

Why Creators Shouldn't Fear File Sharing - Sourge
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/05/piracy-again.html

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ryan-allen
Back when I was learning piano under a jazz pianist (who also was part of a
electronic duo, signed to a label, that were becoming increasingly popular),
he told me that when he released his albums they were not making a lot of
money on them. His label told them it was because of "file sharing", yet as a
musician, he made most of his money by performing live at venues and doing
tours.

I said that "if more people are listening to your music, more people know
about you, and more people will come to you gigs, right?", but he fully
believed what his label was telling him.

The label were responsible for the bands website, and if you were a fan, you
could not even go to this site and see where they were performing next.

I know this doesn't translate directly to ebook story, but I think it points
out that perfectly rational people can be hoodwinked by this kind of thinking.
A clever marketer would see this as an opportunity.

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epochwolf
_Q: Piracy is immoral, and illegal. We need to spread awareness, then people
will stop doing it.

A: Sure... that's how religion was able to successfully put a halt to
masturbation, pre-marital and extra-marital sex. And why the US successfully
won the war on drugs.

Illegal doesn't matter. People do what they want to do. Immoral is subjective.
And teaching people to behave in a way contrary to human nature DOES NOT
WORK._

I've been trying to explain this to some people I know. I hope this helps. :)

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mrcharles
I'm tired of the straw man arguments used here. Regardless of if you agree
with the gist of his posts, (and I do), no one is saying one download is one
lost sale, but to say that no downloads are lost sales is disingenuous. You
can say that they are sales you don't care about if you want, but there are
definitely lost sales.

Secondly, you don't have to interview every pirate in order to find out. If
that were true, it would be impossible to predict elections without... taking
everyone's vote. I have a feeling Nate Silver would have a few words for this
guy.

~~~
billswift
His point was that downloads also result in sales - and that there is no
evidence that more sales are lost than are gained.

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patio11
As a past creator of downloadable software, I don't fear file sharing...
because I am no longer producing downloadable software. I'm producing web
applications, one of whose many benefits is that they make piracy obsolete.

Enjoy your BitTorrent and whinging about how DRM infringes on your "rights" to
enjoy the content you "own", as you gradually realize that content producers
are migrating from the forms of content you can conveniently steal to the
forms of content that you can't.

I have rather limited sympathy.

~~~
lbrandy
Please don't pretend like a lot of people aren't going to make a lot of money
selling things that could be pirated. You can migrate wherever you want, but
you are only half the equation. If the consumers don't follow, someone will
replace you and make all the money you are too proud to make.

But at least piracy will be zero.

ETA: I am pretty amazed by your use of scare quotes around the words "rights"
and "own". It's almost like you are mocking people who expect to be able to
buy things, and then own them.

~~~
Silhouette
> I am pretty amazed by your use of scare quotes around the words "rights" and
> "own". It's almost like you are mocking people who expect to be able to buy
> things, and then own them.

This is the thing that concerns me the most about the current battle between
pirates and Big Media.

The pirate side likes to point out that copyright infringement is not theft. A
ripped copy does not imply a lost sale, they say, and of course there is some
truth in that.

However, these arguments are based on the fact that we are now dealing with
pure information products rather than physical products that happen to contain
the information. The other side of that distinction is if you no longer buy a
physical product, you no longer have something you can keep and use as you see
fit. Instead, you are only paying for a service, which provides information
with certain controls and under certain conditions.

It is natural that people who put a lot of money into developing this
information will react in this way, and clearly for now a lot of people are
willing to sign up to on-line music services, games services, etc. But we are
drifting into a world where the industry Powers That Be are going to hide
_everything_ behind rental models, and it will no longer be possible to buy an
open-ended, use-it-as-you-like version of information products. When they
switch the servers off, it's gone. If you move account, it's gone, and you
have to pay again on your new service, just like when they went from LPs to
tapes to CDs.

I'm not sure that is a healthy direction to move in, but as long as
significant numbers insist on breaking the law and ripping off others' hard
work, that's the direction that market forces will push. If, as some artists
believe, there is more upside than downside to allowing open sharing of works,
then they will be free to continue releasing things on that basis, and time
will tell whether they are right. But for an article that keeps talking about
having no evidence for illegal downloads causing a reduction in sales, it is
assuming a lot about a culture that shares freely that is also not really
supported by evidence yet.

~~~
bartl
>But we are drifting into a world where the industry Powers That Be are going
to hide everything behind rental models, and it will no longer be possible to
buy an open-ended, use-it-as-you-like version of information products. When
they switch the servers off, it's gone. If you move account, it's gone, and
you have to pay again on your new service, just like when they went from LPs
to tapes to CDs.

>I'm not sure that is a healthy direction to move in, but as long as
significant numbers insist on breaking the law and ripping off others' hard
work, that's the direction that market forces will push.

If it comes to that, I can safely predict one thing: piracy will increase
enormously.

Just, as they said in the blogs comments, like Harry Potter books in
electronic are among the most pirated because there are no official Harry
Potter ebooks for sale.

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fnid2
_I'd like to make it clear that I believe piracy is stealing._

~~~
apsurd
_... I simply do not equate it with stealing something tangible._

Kind of like how that one guy that one time stole my web startup idea!!!

