As the defendants in The Pirate Bay case are handed a guilty verdict, the underlying issues of online file distribution remain unresolved
For the last few months, The Pirate Bay (TPB) trial had been generating a lot of interest from the online community. The Swedish website which claims to be "the world's largest BitTorrent tracker" had been accused of being a facilitator of illegal downloading, and the four men behind the website - Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström, dubbed the Pirate Bay Four - were being charged with "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws". The lawsuit was seen as an effort by the music, film, and TV industries, led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), to curb the illegal sharing of copyrighted material over the Internet.
The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and has an estimated 22 million unique users. The website, which is primarily funded through advertisements, allows users to search for and download data files including songs, movies, and TV shows from other users, without actually hosting any copyrighted content on its own web servers. Throughout the trial, the defense had attempted to show that TPB was a tool with plenty of legal uses, and was, in effect, nothing more than just a search engine, while the prosecution portrayed the website as a profitable business thriving off helping others violate copyright law.
The trial had often been referred to as 'Spectrial' (a combination of 'spectacle' and 'trial') by the defendants, and its verdict made its way to the public in a fittingly ironic fashion: a few hours before it was officially announced, the verdict was reportedly leaked. "According to leaked information from the court, we lost (got the news last night)," co-defendant Peter Sunde wrote on Twitter. "Really, it's a bit LOL," he continued. "It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release."
The defendants were indeed convicted by Stockholm district court and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of 30 million SEK (3.6 million USD) in fines and damages, and intend to appeal the case. Protestors demonstrated in Sweden on Saturday (April 18) against the court's conviction, with rallies organized by Sweden's The Pirate Party, a political party which supports free file sharing for noncommercial use and strives to reform copyright and patent laws.
Meanwhile, the entertainment industry has applauded the verdict, calling it a landmark decision, and has hailed the ruling as a victory, despite the fact that previous cases - like Napster and Grokster - have shown that lawsuits have not been very successful in curbing downloads; for every site or service that is closed down, many others come up to take its place. File sharing, the industry claims, results in losses of several billion dollars each year.
But the tech gurus believe that the industry is missing the point, and that in winning the battle, they're actually losing the war. They say the entertainment industry is clinging to a rusty business model that is no longer viable, and is looking at technology as a threat instead of an opportunity. File sharing plays a vital role in increasing the fan base for both musicians and actors, which then results in greater revenues through tickets sales, merchandize sales, commission work, and even artist access. So evolve, they urge. Innovate.
Luckily, some musicians are catching on. The most cited example: Trent Reznor. The Nine Inch Nails frontman realizes the importance of evolving with technology and embracing unorthodox distribution methods, and has been releasing the bands latest albums online under the Creative Commons licenses (while also selling limited edition physical versions). "I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free," he told Wired.com. "But the climate is such that it's impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we've tried to do has been from the point of view of, 'What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?' Now let's work back from that. Let's find a way for that to make sense and monetize it." And Reznor is not alone. Artists around the world - old and new, established and un-established, touring and non-touring - are now realizing the importance of developing alternatives that work for them. Musicians like Ellis Paul, Jill Sobule, and Kristin Hersh have even managed to get their fans to pre-finance their albums through different tiers of sponsorship, proving that fans will willingly support musicians, as long as the quality of the output (and the associates perks) actually merit support.
Some of our own musicians agree that file sharing can actually be a helpful tool: "File sharing is good," says Abbas Ali Khan. "It takes your songs places. Everyone wants music for free, so why not give it to them. We don't get our royalties anyways." And the source of revenue? "Shows, corporate deals, commercials."
Call vocalist Junaid concurs: "Being in Pakistan, we don't work on royalty; we sell our product to record labels, so sharing is actually good for us because our songs are reaching spots where the record label might not be able to distribute. Even in Pakistan, stocks might not be available in certain locations, but the Internet makes our product accessible to more people making the Internet a good source of distribution for us. However, there is an eventual loss for the record label."
There are others, however, who think file sharing is not helping musicians: "It's about general ethics to support artists," says Jal guitarist Goher Mumtaz, "especially the newer ones. The ones who are established can make money through concerts and endorsements, but [the success of] the ones that are new can be appreciated through royalties [that will show] how many people have purchased their songs." He points out that "artists spend a huge amount of money on producing and making an album" and that there should be rules against websites that are "surviving on songs that they get for free". Goher also thinks that music videos are a better promotional tool than free file distribution online. "Videos have a larger impact," he says. "(After watching the videos, viewers) try to buy or download the same songs from the Internet."
Singer Atif Aslam opines, "Anything can be shared as long as it is being done within the copyright criteria. File sharing mostly hurts bands," he says, "as there is no copyright act being properly enforced in our region which ultimately affects sales."
But the fact remains that the file sharing battle is far from over, and the underlying issue behind the case still remains unresolved. As for the Pirate Bay Four, they say their case is "just theatre for the media" and plan to continue fighting. "We can't pay and we wouldn't pay," says Sunde. "Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn't even give them the ashes."
- Sameen Amer
Instep Today, The News - 22nd April, 2009
For the last few months, The Pirate Bay (TPB) trial had been generating a lot of interest from the online community. The Swedish website which claims to be "the world's largest BitTorrent tracker" had been accused of being a facilitator of illegal downloading, and the four men behind the website - Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström, dubbed the Pirate Bay Four - were being charged with "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws". The lawsuit was seen as an effort by the music, film, and TV industries, led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), to curb the illegal sharing of copyrighted material over the Internet.
The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and has an estimated 22 million unique users. The website, which is primarily funded through advertisements, allows users to search for and download data files including songs, movies, and TV shows from other users, without actually hosting any copyrighted content on its own web servers. Throughout the trial, the defense had attempted to show that TPB was a tool with plenty of legal uses, and was, in effect, nothing more than just a search engine, while the prosecution portrayed the website as a profitable business thriving off helping others violate copyright law.
The trial had often been referred to as 'Spectrial' (a combination of 'spectacle' and 'trial') by the defendants, and its verdict made its way to the public in a fittingly ironic fashion: a few hours before it was officially announced, the verdict was reportedly leaked. "According to leaked information from the court, we lost (got the news last night)," co-defendant Peter Sunde wrote on Twitter. "Really, it's a bit LOL," he continued. "It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release."
The defendants were indeed convicted by Stockholm district court and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of 30 million SEK (3.6 million USD) in fines and damages, and intend to appeal the case. Protestors demonstrated in Sweden on Saturday (April 18) against the court's conviction, with rallies organized by Sweden's The Pirate Party, a political party which supports free file sharing for noncommercial use and strives to reform copyright and patent laws.
Meanwhile, the entertainment industry has applauded the verdict, calling it a landmark decision, and has hailed the ruling as a victory, despite the fact that previous cases - like Napster and Grokster - have shown that lawsuits have not been very successful in curbing downloads; for every site or service that is closed down, many others come up to take its place. File sharing, the industry claims, results in losses of several billion dollars each year.
But the tech gurus believe that the industry is missing the point, and that in winning the battle, they're actually losing the war. They say the entertainment industry is clinging to a rusty business model that is no longer viable, and is looking at technology as a threat instead of an opportunity. File sharing plays a vital role in increasing the fan base for both musicians and actors, which then results in greater revenues through tickets sales, merchandize sales, commission work, and even artist access. So evolve, they urge. Innovate.
Luckily, some musicians are catching on. The most cited example: Trent Reznor. The Nine Inch Nails frontman realizes the importance of evolving with technology and embracing unorthodox distribution methods, and has been releasing the bands latest albums online under the Creative Commons licenses (while also selling limited edition physical versions). "I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free," he told Wired.com. "But the climate is such that it's impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we've tried to do has been from the point of view of, 'What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?' Now let's work back from that. Let's find a way for that to make sense and monetize it." And Reznor is not alone. Artists around the world - old and new, established and un-established, touring and non-touring - are now realizing the importance of developing alternatives that work for them. Musicians like Ellis Paul, Jill Sobule, and Kristin Hersh have even managed to get their fans to pre-finance their albums through different tiers of sponsorship, proving that fans will willingly support musicians, as long as the quality of the output (and the associates perks) actually merit support.
Some of our own musicians agree that file sharing can actually be a helpful tool: "File sharing is good," says Abbas Ali Khan. "It takes your songs places. Everyone wants music for free, so why not give it to them. We don't get our royalties anyways." And the source of revenue? "Shows, corporate deals, commercials."
Call vocalist Junaid concurs: "Being in Pakistan, we don't work on royalty; we sell our product to record labels, so sharing is actually good for us because our songs are reaching spots where the record label might not be able to distribute. Even in Pakistan, stocks might not be available in certain locations, but the Internet makes our product accessible to more people making the Internet a good source of distribution for us. However, there is an eventual loss for the record label."
There are others, however, who think file sharing is not helping musicians: "It's about general ethics to support artists," says Jal guitarist Goher Mumtaz, "especially the newer ones. The ones who are established can make money through concerts and endorsements, but [the success of] the ones that are new can be appreciated through royalties [that will show] how many people have purchased their songs." He points out that "artists spend a huge amount of money on producing and making an album" and that there should be rules against websites that are "surviving on songs that they get for free". Goher also thinks that music videos are a better promotional tool than free file distribution online. "Videos have a larger impact," he says. "(After watching the videos, viewers) try to buy or download the same songs from the Internet."
Singer Atif Aslam opines, "Anything can be shared as long as it is being done within the copyright criteria. File sharing mostly hurts bands," he says, "as there is no copyright act being properly enforced in our region which ultimately affects sales."
But the fact remains that the file sharing battle is far from over, and the underlying issue behind the case still remains unresolved. As for the Pirate Bay Four, they say their case is "just theatre for the media" and plan to continue fighting. "We can't pay and we wouldn't pay," says Sunde. "Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn't even give them the ashes."
- Sameen Amer
Instep Today, The News - 22nd April, 2009
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