I found a wonderful site which, unlike most of the entertainment industry campaigns, seems legitimately interested in developing a workable ethics of filesharing. You can find them at:
http://theycallitsharing.com
I suggest you read through their website before continuing.
Using the 'contact us' form on their site, I posted the following response to their website:
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Hi,
Your position on filesharing is a lot more thought-through than most that I've heard. Clearly, you're interested in having concise and accurate reasons for your stance. I have to say, though, that some of your arguments are not sound.
For example, a large part of your argument is based on the fact that musicians put a lot of hard work into their music. Unfortunately, although this argument pulls on my heartstrings, that doesn't mean it's a legitimate reason that filesharing is wrong. Just because someone works hard on something doesn't mean they have a right to get paid for it. I have many artist friends who have worked very hard but have not been financially successful, with many of their pieces remaining unsold. Have they been wronged by the people who did not buy their art? No, because there is no such thing as a 'right to get paid.' In order to get paid artists also have to convince their patrons to support them.
Another portion of your argument suggests that stealing has occurred because the artists and record companies do not make any money when a song is downloaded. Again, however, part of the picture is missing. There is no right to be profitable. Every day businesses fail and go bankrupt. This is not neccesarily because someone has wronged them. It may simply be that they failed to understand the market, or that the service they provided was replaced by a more advanced one. For example, when the automobile was invented it put horse and buggy retailers out of business in short order. This is not because it did something wrong to them, but simply because it was a better technology. In the reality of the digital world, there may be better technologies and business models for how to make money.
The problem with your position on filesharing is that it fails to understand the incredible transformation that has occurred in the world through the digital revolution. The world is different now, and some businesses may have to adapt. In the digital world, where one person can share any music they have on their computer with anyone else, the whole world is like a big open courtyard. When any musician plays there(ie releases their music on the open market), everyone can hear the music all over the courtyard. It's not wrong for them to hear it. It's just the way the sound can propogate through the air without costing the musician anything extra(free distribution on the internet). So how do you make money in this environment? The street performer has the answer: put out your hat or your guitar case. You have to convince people to give you their money. Sure, you probably won't make millions this way, but maybe that age is over. Maybe the car has replaced the horse. Maybe the indie performer with a paypal 'donate' link on his website will replace the superstar with their huge record label and advertising agency and agent. Technology is making good music cheaper to produce all the time.
In the digital world, every computer is like a skilled musician who can replay any song after hearing it only once. In such an environment, human musicians who originate music have to find new ways to operate. It might be tough to adapt, but the fact is, the world changes from time to time. And in the end, music will be better for it, because instead of being overproduced and overhyped and fake and marketed, it will be genuine art right from the artist.
I would like to cordially invite you to enter into a discussion on this topic at my blog, fugitivethoughts.blogspot.com
I think this is an important issue for us all to discuss and come to agreement on, so that we can build laws into our various legal systems which reflect the way the world actually works and thereby allow us to maintain a functional society.
See you there!
sincerely,
Jeffery Coleman
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Hopefully, someone from there will be interested in discussing the issue here.
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4 comments:
Perhaps Mr. Coleman would also like to change law so that when any event precludes enforcement, such as a police strike or a devastating hurricane like Katrina, that it's perfectly okay to loot businesses. Why would this not be considered ethical? After all, it's an open courtyard if there isn't any way to protect the goods. The business owners worked hard to earn the money they traded for the merchandise, but who says they have any inherent right to be compensated in any way for that work? By leaving the merchandise unprotected he is essentially providing a service to those who need or want it, so why is it still illegal to take it?
Just because nobody can know that you took it, and nobody can stop you from taking it, doesn't mean that it's an "open courtyard" and that you're somehow then entitled to it. You know, don't you, that your character is determined by what you do when you think nobody is watching? And what television or short story or computer software or song is more valuable than good character?
Jack: since I linked to your article at
http://ethicsscoreboard.com/list/filesharer.html
on the main page and it is a little long for here, I'm going to remove this copy of it. To anyone interested in reading it, just follow the above link to see the complete article in its original formatting, etc.
Anonymous,
My argument is not that because filesharing precludes enforcement it is ethical. My argument is that filesharing represents no violation of anyone's inherent human rights, and is therefore not inherently unethical, although we may choose to arbitrarily produce laws against it. Rather, it simply presents a significant threat to a particular type of business model which may itself not be fitted for the digital age: namely, businesses which produce content once and then sell it many, many times, expecting to receive a fee for each additional person who uses the content.
A business model which is much better suited to the digital age is to release content for free to the public, distributing it at no cost to the distributor(via file-sharing) to many, many people, and to request that people consider donating a small amount to the producer of the content. That way, since good content will reach a large number of people, a very small donation from a very small percentage of them will allow you to make a very sizable living. Consider, for example, that it is nothing for a good song to be distributed to 20 million people online via filesharing, and that number will only increase exponentially as technology spreads. If just one in one thousand of those people decided to donate 5 dollars to the creator of the song, not an unlikely possibility, that artist would then net $100,000 from that one song, to say nothing of their opportunities to appear at concerts to perform for their expansive fan base.
Thus, it may not be useful for us to retain our antiquated, expansive restrictions on the micromanagement of abstract ideas.
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