Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
As a software developer I have a similar issue. To "develop" a product itself can take many man years plus all the training of everyone on the team including developers, testers, writers, product managers, etc. However, once it is complete and we have the deployable files it takes maybe $1 a CD to create the container for what was perhaps millions of $'s of R&D cost. Are you going to say that the software is "worth" $1 cause that's what it cost us to create the CD copy the customer gets?
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This is the part of the equation that's changing, though. Currently, that's the way it works - people have to pay for a copy of everything in order to subsidize the massive up-front costs of the product. But the fact of the matter is that it's easy and free to copy certain products, and that's not going to change.
Someone earlier said that the free market didn't include things like The Pirate Bay - except, it does. If you set up an apple cart next to the guy with the "free apples" sign, you're not going to be doing a lot of business. It may not be fair, or even legal, but the invisible hand doesn't seem to care. Consumers know how to easily get free copies of books and music and software and movies. If you want to make money off of those things, you'd better find a way that doesn't involve selling copies.
To clarify, I'm not advocating piracy. But if you're planning a business that revolves around intellectual property in this day and age, you need to keep piracy in mind (and YouTube, MySpace sample tracks, fan fiction, Open Source, and all the other legal ways of distributing content for free.)