Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
But the fact remains that not being satisfied with the price is not a good enough justification for piracy... it is a good enough reason for abstinence, and for making sure the publisher understands why you abstain. Added piracy will only contribute to the cost, as publishers try to compensate for their losses.
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And with physical goods this abstinence happens. Goods which are consumed with use or for which your physical presence is required. But with goods which "like" to be copied, such as in plays in Shakespeare's time, sheet music in Mozart's time, cassette tapes in the 80's, and now with the advent of digital media almost any arbitrary unit of culture or rather, any idea or story, we see the opposite. Piracy happens. Keep raising the prices or try to restrict use, and more piracy happens. Clearly treating digital copies of music, movies, and books as traditional tangible goods doesn't work very well.
So while you are on your little moral crusade telling strangers on the internet what they should and should not do (did you seriously use the term "flogging pirates" in another thread?), the copying goes on unimpeded. While the RIAA and MPAA come down with strong-arm and rather questionable tactics, the copying goes on unimpeded. Taking down Kazaa and Napster only led to more advanced protocols like bittorrent. I'm not condoning or condemning it, merely stating a fact. I think this bell curve ranging from "people who will not pay" to "people who always pay" has been there since forever, it is just that the internet makes it so very, very visible.
And yet with all that rampant copying, I don't exactly see movie/music execs and stars living a life of squalor (how much did Dark Knight make again in the opening weekend? It was available as a pirate copy within 38 hours, and the movie industry claimed a victory there). In fact, I can see more types of movies beyond the basic summer blockbuster pulp with greater ease than ever before in history (oh, and for pay I mean). In music, The iTunes store is a smashing success. Experiments by indie music artists ranging from once-obscure acts like "Arcade Fire" (propelled by piracy) to superstars like "Radiohead" (selling direct and making tons of money despite piracy) show that people are prepared to invest time, money, and attention into products that they deem good. I'm not entirely sure how this is in the world of books but I do expect it to be less - the sad truth is books aren't as popular, but I am sure there is still money to be made. Amazon is selling like crazy. Artists like Doctorow and Stross (I'm sure there are non-SF examples, but I am a SF junkie) gave some of their work away, which resulted in more attention (a valuable commodity in today's world), and ultimately, more sales.
But in this global economy you are going to have to make it very easy to get at the content (which I think translates in part into format-interoperability, one-click buying and installing, and no DRM for digital media) - in fact content publishers should take a lesson from piracy here, and you are going to have to make it cheap. Let the volume that a global audience can provide prevail over hiking the prices up once again to combat hysterical not to mention hypothetical piracy-related loss projections.