What They Steal
Wow, what an exciting day! Mark at Ditchwalk posted a great entry furthering the discussion we’ve been having about piracy and copyright. With his support, I feel like the discussion is going somewhere. In this post I want to directly respond to what he wrote, so please read his post first. Once you’ve done that, let’s talk:
Both of Mark’s scenarios that don’t involve the taking of something from someone else, but still involve physical piracy (free newspaper and concert), stem from the same given: content creators have a right to decide how, why, when, and where their content is experienced, if for no other reason than they created that content.
I’m not sure I agree with that given as it stands, and I’d like to use a silly example to illustrate why. There is an anti-corporation argument that has a place in the piracy debate and I think this is also the place to bring it into our discussion. I want to use some examples to talk about where I think that argument comes from, but also what I think it means that the argument even exists in the first place. I hope that this will also help address Mark’s ideas about stealing.
We’re going to need two people for this discussion, so let’s pick polar opposites to try to tease out the implications of the thing.
First, we need someone who’s rich and can pretty much buy and sell whatever they want. Let’s use Bill Gates, since I seem to have been thinking about him lately. I don’t know why – it might have something to do with him recently joining twitter and also donating billions of dollars to charity (although those two events might be unrelated).
Second, we need someone who’s not rich. Anti-rich, even. For this, let’s use Marian, referenced in the same blog post I’m responding to. Since we were put up as mutual mouthpieces there, that seems fitting. Marian, unlike Bill Gates, cannot buy and sell whatever she wants. She’s limited by her limited income.
So here’s the scenario:
Say that I’ve just finished writing the next great American novel. It’s the best thing since sliced bread, full of the bees-knees, wisdom, humor, and great ideas. Not only is it gonna be a best seller, a strong member of the Oprah book club, and adored by the mainstream and counter-culture alike, it’s also full of life-changing ideas that everyone on the face of the planet, young and old, should read. Say that’s what the book is, just for example.
Now say that, before it’s released, word gets around that all the hype about the book is true, that it really is better than Shakespeare, the Bible, and Twilight (for the mass market appeal) rolled into one and my publishing company and I decide to set the price of the novel at 10 billion dollars a copy, because we think, for some reason, that we can get Bill Gates to pay that price.
Lo, the novel is realized. My publishing company and I sell three copies to the three richest people in the world. We retire in luxury and never work again. Bill Gates gets to read the book, being one of the three who bought it, but poor Marian never does, because she cannot afford the price of entry.
This is an extraordinarily silly example, but a necessary one, because it demonstrates some talking points:
People should only have a right to distribute content if their profits from said content are reasonable. What right, beyond the creation itself do I have to price my novel at such an exorbitant price? I created the content, but if the book is so good that it might improve lives, what right do I have to price it so only a few lives can be improved?
That’s the point about sticking it to corporations and where it originates. Just because I create something, do I have the right to completely control access to that thing? Maybe, but only to a point. After that point, the social contract says that the work should be freely available, or at the very least, as widely available as possible.
That’s what this is really about. Did Bill Gates really have the right to make 40 billion dollars because he started a software company that provided the right thing at the right time? Does he have the right to become the wealthiest person on the planet because he won big on a social roulette game?
I don’t think so. That’s too much. Letting someone profit that much from the creation of a single thing is absurd, whether it’s a company or a novel. Now, novels aren’t as absurdly profitable as the amount of money Bill Gates has, but you get the slippery-slope gist of the thing.
Now, Marian’s point was this: if the content isn’t priced affordably, she knows how to get it for free.
I think she’s right. It’s easy to get it for free. And digitalization of work brings that into a whole new perspective. Because although piracy might be described as the theft of a sale, the hard fact is that after the content is created, an additional digital copy costs the company nothing. NOTHING.
So how in the hell can they justify pricing a book at ten dollars? It’s an unreasonable profit margin for their investment.
If a publishing company spends 150,000 dollars to pay the author, the editor, the layout person, and the web guy who throws it up on the digital store – they only have to sell 15,000 copies at 10 bucks a pop to recoup that investment. Now, for a novel that they are willing to spend 150 grand on, they are easily going to sell 15,000 copies. It’s more likely that they are going to sell 100,000 copies or more, since they are banking on it being a best seller (otherwise, they would have paid 15,000 or less for the advance, layout, and editing fees). 100,000 copies at 10 bucks a pop gets them 1 million gross and 850,000 net. That’s an absurd margin.
This is simplistic, but basically how it works nonetheless. Now, if they price the book at one dollar, not only are they going to sell way more than 100,000 books, they also put it in reach of a bunch more people. They probably aren’t going to make the same margins, since they’d have to sell a million books at one dollar to make the same as selling 100,000 books at 10 bucks, but it’s possible.
And if they do sell a million books, it’s time to lower the price. Thus spake the social contract and the social contract mote it so.
(Beyond that, there is also the issue of the payment of the writer versus the payment of the publisher, but that’s another whole big thing that probably needs its own post.)
So, my belief is this: content creators have a right to distribute their content as they wish, as long as they price that content so the most people can have access to it (which means as cheap as possible) and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle that lets them continue to create that content. If you want to charge me ten bucks for a copy of a digital book, you don’t get to have a private jet. I’m sorry. No. That’s not feasible or socially responsible. Instead, people in my generation will steal your book. So it goes.
In the above scenario, I would be an asshole for writing something that could help people and then pricing it so only a select few could afford it. That’s capitalism, you say. Fine, I say, well capitalism is an asshole, too.
Information, content, entertainment, whatever you want to call it, should be priced so that the highest number of people can access it and the people who made it can live and continue to create it. When that happens, then content creators have a right to control their content. Until that level of social responsibility is inherent in the system – content creators shouldn’t have a right to do what they want with their content.
That’s the “right” of creation – bringing good to people, and as many people, as possible. If you don’t do that, you have no right to create.
Tags: bill gates, copyright, digital books, ditchwalk, ebook prices, ebooks, marian, mark barrett, piracy
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Sorry, Luke, I’m going to have to go the other way on this one. But then, if two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
I don’t care if it’s a novel, a software company, or the cure for all cancers, it’s property. It belongs to someone. That person has the right to control it, and to control access to it. Whether it’s the cure for the common cold or the elusive elixir of eternal youth, if you create it, you have the right to charge for it as you see fit.
If my front yard is beyond some arbitrary size, does it become a park? If I buy a large enough van, am I required to run it as a free bus service? If I live in a 300-bedroom house, to I have to run it as a free hotel?
There was a musician some time back (I could probably find the reference again, but following commenters are sure to supply it) who put up an original song as the prize in a contest. As in, the song wasn’t written yet. As in, you win this contest, the musician writes a song for *you* and it is yours to do with as you see fit.
Everyone assumed the winner would sell it, but instead, he chose to make one (count it, one) recording available to be listened to, in person, in his living room. As I recall, it is played only on headphones, to prevent it from being stolen.
Not only does he, as the owner of the song, have the right to do that, but it seemed to be taken as a stick-it-to-the-corporate-man move. I submit that this is somewhat at odds with your argument, where The Man is being put forth as the controller of content that should be free.
And all of the forgoing seems to assume that the source of piracy is the control of content, as exerted by the creators. If you create the cure for the common cold, and sell it for $10,000 per dose, whether I think that is moral or ethical isn’t even an issue. In case is it moral or ethical for me to steal your formula, make up six billion doses, and give them away. If you write that novel and sell it for $10,000,000 per copy, I can make a killing by pirating it at $10,000. I only have to sell a couple hundred, and I’ve got it made. You argument seems to say that if you set the price that high, I not only can, but should.
The bottom line, as I have said elsewhere, is that the creators of fiction must be paid, or all fiction will be amateur, and that’s not a place I want to live.
Levi
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:56 pm
If one man owns the entire planet, which is the ultimate goal of long-term capitalism, does that man have the right to ask everyone else on the planet to leave?
I respect you, Levi, and I respect your opinions, but I don’t agree with you, either. That’s good, I guess, since it makes both of us necessary.
You said that whether you think a sale of the cure for the common cold at 10,000 dollars a dose is moral or ethical isn’t the issue, but it is THE issue. That is the issue in its entirety. The idea that our actions exist in a moral vacuum, separate from their effect on other people, is a fantasy used to justify actions that would otherwise be immoral.
You said, “If my front yard is beyond some arbitrary size, does it become a park?”
I say, “Yes.”
You said, “If I buy a large enough van, am I required to run it as a free bus service?”
I say, “Yes.”
You said, “If I live in a 300-bedroom house, do I have to run it as a free hotel?”
I say, “Yes.”
I say, “That man who won the song should have given it to people for free.”
I’m not a religious guy, even though I was raised Christian. I don’t know about God or Buddha or Allah. But what I do know is that my actions have a direct effect on others, and that’s enough of a moral system for me. Some people need more than that, and that’s okay. I don’t. But I’m not cold enough to think that my property is only mine, will always be mine, and that I have ultimate dominion over it to the determent of others. That’s the talk of people who think they have a right to burn rain forests and pollute the skies we all need to survive.
Everything is about ethics. Everything action is either right or wrong, or at the very least, there is always a best. Whether we achieve that best, or even know how to find it in very complicated situations, is our struggle. But what matters is that we keep trying to do right by people as best we can.
I’m not one of those writers who think that artistic expression is all about me. I write because I love it, but also because I feel like I have something valuable to contribute to people. I write because I feel like there are problems to be solved and I want to lend a hand to help solve them, whether that be through fiction or through essays. Recently, I read a comment on Mark’s blog by a woman named Zoe Winters. She said she would stop releasing her writing if she wasn’t paid for it. I’ve never read her, and with her attitude, I never will. If she only wants money, if that’s all she thinks will compensate her for her work, she can’t have anything valuable to say.
I’m not talking about taking the work of artists and giving them nothing for it. I know it’s not all about the love. We all have to eat. I work a job for a living so I can write in my spare time, but eventually, I’d like to get to a place where I could support myself through writing alone. I’d like the extra time it would give me, so I could write full time, because I believe that I have the potential to reach more people through writing than what I do as a day job. But that doesn’t mean I need a private jet to contribute what I have to give. All I need is a place and loving people to share that place with.
But If I won the lottery right now, if I won a million dollars in hard cash, I would invest enough so I would never have to work again and then I would never try to sell a book. I’d devote my life to writing and release everything for free. Because I believe in it. And even then, if I had too much, I’d give away the money, too.
I stand on the shoulders of giants who made this planet and this country into what it is today. And I support the giants of tomorrow. I’m not going to live forever, but I can do my best to make those that come after me a better place for them to live. I’ve done a better job if I’ve sold a cure for cancer as cheap as I can make it to as many people as possible. I’m not a scientist, and I don’t have a cure for cancer, but I have stories about people overcoming problems, or dealing with the pains of life, and maybe I’m not good enough to help people with them yet, but I’ve got 50 more years to get better at it, and to keep trying. Because that’s what I have to do.
So, my statement to the man who holds the cure for cancer all to himself: he is the real cancer. The disease is nothing compared to his greed.
February 4th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Luke, let me break this down. You believe that if I create something which could benefit you, I am morally obligated to allow you access to it for whatever compensation you feel is reasonable, even if that compensation is zero?
Let’s try this. You live in a home or apartment. You have internet access and a computer. There are people, probably very near to you, who have neither a home nor a computer nor very much food. Please open your door and allow them to live with you, because you’re being unreasonably greedy having a roof over your head and all that stuff when other people don’t.
Don’t tell me that other people must live by your arbitrary moral code until you’re living it. And don’t say, “Well, if I was as rich as Bill Gates, I’d do that!” That’s a bull argument.
You have a warm home and a computer and internet access and a digital camera and all of those cool devices with which you argue about the evils of capitalism precisely because smart people with ideas and skills got together with other smart people with ideas and skills and made products which they were allowed to sell for a profit so they could have more ideas and interact with other people to make more products and so on to improve your life and the lives of everyone else.
The people who believe from each according to his ability, to each according to his need made the Yugo.
And, for the fiction that you absorbed that “the ultimate goal of long-term capitalism” is for one guy to own the whole world, you clearly need a few lessons in market forces and competition from somebody who isn’t praying at the altar of Marx and Mao.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Rather than hijack your blog, I have responded to this post in more detail on my own. Hope you don’t mind!
February 4th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
@Levi – Thank you. I will read your response and respond presently. This is exciting.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
@Robert – Hey, thanks for the insults and ham-handed metaphors there, guy.
Even though I run this thing to have conversations, and I encourage people to participate by freely expressing their opinions, I demand that people remain civil. If you have no arguments to levy, especially with reasoned, pointed, and useful prose, you have no place here. This is a forum for addressing issues from multiple angles and bringing what we all have to the table.
What have you brought to this discussion other than an ad hominem attack, a straw man, and an overworked callout? Yes, I can donate to charity and give my old books to local libraries. Yes, I can share my wealth with others. Yes, I can give my fiction away for free in hopes of inspiring thought. I do those things. I don’t feel like I need to prove that to you here.
However, by coming here to participate, what you need to prove to me is that your voice is valid. You do that by addressing the problems we’re discussing with workable solutions so we can talk about them. You argue with me and the people who comment here and on their own sites. Whether you agree with my solutions or not doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you bring something to the table other than whining.
If you have no alternate solution to propose, you have no place here.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
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