The culture of entitlement and illegal downloads

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by sbroome

Is waiting too much to ask for? Sounds like very little to demand of consumers.

Presumably you're still connecting to the internet on a 300bit/sec dialup modem? There was a time when games would take 20 minutes to load, the news was 24 hours old by the time you heard it, and mail order purchases took 28 days to arrive. All that has changed now, and people have different expectations.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Presumably you're still connecting to the internet on a 300bit/sec dialup modem? There was a time when games would take 20 minutes to load, the news was 24 hours old by the time you heard it, and mail order purchases took 28 days to arrive. All that has changed now, and people have different expectations.

Heh.

And in other news, all those kids should get off my lawn.

[sbroome]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Presumably you're still connecting to the internet on a 300bit/sec dialup modem? There was a time when games would take 20 minutes to load, the news was 24 hours old by the time you heard it, and mail order purchases took 28 days to arrive. All that has changed now, and people have different expectations.

Yes, unreasonable expectations that everything they want be available immediately, which is why it's a sense of entitlement. Just because people want something doesn't mean they should have it granted, not in the world of adults.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

There isn't much you can actually do to stop it. You can offer better services, a safe shopping environment, extra material, better quality, lower prices. You can let the buyers choose their own price, including free, and they will still pirate it.

That's because (some) people are used to looking on pirate sites for their ebooks, so they would have no way of knowing how much or little the legitimate version costs. The solution to that would be to put a note in your ebook about how they can help (in financial or other ways) if they like it enough. But those people are already lost forever. They had 10 years of getting used to turning to pirate sites before anyone got around to selling legitimate ebooks. So for them it's a simple choice between downloading your ebook or downloading someone else's ebook.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

That's because (some) people are used to looking on pirate sites for their ebooks, so they would have no way of knowing how much or little the legitimate version costs. The solution to that would be to put a note in your ebook about how they can help (in financial or other ways) if they like it enough. But those people are already lost forever. They had 10 years of getting used to turning to pirate sites before anyone got around to selling legitimate ebooks. So for them it's a simple choice between downloading your ebook or downloading someone else's ebook.

It's also because a good deal of the people doing the pirating are not motivated by lower prices. Did no one read the previously posted link that piracy is highest in developing countries where the ebook availability is usually nil?

Most of the pirates I know on the internet are people who WANT to pay for the book, but CAN'T. And they feel guilty about it, but if there is literally no way to pay the author from their end of the internet, they're not going to not file-share, which would be a decision that hurts only themselves. Most of them also buy the legitimate version the minute it comes available.

The other "resolute" pirates are often people who collect compulsively, and who are never going to read their books, legal or illegal, bought or not. They're basically people who buy all the 70,000 free books on Amazon and stuff them in their Calibre library for the emotional high.

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=Steven Lyle Jordan;1946664]This is key: Sometimes, people's thoughts and expectations have to change... whether they like it or not.

Screw that.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I submit that any author or publisher who satisfies the lady's Seven Expectations will not face a significant piracy problem.

who satisfies them WHEN the ladies say so. thats the entitlement again. I submit that it's not up to the ladies to decide "when" for all 7 of those. If all seven of those are not met WHEN the ladies feel they should be then the ladies should go read something else.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by sbroome

Yes, unreasonable expectations that everything they want be available immediately, which is why it's a sense of entitlement. Just because people want something doesn't mean they should have it granted, not in the world of adults.

People expect everything to be immediate because that is what they have got used to. And unfortunately for the entertainment corporations, if they don't provide what people want immediately then someone else will come along and do it for them. The UK TV companies have started to wise up to that, and now we get to see major USA programmes within 24 hours of their foreign broadcast. Whereas before the internet and unauthorised downloads we usually had to wait a year or more.

[anamardoll]

@mr.ploppy, and have you noticed how much faster the theater-to-DVD cycle is now? I approve.

[sbroome]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

People expect everything to be immediate because that is what they have got used to. And unfortunately for the entertainment corporations, if they don't provide what people want immediately then someone else will come along and do it for them. The UK TV companies have started to wise up to that, and now we get to see major USA programmes within 24 hours of their foreign broadcast. Whereas before the internet and unauthorised downloads we usually had to wait a year or more.

So if I look at pirated music in America the only things I'll see being pirated are albums and artists that people can't find legally?


http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-...torrent-today/

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

There is such a thing as too demanding a consumer. When that happens, business often say, "Screw it. I'm finding new customers, or I'm selling something else."

That's the way things are supposed to work in a free market system, isn't it?

One of the things about the copyright system is that it really isn't a free market concept.

But I wonder, how does a business find new customers without selling something else?

[speakingtohe]

Hmm... What is this Wicked of which we speak. I will look it up, but I am almost afraid to. Will I have a burning desire to acquire it immediately? Will my life be enriched beyond measure by experiencing it. Or depleted drastically if I wait for a bit. Are we talking creativity along the lines of Shakespeare, Bach or even Gone With the Wind.

In practical terms, which would I choose? A cheese sandwich after a week without food or Wicked?

Helen

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Hmm... What is this Wicked of which we speak. I will look it up, but I am almost afraid to. Will I have a burning desire to acquire it immediately? Will my life be enriched beyond measure by experiencing it. Or depleted drastically if I wait for a bit. Are we talking creativity along the lines of Shakespeare, Bach or even Gone With the Wind.

I posted a link earlier.

I prefer it to Bach and it has less racism than Gone With The Wind. Fewer bears than Shakespeare, though.

I'm actually kind of surprised that several people here haven't heard of it. It's a famous musical based on a famous book.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

But if someone outside the organization originally responsible for the text has the capability to release the text in the format that the requester of the text wishes, should this person be allowed to release the modified text and also should they be cut into the revenue stream generated by the sales of the modified text?

if they want to engage in negotiations with the original organization and come to terms with them then yes. if not, no. but then thats the way it is now.

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=sbroome;1946705]

Entitlement is in pretending that only the digital world matters because there are people who prefer spending time there.

I thought that it had been pretty much established that the entire universe is a digital construct...

If a movie is in theaters it will be available digitally soon. Until then you're free to pay a premium by seeing it now. Ideal? Maybe not, but in the grand scheme of things not much of an inconvenience at all. Go watch the tons of stuff you can see right away on Netflix.

You are missing the point. The question is NOT whether the movie will be available digitally "soon." If it is pirated, it is available "now."

The question is simply whether I want to wait or not. If I don't want to wait, I don't have to, and that is increasingly the state of the digital world.

Producers do not have a choice about whether their product will be available digitally. That's up to the laws of supply & demand, and the willingness of people to pirate digital product.

The producers' choice is whether they are going to figure out how to entice some chunk of the black market back into the legitimate market or are going to try to fence people out of the black market.

Fencing them out ain't gonna work, in my view, without a move toward a degree of digital totalitarianism that is not going to happen in the US.