Buying into corporate PR
p2p news view / p2pnet: I first heard about Download Legal on p2pnet. The entire Download Legal site is a joke (well I was laughing anyway) and deserves to be ripped to shreds, so I’ll start with their “testimonial”:
“Sometime around age 14 I downloaded my first mp3. If I think about it I can remember hesitating…. I was paying, trading away moral clarity-the ability to say without reservation I am a moral person, someone who weighs the consequences of his actions, a good person.”
That’s as ar as I’m prepared to quote from it. The rest of it reads like a the story of a heroin junkie who found Jesus and the Almighty. Next is the “Why Legal” page which lists “The Effects of Piracy on Younger Individuals”. According to these guys, downloading:
“Threatens entry level jobs – Reducing software piracy by just 10 percentage points worldwide would generate 1.5 million jobs and add $400 billion to the world economy, according to a study released by the Business and Software Alliance and IDC.”
Ah! This would be the widely discredited fluff piece by the BSA and IDC. So that we’re clear, the study they cite is the one described as “presented in an exaggerated way…They [BSA and IDC] dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.”
Who would have thought that an industry trade organization would be economical with the truth in furthering their own aims? Shock! Horror! There’s also the fact that some of that pirated software is being used by people in poorer countries who could never afford it to begin with and who are now using it to earn a living for themselves, rather than starving to death or working for three cents an hour in a Nike sweatshop (or worse).
According to Download Legal, though, it’s the billion dollar multi-national software companies who are really, really hurting!
“Many unknowingly engage in illegal acts and face the consequences – The online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished by up to 3 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned up to 6 years. Individuals also may be held civilly liable, regardless of whether the activity is for profit, for actual damages or lost profits, or for statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringed copyright.”
This claim is just too weird to refute properly. I’m guessing those punishments are meeted out by some jurisdiction in the United States, but it would be nice to see which laws they’re talking about (so that I can remind myself why I will never live in the US). I was particularly taken by the muddled last sentence where “actual damages or lost profits” are inferred to be one and the same. They’re entirely different things: actual damages are found where someone is out of pocket in real dollar terms. Lost profit is where someone could have had a pocket with more cash in it than they actually do.
Drugs Are Bad. Downloading Is Stealing. Mission Accomplished. Dressing up empty slogans with empty figures only results in empty slogans with empty figures…and I still live in Australia so none of those “crimes” apply to me. Well, it won’t be an American judge passing sentence at least.
“Cost of legitimate copies increase – The street price will rise if most consumers switch to illegal copies. The resulting demand in the market for legal copies will decrease, thereby causing the manufacturer’s price to increase in order to partially offset the reduction in sales attributable to piracy.”
This section is a brilliant display of “logical fallacy”: all cats have four legs. My dog has four legs, therefor my dog is a cat. Err…
Now does anyone here think manufacturers who increase their prices during a glut in the market will stay in business for long? What actually happens in the scenario put forward by Download Legal is that the manufacturer lowers its prices to compete with the other sources of the product and sells shit-loads at a lower price to make up for the limited premium market. If there was a dramatic drop in the prices of DVDs, would you buy more of them? I would. My house would be filled with perfectly legal $2 DVDs.
What might also happen is that Hollywood will have to cut down on their stupendously big budget movies. Well, cut the costs anyway. This cost cutting may affect the poor, starving $20-million-per-movie stars. It may affect the five course on-set catering. It may even go as far as paying executives less than $15 million dollar a year or selling off the spare Lear jets.
“Stifle opportunities for aspiring artists – Successful projects pay for the ones that may not recover their costs. For instance, Usher and Coldplay are paying for the newer bands the label is gambling on. This situation exists for both music and movies. If this ability to finance riskier projects is lost, the diversity and choice of projects presented to consumers will decrease, with only projects that appear to be ’sure things’ receiving support.”
Yeah, we’re really head-over-heels for plastic, made-for-Top-Of-The-Pops “sure things”. These guys seem to forget that p2p takes all the packaging/handling/distribution cost and takes them down to ZERO.
Call me old fashioned, but I was always taught that reducing costs means things cost less. As in costs less to get an artist out there into the minds of the people with the cash. Less as in not having to ship a piece of plastic from Malaysia to the U.S. and drive it into the Walmart loading bay. That kind of less. Most musicians end up having to pay back the cost of their “development” to their record labels companies anyway, so the record company is essentially doing the same as the local bank does when it lends you half a million bucks to start a business like an ice cream parlour with six foot wide flat screen TVs.
This last point is complete rubbish, simply because it only gives the record company line. It mentions nothing about the independent artists who are now in direct competition with the incumbent record companies. Competition is good for the innovators, but bad for the incumbents. Real world economics suck if you’re an incumbent. Sorry guys, market forces and all that.
I really can’t remember reading anything that buys into the corporate PR line as much as Download Legal does. I mean, come on guys! You’re young! You’re supposed to be questioning the world around you, not simply accepting and promoting it! People tried doing that with organized religion and look where it ended up.
So in time honoured tradition, I blame the parents, while at the same time sending them my sympathies. And please also spare a thought for all the poor teachers out there thinking “I tried to help them discover the benefits of an independent mind. Where did I go wrong?”
Hey Download Legal, pass the Kool Aid.
Alex H, p2pnet – Sydney, Australia
[Alex is an operations manager for an ATM (automatic teller machine) supplier and he specialises in infrastructure development and maintenance, and logistics. He’s also an[other] active member of the Shareaza community who’s just started his own blog called Tech Loves Art where you’ll find past p2pnet posts, together with other goodies to come ; ]
February 13th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
That site is so one sided I suspect it is a corporate front. You would think after visiting there that there are no artists who support p2p. Probably the most dubious claim he makes is that p2p hurts new artists. That is the first time I have ever seen that claim, from what I have read everywhere else most big artists don’t like file sharing while most unsigned people like it as they are trying as hard as they can to get publicity. He conveniently does not mention the Arctic Monkeys.
February 14th, 2006 at 1:33 am
Thanks Alex. Interesting piece.
Not sure if “download legal” is even worth that much consideration though…
If you debunk something that is pure bunk, what are you left with?
February 14th, 2006 at 3:28 am
A website with no content, no clue, and no visitors i’d hope ;o)
February 16th, 2006 at 12:48 am
“Threatens entry level jobs – Reducing software piracy by just 10 percentage points worldwide would generate 1.5 million jobs and add $400 billion to the world economy, according to a study released by the Business and Software Alliance and IDC.”
The assumption is that the money is either
-diverted to the monopopiles and the cartels for their good use (cerate jobs) throught the purchase of lousy overpriced products
or
- is thrown down the tube or burned and no jobs are created.
Actually the logic is inverted. Money sent to the monopolies and the cartels, located who knows where, create few far fewer jobs than money spent locally on food and clothes and education because salaries in the latter industries are lower, on average and the jobs are closer to home (icing on the cake).
The “job creation” argument is pure bullshit.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
February 16th, 2006 at 2:20 am
i posted this comment on the other DownloadLegal story, but i’ll post it again, since it got buried in the archives. I apologize if you’ve already read this:
It’s an open secret that I have no patience for liars and idiots, and it looks like we’re dealing with both here. Everything associated with DownloadLegal.org reeks of the RIAA’s stench. The site and these “students” are obvious paid RIAA sock puppets. These poor miserable bastards. They’re either truly believe in the RIAA’s, or more likely, they’re opinion-less, spineless muppets who will happily taking the money in exchange for being the RIAA’s tape recorder.
from their press release:
“TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Feb. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ — Download Legal, a new nonpartisan student advocacy group, was unveiled today with the goal of providing students with a forum to discuss impending developments in the realm of intellectual property. Download Legal also hopes to educate students about illegal file-sharing and the impact that it has on emerging artists.”
who the hell “unveils” a student group? in my entire 4 years of college, i never had 1 student group unveil itself. You unveil a new car at an autoshow, where people wait in eager anticipation with oohs and aahs. It’s like the movies when the waiter in a fancy restaurant brings you a tray with a huge metal lid, and he sets it down in front of you and removes the lid, saying “Bon appetit”, revealing some absurdly big and mouthwatering chunk of meat. A person does not unveil crap!
went to the site. The website is not only crap, it is mammoth crap. Nice little forum they have there. By “nice”, I mean “not nice” and by “forum” I mean “total lack of existence of vehicles for dialogue”. Discussion? Heh! Now for my Yakov Smirnoff bit: In Communist Russia.. you don’t discuss music, music discusses you!
Where’s the discussion board? from their press release: “Students should be provided with an active voice in the intellectual property debate”. Ironic, ain’t it? No message boards, “reader’s voices” or anything. Have they got something to hide? Afraid people will flood the site with porn link, flames, and anti-RIAA anger? I’m going to write an email to them right now, and so should all of you, if you care about stopping the RIAA’s lies. yes, students need a voice, and that voice is “STFU RIAA” and “FOAD!”
It can’t be any more obvious that this site is just more RIAA propaganda. Real students wouldn’t make a site like this. We’ve all seen what student org websites look like. they’ve got that noob look. this site has a crap corporate look that’s a dead giveaway. as a professional web guy, i can tell you whoever the RIAA hired to do this isn’t a very good designer. i’ve seen templates on eBay that have more creative sense than this. if you need a reminder of what student group pages like (Alabama U):
http://bama.ua.edu/~isa/
http://www.bama.ua.edu/~tccf/
.. for more chuckles, see other groups
http://www.ua.edu/academic/international/services/intl_student_org.htm
If they’re in law school, they wouldn’t have the time. I have plenty of friends who are in/graduated from law school. Every single one of them say it is hell. They didn’t have time for anything except studying. Nothing on the site identifies the principles involved, except an “about us” page, which has a photo that looks like it came from Corbis. (I will die laughing if someone finds it!)
http://downloadlegal.org/Contact/
the page lists 4 males and 1 female. The photo has some lamer wearing an A&F sweatshirt and 4 females. hmm…. and the fake hotmail account is a really sad and transparent attempt to look noobish.
that’s not even getting into an analysis of the language of the site. there’s no persona and voice in anything that is written on the site, just brainless regurgitation of the RIAA party line. No “how we became involved”, “why we feel so passionate about this cause”, anecdotal accounts, or anything. any idiot who has taken English 101 in college out to be able to point this out. It is WORD FOR WORD the same garbage propaganda the RIAA uses.
.. I need to thank Turbogeek too for this excellent explanation about the RIAA manipulating language to support their lies. They’ve got millions of dollars for their publicity war, but we’ve got millions of people with brain cells. We have to make the RIAA suffer for their unjust actions. Eventually, the backlash is going to reach critical and the RIAA will run out of money. As Bob Dylan might sing:
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A p2p war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
[[ *** UPDATE *** ]]
i did a whois on them. the noobs at Rightclick Strategies even spelled their email address wrong! Washington DC registration address with “Brooklyn Burgess” is supposedly in Alabama. how interesting.
Registrant:
Rightclick Strategies
1140 Connecticut Ave
Suite 610
Washington, District of Columbia 20036
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: DOWNLOADLEGAL.ORG
Created on: 20-Jul-05
Expires on: 20-Jul-06
Last Updated on: 26-Jul-05
Administrative Contact:
Strategies, Rightclick suppoert@rcsinteractive.com
1140 Connecticut Ave
Suite 610
Washington, District of Columbia 20036
United States
(202) 333-4444
Technical Contact:
Strategies, Rightclick suppoert@rcsinteractive.com
1140 Connecticut Ave
Suite 610
Washington, District of Columbia 20036
United States
(202) 333-4444
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.INTERNET-DNS.NET
NS2.INTERNET-DNS.NET
Registry Status: CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Registry Status: CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Registry Status: CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registry Status: CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
February 16th, 2006 at 2:28 am
eck.. always forgetting to sig..
I emailed them asking about their forum (read from bottom first) and got a response saying they’re “working on it”.. not from Brooklyn Burgess, but from “DownloadLegal staff”. I wrote back asking when they’ll have this ready. no reply. I think we should all email them and ask.
/zi.
From: zi <xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com>
Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: Brooklyn Burgess <downloadlegally@hotmail.com>
Date: Feb 14, 2006 4:25 AM
Subject: Re: question about the site
Ok great! I look forward to being able to participate in the discussions. There are many free blog software packages out there including Wordpress, which is used by a lot of people. Do you have an ETA on when the forums will be up?
On 2/13/06, Brooklyn Burgess <downloadlegally@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Thanks for your interest.
>We are working on adding a blog to the website where people can post. We will notify you by email when we get it up and running.
>Download Legal Staff
>From: zi <xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com>
>To: DownloadLegally@hotmail.com
>Subject: question about the site
>Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 01:59:03 -0500
>
>hi, I have a question about your site. In your press release, you said you: “TUSCALOOSA, Alabama – Download Legal, a new nonpartisan student advocacy group, was unveiled today with the goal of providing students with a forum to discuss impending developments in the realm of intellectual property.”
>I want to particiapte in the forum discussions. Where are they? I can’t find them anywhere on the site. There’s not even a chance to provide feedback for others to see.
February 16th, 2006 at 4:17 am
http://rcsinteractive.com/about.cfm
This thing is a fucking joke. Download Legal aren’t students at all.
February 16th, 2006 at 7:20 am
RCS Interactive is pretty much of a joke too. that page is FLASH!? wtf. Flash for a **static text** page. these people are fricking geniuses. Why on earth would you do that? it makes resizing impossible, for those who can’t see the small font. they’ve even made the text unselectable!
in fact, their whole interface is Flash.
and i haven’t even commented on their lame-ass invented word: “e.Marketing”. i guess they put a period after the “e” for novelty. sad sad sad people.
/zi.