Pirate generation

The conviction of the founders of Piratebay last week has brought the debate about file sharing systems back into the headlines again. With appeals now in progress and accusations that the judge had a conflict of interest, the story is going to run and run. Like Twitter, everyone has an opinion about it. But I can’t help feeling a lot of those opinions are still missing the fundamental implications of unrestricted file sharing. Piracy is not just changing the way we get our content. It’s going to alter the nature of content itself.

Many people on both sides of the argument now realise that piracy is a competing business model, not just either a right of freedom (if you’re a pirate), or a heinous crime (if you’re a content owner). For example, in his column on Gizmodo, Brian Lam explains how he uses legal services when they provide a better experience than Bit Torrent. He mentions Hulu.com, but here in the UK we could easily substitute the increasingly excellent BBC iPlayer, although Hulu.com could be on its way over here as well.

However, the use of Bit Torrent to download films and TV programmes has become so much a part of life, it’s no longer being given a second thought by many on the pro-piracy side of the argument. Just look at the backtracking update Lam puts at the end of his column, when he realises he has just openly admitted to persistent copyright infringement. It was so natural to him, he didn’t even notice at first.

The usual defence of piracy revolves around how the existing broadcasting and DVD distribution systems are too restrictive, and can’t deliver content when, where and how it is desired. Some on the pro-piracy side mitigate themselves a bit further by explaining that they do subscribe to premium channels which carry the content they have Bit Torrented, and they will buy the TV show or film on DVD when it becomes available. So they are paying for the content eventually. It’s just that they want to watch the content now, and the current system won’t allow them to do that.

Now, I don’t mean to judge the people I’m referring to here. Their arguments have some validity, and I don’t think they are particularly criminal, nor indeed are many of the people who regularly use Bit Torrent. It’s a classic case of Tragedy of the Commons – the opportunity is there, and people take it. The technology has enabled modes of content consumption which legal distribution systems just haven’t caught up with yet. Just as the original Napster let the genie out of the bottle for music downloads, Bit Torrent and streaming sites have enabled modes of video distribution which many people prefer to the more rigid, structured approach of scheduled broadcasting.

However, the very content which pirates are downloading is at risk, because piracy breaks the economic system which makes it possible for that content to exist in the first place, at least in its current form. We’re lucky in the UK to have a completely unique form of television economics in the shape of the BBC. We pay an annual license fee for BBC content. In return, we receive content which doesn’t just satisfy the masses, but has a remit to serve minority interests as well. Sharing this content doesn’t necessarily even have a negative effect, because the content was already paid for by our license fees, although the BBC does make an increasingly important income from international syndication. The more people watch it, the better.

This is a very unusual system, though, and nowhere else in the world has anything like it, bar totalitarian regimes with national TV services which are essentially vehicles for government propaganda. Most of the time, in most parts of the globe, TV is made for commercial reasons, with advertising revenue in mind. Film, on the other hand, makes the majority of its income from theatrical release, although there is also significant money to be made from DVD sales.

When you Bit Torrent either type of content, you obviously avoid the makers of that content receiving any of this return on their investment. At bottom, though, it’s not just the loss of income which is a problem. In an advertising model, it’s the lack of being able to track and predict viewing figures which is the underlying threat. This means that the content cannot be ‘monetized’, because the makers can’t argue to their funding organisations what the audience for their content will be, nor can they control how advertising is sold alongside that content.

This situation cannot be solved by trying to push the genie back in the bottle, which cases like the Swedish one against Pirate Bay are attempting to do. And you can’t blame people from using Bit Torrent sites when they’re easier to operate than iTunes, whilst the punishments for doing so are so completely disproportionate and indiscriminate that they are no deterrent at all. Legitimate services need to provide the same easy user experience as Bit Torrent, or even better. Lots of people realise this now, including mainstream content owners. Hulu and BBC iPlayer are getting in that direction, and Spotify is shaping up nicely for music too.

But more radical changes are in the wings. It’s just too easy to avoid advertising nowadays, so advertising needs to take a different strategy in order to remain a relevant business model. It’s very significant that ITV is currently trying to obtain permission from Oftel for product placements in its programmes. That sacred separation between advertising and content is what is really under threat. They will be increasingly intertwined. TV will become more like MTV, which was the genius result of realising that music videos weren’t just adverts for songs, but could be content in their own right. The indirect result of piracy will be this – content which is advertising, so you can’t have one without the other. Then it won’t matter if you steal it or not.