After reading a diatribe about my TEDx Talk on piracy written
by Hollywood veteran David Newhoff, I felt the need to clarify a few
misunderstandings and examine the prejudices that some Hollywood folks
seem to have against social scientists interested in piracy.
Dear David Newhoff,
First of all, thanks for your interest. I skimmed through your blog and noticed that you were repeatedly voicing your fears that the "internet culture" is threatening creativity and endangering the professional careers of musicians and film makers like you. Among other things, you seem to dislike (or be very suspicious of) such organizations as Pandora, Netflix, Spotify, Google, 4Chan, TED, and of such people as Cory Doctorow or Lawrence Lessig (by contrast, you seem quite OK with the existence of the Prism surveillance program).

In any case, I just would like to emphasize a business reality that you may be overlooking. According to the MPAA, the largest audience for movies in the US is the 15-25 y.o. age category. Do you know what kind of stuff people between 15 and 25 y.o typically like A LOT? Stuff like Pandora, Netflix, Spotify, Google, 4Chan, and TED. Now, it doesn't take an MBA degree to understand that people who hate everything that their primary customer group really enjoys will have a hard time understanding what these customers really want in order to sell them cultural goods. But you're probably right: when the product doesn't sell, it must be the customer's fault. So let's blame the customers eh! (whom you refer to as 'middle-class punks', 'frat boy style narcissists', 'guinea pigs' or 'puppets', among others). And hey, occasionally, let's sue the customers too, just to remind them who's in charge.
You also seem to be working under the implicit assumption that any film maker or musician has the right to a decent income, and that it is the government's role to design and enforce a legal framework to make this happen. To be honest, I wish we lived in such a world, but the truth is, supply and demand do not always meet, some products are better than others, and not everyone can always be successful - especially not in such high-risk, fast-changing industries as film or music making. To make things even more difficult, there are millions of folks out there who make music or films not to make money but just because they enjoy it (and mobile phone cameras and services like YouTube have made that very easy and virtually costless). In this respect, music and film making are quite different from, say, paper manufacturing (I cannot recall having any high school classmates that were manufacturing paper for fun in their free time).
Now, I took a few minutes to write this because I believe you might
have misunderstood a thing or two about the TEDx talk I gave. First, it cannot
be more wrong that I “spend sixteen minutes proving one thing: that piracy is the wrong word for mass,
digital copyright infringement.” In fact, I explain quite the opposite: the
talk proposes a definition of piracy, and that definition pretty much covers phenomena
such as “mass, digital copyright infringement”, which is precisely why I use
Megaupload as an example in the talk (or perhaps you were sleeping when I did, at 13’44’’,
cf. also the big
screen behind me that says “pirate organizations – Megaupload”). Unlike
you, however, I do not formulate moral judgments about piracy because
this is not my purpose (plus I do not have vested interests in the
business). Rather, I try to conceptualize the certain aspects of the
debate in order to shed new light on the pirate phenomenon.
You imply that you know a lot about the history of piracy – good
for you. For instance, you seem pretty sure that piracy is all about “romance”
and “charming rebelliousness”. Did you
know that historically, pirates were the first outlaws to be declared enemies of all humanity, and that piracy
inspired the notion of crime against
humanity? There's nothing “charming” about this.
In fact, my favorite part in your learned exposé is the following: “I say a Somali pirate, as dangerous a criminal as he may be, is arguably more deserving of our sympathy than a torrent site owner […] As a moral comparison, this is a no-brainer.” Are you aware that, unlike torrent site owners, Somali sea robbers ransom and kill people? (if not, you can still read this). I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be kidnapped by a torrent site owner.
Don’t worry, I am not easily offended. I even forgive your
slightly insulting tone, and I tolerate your disputable moral claims, according
to which ransom and murder constitute less of an issue than illegal
file-sharing. After all, my only purpose is “to foster dialogue not diatribe”,
as a wise man once noted (oh wait, that was David Newhoff!).
As a token of my good will, I would like to send you a free copy
of my book on the history of piracy. But I warn you: it has a lot of pages and
is written in small characters, so if you already find it difficult to not
massively misinterpret a 16-minute TEDx Talk, I’m not sure reading an entire
book is such a great idea. Anyway, think about it and let me know. I have the
copy ready to be mailed out to you at the address of your choice
(alternatively, you can download it from a torrent site, I promise not to sue
you).
I might be a dishonest joker, as you state in your very kind
commentary, but as you can see, I’m always open to discuss with people who
disagree with me – respectfully and with an open mind if they’re willing to do
the same. Clearly, we have very different views on what piracy is and how it affects the society we live in (check this recent Bloomberg article and this CS Monitor op-ed) - but really, it never hurts to keep an open mind.
Piratically yours,
Jean-Philippe
(and by the way, this is the correct spelling
of my name – in case you’re not sure, please copy-paste it in your future blog posts, it doesn’t infringe
on copyright)
NB: David Newhoff was kind enough to correct the typo a few days later, but maintains his blatant misinterpretation of the views expressed in the TED talk despite the above quotes. And he wasn't interested in reading the book either despite my kind offer. Well...whatever.
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