Creepiness, Thy Name Is Facebook

I've made a lot of jokes about Facebook and Twitter stalking. They're not that good. Usually I just say that instead of getting to know someone, I'll just stalk their social media accounts. In my defense, I say it directly to the person and I haven't got an uncomfortable laugh or a restraining order yet, so I'm going to assume that it's perfectly okay to get to know someone by clicking through every picture they've posted, seeing which of their friends I know, and looking at their interests. I'm also going to assume that I'm fine even if it isn't okay, because I generally don't have the attention span to do all of those things...or even half.

My point being, people give up a lot of privacy on Facebook and they do most of it voluntarily or even eagerly. And I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. I like being able to passively keep track of what's going on with various people in my life and status updates and photos let me do that. Plus, with a lot of families living so far apart, being able to post videos and photos of major events is a good thing.

That said, I've noticed that Facebook has a knack for somehow making even benign things creepy. Maybe it's because I'm on the defensive due to Facebook rolling out new features that are invasive and making the least private option the default setting. Maybe it's because I'm aware of the fact that Facebook is a large company whose primary goal is making money and who realized early on that the key to making money was encouraging people to share everything with little or not regard to the consequences. (And maybe that makes me uncomfortable because I'm pretty the Girls Gone Wild videos operate on the same principle.)

Or maybe it's because Facebook presents information in a creepy and awkward way. For instance, tonight, I made a post about being excited that my favorite teahouse was doing a tasting event for my favorite tea (Darjeeling, in case anyone is making their Christmas list early) and the opera is performing an Indian folktalke, The Flowering Tree, the week after. I then discovered that Facebook shows friends' interests that are related to your updates, because showed in the little space where ads and things my friends like show up that "X likes opera."

Is this private information? No, because people had to voluntarily click like. It's even topical. But it's awkward. In fact, it sounds like a conversation with one of those socially awkward people that never seems to be able to carry their part of the conversation. You know, where you tell someone your great and clever story about the charming, funny person you met on your trip to Paris and the person replies "I like French fries."

I guess it's good to find out more about my friends and I suppose this is Facebook's way of sneaking in directed ads using your friends helping you connect more with your friends, but overall, it just helps to reinforce that feeling that Facebook is the creepy stalker who tries to read over your shoulder on the computer and digs through your garbage in hopes of gaining more insight into what makes you tick by studying your discarded catalogs and fast food receipts. And frankly, it's probably the fear that someone can gain insight into me based on my Williams Sonoma catalogs and receipts for frozen lemonades that makes me uncomfortable with this.

A few days ago, I came across a short story called Nanolaw with My Daughter. The premise was interesting: In a world where people were literally being nickeled and dimed with lawsuits, a father sat down and taught his daughter how to answer her own lawsuits. In a day, the daughter received over fifty suits, only a few over a dollar, and several dealing with copyright. It should have been ridiculous (you hum a song walking down the street, the copyright hold catches it on video and demands a few cents because of your infringement), but a couple of stories this week made it seem less so. First, there was a proposed bill that would make it a crime to embed a copyrighted Youtube video without permission. Second, Tennessee passed a bill that makes it a crime to share your entertainment subscription login information. Tennessee's governor supported this by "citing the large record industry presence in Nashville." The article mentioned that the bill was aimed at hackers and thieves who resell passwords, but made sure to mention a couples cases where college students share Netflix login info with everyone they know. Techdirt posted an interesting commentary (RIAA Wants To Put People In Jail For Sharing Their Music Subscription Login With Friends).

This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, based on my understanding of how Netflix and other providers license content, the recording or movie industry isn't losing money if subscriptions are shared. Netflix pays a yearly fee for licenses (for instance, $30 million for Starz content). Period. Starz doesn't get paid more if Netflix has more accounts or less if they have fewer. In other words, Starz gets $30 million a year, even if everyone with a Netflix account shares their password with everyone they know. I assume that other companies license content in a similar way. So I'm a little unclear as to how the RIAA is claiming that sharing subscription info is resulting in lost revenue. At most, Netflix and Rhapsody are losing subscription revenue.

Second, why is this being criminalized? Looking over Rhapsody's terms of use, only the user can access the service. Netflix limits usage to members of the immediate household. Obviously, sharing login information violates the terms of use and could result in an account being terminated, in addition to possible civil liability. Furthermore, entertainment services already have protections in place to prevent massive password sharing. Rhapsody will only stream to one device at a time and Rhapsody to Go limits the user to three devices. Netflix only allows the user to have six authorized devices as well as the number of devices that can stream simultaneously (between one and four devices, depending on the plan). That alone would probably dissuade most users from sharing login information. It's all well and good to let ten of your best buddies watch their favorite shows and listen to their favorite songs for free with your subscriptions when it doesn't affect you, but when it means that you might not be able to use the service you're paying for, it's a lot less tempting.

Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing about how the recording industry's profits are down and how movie piracy hurts corn farmers. Like most people, I consume a lot of media and I'm a huge fan of streaming media. I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Rhapsody To Go and I come out ahead for doing it. In fact, since I subscribed to Rhapsody to Go at the beginning of this year, I haven't bought any music. I'm still buying DVDs, but I'm definitely spending less as Netflix increases their catalog. I still buy games and books, although I'm using the library more for books and I would happily pay a reasonable monthly subscription if I found a good streaming game service or if I could download all the ebook I wanted.

In short, I understand and accept that the entertainment industry has to make money to continue producing works. I also understand that consumers have to pay for content. However, just because the entertainment industry likes the model where the only way hear a song is to either listen to the radio for hours or pay $15 or more to buy the entire CD for one song doesn't mean that they can turn back time and recreate that model. Like it or not, today's consumers are accustomed to being able to either buy songs a la carte or pay a flat fee for all you can eat. If the RIAA's profits are decreasing because of this (and I'm skeptical as to whether they are), then maybe they should be grateful that they managed to get away with overcharging consumers for so many years and try to figure out how to make a fair amount with the current model. Personally, if I had to go back to the days of buying an entire album to get one song (assuming, of course, I could even find the album in a store), I would probably just stop buying music completely.