This American Life, the popular public radio show, allows you to listen to its programs for free over the web. If you want to own a copy to play offline, you can buy a downloadable file or a podcast for a few bucks through Audible or iTunes or a CD version for a bit more. It’s money that goes to what many would consider a good cause, and, even if it weren’t, This American Life has every right to sell its property in whatever way it wants and for whatever price it chooses. As it explains on its site:
This American Life podcasts are available to weekly subscribers at Audible.com. There is a fee for shows delivered via podcasting, the same as other TAL episodes purchased through Audible or the Apple Music Store. These fees provide a small stream of money – not much, to be sure, but some – that we split with the show’s contributors. We think it’s fair for them to be compensated for their work.
Recently, apparently, This American Life began to stream its programs in unprotected MP3 format rather than in RealAudio format. It did not, however, change any of its policies. It still charges for file downloads, podcasts and CDs. But because the source files are now unprotected MP3s, it’s possible, with a simple technical trick, to bypass the streamed video and swipe – I believe “swipe” is the right term – the source files without paying for them. Writing recently on his Info World blog, Jon Udell described how easy this is:
Until about a month ago … I was relying on an mplayer hack to move some of my favorite public radio shows onto my MP3 player. The other week, though, I noticed that although the archive page at This American Life still says that you can’t download files, it’s not true anymore. Last week’s episode, for example, was a rerun of a classic on stories that make us cringe. The offered link is http://audio.wbez.org/tal/182.m3u. If you unpack that you’ll find http://audio.wbez.org/tal/182.mp3. When I noticed this change, I made myself an unofficial TAL feed with enclosures.
In an update to the post, he provided a link to another site, called “Unofficial This American Life Podcast,” which makes swiping the files even easier, by providing direct links for downloading all the underlying MP3s. Nowhere does the owner of this site mention that This American Life charges for downloads.
Now, Jon Udell is an honorable guy, and I’m sure he doesn’t think of downloading those files as an act of thievery in any way, shape or form. But what kind of strange logic leads someone to say that “although the archive page at This American Life still says that you can’t download files, it’s not true anymore.” That’s like saying that if I go out to the supermarket and leave my front door unlocked, then it’s ok to come into my house and steal my china. Just because something’s not locked up doesn’t mean you can help yourself to it.
Today, Udell reports that he received a request from This American Life to take down his unofficial feed from his site. “You’re violating our copyright,” it said, “and we’re obligated to protect it.” Udell responded by disabling the feed, “at least temporarily.” But he chafed at the request, responding, “I did not post MP3s in violation of your copyright, and would never do such a thing. I simply posted a file that contains links to the MP3s that you have posted on your site.” That may be technically correct, but it seems disingenuous. It would be one thing – and even this would be murky – if This American Life didn’t charge for downloads. But it does.
In responding to Udell’s post, Ted Roche says it’s “a disturbing idea … that a producer of copyright content could demand you take down links pointing to their content.” But let’s be clear: these aren’t links to the free streams (the “offered links,” as Udell describes them); they’re links specifically created to provide access to products that are sold for a fee. “Aggregation and linkage is the point of the web,” says Roche. “Don’t fight it.” Anyone’s free to criticize This American Life for its business policies. But you’re not free to circumvent those policies just because you don’t like them. If you take someone’s property without paying for it – or even if you help others to do it – you’re breaking the law. Shouldn’t that be as true on the web as off it?
By the way, I don’t actually own any china, so you’d just be wasting your time.
If you put a price in each of the articles that you post in your blog, does this mean that people cannot download articles from your blog? Or does it imply that readers will have to pay you?
If something is posted and is freely accessible on the web (no password protection, no DRM) then it is available for free. If I post my credit card number on my homepage, it will be naive to assume that no one will use it.
Content creators that post content online should make sure that they have made the appropriate effort to protect their property.
If I post my credit card number on my homepage, it will be naive to assume that no one will use it.
Sure, but that doesn’t exonerate those who use it.
If we look at the underlying reason for the existence of money, we can create systems using modern technology that do the job much more efficiently. The mass of Wikipedia tries to balance itself on a frail little engine never designed for global projects, yet even with all of the problems this creates, Wikipedia has far surpassed what can be done through monetary compensation in several areas. Building on the premise that money is no longer the best method of quantifying the usefulness of one’s contributions, content-for-control exchange sites are popping up all over the Internet. While still in their infancy, these sites are fast replacing established economic assumptions of what motivates people to contribute. It turns out that people have an internally consistent moral center after all. Money isn’t an end unto itself; it’s only a method of balancing the usefulness of one’s contributions with an equal amount of control. Through modern technology, we can achieve this balance directly without the inefficiencies and corruption of a monetary based system.
I don’t have to tell anyone here that. We all contribute to and benefit from this site without money changing hands.
Zephram,
Money has never been the sole or even the primary motivation behind creative work. Amateur violin players, for instance, join local orchestras and play for people without any expectation of or desire for monetary reward. That’s great. We should applaud those who do creative work as an avocation, as we always have. At the same time, we shouldn’t assume that those who do creative work as an avocation are in any way superior to those who do creative work as a vocation. And we should appreciate that professionals and the commercial institutions that employ or otherwise support them are able to do some forms of creative work that lie beyond the capacity of amateurs. What’s changed with the Internet is the economics of creating and distributing creative work. The economics changed in a way that endangers the livelihoods of some professionals and the existence of some of the institutions that support their work. To fear the destruction of creative work as a vocation is not to demean creative work as an avocation. To dismiss “a monetary based system” as being simply “inefficient and corrupt,” however, is to demean creative work as a vocation.
Nick
In my late teens, I attended an enrollment lecture for prospective students of the Commercial Art Institute. The teacher came in, took a look at the crowd and said, “I’m going to enroll less than half of you. As soon as you decide not to attend school here, you may leave; it won’t hurt my feelings. First of all, I would like to say that you are all whores, or at least you want me to train you to be whores. I can do that because I am very good at selling my soul for money. I take a part of myself that is beautiful, that I want to share freely to benefit others, and I pervert it instead to fit a publisher’s idea of what will generate the most money. I am a whore in a market that generates a hundred who think they’re good for every ten who actually are. Of the ten good whores, only one will get picked up because that’s all the demand this market can support.”
Behind the teacher were six draped stands. He took the drapes off to reveal some of the most beautiful and intricate commercial art I have ever seen. He continued, “These are a few of my pieces that have been published. If you doubt your ability to produce this level of commercial art after training, you should leave now. My income from commercial art projects like this averages less than fifteen thousand a year. If I weren’t also a teacher here, I would have to work outside the field in order to survive. Anyone who is willing to sell themselves for the remote chance that they will be able to make a living in this field by becoming a better whore than I, please step forward to enroll.”
As a writer, I keep in mind that there is far less relative demand for literature than for commercial art. There might be two or three hundred people in the United States who can make a living writing books, but very few of those, I fear, still respect themselves in the morning. Personally, I would rather contribute where the need is greatest and I can do the most good, in grand concert with all humanity, with millions of standardized definitions to form a foundation, and with contributions weighted according to the usefulness of the whole.
Surprised Jon took that stance given how MSM is trying to figure out how not to give away digital content…
you are pointing to a growing dichotomy in tech markets – “spoiling” of consumer markets – free Google, free Skype, free content etc…and milking of corporate customers through lock-in – CIOs paying 95% gross margins on software maintenance, 50% even on “cheap” offshore development rates.
Neither model is sustainable…fairer pricing will evolve in both segments…
I think the problem is that the level of protection, which people use to distinguish public contents from private ones, is subjective. Whose measuring stick should be used to judge whether a form of protection is adequate or not? Content owner’s, public consensus’, or security expert’s?
And what if someone writes software to make it a one-click affair to breakthrough to protected content? To the user of such software, it’s as easy as clicking on an hyperlink, so is it stealing or not?
But let’s be clear: these aren’t links to the free streams (the “offered links,” as Udell describes them); they’re links specifically created to provide access to products that are sold for a fee.
That’s not exactly true: the “offered links” are text files: they contain the links to the freely-streamed mp3 files. The workaround Jon Udell proposes is simply downloading rather than streaming. SCOTUS upheld time- and place-shifting in Sony v. BetaMax; I just want to play TAL on my music player and not my computer. A copyright holder cannot require me to sit in front of a computer to listen to their work if I would prefer to listen to it while I walk the dog.
It is true that TAL offers downloads through Audible (and now the iTunes store). It’s also perfectly legitimate for me to record-off-the-air or via a computer device (as I blogged here: http://www.tedroche.com/blog/?p=1203).
It is not as black-and-white as stealing your china: if I take your china, you don’t have it any more. If I download an MP3 from TAL, via streaming or other download mechanism, they still have the file. They spend the same on bandwidth if I stream it or I download it.
If you take someone’s property without paying for it – or even if you help others to do it – you’re breaking the law. Shouldn’t that be as true on the web as off it?
What law was broken? No property changed hands. I had permission to copy the file to my computer to listen to it. I did not infringe on that license. I chose the time and place and media of replay, as is my right under copyrights. I don’t even skip the commercials!
I am a faithful and regular listener to public radio, and I don’t want to see NPR, PRI or PBS harmed in any way. I continue to send in my annual dues, and appreciate the incredible work they do.
I did bring this issue up with the webmaster and management of WBEZ and TAL and we had some conversations that informed both sides. In my original post (http://www.tedroche.com/blog/?p=2386), I suggested “WBEZ: Join the audiocasting revolution. It’s the new radio… Don’t cut yourself off from the audience.” I’m pleased to point out that “This American Life” has added podcasting links to their site: http://www.thislife.org/pages/podcasts.html. Bravo!