Slashdot Mirror
Most File Sharers Would Pay For Legal Downloads
An anonymous reader writes "Two separate studies from Australia and Holland give the lie to corporate entertainment industry claims that file sharers are unprincipled thieves out to rob the honest but harshly treated movie and music studios. Over in Oz, news.com.au reports, 'Most people who illegally download movies, music and TV shows would pay for them if there was a cheap and legal service as convenient as file-sharing tools like BitTorrent.' And from the EU, 'Turnover in the recorded music industry is in decline, but only part of this decline can be attributed to file sharing,' says Legal, Economic and Cultural Aspects of File Sharing, an academic study, which also states, 'Conversely, only a small fraction of the content exchanged through file sharing networks comes at the expense of industry turnover. This renders the overall welfare effects of file sharing robustly positive.'"
I am not a downloader. Despite all of the content-producing industry's failings, I believe that I should pay for what other people spend their long hours producing, even if that means, in the end, what the artist gets is minuscule. I didn't invent bad contracts.
But what really ticks me off is when people actually prevent me from willingly parting with my own money due to geography. There was a show on the SciFi channel recently, Defying Gravity. It wasn't exactly the greatest bit of science fiction out there, but I like Ron Livingston, the acting was generally decent, the story was compelling, and on the whole, the show was entertaining. About halfway through the season, ABC cancelled the show. But Canadian and Australian networks continued to show it. You could buy the episodes online via Amazon's video page, but after the ABC cancellation, you could only buy the first half of the show. WTF? I fired up BitTorrent for the first time.
While I'm at it, let me say: region coding for DVDs is a gigantic anti-competitive crock of shit. Fortunately, I have me a region 2 DVD-R, a Linux machine, and Handbrake, so that I can actually pay for and watch good television from another English-speaking country.
Paying $2/epsiode is not cheap. I would pay $1 for an hour long show (42 minutes in reality) as long as it is commercial free..
Universal Iron rule of the Internet: Everyone would be happy to pay for X, but they're only willing to pay half of what's being asked. Songs are a buck? 50c please. Netflix is $10 a month? I'll only pay $5 a month, and only if there's a bigger selection. An iPad will be $999? Well I'd happily pay $500, and only if it isn't crippled with Apple's retard-o-platform!
It repeats itself over and over in just about all of these conversations... for just about anything people have a choice to buy, there are those that pay it, and those that don't and rationalize their decision with the concept that the price is too high and everything would be unicorns if only the price were 0.5x. And since it isn't, this establishes a platform for griping about collateral issues (usually DRM and license terms),
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Actually I'm pretty sure that companies like Microsoft would enjoy his price scheme. A dollar an hour for commercial free use of their software? To his point, I agree with the price. I only watch TV on DVD. Generally I only pay 15 to 20 USD for a season. This turns out to be about a dollar an episode. I'm not sure why you would pay more for a digital copy than what you could buy in the store.
Don't be ridiculous. I agree completely that $2/episode is too much, and it has nothing to do with whining about current pricing.
It has everything to do with comparing prices with comparable purchases.
If I subscribe to cable TV I might follow 5-10 shows, along with my family members following their own favorite shows. Most shows have 20-26 episodes per season.
If I instead drop cable TV and purchase my episodes, at $2/episode x 10 shows x 4 family members x 26 episodes x 3 seasons I would be paying $6,240 per year or $520/month for the privilege on the high end, or $1,800 per year or $150/month on the low end.
That is ridiculous pricing! Clearly they are NOT pricing individual episodes at a competitive price to cable TV.
I have already canceled cable TV in my house and I watch the few shows I follow on Hulu. I would be happy to pay $1 per episode to watch without commercials and to avoid any hassle downloading or getting Hulu onto my TV screen instead of a computer monitor. I will never pay $2 per episode.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Still, if I buy a DVD I am forced to view previews, piracy warnings, etc.. If I pirate the same movie I get to skip all of those and watch the movie without 10+ minutes of crap. Sounds like someone is selling an inferior product and punishing legitimate users. These days copied discs are superior to originals. Oh, and no rootkits or viruses come pre-packaged.