The Infamous Underpants Analogy

Recently I blogged that copyright violations are analogous to borrowing your neighbor’s underpants without asking, then laundering and returning them before he returns home. I was immediately attacked for my analogy. Critics said my borrowed underpants analogy was flawed for several reasons:

1. Unlike copyrighted material, underpants are physical objects. So in my analogy, the owner of the underpants would be unable to simultaneously wear the underpants he already has on plus the underpants he intentionally left at home in his drawer.  Apparently this is a problem for some people.

2. At a microscopic level, the borrowed underpants would be slightly degraded by this one additional wearing. This is important for people who wear their underpants until the last fiber gives out and the material disintegrates and trickles out the pant legs.

And those were the GOOD criticisms. If you think I’m making this up, check out one of my more eloquent critics:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070412/183135.shtml

Let me explain something about analogies. Analogies are not supposed to be identical to the thing you are making the analogy about. Imperfection is necessary. Otherwise an analogy would be, for example, “Downloading music without paying is like downloading music without paying.” It doesn’t add much to your understanding.

The underpants analogy, in its original context, addressed the question of whether copyright violations are a victimless act. This is separate from the legal question. The point of the analogy is that the artist who loses legal control over his creation feels violated, just as you would if someone borrowed your underpants. I dare say it was one of my finest analogies, although admittedly the bar is set low.

In addition, as I previously argued, when an artist loses the ability to control when, and where, his art is distributed, it can be a real economic loss, depending on his marketing plan. This led to the following brilliant criticism:

1. Adams thinks artists have the legal right to prevent you from reading a book on the toilet. Artists never had that right!

Seriously. That was the criticism. I was hoping people would understand that I meant the artist would lose control of, for example, whether his book appears on the Internet before it’s published on paper.

I also heard the argument that any idiot knows copyright violations are good publicity, and as such, they lead to more sales. I tested this theory last year by making my book, God’s Debris, available for a free download. About a million people downloaded it. Based on my e-mail, a large percentage of them loved it. (It’s probably my most loved work, even though a good chunk of people felt it did a bad job of being what it wasn’t intended to be.) The total number who actually went out and bought that book, or the sequel that’s not available for free, is about 1,000. The free download did little but to make the economic value of my sequel appear to be zero.

If giving away your work for free is such a good strategy, you have to wonder why all the major artists aren’t doing it. Don’t the big record companies have any economists working for them? Or is it possible that the people with advanced degrees in business and economics know more about business and economics than the people downloading music with one hand, while masturbating furiously with the other, and wishing they had a tail to hold the bong?

Yes, yes, I can see how an unknown band might become popular by making its music available for free. That makes perfect sense. Luckily, every artist has that option. But as my experience with God’s Debris shows, every situation is unique. If the artist loses his right to decide when, and if, his creation is available to the world for free, he loses something of potential value, even in the unlikely event that the loss leads to more sales in the long run. I can’t steal a jacket from JC Penney and hope they understand that it’s good publicity, thus causing several people to buy the same jacket. It isn’t my right to make that decision, even if I happen to be correct.

There’s an argument that the world would be better if copyrighted works were available for free to anyone who wants them. I can only speak for myself, but I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have pursued creating Dilbert comics without the potential for getting rich while working at home. That was my entire motivation. I worked for about ten years, without a day off, to make Dilbert a success. There’s no way I would have done that much work just to earn an average income. That would have been irrational. I had easier options.

I think a reasonable person can dislike capitalism and wish for a more socialist world where art is free for all takers. But a reasonable person can’t expect that a socialist world would produce nearly as much art. That’s bat shit thinking.

I invite all bat shit thinkers to reiterate my point that free downloads might help unknown bands, and act as if I didn’t already address that exception. You are also invited to point out the fact that some middle men and some artists make more money than you do, and should be punished. (Bonus points for inserting “WA-WA-WA!!”)

Go.

Comments

[Johnny Rod]

First, on a general note, you've undoubtedly learned by now in dealing with people anonymously through the internet, that one can never, ever make a point that is so compelling, so clearly enunciated, so self-evident, that no one will stand up and tell you what a hypocritical jerk one is for having asserted such a thing.

The concept of intellectual property (and the ownership thereof) cannot be up to serious debate by intelligent people. Most of the developments of the last 200 years that have greatly enhanced the quality of our lives were developed with such legal reassurances in mind; from disease-curing drugs to methods of heating and insulating homes to the dissemination of information, and to all manner of technologies, methodologies, and underpantsologies, leading to longer, healthier, and less itchy lives.

I have not seen a single sensible argument that works of "art" should have less protection than pharmaceutical or technology or any other type of business venture where time, energy, and/or money is spent in order to create something new and valuable.

The closest I've seen is "art" being compared to a scientific venture (good of mankind kind of thing) rather than to a business venture, and as such, should have a different set of values surrounding its use. And yet, can anyone really make a case that "Dilbert" is more like a scientific venture than a business venture?

You create something as part of your livelihood, you're allowed to own it, and someone taking and using it without permission is stealing it. So many of these posts deal with extraneous nonsense. You don't have to show or quantify your damages; you don't have to prove that you are somehow lessened because someone else has a "copy" of it; you don't have to enter into an argument that letting people use it for free might even be GOOD for you financially.... NONE OF THE ABOVE! You OWN it, and nobody should be allowed to use it without your permission... PERIOD! This argument exists only because people ARE using such things without permission, because the means to do so is readily available and the means to control it, isn't, and so millions and millions of people wish to rationalize their behavior.

Still, I believe that the "underpants" analogy wasn't one of your best (sorry to differ).

[ma718zda]

c24t

[Mike]

Let's see if I've got this right: you gave away one book, and it had miserable sales. It's sequel also had miserable sales. From this, you conclude that giving away the work didn't help your sales. Probably true. On the other hand, another equally valid conclusion would be that giving away your work didn't hurt your sales, either - as both versions didn't sell enough to mention. Basically, you've got a sample size of two and no control. Any conclusions you reach based on that would be highly dubious.

Better would be to check something with more data. How about a publisher - Baen Books - whose running a free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm), which gives away *lots* of books. And also sells lots of books. They've been doing it for something like 9 years. Baen hasn't shut it down, and hasn't gone broke. Sure looks like it's working for them.

You also ask why major artists don't give away their work. Could it be because they can't? The music industry treats them pretty badly, and generally own the rights to their music - even if they haven't written it yet (see http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15-artists-rights_x.htm). On the other hand, a few can give their music away, and do, Prince, for instance (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1644427,00.html).

You also talk about highly-trained economists. Most of the ones I know of bashing downloading work for members of the RIAA and similar (the MPAA is going the same way, but hasn't gotten as far so we'll ignore it). The RIAA is a group of companies that make money by distributing music. Their grasp of the market for downloaded music is made obvious by the fact that the downloaded music industry is dominated by a single company - and it isn't any of them. It's a company whose president publicly disses them for their treatment of their customers (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/).

Of course, the folks at the RIAA are right - they're losing money to downloaded music. In the two years since I set up a Mac in my stereo system, I've downloaded hundreds of songs. All legally, mind you, from artists web sites and places like cdbaby.com. And it's changed my record buying habits. I still buy the same number of records - one or two a month - but most of them are by artists whose music I've already downloaded and listened to. A couple of older cds, and one (1) purchased download - of a record that was 10 years old, very cheap, that I couldn't find new are the exceptions. Those all represent lost sales to the RIAA.

I'm no stranger to buying things over the internet. I purchased a new benz over the net in '97. I've been downloading both free and purchased) ebooks since then as well. However, the book publishers treat me like a customer. The books are generally in open formats with no DRM, so I can use them on whatever platform I want. Since most of those I put on a PDA or cell phone, that's important to me.

Music, on the other hand - well, the industry treats me like a thief. Most of it has DRM so I can only use it in a limited fashion, and most of that is proprietary so I can only use it on the platforms they support. Screw that. I'll by the CD, which doesn't have those problems. Given the way the members of the RIAA treat their artists, I have to wonder whether they treat their customers the way they do because they expect their customers to do what they would do.

[Mike]

Let's see if I've got this right: you gave away one book, and it had miserable sales. It's sequel also had miserable sales. From this, you conclude that giving away the work didn't help your sales. Probably true. On the other hand, another equally valid conclusion would be that giving away your work didn't hurt your sales, either - as both versions didn't sell enough to mention. Basically, you've got a sample size of two and no control. Any conclusions you reach based on that would be highly dubious.

Better would be to check something with more data. How about a publisher - Baen Books - whose running a free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm), which gives away *lots* of books. And also sells lots of books. They've been doing it for something like 9 years. Baen hasn't shut it down, and hasn't gone broke. Sure looks like it's working for them.

You also ask why major artists don't give away their work. Could it be because they can't? The music industry treats them pretty badly, and generally own the rights to their music - even if they haven't written it yet (see http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15-artists-rights_x.htm). On the other hand, a few can give their music away, and do, Prince, for instance (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1644427,00.html).

You also talk about highly-trained economists. Most of the ones I know of bashing downloading work for members of the RIAA and similar (the MPAA is going the same way, but hasn't gotten as far so we'll ignore it). The RIAA is a group of companies that make money by distributing music. Their grasp of the market for downloaded music is made obvious by the fact that the downloaded music industry is dominated by a single company - and it isn't any of them. It's a company whose president publicly disses them for their treatment of their customers (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/).

Of course, the folks at the RIAA are right - they're losing money to downloaded music. In the two years since I set up a Mac in my stereo system, I've downloaded hundreds of songs. All legally, mind you, from artists web sites and places like cdbaby.com. And it's changed my record buying habits. I still buy the same number of records - one or two a month - but most of them are by artists whose music I've already downloaded and listened to. A couple of older cds, and one (1) purchased download - of a record that was 10 years old, very cheap, that I couldn't find new are the exceptions. Those all represent lost sales to the RIAA.

I'm no stranger to buying things over the internet. I purchased a new benz over the net in '97. I've been downloading both free and purchased) ebooks since then as well. However, the book publishers treat me like a customer. The books are generally in open formats with no DRM, so I can use them on whatever platform I want. Since most of those I put on a PDA or cell phone, that's important to me.

Music, on the other hand - well, the industry treats me like a thief. Most of it has DRM so I can only use it in a limited fashion, and most of that is proprietary so I can only use it on the platforms they support. Screw that. I'll by the CD, which doesn't have those problems. Given the way the members of the RIAA treat their artists, I have to wonder whether they treat their customers the way they do because they expect their customers to do what they would do.

[Karl Fogel]

The question is not whether you could make as much money without copyright as you do with it. The answer is clearly "no", in your case. The question is whether your making money is a good justification for preventing everyone else from sharing and from making derivative works.

Your answer is "Yes, because if I didn't make money, I wouldn't be able to create as much (or as good) art." This may be true, for you. But it's not like there's a shortage of art in the world. You ask:

"If giving away your work for free is such a good strategy, you have to wonder why all the major artists aren’t doing it."

Well, that's silly: there's a selection bias the size of Montana in that question! You're apparently defining "major artist" as someone who has succeeded in making their fortune in the copyright-based economic world. Of course they don't choose to give away their works for free; they'd have the most to lose by doing so. But would we really be without art if those few people didn't have a government-granted monopoly on the distribution of their works? I highly doubt it. Copyright does not fund the majority of art created in the world, or even in this country. (It is a matter of opinion whether it funds the stuff that tends to be of higher quality, but personally I don't see a strong correlation there.) That's not "bat-shit thinking", that's taking a cold, hard look at the economic reality of most artists' lives, and realizing that copyright doesn't play much of a role.

Which isn't surprising, since copyright was not, in fact, invented to support artists, but to support the distributors -- that is, the printers, back in the early eighteenth century, when the economics of running a printing press were highly precarious. Of course, today we have a world-wide, zero-cost copying machine (the Internet), and so people are starting to question whether the old, printing-press-based copyright model still makes sense.

Having a government-granted monopoly to support your business model is a wonderful thing, *for you*. It's not necessarily a great deal for all the people on the outside of the monopoly, though.

http://QuestionCopyright.org/.

-Karl

[The artist formerly known as DogbertRocks...]

Well, with all the critisism you got, it's time somebody apologized.

You see, I may be the very reason why the video sharing website YouTube suddenly got cramped with thousands of clips from the Dilbert - The Animated Series. I might even have helped spreading clips on and off the internet without me even knowing about it.

And all because of one clip...

I'm not sure though if my actions are the root of it all, and I certainly hope not. But there is a slight possibility I am. I have closed my YouTube account, and therefore the videos I had uploaded are gone since about two weeks ago. I found out there were ways to download the clips via an online service, so I removed the videos at one. And that's how I might have helped spreading the clips.

But either way,
I'm sorry for being a naive moron.

I would also like to report that http://www.youtube.com and http://www.dailymotion.com has several full episodes uploaded. I suggest you look into that.

[JJ]

I realize this is an old blog entry. I had your underpants analogy simmering in my head since months. I just thought of another perhaps better analogy: house keys. You could make the following argument:

"There is no harm in letting me copy your house keys, right? Because you still have the original keys. Nobody has been wronged at all, until I actually use the keys. To assume that I will use them in a bad way is unreasonable. Give me the benefit of the doubt. I just want to have them around."

Or even better, login passwords for email etc. Anyone who thinks copying intellectual property is OK, should clearly agree that someone in Hong Kong copying their login credentials is OK too, if they don't use it. After all, they still have the original copy of their password!

My otherwise standard analogy is currency. I'll just make a copy of this $100 bill for you.. I still have the original, so no obvious harm has been done. Etc.

Counterfeiting money is rather similar to copyright infringement, the only difference is that agencies issuing national currency have a lot bigger sticks than you or I..

[Bret]

Here's what I find ironic: of all of Scott Adams' works, the only thing I ever read is his blog (which I enjoy very much), which I don't have to violate copyright law to read for free. There's so much enjoyable free writing, music, and visual art that I wouldn't miss it at all if "professional" producers of such things stopped because copyrights were eliminated.

[making money]

thanksssssssss

[Michal Malkowski]

BTW - check out the Atom car.
Altought you've probably already heard about it.

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[R0b]

Talking about the "God's debris": I downloaded it some day last year. I'm sure it's still laying somewhere in some murky corner of my HDD. Still I haven't come around to reading it past the first page (the book cover, that is). Do I count among that million happy readers who also downloaded this book?

[Wolfger]

I downloaded God's Debris when you offered it for free. I had actually looked at buying it prior to then, but when I learned it wasn't Dilbert, I decided against taking the risk. After getting it for free, I read it and enjoyed it, and sent a copy to a couple friends of mine (or sent them the link and made them download it, I don't remember). I have no idea if they ever bought your second book or not, but I've been intending to. I'm just poor right now. But it is on my wish list, so that's a future sale you'll have made.
As for the overall poor sales you've experienced, I think that's more likely due to the book not really being most people's cup of tea, rather than any fault in the logic that giving stuff away is good promotion. When giving stuff away is your promotional tool, you have to be extra sure that what you're giving away is worth paying for.

[David Coble]

Oscar Wilde thought art would do pretty well under socialism.

Try "The Soul of Man Under Socialism".

http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1309/

Of course, he was a bat-shit thinker.

[Wolfger]

"The point of the analogy is that the artist who loses legal control over his creation feels violated, just as you would if someone borrowed your underpants."
Hey, Scott! I'm wearing your underpants right now!

[Paul]

I don't know if you're aware who Todd Goldman is, but he's a popular artist/t-shirt designer/pop culture guy. A recent uproar has surfaced in the web comics community over how he's apparently just been freely ripping people off for years by essentially copying other people's stuff and selling it as his own. Most of the anger revolves around how difficult it is for anyone to do anything about it legally. A sample of his work compared to source material is here: http://www.miketyndall.com/todd_goldman/

Just thought you might be interested, what with your recent posts.

[ac]

The analogy doesn't work. Information is not a physical object and cannot logically be thought of or treated the same way.

Anyone who experiences information creates a copy in their brain. The only way to prevent this is to keep the information a secret. Once information is no longer secret then copyright owners can only whine to the government to use its guns against the big bad pirates.

Maybe a better solution would be for content creators to use their creative abilities to come up a business model that doesn't rely on the archaic concept of information scarcity?

[JP]

I have to agree with John's post of April 19. I found God's Debris interesting enough, but I don't collect and re-read philosophy books. I like to have hard copies of Humor books, especially humorous books with enough depth that you can get more out of going back to them later. I have some collections of Johnny Hart's BC comics from the sixties that still have bits that make me laugh. And Calvin and Hobbes did philosophy in an entertaining and visually engaging way, so I collected all of those books for my library.

God's Debris just wasn't the kind of book most people want.

[Thmz]

Yay! I'm one in a thousand. I went to the bookstore, had someone find me God's debris and paid the $5 or whatever it sells for! I wonder if it'll increase in value over time, since so few were actually sold.. My motivation was that I don't like to stare at a computer screen for too long, and printing it out would be ugly and probably cost me more than $5 in ink and paper.

Good book, by the way. I recommend it. I'll have to go find the sequel. Is it out yet?

[Paul C]

One person posting here praised your namesake Douglas Adams for the brilliant h2g2 five -volume "trilogy".

It might be worth noting for the record that Adams (Douglas Neil, not Scott)had his problems with copyright issues... on the original cast recording of h2g2 (released on record circa 1980)he has the ill-assorted band of spacefarers crouched behind a computer deck which is bweing blasted by two trigger-happy space cops, singing their ethnic death-anthems on the very sensible grounds that they are about to die. While Arthur Dent, being English and pompous, opts for "Land of Hope and Glory", Trillian sings a resigned verse or two of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life".

This was a throwaway joke on the LP, but it was followed through with a swingeing bill for several thousand pounds in performance royalties from Paul McCartney's lawyers.

Adams paid up (it doesn't matter that McCartney is a multi-millionaire, he was still in the right to demand a payment for use of his intellectual property, however little of his song was used)

However, he gained revenge by throwing in a string of acid jokes about McCartney's perceived money-grubbing in the next book in the series

("He was humming an air so beautiful that, had Paul McCartney written it, he could have bought the whole of Hampshire and put in a fair bid for Sussex")

That's style...

[Erik]

If anyone is still wondering if you can give something a way for free and still make lots of money, look at the creater of bit torrent this guy is a guinious and totaly broke, but his creation acounts for more than half of all internet trafic.
Humm and I can't even remember his name. The ultimate irony is I used the lime wire free version to downlode (steal) the pro version. humm they had it coming.

IF SCOTT WANTED TO MAKE MONEY ON HIS BOOK HE NEED TO GIVE AWAY HALF OF HIS BOOK SO YOU COULD HAVE TRIED IT OUT AND BOUGHT THE REST IF THEY LIKED IT.

[Simone]

I'm not sure. I think that some copyright laws are completely out of time. The world is getting faster and smaller, copyright laws are just getting longer expiring terms to avoid Mikey Mouse entering public domain. I also can't understand why if I buy a DVD I can't watch that in another continent. Or why I can't take 2 min of that to make my home video more interesting. That doesn't mean that getting pirated stuff is ok. Don't know about free publicity, still I firmly believe Microsoft couldn't EVER have become such a strong cash machine if it wasn't for millions of people being able to learn its stuff illegally. When I was a kid a strange thing was happening: my friend had some CD and I didn't. I just couldn't listen to that music. This is not the case anymore. I think today's kid are going to be better men than me, because they can get more music. As you can see I have no answers here, I'm still trying to get some more informations. Txs for your thoughts, I'll add to the pile. Simone

[Paul Morris]

"The big entertainment companies profit from their gatekeeper role, made possible by their sucking off special priveleges provided by the state. Hell, yeah, the parasites know they're making more money sucking at the government tit than they could make in a free market."

Bullshit. Since the invention of this new internet thing, there is nothing to stop bands bypassing these 3vil 'gatekeepers'. This myth that all record companies are evil mafia types in league with beelzebub is just farcical. Has it ever occured to anyone that musicians *might* actually prefer to concentrate on writing songs, rehearsing and practicing their instruments, rather that spending their days staring at spreadsheets, accounts, and negotiating contracts with venues, distributors, lawyers, marketing departments, magazines and radio stations?

Record companies exist because there is a lot of work associated with promoting and managing a large succesful band that is not creative work, and which most creative people would rather not do. I make video games for a living, which partially I sell direct, but I also have a deal with an 'agent' to help sell the games. They are not an '3vil gatek33per', but a business partner, with whom I have entered a business relationship for mutual gain.
Stop characterising all record companies as evil. Thats just the groupthink thats spun around by those who would rather get evrything for free, and need an excuse.

[Listo Entertainment]

Here it goes:
I have a proper job and I draw some comics just for fun.
I hate a lot of people who make more money than me doing nothing but cool things like singing or drawing.
WA-WA-WA!!

(I don't hate you because I like your work, but I hate most of the others)

[TJGeezer]

I must thank DCX2 for the tip about xkcd.com - I browsed it, and lo and behold: http://www.xkcd.com/c14.html

What sanity.

[David Banks]

Now watch as everyone furiously agrees with you.

[mendel]

Hi Scott!

Randy Milholland publishes a webcomic, SomethingPositive.net, for free. He writes in his FAQ about a donation drive: "Here's the thing - a little over 1% of my actual audience donated. The average donation was $5."

If you had asked the people who downloaded "God's Debris" to put a little something in your paypal tip jar if they liked the book, you could have gotten $50000 out of it if Randy's numbers applied to your situation (which they may not because he's a poor(?) webcomic artist and you're a syndicated cartoonist, so there's no "charity" factor involved). You can easily compute by what margin of error the numbers could be wrong and still net you more than the royalties you actually earned from the dead tree version...

[Kevin Carson]

I agree with your analysis of your hallucination.

I don't think anybody was arguing that the *record companies* could operate profitably on a business model not based on intellectual property. The big entertainment companies profit from their gatekeeper role, made possible by their sucking off special priveleges provided by the state. Hell, yeah, the parasites know they're making more money sucking at the government tit than they could make in a free market.

I don't think I know a mugger's business better than he does. I don't think there's an open source model of mugging that pays as much as holding somebody up at gunpoint. The mugger knows he's got a good thing going, and couldn't possibly make as much by honest means. The fact that Sony or Microsoft would go bankrupt is a feature rather than a bug, IMO. Do you really think we care whether the winners in the existing state capitalist economy would come out ahead without corporate welfare? I hope Halliburton and Blackwater go belly-up along with Sony and MS.

The actual argument, should you ever care to address it, is that individual artists can make a living on an open source business model, and that the marketing of artistic production in that case would shift from the giant gatekeeper corporations to the artists themselves.

And it is possible to make money without intellectual property protections. Companies like Red Hat make money off Linux by offering support services and customization, rather than from revenues on the OS itself, for example. What most enemies of intellectual property want is a shift from an economy of Microsofts to an economy of Red Hats, from an economy of Sonys to an economy of Phish. I really don't care that Bill Gates couldn't become a billionaire under such a regime. I'd like to shove Genuine Advantage so far up Gates' ass he'd have DRM coming out his nose.

[Eos]

It's almost the Law of Diminishing Returns;
The less known you are, the more value in making your material available for free to acquire a fanbase willing to pay for you.

Disturbingly AOL used a similar concept with their trillions of free CDs to try to gain paying members.

For someone already published and commercial such as yourself, attracting new readers with freebies is unlikely at best as your own test has demonstrated.

Unfortunately humans want as much as they can get for free and will justify it with any rationale because we're not wired to accept that we make 'wrong' choices.

[Jonathan]

+1 Scott!

I had a well-educated Canadian arguing that the free nad legal music downloads apparently allowed north of the border were good for musicians because he used the money he would have spent on CDs to go see the artists live.

As a (formerly professional) musician, I was shocked that he thought he was doing the bands a favor! He was stealing from the band to ability to determine which business model they wished to pursue for their creative endeavor. For many musicians that choice impacts their lifestyles heavily - imagine being a doting father to small children while on the road half the year. I know many musicians who took up a backup profession instead of live that kind of life.

The ultimate of that mindset would be fewer CDs, of lower quality, mostly recordings of live performances. Is that what you want to stick in your iPod?

Practically though, I am hoping this will sort out over time, and artists can be compensated well for their endeavors by a public willing to pay appropriate amounts for their use. Right now the imbalance seems to be caused by too much overhead by the middlemen, inadequate moral compasses by many who are happy to steal in the safety and anonymity of their own living rooms, the lack of a workable model of direct creator-consumer transactions, and the noisy general chaos of a disruptive technology.

[Leora]

I find myself inspecting my underpants in the drawer now, looking for telltale signs of illicit use...wasn't that on CSI last week?

I found a photograph I'd taken for a non-profit group on a long-distance calling card. Funny, I donated the photo to a charity for use in a fundraiser, and next thing I know, the head of the charity has used it in for his own profit-making business. Worse still, the weasel had the nerve to deny any knowledge of it when I confronted him.

I must confess, though, I used to tape songs off the AM stations when I was 12.

[Laird]

So your point is that you think *more* people would have bought God's Debris if you hadn't given it away free.

I read it free and then bought two copies to give as presents and sent one free copy to a friend. I enjoyed it. I especially liked the truck analogy. I've cited it many times.

Cheers,

L

[Clay]

Here's an analogy for you, Scott. Copyright law is like abstinence-only sex education: it may be well-intentioned, but it's just *not* going to work. That doesn't mean people opposing it can necessarily justify themselves on moral grounds, but it does mean you should consider human nature, lack of free will, etc., and and move on to something that does work.

[Iggy]

Well, some people have Robin Hood complex, they think that they are stealing from the (relatively) rich and giving to the (relatively) poor, who just happens to be them. That is justification for their theft (in their mind). It also has a bit of a romantic twist to it if you are stealing Bryan Adam's "Every thing I do"...

I also think that to some extent music companies did it to themselves. It started as a convienience thing (yes i know i can't spell). You grab napster, and 10 minutes later you have access to 1 song off a $15 album for free. You can't buy that one song. You don't know if you like the whole album. And once you have it for free, where's the incentve to pay? IF the music companies hadn't tried to fight it for so long, they may have not encouraged the development of such sophisticated theft tools. Had they simply faced the music (pun intended) and provided a fair and safe way for people to get the songs they want when they want them without messing with our computers and file formats, they may have not encouraged the creation of the "Free Music Entitled" generation. We have a whole generation of people who think that downloading music is a victimless crime, and unfortunately they don't all read your blog.

[malignor]

I download stuff because I'm a stingy bastard. Then if I'm so impressed with something, or I download enough of it, I go out and buy some of their stuff because I want to support what I appreciate.

But when it comes to artists who are already dead, I just grab whatever I feel like. Can't support a corpse.

[Kuba]

I almost agree with the author, but as I live in the Czech Republic, I have to add a comment. In here some of the large recording companies tried for some time what the customer could stand in the terms of high prices. They simply used the fact, that there is no perfect substitute for their products. (I wouldn't buy a Madonna CD even if it cost half the price of a Dire Straits CD, for Madonna fans it will be the other way round). The result was that CD's got so expensive, that lots of people just started copying them. But it seems, that the companies that didn't take part in the highest price race have the same problem, but it isn't such a hard problem for them. Another thing is that some of the companies got some stupid anti-pirate software on their CD's. When this protection prevented me from normally using it (playing it on my computer, making MP3's for my portable player, playing it in the car (and making a copy that I could leave in the car) they themselves forced me to use a pirate copy... I have most (more than 95%) of my records legally (the illegal part are records that aren't possible to buy, because they were sold out and there hasn't been a reedition yet) But I think that the recording companies made lot of their problems with copying and downloading themselves. (To be frank, for a normal book price I don't have problem with buying Dilbert. If you wanted 1000 dollars for a copy I would try to copy (steal) it...)

[Lee]

The 'techsoil' idea is a pretty poor one and, to be honest, I doubt if the folks at Techdirt would care if you tried it. Someone should just to see what they would do.

Let's say you set up your 'techsoil' site with all your adverts. Who exactly is going to go to a copy of a website which is plastered with advertising over the unadorned original, which is far more likely to be up to date and contain legitimate commentary from the people whose opinion they value?

[GDR]

An interesting take on "file sharing".

[mendel]

Aaron wrote: It's called a library. It is a place where you can find a huge library of books and rent them at little to no cost. This is good for everybody because the library pays for their books through late fees ...

A library does not use late fees to buy new books. A library uses its budget to buy new books. The budget usually comes from the community (i.e. tax money) or a beneficial grant.

dougie wrote: Good example: Kalashnikov desinged and manufactured the world's best-selling fully autmatic assault rifle, the AK-47. He died pennyless. Why, you ask? Because he lived in a society where everyone's time was valued at pretty much the same rate.... Time is the one truly valuable resource, because it is the one thing that cannot be replaced. When you quit respecting that fact, then you become a thief.

By that reasoning, copyright is stealing: hit artists' time is apparently worth insanely much more money than your time or mine. I quote Rolling Stone: The Richest Rock Stars of 2006: "The vast majority of artists in our Top Thirty made the bulk of their cash on the road in 2005. Album royalties pale in comparison. "The music business has changed," says Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of U2, who came out on top last year, taking in an estimated $154.2 million ...".
Divided by 5 (4 members and their manager) comes to 30 million apiece. The year had 8760 hours, so they got roughly $3000 per hour, waking or sleeping. If you think a Rock Star's working hour should be worth $300, you have to assume that the rest are immoral gains. Paradoxically enough, these gains came mostly from performances, not from copyright royalties...

[mendel]

Jake wrote: Face facts - most people in the creative arts didn't get into it to play "starving artist" and go for months on end without washing their hair. They do it for the money.

My observation is that most people in the creative arts get into it as a hobby. They take evening classes etc. However, not many people know about them; often only a close circle of friends knows they're doing it. Most artists you actually hear about do it for the money because they spend money to market themselves (in the expectation that it will earn them more money). In total terms, I believe they're a minority.

Having a nice evening filled with music used to mean gathering with a few friends and making some homemade music on the back porch, 150 years ago (or even more recent than that). Nowadays it means sitting down and consuming some music that's been marketed to you.

I can't say I have created much of value, but I regularly perform music in front of audiences for free.

[mendel]

Nah, if Scott Adams ripped off Red Dwarf like that, it'd just be plagiarism, not a copyright violation. Copyright only protects the expression of an idea (i.e. the way it is written down, drawn, set to music, sculptured etc.), not the idea itself.

[Paul C]

speaking of copyright violations...

today's Dilbert cartoon (20th April 07), where Dilbert perfects an Ipod that gratifies all five senses (effectively a virtual reality machine)and the pay-off line is "The test group preferred it over eating. They're all dead"

With your fondness for British comedy, Scott, has it occured to you that this rips off the "Better Than Life" concept used in the TV series and novelisation of "Red Dwarf", where the most inept spacecraft crew ever ,are suckered into a 100% perfect virtual reality game and the challenge is to get out of an artificial world (where they think their every last whim is being granted to them) - before their neglected physical bodies starve to death?

Check it out - this is possibly a creative coincidence, or, if you've seen/read "Red Dwarf" (esp. the novelisation "Better than Life") a copyright violation...

[Paul C]

speaking of copyright violations...

today's Dilbert cartoon (20th April 07), where Dilbert perfects an Ipod that gratifies all five senses (effectively a virtual reality machine)and the pay-off line is "The test group preferred it over eating. They're all dead"

With your fondness for British comedy, Scott, has it occured to you that this rips off the "Better Than Life" concept used in the TV series and novelisation of "Red Dwarf", where the most inept spacecraft crew in history are suckered into a 100% perfect virtual reality game and the challenge is to get out of a world (where they think every last whim is being granted to them) - before their neglected physical bodies starve to death?

Check it out - this is possibly a creative coincidence, or, if you've seen/read "Red Dwarf" (esp. the novelisation "Better than Life") a copyright violation...

[Paul C]

speaking of copyright violations...

today's Dilbert cartoon (20th April 07), where Dilbert perfects an Ipod that gratifies all five senses (effectively a virtual reality machine)and the pay-off line is "The test group preferred it over eating. They're all dead"

With your fondness for British comedy, Scott, has it occured to you that this rips off the "Better Than Life" concept used in the TV series and novelisation of "Red Dwarf", where the most inept spacecraft crew in history are suckered into a 100% perfect virtual reality game and the challenge is to get out of a world (where they think every last whim is being granted to them) - before their neglected physical bodies starve to death?

Check it out - this is possibly a creative coincidence, or, if you've seen/read "Red Dwarf" (esp. the novelisation "Better than Life") a copyright violation...

[Andy]

"Everyone else is doing it" seems partial justification to some. "No one is getting hurt" seems to complete the justification to others. Sounds like groupthink to me.

I believe things would be different if the people making such justifications owed all or part of their income to copyrights they held.

Andy

[Mark]

I agree with Trotta, another commentator. Music is not something vital for human life. It is a nice thing, that other people do for others. The people who make the music, well, it's their music. You are welcome to make your own music, and market that as you see fit. As far as I am concerned, the person who makes the art has the right to do whatever the hell he wants with it.

I could make a CD that I only want available in one store, and only to people who wear baseball caps. Yes, that's stupid, but since I made it, I get the right to do what I want with it. If people don't like that, then they are free to make their own music.

[MrRich]

My guess is that everything you write is calulated to make the most money. Like this blog.

It really does not matter what folks think or belive, or what laws are passes. Copyright in a digital age is unenforceable.

As for folk only do it for the money. Well maybe in the US. But what about GPL and copyleft works? What about creative commons?

Not everyone is obsessed with getting rich. Making a fair living is enought for most.

[Ugh]

Face it, Scott.. that analogy stinks.

[CLD]

Aw, that techdirt article was sad. I mean, I'm a fuzzy-headed commie liberal-arts major and even I saw the flaws in his reasoning.

That earns a sad emoticon.

: (

[Bulbboy]

I agree with Don G who wrote:
"I believe that every person who says that violation of copyright is victimless crime has never created anything of value in their entire life..."

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/04/the_infamous_un.html#comment-67018906

The "copyright violations are good publicity" argument can only be made by people who don't create. Most artists wouldn't be thinking 'I'm glad my work is out there, even if people haven't paid for it.'

As an artist (oil painting not audio) I made a blunder selling off a lot of work in a physical 'eBay style' 1 Penny No Reserve auction. My marketing guy didn't come through for me so there were few visitors. I trusted in the goodness of people and hoped some would bid on what they thought the value of the paintings were. Most of the work went for less than the price of the materials.

After selling 5 years of work for basically no money, some said "Still at least your work is out there getting seen". This is no consolation as I imagine the buyer standing beside the work saying "Yeah, I got it for peanuts!" Which lessens the chance of someone wanting to pay a fair price. Artists don't like starving and want money coming in to continue to make art/music etc.

Not the same as music downloads, or copyright for that matter, but it brought my poor business sense to mind.

[Tim]

The problem is a capitalist market requires scarcity. The control you want is to control the scarcity. Digital media on a fixed cost network naturally has no scarcity. Anything digital that gets released will therefore become as valueless in the economic market as air.

Trying to regulate into place a market is how the royalty tried to hold on to feudalism after capitalism took root. They also said the capitalist market was immoral.

Unfortunately we have a split. Our intellectual property market has crashed, but there's still cost to produce physical goods. In a true communist economy it's not that everyone gets paid the same. It's that everything has no cost -- free energy and replicators for all.

In the mean time, a guys gotta earn a buck. Good luck with that.

[CaptRespect]

I think it's more like going to your neighbor's house, making an exact duplicate of his underpants and then maybe telling a few people how good the underpants are.

You're not stealing from your neighbor, but you could be stealing from Fruit of the Loom.

Fruit of the Loom might win out when next time you decide to buy there underpants, but then again you might just keep duplicating your neighbor's underpants forever.

[JO]

Correct me if I am wrong. The Dilbert.com site allows you to read past strips, email strips etc. How upset could you be about people getting them for free in violation of copyright
laws. You give the stuff away of your own free will. BTW, I do buy Dilbert comics and read them in the bathroom.

[Minister of Silly People in Green]

WA WA WA, how much art has come from communist Russia or China compared to the amount of art produced by the US during the same period?

[Adrian D.]

hi scott

as a copyright lawyer I read your recent blog entries and the comments with lots of interest.

it all confirmed what I have experienced so far:
- people cannot be convinced that they are doing something wrong if (i.) they enjoy it and (ii.) everybody's doing the same
- people will always find some justification for doing wrong (thanks for bringing "cognitive dissonance" to a larger audience)
- they'll get very irrational and emotional about their justification and your effort to show them wrong
- in discussion about copyright people will be divided into group 1 who prodoce works and want those works protected and group 2 who consume works and want them for free no matter what. group 2 will ignore all logic behind incentives for artists to engage oneself in creating art. Group 2 believes very strong in the legend of the starving artist that is the origin of better art (as a side note: that myth was created two centuries ago by french impressionists leaving the art academy). And Group 2 will - in the lack of better arguments - base all of their argumentation on the missing similarity between your point and the analogy...

keep writing, it is most enjoyable!

Posted by: aiwn | April 19, 2007 at 06:51 AM

Above, I have copied an illogical, emotional post. The fact is, there have been both logical, and emotional posts from various perspectives. As the saying goes: I have no dog in this fight. I do not draw income from copyrights. Nor do I engage in the downloading described. Scott's analogy was flawed. (Unless, as it has been suggested, it was meant as an analogy for feeling violated -- in which case he should have said so.) As the "missing similarity" was the reason why people were claiming it was "okay" to distribute copies, leaving it out to show "logically" why it is not fails the test of logic.

And if Scott *had* said that he felt personally violated, the posts would probably have addressed that.

[PJ]

Too many entries to read them all, but, I have a son who is a musician and it seems apparent that most of the responders are not involved in the creative part of the music world. It sems to be an assumption that there are two kinds of bands out there: 1. bands that are making more money than they know what to do with, and 2. bands that are new and giving their songs away free because that means they will soon be making more money than they know what to do with. FACT- A tiny fraction of one percent of the musical groups out there are making a living at it. Does the phrase "day job" mean anything? When a group puts out their very first CD, it represents thousands of hours of unpaid practice while the performers were growing up. Now, when their first CD goes online and they want you to buy it, it doesn't mean millions of dollars in their pockets, it means if they are lucky they will earn enough to pay for the recording studio where they put it together. There is far more music out there than most people will ever know about. My recommendation is that people try to discover the music world that exists outside the major music labels. A lot of times the music is better and your dollars will be buying new strings for their guitar, not a glass of wine for supper.

[DCX2]

I love how everyone applauds Scott's bong comment. Certainly a "genius" argument is riddled with ad-homs.

Also, when you gave away your book for free, and then declared "oh, free doesn't work, see?" you totally missed the point.

For example, let's examine xkcd.com

It's a web comic. The comics themselves are licensed under the Creative Commons license. That means you, me, and anyone else in the world can do whatever we please with Randall Munroe's comics. That is, he's giving them away, for free.

What a nice chap, that Mr. Munroe is. Smart and funny, too. But, he must be silly for giving away his hard-earned content. Right?

As it turns out, he figured out how to use the comics as free promotional material to support a business. He sells T-shirts of his comics. He makes enough money off of these T-shirts that when his Lifebook was stolen from his apartment, he turned down donations and offers to set up a PayPal account to help him get a new one.

Yes, you read that right. He turned down free money. Why? Because he makes enough from the T-shirt sales, which his free comics promote, to buy a new laptop on his own.

Just because _you_ can't figure out how to properly implement "free" as a promotional tool doesn't mean that free is only good for unknown artists.

Oh, and just because _you_ wouldn't make Dilbert without the financial incentive does not mean other people won't devote their time, effort, and sweat to the progress of humanity. Did id Software sue the people who were modding the Quake engine? No! id didn't have to pay those people to write that code, and the code they wrote, for free, because of their love for the game, increased the value of Quake. So, as it turns out, some people aren't out to get a buck, and actually do things because they love them. It is my opinion that someone who loves what they do will do better at it than someone who does their job for a paycheck.

Oh, wait, maybe that's why I read xkcd and not Dilbert.

[wrench]

He has a good point. Is it copyright infringement if I see a designer dress on the runway, like it, whip out my sewing machine and knock out a perfect copy to wear myself? And your underwear analogy is flawed since the underwear was actually taken. We can all agree that physically taking something without the owners consent is stealing, even if we intend to return it.

[Chris H]

Mr. Adams,

Perhaps the reason you didn't have sucess with the free release of your book is because you failed to make the physical copy more valuable. You need to add content to make it more valuable. Think of it this way, if you offer just the book for free, thats great. But if you offer the text of the book for free, but make it so if you buy the book you get something extra, like a CD with extra content, or a free calendar. Failure to add content is why your trial failed.
Check out http://www.xkcd.com
The owner of that site releases all of his comics under a Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/) and make no money off of the comics themselves, but makes a majority of his income off of the T-Shirts with his comics on them.
That is the kind of additional content that I am talking about

[tom]

i break copyright law bc it's easy to do and the likelihood of getting caught is very small. i don't do it often, but when i do, it's clear that i have no regard for the creator of the content which i am stealing. for the creators who i do care about, i.e., my favorite bands .. i don't break copyright law by downloading music from those artists .. i always buy the album.

[John]

Scott,

Why are you wasting you gifts on philosophy fiction? I downloaded God's Debris and forced myself to finish it, only because I'm not a quitter. It was not your best work by light years. You obviously are passionate about philosophy but philosophy is never going to make anyone money. There's no market for it.

If you want to sell fiction books, go after humourous fiction or humourous scifi. One of my favorite authors shared your last name and wicked wit. This was none other than the late, great Douglas Adams who blessed the world with his 4 book trilogy "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I thought I would never laugh like that again until I found the DNRC newsletter and then now your blog.

Have you ever thought about writing humourous fiction?

John

[Adrian D.]

"It's NOT true that there are people who think that art should be free. It is NOT true that there are people who think that copyright violations are good publicity.

"People only SAY that until the moment they themselves have created some art. Some, unfortunately, never do."

I am quite sure that there are people who believe art should be free. I think food *should* be free. It's not; and I have to pay for it; but that doesn't imply that I don't *believe* food should be free.

[GG]

So who was 'violated' here? The art (goat) or the artist(goat owner)? Let us dissect this further:
Goat - art / value / abundant product ... (well its abundant if u think of it !!)
Goat owner - artist / sole creators of all that's good on earth / DRM lovers...
Goat humper - stealer / copyleftists / worthless...

1. Goat getting 'violated' reduced the revenue of the owner how? Infact he made some bucks suing the poor bastard.. hmmm... why does this remind me of RIAA so much? Let us move on...

2. Goat owner (to my limited wisdom) does not seem to have lost anything in real economic terms.. the goat humper is happy.. there is no proof the goat had a problem with this. So why all the noise by goat owner? Does this sound very much like the pro-copyrights folks just to me or... and my next point is...

3. Goat humper thinks, "There is no way I am hurting my neighbours livelihood( my humping can not really be reducing the milk yield or quality/quantity of meat, the goat wont have a problem.. i will really appreciate it as much as this fine piece of 'art' really needs to be - actually this kind of a niche entertainment market could give the owner a business idea - its not just milk and meat, my goat has another potential source of revenue"... i did not imagine myself saying this.. but whats wrong with humping her a bit then... win win situation here. Yes, yes.. i am one of them downloaders. Go ahead, say dumb stuff like, "oh my god you d hump a goat, i have no respect for the owner, i have never ever reared any goat and am worthless, if i really saw a goat i wanted to really hump, i d go buy one at walmart..." that would make sense.

Just a thought: Just going throught the 'underwear' post comments - why is it that the most value-of-art and intellectual-property-right respecting folks end their amazing reasoning with "thiefs / idiots / etc." No seriously, If we do a little analysis of the comments - break them into pro and anti copyright commenters and see who had more of that kind of 'reasoning' / 'conclusion' / 'judgement'.. just find it odd thats all. Self righteousness... aha! Its all about herding. Everyone adds something to the planet. Those of you who are in the line of benefitting support it. There are others adding value to the planet, but not really in the kind of situation where copy rights matter to them personally, dont. This aint a question of morality. Its a question of majority.

[DavidMc]

Though I generally agree with Scott I find it very disappointing that he dismisses all critics before reading what they say. If he has already decided that nothing we can possibly say will change his mind then he is being dogmatic. I was hoping for more from one of my idols.

[Kilgore Trout]

Authors are like folk singers or pop idols, we just don't have enough of them.

[ortelius]

If I now say: "Bah!" (and wave my paw, regarding people with different opinion to be idiots), am I plagiarizing Dogbert?
I think the authors and others creators HAS the copyright right, but in this time the problem of copyright infringement is exaggerated. Personally, I try to respect intellectual property rights, but the law is so complex, that I would need team of lawyers to really comply it.
Or, another example – nearly 20 years ago, I "illegally" copied whole discography of Beatles, it was because I lived in (post)communistic country and I couldn't simply buy it. I still own it, and recently, I converted it from tapes into mp3 files. Am I doing crime? Anyway, 15 years is enough to overdue serious crime ... Also, who is harmed if half of the band is dead now?
What about reducing the time frame for copyright protection? Say, for 5 years? Enough to enable earn money for artists and then to let it to be public domain?

[Jostein]

I see a few comments here regarding from people who obviously think current copyright law is prime and that anyone disagreeing is either being irrational, out of their minds, or just simply lacks any morals worth mentioning. Get of your high horses already.

This -is- capitalism. Supply, demand, deemed value and all that.

I'm pretty sure I've paid for most of the stuff I've deemed worth it. I've even gone to the extents of hunting down bands which labels have decided wasn't worthy of releasing any more just to get their stuff. Nevermind they kept the copyright, so I was actually "stealing" it by buying it off the artist.

How did I find out about it in the first place? I guess I violated copyright and downloaded it. That's two violations for one album I legally bought. Pretty nice, eh?

As for that whole "stealing" shenanigans... When we get Star-trek like replicators, count me in as one who will "steal" generic goods which will no longer have any real or deemed value. For those who think this is wrong, I guess you would have argued against the industrial revolution back in the days too.

Which in retrospect was pretty irrational, huh?

[Mr. Wampus]

In response to Aaron who complained that there is not a Netflix-like program for music downloads:

There absolutely IS a subscription model for music downloads. There are several out there: Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Napster, etc, etc, etc, etc ad infinitem. You pay a flat monthly rate (like $12.95) an you can download and listen to as many songs as you want to, You can even put them on your ipod or other MP3 player. You have the right to listen to those songs for as long as you continue your subscription. As soon as the subscription ends, you lose the right to hear the songs and they stop working. You also have the option to purchase any of the tracks to keep permanently if you choose to.

[Jake]

Face facts - most people in the creative arts didn't get into it to play "starving artist" and go for months on end without washing their hair. They do it for the money. Take away their ability to make money, and you'll be playing dead air on your iPod.

Wow-nice straw man, huh? No one thinks musicians should be starving artists, but they don't have a right to continue to make money off an obsolete business model (despite what the UAW thinks). There are still ample opportunites for musicians to make money-it's the music distributors who are in trouble.

[Don G]

P.S. Are you going to put "The Religion War" online?

[Don G]

Scott, you don’t get it. There are tons of unknown bands that make it big when people find out about them by downloading their music for free. You can’t ignore that. Besides, all the rest of the bands and the companies that sell the music make tons of money, and if some people get it for free they aren’t losing enough money to even make them cry “WA-WA-WA!!” I have to work hard to make a living while they have it so easy, so I deserve to punish them by listening to some of their music for free.

(Is that what you wanted?)

[Faustas]

I believe that every person who says that violation of copyright is victimless crime has never created anything of value in their entire life. anything.

Sadly enough, its so many of them.

[Ben]

So you did it all for the money? It’s all about the Benjamins, isn’t that what you Americans say. That’s a shame.

If the fees you make from newspaper syndication and personal appearances are not enough then perhaps you should retrain as a venture capitalist or something.

On the other hand maybe we could do it your way and create the most democratic medium in human history and then cripple it so various industries can go on making money in the same way they always have without having to adapt to changing markets.

I understand your position, you’ve got you golden ticket and now you don’t want any one to take it away from you. I don’t blame you, plenty of industries have attempted to protect themselves in the past, who wouldn’t?

I bet is you ask a classical violinist what do they think of vinyl LPs they’d argue that they were the end of music as we know it. But I would still rather live in a world where everyone can listen music than only the privileged few who can afford to visit a concert hall.

Ask a horse trader what he thought of the internal combustion engine, he probably wouldn’t be the biggest fan. But I’d still rather live in a world where I can get from one side of the country to the other in less than 3 days.

It’s the same with cinema, couriers, film making, journalism, coal mining, and a million other industries that have been radically altered by the pace of technology. It didn’t stop for them why would it stop for you?

Maybe this is socialist thinking. I always thought that capitalism described a system of allocating resources based upon supply and demand and that protectionism and intervention was the more socialist way of doing things, but I could be wrong.

I also thought that the market meant that people will try to obtain the best price they can which I guess in this instance is free. Your right you are going to loose money, just like everyone else before you and for that you have my condolences.

But no matter how much you loose, there will always be thousands of people willing to take your place for free, and trust me they are all posting cartoons/music/films/books on the internet as we speak.

Like I said in my last post, if you want to continue to be rich your going to have to find another field. That would be shame because I love Dilbert, as do (I would guess) most of the people posting on here. If the appreciation and recognition isn’t enough to compensate for a modest wage from public appearances etc then maybe you really ought to be doing something else.

On the other hand why not just embrace change and adapt? You’ve got a massive profile, do some more appearances, how about a lecture tour or an exhibition of your work? That might help to make ends meet.

Keep up the good work.

[thegrossboy]

"If giving away your work for free is such a good strategy, you have to wonder why all the major artists aren’t doing it."

They are, only not on purpose.
Record sales keep going up anyway....

Furthermore, I just went to look for the sequel to "God's debris" on amazon. I didn't know there was one.

[just_human]

Authors might not mind libraries, but publishers HATE them.

[Corinna May]

Dear Scott,

you write:
I can only speak for myself, but I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have pursued creating Dilbert comics without the potential for getting rich while working at home.

I don't know why, but somehow this makes me like the Dilbert comics a lot less. It's always discouraging to know if an artist doesn't like his/her creating enough to create without extra incentive.

I bought a few of your hardcover books (plus read God's Debris for free thanks to your web site) but I guess if you consider that people who like your work without paying for it as secret underpant thiefs I'm not that shure if I should continue to read your comics or web site online.

[brian]

Why is it that they anti-copyright crusaders always fall back on the scarcity argument? Scarcity is not the only principle of modern economics. Seriously - arguing that no harm has been done to a content producer as a result of copyright infringement because no physical material was taken from him is irrational at best.

By copying someone else's works you not only deny them the ability to receive compensation for their labor (the irrational argument about "artificial scarcity") but you also create a disincentive to future creative efforts. It's called opportunity cost. If the artist is denied the opportunity to make his living from his art, then he won't pursue it at all. And you'll have nothing to download.

There's also the problem of brand dilution. If someone were to create a comic called "Dollbert" and simply clone Scott's work and put their own low-quality captioning into it and sell it as their own work, it could lead to a dilution in the value of Dilbert. This is the primary reason why plagiarism is bad - it connects a higher-quality producer (in this case Scott Adams) with a lower-quality product (your dreck).

And the argument of "I don't see how I'm doing harm, it's not like I would have bought it anyhow" isn't really sane. Because if you hadn't bought it, you would not be benefiting from having it. Sure, you can rationalize that AutoDesk wouldn't have gotten your $3,000, but you still got to design that sweet deck using someone else's work product. If everyone used your logic, what reason would there be for anyone to produce anything?

Face facts - most people in the creative arts didn't get into it to play "starving artist" and go for months on end without washing their hair. They do it for the money. Take away their ability to make money, and you'll be playing dead air on your iPod.

[TheFool]

I agree. And I'm not an artist. I understand the value of an 'intangible' what someone has created, and wants to control the economic value of that "intellectual property".

The problem with the underwear analogy (for most people, not me) is that underwear is tangible (you can touch it) vs music or copied art, which doesn't affect the original, which is a little more intangible.

Everyone wants or is willing to pay for PARTS, no one wants to pay for LABOR.

I love to hear the pundits rationalize their behaviour though!

[Thomas]

I wonder why its all about artists, artists, artists???
Heck, I wouldn't want my salary stolen just because som airhead can.

[Erasmus]

A word of support here :-
In many ways copyright violations are a more malicious (or at least would have more effect on the victim) form of stealing than just having something physical taken. The reasoning for this? Physical objects are only temporarily owned (a watch that is thrown away or given away is no longer owned by the person doing the throwing or giving), so effectively anything we claim to physically own we are actually acting as stewards of (such as the mentioned underpants!). However created ideas such as cartoons, jokes, music, books etc, are products that have been actually created by someone and therefore could be claimed to be owned by that person (or company) (that's why patents and trademarks can be so valuable). You often have musicians claim songs as being like their children (Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees), so infringements of their ownership could be said to be more like borrowing someones sleeping child then returning it to the original position and then telling the mother! (Do you like that analogy?!).

By the way, your neighbour has asked me to ask you to stop stealing his underpants!

[Mark]

Two thoughts.

1) Cognitive Dissonance over copyright seems explainable to me by the "Everyone acts selfishly but pretends to be altruistic" theory. Everyone wants (selfishly) to get things for free, so are willing to illegally download copyrighted media as long as they can get away with it anonymously (pretend to be altruistic). The dual states of mind cause the dissonance (how can I pretend successfully to be altruistic while performing a clearly selfish act?) and to resolve it irrational arguments against the "morality" of copyright (thus justifying the selfish act, should it become known) ensue.

2) Most people who argue for the morality of copyright seem to be copyright _holders_, who stand to gain financially from their argument (selfish). Those who themselves hold no copyright over saleable goods would do better (selfishly) to ignore or denounce copyright law. Since culture has acted to turn the majority into content Consumers rather than content Creators, you will see a rise in copyright theft, and an increase in argment over copyright law.

[Niels]

Why don't people just admit they're stealing?
Sure, I download music and software, but I will be the first to admit that this is a form of stealing.

Even if the impact of the theft on the owner is small, or even better if you can make yourself believe that the artist will benefit from the theft, you're still taking something for which the creator/owner demmands some money.
That's still theft, and always will be.

If you think the something is not worth the price that is being asked, don't buy it. If you determine your own price (free), that doesn't bother me particularly, but don't say it isn't stealing.

[TickTock]

Copyright free? That's usually the position of people who aren't creators. There are notable exceptions, as I'm certain someone will want to bring up Cory Doctorow, etc.. But listen, doesn't the same theory apply to YOUR job? Let's say I work in the Auto industry. Should we give low cost, basic cars away for free, hoping that people will like them, and then go buy our nicer, more expensive cars? A good workable model isn't free. Free isn't sustainable. Let's concentrate on reasonable and affordable, not free. A dilbert book that's 500 bucks is unreasonable. One that's 35 buck is.

It's always a bitch to try and argue with irrational zealots. Beliefs don't need reason, else they'd be facts.

[Joseph Cooper]

Obviously all the people saying that art would be better under socialism haven't heard Canadian music or watched enough French movies.

[Dossy Shiobara]

"(Bonus points for inserting “WA-WA-WA!!”)"

Is it no coincidence that "WA-WA-WA!!" is remarkably close to "WALALALALA!"?

I think not.

[Mark Cohen]

Hi Scott,

You must get more comments than I get V1AGRa emails.

I went over to tech dirt to see what they had to say, and beyond what you've said above I only have one question. Does the fact that the author describes his underpants as scarce not logically imply that he doesn't change his very often?

[Aaron]

I liked your underpants analogy and the criticisms you recieved are hallarious. However, here is the deal with copyrights.

It would be nice to live in a Star Trek world where all media is combined into a single database and everybody has simultaneous access to it. Unfortunately, for that to happen, the economics of our world would have to change drastically, just like in Star Trek. However, there is a happy medium that is popping up.

Let's discuss this happy medium one media type at a time. The first media, books, has had an example of this happy medium for a long time. It's called a library. It is a place where you can find a huge library of books and rent them at little to no cost. This is good for everybody because the library pays for their books through late fees and the book writers still make enough money to make a decent living, thus giving them a reason to continue producing books. If the artist still wants to sell the book in a bookstore, he can, but at least the consumers have a cheaper option for enjoying the written material.

The next media is movies and the happy medium for it is Netflix. Netflix pays for its movies through a subscription fee and its subscribers have a huge library of movies they can choose from, renting them without having to worry about late fees. The artist still gets paid from Netflix and the artists' payment is based upon hwo many rentals their movie recieves. Thus, there is a reason to continue the making of movies and the consumers still have a cheaper option than buying the movie at Best Buy for $39.99.

The next media is games and for that, there is GameTap. I won't go into detail because GameTap is just like Netflix for games.

The last media is music. This is the only one, so far that I am aware, that does not have a happy medium for consumers. Well, I take that back, there is iTunes and a few other places that offer paid downloads, but they are not much cheaper than buying the CD off the shelf. The only difference is that you can pick and choose the songs you want to overpay for. The record companies are stupid because they don't want anyone to offer that kind of happy medium to consumers because they would lose a little bit of money. Instead, they would rather fight the internet which is making them lose even more money. Alot of people would stop free downloading since they know it's illegal if somebody would just offer a Netflix like idea where people could listen to all the music they wanted while only having to pay a reasonable price.

So, as it stands for the moment, book writers, movie makers, and game creators have a very good thing going. If people want to pay high prices for their material to support the artists, that's great. But, at least there is something out there for those who only want to read the book once, watch the movie once, or play the game once and they have a chance to enjoy the material without having to pay an arm and a leg for it. Why can't the music industry follow suit? Because then Nelly wouldn't get to buy that second private jet.

Oh yeah, the music hordes make more money than me and should be punished! WA-WA-WA!!!!!

[Bob]

Scott,
Do you acually read all these blog comments, if so you are WAY more patient than I am, I tried reading them and after 10 min. or so i was scrolling down with out reading say, "blah blah blah..."

[Dick]

Ever notice their debate is whether or not someone else's work should be free. You never hear them stating the results of their efforts should be given away free. Or Hell, for that matter, that they give their time and effort to charity even. It is always "If it benefits me, it should be free!"

[aiwn]

hi scott

as a copyright lawyer I read your recent blog entries and the comments with lots of interest.

it all confirmed what I have experienced so far:
- people cannot be convinced that they are doing something wrong if (i.) they enjoy it and (ii.) everybody's doing the same
- people will always find some justification for doing wrong (thanks for bringing "cognitive dissonance" to a larger audience)
- they'll get very irrational and emotional about their justification and your effort to show them wrong
- in discussion about copyright people will be divided into group 1 who prodoce works and want those works protected and group 2 who consume works and want them for free no matter what. group 2 will ignore all logic behind incentives for artists to engage oneself in creating art. Group 2 believes very strong in the legend of the starving artist that is the origin of better art (as a side note: that myth was created two centuries ago by french impressionists leaving the art academy). And Group 2 will - in the lack of better arguments - base all of their argumentation on the missing similarity between your point and the analogy...

keep writing, it is most enjoyable!

[Dalebert]

Step 1: Steal underpants

Step 2: ?

Step 3: Profit!

[ansman7]

What would Ben Franklin do? He was a publisher and an inventor. Did he patent bifocals? Nope. How about the lightning rod? Nu-huh. Well, what about his stove (which wasn't called a Franklin stove until much later)? Nope, nada.

Why? The greater good in your lingo (to the benefit of mankind, I think was his reasoning).

Pirating, ripping, downloading of copyrighted material is against the law. Period. (No, I don't do these things, never have.)

Can you throw the book at all the people that do these things? If you had enough money, you could try. The project will be akin to Tolsoy giving away all his rubles to the beggars to end poverty in Russia. Good luck with that.

Just a thought.

Pray to St. Jude, you never know.

[Christopher]

I've often thought of it like this: if you have a really good book that you enjoyed, and you want to share it with other people, you give it to them to read. That's not a copyright violation, it's called sharing, and it's encouraged. Now if you have a really good song that you love to hear, what are you going to do? Hog it for yourself? No, you're going to share it. The problem is that in sharing it, you've just duplicated it. One can't make a perfect copy of a book necessarily, but it's way too easy with music. It's just a small step of intuition from there to peer-to-peer downloading.

[webar]

I PURCHASED 'God's Debris' and couldn't finish it. It reminded me too much of those pointless philosophical debates my boyfriend in college always wanted to have.

At that point, I felt that Scott Adams OWED me some entertainment for the money I had shelled out.

Fortunately a few years later, I discovered this blog which I have enjoyed greatly at no expense.

Isn't Karma great?

Probably all of the people who routinely steal music and videos, live in a culture devoid of intellectual and artistic accomplishment. They can't understand the value of an idea because they never have an original one.

But Karma will even the score someday -- when they end up working for some idiot who got his degree by stealing all the answers to the final exam.

[Stuart Booth]

Unfortunately, those who download stuff illegally also mean that Sony and Apple put in place stuff that stops me from making perfectly legal backups of the work for listening say, in my car where I do not want to take the original for fear that the car will be broken into by some equally useless pillock and the music or whatever taken or otherwise destroyed.

The other thing is that even when you think you are downloading legally, say in the case of allofmp3.com where the Russians obtained music and permitted cheap downloads purpoting to be licensed copies and then you find out that these bastards have not got a license to districute the music at all.

Now I am pretty good with a computer and can make most stuff copy anyway, this doesn't mean that I rip every piece of music or video that I can find, it means that I can make backups of my own stuff for myself. If Scott stops writing Dilbert because he doesn't get any money for it, that will seriously piss on my chips because it is the one thing I can look forward to upon starting my days work.

I actually bought "God's Debris" without reading the electronic version. I didn't buy the sequel because I felt that the thought exercises in the original either had faulty data when starting which led to screwy results or, in one particular case, I agreed with the thinking but the conclusion in the book was the exact opposite of what the same thinking brought me to.
However, it was the raves of people who had already read it that got me to buy a copy.

I download TV shows. About 75% of the time I go on to buy the DVDs. I wouldn't have seen the shows in the first place if they hadn't be put online illegally but they did end up with my money in the long run.
The other 25% of the time I simply stop downloading the show after a few episodes. Sometimes the downloads help me realize that I apparently had no taste in TV shows when I was a kid.

I don't listen to the radio because all they seem to play is garbage. However, once in awhile someone will send me a music video posted illegally on YouTube or an MP3 from some ar