The verdict for the Pirate Bay trial is to be announced tomorrow, and I’m going to be following this one to the minute, if I can. This case is an interesting one, because unlike the similar “file sharing” trial involving Napster, this is a case of Hollywood vs a Search Engine.
For those of you who are not aware of what the Pirate Bay is, let me give you a brief synopsis of Torrents. Basically, a torrent is a checksum file of various bytes that comprise a file. People using a Torrent Client (like BitTorrent for PC, or Transmission for Macs) can use these checksum/hash files to locate the various bytes from other clients using the software, and download a complete version of the file. Its similar to the Napster/Kazaa software, but on a much broader scale (I’m simplifying here, of course, but hopefully you get the gist).
So, a couple of Swedesh guys get together and decide to create a site that allows users to search for these torrent hash files, to which a user can do with what they will… usually, they use them to download movies, music, and tv shows. So, Warner Brother (and many other companies) come along and say “the Pirate Bay is solely responsible for all the revenue we’ve lost” and try to sue, because in the United States, being a service provider that facilitates illegal activity is also illegal (although, one wonders about all those “escort agency and massage parlor” advertisements in local US papers that also facilitate illegal prostitution). Long story short, the US Governement put pressure on the Swedesh governement to shut them down. The same copyright laws do not exist in Sweden, and the site isn’t doing anything illegal under Swedish law.
To me, this appears to be another case of the US Government attempting to police the world and impose its rule of law globally. This has failed in the past, but there’s a first time for everything…
What is my stance on all this? All ethics about people participating in legal or illegal activities aside, these lawsuits are representative of business not understanding the paradigm shift that has happened in the last 10 or so years in regards to digital technology. The RIAA has gone as far as suing consumers for downloading a couple of songs, which is potential marketing suicide. But, on the other hand, someone downloading an album for free means lost revenue for a business. What has happened here? Where is the disconnect? Why are companies suing their customers?
Here’s where I think the flaw lies. Hollywood and the Recording Industry have confused the content with the product. For years, they have been the sole propriator of the technology used to distribute the content, be it CDs, DVD, VHS (remember when Hollywood was complaining about how VHS was killing box office sales? I do!), etc. Because digital files like MP3s are not something a company can hold propriatary ownership of (meaning, they cannot produce the means of distributing the content by selling the method of playing said content (ie CD Players, DVD Players… there’s a reason why Sony is a manufacturer of electronics and has a record division.
This is where they dropped the ball. Ironically, a computer company named after a record company (but have no relation, and was involved in many lawsuits about it), picked up that ball and appear to be doing just fine. Apple took an already existing technology (mp3 players), repackaged them and made them sexy. Had Warner Bros, Sony, and all the other companies that own electronics manufacturing plants had done the same, they probably would’ve been able to get a foothold on this new means of content distribution.
I didn’t take Marketing in school, but it seems to me that that is the disconnect. Warner Bros doesn’t make music and movies, they are content providers for people who sell little plastic discs, and the sales of these little plastic discs have decreased as of recent years because people have moved passed the wastefullness of little plastic discs.
At least, that’s how I see it.
