Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
There's a huge difference between "sharing" with a friend (which pretty much all DRM schemes will permit you to do) and uploading a copyrighted work to the internet, from where it can be downloaded all over the world. I'm sure you'd accept that?
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Actually, no, I don't agree with that. Copyright is useless, it's owned and controlled by corporations who treat their 'artists' badly for the most part (except when those artists are cash cows), and treat the consumers even worse. I read an article recently (I'll try and find the source) that every book is read 6 times in its lifetime but only purchased once. So 5 people get to read that particular book for free. Is this theft? Is this copyright infringement? Does the number matter of consequent readers who don't pay?
And we return to the argument of those who download and don't pay anything. Roughly divided into three camps of downloaders - Those who will never Pay, Those who can't pay, and those who will pay at some time in the future. Two out of those three can't be lost sales by definition, the third is a possible sale. Even the second might be a future sale when they have the money. Time and again we see that P2P sharing not only boosts recognition, but increases sales.