AFL-CIO joins Anti-Digital Theft campaign
Forget merger. (OK, don’t forget it, just put it to the side for a moment.)
This is the critical battlefield right now. And somebody ought to remind these guys, it’s not “piracy,” it’s stealing.
AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY SUPPORTS ANTI-PIRACY MEASURES
ORLANDO, Mar. 2 – The AFL-CIO Executive Council, at its meeting today in Orlando, unanimously adopted a statement on the subject of the theft of intellectual property. Submitted to the Council by the Department of Professional Employees on behalf of the entertainment unions and guilds affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the statement offers a detailed analysis of the harm done to U.S. workers by piracy. The statement said, in part, “Motion pictures, television, sound recordings and other entertainment are a vibrant part of the U.S. economy. They yield one of its few remaining trade surpluses. The online theft of copyrighted works and the sale of illegal CDs and DVDs threaten the vitality of U.S. entertainment and thus its working people.”
IATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb, a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, said “This is a strong statement of support from the AFL-CIO in our fight against the theft of product upon which the members of the entertainment industry unions and guilds depend. We will continue to pursue every avenue we can to stop digital theft.”
“While we support increased broadband access for all Americans, it’s important to remember that downloading illegal content is the same as walking into a record or book store and stealing a CD or DVD,” said AFTRA National President Roberta Reardon, who is also a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council. “Recording artists, for example, earn more than 90% of their income through the physical and digital download sales of their albums, and stealing their work – as well as that of actors, singers, dancers and other professional talent – seriously threatens their ability to earn a living and support their families. Moreover, the online theft of copyrighted – and uniquely American – material severely depresses the domestic job market by making it difficult for our members to find new work and continue producing the creative works that enrich our culture and our economy.”
SAG President Ken Howard said, “I’m grateful to AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and members of the executive council for their resounding approval of the resolution against digital theft. Today’s action provides important support to the tens of thousands of men and women in the entertainment industry whose jobs are threatened by illegal duplication and download of movies and television shows.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement: “The AFL-CIO fully supports entertainment workers, and stands behind them in the fight against the theft of the products they work on and create.”
Paul Almeida, president of the AFL-CIO Department of Professional Employees, who put forward the statement to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, said, “It’s critical for all union members to support any actions possible in the fight against piracy.”
I’ve always thought piracy was stealing.
“And somebody ought to remind these guys, it’s not “piracy,” it’s stealing.”
Strictly speaking (and we really, really, need to keep the vocabulary straight on this), it’s neither piracy OR stealing. It is copyright infringement, pure and not so simple. Inflamed rhetoric isn’t going to solve the problems related to it.
This in particular: “it’s important to remember that downloading illegal content is the same as walking into a record or book store and stealing a CD or DVD.” Sorry, Roberta, but the Supreme Court disagrees with you, as well as every criminal law professor in the country.
Stealing a CD or DVD deprives the store owner of the possession of that CD or DVD. The unauthorized downloading of copyrighted content (and NOT “downloading illegal content,” which is just bizarre verbiage) does not deprive the legal owner of possession. He or she still has exactly what they had before the download occurred. What unauthorized downloading does is deprive the copyright holder of control over distribution, which is NOT theft under any available legal theory. This is why copyright is treated as a totally different area of law than criminal law, and why copyright infringement is treated as something different than theft or even piracy.
We need a solution to uncompensated distribution of copyrighted materials. Yelling “Stop Thief,” which is all this press release does, doesn’t bring that solution one step closer, and, to my way of thinking, only increases the divide through the use of intentionally overheated, and patently incorrect,language.
I strongly suspect that this press release is the opening salvo in a publicity campaign designed to drum up support for “three strikes” legislation that will let ISPs cut off access to individuals they suspect of repeatedly transferring copyrighted materials. Internationally, record labels have been aggressively pushing this legislation in Europe, and have found substantial resistance from those who feel that the lack of due process poses a real threat to personal liberties. We would be wise not to go the same path, the risks are terribly high if we do, and the chance of successfully beating “theft” that way nonexistent.
I wish the performers unions would take a hard look and see who is really pushing this kind of legislation and the “downloading is theft and kills kittens” campaigns. It’s the MPAA and the AMPTP and the RIAA, organizations that have had the interests of performers at heart just about as often as the Beef Council sponsors PETA events.
Actors, just like other actual creators, need to understand exactly what is happening, culturally, technologically and legally. With that knowledge and a clear head, they are going to figure out how to actually have careers doing what they love. Inventing bogeymen, like this ill-conceived statement and the motives behind it, are steps in the wrong direction.
To a performer that’s a distinction without a difference. While yelling “Stop Thief” doesn’t solve things, reminding people that illegal downloads are stealing – and that they’re stealing directly from performers they admire – may go a step towards changing the mindset that would let you say “Oh, that’s just copyright infringement.”
Ask musicians what has happened to them in the past five years. That’s exactly what will happen to actors if illegal downloads of movies and television shows continue unabated.
Going after individual downloaders as the primary response will never work, no matter the framework. Too resource intensive. What percentage of “slow and go” stop sign infractions end up with a ticket? Surely much less than 1%. Why? Because you can’t afford enough cops to make it any different.
Yeah, it needs to stay in the legal quiver, with the occasional instructive reminder, but it isn’t the answer.
But sure, cultural reminders from respected institutions that it is wrong, and why, are always useful. I do agree with Fred that the kids at least intuitively understand the difference between “stealing” and “copyright infringement”, so from that respect he’s right. While the statement no doubt makes the artists (i.e. their members) feel better to use the stronger terminology, in some corners its power will be diluted by a “they still don’t ‘get it’ ” response.
There is something being “stolen” here, however, in my view. What’s being stolen (it’s actually gone, not just copied) is the economic opportunity to sell or license that product to some portion (how large a percentage will always get a lively discussion going) of those who download without paying. While it is true that not everyone who downloads would have been willing/able to pay if they hadn’t gotten it for free, this is often used as a cop-out –surely some sizeable percentage *would* have paid. In fact, some sizeable percentage of “illegal downloads” end up being paid for before or after the fact.
Understanding that, it has been used as a cop-out and crutch by the downloading community –”oh, there they go again wildly overstating the real economic impact”. Perhaps, but that is not to say there is a minimal economic impact either, and most people who make that arguement are just trying to salve their conscience and argue for inaction.
Even if the real “theft of economic opportunity” is as low as 20% of the illegal downloads –and it’s probably higher than that, and getting higher all the time as the phenomenon broadens to older/busier middle-class who don’t have the time/inclination to be engaged in the large scale ‘sampling’ that a teenager on summer vacation would– that’s still a significant “theft”.
I work with a lot of musicians, from teenagers just starting out to Hall of Famers with 50 years in the business. They know that the primary reason they are not making money from downloads is because the labels that own the copyrights on their recordings have focused all their energy on trying to prevent behavior that cannot be stopped without paying a bit of attention to making money themselves in the new environment. The REAL lesson to be learned from the experience of the music business is that they have done just about everything wrong that they could have. Instead of co-opting Napster in 2001, they tried to sue filesharing out of existence. They beat Napster which only forced the development of decentralized filesharing programs that, to date, have been impossible to counteract. That “victory” turned into a disaster. What fifteen years of fighting infringement in the record business has shown is that if you think you invent a way to protect your copyrights, someone will figure out a way to beat it, if they haven’t already. The real way to beat them, as Apple and the iPod show, is to give the public something they can’t get from unauthorized downloads, and history has shown that “freedom from fear of prosecution” isn’t really working as a sales tool.
I’m really disappointed in you, Admin. At no time did I say “Oh, that’s just copyright infringement” as you have incorrectly quoted. You can disagree with my premise, but you shouldn’t openly mischaracterize it for your benefit. What I really said was copyright infringement is NOT theft, and calling it theft is both inaccurate and inflammatory. Here’s what the Supreme Court says about the difference:
” interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: … ‘an infringer of the copyright.’ …
The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
—United States v. Dowling, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) at 217–218
If you are going to get involved in discussions of infringement and what to do about it, you are going to have to accept the reality that you are dealing with “a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud,” and that you will be engaging some very smart people on the other side of that discussion who are not impressed with an over-simplistic attack. Yelling “Stop Thief” is not moving the debate forward, because it demonstrates an utter failure to grasp the real issues. Calling infringement a crime is simply ignorance of the law, and we are all going to have to be smart right now to solve the problem that infringement causes. The fact that you THINK infringement is theft doesn’t mean infrigement IS theft. The fact that you put quotes I never made into my mouth doesn’t mean the quotes are accurate. Unfortunately, your tactics in dealing with my comment are quite in keeping with the general strategy of dealing with this issue; demonize the opposition and hope they go away. It hasn’t worked before, it isn’t working now, and it won’t work in the future.
There are two goals to this new PR campaign. One is to just to whip up the general populace to support their REAL goal, which focus on changes in the law to make it very easy for copyright holders to go after people they suspect of downloading by lowering or entirely eliminating online privacy. Right now, the US is engaged in negotiating an international treaty, ACTA, on prevention of theft of intellectual property, but the US government refuses to disclose the terms under discussion, on the grounds on “national security.” (Google ACTA and “national security” if you think I sound like a conspiracy nut). What has leaked out is very bad news for anyone who thinks the things they say in emails should be private. The whole idea behind this treaty and the other draconian legal proposals that “Big Copyright” are promoting is to prop up a business model that has failed to succeed in a changed environment. The central premise is that if you make conduct illegal and enforce those prohibitions, the illegal conduct will go away. I thought we learned that doesn’t work 90 years ago. What makes anyone, including you, SAG or AFTRA, think it is going to work today?
When you get down to it, it isn’t downloading that has deprived copyright owners of revenue, or performers of their share. It is the failure of the copyright owners to find a business model that works in an environment where downloading is a fact of life. The fact that the copyright holders are now looking for the governments of the world to protect them from their failures should come as little surprise to anyone who has dealt with their shortsighted tactics in the past.
I am truly disappointed that SAG and AFTRA would openly join hands with the copyright holders here without giving the matter a lot of thought. As we are seeing with the current campaign to impose a performance royalty on terrestrial radio, the ones who will really gain from such a law, the record labels, realize that no one is going to weep over a record label executive asking Congress for help. Those labels knew that they needed poster children, so they went to performers to speak for them, even though the labels knew the bill they were sponsoring at the time was going to screw artists out of millions of dollars of those royalties every year and divert them to the labels. The same potential exists here for that kind of co-optation, and it should give the unions pause.
Actors, musicians and all other creators can continue to depend on the current system, which clearly doesn’t work to their benefit (and, it can be argued, really didn’t even before downloading), or they can start building their own way out of this predicament. I would rather see SAG and AFTRA develop programs to enlighten and train their members to make money on their own than to waste time, energy and public attention on a scheme that not only won’t help actors, but is likely to result in the curtailment of rights for all of us.
But the first step is defining the language. As long as your scream “piracy” and “theft” where there is neither, there can’t be a coherent discussion. You’ve set the tone here, Admin, and it isn’t promising.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. This is far more complex than just record labels and profits and studios and profits. This harms every performer. Recording artists in this country don’t get paid performance rights payments from overseas because we don’t have those rights here. The USA is almost alone…Iraq, North Korea, Iran…those are about the only countries other than the USA that don’t recognize performance rights
And while some judges may have said this doesn’t “easily equate with” theft – that was then, this is now. When we don’t get residual payments because movies are stolen rather than sold? That’s close enough to wholly depriving the owners of the benefits of their work for my taste.
The “almost every other civilized country has performance rights” argument is an oversimplification. In almost every country, radio is either entirely or largely a government monopoly. And then you have to look to what is actually happening with performance royalties in those other countries before you start drawing parallels. There is a very strong likelihood that if the current Performance Rights Act passes, it won’t free up a single cent of performer’s royalties from other countries, because the system devised under the PRA doesn’t look anything the systems overseas, which is a pre-requisite for the reciprocity rights.
And the reciprocity argument is truly an industry red herring, anyway. All the major record labels are already getting their share of overseas performance royalties. The money is simply going to their local affiliates.
Did you know that the text of the Senate version of the PRA allows the record labels to collect the performers’ share of the royalties and apply it against amounts allegedly owed by the performers to the labels before paying it out? Did you know that both House and Senate bills provide that 50% of the royalties are earmarked for performers, but that if the money goes to the labels first, they only have to pay the artists whatever the “contactual rate” is, and that could be as low as 2 or 3%?
If you are seriously going to discuss these things, you really ought to learn more than the slogans about North Korea and Iraq and look to what the actual laws says and what it really does.
I’ve been fighting for a terrestrial radio performance royalty for nearly 20 years, so I’ve earned my credentials on this issue. Sam Moore, of Sam & Dave, Mrs. Henry Mancini and I walked the halls of D.C. in the early 90′s looking for support for just such a bill. We were doing well until the NAB got wind of our efforts and warned some Congressmen how tough it would be to get re-elected if the local radio stations didn’t run their campaign ads the next time around. I can tell you that the current bill rips off artists for the benefit of their labels. This royalty bill is worse than no royalty bill, because it will prevent artists from ever getting their due. When I see SAG and AFTRA leaders standing with Big Copyright on these issues, I see the same thing happening all over again.
“Some judges” happen to be the Supreme Court, and what you would dismiss as “then” is actually the law NOW. The Dowling court’s statement of the separation between infringement and theft has been cited multiple times within the last year. Infringement is NOT theft, no matter how much you “feel” it is.
Reciting the catchphrases is no substitute for actual debate. Believing what you read in a press release is no substitute for actual thought. We will agree to disagree on this.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/new-acta-leak-shows-major-resistance-to-us-style-drm-rules.ars
Recent ACTA leaks. I’m generally in favor of the concept of “safe harbours” for ISPs, but of course the devil is in the details –it could certainly be used to make ISPs act in very intrusive and preemptive manners towards their customers to qualify. Used as a way to “end run” due process of the legal systems, I would not be a fan.
I just bought a bag of ten razors. It came with 5 free tune downloads. Kinda like Green Stamps except no licking. I’m betting that’s a big part of the future – “Try Our Laundry Detergent and get three free flick picks at Download.com”.