Anti-Piracy Laws and the Independent Artist By Michael Jones 7-20-11 Law 320

Anti-Piracy Laws On October 13th 2008 former President George W. Bush signed a bill called PRO-IP Act that gave greater protection to intellectual property (IP). Intellectual p roperty is the creative ideas and finished products that come from the mind of a n individual. Software, movies and music are examples of intellectual property. Intellectual property comes in three forms; they are trademarks, patents, and copyrights. Unfortunately, there has to be laws to protect the creativity of an individual. Since the internet there has been an explosion of copyright infrin gement. The black market or torrent websites have been profiting on the backs o f creative people working hard to produce songs, movies and writing quality soft ware programs. There are also people who have ten thousand dollars of software on their computer and they did not pay a dime. In the long run who is it who re ally gets the short end of the stick? It is the honest consumer who does. There are some opinions that anti-piracy laws need to be completely over turned. Brandon Lee in the article, Record Industry is becoming obsolete, says Pro gress should be the overturning of federal anti-piracy laws so that popular cult ure can be available to all people regardless of method of obtainment. There are opinions that with all of the technology and websites that are out there everyt hing should be free to the public. Specifically, digital music and movies. Thi s is partially coming from the fact that Citibank owns EMI records which are one of the biggest if no the biggest record company in the world. If you remember the bank bailouts Citibank was one of the many banks bailed out by American taxp ayers. Therefore, American taxpayers own EMI records and should be able to down load music for free. This is a logical prospective from opponents of PROP-IP bi ll. Just recently Google chairman Eric Schmidt has vowed to fight against th e bills like PROTECT IP, which want the pirate websites to be shut down. Googles concern is the government will have too much control and will shut down sites t hat have a freedom of expression rather than just piracy. Google at one time wa s allowing torrent sites to advertise with AdSense, which is their advertising p rogram. So you could say that Google was profiting off of these pirate sites. Google reminds us of the restrictions of freedom of speech that China has and th inks that these laws would restrict Americans freedom of speech. The government promises to only target pirate sites. Again it will be at the discretion of th e government to decide what they think is criminal. One of the biggest backers of anti-piracy laws is the Recording Industry Association of America, otherwise known as RIAA. Over the years there has been a decrease in CD sales and The RIAA believes that illegal downloading of digita l music is the cause of that decrease. When Napster started in 1999 it was the first music sharing system on the internet where users could download music from computer to computer. The reason why Napster was conceived was music consumers were tired of paying for a twelve to sixteen song CD and only getting two maybe three good songs for their money and the other songs were used to fill space on the CD. Napster users could select what song or songs they wanted and share th e music with each other and not pay for it. This was considered infringement an d violated copyright laws. You cannot reproduce a work and then take the work i nto your possession without paying for it. In 2001 the music industry filed a c opyright infringement suit against Napster and shut it down after they were liab le for copyright infringement. That is why nowadays there are so many ways you

can pay for your downloads from places like ITunes, Tune Core and others. In RIAAs attempt to stop pirates by trying to bully normal citizens with lawsuits they have left a bad taste in the mouth of music lovers world-wide. The RIAA and the music industry are trying combat pirates but in all reality they a re not losing money only to pirates. The industry has changed so much with only very few songs being played on the radio and there are way too many new release s that are coming out all the time. Lime Wire has also been the center of attention being accused of copyright infri ngement. The RIAA has been successful in shutting down the official site of Lim e Wire. Eight music publishers have also filed suit charging there was pervasiv e online infringement of copyrights. A statement from the publishers stated the y will seek "equitable relief and damages" from LimeWire for the alleged copyrig ht infringement. Copyright statutes provide for statutory damages of up to $150, 000 per violation. Lime Wire was supposed to make it harder to share files betwe en users. Lime Wire did not make it harder for its users to share files with on e another by putting up technical barriers. The music publishers believe that t his would have deterred users from illegally sharing files of music. Alternativ es to Lime Wire have come out of the wood works. It is like a cancer that never dies. Churches have had to figure out how to get around the copyright laws. Churches usually have to make copies of songs to give to their musicians to learn new mus ic. Also, they like to show videos that are copyrighted. So what they do is pa y a fee each year to the Christian Copyright Licensing, International (CCLI) and Christian Video Licensing International (CVLI). Each one of these gives them p ermission to copy music and play videos without breaking the law. It is like bl anket coverage. Some business has to be careful they do not cross the lines, li ke churches. As long as they use it for congregational purposes they will not b e fined. But I must say the contemporary Christian music market does suffer bec ause you know the worship team members put the songs on their computers for thei r own personal pleasure. Almost all churches burn CDs to hand out to their team s. With 170,000 churches paying the license fee each year that can add up to a lot of free downloads that can potentially be illegally downloaded to personal c omputers. Pirating software has become a huge problem as well. There are many torrent sit es that have become very popular. Try before you buy is what these consumers sa y. Torrent sites give allow you to download a software program illegally for fr ee or a fee. Someone I went to school with had over 15,000 dollars of illegal s oftware on his computer. All the software was from torrent sites and was the la test software. This can be expensive for software companies. The company Stein berg found a good way to combat this problem. They encourage you to register yo ur software. When you do with your product key a red flag goes up and they cust omer service rep gets all of your information and then you have police showing u p at your door. Other software makers do the same. These companies also allow you to have a 30 day trail of their product. Legally you can keep getting 30 da y trials by signing up with different email addresses. The bill that former President George W. Bush signed in 2008 called the PRO-IP A ct was designed to have greater efforts to control the pirating that has been ru nning rampant. There was another bill that was put together since then called t he COICO which has been intensely criticized because of its vague definitions of what is considered a infringement website or what they called a rogue website. There is another bill that is waiting to be signed into law today called the Pr eventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Pr operty, otherwise known as PROTECT-IP. This bill is a rewrite of the COICO. It is more specific of the websites that would be considered illegal. This bill w ould have a huge impact on illegal copyrights all around the world. They would be able to go after the foreign websites that sell or allow you to stream movies for free that they stole. According to the Creative America coalition there are two millions jobs in the f ilm and TV sector that could be affected by ongoing piracy. They claim that 140 ,000 jobs have been lost as an effect of piracy of film and TV shows. Billions o

f dollars are lost each year due to illegal sales of stolen IP in the TV and fil m world. According to the Institute if Policy Innovation the film industry lost 20 billion dollars in 2005 to illegal downloads of movies and TV shows. If thi s was to happen every year imagine the affect it will have year in and year out. This means that there will be less money to make new movies. This will create more job loss and affect the pensions of those who have already retired from th e film business. The unions of the film business like AFTRA totally support the PROTECT-IP bill that is sitting in Washington right now. The film industry wou ld benefit so much from this bill. They would be able to stop foreign websites from providing movies that are copyrighting. According to the RIAA the music industry loses 4.2 billion dollars to piracy eac h year. There are three types of people who lose out because of the piracy. Fi rst, is the consumer loses out. Those who are downloading music illegally drive up the cost of legitimate product that a honest consumer will have to pay. Tha t is why CDs are so expensive. Also, have you ever wondered why ticket sales of your favorite artist are so extraordinarily high? It is because of illegal down loads and revenue being lost because of that. Artists have to make it up someho w. To go along with that retailers are having hard time convincing consumers to pay more money for the same product. We always gravitate to the lowest price a s a society. If consumers can find the music online and save a few bucks why no t. The problem with that is, if retailers cannot compete with online sales of i llegal downloads than what will happen? Well, jobs will be lost because retail ers cannot justify more employees. The music industry is hugely affected by pirating as well. Record labels can ba rely stay afloat. Everyone thinks they have all this money because of huge arti st selling millions of records or legitimate downloads. The truth is, only fift een percent of record labels top artist support the whole business. The other e ighty five percent is bands that incur a loss or just get the bills paid. They call these bands developing new artists. Where do the pirates go to when steali ng songs to sell? The top fifteen percent is what is attacked by pirates. Thes e are the songs that are played on the radio and what people want to buy. Accor ding to the website www.timmygotsoul.com the list of the 10 most illegally downl oaded song, album and video has all big sellers in the music industry. For exam ple, Brittney Spears song Telephone was the number one illegally downloaded trac k of 2010 followed by Lady Gaga, Christie Aguilera, and Katy Perry. The number one illegally downloaded video was by Brittney Spears with the same top four of illegally downloaded song. Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were in the top 10 as well of both categories. There is a staggering stat that came out of Britain Dec ember of 2010. There were 1.2 billion songs downloaded illegally last year. T he projected legal download sale for 2010 was 370 million. That is an 870 milli on difference in sales of legal and illegal download sales. That is a lot of re venue that is lost and cannot be made up anywhere by the record companies. It w as reported that the Black Eyed Peas sold over one million downloads last year a nd Lady Gaga sold over 250,000 downloads and the rest of the bands made up the d ifference. This poses a huge problem for the aspiring artist wanting to make a living in th e music industry. This would include songwriters, producers, publishers, singer s and musicians. It is a ripple effect. When songwriters receive low royalty c hecks because of piracy everyone is affected. Producers usually work on a point system which gives them a percentage of sales which is more lucrative than a ho urly rate. Obviously if songs are not being bought legally by consumers then pr oducers and songwriters suffer financial loss. When that happens then the music ians and singers wages are driven down to record and perform. Twenty years ago musicians could make 500.00 a day recording. Now they would be lucky to make 10 0.00 a day. Road musicians are not nearly paid as well as they used to be too. If the top of the record label is suffering financial loss it will trickle down and affect everyone involved. Artist now depend on ticket sales and merchandis e sales when they tour. That is why ticket sales are so high. One way or anoth er, consumers will pick up the tab of pirating. I support the legislation to protect creative people and companies from copyrigh

t infringement. I support the PROTECT-IP bill that is in Washington right now. Intellectual property should not be pirated at all. Lets look at the facts. In the music industry there has been yearly losses in the billions. What once was a vibrant industry has become very fragile. The state that it is in right now I would not be surprised if there is more increases of song downloads and mercha ndise prices will be on the rise. There are a few bands that embrace the illega l downloads of their songs. The band Dream Theater does not care if they make a dime off of downloads or cd sales. They have decided that they will market the ir tours and make their money there. I guess if you cannot beat them you might as well join them. Songwriting is where it is at in the music industry, but if piracy continues the re will be less and less songwriters in the business which means not as much fre sh music. These reasons alone are enough to pass the PROTECT-IP bill. The writ ing on the wall is evident. There is no gray area as to why the music industry is suffering. If the record labels did not have to depend on their top 15 perce nt to support the business then there would be a wider variety of music. The re cord labels cannot find new talent and develop the new talent when they are losi ng money to pirates. Artist need to be developed and seasoned over time and thi s does require that the record label takes a loss on the investment into new tal ent. It is just how it works. If copyright infringement was brought under cont rol then there would be more money to develop new talent. This means that there would be job creation and retention in the music industry. Recording engineers would be able to stay busy recording and songwriters would get more publishing deals which would lead to fresh music. This would make the consumer happy and h e or she would buy more legal downloads. The independent artist would also have a chance at profiting with their business . As the independent artist looks at the music industry right now it does not l ook good to pursue anything. The independent artist does not have a name for th emselves so it would be next to impossible to tour and sell merchandise. Puttin g songs up on MySpace or Facebook is not going to do much for aspiring artist. Finding someone to financially back them is what all artist need. Again, record labels cannot become that financial backer if the record labels themselves are broke because pirates sell the music illegally. Copyright infringement has stolen billions and billions of dollars from the film , music and software industries. Why would anyone be opposed to the PROTECT-IP bill or anyone of the others that have been passed over the years? Songwriters and musicians have sued each other for illegally using their song. Vanilla Ice comes to mind, MC Hammer stealing Super Freak. Why not just own up to it and pay the royalties. That is the right thing to do. Anyone can record any song if th ey pay the royalties. You can use up to 8 seconds of someone elses song and put it into your song. George Clinton did this a lot. He would sample other songs and record those samples into his and then sell those songs and make money. The re are laws that say you can record and use other peoples songs. The artist need s to stay within the law. When a download is sold everyone involved gets a cut of the money. It is usually 50/50 split. Pirates would be better off following the law and making the money rather than create huge losses for industries that depend on royalties and sales of merchandise. I believe if you do the crime you should do the time. Film companies are suffer ing astronomical losses because of a society that wants to watch movies for free instead of paying for them. Peoples lives are at steak with all of this piracy going on. Even if you are not a creative type of person and you just enjoy the music and movies you should support these bills help get them passed into law. If everyone was to be held accountable in this arena then there would be probabl y a lot of people in jail and a healthier film and music industry. Piracy is li ke a cancer that wont go away. The PROTECT-IP bill would help level the playing field and give these industries some breathing room and time to regroup. I take this personal because I am an aspiring artist who is trying to make a nam e for myself and create a livable income doing it. Record labels are not as wil ling to invest into artist like me because I will be a lot of work in the beginn ing not making them a dime. The social media sites are ways for people to hear y

our music but they will normally stream your music and not buy it. It seems you have to give everything away for free to get people to notice you. For people like me maybe if I was to let pirates distribute my music I would reach a bigger fan base. It is not worth the consequences of fines and jail time. Besides th e law is the law and no matter what you should follow the law. Copyright infrin gement laws need to be set in place to protect intellectual property, period. A s a society we need creative people to create and give them all opportunities to succeed. Musicians, film makers, inventors, software writers and so on. If pe ople start becoming disinterested in these professions then we will see a stagna nt world with thieves winning and honest people losing out. Why should we let t hieves run rampant when there is a solution, or at least a way of combating this huge problem of pirates on the internet?

Citing Reference Baker, Shannon. (2007). For Churches, Copyright is the Right Thing to Do. Religio us Liberty Commission. Retrieved July 16th 2011 from http://erlc.com/article/for -churches-copyright-is-the-right-thing-to-do/ Dallaseste. (2010). Report Shows Illegal Music Download Will Top 1.2 Billion In 2010. Day Trender. Retrieved July 17th 2011 from http://www.daytrender.com/magaz ine/read/report-shows-illegal-music-download-will-top-12-billion-in-2010_538.htm l Downes, Larry. (2011). Leahys Protect IP Bill Even Worse Than COICA. Politics an d Law. Retrieved July 18th 2011 from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20062419 -38.html?tag=mncol;txt#ixzz1Mk2McbfS Holloway, Daniel. (2011). Illegal Content Sharing Becomes Front-Burner Issue. Ba ck Stage. Retrieved July 16th 2011 from http://www.backstage.com/bso/news-and-fe atures-features/illegal-content-sharing-becomes-front-burner-1005276062.story Johnson, Fawn. (2008). Bush Signs Anti-Piracy Bill. Wall Street Journal. Retrie ved July 18th 2011 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122393546476430299.html Vijayan, Jaikumar. (2010). Music Industry Hits Lime Wire with yet Another Lawsui t. Computerworld. Retrieved July 17th 2011from http://www.computerworld.com/s/ar ticle/9178209/Music_industry_hits_LimeWire_with_yet_another_lawsuit