pharmaceutical co’s will recoup costs, even it if means better packaging, etc.

SC: Some people don’t have the resources. You can’t sell an idea.

FC: Recording co’s act as cooperatives between bands to lower marketing costs. It doesn’t influence whether illegally d/l’ing is a crime. I’m somewhat impartial. What people create is their property. If we don’t protect it, there will be less quality music.

Nuri: They’re working on devices that will actively protect media. And movie producers are already protesting by not creating new films.

MM: If regulation were removed from the health care industry, it would become like the music industry with labels and such. Copyright used to exist but was not enforced, and we said co’s would develop these protections in response. And now they are, because piracy is having detrimental effects. Otherwise they wouldn’t be prosecuting, because it looks bad.

DG: I’m not buying the “it’s not theft” argument. Free access prevents a huge number of people from buying.

BL: VR claimed that no FDA would lead to lower costs. A secondary market would emerge. People would pay firms to vet their drugs. There would still be significant costs to innovation, and causes for protection.

anon has been convinced by MM.

CW: As far as getting rid of copyright laws means less incentives to produce, the laws create distortions. If they create higher profits, this could cause an inefficient allocation of resources where we might be better innovating… Starships, and such.

VR: Microsoft recently unleashed a bunch of IP lawsuits. Maybe they are chasing down the wrong things. Other countries don’t respect our laws. If I had my own island, I wouldn’t.

BL: To be clear, IP protections are a good thing. But abolishing them would not be the end of the world. We’d see a resurgence in trade secrets, etc. We’d see adaptation. The biggest problem is the term length.

MM: I’m not a chemist, but it seems like they would develop something to mask the composition of a pill to make it harder to copy. So there would be a shift in resources to protection mechanisms.