Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, has taken steps to refute the notion of many in the music publishing industry that each digital copy has a certain value--upon which should be based damages if someone is found to have committed copyright infringement.
Sunde has built a machine from a Raspberry PI, called Kopismashin, designed to make copies of single tracks at the rate of 100 copies per second [and drops them to /dev/null].
"I want to show the absurdity on the process of putting a value to a copy.... [F]ollowing their rhetoric and mindset it will bankrupt them," says Sunde.
Related Stories
A decade ago this week, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström were all found guilty of 'assisting in making copyright content available' via their site, The Pirate Bay. Each was sentenced to a year in jail and their fines totaled over $3 million. Now ten years on, the site has a life of its own without those four. It has been the target of a many takedown notices and has even been blocked multiple times.
Ten years ago this week, four men were found guilty and sentenced to prison for running The Pirate Bay. At the time, Peter Sunde said that the site would continue, no matter what. A decade on he has been proven absolutely right and that in itself is utterly remarkable.
Earlier on SN:
The Pirate Bay Turns 15 Years Old (2018)
How The Pirate Bay Helped Spotify Become a Success (2018)
The Man from Earth Sequel "Pirated" on The Pirate Bay - By Its Creators (2018)
How The US Pushed Sweden to Take Down The Pirate Bay (2017)
What's a Digital Copy Worth? Not Much, Says Peter Sunde's New Machine (2015)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @03:44PM
The machine, called Kopismashin is currently set to creating eight million copies of Gnarls Barkley's track 'Crazy'
Does that make him crazy? Possibly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 26 2015, @04:13PM
The moronic, scumbag things the MAFIAA does are far more effective at showing the public that copyright law is broken. Every time some crippled hardware refuses to do some perfectly reasonable command asked of it by its owner, like skip an ad, or some obviously fair use or totally unrelated video was taken down and replaced with copyright boilerplate, a few more people get mad and turn against them. The so-called smart TV I picked up is so controlling and corporate. Perfectly capable of surfing to most any site on the Internet, but carefully programmed to only allow visits to a very few. It's a clear violation of the idea of network neutrality.
I laugh when I see the propaganda that starts many DVDs, the big scary police badge and government seal with "Piracy is not a victimless crime!" You could get into big BIG twouble if you so much as think of copying this disc! Naughty, naughty!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrchew1982 on Saturday December 26 2015, @06:34PM
What infuriates me is that we are using taxpayer money to enforce a private corporation's monopoly.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 26 2015, @07:59PM
What infuriates me is that we are using taxpayer money to enforce a private corporation's monopoly.
Well, we use tax payer's money to enforce laws that protect your property too, don't we? Your car, house, bank account? Pretty much every aspect of anything that can be called "property" is enforced by laws and police, at tax payer's expense. Its one of the things that every civilization sets up and enforces.
You can't just go help yourself to a truck off of the Power Companies parking lot on the basis that the Power Company is a monopoly.
The problem might lie in the fact that society allows monopolies to exist long after the economic necessity of having them disappeared.
But you can't blame the power company for _being_ a monopoly, and deny it protection under the law.
Allegedly there is competition in the music/film industry, so in theory, its not even a monopoly.
However, the fact that big media built an organization that exists solely to enforce the ill-gotten copyright of all the labels puts the lie to any pretense of competition. When it comes to enforcement, you never hear about a certain record company going after pirates, its always some trade organization acting something like a monopoly. I'm not sure how much of that organization is funded by tax payer money, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some is.
The problem here is that copyrights are just too damn long.
Also artist contracts are predatory.
Fix those things. Limit copyright, and allow only rental of copyrights for a time certain, not perpetual transfer.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 26 2015, @08:07PM
We don't have a history of doing that with imaginary property though. We'd step in with regards to physical counterfeit products because there's fraud involved. But barring a large scale commercial venture selling items that aren't properly licensed for fraud, the whole thing was a civil matter. The only harm involved was the violation of a licensing agreement or contract and that's always been something for the civil courts to deal with, not the criminal courts.
I don't think anybody is suggesting that if people are making a business misrepresenting digital files as properly licensed and distributing them for a price shouldn't be held accountable for the fraud inherent in the scheme. But, people do object to trying non-profit piracy in the criminal courts rather than making the owners shoulder the burden of enforcing their licenses the way that every other industry would have to.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Sunday December 27 2015, @01:59AM
What infuriates me is that we are using taxpayer money to enforce a private corporation's monopoly.
Well, we use tax payer's money to enforce laws that protect your property too, don't we? Your car, house, bank account? Pretty much every aspect of anything that can be called "property" is enforced by laws and police, at tax payer's expense. Its one of the things that every civilization sets up and enforces.
Yes, but this is not actual property. It's just a government grant of monopoly privilege that many people have started to call "property." The truth is if I truly own media like a disc or a piece of paper, I am morally justified putting whatever data on it I want. The idea of you "owning" a pattern of data is not something I agree with.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday December 27 2015, @02:57AM
While I understand that viewpoint, you have to understand that because this artificial monopoly was in fact issued by the society as a whole, agreed upon at the very founding of the nation, the monopoly remains the law of the land, indeed, the law of the world.
The "patterns", as you so glibly dismiss them, are created by people, some of whom exhibit unusual talent, and others are willing to pay for the "patterns". Why do you want them? Because they are appealing? Because you couldn't make the same yourself? They clearly have value to you. You are willing to take significant risk to acquire them.
Yet you dismiss them as patterns and devalue the creative process that the rest of society agrees does exist and is worth granting a temporary monopoly over the patterns to the creator.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:23AM
I don't consider myself to be bound by agreements my ancestors made. If I did I'd be in the Catholic church, I guess. In fact I would say those agreements were wrong in the first place because not everybody agreed to them but everybody was bound by them. I agree with a lot of people that those agreements simply hold no authority [praxeology.net].
Sure, some people's worlds will change if they suddenly can't earn a living from a long-standing grant of monopoly privilege backed up by government force. But people's worlds change every day. If you make your living from a banana tree every day and one day it doesn't have bananas, you're like all of the rest of us and will have to come up with some other way to support yourself. Or if you make your living from forcing dark people to pick cotton ... you get the idea.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:57AM
I don't consider myself to be bound by agreements my ancestors made.
Then you are in for a very tough life.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:27AM
Yet you dismiss them as patterns and devalue the creative process that the rest of society agrees does exist and is worth granting a temporary monopoly over the patterns to the creator.
No, the rest of society does not agree that it is worth granting a temporary monopoly over patterns. I doubt even half of society agrees with that, and the number is shrinking all the time.
As to whether that means I think the creative process is valuable or not - that's more of a religious question if you ask me. I used to play in high school band, and in football season we'd march out onto the field while the school district announcer gave a long speech about a bunch of stuff. One thing he always said, referencing the football team, was "do not by your actions cause them to doubt the value of their hard work, or of athletics." I always wondered "why? What difference does it make if some people think athletics is valuable and some don't? Why can't people have their own personal opinions about whether its valuable to do grueling training for football or not? Why must we all agree?" The basic gist of it was: hold our beliefs and value systems, or you are a bad person. That's a religion, if you ask me, and I don't share it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Sunday December 27 2015, @01:58AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @04:18PM
Oh they know it. They know it quite well. I am 100% sure their accountants have told them this.
The value of a song play is near 0. Not quite 0 in some cases but usually just that.
The problem they have is the near perfect archives of music that exist. Lets say it is 10 million songs. Lets say people like 5 million of them (not true but just for arguments sake). Now you produce another 10 million. Out of those lets say 1 million are liked. You now have 20 million songs with 6 million that are liked.
In pure economic terms the supply curve of liked songs went way up. The cost to reproduce the existing 10 million is near 0. In effect the supply curve moved right. What this means is the MR=MC went down what little there was of it. Your profits may go up. But the price per song, even existing ones goes down.
They are effectively competing against an existing catalog of all the previous platinum selling albums, ever.
The value of producing 1 more song is meaningless. The cost to produce however can be decently high for one. The lie they use on everyone is that production costs equals value. Not even remotely true. To put it in car terms. I can build a single car that costs 200 billion dollars. However, no one will buy it. Its value is no where near 200 billion.
The industry has a lock on a couple of things currently that let them continue to enjoy their position. Production - they have decent production facilities and people who know how to run them. This is being replaced by cheap computers. Access - they have spent the past 100 or so years making sure they have access to the correct 'movers' (radio, tv, movies). The internet is tearing apart this model. Youtube did more damage to the industry than anyone before it. They are trying to rebuild it with 'large catalogs' and monthly fees. That will collapse eventually. For example Amazon does not see tons of value in the music. They give away large portions of it to lure people back into the store. Apple uses it as exclusives to get people to re-buy the ipod/iphone. The new holders of the keys do not see value other than as a way to sell other things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @05:15PM
So essentially, free copying and easy finding(!) of music is still killing the professional music-copier and distributor. There's just less of them and they keep getting bigger.
I can't say that I care, at all. It's also nothing new.
They're now trying to create a "new" business model out of thin air, but there *is* no business model there. And never will be again. It always takes some time, but at some point the public notices, again and again, that they're not adding value anymore.
The emperors new clothes are still nonexistent, even if you keep telling people that said clothes now have a totally new, awesome colour.
Or in yet other words: the music distribution industry has been dead since the invention of MP3 compression. Its just that the trillions of dollars floating around have not yet realized it completely.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @05:35PM
But the industry has one last trick up its sleeve.
Did I hear you right, did I hear you saying
That you're gonna make a copy of a song without paying?
Come on guys. I thought you knew better, don't download that torrent. (don't don't don't d-d-don't)
Everybody knows the copying of floppies came to a screeching halt after the release of this video [youtube.com]. I mean, when's the last time you copied a floppy?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday December 26 2015, @09:53PM
I thought you were thinking of this video [youtube.com], which clearly advises viewers to not download songs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Saturday December 26 2015, @06:14PM
Part of their problem is that they got addicted to the money. They jumped right on the technology that made their job easier and cheaper but they didn't pass ANY of the savings on. In some cases, the "legit" downloads cost MORE than buying on CD.
Meanwhile, they're de-skilling fast. They probably don't have many (if any) people left who know how to properly cut a master for a record. Where they used to have people doing the final mix to get the most out of the medium at hand, now they have monkeys who just crank everything to 11, call it hot, and demand a percent. A child could have done that for nothing. It really doesn't make much sense to spend $100,000 on a good recording engineer and studio when you're going to squash all of the quality out of it right at the end anyway.
So yeah, it really is possible to make just as good of a recording on the cheap and then distribute it for next to nothing. Done right, there's probably even some money in it, just not as much as they're used to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 27 2015, @09:18AM
"Part of their problem is that they got addicted to the money. They jumped right on the technology that made their job easier and cheaper but they didn't pass ANY of the savings on."
What? They didn't "jump right on the technology that made their job easier and cheaper". They spent years ignoring it existed, then many more years actively trying to destroy it. They got pulled into the new technology that made it difficult for them to sell bulky, overpriced items, kicking and screaming all the way until they were finally here ... and realized it was actually profitable.
But you're right that they didn't pass on ANY savings. An argument consumers had for why everyone should go digital, although many of us knew damned well they wouldn't make anything cheaper, and if anything make things more expensive once digital was the only option. (currently the physical side often goes on sale due to stores trying to get rid of unsold merch, but once that competition goes away we'll see far less in the digital sales department.)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 27 2015, @09:34PM
They did jump on it, but only the parts that didn't result in them being out of the loop. It takes time to invent new and more draconian DRM. While that was going on, they did switch to digital recording and mastering which is cheaper than pro level analog recording. They were pretty quick to push CDs which were cheaper to make and cheaper to ship than LPs.They avoided PC based recording because that wouldn't let them put bands in debt where they could fudge the numbers in their favor. They resisted downloading for a long time because of the lack of unbreakable DRM.
None of that resulted in a lower price. When they were finally convinced to get into downloadable music, they made it even more expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @07:52PM
So essentially, free copying and easy finding(!) of music is still killing the professional music-copier and distributor.
I deliberately left that out. I wanted to point out that even their current model of music is self destructive. When you have several million of something 1 of something is not nearly worth as much.
What you are talking about compounds the issue but does not fix the systemic issues they have. 1) huge pile of songs and 2) dramatically falling costs of production. The second one lets independent guys cut them out of the picture. Sort of like cord cutters and cord nevers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Saturday December 26 2015, @07:53PM
Those are some pretty stupid comparisons.
Yes, they are competing against all platinum albums ever, but they are not current platinum, they are old and mostly unwanted platinum albums. It would be like saying all current cars are competing against every car and horse carriage design of all time. Like anyone is going to choose to buy an 1300's carriage instead of a 2016 Ford Mustang, because when this 1300's carriage was released it was voted vehicle of the year. Their fame and mass appeal is long gone.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday December 27 2015, @09:37AM
INSIGHTFUL? SERIOUSLY? Parent's is the dumbest argument about anything ever.
Creative endeavors != engineering; you don't design a better song by copying exactly what the last guy did and then shortening the critical path so you can increase the tempo. You write a good song -- not necessarily better -- by studying the general principles of musical composition, learning an instrument, and then doing something that feels right to you; if you're lucky, other people will think it feels right to them as well. What you are creating by doing this isn't something others can really build on top of, and that's why some of the most renowned music, literature, and artwork is very, very old, yet deserves its renown.
Or would you like an example instead?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_(Rebecca_Black_song) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel%27s_Canon [wikipedia.org]
I rest my case.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:45PM
Insightful comment. However, as I point out in the forward to my book "Yesterday's Tomorrows", art and literature does indeed build on what's come before. Imagine how technology would suffer if patents lasted for 95 years--that's how art and literature are suffering under present copyright laws.
For instance, if I wrote a completely original sequel to the James Bond series, it would not be legal to publish it. My copyrights should not outlive me, but they will outlive my children. Look at Seether's "Same Damn Life". They could not have published that song if the copyright to the 1962 Peggy March "I Will Follow Him" had been renewed, but the Seether tune is a completely new thing, built on and fro an old thing.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Saturday December 26 2015, @06:35PM
If a song is copied to /dev/null and no-one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 26 2015, @08:17PM
If a song is copied to /dev/null and no-one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
Maybe you were aiming for humor, but you've accidentally hit the nail on the head.
This whole episode with the raspberry-Pi does nothing but expose Peter Sunde's utter stupidity. He trumpets it as if he has proven a grand point, and mistakes the laughter as approbation.
Making a copy and then sending it to /dev/null is not copying at all. Because when he is done, he has no more copies than he started with, and actually fewer copies than he was authorized by law to make.
If he preserved each copy on separate media, such that they were fungible, and warehoused them against the day the copyright expired, he has still not committed any violation. Its only upon distribution (sale or gift) that a violation of copyright actually occurs.
Yes, I'm aware that some countries try to ban the actual creation of any copy whatsoever, but that level of stupidity isn't enforceable anywhere. Not since the invention of digital storage.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Yaa101 on Sunday December 27 2015, @12:57AM
If you are serious then ask Schrödinger...
On a realistic note, nowadays they are able to get sound from photo's of wax rolls...
No comment...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:49PM
I'm off topic, sorry, but I can't help myself. [angryflower.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday December 26 2015, @06:47PM
"I want to show the absurdity on the process of putting a value to a copy.... [F]ollowing their rhetoric and mindset it will bankrupt them," says Sunde.
Well, obviously not, since he's chosen an absurdist way of copying a file. It does absolutely nothing to alter the scarcity or availability of the work in question. If he was smart, he wouldn't bother wasting his time doing what he's claimed - he'd just say he had. The net result would be exactly the same.
This is just a piece of performance art designed to draw attention to the nefarious tactics of copyright holders. I'm not saying that's not a useful thing to do, but it's not like it's going to set any precedents in court.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 26 2015, @07:23PM
100% correct. It's performance art, not far off from what is done by the likes of Banksy [thisiscolossal.com], Ai Weiwei [npr.org], Simon Denny [theguardian.com], Trevor Paglen [theguardian.com], and others.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday December 26 2015, @07:52PM
Not taking an absolutist position on copyright. But this stunt is stupid, deliberately misses the point and because most people intuitively know it (even if they can't reason out why) promoting this silliness only undermines the case against overly expansive copyright and invasive enforcement.
The damage isn't making copies. Once they finally gave up on DRM, even the RIAA goons have no problem with what this guy is doing if he bought the rights to the track he is making the copies of. You are allowed to make as many copies of a song as you need. You are allowed to copy it to all of your music players, make backup copies, etc. The damage, such as it is, consists in transferring a copy to someone who hasn't paid for a personal use license to the work. It isn't the act of copying they object to, it is unauthorized distribution.
It is true that unauthorized distribution may or may not inflict economic damage on the copyright holder and that the actual damages do vary. But since courts are ill equipped to calculate the exact damage, some sort of average does make sense. For example, if I buy [current poptart]'s latest hit and make a thousand copies I have not yet caused any damage. If I walk down the street and hand them out I have now deprived the copyright holder of the revenue from those who would have otherwise ended up buying a copy, thus I have inflicted some economic damage. If I did the same thing in a senior center, where essentially zero residents would have bought a copy, I have done much less but still non-zero damage. (Some might gift the copy and cause a loss of a sale.) If I got my hands on a pre-release copy and passed out copies to the artist's fan club I have caused maximal economic damage.
Some might argue that passing out copies on the street might also introduce new fans to the artist. While possible, passing out free copies as a promotional gimmick may be a economically valid tactic, it is something only the rights holder has the legal right to decide upon, so I can't claim credit for any accidental sales generated against the direct economic damage inflicted on the rights holder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2015, @09:46PM
Odds a good that if you did that, you compensated the artists through a private copying levy.
You are only causing economic harm if you distribute those unauthorized copies in order to promote your venue (raising the bar top commercial infringement, rather than private study). I suppose you could argue that some bystanders may try to sell the unauthorized copies: raising the bar to commercial infringement, rather than private study in that case as well.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 27 2015, @03:23AM
Even if I can find a torrent of that song; this because discographies usually have lots of seeds.
I downloaded every album Bob Dylan ever recorded. I tried to listen to just one of them said to myself man that guy needs a speech therapist. I haven't listened to any others.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday December 27 2015, @04:04AM
Copies are not the problem? Of course not, it is producing the master, the original, the first copy, which then, after all, is not a copy! So time to go all Pharma: it is not the cost of production (copying) or distribution (also near zero for online "property"), but the cost of development and marketing that determine the price of a drug. That, or some young capitalist who will probably end up in jail sooner or later. Marketing is really kind of silly, "we charge our customers the costs of getting them to buy our product!" Seems like consumers should get a better deal than that. But back to drugs. Development costs for a particular drug are sunk, but the problem is that not every development cost actually produces something of value. So Pharma expects the successes to subsidize the losers, while they search for a bonanza like high-blood pressure medication that gives old men something to do. But in any case, patents expire much more quickly than copyright. All this is supposed to ensure a continual progress in the advancement of medicine, health, and the well being of society. Of course, Pharma has to actually produce, despite bits of inhumanity and criminal misconduct here and there.
Copy rights should be based on the same reasoning, except that there are significant differences. Creativity is not chemistry. We have no idea what produces something of value, not even the artists themselves do. And we have no idea what people will find of value. Marketers drool after the ability to go viral. But we grant copyright just incase either of these two things occurs (value and/or being valued), for the express purpose of incentivising the production of more value. So it is not the copies that are significant, it is supporting the artists, copyright is a down payment on future art. This is why I suggest that we give it some teeth. Pharma can go bust, bankrupt, they can fail. I suggest that if an artist produces no further works, we rescind any copy right and repossess any income that we as a society have paid to said artist, or his owner or representative. Dead people do not hold copyright! So Sunde does not go far enough.