In 1982, then president of the MPAA Jack Valenti said something really stupid; and today, pro-piracy pundits, some who weren’t even alive in 1982, rely heavily on the late man’s hyperbole to drive a wedge between creators and fans. Valenti said in testimony before Congress, “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” It is clearly ridiculous to compare a machine that records and plays video tape to a serial killer, so Jack really left those of us who care about creator rights holding the PR bag with his choice of words. But the real reason this quote is usually trotted out, as it is here in this piece from MIT Technology Review, is that Valenti was ostensibly wrong — that the VCR did not harm, and might even have helped, the motion picture business. This half-true assessment is then used as a segue to assert that piracy is the same thing, that Hollywood should just embrace yet another phase in technological evolution, adapt to it, and reap the benefits.
The fear that the somewhat cumbersome and visually unappealing VHS recorder would threaten the profitable distribution of mainstream motion pictures and television was clearly a misjudgment; but the error is a common one that occurs when just about anybody attempts to predict future human behavior based on the availability of a new technology. The earliest predictions of a “paperless society” as we all got online were soon punctuated by a substantial increase in printing. Likewise, VHS proved to be an opportunity as a new line of distribution rather than a threat as a means of amateur reproduction.
While tech-industry pundits and academics sneer at Valenti, they simultaneously presume to dabble in the same kind of prophecy, albeit regarding a technology and kind of consumerism that bears no resemblance to the era of the VCR, and about which we have more than a decade’s worth of evidence of its negative effects on the music industry. The prognostication is inherent in a worn-out refrain paraphrased thus: “The (blank) industry could make media piracy irrelevant if it simply made content more affordably and more flexibly available worldwide.” And in a recent spate of scribblings, that blank is filled with the word Hollywood. Aside from the fact that the assertion sounds sillier every day against a backdrop of rapidly growing, legal distribution models, it also happens to be fundamentally obnoxious.
On the purely practical and realistic side, we have the final episode of Breaking Bad, which is reported to have been downloaded illegally about three million times. This is a head-scratcher for a show that is available for streaming via Netflix, which costs .26 cents a day. But even if that were not possible, even if the filmed entertainment business were not very rapidly transforming to achieve symbiosis with viewer habits, there is something very negative about the cultural attitude fostered by these editorials and white papers; and this is that the oft-repeated imperative that creators must accept and adapt contains an implication that people have a right to entertainment.
Absent a social contract that governs transactional relationships, we don’t have a right to a damn thing. I’m in the camp that believes every citizen in my country has a right to healthcare, but not to the extent that we can compel medical professionals to provide that care if we cannot also maintain a system that compensates them for their labor and expertise. So, unless we’re envisioning a world in which very talented slaves are forced to make music, write books, or produce motion pictures, there is no humane way to insist that any creator or group of creators must furnish their products on demand, according to our whims and/or for free.
If I were to call up a contemporary author I like, let’s take Audrey Niffenegger who wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife, and say, “Audrey, I hear you’re writing a new novel. I really love your work. How about sending me the first fifty or so pages so I can check ‘em out and share them online on my blog?” When she refuses, shall I say that she’s not keeping up with technological reality? That it costs her nothing to send me her pages digitally? That I’m a really big fan and will promote her work through social media? In such a scenario, I’d deservedly find myself on the receiving end of a restraining order, but this kind of behavior is more or less what the pro-piracy crowd have been preaching to a whole generation of viewers and fans.
If a lone creator like an author has the right to distribute a work when she’s good and ready, and by whatever channels she chooses, then the same right applies to a limited group of creators, as in the case of those who make filmed entertainment. It’s too easy to lump all motion picture endeavors into a single entity called Hollywood, and then propose what that single entity ought to with itself. And, of course, “Hollywood” has nothing to do per se with the diversity of films and shows out there, or with the ways in which these projects are produced or distributed. Yet, no matter what methods apply, whether it’s a $100 million investment in a blockbuster or a $10,000 crowd-funded little movie, nobody has the right to say, “Give it to us now, or we’re just going to steal it.” More to the point, it is still possible that the long-term result of this attitude will be an even more rapid decline in professional film production than we have seen in music. I say this because the bottom line is that the most popular programs and films are, not surprisingly, the most popular to download illegally; and these films and shows are bloody expensive to make.
Of course, underlying these assertions by piracy’s advocates are buzz-worthy, anecdotal observations by show creators and show-runners that illegal downloading has been beneficial to their programs, at least with regard to promotion. This includes, most recently Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, who admits piracy has helped attract new fans to the series itself, and this echoes previously publicized sentiments from executives working on HBO’s Game of Thrones. I think it goes without saying that free access to programs will spawn new fans and generate more buzz, but whether or not this will translate into supporting models that will sustain production of these shows is far from certain. If the music industry is any indication, the answer is it won’t be pretty. Meanwhile, as posted on this blog, a September study of the wealthiest regions of the world shows that piracy has only increased in concert with the availability of affordable, streaming options. This suggests to me that there is a cultural factor at play, that there exists a sense of entitlement, a perceived right to entertainment. And since we’re mucking about with predictions, I’m going to predict that no good can come of that conviction.
