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Why Software Piracy is Good for Microsoft
jcphil writes "Salon has an article that explains why Microsoft has toned down its anti-piracy actions in China and other developing markets. The answer is simple: due to the network effect, the more users you have, the greater your strength in the marketplace. And it doesn't matter if their Windows is pirated or not. So, in effect, software piracy in countries like China helps Microsoft to compete with Linux." Meanwhile, the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S., and has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
I have to wonder if the artists who are supporting this ACTUALLY believe it, or if their record company is forcing them to do it. After all, they are indentured servants, they do what they are told. if they aren't being forced, I'll bet the company has bombarded them with FUD until they actually start to believe it. I can see the record company telling them all about how they need to change the contract for this new "piracy" fee that is stealing all their money. Phbbt. Fine, let the music industry go down the tubes, I don't really care.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
...in the same sentance!
Music "sharing" is another name for FREE ADVERTISING! The real money is in merchandising anyways, concert ticket sales, T-shirts, branded notebooks, action figures...
When are those idiots going to learn that they can never stop the free exchange of data, without changing the country into a police state? Our friends in the White House (courtesy of many big business lobbiests) are trying their best to do this, but we don't YET need tongue tattoos to authenticate our cognitave brain centers. We retain the ability to think for ourselves, for just a little while longer.
MPAA/RIAA! It's really simple. You adapt your business model to become a service industry, which is what you are. Stop trying to treat content as a commodity (which it is not). Make tangible goods and sell those, but stop pretending that a song is something you can put in a box.
If I buy a watch today, and it turns out I don't like it, I can take it back. Afterall, I won't know if the product is satisfactory until I've had time to get to know it. But if I buy a CD, good or not, I'm stuck with it. Because of this, I'm forced to either gamble with my satisfaction, or find a way to sample the music before I buy.
It's hard for me to rationalize music downloading as stealing when the RIAA is happy to take my money without guaranteeing my satisfaction. Frankly, I think they're stealing my money when they sucker me into buying a CD.
I think their biggest concern is that P2P makes the market for music fair for the consumer instead of biased in the RIAA's favor.
(rant)
:)
It's human nature, but it's a fallacy for young people to think that whatever music you listen to is in the majority. Even Britney's not the majority. It might be in 30 years, but it's not now. In a way, the record and radio companies are planning way in advance to clean up when the teenie-boppers come of age.
The majority right now is easy listening, classical and lite jazz. Elevator music. Billy Joel, Elton John, Kenny G, yada yada yada. Music people put on while doing dishes because it's comfortably ignored as background music. As time goes on the chaff will separate from the wheat and the 'best' stuff will stick around. That's how music works - we look at Beethoven as a singular event, but he wasn't: There were hundreds of other romantic composers, but the ones we have around now have stood the test of time, as cheezy as that sounds. He was part of a timeline and everything else gradually faded away because it really wasn't anywhere near as good.
A friend of mine has a sticker on his locker in the music department in college which said "It is a great tragedy that we don't have all the music ever written, but it is a greater victory that we don't have all of the music ever written."
In thirty years the musical landscape will be quite different than it is now. Britney will be easy listening. Billy Joel will be popular music like Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter are now. Duke Ellington, Cole porter et al will be considered classical (parts of Gershwin already are, it's just a matter of time).
Classical music doesn't just stop at 19?0. It will swell to engulf everything that lasts in the public conciousness for more than, say, 75 years. Hang onto your pants, kiddo.
Triv
I have been to China, and believe me, piracy is a way of life there. You can get any Microsoft product for about $4 per disc. It seems that many people view it simply as buying a less expensive version, much as Americans might buy the store brand of paper towels instead of Bounty(tm). There was a time when the same attitude was common in the US. Ironically, copy protection simply added to the "possession of media == right to install" mindset.
The end result of all this piracy was massive market penetration, to the point where the average Chinese IT worker is "born and raised" on Microsoft products. It's easy to abandon industry standards in favor of the M$ proprietary trap when everything costs $4 per CD.
M$ first introduced product activation in Asia, allegedly because of the rampant piracy. When they realized how quickly the Chinese were prepared to drop M$ in favor of Linux, they couldn't give away the products fast enough.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles product pricing in the various markets around the world. Their current pricing is encountering resistance from US companies, but not [yet] to the point of wholesale abandonment. US prices would be dead-on-arrival in less developed parts of the world, where the commitment to Microsoft is less, as is the availability of funds.
Sure, they can give away the product, but what happens when the market will tolerate a price that not free but far less than full price? Hypothetically, if Microsoft sells a product for $500 in the US and they blow it out for $5 in China, is that not a classic case of product dumping? If they do this, shouldn't I buy all my US licenses via my Beijing office?
From here on out, it will be damn hard for M$ to control who gets the freebies, who gets a steep discount, and who pays a fully-monopolized price.