A call for a sociological study of (digital) piracy

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John C. Dvorak suggests that we need more (sociological) research on the causes of digital piracy:

Understanding why piracy exists as a phenomenon needs to be better understood, but it should be up to academics, not me and other pundits, to determine the causes. Where is the great sociological study of piracy and the mentality behind it?

Dvorak briefly discusses what he thinks are the three roots of piracy: price, distribution, and marketing. At the end of the piece, he again calls for more research:

The real problem with piracy, again, is sociological. If an entire generation becomes acculturated to the free exchange of content and code, then the industry is doomed or it will have to cut back on its First Class Travel and rethink its models. Moaning and groaning about piracy will not stop it…

I’m not sure what can be done about all this, but it does need careful study, not more columns.

Sounds like it could be an interesting project. One angle would be to see how piracy has developed as a deviant (or not-so-deviant) behavior.

Some thoughts by Joel: Actually, there have been some really good academic studies of digital piracy published recently.  I wrote up some thoughts about the SSRC‘s 400+ page report titled Media Piracy in Emerging Economies in early March, and a few weeks later there was the (much shorter at 18 pages) London School of Economics paper entitled Creative Destruction and Copyright Protection:  Regulatory Responses to File-sharing.  Both are well worth reading (for sociologists, especially the former).

Righthaven’s contract unsealed; sanctions a real possibility

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Joe Mullin at paidContent has just posted a story about Righthaven’s previously sealed contract with Steves Media, parent company of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

The contract reveals that the controversial copyright-enforcement company and the LV R-J are splitting their net earnings from suing hundreds of bloggers on a 50-50 basis. It also shows that the LV R-J is still largely in control of Righthaven’s litigation strategy—a fact that could end up being ruinous for Righthaven’s campaign of copyright lawsuits.

A link to the judge’s order and the contract is available here.  I’ll update this post when I’ve had time to read and analyze it thoroughly…

Update: After reading through the contract and order to unseal for myself, I think these are the most relevant sections:

Section 3.3

Stephens Media shall have the right to Notify Righthaven…that Righthaven should not take any Infringement Action with respect to a particular putative infringer.…Stephens Media shall only send any Declination Notice on a reasonable basis with the grounds of reasonability being that a particular putative infringer [1] is a charitable organization, [2] is likely without financial resources, [3] is affiliated with Stephens Media directly or indirectly, [4] is a present or likely future valued business relationship of Stephens Media or otherwise would be a Person that, if the subject of an Infringement Action, would result in an adverse result to Stephens Media.

I guess it’s safe to conclude that Stephens Media did not see fit to step in on behalf of the Center for Intercultural Organization (“a charitable organization”), Brian Hill (an autistic blogger who practically defines someone “likely without financial resources”), various newspaper sources (“affiliated with Stephens Media directly or indirectly”), or any of the hundreds of other bloggers (“likely future valued business relationship of Stephens Media”) Righthaven has sued.

Sections 7 and 8

Section 7.1:

Stephens Media shall effect the assignments to Righthaven of copyrights as required by this Agreement…by executing a particularized assignment with respect to each copyright and each consistent with (and in form and substance the same as) the scope of assignment….

Section 7.2:

Despite any such Copyright Assignment, Stephens Media shall retain (and is hereby granted by Righthaven) an exclusive license to Exploit the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights for any lawful purpose whatsoever and Righthaven shall have no right or license to Exploit or participate in the receipt of royalties from the Exploitation of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights other than the right to proceeds in association with a Recovery.

Section 8:

Stephens Media shall have the right at any time to terminate, in good faith, any Copyright Assigmnent (the “Assignment Termination”) and enjoy a right of complete reversion to the ownership of any copyright that is the subject of a Copyright Assignment; provided, however, that if Righthaven shall have commenced an action to prosecute an infringer of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights, Stephens Media shall be exclusively responsible for effecting termination of such action including, without limitation, all Losses associated with any dismissal with prejudice.

Taken together, these three excerpts seem to affirm that Righthaven is essentially buying the right to bring lawsuits from Stephens Media, which is arguably impermissible under Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., 402 F. 3d 881 (9th Cir. 2005).

Section 11

Stephens Media understands and acknowledges that Stephens Media and Righthaven may be liable for an Infringer’s attorneys’ fees as required by Law in connection with an Infringement Action. Stephens Media further understands that a lawsuit brought solely to harass or to coerce a settlement may result in liability for malicious prosecution or abuse of process. If any Claim made by an Infringer in an Infringement Action results in Losses, other than Losses described in Section 8, Righthaven shall be solely liable for such Losses and shall indemnify Stephens Media from and against any such Losses but only if such Losses do not arise out of a misrepresentation by Stephens Media or other breach by Stephens Media of a provision of this Agreement.

I guess we now have incontrovertible evidence that both the newspaper and Righthaven knew “that a lawsuit brought solely to harass or to coerce a settlement may result in liability for malicious prosecution or abuse of process”!  I wouldn’t be surprised if this section gets referenced in a future sanctions order.

Conclusion:  what does Judge Hunt think?

It’s impossible to know, of course, what’s inside Judge Hunt’s mind.  However, his order to unseal the Righthaven contract strongly suggests that he is growing weary of Righthaven’s legal antics:

There is an old adage in the law that, if the facts are on your side, you pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, you pound on the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, you pound on the table. It appears there is a lot of table pounding going on here.

There has been presented absolutely no basis to strike the Request to Unseal, and that motion will be denied. [emphasis added]

No doubt Righthaven is already sorry they filed this case.  The only remaining question is whether their sorrow will be measured in dollars.  And just how many.

Interpreting data regarding scientists and religion

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In looking at some data regarding what scientists think about religion, a commentator offers this regarding interpreting sociological data:

The point about asking such questions is not because we know the answers but to emphasise that the interpretation of sociological data is a tricky business. From the perspective of science, ants and humans are far more complex than stars and rocks. A discussion of atheism and science in the US context leads us straight to a discussion of the structure of the American educational system, the role of elites, the present polarisation of the political electorate along religious faultlines, and much else besides…

The challenge then is to think hard about the complex data and not be too dogmatic about the interpretations.

When the phrase “tricky business” is used, it sounds like it is referring to the complex nature of the social world. In order to understand the relationship between science and religion, one must account for a variety of possible factors. It is one thing to say that there are multiple possible interpretations of the same data, another to say that some twist data to support their personal interpretations, and another to suggest that we can get to a correct or right interpretation if we properly account for complexity.

While this commentary is ultimately about using caution when interpreting statistics regarding the religious beliefs of scientists, it also is a little summary of social science research regarding the religious beliefs of scientists. The 2010 study Science vs. Religion is discussed as well as a few other works.

Chinese purchase “monster homes” in New Zealand

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McMansion type homes are not just restricted to the United States. This article describes what Chinese buyers are moving into in New Zealand:

When veteran architect Ron Sang drives around the outer fringes of Auckland near Albany or Botany, he can always spot a house built for a Chinese buyer.

“Generally it has a high portico on the outside – a big, high, ostentatious-looking porch, usually double height,” he says.

“Generally above the door you have a window and through the window you can see chandeliers. Inside the door you’ll see a big, ostentatiously curved stairway. They like to show wealth.”

These grand mansions on small suburban sections – what sociologist Paul Spoonley, adopting a Canadian term, calls “monster houses” – have become the stereotypical Chinese footprints in our cityscape.

While the homes described here are called “monster homes,” this sounds very similar to what Americans would call McMansions with the traits of a big entryway, garish appointments, the goal of impressing a buyer or visitor, and large homes on relatively small lots in suburban neighborhoods.

There is an interesting discussion later in the article about Chinese immigration to and residential patterns of Chinese residents in New Zealand.

When legal copying is illegal (or at least reversible)

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Eugene Volokh has a fascinating post re: how much judicial copying is too much:

Cojocaru v. British Columbia Women’s Hospital & Health Center — decided [14 April 2011] by a 3-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal, the highest court in British Columbia — reverses a trial judge’s decision because,

In the case at bar, the reasons for judgment run to 368 paragraphs (105 pages) in length. The trial judge copied, without so acknowledging, 321 paragraphs almost word-for-word from the respondents’ written closing submissions (with inconsequential changes, such as replacing phrases like “it is submitted” with phrases like “I have concluded”). Forty paragraphs were written in the trial judge’s own words and the remaining seven paragraphs contain a mix of passages copied from the respondents’ written submissions and passages written in the words of the trial judge.

Now some sources have characterized the trial judge’s sin as “plagiarism”….

For his part, Volokh thinks the panel was correct to reverse the trial judge, though not because the copying constituted plagiarism:

[A]s the B.C. Court of Appeal panel majority understood it, [the problem] is that a judge is supposed to “independently and impartially considered the law and the evidence and arrived at his own conclusions on the complex issues before him,” and simply adopting hundreds of paragraphs of a party’s papers casts doubt on that. [emphasis added]

While Volokh acknowledges that judicial copying is sometimes appropriate, he still condemns the trial judge’s copying here, noting that

the judicial system tries to balance judicial engagement and efficiency.

I am not sure what to make of this proposed dichotomy between “judicial engagement” and “judicial efficiency”.  Doubtless, these two concepts can be in opposition along a continuum:  the more one “engages” with a case, the less “efficient” one’s decision-making process might be (and vice versa).

Just because “engagement” and “efficiency” can be in opposition, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are.  A judge could be exceedingly inefficient in rendering a decision (e.g., by personally handwriting the entire opinion with her non-dominant hand when both she and her clerk can think and type much faster) and also extremely unengaged (e.g., daydreaming all the while).  The relationship between the two concepts can be quite unclear.

Because of this uncertain logical relationship between “engagement” and “efficiency”, I humbly submit that it makes the most sense to inquire directly into whether the trial judge “engaged” with a case, not to use “copying” as a proxy for “efficiency” as a further proxy for “engagement.”

Indeed, dissenting appellate Justice K. Smith makes just such a direct inquiry here.  Smith turns to the underlying facts of this case to argue that

there are signs in the reasons that the trial judge applied his mind to the issues.

And here is the curious thing:  Justice Smith renders an exhaustive, 106-paragraph analysis of the trial court’s decision in the process of reaching and defending his position.  In stark contrast, majority Justices Levine and Kirkpatrick take merely 22 paragraphs to conclude

that there is no principled basis to deal with these appeals on their merits because the trial judge’s reasons for judgment cannot be considered to represent his reasons, do not meet the functional requirement of public accountability, and do not allow for meaningful appellate review. 

Perhaps I am being too hard on Levine and Kirkpatrick.  Perhaps opinion length is an equally unreliable proxy for engagement.  However, reading through the appellate opinions, I think that dissenter Smith “engages” far more than the majority justices.  His is not the most “efficient” judicial decision, but it does explain its reasoning far more thoroughly (and persuasively) than the majority’s arguably conclusory opinion.

Copying isn’t always bad, as Smith goes to great lengths to explain.  I’d love to hear a robust defense of the opposing position.  Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the anti-copying arguments here come up a little short.

The “sonic sociologist”

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It can often to be interesting to see how people describe sociology in the non-academic realm. How about a “sonic sociologist“?

DJ Ms Thang is a relative “novelty’’ (her word) in the nightlife business: a sought-after female DJ who can get a room pumping whether she’s spinning for 20-something club kids or a ballroom full of gala-goers. Those skills, as well as her runway-model good looks (she’s sometimes been booked on those alone, she acknowledges), make it clear that “I can hold my own with the boys,’’ she added slyly.

To those who groove or merely toe-tap to the selected beats she puts out, the allure is in her perceptive crowd-reading, and her soulful style, a melange of genres…

“You’re like a sociologist,’’ she said, in her case, one in stilettos, jeans, and lace fingerless gloves. On a Tuesday night at Minibar, the sonic sociologist spins some mellow tracks for a reserved sampling of clubgoers. She starts with the Revenge Rework of Marvin Gaye’s “Heavy Love Affair.’’

It would be interesting to read a study as to how DJs develop these people-watching and perception skills. Similar to some other culture industry insiders, would DJs describe their abilities as “intuition” or “innate abilities”? If so, I suspect a sociologist might find that DJs acquire and develop these skills as they get more opportunities and hone their craft.

CHA reports on families displaced by the Plan for Transformation

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After the recent removal of the final public housing high-rise residents in Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority released figures Wednesday about what has happened to the displaced high-rise residents:

In the 12 years since the CHA began its Plan for Transformation, an ambitious effort to overhaul public housing, the number of families receiving CHA housing subsidies has been cut in half, with only 56 percent — or 9,388 households, excluding senior citizens — in the system, according to a study prepared by the CHA.

Only 60 of those families have rented or purchased homes in the suburbs, a finding that challenges long-held beliefs that crime had followed former residents from the high-rises into their communities…

The CHA, however, acknowledged that it has lost track of 2,202 families that once lived in CHA housing, and another 1,307 households found housing without CHA assistance.

Former residents now live in 71 of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods, according to the report. However, the majority of them moved to neighborhoods such as Englewood, Woodlawn, Auburn Gresham, Roseland and Greater Grand Crossing, communities that already were burdened with high crime and poverty. Others moved into working-class African-American communities such as Chatham and South Shore, saturating formerly stable neighborhoods of single-family homes with renters.

Overall, this article seems to shy away from asking this question: has the removal of these high-rises led to better lives for their former residents or improved conditions for poorer neighborhoods in the city? This article doesn’t offer much positive evidence: very few have moved to the suburbs, the CHA has lost track of some families while others have dropped out of the system, and former high-rise residents encounter stereotypes when moving to new neighborhoods. The high-rises may be gone but the deeper issues are still present.

YouTube’s copyright school

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In an apparent bid to prevent one-time copyright infringers from becoming two-timers (or more), YouTube has created a 4 minute and 39 second copyright school on its website, as explained on the official YouTube blog:

Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them. That’s why today we’re releasing a new tutorial on copyright and a redesigned copyright help center. We’re also making two changes to our copyright process to be sure that our users understand the rules, and that users who abide by those rules can remain active on the site.

If we receive a copyright notification for one of your videos, you’ll now be required to attend “YouTube Copyright School,” which involves watching a copyright tutorial and passing a quiz to show that you’ve paid attention and understood the content before uploading more content to YouTube.

Ray Dowd over at the Copyright Litigation Blog is not a fan, noting that Google:

  • fails to mention the existence of the public domain;
  • states that “[i]f you are uncertain as to whether a specific use qualifies as a fair use, you should consult a qualified copyright attorney”; and
  • fails to mention the Constitutional purpose of copyright law.

I have to agree with Ray.  The video’s section on fair use (direct link) is particularly egregious.  Unlike the rest of the video, this section adopts the sped-up vocal “style” often adopted at the end of radio commercials to breeze through legal disclaimers (e.g., “Sweepstakes only open to U.S. residents 18 or older…”)  How is this even attempting to educate and inform?

Far from providing a balanced view of copyright law, YouTube’s clear, bottom-line message is this:  Don’t remix or even approach the fair use line.  This is certainly one vision of copyright law, but there are others.  I am reminded of Christina Mulligan’s excellent blog post last June that looked at contemporary copyright law through the lens of Fox’s hit show Glee:

The absence of any mention of copyright law in Glee illustrates a painful tension in American culture. While copyright holders assert that copyright violators are “stealing” their “property,” people everywhere are remixing and recreating artistic works for the very same reasons the Glee kids do — to learn about themselves, to become better musicians, to build relationships with friends, and to pay homage to the artists who came before them. Glee’s protagonists — and the writers who created them — see so little wrong with this behavior that the word ‘copyright’ is never even uttered.

Lawrence Lessig makes the related point that such recreations benefit society, pointing to John Phillip Sousa’s early-twentieth-century fear that recorded music would eventually displace amateur performance entirely.

Google is taking a lot of heat from copyright owners these days, and it’s hard to blame them from trying to stave off any accusations of infringement that might eventually stick to Google itself.  Nevertheless, I don’t think their frenetic, one-sided “educational” video is the best solution.

The large percentage of Americans who use software or pay someone to do their taxes

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Here is a statistic that gives us some idea about how difficult the American public thinks filling out their yearly taxes is:

More than 80% of individuals hire someone or buy software to help file their taxes, though only 64% of filers owe them, according to the Tax Foundation. So millions of filers pay for help to learn that their tax liability is zero.

I recently finished doing these by hand and while it wasn’t terrible, it was time consuming. While the article suggests both individuals and companies spend a lot of time and pay a lot in order to have their taxes done, it sounds like the tax preparers and software companies have plenty of business…

Students suffer withdrawal in a one day media blackout

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Professors and teachers can often provide anecdotal evidence of how students react when told that smartphones (and other devices like laptops) are not to be used in the classroom. A new study suggests that the problem isn’t really the classroom: simply not having these devices at all could the issue.

Researchers found that 79 per cent of students subjected to a complete media blackout for just one day reported adverse reactions ranging from distress to confusion and isolation.

In vivid accounts, they told of overwhelming cravings, with one saying they were ‘itching like a crackhead [crack cocaine addict]’.

The study focused on people aged between 17 and 23 in ten countries, including the UK, where about 150 students at Bournemouth University spent 24 hours banned from using phones, social networking sites, the internet and TV.

They were allowed to use landline phones or read books and were asked to keep a diary.

One in five reported feelings of withdrawal akin to an addiction while 11 per cent said they were confused or felt like a failure.

Nearly one in five (19 per cent) reported feelings of distress and 11 per cent felt isolated. Just 21 per cent said they could feel the benefits of being unplugged.

Some students took their mobile phone with them just to touch them.

While some of these symptoms don’t seem as bad as others, it is interesting that only 21% “could feel the benefits” of being “unplugged.” These devices and SNS tools really have become necessities in a short amount of time.

In reactions to this study, it would be interesting to see whether people advocate a complete move away from such technology because of these possible dangerous side effects or if people suggest more moderate usage. But if usage is really is an addiction, then moderate usage could still be an issue. I would like to see a follow-up to this study that examines a longer-term media blackout – how long does it take for students to readjust to life without all this media and then what would be their thoughts about what they might be missing (or gaining)?