Quote:
Originally Posted by Dumas
How can popular authors/artists possibly be selling well in the face of massive, online infringement?
|
Because, with the advent of the global market, (with the internet as the medium that allows for instantaneous information-sharing, about new products as well as other things) authors and artists have enjoyed being able to market their product to an
enormous amount of potential customers. 1 million downloads is all well and good, but considering there are at least 1.5 billion people relatively affluent enough to buy your books after they've heard of them, this becomes far less problematic a figure. (This is even more true for contemporary "music" than for books, as there is less of a language barrier there.)
This is
not a trivial change, and if it comes with the cost of "increased piracy" (Whatever
real-world effects that has), that's a shame, but it's something they'll have to learn to live with/work around.
When the railroad etc. came around local monopolies had a huge problem because competitors could now be farther away, so they couldn't be monopolies any more. I'm sure that caused them to complain bitterly to politicians as well, but should it bother us? There are 500 million different professions and business models to try out, why does it matter (why is it a "bad thing"?) that 5 or 10, or even 10.000, are no longer viable?