Hi Snappy
>>>>Sorry to hear about your company's losses.
Not at all, I see it as a tax we pay for this wonderful thing we call the internet and the digital
>>>Trust me, these pirates are there for the buck, quick or otherwise. Sure, they use physical medium to sell their goods, but it does not change the way they take advantage of lossless digital duplication that is available easily.
Yep, I’m with you. But they are radically different from pirates who share on P2P and pirates who burn a copy CD for their Grandmother.
>>>>
Broadband
>>>>To be on the same page, I think Singapore just turned developed nation a few years back and since 1998/99, I've enjoyed broadband internet access. Not sure if you were referring to low internet bandwidth, but if you were, Singapore definitely had broadband while piracy was rampant.
Its not just broadband it’s the whole take up of internet at home. I assume people P2P pirate generally from home rather than work, mobile or internet cafe.
>>>>Today in China (BeiJing, ShenZhen, HongKong), Taiwan, Malaysia etc, you can easily have broadband internet access, but these pirates still churn out the same software, video and music goods, except faster, since technology has improved by leaps and bounds.
>>>>The thing is that the average joe in these countries do not have the savvy to use that CD or DVD writer to burn an iso, but has enough streetwise to choose to buy a "discounted" pirate CD/DVD.
Its about balance. If tunes on ITUNES cost ten dollars each then there would be more people who would go pirate rather than legit.
If the cost of a pirate DVD in Hong Kong is still less than the cash/time cost to download the same pirate DVD, then people will continue to pay for piracy. My point is that the latter cost will always drop until it reaches a point that puts the commercial pirates out of business. This has certainly happened in the west.
>>>
Pure Digital
>>>I get a feeling we might be splitting hairs going into "purely digital forms of piracy"
…….I doubt anyone can make cash from pure digital forms of piracy.
Ha! What sophistry; )
Obviously we are talking about digital “in the wire” not the experience of the digital.
>>>And as far as online piracy is concerned…..
People making money without permission from other peoples work is as wrong, in my book, as people being criminalised for unauthorised duplication.
This discussion has been really interesting, and continues to be so
Mat Ripley