Piracy

[Asmor]

Nobody pays for something they can legally get for free.

That's demonstrably false. Due to my own economic woes, I recently had to ask for donations to help pay my hosting fees for my website and blog. Also, public radio and television would not exist if people were not willing to pay for something which they legally receive for free.

I'm not saying that it's a viable business model, of course. I'm just saying that people do indeed pay for what can legally get for free.

 

[Cadfan]

Gotta love all the people arguing that ending copyright won't meaningfully alter consumer behavior.

What's the point then?

 

[Kichwas]

Gotta love all the people arguing that ending copyright won't meaningfully alter consumer behavior.

What's the point then?

This argument kind of stems out of the old debate against the music industry. It was very easy to form an ethic that it was ok or even proper to steal music - you were cutting out the middle man. A lot of people back during the days of that debate often said they would turn around and buy if they were buying it from the musician directly.

(I'm not advocating that ethic, I'm just saying that it was very easy for many people to reach it - they feel like mini-Robin Hoods.)

And some musicians are today selling their own music directly on iTunes or their own websites. I believe even some major artists have gone this way. That indicates that in some cases, the artists agree.

In the music industry time and technology have evolved to the point where the label, the middle man, is now obsolete. Its only a mater of time until the record label is a dead concept.


But that doesn't apply here. The same ethic can't be stretched into this small book press industry. You -might- be able to stretch it into buying your latest novel at Borders or Barnes and Nobles... but RPGs are often sold by artist-owned labels (WotC being the exception). You steal that book, you aren't robbing an obsolete middle man, you're robbing the artist who made it.

Maybe the time for copyright is over - and everything should move to some variation of open source. But within that concept, you still -need- a model by which to compensate an artist for her work.

What is that model? I don't know. But you can't craft an ethical justification for taking the work without it.

 

[Cadfan]

What is that model? I don't know. But you can't craft an ethical justification for taking the work without it.

Sure you can, you just have to lie to yourself.

Pretend that people will buy the creative work even though they don't actually have to and no law says they should. Proclaim that an ethic will arise in which people compensate artists out of the goodness of their heart and a desire to see that artist succeed. Suggest that downloading someone's work without paying is an ethical means to sample that work to decide whether you like it enough to pay for it.

Then fill up your hard drive with a couple of gigabytes of art that you kinda like, but not really enough to pay for, and maybe someday you'll delete it or pay for it or something. Send one artist out of the thousands who's work you've downloaded a paypal payment for a physical copy of something you wanted in hardcopy anyways, and claim that you've done your part.

 

[Kichwas]

And there's the rub. The 'ethic' you've just presented, as you note: fails to compensate the artist for her work. Lets put my proper quote in here:

But within that concept, you still [need] a model by which to compensate an artist for her work.

What is that model? I don't know. But you can't craft an ethical justification for taking the work without it.

EDIT: Looks like I left out a vital word in my original post, the word need that I've now inserted in brackets. Really changes the context when its missing, going to go edit the original now.

 

[Fenes]

Sure you can, you just have to lie to yourself.

Pretend that people will buy the creative work even though they don't actually have to and no law says they should. Proclaim that an ethic will arise in which people compensate artists out of the goodness of their heart and a desire to see that artist succeed. Suggest that downloading someone's work without paying is an ethical means to sample that work to decide whether you like it enough to pay for it.

Then fill up your hard drive with a couple of gigabytes of art that you kinda like, but not really enough to pay for, and maybe someday you'll delete it or pay for it or something. Send one artist out of the thousands who's work you've downloaded a paypal payment for a physical copy of something you wanted in hardcopy anyways, and claim that you've done your part.

It's also a matter of convenience. I don't like to jump through hoops if I want to read a book. If I can buy an e-book I'll do so. If I can't, I might buy the book on amazon, and then download a pirated copy so I can read the book now.

Also, it's legal here to download movies, music, etc., as long as you don't distribute it. Still we buy a lot of music on itunes, and a lot of ebooks - even more if the industry would start offering conveneint ways to buy such content.

 

[xechnao]

Sure you can, you just have to lie to yourself.

Pretend that people will buy the creative work even though they don't actually have to and no law says they should. Proclaim that an ethic will arise in which people compensate artists out of the goodness of their heart and a desire to see that artist succeed. Suggest that downloading someone's work without paying is an ethical means to sample that work to decide whether you like it enough to pay for it.

Then fill up your hard drive with a couple of gigabytes of art that you kinda like, but not really enough to pay for, and maybe someday you'll delete it or pay for it or something. Send one artist out of the thousands who's work you've downloaded a paypal payment for a physical copy of something you wanted in hardcopy anyways, and claim that you've done your part.

And if there was no downloading possibility you would have been paying the thousands of artists so to access their work, right??? I think not.


It seems people here seem afraid of a public/state model. Tell you waht: if you happen to be a talent that does not manage to work it through the standard channels, modern technology guarantees that you can still be accessed by people and if you are worth it, people will reward you.

 

[Cadfan]

It's also a matter of convenience. I don't like to jump through hoops if I want to read a book. If I can buy an e-book I'll do so. If I can't, I might buy the book on amazon, and then download a pirated copy so I can read the book now.

Also, it's legal here to download movies, music, etc., as long as you don't distribute it. Still we buy a lot of music on itunes, and a lot of ebooks - even more if the industry would start offering conveneint ways to buy such content.

How would your media purchasing behavior change if there were some service, say, something as user friendly and convenient as iTunes, that offered free and legal e-books, movies, and music?

Just as user friendly and convenient as iTunes, but totally free and legal.

 

[Mouseferatu]

That's demonstrably false. Due to my own economic woes, I recently had to ask for donations to help pay my hosting fees for my website and blog. Also, public radio and television would not exist if people were not willing to pay for something which they legally receive for free.

I'm not saying that it's a viable business model, of course. I'm just saying that people do indeed pay for what can legally get for free.

Okay, instead of "pretty much zero," how about "close enough to zero that it's not a sustainable business model for anything approaching the long run"?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Actually it does matter, becuase in the past, all the profits made by an artist were based on charging for the conversion of the "artitic labor(writing,movies,music etc.)" into a product and then copying and distributing (basically selling) that product. But with technology, like the personal computer, the conversion from a product into digital information is very easy, and doing so makes copying and distributing this information almost effortless.

So basically, technology has removed the need for a physical object as a medium for copying and distributing, as a result an artists labor no longer comes to the consumer in a "purchased" product, but instead as "free" information. This means any industry which profits on using physical products to copy/distribute "art" are destined to become less profitable or even completly obsolete.

What do you suggest the alternative to be? It still requires the same amount of work and time on the artist's part, no matter what technology has done to the end product.

So either artists get paid for their work--regardless of whether it takes "physical form" or "just data"--or every art-based industry, from writing to music to art, eventually fades from society as anything more than a rare curiosity. In the long-term, there's not really a middle ground.