We all are criminals
If this is not your first time in front of a computer, you’ll probably be familiar with PDFs, MP3s , Youtube, bittorrent, Google, ebooks, and so on. Some of them are free, others not. You basically feel no difference between them, those are things you use everyday when you connect to the Internet, but for the law it is completely different. Nobody would be surprised if I say that we all are criminals, and I ask, is that normal?? WE ALL ARE CRIMINALS, SERIOUSLY??? I believe there is something wrong with current laws.
The first step is to define the problem. So, what is the problem? I don’t think people is the answer to that.
To help us to understand the situation, let’s see some cases of the problem, who is behind this, and if we can fix it (I don’t promise a panacea, but I’ll tell you what I think is the right way):
Unfair situations
All over the world there are powerful associations like RIAA or MPAA fighting to curb copyright infringement. But they are fighting against the wrong enemy. They’re fighting against consumers.
Just to give you an idea:
- The US Copyright Group has already filed suit against 16,200 individuals. (Of course, they’re not making friends with this attitude.)
- In Spain the SGAE (the Spanish RIAA) achieved to put currently more than 50 hawkers of pirated copies in jail, 55o in total (Spanish source) in the last few years, immigrants that preferred to don’t thief could spend 8 years in jail. Is that fair? Fortunately they government is working to change the law thanks to public pressure.
Seriously, there is no more important things to fix? are judges for that? We have much bigger problems than ask to a person $47,132.16 in damage for download music. In fact, this last case (United States v. Dove) take us to the next point.
Download a song is not equal to a lost sale
In every case, organizations are asking for huge amounts of money, forgetting (“maybe” because they want to forget it…) that I download all that I download because it’s free, I wouldn’t buy even the 10% of what I use online for the basic reason that the most of them don’t deserve my money. Nobody spend $30,000 for the music of their iPod. To be honest, I wouldn’t spend a cent in the most of the stuff I use, but if it’s free, I can try it.
So, everybody understand (and I hope agree with) the title above, to download a song is not equal to a lost sale.
Then, the point is, are they really losing all the money that they say? Actually NO.
A research study by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina said that they’re earning more money than before, maybe one of the reason it’s because people listen much more music now than before (where I say music, we can say movies, books, …), they don’t just listen the radio, the know more groups, they go to more concerts because they’re surrounded by culture (which is good). So, why do they complain? why go massively to court? The market is changing, and the lobbies are losing the control, of course they don’t like it because that could mean to lose money if they don’t adapt their business to the new era. The cycle of “Distribute content ->earn money -> change the format-> earn money with the same content ->…” is going to its end.
Fortunately!! because I got really mad when my Disney movie collection was useless because it was in VHS format and there is no more support to that format anymore, what do I have to do? Spend a huge amount of money (again!) to have them in DVD? and then what? Blue-ray? Whatever format they invent to make more money? No, thanks. I pay for the content, no for the medium.
Change current market
So what is the balance between their and our benefit? what can they do? EVOLVE! Like everything on Earth!!
The smartest will be the first, and there we find the Swedish industry. After The Pirate Bay debate (that would fill several posts), it seems that Swedish are ready to lead the change of the audiovisual industry. I’m talking about Spotify and Voddler.
The first one is one of the best ideas since iPod. Through their program you can access to one of the biggest music collections of the world, even alternatives non-famous groups. There you can find information about them, all their discography available to listen online, related artist, you can make your own lists, and even connect it to Facebook so you are able to share your lists with all your friends, send them songs, follow their lists, and so on.
The price? Free if you want! Then you listen some advertisements (much less than on the radio) with the extra that if you’re interested on the advertisement, you have a link for more information. Well, fair enough. Other option is to pay $5/month to avoid them with some other extras. And finally, the best option, which is $10/month, no ads, higher quality, and with the advantage that you won’t need to be online to listen your lists, you can download them even to your smartphone and listen them wherever you want, isn’t that just GREAT?
With Voddler we can watch movies and documentaries. Most of them are free, and by the way, also an interesting platform for new directors. But, wait a minute… what if I want a blockbuster? so you rent it for about $3. Great image quality and you don’t need to move yourself from your lovely computer. Good quality, fast, and cheap (even free), who needs more? Oh! I forgot it! It’s completely legal!! (Even if some of you wouldn’t mind it wouldn’t be)
OK, OK, but…where is the trick? (there is always a ‘but’). They pay for the licenses so they give part of the benefits to the authors, which means that they have to deal with every country industry for the licenses to be able to operate there. At this time they’re working in several countries in Europe (Sweden, Finland, Norway, UK, Spain, the Netherlands, …) and trying to expand to the rest all the world. All I can tell them is: GREAT JOB AND GOOD LUCK!
And maybe a “please come to Canada!” 
