I just read a post on Slashdot that linked to a blog entry by composer Jason Robert Brown.  It's an interesting read, and anyone with any interest in copyright ought to read it.  The response on Slashdot was surprisingly hostile, which is why I'm posting my own response here, since people can't downmod me on my own blog. :)

The TL;DR version of the blog post is as follows:

• Mr. Brown discovered a number of people trading his sheet music for free on a trading website.
• Since about half of his income is from sheet music sales, he contacted the individual users trading his music and asked them to take it down.  Most of them complied.
• He had a fairly long conversation with a teenage girl named Elanor who was angry because she was unable to obtain his music now that it had been taken down.
• Mr. Brown argued that, as the author and copyright holder of his works, he has the right to ask for royalties.
• Elanor argued that, as a teenager with unsupportive parents, she doesn't have access to a credit card to purchase the work online despite the fact that it costs less than $4, and that downloading the song for free doesn't hurt him at all because she wouldn't have paid for it anyway.

First off, I agree with Mr. Brown.  While he uses the word "stealing" the same way the RIAA does (I would personally refer to the act in question as piracy and equate stealing with plagiarism), he is fundamentally correct.  An artist should without question, for a limited time, have control over how their work is distributed (making allowances for fair use and the like). 

Now, I see a lot of arguments out there that attempt to draw an exact parallel between intellectual property and material goods, and I believe these arguments are counterproductive.  When I produce a material good, I have to pay for the materials that go into each item that I make.  By contrast, if I write a song, distributing that song digitally costs essentially nothing.  Any attempt to ignore that disctinction is utterly transparent -- we all know intuitively that material goods and intellectual property are not the same thing. 

On the other hand, the issue of design costs exists in both cases.  If I'm going to create a product, I first have to design that product.  I may hire one designer or many, or I may even design it myself.  Regardless, the time spent designing that product has value.  By the same token, if you write a song, even if it's possible to make a gazillion copies of that song for free, it still took time and effort to bring that song into existence.  In terms relevant to OGA and the Creative Commons, when an artist decides to release a work for free, that doesn't mean that the work has no value, it simply means that they have chosen to donate their time to the community.

But, back to Elanor.  Elanor made the point that, given her current situation, she was completely unable to actually pay for a copy of the sheet music she wanted.  We'll assume, for the sake of argument, that she's telling the truth.  It's not a big stretch, really.  As a teenager, I found myself in exactly that situation quite frequently, and I did exactly what she did (albeit with computer games).  Logically, since I didn't have enough money to pay for the games I wanted, I wasn't really a lost sale, so I pirated games.  Even though I regret it now, I didn't feel particularly bad about it at the time.

And why should I have?  It's true, isn't it?  If I don't have the money to buy the game, the publisher is never going to see that money from me anyway, so the act of pirating the game doesn't affect them at all.  If we assume that I'm being trusthful and that I really don't have the money (which is, again, entirely possible as a teenager), then the argument is demonstrably true -- that is, my having that copy literally did no harm to the publisher.  In fact, it's also entirely plausible that my having those games might have caused someone else to like them and go out and buy them, resulting in additional revenue for the publisher.  Man, it all sounds so easy!

Of course, much like everything else, it's difficult to reduce things down to such simple points without missing key information.  Clearly, even if I have absolutely no money to spend on games, I'm not the only potential game consumer.  People buy computer games all the time -- it's a huge industry, so clearly there are plenty of customers out there who can afford to pay for them.  For an example of this, we'll skip a few years ahead to when I'm was in college.  I wasn't particularly well to do, but it's safe to say that I could afford to purchase games and music from time to time.  Back when Napster was in its heyday, I would sometimes search it for some obscure song and not turn up any results.  I'd search around the web and not find the song I was looking for, so I'd reluctantly go out and buy it (or perhaps order it online).  In this case, had that music been available via pirate channels, it would have been a lost sale.

My point?  A few teenagers making pirated copies of things they can't afford to pay for doesn't in itself equate to lost revenue.  However, the availablility of pirated copies of games and media can absolutely result in lost sales, because not all people who pirate media can't afford to pay for it.  Do these lost sales add up to more than the revenue gained through the free advertising of having one's work available for free on line?  I have no idea, but I would imagine that it varies depending on the situation.  Regardless, artists, game designers, musicians, and other creative people have a right to decide how their work is distributed, no matter how wrong-headed some people may believe it may be.

As an endnote, before anyone goes and assumes that I support the RIAA's and ASCAP's heavy-handed lawsuits and lobbying, I want to point out that this is absolutely not the case.  I decided some years ago that the RIAA would never see another cent from me until they took a more reasonable stance about their copyrights, partcularly pertaining to DRM and Fair Use, and laid off of the lawsuits where they ask for $700 to $150,000 in damages per song.  How, you ask, am I doing this without pirating their music?  Simple.  I listen to it on the radio, I borrow it from my friends, I go to concerts, or I don't listen to it at all.  There's plenty of excellent free music out there by talented artists, much of which is Creative Commons licensed.  There is also music published for profit by companies who are not RIAA members.  The important thing to remember is that you don't need a particular piece of media (be it art, music, game, or something else).  If you find that it's not worth the asking price, then don't use it at all.

This concludes my longest blog post ever.  It's 3 AM, so if it needs any spelling or grammar corrections, please point them out. :)

Peace,

Bart