Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
So is copyright infringement today really a problem that needs solving, or is it basically a private individuals legally frowned-upon answer to certain problems posed by their arguable poverty?
I don't think I've ever known anybody that had both disposable income and a habit of pirating left, right, and centre... which makes me naturally inclined to consider it to be the latter.
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The issue is twofold: 1, that the poor don't have the legal right to access the content they could afford if they were rich. 2, that in allowing the poor free access to the files, the use of economic success as a measure of popularity is distorted.
For example, Libraries buy books for use by people who can't or won't purchase them, but they need some kind of criteria to choose which books to buy--and "bestseller" is easy to identify; "most popular torrent download" is not. A very popular author whose works are more downloaded than purchased might lose the chance to get the little big of money that comes from library purchases.
While it's obvious that not everyone who downloads, would've bought the book anyway--some of them might have, if no download were available. Publishers are not told they should give away print books because many of the people who read them would never buy them, and the same principle should apply to ebooks.
I don't believe that the torrent network is "destroying the publishing industry" or anything like that, but I also don't think it's irrelevant and should be ignored.