Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1549550" data-attributes="member: 10201">Don't forget that at least some downloading occurs precisely to discern whether the product is worth something to the consumer. They can't not download it because it's worthless, because they don't yet know it's worthless. Also, that completely ignores the spectrum of desire: it's not "i want" and "i don't want"--there are degrees of want, and value comes into it. Frex, i almost never go to first-run movies these days. There just aren't very many movies that're worth $10 to me. About the only time i do go is when i'm "voting with my dollars": when i care very strongly that a movie do well, in the hopes that more like it in some fashion (in the same genre/by the same director/with the same actor/from the same production company/whatever) will get made, i'll do my little part to make the numbers look good. Otherwise, i'll wait for the 2nd-run theater ($4 w/student ID), the budget theater ($2.50), or video (which is actually more expensive, at ~$4/rental, but i can split the cost, and i'm saving on time by doing it at my convenience). Similarly, a lot of my RPG purchases occur 2nd-hand or on sale. But, it is still possible for my desire for a book to fall short of the cheapest price i can get it at. Sometimes, i luck out: i stumbled on a rather beat-up copy of W:tA 2nd ed. for <$5, which brought it below my threshhold (i'd previously not bought it because i had the original edition). Usually, i don't. So then, the question becomes: if i am never going to realistically find the product at a price that agrees with my personal value of the product, and therefore am otherwise not going to buy the product, have i done any harm to the producer by downloading a free, illegal, scan? I'm not sure. It seems oversimplistic to say 'no'--if only because the availability of the illegal scan is likely to skew market perceptions of value, if not my own perceptions. But it seems equally oversimplistic to just say 'yes'.Oh, and don't forget the compulsive collectors. I have a friend who has downloaded the entire run of Dragonball Z and burned it to VCD (or maybe DVD). Along with lots of other stuff. He'll never watch it, and he makes no pretense that he'll watch it. He'd never buy Dragonball Z, no matter how cheaply. He did it just to have a "complete set". From other threads, i suspect that there are a fair number of people out there collecting PDF scans of RPG books who never use the scans they download. The point isn't to game with them, it's to have the biggest collection. They wouldn't be interested if they were legal, even if they were still free. No idea what percentage of the piracy population this represents, however.What about haggling over the price? Now, i realize that that isn't what's going on. But right now, the system is as you say: price is X, you pay it or do without--or steal it, giving the producers nothing. I wonder if the producers might not come out better off if the "default" price was X, but they would lower it in some circumstances. Would enough people who previously stole it pay some Y, less than X, to make up for those who previously paid X and now only pay Y? It would be like sales, only on a vaster scale, and more arbitrary.</blockquote>

Verification