Piracy is the engine of progress. Uncontrolled Copy Research

After the launch of the “Time to Change Copyright” project , we began to receive many different reviews and user comments on the substance of the reforms we proposed.

As it became clear after the first month of the campaign, not all users understand the essence of the proposed changes . Many, unsophisticated about the problems of copyright and the distribution of content on the network, are still influenced by the many years of propaganda by lobbyists who convinced us that piracy must be combated in every way possible, claiming that digital piracy will destroy all creative industries.

I have repeatedly heard the opinion that our proposals are groundless, and the Pirate Party itself is seeking a utopian digital communism, in which any content needs to be “picked up and shared.”

In this regard, I would like to clarify a little, and to convince all those who do not support our public campaign for the reform of copyright in the digital age, that we do not call for the abolition of copyrights. Obviously, the author must also receive a reward for his work, and the provisions of civil law must certainly protect creativity, as it was developed by legal science several centuries since copyright first appeared as a branch of law.


The main problem that we wanted to raise in our campaign is not the very nature of private digital piracy (hereinafter - “uncontrolled copying”)) In fact, piracy is not at all an obstacle that impedes the sale of digital content on the network. And even if it is still possible to discuss this topic, the data on production in general in the creative industries unambiguously confirm that uncontrolled copying does not demotivate artists and publishers. For example, in 2000, 35,516 albums were released. Seven years later, 79,695 albums were released, including 25,159 digital albums (Nielsen SoundScan, 2008). Similar trends have been observed in other creative industries. For example, the total number of feature films produced in the world has grown from 3,807 a year in 2003 to 4,989 in 2007 (Screen Digest, 2004 and 2008). Countries where movie piracy thrives typically increased their production. This is true for South Korea (from 80 to 124), India (from 877 to 1164) and China (from 140 to 402).

The business successfully solves all the artificial problems created by imperfect legislation, and constantly comes up with new and more convenient services for the free distribution of music and films on the network. This is a lot of projects from BitTorrent Bundle and Youtube , with which authors can receive advertising revenue, to the services of Popcorn Time and Tracks Flow, which no deductions to the authors suggest, and more perform the functions of an aggregator of torrent files and hyperlinks. Crowdfunding schemes, which are offered today by many niche services (Kickstarter, Bumstarter, Planeta.ru, etc.) are growing every year and are becoming more and more popular with a variety of creative people, and the success of HBO, which used the phenomenon of uncontrolled copying to increase selling my subscriptions to TV shows, I don’t even want to remember.

The key point for us was to show that the Internet does not need additional copyright protection in the form of blocking sites, which is now offered by the state to protect authors in the digital space. In addition, today there are many other serious problems of the law, which in one way or another seem to most users not taking into account the realities of the modern world in the global network.

However, as we see, lawmakers do not stop trying to adopt new legislation. Yesterday, the information policy committee approved and by a majority vote of 298 deputies (against the only vote against Communist Party deputy Nikitchuk) passed the Ironman bill in first readingZheleznyak, expanding the effect of "anti-piracy law" on all objects of copyright. Of course, such an initiative is quite predictable, because how can federal law allow selective enforcement, allowing you to use the procedure for blocking sites for violating the rights to video content, and without protecting owners of exclusive rights to other types of content? One of the “sources close to the authorities” recently told me that, when adopting the bill, the deputies initially thought not to include photographs in the bill. To the question “Why is everything except photographs?”, The answer was “Just today there are no public organizations representing the interests of the authors of the photo” that would ask us about it. ”This is how the logic of our legislators is built.

And of course, the law cannot selectively protect the interests of only large corporate copyright holders of high-budget content (which today use this mechanism in the Moscow City Courtto protect their rights). Federal law should provide such protection to all authors without exception. And given that Art. 1259 of the Civil Code recognizes as objects of copyright any works of science, literature and art, regardless of the merits and purpose of the work, as well as the way it is expressed, then, obviously, the authors of “selfies” and “amateur videos” can also use the “anti-piracy law” , UGC, posts on social networks and all those who have ever created anything in the digital space. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine how such a law can be used in competitive wars, copyright racketeering, personal insults and sabotage of individual comrades in order to close sites. And along with sites accused by copyright holders of piracy, other sites will inevitably be blocked by a trailer,

The collapse of the judicial and administrative system with this approach is quite expected (and this is in the formulations of draft laws that the new mechanism does not imply any additional financial burden), and a similar approach to the protection of exclusive rights discredits the entire copyright institution, which has been criticized lately from all sides. Such a mechanism is harmful to the development of technology and IT business, is capable of violating fundamental human rights, and is unlikely to be able to help anyone sell content. The idea of ​​blocking sites, which appeared in the framework of the development of SOPA by American lobbyists of the largest media companies, could not resist in their homeland, but with ease before our eyes it turns into reality in Russia.

Piracy is not a theft; distribution is not a sale.


For all those who still do not understand the essence of the events taking place in Russia today, and accuse us of an unscientific, baseless approach to changing the laws governing the circulation of content on the network, we have prepared a list of valuable scientific essays on the issues of “digital piracy”, the influence of uncontrolled copying on the development of the information society, multimedia markets and creative industries (Thanks also to Amelia Andersdotterto the European Parliament from the Pirate Party). We have collected studies from leading educational institutions in the world, as well as major scientific communities that have studied the problem of piracy for many years. Unfortunately, studies in Russia in this area have hardly been conducted. Therefore, part of the work is the translated texts of foreign experts, another part is the work of the authors on this topic in the original ... We hope that thanks to the efforts of the community, we will be able to translate all these works and begin a large-scale Russian research in this area within the framework of the http: //changecopyright.ru .

In Russian:
Lawrence Lessig - “Free Culture”
Rick Falkving, Christian Engstrom - “Copyright Reform Case”
Jost Smirs, Mareike Van Schändel - “Imagine that there is no copyright”
Ivan Zasursky, Vladimir Kharitonov and the team of authors - “Copyright Transformation on the Internet”
Irina Levova, Gleb Shuklin, Dmitry Vinnik - “Internet Users Rights: Russia and the World, Theory and practice ”
Darren Todd -“ Pirate nation. How Digital Piracy Changes Business, Society, and Culture ”The
Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies -“ Anarchonomy ”
Joe Karaganis (translated by MIPT Doctor of Economics A. Kozyrev) -“ Media piracy in developing economies ”

Original:
Study of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences of the Department of Mass Media and Communication;
Analytical report for OFCOM (deep diving) on ​​the problems of digital piracy;
2004 Harvard University study “File Sharing Can Increase CD Sales”;
A study by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, 2008 "on the impact of file sharing on music sales";
A study by the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 2007 "on the impact of the ability to download a movie on the number of moviegoers";
2010 study by the Norwegian School of Economics, “The Norwegian Music Industry in the Digital Age” (how illegal downloading of music affected Norwegian musicians);
A study by the School of Law at Northwestern University of Chicago, “Money on Music: Survey Results Show Musicians Don't Need Overprotection of Their Copyrights”;
The study of the Swedish project “Cyber ​​Laws” on the positive impact for society of free access to files, as well as the exchange of cultural works on the Internet;
Study of the Polish Digital Center “On the Law on Copyright in Transition and on Social Standards Associated with the Use of Content”;
A study by the American Assembly of Columbia University, USA, "Copy Culture in the USA and Germany";
Cambridge University UK Study 2009 “Eternity minus a day?” Calculation of the optimal term for copyright protection ”;
A 2008 study commissioned by the EU Commission on the “Dangers of Long Term Copyright Protection”;
Report of Andrew Gowers, Norwich, UK “On Intellectual Property” (on the possibilities of the digital economy and on the effectiveness of protecting exclusive rights);
Tilburg Law and Economics Center Study, The Netherlands, 2013. DRM Abuse. A dangerous doctrine in search; principles ”;
Study of the International Business School of Jonkoping University (Belgium), University of Ferrara (Italy) and Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, 2005 “Intellectual Property Rights in Digital Media. Comparative analysis of legal protection, technical measures and new business models for delivering content in accordance with European and American legislation. You can

read and download studies on uncontrolled copying here.