Peenie Wallie

Though well-intentioned, I'm sure, he appears to have fallen into the well worn WIPO thought trap of "If we(WIPO) weren't standing here robbing you blind, then the artists would stop performing and your ears and eyes would cease to function."

Remarkably, many sheeple seem to accept this hyperbole as fact. They claim that their goal is to stop piracy, but in fact, their true goal is to stop independent production and distribution.

I mentioned perviously that "People will write stories and produce music for free", which is demonstrably true. There are millions of starving artists out there; actors, musicians, painters, who are waiting tables, and willing to work for nothing or next to nothing, because they love to practice their art.

Craig says he'd like to get paid, but but then flips around and proves my point when he says he's willing to work for free. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I think it's great. I'm sure his motives are partially altuistic, but partly because he likes making movies, wants the recogntion, and hopes to make money in the long run. These are common goals of many artists. For every band like Cold Play, there are a thousand bands that would love to be in the spotlight, would sell their records for next to nothing, just for the chance to be heard. The distribution channels, however, have shut them out. So, therefore, the distribution channels are innefficient, and the new technology will allow the artists to route around them. Plain and simple. Craig appears to realize this as well.

The reality is that the money is not being made by the artists anyway. The artists are victims, with negligible earnings, when compared to the industry titans that produce and distribute their songs. So, if you took the middle men out, which is what the internet allows us to do, then the artists could sell their songs for roughly a tenth of the current costs, and stil make a profit. So, songs that cost a dollar would cost a dime. In the end, it would be more trouble to try to find a pirated copy on Kazaa, Morphues, and BitTorrent than it would be to go and download a song for a dime.

So, in the end, the fans would get a more diverse range of media for a lower price, the artists would make more money than they do now, and the middlemen would have mounds of ants picking their bones clean in the sun. Everyone wins!

However, the problem is that people have a hard time thinking outside of the current paradigm. Craig stumbles when he argues that, if more movies are produced, then "Someone has to make the choices of what we'll see because the information is too much of an overload."

Wrong! This is a myopic view of what will happen as the paradigm changes. What will happen is this. New distribtuion channels will form, which will facilitate getting the movies people want to see in front of their eyes. If the current online movie offerings like iFilm and AtomFilms aren't efficient, then they'll evolve, or they'll be replaced by online movies sites that are more efficient. We don't need some autocrat telling us which movies we can watch. We need a mechanism that allows the better movies to rise to the top of the short film charts (this can be done with ratings, hit counters, etc.)

In the final logic flaw of his post, Craig states:

"I made it and it's my property. If piracy causes me to make less money, then that's stealing."

The problem with this statement is that, with the rise of the internet, it makes it practically impossible to retain ownership of digital property rights. It's too easy to copy. So, although he feels like people are stealing from him, they're only stealing if they don't pay, and they will pay if he doesn't charge too much. It goes like this.

Let's say you take all of your money and set it in a big pile on the sidewalk in front of your home, in plain view of anyone walking by. Obviously, people are going to try to steal it. If you go to the police to report all of your money was stolen, what's the first thing the police are going to ask you? "Why was your money laying on the sidewalk?"

Let's say you come up with a machine that produces oxygen, and then you turn it on and it starts pumping oxygen into the air. Now, you walk around and tell the police to arrest everyone that's breathing, because they're stealing your oxygen.

This is pretty close to what you're doing. I know, you'll say it's not, but the truth is that it's very close. The reality is that people will pirate anything that is produced. That's reality. You need to come to grips with reality, and stop living in denial. Now, if you want to make money, then bypass the normal distribution channels, market yourself, and charge a tenth what anyone else is charging, and I guarantee you that you'll make more money than you ever would have working for some big media conglomerate. You'll never get rich working for someone else, but you can make as much money as you want working for yourself. Put you movies on a website, use product placement and web site ads to generate revenue, and, if you have any talent, then you'll make more money than you know what to do with.