Megaupload Dead

[AppleQueso]

A post I got from another forum that I thought was excellent and relevant here.

The corporate music industry has been fighting digital media tooth and nail since the early 90s. The Hollywood studios didn't join in until bandwidth improvements made downloading TV & movies reasonably accessible. The major publishing houses only recently hopped on the bandwagon because they're afraid their eBook sales will be affected.

Any idiot could have seen the writing on the wall back in 1990. In fact, a lot of idiots made millions during the dotcom boom, so I guess many did see the writing. One has to wonder why the music industry didn't try to capitalize on it too. Or Hollywood, or the major publishing houses. Why didn't they see the digital revolution coming?

The answer is they did. And they saw it as a threat, not an opportunity.

The business model of all your corporate record labels, movie studios, and publishing houses is about establishing a distribution bottleneck. They don't produce anything. They just make people pay them to access stuff other people produce. So the leaps in technology that made media digital, and downloadable, was in direct conflict with their business model.

They didn't resist (and are still resisting) the digital age because of rampant piracy. That was a bullshit line from day 1. They resist because musicians, moviemakers, and authors can distribute their work themselves now. The corporations are no longer necessary.

Now real piracy, where someone copies a work and tries to make money off it, such as China stealing practically everything CD, DVD, or game ever made, is a legitimate thing to try to stop. You shouldn't be allowed to make money off content that isn't yours. Ultimately that's why Napster got shut down. And recently Megaupload.

But there are already legal avenues to handle that kind of thing. And they're quite successful. But that's not what the corporate interests care about. They have lost their grip on their distribution bottleneck. That's what they care about. That's why they have quietly over the years expanded the definition of "piracy" to include any copying of any kind, even if there is no monetary gain. From a strict legal perspective, you can't even copy music or movies for your own use. Read the legal warning at the start of all your corporate produced DVDs. For the last few years it's had a "monetary gain" clause that didn't used to be there.

And so we get SOPA and PIPA. Legislation aimed at shutting down not "pirates", but distribution channels. They hold up one scofflaw, The Pirate Bay, and pretend that organizations of that nature are rampant. But we all know they're not. There actually aren't many sites like that, in the grand scheme of things. But there are millions of content producers and content consumers out there that are distributing and accessing content without corporate involvement. And that's what they really want to stop.

Do not mistake legislation of the SOPA/PIPA variety as an attack on grandmas and kids who download music, or even really on legitimate pirates like those that make a living passing knockoffs off as the real thing. It is an attack on content producers, not content consumers. They want to stop downloading not because each download represents a lost sale, which is ridiculous, they want to stop downloading because each download represents an independent artist who is distributing their work without paying a corporation a dime.

If you're an independent artist, I'm sorry, but your independence is inconvenient to corporations. If you aren't going to sign away 90% of your blood, sweat, and tears to a corporation, then they'd rather you couldn't distribute your work at all.

[BurningDoom]

A post I got from another forum that I thought was excellent and relevant here.

The corporate music industry has been fighting digital media tooth and nail since the early 90s. The Hollywood studios didn't join in until bandwidth improvements made downloading TV & movies reasonably accessible. The major publishing houses only recently hopped on the bandwagon because they're afraid their eBook sales will be affected.

Any idiot could have seen the writing on the wall back in 1990. In fact, a lot of idiots made millions during the dotcom boom, so I guess many did see the writing. One has to wonder why the music industry didn't try to capitalize on it too. Or Hollywood, or the major publishing houses. Why didn't they see the digital revolution coming?

The answer is they did. And they saw it as a threat, not an opportunity.

The business model of all your corporate record labels, movie studios, and publishing houses is about establishing a distribution bottleneck. They don't produce anything. They just make people pay them to access stuff other people produce. So the leaps in technology that made media digital, and downloadable, was in direct conflict with their business model.

They didn't resist (and are still resisting) the digital age because of rampant piracy. That was a bullshit line from day 1. They resist because musicians, moviemakers, and authors can distribute their work themselves now. The corporations are no longer necessary.

Now real piracy, where someone copies a work and tries to make money off it, such as China stealing practically everything CD, DVD, or game ever made, is a legitimate thing to try to stop. You shouldn't be allowed to make money off content that isn't yours. Ultimately that's why Napster got shut down. And recently Megaupload.

But there are already legal avenues to handle that kind of thing. And they're quite successful. But that's not what the corporate interests care about. They have lost their grip on their distribution bottleneck. That's what they care about. That's why they have quietly over the years expanded the definition of "piracy" to include any copying of any kind, even if there is no monetary gain. From a strict legal perspective, you can't even copy music or movies for your own use. Read the legal warning at the start of all your corporate produced DVDs. For the last few years it's had a "monetary gain" clause that didn't used to be there.

And so we get SOPA and PIPA. Legislation aimed at shutting down not "pirates", but distribution channels. They hold up one scofflaw, The Pirate Bay, and pretend that organizations of that nature are rampant. But we all know they're not. There actually aren't many sites like that, in the grand scheme of things. But there are millions of content producers and content consumers out there that are distributing and accessing content without corporate involvement. And that's what they really want to stop.

Do not mistake legislation of the SOPA/PIPA variety as an attack on grandmas and kids who download music, or even really on legitimate pirates like those that make a living passing knockoffs off as the real thing. It is an attack on content producers, not content consumers. They want to stop downloading not because each download represents a lost sale, which is ridiculous, they want to stop downloading because each download represents an independent artist who is distributing their work without paying a corporation a dime.

If you're an independent artist, I'm sorry, but your independence is inconvenient to corporations. If you aren't going to sign away 90% of your blood, sweat, and tears to a corporation, then they'd rather you couldn't distribute your work at all.

Can't disagree with this. But what about all the stuff being downloaded that isn't by a independent artist or by someone who intended it to be distributed? What about the stuff that is intentionally marketed with the intention of selling it? That stuff gets downloaded too.

[AppleQueso]

Can't disagree with this. But what about all the stuff being downloaded that isn't by a independent artist or by someone who intended it to be distributed? What about the stuff that is intentionally marketed with the intention of selling it? That stuff gets downloaded too.

I think the point here is that not only does that stuff not hurt the entertainment industry anywhere as much as they claim, but that the entertainment industry KNOWS that it doesn't really hurt them all that much and that it's just a convenient scapegoat/cover up.

[BurningDoom]

Can't disagree with this. But what about all the stuff being downloaded that isn't by a independent artist or by someone who intended it to be distributed? What about the stuff that is intentionally marketed with the intention of selling it? That stuff gets downloaded too.

I think the point here is that not only does that stuff not hurt the entertainment industry anywhere as much as they claim, but that the entertainment industry KNOWS that it doesn't really hurt them all that much and that it's just a convenient scapegoat/cover up.

I think in the 90s and even into the very early 2000s, this could be argued. But nowadays, there are enough people downloading that it has to hurt their bottom dollar.

[elmagicochrisg]

Can't disagree with this. But what about all the stuff being downloaded that isn't by a independent artist or by someone who intended it to be distributed? What about the stuff that is intentionally marketed with the intention of selling it? That stuff gets downloaded too.

I think the point here is that not only does that stuff not hurt the entertainment industry anywhere as much as they claim, but that the entertainment industry KNOWS that it doesn't really hurt them all that much and that it's just a convenient scapegoat/cover up.

This...

I was going to post a few links, but instead I'm gonna let you guys search for them yourselves.

Just google 'free downloads do not hurt sales'...

Happy reading...

[AppleQueso]

Can't disagree with this. But what about all the stuff being downloaded that isn't by a independent artist or by someone who intended it to be distributed? What about the stuff that is intentionally marketed with the intention of selling it? That stuff gets downloaded too.

I think the point here is that not only does that stuff not hurt the entertainment industry anywhere as much as they claim, but that the entertainment industry KNOWS that it doesn't really hurt them all that much and that it's just a convenient scapegoat/cover up.

I think in the 90s and even into the very early 2000s, this could be argued. But nowadays, there are enough people downloading that it has to hurt their bottom dollar.

Possibly, but not as much as they'd have you believe. The point is that downloading isn't the main reason they're pushing things like this.

[Xeogred]

Almost posted that around myself AppleQueso, lol. I think he and you are right on the money. It's just the RIAA and MPAA being greedy out the ass about it all. Corporate America baby.

Well I don't know what I missed here...

But Filesonic has essentially dropped as well:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/filesonic ... dust/67670

Saw that, I was afraid that MU was just the beginning...

On one hand yeah, this really sucks. Especially since like we were talking this unexpectingly hit the subbing community a bit and that pissed me off a lot, but on the other hand I'm not too worried about this. I won't be really surprised at all if another filesharing site pops up a few weeks from now. Although the timing is risky with the SOPA/PIPA thing just having been passed over for now, but it kind of reminds me of when Kazaa was the "bad" thing originally years ago for awhile, and then other clients starting popping up in its place. Happens a lot with big torrent sites from what I've seen too. So with MU and FS gone, I won't be surprised if we see a few more new sites pop up to take their place.

Rapidshare even came out saying they think "filesharing is a legitimate business", and it really is for a lot of people using these sites for school or work projects, or storing their own personal data, etc. Nice to see them have balls though, but them being based out of the US probably keeps them a bit safer than others.

[MrPopo]

If you want an interesting read, look up some of the battles that have gone on between Amazon and publishing houses for ebook pricing. One publisher pulled all their ebooks from Amazon because Amazon wanted to sell them for cheaper then the publisher wanted. Eventually they got put back up with a little blurb about how "The price of this book is more than most ebooks because the publisher forced us to". Content distribution has become easier and easier as technology has progressed, which threatens these long standing logistics businesses. Remember the printing press? I'd say the internet is on the same scale in terms of impact.

[Hobie-wan]

Especially since like we were talking this unexpectingly hit the subbing community a bit and that pissed me off a lot

Fansubs have never been legal though. Back in the VHS trading days, groups at least had the integrity to stop distributing when something got released domestically. Now once something is out, it is always out there somewhere. Kids would stand right there in front of you if you were selling stuff at a store or a convention and say they were going to download fansubs and scanalations anyway. I'm sure it's gotten worse since I was around it since US anime distributors keep folding.

[brunoafh]

Fansubs have never been legal though. Back in the VHS trading days, groups at least had the integrity to stop distributing when something got released domestically. Now once something is out, it is always out there somewhere. Kids would stand right there in front of you if you were selling stuff at a store or a convention and say they were going to download fansubs and scanalations anyway. I'm sure it's gotten worse since I was around it since US anime distributors keep folding.

For what it's worth, I think he's talking about the groups that fansub old anime that has no chance of being localized and distributed to the west.