Piracy and culture circulation: #encirc13
This week’s lesson on the «Arte y cultura en circulación: crear y compartir en tiempos digitales» course talks about piracy and the circulation of culture, a topic that over time has been debated over and over. And a topic, yes, that can always lead to interesting discussions.
This time, we are requested to choose one among ten ideas among the media groups’ discourse on what piracy is and means for the “cultural industry”. There are tons of material written already on several of those ten lines (i.e. piracy disincentivates creativity, or two that can be seen as two faces of the same argument, If a consumer can have free access to cultural products, he will stop spending his money on them and Every time a consumer has access to an illegal copy, the industry loses a sale), and some are quite obvious (i.e. Piracy makes job positions be lost… Just look at the amount of people the unauthorized distribution industry feeds! Or possibly, Piracy is a prosper industry that gives money to people distributing illegal products — Of course, that is true. The problem is, what causes said products to be illegal to begin with? Should they be so?). Some other ideas talk about harsher penalties and ways to punish illegal copying in order to drive actors out of that sector (and into the… void?)
So, I chose item #4: Cultural products have a high cost because their production is complex (and a tag could be made, linking complex with expensive). I think this item can lead to a long discussion as to what does this complexity and cost mean.
Some cultural products do require quite a bit of investment, yes. Others don’t. How do content producers make the jump to produce expensive works?
If I am a new programmer/artist/writer/screenplayer/whatever, most likely, my products will be not very complex or expensive. I will start small. And if I excel at my work, somebody will look at me and, in some way, become my patron, my sponsor. Being a sponsor might mean that, based on the results of my good work, I could get hired as a software developer at a large company, or an editorial company would buy the patrimonial rights of my book/music (be it for a fixed fee or for a percentage of sales), or whatever. But the leap is not made quantically — A newcomer to the cultural scene will at first, most likely, have a hard time selling his products.
At first, it takes convincing just getting people to take a shot at looking at your work («Hey, please take a look at my program and tell me what you think about it!», «Would you be interested in listening to my latest song?» — And those two are by far ahead of the first attempts where the interactions would more likely be «Turn off that $#^#!^ computer, it’s well past bedtime» or «stop murdering that guitar, I’m having a headache»). Maybe the toughest part is to get people to agree to read/hear your work. And there, you start into a continuum — Selling your CDs while performing on the street, then getting to play to a bar, then getting somebody to want to produce (maybe even “discover”!) you. Publish some short stories in your school magazine, then in a “From our audience” section in a larger magazine, then a collective book, your self-published book, yet-unwritten books by contract… The same story over and over again, in each different field.
Ok, yes, but… This logic succession still leaves space for the Important Producers with the Mighty Big Pockets for the most wanted/largest productions, right? And were unauthorized distribution (piracy) to be the norm (as it currently is, dare I say), wouldn’t they stop producing an important portion of cultural works?
I’d be tempted to say so. However, a different actor comes into play. When Mighty Big Pockets comes into play, they no longer worry only about getting money from each cultural creation, but from all derived uses of it. And the cultural creation industry (when seen as an industry) goes very much hand in hand with the advertising, marketing industries — They end up blending with each other.
So, the biggest best sellers will most likely have a hit from illegal copiers. Books are still a great business, but hey — An even better business is (usually) movie making. And when you make a movie out of a great story, you will surely link some advertising into it (or at the very least, push advertising/product pushing campaigns to go after it). And there, illegal distribution actually helps the money circle to grow stronger. In the early 1990s, the link between dinosaurs and carbonated drinks was a top seller (because Pepsi™ was a Jurassic Park® sponsor). Although I have always loathed the madness around the World Cups (and basically anything that involves football of any kind), I can perfectly remember several of the theme songs for most of the world cups played during my lifetime.
So, in short… No. Illegal distribution does marginally little harm to the money income to the cultural business, at any level. And where it does get some direct harm, it increases the money flux given the auxiliary channels.
Comments
Jorge 2013-10-13 17:06:35
Sobre el precio de los productos culturales
Me gustó mucho la descripción que hacés de la evolución de la complejidad de las producciones culturales en la carrera de un trabajador de la cultura.
Lo curioso es que, más allá de ese argumento que muchas veces utilizan los voceros de las industrias culturales, los precios de los productos culturales suelen seguir criterios que no tienen mucho que ver con la complejidad. Así, por ejemplo, no suelen ser más caros los discos de música culta que los de música sencilla comercial. Los precios de los productos culturales muchas veces tampoco tienen que ver con el costo económico real, como se ve en el mercado de libros electrónicos.
Por último, coincido con vos en que hay que estudiar mejor los beneficios secundarios que puede tener la piratería en cuanto a difusión e ingresos auxiliares.