And, for those who see this as a, for lack of a better word, patronising nanny state solution, you must remember that the university's reputation, in part, relies on the quality of their graduates. If they think that forcing students to attend makes them significantly better students, and they're ready to weather people potentially choosing less restrictive universities, then that's their business. It doesn't necessarily have to be yours.
True, but I'm not sure if those are really lost sales. Chances are people who want free stuff aren't planning to pay anyway.
They are people who don't want to pay if they can get away with it. They're also people who like entertainment. It doesn't really follow that they'd forego their entertainment to keep the extra dollars (since they do seem to enjoy it). In fact, I would think that a vast majority of pirates, if they weren't given the option of pirating, would buy decent volumes of media.
Mostly you can't tell who's a pirate anyway.
Well, you don't have to finger specific people to measure piracy. You can do anonymous surveys, measure activity of confirmed pirated files on P2P networks/sites like TPB, and probably other metrics I'm not thinking of right now. If the anti-DRM movement separated themselves from pirates, assuming the movement is significant in number, then we will be able to measure the decline in software piracy. If that decline doesn't correspond with a spike in sales, then software companies will know the extent of the anti-DRM movement.
But DRM is not the only source of demand for piracy. There's also the desire for free stuff, which is what I refer to when I talk about sales "lost to piracy".
Basically, if you pirate, we can't tell if you are a crusader or just a cheapskate.
In a sense, pirating my convey this cost even more than not buying. Pirating gives an indicator of high demand to parallel low sales. In a very optimistic hypothetical world, the producers can compare two products that have equal demand (purchased copies + pirated copies) and the non-DRM product will have more purchased copies than the DRM product.
...which is also, coincidentally, the free (as in beer) product. It's not a fantastic comparison because, even though certain people get quite worked up about DRM, everyone is tempted by the free option. Deciding to pay nothing for your entertainment says little about your resolve on the issue of DRM.
Not all information is copyrightable. Mostly, commercial copyright is entertainment or some other non-essential (like a specific piece of software), and by a vast margin, they make most piracy. Although I don't doubt the situation could exist in theory, in practice, people don't need to pirate copyrighted scientific papers. Scientific papers are created to be read and distributed, so they are often made easy and relatively cheaply available. People who need them can buy them cheaply, or obtain a summary from someone else who read the paper, for free. There's no need and no market for pirated scientific papers.
So, in the scope of talking about piracy, we can safely refer exclusively, if not to entertainment, then to "non-essential" pieces of information. When talking about DRM, that solidifies the scope even further.
I wonder why I was modded down? Boycotting media companies used to be a popular notion here on slashdot. I guess pirates don't like to be reminded of the self-control they used to have.
Plenty of people don't buy it - why do you think so many DRM-reliant services have utterly failed? How many different DRM services has Microsoft alone churned through?
But what's being discussed in the OP is when you have a bit of content you want to consume (play, watch, listen to) and are OK with paying the requested price to purchase legally.
I realise what we're discussing. You may well want the content, you may be prepared to pay the (ticket) price, but if the DRM is a kick in the pants, you may want to consider not buying simply because of the DRM.
So, rather than relying on cracks/piracy to patch the flaws in DRM, highlight them by incorporating the true cost of DRM when deciding whether or not to buy. Consider the consequences and chances of activation servers shutting down. Consider the resale value. Consider the price of your rights to your media. If you are willing to pay those, and not just skimp out on the cost through piracy, then by all means, buy the game. If not, then don't. It's the only way we can accurately convey the cost of DRM to companies.
Well, not necessarily. People buy media with restrictive DRM and then rely on cracking later to bail them out. Media companies get their money, they keep DRM, and consumers stay unhappy.
Even if you don't buy it, there's no telling whether the sale is lost to piracy or DRM. It seems that, when in doubt, media companies blame the former. So simply cracking without buying sends the wrong idea as well.
Wow. I'm so glad you took the high road here. You see, lesser people would have rushed a reply, pushing out whatever came into their heads within a few minutes (or hours, or even days), no matter the actual quality of their output.
But not you. You spent a solid week designing, tinkering, testing and perfecting your witty retort to my comment. You have made a bold gambit, putting art over expedience, and it has paid off spectacularly. We are now left with solid gold.
I mean, seriously, "You failed..." and "Please try again?" I didn't think you were going to go there, but wow, you did. You don't care which envelope you push in the field of wit and rhetoric, do you?
I can scarcely contain my eagerness to know what you'll write next!
Since when has the acquiring of entertainment been a "necessity?" If you don't like DRM, then don't buy it! Period! Don't simply buy it, and then expect a safety net from piracy later. How can companies be expected to know that DRM's a problem, when the people who oppose it the most passionately effectively suppress its negative consequences?
Straight piracy doesn't work either, because that simply sends the message that their DRM isn't strong enough. Straight boycott is the only real helpful route to take, even though it is the hardest to maintain.
During my bedtime, I also like to look at movies and publications, but my arms get tired for a very different reason. I don't think a laser projector would really help...
How did I promise to pay for a movie, if it was made before I was born?
You didn't personally; it was a decision made by the people before you, of which you now bear the consequences (or, in this case, benefits).
And you can share physical goods. In some cases you can modify physical goods (if it's a device for example) and sell the result (I can make a business buying TVs from abroad, modifying so they work in my country and selling them). You can copy physical goods (say my friend bought an amplifier, lent it to me, I took it apart, saw how it was made and made one for myself).
Well, to be fair, it's considerably harder to share physical goods in such a way that both parties end up with permanent copies of acceptable quality, depending on the type of product of course. But, essentially, you're correct; physical goods can, in theory, be treated like non-physical goods. We've never needed copyright for goods because:
a) Until relatively recently copying of physical goods by the common man has been impossible, b) In recent years, we've had patents for eligible inventions, c) The cost of manufacturing dwarfs the cost of R&D, and d) Reverse engineering is a long and expensive process for most things, even for big companies.
But this isn't really a bearing on copyright. The options still stands: buy and own, or don't.
Bandwidth of those wires is limited. So, if I wasn't using it, they could sell my part to other customers.
Well duh! The point is that it also happens with piracy! When you pirate (art or bandwidth), the value drops for everyone else, either by rising prices, or falling quality. But, you can also choose to look at it as a victimless crime if you deliberately ignore the indirect consequences of your actions.
Money is also limited, well, things money can buy are limited, well, and the prices wouldn't change just because the guy printed some money, he has to use it first (assuming he didn't announce "Hey everybody, I printed some money, adjust your prices accordingly"). Also, it means that other people can buy less using that money (even if they have the same amount of printed paper).
Again, a point integral to my argument. Money seems, superficially, unlimited, but it actually isn't. If you create counterfeit money (and use it), everyone else will be able to buy less. You can either choose to ignore the indirect consequences of your action (i.e. the theft of wealth from everyone else in the country), or you can face them and stay out of jail.
Similarly, copyrights are not an unlimited source of value. Copyright derives its value from control (hell, that's all it really is). Every sale is a little concession of control. It loses the copyright holder value, since their demand goes down, and someone outside of their control has unlimited access to that work, and the ability to show it to friends (just not copy and distribute it). However, they turn a profit, because they actually sell that control for money. So, if someone else, for profit or not, starts distributing their copies, then the control simply drains away, and so does demand and value of the copyright.
Also, when does the artist lose money? When I start searching for a torrent? When I download said torrent? When it starts to download? When it finishes the download? When I start to watch the movie? When I finish to start the movie? When I archive it? At what point the "loss" happens?
Which ties very neatly into what I was saying. The loss comes as demand goes down. If you watch a movie once, and you don't want to watch it again, then that's all your demand for that movie out the window. That's, potentially, one ticket to the movies, or one movie rental down. So actually watching the movie, I guess, would be the point of loss. You can also help other people satisfy their demand without p
OK, my bad. Still, there is a difference between these losses and the loss if, say, a building burned down.
Colour me impressed! That's a very reasonable response to my statement. Lesser men would have pointed to the use of the word "piracy" as justification for their choice of words.
You're right, there is a distinction, just not a significant one. We can easily, and very reasonably, define "loss" to cover intangible things like "financial value" and to include money that was promised but not delivered (like your paycheck).
Earlier I recorded a lot of music from radio. Also, if online piracy never happened, I wouldn't have "such an obvious taste for entertainment", I wouldn't have seen a large part of the series I have, because I wouldn't even know about them (since they were never shown on TV in my country AFAIK). Now if piracy would just vanish, I would probably stop searching for new series/movies to watch and instead concentrate at what the TV offers. And would use more tapes, too.
Look, maybe downloading helps them, maybe it doesn't; it doesn't really matter. The point is, it's not your call. It's up to the copyright holder to determine how they distribute their work. If they want to undercut their own potential by limiting to a certain market or geographical region, then that's their prerogative. If they want help from P2P networks to advertise their works, then they'll allow sharing. If the new world of art distribution invariably includes P2P, as it's proponents shout from the rooftops, then they will be forced to allow sharing or die. But we'll never know while people insist that it's perfectly OK to download.
Oh, and by the way, I don't know about where you live, but keeping taped records of copyrighted materials is also considered piracy where I come from.
Well, I didn't promise anything. Nobody asked me "if I make this movie and you like it, will you pay me?". Also, even if I posted on the internet saying "Even if they made movie x, I would never pay for it" there is a very good chance that the movie would still be made.
As coming from a country where piracy is above 50% I would say different. On the other hand, music CDs sell here quite well, even if software piracy is huge (well, almost everyone uses Windows and usually not the version/edition their their PC came with).
It's implicitly promised by you and the people around you, because the law is a reflection of society. People want a culture first and foremost, and then, as a secondary concern, they want it for free. Since the two largely contradict one another, the law swings toward the former.
If you disagree, well, you have two choices. You can either grin and bear it, or you can start lobbying your politicians and fellow man for change (while grinning and bearing it). You could also stage a protest where you publicly announce that your downloading and use the courts as a platform for your opinions. You'd show that, despite the harsh penalties, free access to culture is important to you. Anything other than simply downloading in anonymity, or posting on slashdot, calling for change, in relative anonymity, would be better.
Until, it is a promise made by you, that you will treat copyrighted works like physical goods, that is, either buy it and own it, or don't buy it and don't own it. You don't have to pay, but in return, you have no entitlement over the work you didn't buy.
$15 for the disk, $15 for shipping, it adds up... Also, some people can watch series for free just because they live in a certain country... As for new movies/series. Well, I probably wouldn't feel the loss. I could catch up on old movies and series.
$15 if you buy from physical stores. Again, if the copyright holder wanted to allow you to watch the series for free in your country, they would have. Also, it should be mentioned that those "free" viewings often con
Anyway, you obviously have a different view, and we'll never agree.
Probably.
No, I'm saying that people at the forefront of a technological revolution often "get" the issues involved in that revolution better than people who are armchair critics of change, luddites, or worse, sheep.
Geeks are great for technology matters. They know better than anyone exactly how suited new technologies (such as The Pirate Bay) are to artwork distribution, and their intelligence, on average, is nothing to shake a stick at. But when geeks start assuming they know everything from the business world, to the legal world, to what is best for everyone in their country, that's when things start to get awkward.
I do a lot of arguing about copyrights (and other stuff) on slashdot. Not so much because I'm such a big fan of copyrights (at least, as they currently stand), but because the people I argue against have such narrow viewpoints of the world. Some geeks, otherwise very intelligent, simply see The Pirate Bay as a new technology that is technologically superior, and therefore (here's the fallacious step) should be rolled out for main use. They don't see the whole picture, or they dismiss it.
So, yeah, as someone who argues against these geeks you're trumping up (despite being one of them), I took a little bit of umbrage at what I read to be a complacent and arrogant reply to a valid question. But you seem like an intelligent and reasonable guy. Even if we never agree, perhaps you could see some truth in my point.
No, that is not a reason to call them "imaginary" dollars/losses. Perhaps "projected", "theoretical", or "potential" would be better substitutes. "Imaginary" is simply pollution of language to further a point.
It does not mean, that 1 download = 1 lost sale = $x lost. And that's why those companies lose only imaginary money.
But, on the same token, 1 download != 0 lost sales = $0 lost. There's middle ground somewhere there. And people who have become accustomed to constant streams of free entertainment are in no position to judge how much they would purchase if they had no access to said entertainment, so expect the true cost to be considerably higher than they estimate. Often you see them adding up how many artworks they "respect" (rather than simply "like"), which neglects to consider how someone with such an obvious taste for entertainment would do when they had only those artworks purchased, and nothing else to listen to or watch.
Also, it's hard to lose something you did not have before.
Like the paycheck from my example that you replied to?
As for the small developers - did you really plan your business that, say, you needed to sell 100 copies, but sold 99 and went out of business.
a) Your estimates are grossly understated, b) That's not really anyone else's business but their own, c) They have to bear the financial responsibility of their sales being stunted, even if they don't go directly out of business, d) That responsibility is subsequently passed to paying customers, and e) We as a society promised them content control for a bunch of complex reasons, and reneging on that promise for personal gratification is wrong.
I'm also going to reply to your other comment.
1. I was offered a job. The employer promised to pay me before I started working, otherwise I wouldn't have. 2. I really lost those two weeks, because I worked during that time, so I couldn't work in another job (that would have paid).
Absolutely. We promise to pay copyright holders what their products are worth in exchange for their weeks/months/years of work. So far, my analogy holds.
If I steal a CD/DVD from a store: 1. The store paid money for that CD, they cannot sell it to others. 2. Real materials were used in making that CD. They cannot be reused to make another copy.
OK, that's a little off-topic, but what the hey.
With piracy: 1. I did not promise to pay anybody. They still made the movie.
As a matter of fact, you did. As a society, you implicitly approved that if you wanted to watch that movie, you would either pay them what they asked, or go without. You can try to campaign to have copyright removed if you care about the $15 that much, but you might find that future movies that you want to watch and not pay for may not exist. But hey, we can't feel loss if we never had it, right?
2. The movie has been made, if I download it or don't (and don't watch it) does not change the fact that they made it. The fact that I downloaded it, does not cost them more money, since they used no real materials to make my copy.
And the fact that you've already worked for your employer, and he didn't pay you, shows that there is absolutely, 100% no harm in the situation whatsoever. Am I reading this right?
There are costs which are not for raw materials. It's naive and, frankly, incredibly stupid to believe that costs come simply from things you can hold in your hand. Downloading causes decreases in demand, which affect the sales negatively. Had this illegal behaviour been properly enforced, or had people had the moral decency to just stop, the sales would have been higher. Anyone with an elementary understanding of economi
I'm not so sure that burglary should be mandatory behaviour for students. I'm pretty sure that most people know that burglary is a stupid thing to do, and are aware of the consequences.
Besides, the relatively harmless (in the long term) stupid stuff isn't exactly newsworthy. It's only if you do something really stupid that you get such mental anguish causing and reputation destroying stories in the newspaper.
Sorry to reply twice to the same post, but I just thought of nicely analogous situation to the predicament copyright holders are in, and just how "imaginary" their losses are.
Imagine you are offered a good job at higher pay, and you naturally take it. You work for about a couple of weeks, but your employer refuses to deliver a paycheck. You talk to him, and he says he was only trying you out. You tell him it's not fair (which it isn't), especially since you already worked, and you quit your old job. He tells you that he would never have hired you if he couldn't have tried you out first, and that you would never have gotten the money anyway, so all the losses were imaginary. People on the internet side with him, because you're criminalising your customers, i.e. the people you sell your labour to.
Well, perhaps not quite analogous, since it's actually possible to catch the employer.
OK, your point is taken. It's only constant in terms of money alone. A big publisher can take a hit in profits, and still survive, but indie developers can't. The cost in creation and maintenance planes out after a certain point. In that way, the damage is less for the big guy, but more for the little guy, even if the percentage lost is the same. I guess that's the idea behind progressive tax.
BTW, the millions of "imaginary" dollars are not imaginary. They're the dollars that people hand over to alcohol companies, or book publishers, or travel agents that would have spent on music/movies/games if they didn't have a constant supply of free entertainment. They seem pretty real to me.
Stop locking people in iron cages because they indirectly caused a minute explosion that propelled small piece of metal into something that's four fifths water anyway.
Also, don't listen to the demands of people who believe that our distant relatives were tadpoles, and that life sprang randomly from some big explosion.
---
Wow, I guess lesson here is that how easy it is to trivialise something is not at all an indicator of whether it's right or wrong.
If a game or application is very popular, it will be pirated more, but more copies will be sold also, because everyone likes/wants/needs it. Some people download, some buy.
Let's not get cause and effect mixed up here. If the game or application is very popular, then it will be pirated more, which is to be expected, since the tastes of the average customer will be in line with the tastes of the average pirate. This doesn't stop this being a burden on artists and copyright holders, big and small alike. It just means the percentage of sales cannibalised by piracy will be constant throughout, and the system is (roughly) equally detrimental and unfair to the big guys as the little guys.
Huh. I always viewed them as more of a pyramid schemer with diplomatic immunity; growing fat off the greed of others in an unsustainable way, while being granted protection by poorly thought out laws.
I'm sorry, but I don't really have a hero in this scenario, since the "police" aren't much better. I guess life isn't always like the movies.
Slashdot Mirror
And, for those who see this as a, for lack of a better word, patronising nanny state solution, you must remember that the university's reputation, in part, relies on the quality of their graduates. If they think that forcing students to attend makes them significantly better students, and they're ready to weather people potentially choosing less restrictive universities, then that's their business. It doesn't necessarily have to be yours.
They are people who don't want to pay if they can get away with it. They're also people who like entertainment. It doesn't really follow that they'd forego their entertainment to keep the extra dollars (since they do seem to enjoy it). In fact, I would think that a vast majority of pirates, if they weren't given the option of pirating, would buy decent volumes of media.
Well, you don't have to finger specific people to measure piracy. You can do anonymous surveys, measure activity of confirmed pirated files on P2P networks/sites like TPB, and probably other metrics I'm not thinking of right now. If the anti-DRM movement separated themselves from pirates, assuming the movement is significant in number, then we will be able to measure the decline in software piracy. If that decline doesn't correspond with a spike in sales, then software companies will know the extent of the anti-DRM movement.
Indeed. You are clearly superior to them, as your ego can never be exploited in such a transparent way.
But DRM is not the only source of demand for piracy. There's also the desire for free stuff, which is what I refer to when I talk about sales "lost to piracy".
Basically, if you pirate, we can't tell if you are a crusader or just a cheapskate.
...which is also, coincidentally, the free (as in beer) product. It's not a fantastic comparison because, even though certain people get quite worked up about DRM, everyone is tempted by the free option. Deciding to pay nothing for your entertainment says little about your resolve on the issue of DRM.
Not all information is copyrightable. Mostly, commercial copyright is entertainment or some other non-essential (like a specific piece of software), and by a vast margin, they make most piracy. Although I don't doubt the situation could exist in theory, in practice, people don't need to pirate copyrighted scientific papers. Scientific papers are created to be read and distributed, so they are often made easy and relatively cheaply available. People who need them can buy them cheaply, or obtain a summary from someone else who read the paper, for free. There's no need and no market for pirated scientific papers.
So, in the scope of talking about piracy, we can safely refer exclusively, if not to entertainment, then to "non-essential" pieces of information. When talking about DRM, that solidifies the scope even further.
Thank you!
I wonder why I was modded down? Boycotting media companies used to be a popular notion here on slashdot. I guess pirates don't like to be reminded of the self-control they used to have.
I realise what we're discussing. You may well want the content, you may be prepared to pay the (ticket) price, but if the DRM is a kick in the pants, you may want to consider not buying simply because of the DRM.
So, rather than relying on cracks/piracy to patch the flaws in DRM, highlight them by incorporating the true cost of DRM when deciding whether or not to buy. Consider the consequences and chances of activation servers shutting down. Consider the resale value. Consider the price of your rights to your media. If you are willing to pay those, and not just skimp out on the cost through piracy, then by all means, buy the game. If not, then don't. It's the only way we can accurately convey the cost of DRM to companies.
Well, not necessarily. People buy media with restrictive DRM and then rely on cracking later to bail them out. Media companies get their money, they keep DRM, and consumers stay unhappy.
Even if you don't buy it, there's no telling whether the sale is lost to piracy or DRM. It seems that, when in doubt, media companies blame the former. So simply cracking without buying sends the wrong idea as well.
Wow. I'm so glad you took the high road here. You see, lesser people would have rushed a reply, pushing out whatever came into their heads within a few minutes (or hours, or even days), no matter the actual quality of their output.
But not you. You spent a solid week designing, tinkering, testing and perfecting your witty retort to my comment. You have made a bold gambit, putting art over expedience, and it has paid off spectacularly. We are now left with solid gold.
I mean, seriously, "You failed..." and "Please try again?" I didn't think you were going to go there, but wow, you did. You don't care which envelope you push in the field of wit and rhetoric, do you?
I can scarcely contain my eagerness to know what you'll write next!
Or don't buy it.
People seem to be forgetting that option these days.
Since when has the acquiring of entertainment been a "necessity?" If you don't like DRM, then don't buy it! Period! Don't simply buy it, and then expect a safety net from piracy later. How can companies be expected to know that DRM's a problem, when the people who oppose it the most passionately effectively suppress its negative consequences?
Straight piracy doesn't work either, because that simply sends the message that their DRM isn't strong enough. Straight boycott is the only real helpful route to take, even though it is the hardest to maintain.
During my bedtime, I also like to look at movies and publications, but my arms get tired for a very different reason. I don't think a laser projector would really help...
You didn't personally; it was a decision made by the people before you, of which you now bear the consequences (or, in this case, benefits).
Well, to be fair, it's considerably harder to share physical goods in such a way that both parties end up with permanent copies of acceptable quality, depending on the type of product of course. But, essentially, you're correct; physical goods can, in theory, be treated like non-physical goods. We've never needed copyright for goods because:
a) Until relatively recently copying of physical goods by the common man has been impossible,
b) In recent years, we've had patents for eligible inventions,
c) The cost of manufacturing dwarfs the cost of R&D, and
d) Reverse engineering is a long and expensive process for most things, even for big companies.
But this isn't really a bearing on copyright. The options still stands: buy and own, or don't.
Well duh! The point is that it also happens with piracy! When you pirate (art or bandwidth), the value drops for everyone else, either by rising prices, or falling quality. But, you can also choose to look at it as a victimless crime if you deliberately ignore the indirect consequences of your actions.
Again, a point integral to my argument. Money seems, superficially, unlimited, but it actually isn't. If you create counterfeit money (and use it), everyone else will be able to buy less. You can either choose to ignore the indirect consequences of your action (i.e. the theft of wealth from everyone else in the country), or you can face them and stay out of jail.
Similarly, copyrights are not an unlimited source of value. Copyright derives its value from control (hell, that's all it really is). Every sale is a little concession of control. It loses the copyright holder value, since their demand goes down, and someone outside of their control has unlimited access to that work, and the ability to show it to friends (just not copy and distribute it). However, they turn a profit, because they actually sell that control for money. So, if someone else, for profit or not, starts distributing their copies, then the control simply drains away, and so does demand and value of the copyright.
Which ties very neatly into what I was saying. The loss comes as demand goes down. If you watch a movie once, and you don't want to watch it again, then that's all your demand for that movie out the window. That's, potentially, one ticket to the movies, or one movie rental down. So actually watching the movie, I guess, would be the point of loss. You can also help other people satisfy their demand without p
Yeah, the whole concept of "new" and "pushing the envelope" is so old. Nothing is more cutting edge these days is uniform conformity from all artists.
Colour me impressed! That's a very reasonable response to my statement. Lesser men would have pointed to the use of the word "piracy" as justification for their choice of words.
You're right, there is a distinction, just not a significant one. We can easily, and very reasonably, define "loss" to cover intangible things like "financial value" and to include money that was promised but not delivered (like your paycheck).
Look, maybe downloading helps them, maybe it doesn't; it doesn't really matter. The point is, it's not your call. It's up to the copyright holder to determine how they distribute their work. If they want to undercut their own potential by limiting to a certain market or geographical region, then that's their prerogative. If they want help from P2P networks to advertise their works, then they'll allow sharing. If the new world of art distribution invariably includes P2P, as it's proponents shout from the rooftops, then they will be forced to allow sharing or die. But we'll never know while people insist that it's perfectly OK to download.
Oh, and by the way, I don't know about where you live, but keeping taped records of copyrighted materials is also considered piracy where I come from.
It's implicitly promised by you and the people around you, because the law is a reflection of society. People want a culture first and foremost, and then, as a secondary concern, they want it for free. Since the two largely contradict one another, the law swings toward the former.
If you disagree, well, you have two choices. You can either grin and bear it, or you can start lobbying your politicians and fellow man for change (while grinning and bearing it). You could also stage a protest where you publicly announce that your downloading and use the courts as a platform for your opinions. You'd show that, despite the harsh penalties, free access to culture is important to you. Anything other than simply downloading in anonymity, or posting on slashdot, calling for change, in relative anonymity, would be better.
Until, it is a promise made by you, that you will treat copyrighted works like physical goods, that is, either buy it and own it, or don't buy it and don't own it. You don't have to pay, but in return, you have no entitlement over the work you didn't buy.
$15 if you buy from physical stores. Again, if the copyright holder wanted to allow you to watch the series for free in your country, they would have. Also, it should be mentioned that those "free" viewings often con
Probably.
Geeks are great for technology matters. They know better than anyone exactly how suited new technologies (such as The Pirate Bay) are to artwork distribution, and their intelligence, on average, is nothing to shake a stick at. But when geeks start assuming they know everything from the business world, to the legal world, to what is best for everyone in their country, that's when things start to get awkward.
I do a lot of arguing about copyrights (and other stuff) on slashdot. Not so much because I'm such a big fan of copyrights (at least, as they currently stand), but because the people I argue against have such narrow viewpoints of the world. Some geeks, otherwise very intelligent, simply see The Pirate Bay as a new technology that is technologically superior, and therefore (here's the fallacious step) should be rolled out for main use. They don't see the whole picture, or they dismiss it.
So, yeah, as someone who argues against these geeks you're trumping up (despite being one of them), I took a little bit of umbrage at what I read to be a complacent and arrogant reply to a valid question. But you seem like an intelligent and reasonable guy. Even if we never agree, perhaps you could see some truth in my point.
No, that is not a reason to call them "imaginary" dollars/losses. Perhaps "projected", "theoretical", or "potential" would be better substitutes. "Imaginary" is simply pollution of language to further a point.
But, on the same token, 1 download != 0 lost sales = $0 lost. There's middle ground somewhere there. And people who have become accustomed to constant streams of free entertainment are in no position to judge how much they would purchase if they had no access to said entertainment, so expect the true cost to be considerably higher than they estimate. Often you see them adding up how many artworks they "respect" (rather than simply "like"), which neglects to consider how someone with such an obvious taste for entertainment would do when they had only those artworks purchased, and nothing else to listen to or watch.
Like the paycheck from my example that you replied to?
a) Your estimates are grossly understated,
b) That's not really anyone else's business but their own,
c) They have to bear the financial responsibility of their sales being stunted, even if they don't go directly out of business,
d) That responsibility is subsequently passed to paying customers, and
e) We as a society promised them content control for a bunch of complex reasons, and reneging on that promise for personal gratification is wrong.
I'm also going to reply to your other comment.
Absolutely. We promise to pay copyright holders what their products are worth in exchange for their weeks/months/years of work. So far, my analogy holds.
OK, that's a little off-topic, but what the hey.
As a matter of fact, you did. As a society, you implicitly approved that if you wanted to watch that movie, you would either pay them what they asked, or go without. You can try to campaign to have copyright removed if you care about the $15 that much, but you might find that future movies that you want to watch and not pay for may not exist. But hey, we can't feel loss if we never had it, right?
And the fact that you've already worked for your employer, and he didn't pay you, shows that there is absolutely, 100% no harm in the situation whatsoever. Am I reading this right?
There are costs which are not for raw materials. It's naive and, frankly, incredibly stupid to believe that costs come simply from things you can hold in your hand. Downloading causes decreases in demand, which affect the sales negatively. Had this illegal behaviour been properly enforced, or had people had the moral decency to just stop, the sales would have been higher. Anyone with an elementary understanding of economi
I'm not so sure that burglary should be mandatory behaviour for students. I'm pretty sure that most people know that burglary is a stupid thing to do, and are aware of the consequences.
Besides, the relatively harmless (in the long term) stupid stuff isn't exactly newsworthy. It's only if you do something really stupid that you get such mental anguish causing and reputation destroying stories in the newspaper.
Sorry to reply twice to the same post, but I just thought of nicely analogous situation to the predicament copyright holders are in, and just how "imaginary" their losses are.
Imagine you are offered a good job at higher pay, and you naturally take it. You work for about a couple of weeks, but your employer refuses to deliver a paycheck. You talk to him, and he says he was only trying you out. You tell him it's not fair (which it isn't), especially since you already worked, and you quit your old job. He tells you that he would never have hired you if he couldn't have tried you out first, and that you would never have gotten the money anyway, so all the losses were imaginary. People on the internet side with him, because you're criminalising your customers, i.e. the people you sell your labour to.
Well, perhaps not quite analogous, since it's actually possible to catch the employer.
OK, your point is taken. It's only constant in terms of money alone. A big publisher can take a hit in profits, and still survive, but indie developers can't. The cost in creation and maintenance planes out after a certain point. In that way, the damage is less for the big guy, but more for the little guy, even if the percentage lost is the same. I guess that's the idea behind progressive tax.
BTW, the millions of "imaginary" dollars are not imaginary. They're the dollars that people hand over to alcohol companies, or book publishers, or travel agents that would have spent on music/movies/games if they didn't have a constant supply of free entertainment. They seem pretty real to me.
Here's some more ideas:
Stop locking people in iron cages because they indirectly caused a minute explosion that propelled small piece of metal into something that's four fifths water anyway.
Also, don't listen to the demands of people who believe that our distant relatives were tadpoles, and that life sprang randomly from some big explosion.
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Wow, I guess lesson here is that how easy it is to trivialise something is not at all an indicator of whether it's right or wrong.
Let's not get cause and effect mixed up here. If the game or application is very popular, then it will be pirated more, which is to be expected, since the tastes of the average customer will be in line with the tastes of the average pirate. This doesn't stop this being a burden on artists and copyright holders, big and small alike. It just means the percentage of sales cannibalised by piracy will be constant throughout, and the system is (roughly) equally detrimental and unfair to the big guys as the little guys.
He said "intention". At least Google (I'm not sure about other search engines) help remove copyrighted content upon request.
Huh. I always viewed them as more of a pyramid schemer with diplomatic immunity; growing fat off the greed of others in an unsustainable way, while being granted protection by poorly thought out laws.
I'm sorry, but I don't really have a hero in this scenario, since the "police" aren't much better. I guess life isn't always like the movies.