A while back, Lily Allen made public anti-piracy statements, and basically everyone told her to shut up, and she did. Here's an article attacking her for daring to suggest people should pay for things that don't belong to them. Inevitably the accusation levelled at her is hypocrisy, and she wasn't smart enough to give a nuanced argument and cover her big pop-star arse. Which is a shame.
Home-taping did not kill music. File-sharing easily could.
Let us say that home-taping was like a fox stealing chickens from a farmer. You may or may not have sympathy with the farmer, depending on whether you have any farm experience. It's much easier to have sympathy with the fox, who only wants a chicken or two to fill his belly (if home-taping can be compared with filling one's belly). Fine. It's true. I always did have sympathy with the fox.
File-sharing, it seems to me, is more like a swarm of locusts. The swarm descends. The crops are decimated. Nothing left for anybody. We may not be seeing the full effects of this now, but give it a few years and people will be wondering why there are no more decent independent film-makers, publishers, record labels, why there is no thriving scene for any of these media. I hope very much I am wrong, and I will be happy enough in such a case for people to tell me every day, "You were wrong about that." But supposing I am right, the answer to the question why will be, "Because we – you and I – by somehow managing to think that the selfishness of not paying for what we want is a virtue, have destroyed them."
I know that these views are anything but popular at present, and will be drowned out with cries of, "Counter-revolutionary!", or the equivalent. They will not yet be heard – they will not be given a hearing. Nonetheless, I believe them to be true. I believe that something has gone very wrong with our popular culture, symptomatic, no doubt, of a wider malaise. It is tempting to say that it is karma, and why not? But if so, the precise meaning of that karma – the reasons why we got here – might take a little while to unravel, if we ever truly understand them at all.
I do not identify politically with either left or right. I spoke to a writer of my acquaintance who I know (among other reasons because he has said so) to lean more than averagely far to the left, and I asked him for his thoughts on piracy. He said, "Well, we none of us expect to make a lot of money in the writing game, but there is such a thing as the worker's right. He has the right to be rewarded for the product of his labour."
In fact, this is precisely the concept behind 'fair trade', or part of the concept – that the original producers are fairly rewarded for their work. In short, while many who support the idea of piracy use left-wing rhetoric, what they are supporting is an abuse of worker's rights.
Recently I came across a file-sharing site on which one of the administrators signed off a message with the slogan, "Sharing is caring." If I may talk about my personal feelings here – I felt physically sick. Really? And what exactly do these sites care about? It can't be intellectual honesty, since they base their arguments on what is cool rather than what is consistent. It can't be creativity, since they appear to believe it is more virtuous to steal than to produce. It can't be the rights of workers, since, as we see, that's precisely what they are violating. Many of these sites even have 'donate' buttons. The implication – don't give money to those who produced the files we're sharing, give it to us, the Robin Hoods, who stole it from the fascists.
There can be few greater indictments of the vacuousness to which we have descended than the emergence of the self-righteous thief. Any other kind of thief might be tolerable, even a bit loveable, but the one who thinks to steal is ipso facto to be a hero – what can one say about that? They are people with nothing to offer the world except what they've stolen from others, and they present themselves, therefore, as Robin Hoods. Their edifying slogan: "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine, too."
The years between now and my death in a world such as this suddenly look very, very long.
i remember once i saw this biography of madonna on tv with illustrations from my book. i had done these yoga asanas using my wife as a model and fixed them in a circle, each one. when they got to her yoga period, these line drawings drifted around on the screen. i have the rights to the artwork, as they could have found out from Doubleday & Company. but did anyone bother? Nobody thought of sending the artist a little tip so he might live as well as anyone else who works.so, what i guess i am doing is giving a case in agreement with your essay.
I never have understood the self-righteousness of the likes of the Piratpartiet. These groups do seem to be vaguely affiliated with Libertarianism, or Neoliberalism, however, so their ideas are bound to be underpinned by some sort of crackpot, Randian economic screed.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan: i have the rights to the artwork, as they could have found out from Doubleday & Company. but did anyone bother? Nobody thought of sending the artist a little tip so he might live as well as anyone else who works.Having had some experience with business now, I can say that this is really bad form on their part. I know what might be called ‘small-time’ self-employed people who are extremely conscientious about this kind of thing – you’d have thought a TV station could have done better. Originally posted by I_ArtMan:so, what i guess i am doing is giving a case in agreement with your essay.Thank you.Originally posted by lesoldatperdu:I never have understood the self-righteousness of the likes of the Piratpartiet. These groups do seem to be vaguely affiliated with Libertarianism, or Neoliberalism, however, so their ideas are bound to be underpinned by some sort of crackpot, Randian economic screed.This is apparently part of their constitution:The Pirate Party believes that people with an access to free communication, culture and knowledge grow, feel better and create a more fun and humane society for everyone to live in. We see the modern information technology opening up possibilities for people to take action for their own lives and participate in affecting the development of society. We see how a freer flow of information enable thoughts, cultural creation and economy to grow.I know very little about them, but I didn’t really understand why they got so much unquestioning public support during the whole Pirate Bay incident. They seem to make some distinction between commercial and non-commercial file-sharing, and want to decriminalise the latter. This, apparently, means that copyright would only mean you’re not allowed to sell what you’ve stolen. You can give it away. What about the sites with the donate buttons, I wonder? Is that commercial or non-commercial? I don’t really see that file-sharing is doing much for culture at all. What, exactly, is free in this world? No one demands that people give their labour to the health service for nothing, or to any other service or industry, except – now – the creative and information industries. So, in that sense, I am certainly against Piratpartiet. A library – for instance – which promotes the ‘free’ spread of culture and information, is not actually free. It needs to be paid for, by tax, by charity – by some means. If it’s not paid for, it simply ceases to exist, as we see with so many of our libraries being closed down now.
Thinking about it, the prevalence of ‘donate’ buttons on the file-sharing sites, even if we agreed with Piratpartiet in the first place, is pretty strong evidence that they were basically wrong about being able to divide file sharing into the malign (commercial) and the benign (non-commercial). There’s an ingrained, and apparently subconscious contempt for the creator in the whole culture of file-sharing, which is why they expect to be rewarded for stealing (donate buttons) though they believe the originators should not be rewarded. The more I think about it, the more Piratpartiet seem like the kind of poseurs who don’t even understand their own agenda.
Anonymous writes:Interestingly in some Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries one is legally permitting to make on back up copy of a text or (I think) music file and out it up online for others wanting a ‘back-up’ to use. Thus most stuff is up on 4Shared or Scribd within days of release. I wonder what effect this has on publishing industry and the mentality of writers in such countries? P.S. Will write soon – am exemplifying the entry title atm.
Intriguing blog! I hope it will help many people!
Originally posted by anonymous:Interestingly in some Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries one is legally permitting to make on back up copy of a text or (I think) music file and out it up online for others wanting a ‘back-up’ to use.I’m not sure I understand this. Does it just mean that file-sharing is called ‘making a back-up’, or are there limits on it that make it different to other forms of file-sharing?Originally posted by anonymous:P.S. Will write soon – am exemplifying the entry title atm. Let me know, when you do write, that it was you who left this comment, as at the moment I don’t know who it is, and I do wonder about these things.Originally posted by schillertranslations:Intriguing blog! I hope it will help many people!Thank you for reading and commenting. I strive to write things that aren’t complete gibberish, but it’s not as easy as it might seem.
Daniel writes:’I’m not sure I understand this.’Sorry, will try to clarify. One is legally allowed to make a backup and put it online on file sharing websites. One is also legally able to download such ‘back-ups’ as long one has purchased the original. Of course since there is no way of knowing whether the downloader has the original it amounts to be people being able to upload and download with near impunity. ‘…as at the moment I don’t know who it is,..’ Just imagine I’d included a reference to Plato or a dig at Nick Land in that above paragraph.
Ah okay. Thanks.
This is not something about which I know. I’m old fashioned enough to buy CDs, if I want recorded music, and paper and ink copies, if I want books. I don’t download at all (legally or illegally). The business doesn’t belong in a world in which I feel comfortable. But reading this, I wonder whether some of the rot started as long ago as the 1960s. I recall people who stole from shops referring to the act as “liberating” something. (For example, “I liberated some cheese.”) The implication was that stealing was a blow against ‘the system’… which is what seems implied by the attitude of the websites about which you’re posting here. In fact, of course, stealing from shops does not damage the wealthy people who own large retail chains. Such retailers pass the cost of any theft on to those who pay for the merchandise. So the people at the bottom suffer — which is always the case, and why they are at the bottom. Theft does damage smaller, struggling, retailers. In the case of illegal downloads, I assume that the victims are the struggling creators of the pirated work. Personally, I don’t steal because I don’t want to be a thief. It’s pretty well as simple as that. In my youth, I read somewhere (I forget where) that goodness was its own reward, wickedness its own punishment. At the time, I thought that this was nonsense. With a measure of maturity, I see that it is so.
Pet Jeffery writes:This is not something about which I know. I’m old fashioned enough to buy CDs, if I want recorded music, and paper and ink copies, if I want books. I don’t download at all(legally or illegally). The business doesn’t belong in a world in which I feel comfortable.But reading this, I wonder whether some of the rot started as long ago as the 1960s. I recall people who stole from shops referring to the act as “liberating” something. (For example, “I liberated some cheese.”) The implication was that stealing was a blow against ‘the system’… which is what seems implied by the attitude of the websites about which you’re posting here.In fact, of course, stealing from shops does not damage the wealthy people who own large retail chains. Such retailers pass the cost of any theft on to those who pay for the merchandise. So the people at the bottom suffer — which is always the case, and why they are at the bottom.Theft does damage smaller, struggling, retailers. In the case of illegal downloads, I assume that the victims are the struggling creators of the pirated work.Personally, I don’t steal because I don’t want to be a thief. It’s pretty well as simple as that. In my youth, I read somewhere (I forget where) that goodness was its own reward, wickedness its own punishment. At the time, I thought that this was nonsense. With a measure of maturity, I see that it is so.
This is precisely the situation. Yes.
This seems appropriate here:http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/does-piracy-hurt-digital-content-sales-yes/
The locust metaphor is a good one. Digital piracy, at least, used to be something that was mostly restricted to a minority of fanatical nerd collectors, if only because one had to be somewhat proficient with computers to be able to do it. Of course, now, fiddling with computers in a darkened room is socially acceptable, and the masses partake casually.
Originally posted by lesoldatperdu:Of course, now, fiddling with computers in a darkened room is socially acceptable, and the masses partake casually.Yes, quite true. It seems to me that people these days (I don’t know if the past was different) never seem to realise that they’re being told what to do. They think they’re doing it because it’s cool.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:One point your argument misses is that it is not the creator to whom monies are “due”, but the “owner” of the “rights”. Although this may be, and often (but not always) is, originally the creator of the work in question, the “rights” are often “acquired” by others, sometimes for a quite paltry sum. Judging by your passion, and knowing that you are yourself a (struggling?) writer, I guess that you retain some financial interest in your own creations? However, everyone’s heard of, eg, songwriters who got fifty quid for a hit that made millions for others. Where does that leave your idea of fair recompense for the worker? Then again, what even of the writers of hits who DO retain their copyrights? Pete Townshend spoke out against the downloaders a couple of years ago, saying that to him it was no different from someone stealing his son’s new bike from the garage, producing a deluge of abuse from the “community” by way of response. Of course, this analogy doesn’t hold water any better than your “locusts”: if I download a copy of My Generation, nothing has gone (unlike the bike or the ravaged crops), and perhaps I wouldn’t have got it anyway if I’d had to pay for it? And really, how much money does he need to provide fair recompense for writing it?His solution was to make it “someone else’s problem” by selling his rights to a publishing company. Before he did that, he gave us the benefit of the clearly considerable amount of thinking he had done on the whole question of remuneration for creatives in his inaugural John Peel Lecture*.Would you, I wonder, prefer an arrangement with your publisher where you were employed at a reasonable wage to write, which you received however many (or few) copies of your books were sold. Or pirated?*www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/Nov/01/Pete-Townshend-John-peel-lecture
Originally posted by anonymous:Where does that leave your idea of fair recompense for the worker?Naturally, I don’t support the exploitation of the artist, and I don’t see how saying “well, the owner of the copyright often rips off the artist, so that makes piracy okay” is any kind of argument. If you value something, why would it be unreasonable to pay for it? If you don’t value it, why do you want it?The computer’s freezing – will have to come back later.
If I’m slow to respond, please bear with me – work levels high, and I am also trying to fill in tax return on time.I just want to make a few basic points in reply. Originally posted by anonymous:One point your argument misses is that it is not the creator to whom monies are “due”, but the “owner” of the “rights”. Although this may be, and often (but not always) is, originally the creator of the work in question, the “rights” are often “acquired” by others, sometimes for a quite paltry sum. Judging by your passion, and knowing that you are yourself a (struggling?) writer, I guess that you retain some financial interest in your own creations? However, everyone’s heard of, eg, songwriters who got fifty quid for a hit that made millions for others. Where does that leave your idea of fair recompense for the worker?Well, let’s try another analogy. You go to a restaurant. You hear the boss doesn’t pay his staff well, and doesn’t treat them well, either. You find the service good and the meal excellent. On balance, however, you decide to sneak out without paying because, after all, the boss is a miserly fascist.Do you suppose the waiting and cooking staff will appreciate this? One or two instances of this, of course, doesn’t make much difference (though it will make some), but if everyone decides to do this, the restaurant will go out of business. Will the people who were employed there thanks the customers who didn’t pay? Does this make the world a better place? Well, let us suppose that some of the staff are grateful to be released from their bondage – they still need work, so they apply to other restaurants. However, by now, diners have got so much into the habit of not paying, that they don’t pay wherever they go, just in case the restaurant owner happens to be a bastard. It would be terrible, after all, if they missed a chance to strike a blow for freedom. You can see where this is leading of course, which is, it strikes me, exactly where the current file-sharing culture is leading with regard to the creative industries.The idea that someone other than the creator owning the rights necessarily invalidates the rights is also unfounded. Let me give one example:http://www.gosh.org/gen/peterpan/history/peter-pan-and-the-hospital/?__utma=1.389788924.1358683123.1358683123.1358683123.1&__utmb=1.1.10.1358683123&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1358683123.1.1.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=%28not%20provided%29&__utmv=-&__utmk=9387701Please excuse the long, messy link. I hope it works. Basically, that’s on the website of Great Ormond Street Hospital, explaining that JM Barrie gifted them the rights to Peter Pan. Since then the hospital has received royalties every time a production of the play is put on, as well as from the sale of Peter Pan books and other products. I suppose, in this case, whenever a file of Peter Pan is shared on the internet that is also a case of “sharing is caring”. You know, we’ve taken all those fascist children at the hospital out of the loop. Well done for us. I wonder how many of these “sharing is caring” file-sharers would be willing to make a donation to charity for everything they download.But that’s, in a way, beside the point. If there is such a thing as a human right, surely one of the primary rights is to be able to make a living. You make some salient points about the original information not disappearing when it is stolen, and about the difficulty of knowing what’s fair recompense. If I get time, I’ll address these later.Thanks.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:I’m not anonymous, I’m Emzi Zimiziyu, who is with some difficulty using 3G on a teeny-tiny phone to communicate with you; and I’m sorry to distract you from your tax-return. Have you thought of binning it, or are you at one with the govt taking a piece of you?
Anonymous writes:”well, the owner of the copyright often rips off the artist, so that makes piracy okay”I didn’t say that, did I? And I didn’t come on to defend piracy, only to add another dimension to the subject. As Pete Townshend realized, you’re never going to stop people grabbing “free stuff”, and you’re not going to uninvent this digital world (some of us) find ourselves in. The rights of the author are a relatively new concept, considering how long people have been telling stories, drawing pictures, composing music and so on, and their invention was not only a product of the ease of copying made possible by the printing press, but also the (continuing, accelerating) monetisation of every aspect of human society.”I own what I think” is not an axiom but a proposition put by a society obsessed with ownership. Native Americans were astonished by the white man’s idea that he could “own” land.In 1947, Michail Kalashnikov designed the submachine gun that bears his name, better known now as the AK47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova, 1947 model), the most widely replicated weapon in existence and first choice of freedom-fighters everywhere. I think it’s right to say that, although he was awarded many honours by the Soviet state and is recognized as the creator of the weapon, he never received any remuneration for it except his salary. He certainly doesn’t get a royalty on every copy made.He has also written poetry and I bet he wishes it had spread as widely as his weapons!
Fair enough.I understand that copyright is of ‘local interest’ – it depends on the context of era and culture. If our society were not capitalist, I might be arguing for creativity to be valued in a different way. (If I felt it were not being valued.) I’ll try and respond to the other points I mentioned later.
Hello Emzi.At one with the government? No, perhaps not. However, strange as it may seem, I do acknowledge some of the privileges of which I’ve been a beneficiary in this country (the UK). But yes, I have felt like binning the tax return any number of times. I think I mentioned above that I don’t identify either with the left or the right politically. In smaller societies, it seems, it was easier for each member to be valued without too much of a sense of friction, as, apparently, here:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&In larger, more alienated ones, sometimes it’s hard to know whether one wants the government to be hands off or hands on. But if we are a society, why not recognise it as such (which would include the paying of taxes)? No, I don’t really trust the guvnors to spend them on the right things, and I’m not sure people are taxed fairly either. But I do think the public services we’ve enjoyed in this country are generally a good thing, and it does seem that, with recent severe cuts, we’re going backwards.I hope that doesn’t sound too sententious. I’m a little tired to be effervescent at present.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:Interesting link. Thanks for that, Quentin. The line I felt impelled to snap up into my clipboard was” Your community makes sure you’ell always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too.” You have a good point about small communities -v- large, and perhaps the www is the largest of all now!The fundamental problem with capitalist society is that it allows, even encourages us to, the acquisition of wealth. Everything those islanders did, it seems, was directed solely at providing for their needs. In our world people may spend an immense amount of energy (and others, perhaps, very little) acquiring untold wealth by producing, and stimulating desire for, things that are unnecessary or actually bad for us. How many vile crimes, up to and including murder, have been committed to acquire a pair of trainers with a certain logo? THOSE AREN’T EVEN PROPER SHOES!I’m glad you didn’t mention “the taxpayer”, a term which always gets my goat. You know: the taxpayer who is being encouraged to resent helping to keep me in bed with my blinds drawn while he goes off to his miserable minimum wage slavery (which some labour agency is handsomely rewarded for). Presumably that’s the same “taxpayer” who visits death from the air upon babies in their own homes in far-off lands.
I noticed that line, too. More later,Quentin.
Okay, so I’ve now read the Pete Townshend thing – skimmed it a bit, as I’m meant to be working.The two points about fair recompense and the music (or text or whatever) still being there if the information is stolen, are related. I actually don’t have a lot of time, but I’ll try and give some response now.I think the main question is what kind of world we want to live in. Personally, I want to live in a world where creativity is valued, because a world without it is a world of purposeless drudgery. That means supporting those who create. But one of the greatest difficulties is choosing which to support. Subjectivity plays a large part in these things, and in that sense art has always been a wild west (perhaps one reason why people react with hostility to anti-piracy sentiments). Therefore, state-funded art has a somewhat stodgy sound to it, and people are likely to distrust it. This leaves charity (or the patron system, which can also be seen as elitist), or capitalism. We know of the drawbacks of capitalism. Junk food sells, and so does junk art. Nonetheless, at least there is a known and tried method here for getting support for some artists, and, occasionally, even some pretty left-field ones. And the principle in this case is simple – if you want something, pay for it. To do a spin-off from the restaurant analogy – I hate MacDonalds. I never go to MacDonalds, but if I did, I would pay for whatever I ate there, even though ‘they don’t need the money’. I chose to eat there – I’ll pay.But you can ‘vote with your money’ by not eating at MacDonalds. You could vote with your money by buying a copy of a book you thought added something valuable to the world.Is there such a thing as too much money for one person to have? I don’t personally have an objection to some restraints on the upper limit of what people earn, but it’s basically debatable, I suppose.In brief – if you don’t want a world overrun with crap, support the stuff that’s not crap. In our current capitalist society, supporting something usually means (and at some point, if the support is to be significant, inevitably means) financial support. As for the thing still being there once it’s stolen – I take it that’s the problem with my locust analogy too – well, yes, but if creative people are not supported, it is far less likely that we will have future harvests of creativity.Anyway, I thought I’d address those points as promised.Ta.
Anonymous writes:Ok, Quentin, thanks for taking the time to respond. I’ve got plenty more I could say, but I’ve really got no agenda to push and we’ve both got other things to be doing (plus we’re not getting paid for this, haha!), so as the unbidden guest here I’ll leave you the last blast and bow out with this (totally hypothetical and purely rhetorical) scenario to ponder:Suppose someone has a list of bootleg stuff he wants to download, including one of your published books, but due to constraints on,say, time or data he can’t get the lot. Is it better if he strikes out your book in the edit, or downloads it and reads it?
Okay, I’ll answer that question later. Have to have dinner.
It is an interesting question and, of course, I see your point. And it’s not as if I’ve never given stuff away. Perhaps I can best begin to answer in this way. This is from the lecture to which you posted the link:I once suggested on a forum that people who download my music without paying for it may as well come and steal my son’s bike while they’re at it. One woman was so incensed that she tried to argue that she was still supporting me as an artist by ‘sharing’ (my parentheses) music with others who would eventually filter down some cash in some form or other to me, that would pay for my son’s bike – and she was not, in any sense, a thief or a criminal. I think she was in a kind of denial. Cutting the body to fit the cloth rather than the correct way around.I think that he’s right to say that she’s in denial, in the following way: Her rationale relies on the idea that other people will be more ‘moral’ (to use a slightly heavy word) than she is; she is expecting others to compensate for her (lack of) morality. However, if everyone uses her rationale, then, of course, no one will compensate. This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer runs for some political office on a slogan like, “Why can’t someone else do it?” Of course, it does seem heavy-handed (or something) to want to squeeze money out of every single exposure your creation gets to another human consciousness, but what really concerns me is the spirit (rather than the letter) of copyright. Interpreting that spirit in a positive way, I’d say that it indicates respect for the fact that there is an individual who took the time and effort to create something that, very likely, no one else could. As I said in my original post, I don’t have a problem with home taping. I am actually beginning to have one, but this is due to changed circumstances in the world, and I think that it is healthy to recognise grey areas that can be endlessly quibbled over.The difference, for me, is one of spirit, and it is this:When I ‘were a lad’ although there was plenty of home-taping going on, I never heard anyone express disgust at the very idea of paying for something. Never. If you got something free, that was a bonus. If not, it was entirely natural to pay. You couldn’t always pay, because you didn’t always have the money, but you loved (all right, not always) Manowar, or whoever it was, enough that you’d get the vinyl/cassette/CD once you’d saved up enough pocket money. There does seem to be a change of spirit now. To me, it feels mean-spirited, and actually incomprehensible. People profess to love a band (for instance), but spit in your eye at the suggestion of supporting them. How does that add up? Of course, as many have observed, putting a more supportive spirit for artists into the letter of the law without being draconian, or even just in a way that is practical, is very difficult. But it would be much easier if the supportive spirit was there in the first place.In cases where the supportive spirit is lacking, I do actually wonder what the people get out of the music/text/whatever it is. A part of me feels that if a work of art can be said to live and grow in those who appreciate it, then it can also be negated, despoiled in some way, by those who merely ransack it. But perhaps that last point is a bit too ghostly and esoteric.I am not desperate for readers, though perhaps I should be. Therefore, I’m not going to say, “He [your hypothetical bootleg downloader] must, by all means, read my work.” You know, maybe he’d get more out of some of the other stuff. But if he read my stuff and got something out of it – genuinely got something out of it – of course I’d feel pleased, whether it had been paid for or not. I realise this still hasn’t given a specific and definite answer to your question. Therefore, in the spirit of your hypothetical conundrum I’m going improvise, on the spot, a rule of thumb test for whether he should dowload my book. First, he should read this blog post to which these comments are attached. If he then thinks, “Fuck off, Grandad”, or whatever, and feels, “I’m not interested in what a fascist like you has to say, so I’m going to download your book out of spite, because you don’t want me to” – in that case, I would say, no, he shouldn’t download it. If he reads the blogpost and thinks anything like:a) I don’t agree, but anyway, I respect his opinion.b) I agree.c) Hmmm. This has given me food for thought.Well, then, he should use his own judgement as to whether he downloads the book or not, and if he does, I hope he enjoys it.I hope that answer is not too woolly.I may write a bit more here later because I’ve had a few thoughts that I don’t have time to set down at the moment.
Originally posted by anonymous:Btw, the question was, “is it better?”, not “should he?”You’ll have to explain the distinction if you want a clearer answer, then. Better for whom or what?Originally posted by anonymous:but it does seem mean-spirited to begrudge him a digital encoding of your never-to-be-read words!Well, if you’ve read everything I’ve written and concluded that it’s mean-spirited, there’s not much I can say. I attempted to give a provisional answer to a hypothetical question without dodging.Originally posted by anonymous:you can tell if it’s art, because they will keep doing it even if they don’t get paid”.How long do you think I’ve been writing? How much do you think I’ve been paid? I’d be willing to bet that most of the people outraged at the idea of paying for things have more money than I do.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:PS Doesn’t myopera like paragraphs, or am I doing something wrong? My writing, as actually submitted, has not really been the monoliths presented! Also, where’s the “quote” button referred to? Emzi.
Originally posted by anonymous: love the Simpsons, and I for one, (if that way inclined) would definitely download every episode before I turned to the (as yet) unfamiliar works of QSC!Thanks, I needed that.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:A problem you have here is that a cynic, knowing that you wrote books for monetary gain, might remark about you (or Pete Townshend for that matter), “well he would say that, wouldn’t he?”; and ditto about PT’s nemesis, Download Girl.Your “spiteful downloader” seems to me unlikely to step out of the realm of the imagination into the real world anytime soon, but it does seem mean-spirited to begrudge him a digital encoding of your never-to-be-read words!Btw, the question was, “is it better?”, not “should he?”I read somewhere that someone once said, “you can tell if it’s art, because they will keep doing it even if they don’t get paid”. And of course, someone else, “Art for art’s sake, money for gutsache”.But hey, I don’t know if you or anyone else ever said your books were “art”?Thanks for the Homer line; don’t think I’ve seen that one. I love the Simpsons, and I for one, (if that way inclined) would definitely download every episode before I turned to the (as yet) unfamiliar works of QSC!Sorry (I think) to hear you’re going offline. This* New York Times review of Filter Bubble raises some interesting criticisms, but I’m not sure if they would settle your qualms.* http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/books/review/book-review-the-filter-bubble-by-eli-pariser.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Originally posted by anonymous:Emzi Zimiziyu writes:PS Doesn’t myopera like paragraphs, or am I doing something wrong? My writing, as actually submitted, has not really been the monoliths presented! Also, where’s the “quote” button referred to? Emzi.Yes, sorry about this – it’s a recurring problem with Opera. I don’t know why.Thanks for the review of The Filter Bubble, actually the book deals with other things apart from whether we are all being blinkered by algorithms – things not mentioned in the review. But it is curious, as the review says (if true), that the author doesn’t mention that you can turn off the filters in seconds. I’ll have to look into it. Anyway, in case I don’t hear from you again, long may you live in a world where you are able to enjoy The Simpsons.
Emzi Zimiziyu writes:Now I’m feeling guilty because you are obviously at a low, and perhaps feeling the lack of an income stream to support you, so my antagonistic observations are the opposite of helpful to you right now, even though it’s enjoyable for me, conversing with someone who clearly thinks hard about things.I will will leave a contact point where you can find it. Please remember my name, and repeat it if you ever mention my words for any reason.
Hello Emzi.I appreciate it. I do actually have replies to a lot of the points you’ve raised, but maybe it would not be good form to post them now. In brief, there are counters to the points put forward on:Vested interestsMean-spiritednessAnd also, I believe I see how I have given a misleading answer to your hypothetical question. I’ll at least explain a little of that: I didn’t mean to imply that my personal feelings on my work being downloaded should be universalised principles. For instance, if someone, to that question, had simply answered, “I don’t want anyone downloading bootlegs of my work at all”, I don’t have a problem with that. One real life example: Prince (the artist fomerly known as, etc.) I believe ‘aggressively’ intervenes against unofficial postings of his music on the internet. Fine by me. We can believe it’s stingy if we want, but I think it’s important to recognise he is entirely within his right to do this.One last thing I intended to write about. This:http://www.amazon.co.uk/People-Deer-Death-Farley-Mowat/dp/0786714786Farley Mowat describes, in that book, the downfall of the Ihalmiuts, after contact with Western (that sounds odd, since they came from the east) traders. With white men, basically. They gained new technology in the form of rifles. They used the same hunting habits as before, but with more powerful technology, and decimated their food supply. I believe that new technology and old habits that don’t fit that new technology are at least part of the problem that I see (others may not see it as a problem). I also believe I see new attitudes, which I believe are destructive. It may be very undiplomatic of me not to divide the former phenomenon from the latter. I will certainly remember your name, and give credit where it is due, though you should feel free to comment again before I lock this blog for comments, which I suppose will be on Monday or Tuesday.