You DON'T lose the rights to the music you downloaded if you stop paying. You lose the right to share the copyrighted material on the p2p networks. It's not a pay-per-play model. It's a pay-per-unit-time-sharing model.
There is no copyright violation in possessing digital recordings, even if you never paid for them in any fashion. Copyright violations occur when you *copy* something without authorization to do so.
I disagree. Joe Average, the guy that the business people and marketers mainly think about when making business decisions generally can't get past 'do X then Y then my computer will play this song or movie or game', much less think about things like what freedoms they might be losing 'behind the scenes' or why it matters. Joe Average generally doesn't think about doing things in novel ways(ie, ways other than what the step by step instructions in the manuals say).
I really hope I'm just being more pessimistic than is warranted, but I really believe that things like 'Trusted Computing' will be marketed to the masses as enabling your computer to do so many great things it couldn't do before, and Joe Average won't know any better.
but there was a LOT of crap back then, too. We've just pushed it out of our memory. The recent huge drop in CD sales can't easily be attributed to music quality, as it's a constant.
While you have a point, I think you are unjustified in claiming that music quality is actually constant. First, music quality is a subjective factor. Those who think music quality has declined in recent years are correct, though, and no doubt it means they buy less new music. Some others may like new stuff, but even saying that the subjective quality of music 'evens out' or something is little more than a handwaving argument.
Music pricing is another constant. In fact, in the USA, it's gone down a bit. The average price of a CD is down to $13.50 in the US. In 1984, $9.99 was considered a decent price for an LP. That would be $17.30 in 2002 dollars. So, again, the recent huge drop in CD sales can't be attributed to pricing alone, as it's a constant.
But what you ignore is that the value of having a pressed CD has gone down in value to the customer. Even if actual prices have remained relatively constant, that does not the market equilibrium price for CDs stayed the same. Costs of production went down to the point that individuals can burn their own, and digital technology provides alternatives that further devalue the price that the market will bear. Market forces do not acknowledge copyright law or judge decisions. The Recording Industry wants to have their cake and eat it too, using the law to strongarm their customers into paying prices way above market price and keep high profit margins. The end result is inevitably a reduction in sales, primarily because prices are kept too high. Piracy(filesharing in this context) is a side effect of keeping these prices so high, not a cause of a reduction in sales.
But it's tough to blame the drop in CD sales entirely on the economy, for a couple of reasons: other forms of entertainment (including those that aren't piratable) haven't dropped nearly as much, and while the economy has had its ups and downs over the past several decades, this drop in CD sales is unprecedented.
You can't blame it entirely on the economy, but that doesn't mean the remainder must be mainly(or even significantly) due to piracy. Comparisons to other forms of entertainment only goes so far; other forms that haven't seen such drops most certainly have maintained prices more in tune with what the market will bear. Still, I would submit that the economy is a major factor, and moreso when combined with unreasonable expectations of the Industry about what their profit margins 'should' be.
Claiming that the utter explosion in music piracy over the past few years has absolutely no effect on CD sales is a phenomenon that I call "ignoring the elephant" -- that is, the two-ton elephant in the room wearing a shirt labelled "music piracy."
I don't think that is claimed by many people. What is, quite reasonably, claimed is that music piracy has no or little net effect on music sales. Let me explain: its true that people can obtain copies of songs for free and thereby get out of buying something; in some cases they might have bought an album, in other cases not. But there is another phenomenon associated with filesharing, and that is of people being exposed to new music that they would not have discovered otherwise, and as a result of that, going out and buying more CDs. A side benefit is that the customer knows what they are getting as well, so this is more total benefit. I can attest that this was the case with myself and most of my friends back in the days of Napster; I bought many more CDs than I did at any previous period in my life, or since then for that matter. The point here is, there are two elements(at least) that determine whether filesharing helps or hurts sales, the negative element due to people not buying when they otherwise would have and the postitive element of people buying when they otherwise wouldn't
You missed the point of the argument you replied to. You were called on your ridiculous claim that piracy 'always' hurts the artist in some way, with an counterexample that showed that your claim was indeed false. Either you missed, or you saw it and got mad because your claim was refuted and replied with unconstructive sarcasm. Actually, I think the latter is more likely.
Slashdot Mirror
When I read the headline of this article, I thought it read: "Beer Bellies Really Do Stink"
You DON'T lose the rights to the music you downloaded if you stop paying. You lose the right to share the copyrighted material on the p2p networks. It's not a pay-per-play model. It's a pay-per-unit-time-sharing model. There is no copyright violation in possessing digital recordings, even if you never paid for them in any fashion. Copyright violations occur when you *copy* something without authorization to do so.
I really hope I'm just being more pessimistic than is warranted, but I really believe that things like 'Trusted Computing' will be marketed to the masses as enabling your computer to do so many great things it couldn't do before, and Joe Average won't know any better.
While you have a point, I think you are unjustified in claiming that music quality is actually constant. First, music quality is a subjective factor. Those who think music quality has declined in recent years are correct, though, and no doubt it means they buy less new music. Some others may like new stuff, but even saying that the subjective quality of music 'evens out' or something is little more than a handwaving argument.
Music pricing is another constant. In fact, in the USA, it's gone down a bit. The average price of a CD is down to $13.50 in the US. In 1984, $9.99 was considered a decent price for an LP. That would be $17.30 in 2002 dollars. So, again, the recent huge drop in CD sales can't be attributed to pricing alone, as it's a constant.
But what you ignore is that the value of having a pressed CD has gone down in value to the customer. Even if actual prices have remained relatively constant, that does not the market equilibrium price for CDs stayed the same. Costs of production went down to the point that individuals can burn their own, and digital technology provides alternatives that further devalue the price that the market will bear. Market forces do not acknowledge copyright law or judge decisions. The Recording Industry wants to have their cake and eat it too, using the law to strongarm their customers into paying prices way above market price and keep high profit margins. The end result is inevitably a reduction in sales, primarily because prices are kept too high. Piracy(filesharing in this context) is a side effect of keeping these prices so high, not a cause of a reduction in sales.
But it's tough to blame the drop in CD sales entirely on the economy, for a couple of reasons: other forms of entertainment (including those that aren't piratable) haven't dropped nearly as much, and while the economy has had its ups and downs over the past several decades, this drop in CD sales is unprecedented.
You can't blame it entirely on the economy, but that doesn't mean the remainder must be mainly(or even significantly) due to piracy. Comparisons to other forms of entertainment only goes so far; other forms that haven't seen such drops most certainly have maintained prices more in tune with what the market will bear. Still, I would submit that the economy is a major factor, and moreso when combined with unreasonable expectations of the Industry about what their profit margins 'should' be.
Claiming that the utter explosion in music piracy over the past few years has absolutely no effect on CD sales is a phenomenon that I call "ignoring the elephant" -- that is, the two-ton elephant in the room wearing a shirt labelled "music piracy."
I don't think that is claimed by many people. What is, quite reasonably, claimed is that music piracy has no or little net effect on music sales. Let me explain: its true that people can obtain copies of songs for free and thereby get out of buying something; in some cases they might have bought an album, in other cases not. But there is another phenomenon associated with filesharing, and that is of people being exposed to new music that they would not have discovered otherwise, and as a result of that, going out and buying more CDs. A side benefit is that the customer knows what they are getting as well, so this is more total benefit. I can attest that this was the case with myself and most of my friends back in the days of Napster; I bought many more CDs than I did at any previous period in my life, or since then for that matter. The point here is, there are two elements(at least) that determine whether filesharing helps or hurts sales, the negative element due to people not buying when they otherwise would have and the postitive element of people buying when they otherwise wouldn't
You missed the point of the argument you replied to. You were called on your ridiculous claim that piracy 'always' hurts the artist in some way, with an counterexample that showed that your claim was indeed false. Either you missed, or you saw it and got mad because your claim was refuted and replied with unconstructive sarcasm. Actually, I think the latter is more likely.