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The Economics of File Sharing
Howzer writes "A great Salon article popped up today, and it appears Stan Liebowitz at the Cato Institute is having second thoughts about his paper that was published on May 15. It seems the facts simply don't support his earlier assertion (& the well-known position of all the major recording labels) that downloading hurts music sales. It's good to see this argued from another angle, especially by a guy like Liebowitz."
Do you honestly believe what you are arguing? Do you honestly believe that it's possible that P2P networks cause people to buy more music?
Granted, I don't think it can be proven one way or another, but it logically makes sense to me that great numbers of people would listen to mp3s rather than buy the CD. It doesn't make logical sense that many people would buy more CDs because of P2P networks.
Let me ask you this: why have you bought more CDs when you could have just downloaded the mp3s? Is it a morality issue? I'm really curious, because to me it seems completely irrational to donate your money to the company who makes the plasticware when you don't want the plasticware to begin with.
My favorite specious argument is that the artists don't get money from their recordings. Too bad. Let me cry them a river while they are passed out on the Green Room floor with a needle in their arm. They should have signed a better contract with the record companies or been entrepreneurial enough to distribute the music themselves. However, P. Diddy seems to be up to his eardrums in Christal. Eminem still has enough cash on hand to bust off caps like its the 4th of July outside his recording studio.
All in all, these arguments supporting theft of music are smoke screens to justify boorish behavior by people that are irresponsible and do not want to respect other's property. File sharing has just brought these people out from under the rock they hid before P2P became king -- I exclude the 5 of you that use P2P networks to gain digital copies of your Frampton "Comes Alive!" LP which you bought in middle school.
Its very simple. If you didn't buy it and you were not given the right to use by the copyright holder, its not yours to use and enjoy on your hard drive. Grow up, get a job and purchase your music so I don't have to deal with poorly planned copy protection schemes that cause my Mac to choke on Celine Dion CDs my fiancee forces me to listen too. If you don't like the method of distribution, contact the business and explain yourself. A smart business that receives feedback from enough customers will modify its business plan to compensate for the demand. If they don't, start up a Geocities web page and bitch -- just don't STEAL!
Maybe Microsoft should just start appropriating GPL-ed code and justify it by saying that they wouldn't have purchased the code in the first place or the price of compliance with the GPL is just too high. That's about the same mentality. Property is to be respected and I surprised that someone from the Cato Institute saying otherwise. They aren't supposed to be communists with their whole property is theft concept.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
We can theorise all we like about what people _would_ do, but it doesn't prove anything.
Nothing can be proven. The only thing that matters is what makes sense, given the observations.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.
Worked for Einstein.