We begin personally, as all my musings begin. I believe that the individual viewpoint is how we all see the world first, so it’s a comfortable and easy place to begin. So let’s start by talking about how I came to this in the first place.

It’s hard for me, as a content producer (sure, maybe the content is bad, but I’m still producing it) and also a content consumer, to understand how I feel about copyright and piracy (also called file sharing). I’ve thought about it a lot, because I am the guy who releases content I spend hours (months) on to people on the internet for free. I’m also the guy who will read/watch things that are legally available for free (Doctorow’s fiction, Hulu content) and sometimes pay if I like it and sometimes not. I’m also the guy who would someday like to be compensated for my work, at least to a level that I could scrape by an income and do it full time.

So…mix all those things together and you’ll soon realize that the ideas don’t jive with any logical consistency, not without some creative and double-sided accounting. I’m on the verge of releasing a new novel for free on the internet, a work that took me the better part of 18 months, and before I do that I feel like I should get my head on straight about copyright and file sharing. I wanna know how I feel about it so I can stick to my guns and also not feel like I wasted my time or limited my options in a way I’m uncomfortable with.

The real issue goes beyond digital piracy to copyright itself. Now, I don’t believe that digital file sharing, even of copyrighted materials, is theft. That’s probably a generational thing, but we’re gonna do our best to suss out as much meaning as possible. Keep in mind, this entry is a fluid conversation, so comment if you wanna participate.

So, theft seems to me like it is inherently defined by defined by the taking of something from someone else, depriving them of it. Theft is a physical concept, based on a starvation economy, that there is a finite amount of resources to go around, and possessing resources means someone else will not possess them.

Information used to be like that, too, since information was passed on via physical items. The price of a book was determined by two things: the cost of production and the cost of the information. The starvation economy also played into this, because there were only so many copies of the book. Stealing a book from a shop meant that the shop owner no longer had a copy to sell.

But the thing is, a starvation economy does not apply in a digital age. Or, at the very least, the costs are so absurdly low that the profit margins are absurdly high in monetized digital distribution. We exist in a world where time is monetized, and that’s the only cost for me to release a book. The fifty bucks a year hosting costs I pay to the website company are nothing. So all it costs me to put a book out on the internet is time, the time to write the book, edit it, and format it for distribution. Putting a copy of my book on someone else’s hard drive costs nothing and does not take the book from my possession. I’ve made a copy at no cost.

But it’s still theft, people say, because although file sharing piracy does not steal a physical object from someone else, there is something that is stolen – the sale, and more importantly, the money from that sale. The sale of a copyrighted item has never been about the physical object, not really, so we’re not really sailing in different waters here, or so people say.

Now, the fact is, our society is based on two concepts, and those things, boiled down to simplicity, are idealism and pragmatism. All humans possess the capacity for both concepts, and we operate on both, too. Our laws are based on idealism – we put artificial ideals on behavior and attempt to base our society on them. We say in America that all men are created equal, even though we know that’s not true. Some people are better at math, some have better social skills, some people are born with genetic defects, and no logical person can say that everyone is created equal. Life isn’t fair. However, our idealism says that we all are, because our society hinges on the idea that we shouldn’t be penalized because of inborn defects or treated better because of inborn talents. We say that under no circumstances should murder or theft be correct actions, even though we understand that pragmatically there are exceptions to those things, such as war and self-defense.

So, ideally, theft is wrong, but pragmatically, people steal. It’s no surprise this has translated to the digital realm, because the same operator, good ole human nature, is still there. Only the medium changed. Now, ideally, in our justice system, all injustice is punished, and all innocent go free. Ideally, a proper defense is available to any and all. Pragmatically, more money gets you a better defense. There is a ideal of the thing, and then there is the thing itself. Sometimes they jive and sometimes they don’t. Our duty as good citizens and good humans is to do the best we can, ferret out injustice where we find it, hold up the ideal as best we can, but also constantly examine the ideal in light of the pragmatic, in order to understand how to improve the ideal. This is the nature of the entire enterprise here, folks – it keeps us alive and moving forward as a species.

Now, the fact of the matter is, the paradigm has shifted. If we’re looking at it pragmatically, there can be no other conclusion given the data we have. Although the old guard sees physical theft and digital theft as the same thing – my generation does not and never will. Generations younger than mine also do not, and despite copyright theft merit badges and kindergarten “understanding copyright” training, this is not going to change. The paradigm has shifted. the pragmatic data doesn’t lie. People are sharing files at record rates, countermeasures are only small speed bumps, and unplugging the whole internet is the only thing that’s gonna slow it down. Obviously, that’s not gonna happen.

So, the real choice now is whether to allow the ideal, the law, to change. We must examine the cause of this paradigm shift, but also examine the economics and social impact of the thing to determine if the shift is for the better or the worse. Humanity doesn’t always make the best choices, sometimes it moves in the wrong direction, but sometimes it moves in a positive direction. Our goal is to determine if the current direction is a good thing. That means looking at the reasons some people think file sharing is theft and the reasons some people don’t think it’s theft.

Our task is difficult, because the media landscape is full of nothing but shouters. Newscasters are shouting their ideals on television, bloggers are shouting on the internet, people are shouting on the street, even congressmen are shouting at each other on the senate floor – we’re all shouting so loud and so powerfully that we can’t sit down calmly to discuss things logically anymore. It’s impossible, if for no other reason than calm talk quickly drowns in the overwhelming noise. No doubt our calm discussion will be drowned out also, but we must try.

So let’s move on. Let’s first collect all the things that we need to add to our conversation: the possible reasons for this paradigm shift, a logical discussion of how the ideal could change, and further, what that change could look like. After all that, we’ll see where we are once the dust clears.

Now, copyright has existed for a long time, say about four hundred years, give or take a score of decades. That’s the real conversation we should be having, not about costs of distribution, but the time/money costs of the production staff – the writers, artist, and technical people needed to produce a work of art. Since I am concerned mostly with writing let’s narrow it down to that.

At some point, if we want professional works of art, the artist must be compensated. I read somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours to master an art. That’s about a year and a half of solid time, with no time spent on sleeping, work, eating, or anything else. Obviously, that’s physically impossible, so let’s take it at a more reasonable level: two hours a day. That 10,000 hours is a little less than fourteen years at two hours a day. That’s a lot, but possible, if one is dedicated, but it would still take an absurdly dedicated person to do that pro bono. The love would have to be the whole thing, at that point. If forty hours a week are spent, the artist is able to reach mastery in a much shorter timeline, a little less than 5 years. That teaches us another point to apply to our discussion – if we want professional work, the artist must be able to monetize at some point during those 10,000 hours.

So let’s run down the points we need to cover right now:

• The theft paradigm has changed or has become such an open floodgate as to become a wash.
• Distribution costs nothing.
• The artist must be able to monetize in order to reach a professional level in a reasonable amount of time.

So at this point our discussion is about finding a business model that will allow artists to monetize in order to produce professional content. But that’s not all of our discussion – there’s more that enters into it, so let’s get started on that: Business. Because, make no mistake, it is a business, after all. Professional writers are like professional athletes – it may have started as a love of the game, but eventually it also became about the numbers. Cash money. It seems like half of the appeal of the artist lifestyle is the lottery effect, the startup ethic, or whatever else you want to call it – the hope that you can live through lean times in order to later reap big, fat times, possibly over and above the hardships you experienced. Basically, the hope to live off what you already created with little maintenance work.

So, there has to be a place in our discussion for an acceptable artist lifestyle. How much is enough? I’m sure there are artists who will protest what I’m saying, who say that it is all about the love, but really, if it was, they would work a 9-5, put in their two hours a day at becoming a master, and reach their goal in a little under 14 years. Even if it is all about the love, at best those protesters are impatient, and at worst, they are secretly greedy.

So let’s add in the third thing: Artists want to make more money than the amount of time they spend would make them at a reasonable, middle-income 9-5. At some point, it has to be about business, and it has to be about money. But how much money? That’s what we need to answer. That needs to be in our conversation, too.

Now the conversation gets really really big, really, really fast. It starts to include things like reasonable income, and, even bigger, what monetary amount you can put on pleasure. Now, all these things can be quantified – you can do a income study for a location, and ask people how much they are willing to pay for two hours of entertainment, for three hours, for ten hours – you can average all those things out, subtract costs, and see where you are at. That’s business, right? That’s what business does.

So how do we even begin to approach this conversation now? Let’s break it down and start with small questions and answers.

Why did the theft paradigm change?

First, I’m not sure it did. I think we just think it did. Humans are physical beings and we understand, evolutionarily, physical things. We’ve always struggled with ideas and “content” because they are not physical things. A child can understand from a pretty early age that she can’t have the new toy she wants at Toys R Us without paying for it. However, try to explain to a child that she’s not allowed to hear the story her mommy reads her at night before bed without paying for it. That’s a harder notion to understand because there is no physical item exchanged.

We are not children, but as ideas get more complex, there are thresholds of understanding. We’ve already removed the concept of theft back one step, from the theft of a physical item to the theft of a sale. Some people cannot make that leap – it’s too far, even if it seems short to most of us. There are a number of pro piracy arguments levied against this concept – pirates wouldn’t have bought the content anyway, piracy actually encourages sales, content creators have created ill-will in consumers and are now getting their comeuppance – all have varying degrees of truth, but none feel like they fully address the issue, and worse, something about them smell like compensation, not real answers.

So the ideal of the situation is this: civil copyright law says file sharing is wrong, that it is theft. The pragmatic situation says that millions of people are doing it because they do not feel it is wrong. There is a disconnect here, so much so, that’s it time to examine the ideal. That’s the pragmatic situation we’re in. Trying to turn back the clock to a time before the internet is impossible. It’s not going to happen. Instead, we need to address the realities of the thing – the root of the reason content costs money is because we, as consumers, want professional content. If you cut away all the profit margins, corporate BS, and all that other junk to boil it down to what the consumer wants – we want professional content. This means we need to pay creators so they can become professional.

It remains to be seen what the business model looks like that pays content creators to a level that allows them to be professionals. With writing this is less of an issue than other mediums, since with digital distribution all that needs to be paid is the author’s living expenses. With video games and movies, the issue is stickier, since those things cost much more. However, I do believe there is a business model out there that allows for professional writing to be created without trying to fight the idea that file sharing is theft, or trying to stem the tide.

I don’t have a direct answer, but I have a few ideas:

A donation/performance based revenue structure – musicians do this already, so why can’t writers do it? Some people say that the performance is the thing with music and that doesn’t apply to books, since with books, the book is the thing. However, donation buttons, live readings, and other forms of compensation are possible. I don’t think they’ve been fully exploited yet as a possible revenue stream, if for no other reason than there is no easy business model and aggregate structure that allows consumers an easy donation interface. If there was a site like Scribd.com that allowed artists to both sell their work and be donated to, that would be a first step. As for my part, I emailed a woman I know at Scribd.com this morning with the suggestion that they add a “Donate to Author” button to their site for all authors who want it as a supplement tobuying digital works on their site. If you think this is a good idea, email them, too.

Secondly, I think that the old model of sponsored art is a possibility. Why can’t charities buy works of art and release them for free? Why can’t the local library hold a fundraiser to buy the latest book from a local author, stock that book on their shelves, and put it out on the internet for free? Why can’t entertainment be a cause for the public good? Well, we don’t know, but damn, let’s try it already.

Also, I’ve been talking about sponsored e-books for awhile. Why can’t the artists be compensated through advertising, just as other content creators (like television and news websites) have been doing for a long time? Why can’t websites pay for content that drives people to their site? Why can’t Pepsi pay an author to release a “branded” e-book for free on the internet? People put up with advertising if it’s unobtrusive and tasteful. Pepsi sponsor’s musicians, why can’t they sponsor an author? Is it any different than the Pope paying Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

I’m willing to try this, too. I’m about to release a novel on the internet. If you wanna sponsor it, spend me an email and we’ll talk. If you’re not ready, that’s fine. I’m halfway through writing a second one, too. I plan to keep writing them and trying to figure out a new way to monetize my work without forsaking my ideals, which say that ideas should be offered free, as long as I can afford to do that. Right now I can. We’ll see about the future.