I’m seriously starting to suspect that Michael Arrington was abused by a copyright lawyer as a child.

His latest posting on Techcrunch siding with thieves against original content producers comes in response to Google’s argument that Viacom’s suit against YouTube is a ‘threat to online communications’.

In a full-of-sound-and-fury opinion piece called ‘It’s Time To Rethink Copyright Law‘ (which I’d say was trademark Arrington, if there was any evidence he knew the meaning of that particular word), he tells us that, in his view…

‘…it’s bad to criminalize natural behavior. And watching a clip of The Office, whether it’s legally on Hulu or illegally on YouTube is natural behavior. The only question is whether or not people are getting sued, or going to jail, for doing it.’

No, Michael. If that were the only question then we’d need reforms of the theft and murder and rape - examples of natural behavior all - laws too. The question is whether the crime is victimless. And the answer, to all of the above, is absolutely, and obviously, no.

Don’t get me wrong. For years, I’ve been saying that content producers need to get their heads out of their arses, to acknowledge that they need to find new business models to combat the reality of piracy. I’ve even defended individual copyright thieves in the process, and admitted to being one myself - and not just here, but in national newspapers too.

Music labels took far too long to embrace legal MP3 downloads, allowing the pirates to sail around the world before legality had put its shoes on. Film and TV companies fell into the same trap, assuming that the file sizes involved would make them immune from piracy, because technology never advances, right? And only now are book publishers slowly facing up to the possibility of the threat from rapidly maturing eReader technology. It. Will. Happen.

Everything. Always. Does.

But for all the fancy talk about “finding new business models” to “remove friction”, which is the thrust of Arrington’s argument (in the same way as Rohypnol - and try not to wince at this simile too much - removes the friction from sexual assault), these new business models haven’t been found yet. Which current alternative model, if not controlled distribution through enforced copyright law, could support the creation of even a single episode of the Office or thirty seconds of The West Wing?

Merchandising? Give me a break. Does even the most ardent of West Wing fans really want a talking Martin Sheen action figure (”Dammit Toby!” / “‘unfunded mandate’ is two words”) or an Emily Proctor doll with realistic moving arms?¹

Product placement? Yeah - but let’s go the whole hog and rename The Office to ‘Staples’ and create a new franchise called ‘CSI: Pizza Hut’.

Tickets to live performances? Two front row tickets to ‘The Wire: The Musical’, please.

Sure - new business models will come, and online advertising technology will continue to mature, and new revenue opportunities will open up. But in the meantime, if we want high quality entertainment, featuring the most talented actors and created by writers and directors and producers who can focus on their art full-time rather than having to take a part time job at Walmart to pay the bills, then the studios need to be able to afford to hire them. Furthermore they need to be able to hire all of the other people - hundreds, thousands of people - required to get that entertainment from paper to screen.

The alternative is for there to be no Seinfelds, Wires, Heroes, Losts, Citizen Kanes, Groundhog Days, Ghostbusters, Shawshank Redemptions… or anything else, for that matter, that requires a greater budget than an episode of Ask A Ninja.

So, no, Michael, a rethink of the copyright laws isn’t what’s needed. Not yet, not by a long chalk. What’s needed is for copyright owners to focus their attention on the big offenders - the dealers, if you like - who are profiting hugely from selling ads next to stolen intellectual property. And they need to keep a light touch when dealing with individuals - stopping their weird cruel and unusual game of dropping 100 tonne bombs on random college students to make an ‘example’ of them.

And at the same time they need to focus on making their own material easily available through official, advertising-supported, online channels to ensure that there’s less friction in viewing an episode of something brilliant by legal means than there is trying to watch it on YouTube.

And, you know what? Looking at Viacom’s brilliant Comedy Central / Daily Show sites - and their mammoth lawsuit against the biggest online handler of intellectual stolen goods - I’d say their strategy, and the law that facilitates it, is bang on the money.

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Footnotes...

1. Full disclosure: I do want an Emily Proctor doll. [↩]

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