Sturgeon’s Law says that “90% of most things are crap”. Do you agree?

Bruce Perens is a noted Open-Source advocate, former employee of Pixar Animation, compelling writer, and noted programmer. He spoke a few years ago at the annual convention for the Utah State University Free Software and Linux User’s Group. Well, OK, calling it a convention when it only involved a few dozen people is a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, I was impressed by his ideas, though he’s definitely a better writer than presenter. In person, he’s actually a bit… what’s the best description… non-charismatic. But he’s been a seminal influence in the Free and Open-Source software communities, and his opinions have a great deal of respect for being on-target. Over the last few years, it seems his attention has been largely focussed on the legal issues related to free software, and broadening more and more into over-arching issues of freedom in the U.S. and abroad. He released the piece below in the early-morning hours today. Do you think he’s right?

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Why Our Boys Tortured and Murdered Prisoners

Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com>

American GIs have tortured and murdered prisoners in Iraq. How could Americans have done this? Because we showed our GIs, by our example, that the rules have changed, that this isn’t the America they knew.

We started by showing them their votes wouldn’t be counted. Problems with ballots in Florida, the state governed by Mr. Bush’s brother, were severe enough to put in doubt which candidate won the election. Studies commissioned by two different newspapers concluded that Mr. Gore should have been declared the winner.

We showed them that our courts were biased. When the Supreme Court had to rule upon the failed election, the vote of the judges was divided upon political party lines.

We showed them that they’d lay their lives down for a lie. Saddam Hussein was a monster. But the weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq still haven’t been found. And there doesn’t seem to be any connection between Iraq and 9/11. Ex Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill reports that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11 and the election.

We showed them that our leaders embrace our enemies. George Bush Senior’s Carlyle Group handled the bin Laden family’s investments. Days after 9/11, while U.S. airspace was still closed to regular citizens, private jets sanctioned by the Bush administration evacuated 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians, including the bin Laden family, from the United States. In 1983, while the U.S. was still assisting the dictator, Donald Rumsfeld was photographed shaking hands with Saadam Hussein.

We showed them that the White House was run for private financial gain. Vice President Cheney’s Haliburton Company was made the prime contractor for the tremendous project to rehabilitate Iraq. Mr. Bush didn’t even want to put this contract out for competitive bid. Oilman Bush maintained close connections with the fraudulent Enron executives and allowed them to directly set American energy policy.

We showed them that separation of church and state did not exist. The ban on stem-cell research, the ban on partial-birth abortion when the mother’s health would be at risk from continuation of the pregnancy, and the furor over same-sex marriage has shown that many states and the federal government still allow religion to drive civil law.

We showed them that America had become intolerant, and that our priorities were not with our soldiers in Iraq. While our boys were dying in Iraq and the torture had already started, we preferred to concern ourselves with a fit of national prudery over the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast on television.

We showed them that civil liberties had been erased. The draconian PATRIOT act allows Americans to be jailed without any charges, without the right to confront witnesses against them, and they can be kept in jail indefinitely without a trail. It legalizes search and seizure without probable cause, denies the accused’s right to legal counsel, and restricts the right to free speech.

We Americans showed our boys that all of the things we held sacred about The Land of The Free were dead. Should it then have been any surprise that, following our example, their actions would not be unlike those of Nazi death-camp guards?

Mr. Bush is responsible. It is the social changes of the Bush administration, not Mr. Rumsfeld’s supervision of the Armed Forces, that set the context for the torture and murders.

We can prevent more torture and murder by showing our boys that America is not a lie. To do so, we must reverse the damage that Mr. Bush has done to our nation. The first step upon that path is to vote him out of office.

Bruce Perens

The master version of this editorial is at http://perens.com/Articles/WhyOurBoys.html Please check that location for the most recent version.
You may re-publish this editorial. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion. Most recent edit date: Mon May 10 14:31:20 UTC 2004

Well, the summer movie season is on us again, and I thought I’d list the movies I want to see…

I started last night with Van Helsing – arguably the most laughable, ridiculous movie I’ve seen in ages.. and it is so brainless and silly that I give it two thumbs up.

So, by weekend:

5/7 – Van helsing 5/14 – Troy 5/21 – Shrek 2 5/28 – The Day After Tomorrow 6/4 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 6/11 – Tossup: Chronicles of Riddick -or- The Stepford Wives 6/18 – Tossup: Around the World in 80 Days -or- Terminal 6/26 – (Slow Weekend) Garfield (May stay home this weekend) 6/30 – SPIDER MAN 2!! 7/9 – Anchorman (Not king arthur) 7/16 – I, Robot (But a Vegas trip may delay this) 7/23 – The Bourne Supremacy (No tossup here, skip Catwoman) 7/30 – The Village (Maybe Thunderbirds) 8/6 – Collateral (But may use to catch up on movies I’ve missed) 8/13 – Alien Vs. Predator (Princess Diaries 2 for the kids) 8/20 – Exorcist: The Beginning (Waiting to see reviews) 8/27 – Anaconda 2, then again.. I’ll skip this one..

TOP 5 anticipated for the summer:

1) Spider Man 2 2) Alien vs. Predator 3) Shrek 2 4) The Day after Tomorrow 5) The Bourne Supremacy

LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT SUMMER 2005: 1) Star Wars, Episode 3 2) Batman Begins 3) Mission Impossible 3 4) Charlie and The Chocolate Factory 5) The Pink Panther (These will probably change as new releases are announced)

I’m sitting in front of my computer screen tonight, appalled at Bush’s response to the recent abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The man never actually apologized in his entire speech. Usually an apology involves acknowledgement of doing something wrong, pledging that it will not recur, and saying you’re sorry. Bush stated he was “sorry for the humiliation suffered” by the Iraqi prisoners.

No apology for the conduct of the soldiers involved.

No apology for allowing it to happen.

Just a lame expression of empathy.

I’m usually a supporter of Bush on most issues, but this growing tradition in government and corporations of “third-party apologies”, like “I’m sorry for the pain you suffered”, or “I’m sorry you are offended” aren’t real apologies at all. They are a way of ducking responsibility while sounding sympathetic. And it just makes me want to vomit.

It’s not just him… he’s just the latest example of this trend that’s been bugging the heck out of me for months. I listen to it in corporate meetings. I read it on mailing lists. “I’m sorry you took offense at what I said”. Bah. Own up to your opinions, own up to what you’ve done wrong, own up to the fact you, personally, are responsible for the actions of your underlings, and must make personal restitution for them if they cannot.

I find myself wondering if this tendency springs out of having such a litigious society: if you acknowledge fault, you’ve just lost all chance of “plausible deniability” in court. What do you think?

EDIT by matthew: Broken link brought to my attention by an alert reader. Fixed.

Hello All, I have not had alot of time to post lately. My new job has been a bear. I did however come back for my second show at Quince Orchard H.S.. The Ironic thing about doing into the woods is that it was also the last show i did there while a student. the theatre’s website is QO THEATRE.

Hope you like the pictures.

Jon

EDIT by matthew: Fixed link, remember to use forward slashes (/)instead of backslashes (\) 🙂

One of my good friends up here was recently caught stealing cable (oops, sorry Matt, INFRINGING cable). He figured out how to splice some box on a telephone pole and concoct some funky wiring and divert signal to his house. This guy also had help from an electrical engineer.

The Weed rationale: why should he pay $45 a month for 100 channels of programming when he only wanted ESPN? Infringe it!

Control is assertable in markets in which technical competence, access or concealment is not available to the consumer.

The general public doesn’t know how to splice cable. The general public doesn’t know how to steal satellite. The general public doesn’t know how to steal the reel before it hits the movie houses. The economics of the media business is built on control and detection.

I think the decline of the control stems from the frailty of the distribution model. They choose to use the casette and CD media because it’s cheap. It’s also replaceable and repeatable by the consumer. You can’t enforce the economics of the business because there’s a loss of control.

I foresee a future in which music labels become entertainment wholesalers that license catalog to consumer electronics hardware and service fulfillment providers. These providers will operate as clearinghouses of multiple media banks and service delivery to the home through “smart boxes” that are interactive. I’m not sure if this box will be a computer. I’m not sure that the personal PC interface will even be the same! Thus, I think that as it gets harder and more expensive to build celebrity, the economics of recorded music won’t show enough yield to warrant the investment into a stable of artists for a direct-to-consumer distribution model. Instead, music firms will become production houses that work to populate broader media channels that own stronger control.

Get In Groove, Sammy G

All of this speculation is based on the idea that downloading is directly responsible for a decline in CD sales. The RIAA and similar groups such as “The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) blame unauthorized downloads from online networks like Kazaa and Morpheus for a 20% drop in CD sales over three years” (Anonymous, USA Today). Is the downloading phenomenon actually responsible for that kind of monetary loss?

Experts say no. “Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill issued a joint report saying that unauthorized downloaders had a “limited effect” on CD sales” (Anonymous, USA Today). Extreme Tech Journalist Dave Salvator expounded further on the study: “While downloads occur on a vast scale,” the study’s authors conclude, “most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file- sharing.” The study goes on to say “…it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy….After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million albums, which is virtually a rounding error.” One could also reasonably infer that since most file sharers would not have bought the album they’re downloading if file sharing didn’t exist, it’s quite plausible that those very users liked the album they downloaded well enough to actually buy a CD they would not have otherwise bought. (Salvator)

In 2002, Jupiter Research analyst Aram Sinnreich found in another study “that people who traded files for more than six months were 75 percent more likely than average online music fans to spend more money on music” (McGuire). Boycott-RIAA noted that the case could be made “in cold, hard numbers that the RIAA’s claim of digital piracy ravaging their sales must be taken with a rather large grain of salt” (Moore). They point out that the RIAA is down 11.94% in a market in which “the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has dropped over twenty percent in the last two-and-a-half years; the NASDAQ has lost over seventy percent of its value”(Moore). Indeed, a Reuters article on CNN.com noted “poor economic conditions and competition from video games and DVDs” as further contributing factors to RIAA monetary woes.

The evidence seems to suggest that the music industry is faltering along with the economy, and the RIAA places the blame for this squarely on the backs of music downloaders. This is simply not true. A study conducted in January of 2004 shows “album sales were up 9.2 percent. Sales of CDs rose 10.6 percent(and) the numbers of 2003 were down about 10 percent to 12 percent from the year before” (Viega, 19, Apr.). What is interesting is a trend that shows that the number of people engaging in file sharing is “down 41 percent from its peak of 34 million in June(2003)(but has) swelled (again) to 23 million, an increase of 28 percent since the last survey in December” (Chmielewski). If the RIAA had a 10 percent loss as downloads declined, and has reported a 10.6 percent gain this quarter, as downloads have increased 28 percent, it would seem to indicate that downloads are not hurting retail music sales.

If downloading music does not hurt artists, consumers, or record companies, and if music retailers are being phased out in favor of alternative CD markets, which are thriving, I find it hard to accept the notion that it is “Wrong” to download music. This is not piracy. This is not stealing. Consumers get more choices and lower prices. Artists get greater concert turnout. Record companies are able to offset declining profits by offering paid services, and there is evidence to suggest that downloading actually helps album sales.

When rounding out my research, I found a list of solutions to the downloading problem that would be good for the consumer as well as the record companies. There are also non-litigious deterrents such as Macrovision encoding (Finn) and high quality DVD audio, that have actually seen profits rise as record companies scramble to deter people from downloading music.

In researching this topic, I found that the insipid twisting of facts by the RIAA is enough to make me upset at the entire industry. One comes to the entertainment industry as a whole with a degree of trepidation, but I never expected to find the practices I did. I was shocked to see the price fixing, the lack of data backing the industry’s position on artists, the blatant lies on the RIAA website about how the consumer is hurt.. all of it.

As for my position, I believe more strongly now than ever that the recording industry in its quest for profit has acted insidiously to undermine peer-to-peer file sharing, not out of a sense of being stolen from, but out of a need to control the material, make an excuse for lack of quality product, and squeeze profit from other industries by acting in bad faith. I believe it can be confirmed that file sharing, the involved technology, and the possibility for exposure on the internet can be a boon to non top-ten acts, and a miracle for small bands like Wilco. Finally I believe that the actions of the RIAA in congress and in civil court are inappropriate and unwarranted, where I once I thought they were just being too tenacious. I have seen a very shady industry for what it really is in researching this paper, and I hope that when it is finished, my readers will too. SOURCES: Ahrens, Frank. “Music fans find online jukebox half empty.” Washington Post 19 Jan. 2004.: A1+ Anonymous “Charges of song swapping go global.” USA Today 31, Mar. 2004.: Money 4b Tompkins, Al “Thursday Edition: Sky high ticket prices”. Poynter Online. 31, April 2004. (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=63338) McGuire, David. “Study: File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales” Washington Post.Com 29, March, 2004 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34300-2004Mar29.html) Salvator, Dave. “RIAA hit from two sides.” Extreme Tech: Yahoo! News 8, Apr. 2004. (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1738&u=/zd/20040409/tc_zd/123900&printer=1) Viega, Alex. “Universal to raise price of CDs by one dollar” Yahoo! News 16, Apr. 2004. (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040416/ap_en_bu/universal_music_cds_1) Viega, Alex. “US Music sales increase in first quarter of 2004” Houston Chronicle Online 19, Apr. 2004 (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/2503136) Taylor, Chris. “Where the money goes: A breakdown of the 19.95” I wrote the book. Date unknown. (http://www.sandersontaylor.com/book/CTmoney.html) Anonymous. “Press release: Record Companies Settle FTC Charges of Restraining Competition in CD Music Market” Federal Trade Commission. 10, May 2000. (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm) RIAA Online Newsletter. 30 Mar. 2004. Recording Industry Association of America. 22, Apr. 2004 (http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/033004.asp)

Boycott RIAA. 2003. Boycott-Riaa.com: Taking a Stand against the Recording Industry Association of America. 23, Apr. 2004 (http://www.boycott-riaa.com/)

Anonymous. “What the RIAA is doing about Piracy” RIAA.Com 21, Apr. 2004 (http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/riaa.asp) Bell, Mike. “Everything Barenaked” Calgary Sun Online. 27, March 2004. (http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/niveau2.cgi?s=arts&p=82955.html&a=1) Flynn, Laurie. “Sales Abroad Help Amazon Post a Profit in 1st Quarter” New York Times. 23, April 2004. (http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/niveau2.cgi?s=arts&p=82955.html&a=1) Ryan, Maureen. “Copy Fight: Two veterans of the internet wars debate the raging battle over who should control our entertainment.” Chicago Tribune 28, Mar. 2004 (http://www.latimes.com/business/chi-0403280175mar28,1,7367285.story) Chmielewski, Dawn. “Music downloads on the rise again.” Mercury News 26, Apr. 2004 (http://www.latimes.com/business/chi-0403280175mar28,1,7367285.story) Finn, Bridget. “Coming Soon: The Untouchable CD.” Business 2.0 Sep. 2003, Vol. 4, Issue 8 Accessed from EBSCO Host 19 Apr. 2004 Boehlert, Eric. “Suit: Clear channel is an illegal monopoly” Salon.com. 8, Aug 2001. (http://archive.salon.com/ent/clear_channel/2001/08/08/antitrust/print.html) Moore, Justin. “RIAA vs. the economy.” Boycott-RIAA.com 2002. (http://www.boycott-riaa.com/education/analysis)

Other Websites used: www.timpane.com www.amazon.com www.wherehouse.com www.towerrecords.com www.walmart.com

Is it wrong to download – Part 3: The Victimless by Timpane With so many reasons to make people file-share, is there a good reason not to?”

The answer: only if there is compelling ethical or moral reason not to file share.

I began my research by going straight to the source, the website of the RIAA, www.riaa.com, which had this to say.

“(Music downloading) is illegal, unethical, and all too frequent in today’s digital age. That is why RIAA continues to fight music piracy. Many do not understand the significant negative impact of piracy on the music industry, depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer, and the list goes on. The consumer is the ultimate victim, as pirated product is generally poorly manufactured and does not include the superior sound quality, art work, and insert information included in legitimate product”

The main claims made by the RIAA seem to be these: 1) Music downloading hurts artists 2) Music downloading hurts consumers 3) Music downloading hurts retailers. 4) Music downloading hurts record companies, who are faltering as a result

I set out to discover if these claims were true. I began my search by seeking out articles that confirm or deny that downloading music hurts artists, which is the most morally compelling reason to forbid the actions of peer-to-peer downloading. Being that I had the RIAA’s opinion, I went to their opposition first.

Boycott-RIAA had this to say about artists and file sharing: “We (the founders of Boycott-RIAA) are very pro-artist. We are anti-exploitation of musicians, we are anti-loan shark business practices by the industry labels, but we are definitely ANTI-RIAA. The issue is NOT so much Copyright but CONTROL of distribution. The industry doesn’t want more music available but less. (unless it’s on their label). (http://www.boycott-riaa.com/artists)”

Chris Taylor of Sanderson Taylor Entertainment Lawyers breaks down what the artist belonging to the Major labels gets paid $1.31 per twenty-dollar CD. (Taylor) Therefore, if one were to look at a moderately selling CD such as Barenaked Ladies’ “Everything to Everyone”, which debuted in the top 10, but only sold 300,000 copies (Bell), and were to factor in the 20% loss in CD sales reported by the RIAA, that would mean that the band itself lost $78,600 in CD sales. This is assuming that downloading is to blame for 100% of music sales drops, and that the RIAA figure is correct.

Even so, concert ticket sales (based on prices, not attendance) have jumped “8% over the previous year” (Tompkins). “All but the very biggest pop acts make most of their money off concerts, not CD sales” (Boehlert). If this is the case, with average ticket prices of 52 dollars, (and Barenaked Ladies tickets selling at Ticketmaster for 25-50 dollars,) it would only take a slight percentage of swelling in concert sales either by 1% of each show or one dollar per ticket for one tour to offset the loss of sales represented by downloading even by the industry’s most pessimistic estimates.

Anecdotally, my first copy of a Barenaked Ladies’ album was a taped copy, and I gave many copies of that copy to people who then became fans. Years later, I myself have attended numerous concerts by the band, and have seen people at said concerts to whom I had given copies of that one original tape. All of this spawning from one unathorized copy. At the time of this writing, there were over 2000 Barenaked ladies MP3s being shared on Kazaa, most of them from the band’s back catalog. It seems undeniable that this sort of exposure could raise concert attendance or ticket prices by well more than 1%.

What I could not find was any clear evidence that the artists themselves were being hurt, outside of speculation by some artists with unsuccessful albums using downloading as an excuse for poor album sales, or incredibly successful artists (such as Eminem and Metallica) who are selling in such high amounts that their CD sales outweigh their concert tours. These bands make up less than 10% of the market. There has been outcry on both sides of the issue, with the independent artist claiming that the peer-to-peer phenomenon is just a leveling of the playing field.

Law professor Lawrence Lessig has said: “Now the point is, (The RIAAs) old business model wasn’t better for the artists and it wasn’t better for consumers, it was better for big record companies. When people talk about alternatives to that model, serious people are not talking about alternatives that make artists worse off and they’re not talking about alternatives that would make consumers worse off, they’re talking about alternatives that might make five companies worse off” (Ryan).

Record producer Ken Waagner cites that a band called Wilco, whom he represents, has actually seen audience size and CD sales surge since they began offering free copies of their music online. (Ryan)

So, if downloading doesn’t hurt the artists, this brings us to the RIAAs claim that file-sharing hurts consumers. As a frequent purchaser of CDs, this is an issue I took to heart.

It is in this claim that the RIAA’s claims are the most egregious. The RIAA cites only two ways music downloading hurts consumers: Inferior sound quality, and driving up prices. On one page of their website regarding the subscription services for downloading music online, the RIAA says: “The possibilities are great for the music industry: fans, artists, and record companies alike”. (http://www.riaa.com/issues/music/default.asp) . On another page, the RIAA says “The artists also depend on their reputations, which are damaged by the inferior quality of pirated copies” (http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/default.asp). These arguments seem to be at odds with one another, as the sound quality of the files in question (most in mp3 format with 128 to 160 bitrates) in both paid and peer-to-peer services is 99% of the time exactly the same. The RIAA website also states: “Consumers also lose because the shortcut savings enjoyed by pirates drive up the costs of legitimate product for everyone.” (http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/default.asp)This statement is entirely untrue. Although there has been a recent nominal upswing in prices, the recording industry’s most powerful member, Universal Music group “reduced its suggested retail price from $18.98 to $12.98 just three months (ago) stimulating sales that had been down for three years” (Viega, 16, April 2004).

The RIAA has stated that music quality and increased CD prices are the two ways downloading hurts the consumer. If downloading MP3s by subscription is not a problem with the and CD prices have fallen (after their initial spike due to price fixing) as downloading has gone up, then both of the RIAA’s arguments regarding damage done to the consumer are voided.

I decided to not spend too much time on whether or not retailers are being hit by the decline in CD sales. The fact is, the traditional music outlet charges more than the larger multi faceted chains like Wal-Mart. (Compare the price of the aforementioned “Everything to Everyone” album at 15.99 at Tower Records, 15.49 at Wherehouse, and 13.42 at Wal-Mart).

The truth is, the day of the “Record Store” may indeed be fading into the past. With chains like Wal-Mart showing 53 billion in profit (Moore), and offering paid music downloads to boot, and online stores such as Amazon.com boasting record sales, the argument that record stores are losing money because of music downloading is shaky.

This brought me to the big question, on which all the other questions hinged.

Does file sharing affect the bottom line of the record industry?

I just finished reading this incredible book called “When The Music Stopped” by Bernie Woods. The book is basically his memoirs of the big band era during his stint as the music editor of Variety. Although the book was written in the early 1990’s, you can practically feel yourself sitting in the front row of the Hotel Astoria listening to Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra playing the 1940’s sound.

Anyway, another one of Woods’ chief motives in writing the book is to espouse his disgust at the deterioration of musical talent, chiefly blaming rock and roll.

At the start of the book, you get that “why don’t you shut up and stop whining old-timer” feeling. But his point hits home for me because I think some of this is true. I think it lends credence to the argument that recorded music product quality is falling while other forms of entertainment are improving.

Anyway, the book was great because it looked at an era of music from almost 70 years ago, a time when every facet of the production and performance was broken up amongst varied outstanding professionals.

Still trying to find a similar book about Opera somewhere…

For those who have seen the horrible picture of me in my graduation gown, it is official. I didn’t attend what would have been my graduation day yesterday. I would have been one of 196 graduates of Columba Union College. I have never been a person who has patted themselves on the back but I am putting this out there for anyone who has even thought about going back. If you think it, do it. There is nothing that should hold you back.

On a personal note, at the beginning I worked two jobs to make ends meet (at the time I was going through a divorce), going to school, and a full time mother of a beautiful little girl. If it wasn’t for her and my mother, I probably would never have made it through. Now I can look back and say that I did it. Not only did I do it, but I graduated with honors. Something that was difficult for me to do with everything else I had going on. Genna was my backbone and my cheerleader. If she saw me watching tv or doing the dishes, whe would ask me if I had finished my homework. If the answer was no, she would make me stop..march me upstairs and explain to me that homework was very important if I wanted to get all O’s (for those without kids, O are the same as getting an A).

Thank you Genna for being there for me when the going got tough!!!