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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.'"
In the example of music, we already have mulitple, cheap means of buying songs, most of them legal, most of them DRM-free. Amazon MP3 sells songs for 99 cents and most albums for under 10 bucks, with a huge selection of albums even cheaper that that. They regularly hold sales with popular albums in the 5 dollar range. All of it in standard MP3 formats without DRM.
There are several East European sites that sell MP3's for as little as 15 cents apiece.
And still, the torrents flow. Because if you make something available for free, with no consequences... even if legally you have no right to... eventually, people are going to give in to their baser instincts and take it.
We have a generation that think music is free because it's on the Internet, and everyone knows that the Internet is free. In the 60's, the mantra was "if it feels good, do it". In the Internet age, it's "If it can be ripped, take it".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
How about you sell your ass for $.50-$.75 DRM free? You know how much it costs to make an hour long show? What makes you think that a studio would be willing to sell you something at your arbitrarily set prices even if it means they make a loss. If your answer is then I'll do without watching their show, fine. If your answer is, then I'll download it for free, then you are, as the summary says, an unprincipled thief.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
AllOfMp3 wasn't paying anybody. They were exploiting a loophole in Russian law and pocketing all the money.
Would any of those talentless hacks have demanded $1 million *pinkies* if the show only earned 25c. per showing? They're preening egomaniacs, just as much overpaid (for what they actually do) as professional sportists.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
It's not like they couldn't produce mindless drivel like Friends with actors who will work for much much less. If the production costs are too high, then they need to lower them and arrive at a better, smarter business model. If you're making a show that needs 24 million customers to sustain, stop, and make something else. If your actors are asking for a million per episode, hire some that don't. I'm sure there are plenty of actors just waiting for a chance to get in front of an audience.
May the source be with you.