Letter to Nina Paley

Dear Nina Paley, this is a letter to inform you, that I do not agree with your current assault on intellectual property rights.

One of the biggest problems when it comes to intellectual property rights is, that the USA has very little protection for the actual creators of works. You can actually sell your work and it will belong to someone else as if they had created it. In Germany, this is not possible. You can only give someone the license to work with your creation. That's a huge difference and something that is worth fighting for, as it gives the individual protection against overly powerful corporations and entities.

It eludes me, how you don't see how you're playing into Googles hands. Google not exactly being the charity organization that a lot of people may think it is.

In the future, I would like you to have more consideration of your colleagues and focus less on your personal agenda when it comes to the issue of intellectual property.

Thank you for listening.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Copyright
• law
• copyleft

[hozelda]

@copyrightrants BTW, the paid tv music jobs.. those pay for your time and expertise (and maybe endorsement), right? Would they be so different if copyright were weak or even gone?

[copyrightrants]

@hozelda well the problem is as a composer:

The content producers start forcing you to write "for free" because "well, you can collect roaylties on your work for years to come". But then that system is being attacked by the users (this is the reason why Nina's video got on my nerves so much)

So as a composer who pretty much only writes commissioned music I'm being attacked from all sides. And I'm providing work for a couple of others

And that really can't be what everyone has in mind, right?

[hozelda]

The bottom line today: copyright exists (and even author rights), and you can depend on it. Nothing I said changes that.

However, hopefully you will have a chance to prove at least semi-accurate what I have mentioned by trying to give the new media more opportunities as well. I did mention of cases (D Bull being one specific) of those who were not huge or who regardless grew bigger because of "piracy".

And without agreeing with everything techdirt+commenting say, you may want to drop by.

[copyrightrants]

@hozelda hey, I'm not completely disillusioned and I welcome new media.

But it has to be _fair_ and YouTube isn't fair. YouTube is exploiting on many many many levels. And so is Spotify.

And if they claim they can't make a business model out of it that pays everyone fairly then, well, then there's a _factual_ issue here. And then we're coming back to the user who just wants everything for next to nothing. And that only works in fairy tale land where you don't get hungry and need shelter.

[hozelda]

@copyrightrants Look up TED events "ideas worth spreading". They decided to promote the speaking events online and sales to attend the live events soared through the roof (?going from a few hundred to multiple $K per ticket). They now make much more money, can expand, and rub elbows with celebrities and others who are driving prices up to attend (this brings in other revenue sources down the line). Note: they didn't do DMCA take-downs, enabling countless to see these for $0.

[copyrightrants]

@hozelda I know.. I said I'd shut up, but I just found this great article:

Music Industry Myths: You Can Do It All Online by Heather McDonald

I should be _writing music_!

I ran a successfull crowdfunding campaign when people didn't even know what that was, but financially it was a desaster because I spent _way_ too much TIME on the thing. Time I could have used finishing the film music and the film would be finished now instead of waiting for me to finish my paid tv music jobs.

[despameratos]

FUCK U GEMA

[therealcaz]

If u use non-techical words (just as nina) maybe a public message like this would be interesting and not hard to undertsand (yes, the english is not my natal language)

[StopSpamming1]

This whole industry is totally messed up. It produces lousy music and blames CD-copies. It takes legal actions when it is stupid and does not when it should. The music industry was fighting online for so long instead of embracing it like they do now.

At the moment I could go to jail because I am putting a video on YouTube where I am videotaping the Hollywood sign and a car stops next to me and I happen to record the song from the radio playing inside that car.

[hozelda]

@hozelda Don't know what the paper claims beyond correlation, but widespread access to information was very likely a very important contributing factor. Also, I wonder what a study would reveal on earnings in general (a larger market means more money in total but there are more competitors).

[hozelda]

spiegel.de has an article about new research showing *no* copyright law in Germany in the 19th century appears to be responsible for Germany's dramatic growth in contrast to some of its European neighbors where copyright monopolies were strong. It even says how a German historical nobody made more in royalties from "Principles of Leather Tanning" than British Mary Shelley did for her horror novel "Frankenstein" -- again, consistent with Nina's results.

[hozelda]

google "theepochtimes nina" to get an article from a few months ago covering the income Nina made with Sita Sings the Blues by sharing it openly with everyone (CC-by-SA) as contrasted to what she was offered by a "reputable distributor" who leverages traditional copyright restrictions. Short-circuiting the reputable distributor by commercially enabling everyone, her work spread much faster, bringing more income and more opportunities.

$50K max lifetime vs. $130K+ after just 1 year and growing

[hozelda]

>> Humble Indie Bundle 3

Aside from the business model (which is why I drew attention to it before), we can ask about their sales/losses.

Many groups like to say that if 1 million pirate a digital work that retails at $10, then they lost 10 million. This is ridiculous.

The HIB3 sold over 300,000 @ average $6 on what retails at $50. By that analysis, (assuming those paying $6 are partial pirates), the HIB3 resulted in some $15 million in losses instead of the $2 million in sales/gains.

[hozelda]

Two items you might find interesting.

1-Humble Indie Bundle 3. check out the youtube video for example.

I think some of the software games are open source but generally they are not, unfortunately; however, they don't seem to be a group that will go after "pirates" and they allow you to set the price during the HIB special (it's over now).

2-khanacademy (dot org).

The Khan learning appears to be CC-by-NC allowing anyone to download for free. Not ideal IMO but supports "piracy"

[hozelda]

@copyrightrants "Another Day, Another Study That Says 'Pirates' Are The Best Customers... This Time From HADOPI" I mention this as a potential defense for at least some of what youtube and others similar sites accomplish. The study correlates higher piracy with greater purchasing. If piracy does promote purchasing (as many believe it can), then this would appear to justify some revenues for youtube for their service. [Note the author of the study is hardly a piracy advocate.]