It's hard to come up with the right analogy but how about clothing?
You want a new outfit. You go to the store. You try it on. You test the fit. You try different colors. You try different materials. You select your purchases based on a full use experience.
Movies (more especially) and music (to some degree) operate on a trust system. You read reviews of the product, you hear a song or two -- but you don't know what the full product is truly going to be like in use. No one wants to spend money based on trust. One wants a full use experience before committing the necessary money towards ownership or a personal copy license.
The MPAA/RIAA don't trust you the way they insist you trust them. The answer is stop playing the trust game. Another model must present itself -- something beyond extending copyright ad infinitum.
I will give the MPAA one break though, let's admit that for many people a movie is a one time experience -- you see the film, you're done with it forever. Full use is in some case the only use needed. One way to offset the difficulties presented is to drop the value risked (i.e. lower the price of a movie theater ticket) or allow refunds on demand. When I see a bad movie in the theater and paid full evening price (approaching $10 in SF) for the ticket, I do almost feel as if I had been mugged. That might be overstating it, but it's still not fair somehow.
That said, the RIAA is out of luck -- if the music is good you will listen to it again and again and again. Full use in advance is perfectly fair. If the music sucks you should never have to pay for it. But if you like it, you should buy it.
...and won't it just get dropped once the next big thing comes along?
The HP phenomenon has yet to last a significant span of time. Dickens was a hack in his day and is still consider a hack by many, but at least his works have stood the test of time.
Quality is also very difficult to gauge in our culture. Everything is prepackaged -- including the reviews! Opinions are like assholes etc...
"We feel that if we're going to ship you a free working copy of our product, we have the right to ask you to unlock it and pay."
I know someone that recieved such a disk this last year. It did not seem to be free to us. I'd say they were mailing an advertisement, not a free working copy. CDs cost mere pennies at this point, cheap ad.
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It's hard to come up with the right analogy but how about clothing?
You want a new outfit. You go to the store. You try it on. You test the fit. You try different colors. You try different materials. You select your purchases based on a full use experience.
Movies (more especially) and music (to some degree) operate on a trust system. You read reviews of the product, you hear a song or two -- but you don't know what the full product is truly going to be like in use. No one wants to spend money based on trust. One wants a full use experience before committing the necessary money towards ownership or a personal copy license.
The MPAA/RIAA don't trust you the way they insist you trust them. The answer is stop playing the trust game. Another model must present itself -- something beyond extending copyright ad infinitum.
I will give the MPAA one break though, let's admit that for many people a movie is a one time experience -- you see the film, you're done with it forever. Full use is in some case the only use needed. One way to offset the difficulties presented is to drop the value risked (i.e. lower the price of a movie theater ticket) or allow refunds on demand. When I see a bad movie in the theater and paid full evening price (approaching $10 in SF) for the ticket, I do almost feel as if I had been mugged. That might be overstating it, but it's still not fair somehow.
That said, the RIAA is out of luck -- if the music is good you will listen to it again and again and again. Full use in advance is perfectly fair. If the music sucks you should never have to pay for it. But if you like it, you should buy it.
The HP phenomenon has yet to last a significant span of time. Dickens was a hack in his day and is still consider a hack by many, but at least his works have stood the test of time.
Quality is also very difficult to gauge in our culture. Everything is prepackaged -- including the reviews! Opinions are like assholes etc...
The analysis is premature.