Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
A digital copy is a thing, it is not music in the air or light from a movie or computer screen. If you have a copy of my IP without my permission, you are a thief. That's what I'm saying. You have deprived me of a sale, not a potential sale, an actual sale because you possess my property without my permission.
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There is not a single thing in the above quote that even remotely approaches actual facts. A jaw-dropping, stunning level of utter unfactualness. A digital copy is a series of 1s and 0s stored as magnetic domains on a film deposited on a platter, or reflective and cloudy patches on an optical discs, or electrons in a block of Flash memory. It is not a "thing" that can be taken from you. It is not your "property." And it is not "depriving you of a sale." Anyone (and I'll be clear I'm not saying you personally here, don't want to make a personal attack) who believes that every download, or even beyond a low-single digits percentage of downloads represents a "lost sale" is a certifiable moron. Such morons would (and have, and do) make the same claim that everyone who reads a book from a library is a lost sale (and legal fights have been made to keep books out of libraries) or everyone who buys a used copy of a book is a lost sale (and legal fights have been made to keep people from reselling used books-- and used CDs, and used games, and used programs...)
Let's give a real world example-- at the very time I've been reading these messages, I've been downloading a set of books I've just found called
The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Never heard of 'em before. Never will read them from cover to cover. But somehow, some day, I might need a factoid that I might find in one, so in my archives they go.
If I hadn't stumbled across those books on-line, would I have ever ever ever paid the $728.00 that a set of them costs on Amazon? Heck, no. That does not constitute a lost sale to anyone, anywhere, ever. And I would say that the same applies to (pulling a number from out of my rear) 99% of all downloads. If you are going to buy a copy, you are going to buy a copy. If you aren't gong to buy a copy-- and don't download it from the internet-- you are going to tape it from the radio, or from TV, or check it out from the library, or wait for a cheap used copy (all for the respective media to which they apply.) All of which still represent a null sale to the seller-- not a "lost sale," an absence of one.
A nice essay:
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/200...copyfight.html