A Message to Lily Allen about File-Sharing

Lily – I tried to comment on your MySpace blog entry about file-sharing, but I couldn't work out what your "last name" is, so instead I've written this blog entry on my blog, which hopefully you might find and read.

The "War" on File-Sharing

The war on illegal file-sharing is based on the following argument:

• Copyright is a legal system which defends the rights of artists to get paid for what they create.
• Copyright law says it's illegal to copy content without the permission of the copyright holder.
• Actually, people use computers and the internet to copy all sorts of things that they aren't allowed to copy.
• Because people are breaking the law, artists are losing money.
• ISPs aren't doing enough to catch and punish their customers who copy files illegally.
• Everything should be done to stop illegal file-sharing, so that artists can get paid again.

This argument seems very reasonable, but it ignores the brutal truth about the future of copyright, which is:

• Copyright is a system which used to work reasonably well, because it wasn't that easy to make illegal copies of copyrighted content, at least not in large quantities.
• Copyright law is incompatible with modern personal computers and the internet, because these technologies have reduced the cost of making exact copies of anything to an amount indisinguishable from zero.

In other words, if we really want to restore copyright to its former glory, we will have to get rid of computers and the internet.

Getting rid of computers and the internet seems very unlikely to happen. However, it has been seriously proposed. But usually not in so many words. Instead of saying "get rid of the internet", it will be proposed that the internet should be "controlled" in some manner, to prevent illegal copying. And instead of saying "get rid of computers", it will be suggested that all computers should have "security" features added, to prevent illegal copying.

The problem with these proposals is that an internet that cannot be used to copy files is not an internet, and a computer that cannot be used to copy files is not a computer.

Non-Computers and Non-Internets

The formal definition of a "computer" is somewhat abstract (generally taught only at university rather than at school), and as a result, a non-technical person can be given a "non-computer" – for example, an X-Box, or any other modern games console – and they can't easily tell the difference between that and a real computer . A slightly simplistic explanation of the difference is that a non-computer can run software, but only a real computer can run new software without getting permission from the company that made the computer, and only a real computer can be used to create software. (And if you're wondering how anyone manages to develop software for the X-Box, see XBox Development Kit, which is basically a "non-XBox" which actually is a computer.)

For a musical analogy, you might like to imagine a piano, which can only be used to play music that you've paid for, and where permission to play music can only be given by the Central Government Department for the Control of Piano Playing. If you're someone who has a piano in your house for decoration, or to play "old favourites", then the difference between a "non-piano" and a real piano hardly matters. But if you're a songwriter, the non-piano will be no good to you. If you really wanted to write songs on a piano, you would have to register with the Central Government Department for the Control of Piano Playing, and they would give you special permission to use a special "composer's piano" which could actually be used to play new music on.

A similar issue arises for the internet, i.e. a controlled non-internet cannot be used to develop new internet applications.

What Happens After Copyright Dies?

Assuming that we don't get rid of computers and the internet, and assuming that computers and the internet will surely get even more powerful in the future, then copyright is doomed to fail.

When copyright fails completely, then royalty payments to all artists will be reduced to zero.

At which point, someone might start to think about alternative ways of paying artists for what they create.

So, why aren't we thinking about this already?

Which leads to the question of conflicts of interest.

Conflicts of Interest

The "war" on file-sharing seems like a battle between just two groups with conflicting interests:

1. Artists and other copyright-holders (you're in this group)
2. Illegal file-sharers

However, this simple division assumes that the "battle" has one of two possible outcomes: either copyright is "saved" from file-sharing, or, file-sharing wins, and copyright fails.

It's possible that copyright might win. But for the reasons given above, the more realistic choice is between:

1. The inevitable "death" of copyright is prolonged for as long as possible, or,
2. We give up trying to save copyright, and we start looking for an alternative

If those are the two most likely possible futures, then the apparently unified group of copyright-holders divides into two distinct groups with distinct interests:

1. Copyright-holders who are already making money from copyrighted material, who we can call the "copyright beneficiaries".
2. Copyright-holders who are not yet making money from their creations, due to the ill effects of file-sharing. These are the "emerging artists" that you talk about (and I think you see yourself as belonging to this group).

The interests of these two groups are different, because if we consider actions which merely postpone the decline of copyright, the first group gets to make more money, i.e. they have a continuing but declining income, whereas, the second group starts with zero income and continues to receive zero income.

We should also consider a fourth interest group, which is the "everyone else" group, i.e.:

• Honest consumers of copyrighted content who never get pirated content for free.

On the one hand these "non-pirates" seem to be on the side-lines of the battle between the artists and the pirates, but actually they have their own interest in the outcome of the battle, because when these honest consumers are told about the battle against piracy, they are being promised that soon everyone will have to pay a fair share of the costs of producing copyrighted content.

Unfortunately, in the "prolonged death" scenario, what the honest consumers actually get is the chance to continue funding the copyright beneficiaries in the short term by paying money for a limited amount of content, while the pirates continue to receive unlimited content for free. The copyright beneficiaries don't necessarily care about the pirates, as long as someone is paying them money for their content.

Who are the "Copyright Beneficiaries"? And are they your Allies in the War on Piracy?

The copyright beneficiaries are those people who are already successfully making money by selling copyrighted material. They've done the hard work, they've created something that other people enjoy, they've gotten paid for it thanks to the operation of copyright law, and they see no reason not to continue getting paid for it.

When emerging artists like yourself complain about the effects of file-sharing on your income, these beneficiaries seem like natural allies. They may come out and make public statements supporting your complaints. But, the existing beneficiaries of copyright are going to be less interested in doing anything to replace copyright. For them, replacing the system risks replacing their income by something less than what it is, or even eliminating it entirely.

Emerging artists have more interest in considering a replacement system, because, for many of them, their copyright-based profits after production costs are already zero, or negative, and they have nothing to lose (except maybe the hope that somehow the existing system will one day be sufficiently resuscitated to pay them real money).

It is the emerging artists who should be asking: "Am I being screwed by file-sharers and pirates, or, am I being screwed by the copyright system itself, and by those people who insist on doing everything possible to prolong its slow and horrible decline, no matter what the cost?"

So, What are the Alternatives to Copyright?

My own best suggestion for replacing the copyright system is Voted Compensation.

The moral logic of copyright is:

1. Artists create something which benefits their fans.
2. Artists deserve to get paid for what they create, in proportion to how much it benefits their fans.

Copyright attempts to link item 1 to item 2 by introducing the intermediate contrivance of copy-control, i.e. that the artists have the right to control whether or not other people can copy their work. As already noted, the possibility of such control is very quickly becoming pure fiction. Copyright will work if everyone does what they are "supposed to" do, but in real life any system that depends totally on everyone's goodwill is doomed, especially when people have total freedom to do what they are not supposed to do without getting caught.

Voted Compensation is based on the idea of linking what artists deserve more directly to what they receive. Instead of people voting for a legal system which attempts (but fails) to enforce a relationship between what artists deserve and what they receive, people would directly vote for how much artists should receive. And instead of having "copy" rights, artists would have attribution rights, i.e. the right to be recognised as the creator of what they actually created (something which is already implicit in existing copyright law).

There are various difficulties in implementing such a system, but, if it can be made to work, it will have major advantages over the existing situation:

• Artists will get paid something.
• The overheads of distribution and copy-control will be eliminated.
• Fans will have unlimited access to all published content, subject only to a fixed tax on computers and internet useage.

And the Other Alternative ...

If you find the idea of Voted Compensation (or other Alternative Compensation Systems) unconvincing, then there is another alternative which is even less favourable to artists. This is the alternative of No Compensation At All.

Copyright law only exists because it benefits the people who voted for it. It is possible, as this new generation gets old enough to vote, that they will never learn to understand the alleged benefits of copyright, as opposed to, say, unlimited music for free. (Even if they've been subjected to "copyright education".) This new generation of voters may decide to vote copyright out of existence, without replacing it with anything else, and regardless of any effect that this has on the music industry or any other industry.

Actively prolonging the slow death of copyright increases the chance of this being the final outcome – copyright will fail more and more, until it is de facto abandoned, without the world ending, and without the music industry ending. And then people will say: "Oh, it turns out we didn't really need copyright that much after all".

So be warned.

(Richard Stallman has written a good article about the supposed copyright balance, which emphasises that the very existence of copyright should depend on it serving the needs of consumers, not producers.)

Technical Appendix: Why Holding ISPs Responsible for File-Sharing Won't Stop File-Sharing

The current thrust of the battle against piracy is to hold ISPs responsible for policing the behaviour of their customers.

At the moment, in many countries, ISPs are not obliged to reveal the identities of users of specific IP addresses (and, in the case of dynamically assigned IP addresses, which customer had a specific IP address at a specific time). So even if copyright holders can identify the IP addresses of file-sharers, they are blocked against identifying the guilty parties as actual people, and at the same time the ISPs are not held responsible for the actions of their customers.

It seems that forcing ISPs to either identify or punish customers doing illegal file-sharing would deter such activities.

The problem is, that it would only deter one particular kind of file-sharing, which is sharing files with random strangers, aka anonymous P2P.

Anonymous P2P

Anonymous P2P is the laziest way to get known content: you just search for what you want, connect to random IP addresses until you find a relevant file-sharing network, and then start downloading (and uploading, because otherwise it isn't "sharing" and the system doesn't work).

It's a bit like a guy who buys illegal drugs by wandering to a shady part of town and asking random strangers if they know where to buy some cocaine. He might find a real criminal drug-dealer who can sell him some cocaine, or, he might try to buy cocaine from someone who is actually a cop. In which case he is in trouble.

To avoid getting caught trying to buy something illegal, he could buy cocaine only from people he knows – people he knows well enough to trust that they aren't working for the police. Of course this can make it hard to buy the cocaine that he wants to buy, because he needs to have at least one friend willing to deal drugs to him, and even if he has a friend who is a drug-dealer, his friend might only be able to sell him marijuana.

F2F

In the world of file-sharing, getting stuff only from your friends is called F2F, which stands for "friend-to-friend". F2F can occur completely outside the internet – people just connect their portable hard disks or flash drives to each other's computers. On the internet people can share files via instant messaging or email, using encryption to maintain privacy. (In practice people often don't bother with encryption, but if the copyright police start cracking down hard enough on identifiably illegal file-sharing, then the sharers will start consistently using encryption.)

Just like buying drugs from only your friends, F2F file-sharing is more work than anonymous P2P, and the choice of content is more limited.

But the analogy with illegal drugs breaks down. Illegally copied content can be much more easily passed around than drugs. New copies of illegally copied content can be "manufactured" effortlessly, because every time you copy a file from one device to another, you have a new copy, and the original copy is still there. And the mechanics of transferring requests and responses through networks of friends can itself be automated by computers. (Also unlimited free music isn't as bad for your health as cocaine is, in fact it isn't bad for your health at all, as long as you don't turn the volume up too loud all the time.)

So here's my prediction: as ISPs are forced to punish customers using anonymous P2P to do illegal file-sharing, those customers will move on to using encrypted F2F with request/response forwarding, and the developers of file-sharing software will develop newer and better F2F software. The developers won't get paid for it – most of them will do it just for the challenge of it, or because they don't believe that "the man" should be able to control the internet.

And that will be the end of the war. And then, everyone will be forced to think about living in a post-copyright world, because it will already have happened.