Today, we know better. We know that more culture is being created than ever before, and the people who were predicting “the end of music” or similar doomsday scenarios were simply wrong. There is a growing body of academic research showing that artists are making more money in the file sharing age than before it. The record companies lose, but artists gain from file sharing.
It is not easy to make a living as an artist, and it never has been, but the Internet has opened up new opportunities for creative people who want to find an audience without having to sell their soul to the big companies who used to control all the distribution channels. This is a very positive change for the artists and creators, both from a cultural and an economic perspective.
There is no need to compensate anybody for the fact that technological progress is making the world a better place.
This IS The Market, Stupid!
Working with Pirate MEP Christian Engstrom in the European Parliament, I often come in contact with advocates for Intellectual Property – lobbyists from the film, music and book industry. And one thing almost always strikes me...
They don’t seem to realize that we now live in an information society with hyper distribution. And if some of them might have some sort of a clue after all, it seems they think the Pirate Party or Christian himself invented the Internet, free flow of information and file sharing.
(We sometimes respond to that, saying
What the Pirate Party does, is “just” to point out what policies are reasonable in our new society.
Billions of people are online. All of them can, at least in theory, connect with each other. And there is often a surprisingly short distance (or few links) between person B and person Q. A thought, an idea, or an application can spread over the world in just a few days. All kinds of data that are on my computer could be transferred to yours. Or to that of a bike repair man in Chile. If it is good and interesting enough.
Some entrepreneurs have got the message. They start net applications, they set up web stores (that often are more successful, the more specialized they are), they start their own media channels and they start projects where people cooperate. In most cases it can be done with very little money. And if they choose, they can address a global market.
The IP-lobbyists from the entertainment industry, on the other hand … They refuse to see or to accept the real world as it is. They are upset, because people don’t want to go downtown to a store to buy their products engraved to plastic discs anymore. They go bananas if someone shares the information he or she has bought with someone else. They curse the Internet. They want so supervise, filter and control the flow of information. They want to cut people off from the net. They have no problem making the world a worse place for everybody else – all the entrepreneurs, scientists, students, activists, artists, bloggers, and ordinary people that every day spontaneously fills the Internet with life and creativity.
The IP-lobby does not make any real effort to accept, embrace and make use of our new reality and of the information society. They could, if they wanted. And they could make a lot of money doing so. But so far, they seem unable and unwilling to think outside the box.
Sometimes it’s almost amazing. We met with a person from the book publishing sector. That person told us, with a stiff upper lip, that the amount and the multitude of information on the Internet is a problem – as no one can handle the selection process, deciding what should be published and not. So … condescending.
An online information society with a multitude of information and hyper distribution is the new market. And in many ways it is a much more free market than the old one. You should accept it – or get out of the way.
And let’s face it. Some products, business models, concepts and stuff will end up in the trash can – as they don’t fit our modern society. And they should end up in the trash – making open space for things that are new, profitable, focused on the future, viable and blooming.
No one can tell what tomorrows business concepts will look like. But you don’t need to worry. We’ll find out, eventually. The market will solve that. On its own. There will always be talented people developing new stuff for new markets. You might call it capitalism, spontaneous order, progress, the invisible hand, dynamic effects or whatever you like. But it will be there.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 3: Monica Horten, www.iptegrity.com: EU gives notice of ‘Net blocking schemes’ Creative Commons CC-NC-BY 3.0
Chapter 5: Mike Masnick at Techdirt.com: More Charts The Record Labels Don’t Want You To See: Swedish Musicians Making More Money
Ernesto at Torrentfreak.com: Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It Creative Commons CC-SA 2.0
Mike Masnick at Techdirt.com: Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It
Professor Michael Geist, www.michaelgeist.ca: Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society Creative Commons CC-BY 2.0
Chapter 7: Henrik Alexandersson, henrik-alexandersson.se: This IS the Market, Stupid! Creative Commons CC0
Links
This book can also be found on paper and in other e-formats at www.copyrightreform.eu
Follow Christian Engstrom: christianengstrom.wordpress.com
And Rick Falkvinge: falkvinge.net
Edition information
The Case for Copyright Reform
