Is P2P harmful to copyright holders?

I have been reading this book Titled Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. The content of the book is very closely related to copyrights and piracy. What specifically grabbed my attention is the view of piracy as a beneficial free marketing tool for copyright holders, but before I talk about the interpretations and conclusions I drew from the book, allow me to talk a little bit about who exactly Lawrence Lessig is (as to avoid someone just pawning him off as insignificant based on my views.)

Lawrence Lessig (Wikipedia Link) is a Law professor at Stanford. He founded the creative commons and has written four books, that I know of, and I have read (or at least started to read) all of them with the exception of Codev2, which there is a list his books and a link to download Codev2 for free from Lessig.org. That being said I hold his work to be very good and insightful, but I like to think I don't judge people (I like to think I judge their work/actions.)

The subject at hand is the concept of P2P being harmful to copyright holders. After reading the first few chapters, you a presented with a generalized view of copyrights, in which Lessig mentions a system of lumping P2P users into 4 categories that would be needed to establish if P2P specifically is harmful. (I hope I don't violate a copyright by talking about it on my blog...) The categories are:

• A. People who will download free content as a substitute for purchasing.
• B. People who will download free content to sample it before purchasing.
• C. People who will download free content because it is not commercially available, or financially feasible for them to obtain the content otherwise.
• D. People who will download free content because the copyright allows it.
  

Lessig says that the way to establish if P2P is harmful you need to determine if the benefit from category B is less than the damage from category A. Also in his argument he notes a figure suggesting that at one point in time over twice as much recorded content was being downloaded than the record industry sold.

This is the point where I draw away from what Lessig said (I think) and I ask the question of analyzing category A a little more. If there are twice as many people downloading content annually than the number of albums the recording industry has every sold in a year(not to be confused with the change in records sales), then how many records would the record industry sell if pirates did not download free content? I think this is the only question that matters. The basis of my belief in this is re-affirmed in the book when Lessig talks about the difference between being illegal and being wrong.

Any moral philosophy class will start making you think about the differences between morality and legality. I feel it is rare we can find a subject like murder where it is both illegal and wrong. This is one of the reasons why laws often change with time (segregation, slavery, copyrights, ect.) I actually think it is a crime that Mickey Mouse has not yet become property of the public domain the same way that the works of other dead creators' works have been in the past, but does that make it wrong for me to disobey the law and use Mickey Mouse in a cartoon I created? Should Disney be able to sue me for using their creation that is now such an icon for children of my generation that the mere silhouette of Mickey instantly pulls up a relation to Disney and the mouse? After all, Mickey's first appearance with sound, Steamboat Willie, was nothing more than a pirated concept of the time.

I actually feel very strongly that piracy via P2P is not nearly as harmful as the RIAA makes it look to be. I also feel that all copyrights should expire after a reasonable length of time (probably around 10 years). Meaning that morally I do not have an issue with people downloading any content released before 1987 (21 years before this post) to avoid permanent monopolies on content. Meaning that a very large amount of older content should be considered property of the public domain making it legal for anyone to share. An example would be that Pink Floyd's original version of A Momentary Lapse of Reason and all albums published before it (basically all of their original albums) should be free for anyone to distribute as well as Metallica's first three albums. However, many older albums are re-mastered; This raises a question of whether or not these remastered works could be covered under a new copyright as original works. I admit that re-mastering an album takes a bit of work, and requires equipment most people can not afford or advanced technical knowledge or writing remastering software. Because these works are not original I don't feel they should be covered under a separate license, however it would provide a valid excuse for an exception to the rule; allowing publishers to provide new and improved content at a price, while the old content could be free.

Now that I have established my moral views, what about harm to the copyright holder? I recall the case with Jimmi Hendrix; where after Hendrix died the record label retained distribution rights, but the Hendrix family (namely his children) did not receive payment for their father's work. This is a case where I feel the creators of content are being cheated. If I record a song with a record label I would be paid a fee, set by congress, for each copy of the album that was sold. I have no control over the content from that point forward. Once it is recorded I get paid per album, then I get paid for each show I perform, but if I want to take my work, and start giving it away for free because I feel I have made the money I need off of the content, then I will have no authority to make that decision. The same is true toward the creator of The Simpsons; The Fox corporation actually owns everything. Even with the creator's permission, you can not distribute this content in any way (even if Simpsons happens to be in the background while you are shooting a documentary.

The argument I am starting to form is not a legal argument, but a moral argument. An argument of who has acted wrongfully: the copyright holder or the pirate. Certainly Shakespeare is considered the public domain, why should Disney, Fox, or anyone else be treated differently. The copyright should last a reasonable time then fade away to the public domain.

Regardless of whether the copyright is valid, enforceable, or even should be enforceable we need to come back to the argument at hand; does P2P harm copyright holders. Can P2P pirates be viewed the same as thieves that steal books or albums off of a shelves in stores? Absolutely not. When you steal a physical object, the entity the object was stolen from no longer has that object; unlike when you share something on a P2P network, nobody looses a physical object. This is because digital objects can be reproduced infinitely at no additional cost to the producer. Decentralized networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella or even semi-centralized networks like FastTrack (KaZaa) clients can distribute content highly efficiently. The user only has to leave the program running after downloading content to automatically share anything on the user's hard drive. Should there be a responsibility for the creators of these networks to scan million or even billions of computers regularly to ensure no copyright content is available? I guess the real question will come down to cost. While a networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella can't exactly be just shut down the same way as a centralized network like Napster, a semi-decentralized network like FastTrack can be shut down. What is the cost to society of shutting these networks down?

I view the claims of the MPAA and RIAA as typical rejections of new technology. These same arguments were made of Radio, Hollywood, and Cable TV; the copyright holders are not getting exclusive control of all distribution methods their content is being distributed with. In all past cases Congress has stated that there is not harm is playing copyright content over the radio without paying the copyright holder; the same is true for TV. Hollywood was formed under the premise that California was not policed, and the film makers did not want to pay Thomas Edison to use his video equipment; so they moved to California and waited for the copyright to expire. These foundations that form much of our every day life now, were once all just a bunch of pirates trying to use the work of someone else. Now, being played on the radio is the main goal for many record companies; TV is our source of entertainment and news. These older industries were forced to give content to the public domain in certain ways that would benefit society over the monopoly of a copyright holder.

I think that it is a greater crime to not allow P2P sharing of free and otherwise unavailable content than to allow a subset of P2P users to illegally download content as a substitute for purchasing content. I am sure that some of these people will not buy an album that they otherwise would have bought, but I feel more people will download content that they otherwise would not have bought; which means these people are not stealing profit from the copyright holder as much as they are enjoying content that exists in the world on demand.

Later,

SteveO

Android at Google IO!

I like the new features that seem to be popping into Android as the development moves on. At first some of the features currently present in the mobile phone OS either were not present or appeared to be poorly implemented. Now the layout has become more in tune to the concept of "Natural Input", as opposed to using a keyboard and mouse, which is key to making a cell phone.

Here is a video I found, on download squad (via Google reader).



That's all for now.

Later,

SteveO

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS installation conclusion.

After installing the system on both of my machines, I concluded that the installation was a success for myself, but the upgrade has some issues. Granted that I probably had some errors that other people will not have because I performed all of the operations right when the distribution was first released, and now there have been several updates to the upgrade tool. So, lets dive into exactly what I am talking about.

Dell Inspiron 5100:

This computer is currently running a triple-boot configuration. I have 4 partitions: Windows, root, home, and swap. The boot loader is installed to the MBR (Master Boot Record), and I performed a standard install and a Wubi install. Both of the installs are successful, however the ATI Mobility drivers are still not perfect. Because I am not allowing myself to perform command line repairs to any machines I have not gotten my S-Video port to work, nor have I gotten 3D acceleration to work properly. I admit that the fix for this is a simple one line edit to the x11 config file, but a novice user should not have to do that, so graphics are considered a failure.

Other than that the two installations came out nearly identical with a slight performance decrease in the Wubi install. I have to say the process is great for those that want to install an OS without knowing what they are doing, nor commiting to any permanent changes to the machine, but some users with older computers may run into issues. Typically you will want to have a minimum of 15 - 20 Gigabytes available on your machine. This way you will insure that you have enough memory to perform the install and work with some of the applicaitons, but more memory is always better. Over all, the Wubi install is easy and great, but I find myself caught up on the graphics issue.

Lenovo 3000 N200:

I have upgraded this machine a few times now. Normally the upgrade process runs fairly smooth, however after this upgrade I am seeing a decrease in performance, unstable applicaitons, and bugs that are popping up from apps that have been running fine for a while. Graphics performance on the Intel chipset are running fine, althought I hear that NVidia cards are the only way to go if you want S-Video functionality out of the box. I have a feeling that the upgrade process is less buggy now that a few of the bugs I ran into have been resolved as fixed on Launchpad.

Other issues I was having include a sound issue where the headphone port does not automatically mute/unmute the laptop's speakers. My usual fix of running a script that downloads and re-compiles the alsa drivers does not seem to work, but I don't actually want to go to the command line, so I have been living with it.

I have been contemplating re-formatting this machine and starting over with a fresh install to work out the bugs. I think that the released updates should solve all the issues I am having, but I have notices that bugs still seem to pop up with every ditrbution upgrade.

Other than that, I am happy with the changes. Exile is a great media player, and the "dynamic" playlist feature means that the music will never stop until I hit stop. Firefox 3 Beta 5 is quick and runs great, however I am having issues with google toolbar's incompatability. It was also disappointing to find out that many of the firefox plugins that I use don't work in the beta, but with firefox 2 installed I can get by.

In conclusion, The installation of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS seems to be more stable than the distribution upgrade. Most of the improvements in the OS invole look and feel or ease of use. The ditribution is getting closer to the goal of being a user friendly system for normal desktop users. There is a little room for improvement, but it is getting better.

So, that is a quick review of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. If you have any comments suggestions or questions, please give me something to write about that people want to read.

Later,

SteveO

Ubuntu 8.04LTS installation review.

I just installed Ubuntu 8.04LTS on my Dell Inspiron 5100. The installation went smooth, but I was disappointed that Google Toolbar is not compatible with Firefox 3B5. Most of the hardware is working correctly, but my S-Video out does not work. This is common with fresh installs.

I also performed the new Wubi install. The neat thing about this type of install, is that you perform it from within Windows. I am not very familiar with that type of install yet, but it creates a large file in Windows rather than using a different partition. This makes it easier to test drive the distro before really commiting to the change (which means re-formatting your intire drive in some cases.) The process in this case is very easy to reverse because the Wubi install can be uninstalled from the windows control panel.

The result of the Wubi install is that the user can choose between Windows of Ubuntu when the computer is booting. The speed of the Wubi install is slower than a standard installation. I typically keep one partition for my OS files, a second for my swap partition, and another partition for my home directory, which runs quick. My hard drive also has a fourth partition that I run Windows on, just to keep around for work purposes.

In the other room I am currently upgrading my Lenovo to Ubuntu 8.04 from an installation I've been upgrading sense Ubuntu 6. That is my primary computer, and I use it for most of my day to day work. It has an 80GB hdd that is devided into 3 partition: swap, root, and home. That machine actually runs everything, but I will be testing out life without my Google Toolbar for a little while (at least no toolbar at home.) I don't think I could give it up for too long.

So far the install is going sort of slow. I have Qwest DSL, which is supposed to be a 7mb connection, but it doesn't ever seem to get close to that speed. I must admit I am comparing it to the Gigabit connection at work, but that is a different story.

It reported that more than 1300 files will be upgraded. Most of which would be un-installed first. I am not sure if the upgrade will actually mess up my system in any way yet; I have had issues with my S-Video out after upgrades in the past, but I am hoping that even though I am sure I know how to deal with the issue, I do not want to do it again.

So, I'll get back once I have my third version of Ubuntu up and running.

Linux in our lives.

Linux on PCs

Over the years, more and more people have heard of Linux. I have been watching this OS grow from difficult to usable, and recently I have really started to think the OS has a chance. I suppose the thing that worries me is seeing Linux distributions like gOS being sold at Wal-Mart. I am excited to see Linux pre-loaded on a cheap PC, however I would prefer to see an original Ubuntu distribution rather than a modified Ubuntu distribution that puts such a large emphasis on web 2.0 services.
Linux needs an easy to use distribution that functions the way Windows users expect the machine to function. Then, the additional perks of having online repositories of free software and clearly written documentation in laymen's terms.

Linux on Mobile Devices

I have been happy to see the Nokia 770, N800, and N810 released with Nokia's mobile OS, however I would have liked to see more long term support for at least the proprietary portions of the system. I was also disappointed to see a lack of pre-loaded PIM software. It was easy enough to add repositories to allow easy installation of a fairly impressive software library. I personally enjoyed loading putty for the purpose of using my own encryption for my personal internet traffic through untrusted access points.
Another mobile device I have high aspirations for is the Neo1973. I hope to see the retail version of this device released in the next year; you can currently obtain a really nice kit including the developer model, a debug board, and their OS pre-loaded on the phone. I just wish I were sponsored so I could give a review of this, however I plan on continueing on this idea after I actually get my hands on one of the advanced developer kits ($400 USD).
I am looking forward to the Google Android OS to be released. I have been testing simple applications with the SDK using Eclipse. I have found that Oreilly's Eclipse Pocket Guide was very useful to quickly familiarize myself with the IDE; which I felt was easy to transition to from Visual Studio. The Android OS features a built in web browser based on Webkit, a Google Map viewer, and Contact List.

I think this post is horrendous... however I will try and improve over time.

I think my next post will be themed around social networking.

If you read this, tell me what you think/hate/like?/how stupid I sound.

Later,

SteveO

New Blog!

I started this blog with the idea of having somewhere to just rant about tech news and that sort of stuff....

I will start ranting next post...

in a few minutes.


Later,

SteveO