DRM: The Dialogue

John brings up a crucial discussion that is taking place throughout the entertainment industry between artists, producers, owners, distributors and consumers.  There are many elements to the digital rights debate, but they boil down to two basic areas of contention: morality (as determined by law) and economics (as determined by self-interest).

John has suggested that the morality of so-called piracy has to do with the taker’s intention.  “Am I trying to defraud the artist by copying this DVD?”  Well, of course I’m not.  I am trying to watch a movie for free, and I don’t know (or care) who gets burned.  Most movies today are licensed for exclusive exploitation by studio distributors “in any and all media now known or hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity,” etc, etc.  So for all intents and purposes the artists are not the owners of their work (and they can afford to be ambivalent): the studio takes the hit.  I won’t waste my tears on the fat cats, but stealing from Wal-Mart is still stealing.  Let’s face it, the kid using bit torrent to download X-MEN on Pirate Bay is no Robin Hood.

The economic arguments are much more intriguing to me.  Given that public self-esteem now accommodates piracy in the broad daylight of mainstream, how does this effect the production and distribution of good movies?  Adversely.  Distributors (who hold the purse-strings) are now only greenlighting films that will make a big opening-weekend boxoffice.  Piracy is undercutting long theatrical runs (because the films leak early), and simply gutting the DVD market.  And what kind of films slam-dunk opening weekend?  Franchises and genre pictures.  The veritable junk food of cinema.  And don’t get me wrong, I love junk food as much as the next guy– but we can’t live on it.

My forecast has one similarity to John’s: the theater screening experience has to kick up its appeal.  But I also predict that encryption technology and piracy-prevention will gain traction; compression technology will advance and consumers will begin to pay for access to streaming films (like Netflix‘s very successful online feature); the concept of owning a personal copy of a film will fade out and communal streaming libraries will fade in; piracy advocates will lose a few key legal battles and die slowly.

Even junk food costs money to produce, and there is no such thing as a free lunch.

NOTRO FILMS – pirateria en españa

A great Spanish distribution company that I hope to know better: Notro Films.  The director of the company, Jose Maria Irisarri, had this to say last year (if you read Spanish):

Strong words about the criminality of piracy.  Notice that the article has a very low user rating on ElPais.es.  These quotes are obviously coming from somebody who is interested in the profitability of DVD and box office sales.

Irisarria was my professor for a course I recently took at the Universidad de Navarra.  (The promo video I recently made for UNav).

Torrents – friend or foe to whom?

Bit torrents. The easiest way to get the latest movie. Even before it’s released. Are pirates an essential part of a capitalist system?

“Torrent freak, a dedicated torrent blog, unsurprisingly places The Dark Knight, the highest grossing film of 2008 with over a billion dollars taken at the box office, as the most downloaded torrent with over seven million downloads. With these levels of illegal downloads occurring it’s no surprise to find that Warner Brothers, along with MGM, Colombia Pictures Industries, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI took a stand against one of the largest torrent search engines  Pirate Bay (a Swedish site).” (from IABUK)

Does there have to be a degree of creative destruction to usher in better technology?  Whatever happens, the distribution methods are changing rapidly.   Maybe Torrent Freak’s April Fool’s news that WB bought Pirate Bay for a massive sum is not very far from future truth.

So, my questions, related to my previous post on bit torrent: is movie piracy a crime to be punished or an inevitable new form of distribution which should be embraced.  If you can’t beat them, join them?

And, a recent podcast on TWIT (This Week in Tech) was bemoaning the plans Time Warner is rolling out for metered broadband… charging for broadband internet usage by the gigabyte, instead of by the month. Is this a clever attempt to reap some benefit from movie piracy?

There is going to be an interesting forum on the future of media in Madrid for Universidad de Navarra students and alumni on May 5th.  I wonder if we’ll touch on the film piracy subject.

Questions?  I’ve got plenty more.  Thoughts?