(no subject)
Jan. 18th, 2012 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessOk, yes, I blogged about roses on Internet Blackout day. Bad blogger. I am casting this up to fatigue causing a deep lack of thought -- I'm sorta functioning, I'm moving, but sleeping horribly last night partly because of a need for caffeine to function last evening, the first time I'd had any caffeine after noon since Dec 19, and before that, World Fantasy Con in November (no, really; for all of my spoken and very real coffee adoration, I stick to just the one morning cup) has left me unfocused and unthinking and coming up with some really odd typos. And blogging about roses on Internet Blackout Day.
So I figured I would try to make some unfocused points to make up for that.
1) Copyright law. Right now, copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere does not appear to making anyone happy, and this is not surprising: it was based on a delivery system (print and books) that is still in existence, so still valid, but has now been supplemented by other delivery systems, mostly but not limited to the Internet which are complicating matters. And our ease of changing text online -- see, Wikipedia -- and embrace of anonymous or pseudonymous or multiple identities is in some ways returning us to medieval cultures, which rarely had a concept of copyright because with the exceptions of the Koran and a few Old Testament texts it had no such thing as a fixed text. (And even those exceptions can contain copying errors or changes.)
I spent more time than I care to think about comparing medieval versions of the Vulgate, and I say versions because everyone who copied the Vulgate felt the need to change or amplify St. Jerome. The dispute about whether or not that little incident of Jesus saying, sure, stone the sinner -- if, that is, you are completely free of sin yourself -- belongs in the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of John is because some copiers thought it sounded better in Luke, and some in John. And this was with one of the better known texts of the period.
The first books printed were Bibles, finally creating (for Christians) a fixed text. And perhaps that history helped create the sense of text as authority.
Copyright law did not pop up out of nowhere: it came from this sense of text as authority, and it was written to address problems faced by authors and publishers -- and right from the beginning, people found ways to work around the law or directly against it. Making something illegal, after all, doesn't stop people from doing said activity -- murders, speeding, and smoking weed still happen regularly.
Yeah. Fatigue = meandering.
Anyway, my point, in so far as I have one, is that yes, as both a content creator and consumer, I certainly think copyright law could use some major discussions. But I'm not sure we're having the right discussions in the right places. I see money getting tossed around; I see a law asking the U.S. to run after foreign sites (my main issue with SOPA/PIPA is that this once again places the U.S. in the role of world police, and is an overly simplistic answer to the problem of piracy). I think this is a problem.
2) Let's be realistic: online piracy, like other illegal activities, is not going to vanish, no more than alcohol did during Prohibition.
But I think a more effective way of combating piracy is to offer consumers multiple options. For instance, if I want to see Leverage, I have several options:
1) Get cable (we don't have it because the combined television viewing of the household is too low to justify a cable bill, but it's an option) and watch the first broadcast.
2) Buy individual episodes the following day on Amazon or iTunes. (Haven't been inspired to do this so far, but, again, option.)
3) Wait one week and watch it whenever I want on the TNT site with limited commercials.
4) Wait a bit longer and buy the series on DVD, and watch it commercial free with optional commentary.
5) Wait considerably longer and get the DVDs from the library, which paid for these DVDs through a small library tax.
I use option 3, mostly because of the flexibility, but this does provide a revenue stream for creators.
With HBO, however, I had one option: get cable.
I am willing to bet hands down that HBO dealt with more piracy than Leverage, even factoring in the quality/popularity of both shows. We, meanwhile, went to the apartment of someone who already had cable.
The key is, I think, multiple options, and options that seem reasonable to consumers. I'd also guess that shows that do release free online versions (with commercials) within a week after initial airing do a bit better than shows that wait one month (hi, Syfy) but I have no evidence for that.
Anyway, enough blathering.
So I figured I would try to make some unfocused points to make up for that.
1) Copyright law. Right now, copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere does not appear to making anyone happy, and this is not surprising: it was based on a delivery system (print and books) that is still in existence, so still valid, but has now been supplemented by other delivery systems, mostly but not limited to the Internet which are complicating matters. And our ease of changing text online -- see, Wikipedia -- and embrace of anonymous or pseudonymous or multiple identities is in some ways returning us to medieval cultures, which rarely had a concept of copyright because with the exceptions of the Koran and a few Old Testament texts it had no such thing as a fixed text. (And even those exceptions can contain copying errors or changes.)
I spent more time than I care to think about comparing medieval versions of the Vulgate, and I say versions because everyone who copied the Vulgate felt the need to change or amplify St. Jerome. The dispute about whether or not that little incident of Jesus saying, sure, stone the sinner -- if, that is, you are completely free of sin yourself -- belongs in the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of John is because some copiers thought it sounded better in Luke, and some in John. And this was with one of the better known texts of the period.
The first books printed were Bibles, finally creating (for Christians) a fixed text. And perhaps that history helped create the sense of text as authority.
Copyright law did not pop up out of nowhere: it came from this sense of text as authority, and it was written to address problems faced by authors and publishers -- and right from the beginning, people found ways to work around the law or directly against it. Making something illegal, after all, doesn't stop people from doing said activity -- murders, speeding, and smoking weed still happen regularly.
Yeah. Fatigue = meandering.
Anyway, my point, in so far as I have one, is that yes, as both a content creator and consumer, I certainly think copyright law could use some major discussions. But I'm not sure we're having the right discussions in the right places. I see money getting tossed around; I see a law asking the U.S. to run after foreign sites (my main issue with SOPA/PIPA is that this once again places the U.S. in the role of world police, and is an overly simplistic answer to the problem of piracy). I think this is a problem.
2) Let's be realistic: online piracy, like other illegal activities, is not going to vanish, no more than alcohol did during Prohibition.
But I think a more effective way of combating piracy is to offer consumers multiple options. For instance, if I want to see Leverage, I have several options:
1) Get cable (we don't have it because the combined television viewing of the household is too low to justify a cable bill, but it's an option) and watch the first broadcast.
2) Buy individual episodes the following day on Amazon or iTunes. (Haven't been inspired to do this so far, but, again, option.)
3) Wait one week and watch it whenever I want on the TNT site with limited commercials.
4) Wait a bit longer and buy the series on DVD, and watch it commercial free with optional commentary.
5) Wait considerably longer and get the DVDs from the library, which paid for these DVDs through a small library tax.
I use option 3, mostly because of the flexibility, but this does provide a revenue stream for creators.
With HBO, however, I had one option: get cable.
I am willing to bet hands down that HBO dealt with more piracy than Leverage, even factoring in the quality/popularity of both shows. We, meanwhile, went to the apartment of someone who already had cable.
The key is, I think, multiple options, and options that seem reasonable to consumers. I'd also guess that shows that do release free online versions (with commercials) within a week after initial airing do a bit better than shows that wait one month (hi, Syfy) but I have no evidence for that.
Anyway, enough blathering.