Sigh, this always seems to happen to an interesting thread when I sleep-it gets too long for me to spend the time needed to catch up. There are lots of interesting ideas in just the 1st 4 pages that I'd like to respond to, like MoeJoe's paradox.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
If you're popular enough to be pirated then piracy doesn't affect you.
|
The fallacy in this is that whether you're popular or not, piracy *does* affect you-the only questions are how much & whether the net result is negative or positive. (I've noted before, if not here then in other threads, that there is the same statistical link between piracy & sales as there is between advertising & sales-but others have pointed out that piracy/free distribution is also a form of advertising. IMO nobody really knows the net effect-but nobody can deny that there is an effect. Not knowing the size of the effect is different from not knowing that there is an effect.)
Moejoe, I had an additional thought-perhaps, in your paradox, you meant to say "no detrimental effect"? In my opinion that's still unproven, but it's not as definitely false as your original statement.