Quote:
Originally Posted by SleepyBob
No, the majority of today's entertainment industry is built on the exclusivity of the ability to distribute their copyrighted works, not just commercial operations. If it's legal for individuals to share with everyone in the world via P2P, there's no incentive to ever buy another CD or DVD again.
|
People have been sharing digital content online for over 15 years now, and offline for as long as CDs and DVDs have existed. Cassette and video recorders didn't kill the entertainment industry and neither will the internet.
Internet piracy, particularly of music, has been good for the industry as a whole. It created enough demand for hardware mp3 players to bring the prices crashing down, which turned a niche product into something that everyone and their granny's dog now owns. That paved the way for companies to sell digital content to all those new owners. There's no real reason why other types of digital content won't work the same way if allowed to.
The people who don't pay for anything don't really matter. They're not your customers, they never have been and they never will be. It's their influence on the market as a whole that matters.