those are all great points for why the IP owner should be compensated for his loss by the thief. At the simplest, as punishment for touching that which was not his. I'm a big fan of punishment of crime, so I'm OK with that.
However.....that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual impact to the artist by the theft.
Let's monetize this with fake but almost true facts. St. Anger was Metallica's WORST album. It costs $10. 100 people bought it, so Metallica made $250 off the sales of that album. Sales stopped at 100 because 99 of them were former fans, and the last was a music critic at Rolling Stone. They all flamed Metallica for the album, and nobody else bought an album.
Danny's surfing for music and sees that he can backfill the last of his Metallica collection when he stopped listening after the Black album. So he downloads Load, ReLoad, St. Anger and Death Magnetic for free. That's 4 albums at a value of $40 using iTunes math.
Lars finds out about the illegal download and gets so hopping mad he hops into the past to kill Al Gore who invented the internet and suddenly Online Music Piracy doesn't exist anymore.
Lars hops back to the future just in time to see Danny walk into a music store (which don't exist in Lars's original timeline). Danny, in a fit of nostalgia, plops down $30 for Load, ReLoad and Death Magnetic.
Lars is apoplectic. He lost a $40 sale in his original timeline, and now that he fixed everything, he still can't collect that last $10.
Why? Because not all pirated music is worth paying for, but it is worth stealing.
As such, when SOME musicians whine about piracy hurting their sales, they erroneously inflate the damage done to them by counting people who were NEVER going to give them the money for their crappy product.
it is obvious that russions SELLING fake copies of your music to people who would buy it otherwise is real and actual harm. Whether it be by CD or MP download.
It is not quite as true that some kid pirating St. Anger is stealing money from Metallica. Because that sale was NEVER going to happen because the product was crap.
I think my point is, some music is crap because there is so much of it, as such, some piracy is by people who wouldn't pay for it anyway, so you're not really losing as much as you think.
However.....that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual impact to the artist by the theft.
Let's monetize this with fake but almost true facts. St. Anger was Metallica's WORST album. It costs $10. 100 people bought it, so Metallica made $250 off the sales of that album. Sales stopped at 100 because 99 of them were former fans, and the last was a music critic at Rolling Stone. They all flamed Metallica for the album, and nobody else bought an album.
Danny's surfing for music and sees that he can backfill the last of his Metallica collection when he stopped listening after the Black album. So he downloads Load, ReLoad, St. Anger and Death Magnetic for free. That's 4 albums at a value of $40 using iTunes math.
Lars finds out about the illegal download and gets so hopping mad he hops into the past to kill Al Gore who invented the internet and suddenly Online Music Piracy doesn't exist anymore.
Lars hops back to the future just in time to see Danny walk into a music store (which don't exist in Lars's original timeline). Danny, in a fit of nostalgia, plops down $30 for Load, ReLoad and Death Magnetic.
Lars is apoplectic. He lost a $40 sale in his original timeline, and now that he fixed everything, he still can't collect that last $10.
Why? Because not all pirated music is worth paying for, but it is worth stealing.
As such, when SOME musicians whine about piracy hurting their sales, they erroneously inflate the damage done to them by counting people who were NEVER going to give them the money for their crappy product.
it is obvious that russions SELLING fake copies of your music to people who would buy it otherwise is real and actual harm. Whether it be by CD or MP download.
It is not quite as true that some kid pirating St. Anger is stealing money from Metallica. Because that sale was NEVER going to happen because the product was crap.
I think my point is, some music is crap because there is so much of it, as such, some piracy is by people who wouldn't pay for it anyway, so you're not really losing as much as you think.