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Uncategorized Tuesday, March 13th 2012 at 2:47 pm

“Send Them Your Money” Campaign Suggests You Pay the MPAA and RIAA for Piracy Losses with Copied Currency

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When it comes to battling piracy, there’s a pretty huge semantic problem that is getting in the way of dealing with the real issue. Organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA tend to treat pirated copies of software as stolen copies of software when they’re calculating their (inaccurate) annual losses to piracy. In actuality, piracy — while illegal — is not theft; it’s piracy. That’s why it’s called piracy, not theft. In a bid to drive this point home, a little project called Send Them Your Money has suggested an elegantly flippant way to “appease” the MPAA and RIAA: Send them full compensation for their losses in the form of copied dollar bills.

The project hearkens back to a case heard by the Japanese judge Ōoka Tadasuke hundreds of years ago. In that case, an innkeeper accused a student of stealing the fumes of his food. The student would often eat his dull food while the innkeeper was cooking and the innkeeper argued that this meant the student was stealing the smells and using them to flavor his food. The ultimate ruling was that the student was to pass some money from one of his hands to the other, the thought being that the smell of food was more or less equal to the sound of money.

The same idea is at work here. If the RIAA and the MPAA are going to argue that copies of software — which by their very nature do not diminish the souce from which they are copied — are for all intents and purposes the genuine item, they should be happy with copies of money since, by their logic, that is as good at the real thing. Now, I’d like to be crystal clear here and say that piracy is not legal and it’s not ethical, but that being said, it’s also not theft. This project has nothing to do with affirming the legitimacy of piracy; it has everything to do with highlighting the inconsistent logic organizations like the MPAA and RIAA use in regards to piracy and weighing its affects.

“Now wait,” you say, “isn’t copying money illegal?” Not if you do it right. Reproducing images of money (in the United States at least) is perfectly legal under three conditions:

  • The copy has to be one-sided
  • The copy has to be the wrong size. It has to be at least 75% smaller or 150% larger than an actual bill
  • You have to destroy the negatives, graphic files, or “digitized storage mediums” after their final use

The last one is a little unclear as it seems to apply specifically to physical copies of money, but it seems relatively reasonable to assume that their final use is getting emailed to someone, or posted on a website, they’re fine so long as they adhere to rules 1 and 2.

If digital copies of money still make you uncomfortable, Send Them Your Money also provides a handy ASCII version, for those of us who are a little strapped for fake cash. Now you actually can email some fake money to the RIAA and the MPAA if you really want to, but I think more than anything else, this serves as a particularly useful thought experiment that really brings home the differences between theft and piracy and what “a copy” really is (and isn’t). There’s probably little you could do to get the RIAA and MPAA to change their tune, and sending them fake money is unlikely to make them see any light, but it is certainly good for a chuckle, and an important lesson in semantics.

(Send Them Your Money via reddit)

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  • Martin Rix

    “that piracy is not legal and it’s not ethical”
    I own DVDs of all films that I pirate. I would argue that was ethical, but still illegal. (Yeah, you still have a point, most of the time it isn’t. I AM THE 0.1%!) 

  • Jackbondnj16

    Weak analogy.

    Each legal dollar bill is a physical one-of-a-kind item, and a copy is a different entity.
    Software is a sale-by-use idea. It is intended that only one purchased software copy can be used at a time. And a fun fact, Steam is designed specifically to enforce that rule.

  • Anon

    I’m still not sold on the whole ‘not theft’ thing.

    When you buy music, you’re not buying the original. You are buying a copy. So if you take a copy without paying, that is basically stealing one. The fact that they have an unlimited number of copies doesn’t make it ‘not theft’, in my book.

  • Disposable Info

    That’s the problem though, isn’t it?

    The whole free-market system is supposed to be based on supply and demand. If what you supply can be reproduced an infinite amount of times, for little to zero cost, then the value of the original is greatly diminished. Securing the value of the original by means of legislation does not make it any more unique and/or rare. Look at it this way; When you buy a cheap knock-off of a famous painting, you are getting just that, a cheap knock-off, and you know it. It may look identical, have the same composition all the way down to the pigment of the paint and the fabric of the canvas, but it is not the original. The internet has enabled people to obtain a cheap knock off of original content. The entertainment industry, if they want to survive, should  quit fighting piracy, start reducing distribution, and increase the price of the originalauthenticated content. THAT is how you fight a supplydemand problem when supply is “killing” you…..

  • Michael Bennett

    it’s not “theft” because the owner/creator still has the original item.  The only thing that’s actually been stolen is the owner/creators possibility to profit from selling their content in a traditional manner.

    There’s absolutely no reason why people can’t make money from a product that costs nothing.  RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), and Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu Linux) both make money off servicing free products.

    I seriously doubt Linus Torvalds gets upset that most of the Internet, and many people’s smart phones are driven by his software.

    In fact, as the volume of the world’s content continues to balloon, the real trick is going to be exposing people to GOOD content

  • http://twitter.com/GeekHillbilly Geek Hillbilly

    This is another good way to kick the MAFIAAs in the balls.You sue for fake damages,fitting that you get fake money So remember,Paybacks are a bitch

  • http://twitter.com/GeekHillbilly Geek Hillbilly

    Like this idea Copy the currency,but replace the picture of whoever on the bill with a picture of a 1 finger salute.Edit the president’s name appropriately,too

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=622782485 Andrew Spain

    where this argument fails is that copied money is useless and copied files/software/music can be used over and over hundreds of times.

  • Fist Yourself Stupid

    If the copied currency is accepted for goods or services does that not give it value? Does not it’s use in this campaign against the old world content tyrants constitute value? Everything has value in some form to someone. I have elected to purchase originals of everything and forgo digital copies. I go to concerts. I do not buy CDs or patronize iTunes. I go to plays and not to movies. This way my currency (hopefully first generation) goes directly to the media creators and not to parasites.
    They have not yet come up with a way to charge me for the illegal copies of media in my memory but I would not be surprised if they are working on that now.

  • Vrekais

    It actually cost them nothing as 99% (probably more) of the time the person pirating would have never paid for the item, it costs them nothing to make a pirated copy. In fact they’re probably losing more money fighting it and investing in DRM that punishes legitimate purchases like me than they could ever lose to piracy. It seems a bit ridiculous that people with a pirated copy of some games can install and play that on as many computers as I they like while my “real” copies are locked to being installed 3 times before becoming useless. Is this how you reward people paying for content?

  • https://market.android.com/search?q=puzzleduck&so=1&c=apps PuZZleDucK

    “It is intended that only one purchased software copy can be used at a time” … This is not always the case, Android Play/App-store off the top of my head.

  • Jackbondnj16

    Yeah, but in those cases, the software is much better managed.

  • KJS

    No one has lost anything so it is not theft. The file on a file sharer’s computer is shared on purpose and the uploader and downloader have to pay all costs involved in the act of copying. Morally, it may be wrong if you could afford to pay the copyright holder what they demand but you only a very tiny amount of that money would actually go to supporting the arts so it may be morally better to spend that money more wisely, especially if the copyright holder supports the current or stricter copyright laws which are highly immoral and incredibly stifling for artists trying to make a living.

  • Jackbondnj16

    Under the normal conditions of capitalism, companies would make a sale for each copy of the software made. Because a copy had been made without any monetary transaction, they are not getting what is owed them. That constitutes as theft.

    You could rationalize that morally one should first think about providing for his family, so if he’s poor, he should take things for free because it would be immoral not to… See why it doesn’t work to rationalize like that?

  • nickgrim

    Copying stuff is neither piracy nor theft – it’s copyright infringement.

  • The Real Rmc

    the problem with the argument is that if you own a copy, you are legally entitled to make a copy to protect your investment,  or to compliment a different medium…if i buy a cd, then make a copy to go on my mp3 player, that is allowed…and how do you propose to catch someone sharing that file to another person’s mp3 player?…impossible without the nanny state invading my privacy…sharing is not piracy, piracy is creating a new copy on the same medium and financially gaining from the sale of that copy…and how do you propose stopping people from doing what they always did in the past?…i.e. listening to the radio and hitting record when your favorite song comes on…it’s a farce…all they want is access to your private files to sniff around for any of their material, which as i said before under current copyright law, you are allowed to make personal copies anyway.

  • Jackbondnj

    Actually piracy has nothing to do with financial gain. Illegal distribution is the problem.

  • DM

    You are not “taking” you are replicating. If you copy my dollar but do not take it from me did you steal my dollar? 

  • Don’t Let Them Distract You

    The music industry is just that- an industry.  It’s goal is to make money.  As designed most of the revenue goes to the distribution channel who want to control supply.  If the supply gets too easily acquired through “pirate” channels the legacy content distribution channel suffers.  The traditional distribution channels are angry that the end user now has the ability to acquire music (or media or software) without using their traditional channel.  They can’t get their money if they are being bypassed.  So they want to have access to your private data stores to make sure you are using their channel so they can make sure your money becomes theirs.

    None of this addresses the artists and content creators who are the ones who lose out no matter who controls the distribution channel (see:  Kenny Rogers sues EMI.)  Traditional copyright is dead- technology constantly circumvents it.  The traditional distributors are old world parasites looking to keep their hosts (the content creators and the end users) in place so they can feed as they always have.  They are angry that technology has taken away their ability to control the distribution of content- it stops them from making profit.

    It’s not a matter of theft or piracy.  It’s not a matter of right or wrong.  It’s a matter of those with power and money and friends in government who want to keep their revenue stream intact versus the consumers and content creators from which the “industry” will suck the juicy cash the industry so likes to bloat itself upon.

    Personally I hope all these new technologies cause the parasites to wither and die.  We should treat content creators like treasured, societal assets.  We should give them what they need (food, shelter, adulation) to survive in exchange for the artful gifts they give us.  Or we should institute price controls on content and controls on what percentages of juice the parasites can suck out of their hosts.

    Don’t let the industry speak about piracy and theft distract you.  The industry doesn’t want you to notice who the real thieves are.

  • Anonymous

    Look up the legal definitions:
    Theft takes something from the victim, leaving them deprived of the original.
    Piracy copies, duplicates, or forges the item, Leaving the original intact, without depriving the owner of it.

  • Jackbondnj16

    You still know for a fact that legal definitions aside, a court would rule against a pirate. That would mean it is deigned illegal.

  • Anonymous

    But that’s not, nor was it ever the point.

    The RIAA and MPAA have for a decade and a half been on a campaign to further vilify pirates by calling them thieves… for ONE purpose.

    They have been lying about their losses.

    They get two things from the lies.

    1. If they treat every pirated file as a sale, they can claim to be in the hole for millions and billions of dollars, and they can convince the government to enact laws more favorable to them to mitigate those “losses”

    2 They claim HUGE losses to the courts, to make people afraid of the threat of legal retribution for their actions.

    It’s all spin doctoring. They also can demand higher cuts, claiming it’s to mitigate their imaginary losses.

    The problem, is the majority of those losses ARE IMAGINARY!

    I would NEVER EVER have spent $25 on a Gigi D’Agostino album a decade ago, but I downloaded a few of his songs…

    Since then, I spent $75 on 3 albums (2 CDs and a record). That’s money I would NEVER have spent without internet downloads. If I had not discovered that artist online, I NEVER would have given him a chance, and NEVER would have spent a single penny.

    Even if I had NOT liked his music, my downloading an album would NOT have changed the recording industry’s income, as I never would have wasted my money to gamble on something I didn’t know in the first place!

    I pay for cable, and sometimes I download shows that the CABLE company screws up due to sports overtime. It’s not like I haven’t paid for it once already! I also happen to be a fan of My Little Pony (I know… wut, right?). I do NOT get the channel that it airs on. I still download it off the internet. I also happen to have paid for the season pass on iTunes… But I rarely download or watch the iTunes files. They are oversized, bloated files that stutter on my older computer. I STILL download them on the internet, and copy the DRM free internet files to my PS3 and watch them that way.

    The MPAA would tell you my piracy costs them money. I tend to watch it live on a live stream, download it in HD once a TV recording comes out so I can take to my mother’s house to let my brother’s kids watch when she babysits for him, and then redownload once the watermark free HD iTunes rip is released… The same version I paid for, but that I CAN’T PLAY on any of my other devices, like my android tablet or my PS3.

    So afraid of piracy, yet your STUPID DRM makes ME, a PAYING customer STILL have to go out and be a PIRATE, just so I can watch what I paid for!

    Buck the MPAA, Buck the RIAA!

    Send them your fake bucks!

    I’M TIRED of being called a THIEF!!!
    I’m NOT a thief! I’m a PIRATE!
    And I’m PROUD OF IT!!!

  • http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

    This is a very elegant way to get a very important point across. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it does a better job than most of illuminating the underlying issue.

  • Don’t Let Them Distract You

    Thank you, Life of Bryan!

  • Konraden

     You have to keep in mind that when someone pirates something, they are not taking an item, like say taking a t-shirt from a store is. Rather, a copy of the original, where the original remains intact. Combined with the fact that when someone pirates something, that isn’t a “lost sale” either, which is one of the most significant problems with the numbers the MPAA and RIAA use when calculating loss, and you have the basis of the argument. The conglomerates assume every pirated copy is a lost sale, and that’s just wrong.

    There is such a tremendous gorge between theft, piracy, stealing, and the related terminology that it bears its own word, which would be piracy (in context of digital media). It’s not theft because it’s inherently valueless. There is no value in bits, like there is in any physical media. The copies are infinitely reproduceable at zero cost. If you wanted to make another t-shirt, you’d have to invest in more raw materials, labor, transportation, and retail. To copy a digital item, all you need are a few electrons.

    The ease of reproduction of digital media, both legally and illegally, is what makes data and information yearn to be free–as in beer and speech. The genie is out of the bottle, and the conglomerates are facing a serious crisis. They’re dinosaurs who can see the meteor, and they’re throwing everything they have to try and stop it.

    The internet has allowed information to spread incredible fast for little cost, and as a result, artists have freed themselves from handlers. Louis CK released a stand-up special (Live from the Beacon Theatre as well as Word) for just $5 on his website, and the man made over a million dollars in a week–more money that he’s ever had in his life.

    That’s the future of distribution.

  • marvin nubwaxer

    i would totally with the “lost sale” idea. i have copies of movies, music and software that to me has almost no value. fact is i could very well do without it, but if i absolutely needed it, especially for commercial use, then i would by it. i’d say i don’t use 98%% of the copies i use and what i do use is for personal consumption and then saved or deleted, in either case having no value whatsoever. in fact i can’t even find people and beg them to take a copy of my copies.

  • Anonymous

    Knowing these guys if you send them photocopies of money, they will have you arrested for counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is just another form of piracy. You are not dealing with ethical people here, they will find any way to make your life as miserable as possible. They have the money to keep you in court for years and years.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546472450 Kira Milne

    No, I don’t see why it doesn’t work. I agree that providing for ones family is far more important than lining the pockets of greedy CEOs.

  • Ydobon

    I am amazed that no one has noticed the huge discrepancy in the scales for copying currency. The stated values mean that the bill would have to be smaller than 39mm x 16.6mm or larger than 390mm x 165.8mm when the actual values are smaller than 117mm x 49.7 or larger than 234mm x 99.5mm. 75% smaller is 1/4 the size and 150% larger is 2-1/2 times the size.