Camille, on 19 Apr 2011, 20:18, said:
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I charge people only for what they actually take from me
to me, that looks exactly the same as: here's a game but first, pay 60 bucks.
Yeah...no. The basics of law are such that they support your theory, but in practice, its impossible. When you purchase a product, you make an offer. When the vendor takes your money, they accept that offer. Essentially, you can go to your vendor and offer to purchase anything for whatever you like. Doesn't mean they'll accept it though (cont'd below)
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But to answer your questions, it's because nice-persons-who-I'd-only-describe-with-the-best-of-words think it's their right to just take it anyways. Because it won't hurt me if they don't pay as it's not actually theft.
you're right, it won't. i might, however, give generously once i know the product is of great use and i have the necessary funds. that way no one loses.
And this is why the law above doesn't work as per its principle. Because people define what they want as offers. Because 99% of humanity is greedy, jealous, and self-invested. If you can get something for nothing, it is highly likely you will. A good case comes back from 2007, where Radiohead released their album online. You could pay anything you wanted for it. It was also a bloody good album. And Radiohead, an incredibly established band with a track record of great music, and millions of dedicated fans, managed to take, on average, per album... $2. 65% or so didn't even bother to pay. Those that did paid an average of $6. An average album is between $10-15. I think it sums it all up very nicely. Nothing people say or do will ever convince you to buy something at retail price.
Now, imagine you create a DVD blockbuster. Say, Avatar. And you let people in for whatever they like. No adverts, no revenue for you at all, aside from ticket sales. You'd never make the £350 million back at all. You then do the same for the DVD. Someone is walking through a supermarket, and they can pick it up for free. Not likely they're going to contribute kindly. At the end of the day, if you invest money in something, you expect to make a profit. Worse case scenario, you want to break even. The industry for blockbuster films would collapse overnight.
Now imagine that whilst this is not entirely the case, the industry is having proportions of its revenue siphoned away in the same manner. You may get 20/30% that purchase after watching, but most don't/won't. The industry can cope, but not particularly well. As I said, people are selfish. You cannot hope to make money, push an economy forwards, provide people with jobs, etc, if you don't make money. And people are selfish, and cheap. Human nature insists that we take as much as we can for free. Therefore, prices have to be set, and fixed, and enforced. There's no other alternative to humanity, unless you are suggesting that we essentially all embrace communism overnight? And considering the entire concept is completely flawed and practically unworkable (there must also be some form of leader, humans are always ranked to a degree), humanity cannot embrace it. You have to charge for a service, a product, or anything else. Trusting the goodwill of others is naive when what you're not clamouring at their heartstrings. And I don't think that the concept of paying for something that is free is ever going to be workable. I'd consider it both incredibly idealistic, and incredibly naive to believe that humanity could ever achieve such a thing. Whilst it is perhaps admirable to believe this, it is ultimately incredibly unworkable, and the facts, figures, experiments, etc, all disagree with you. It can't be done.
Regards my personal views on piracy, well, it's just one of those things. I understand the economy of it, and I am well aware that by purchasing something, whilst I am lining the pockets of some businessman, I am also contributing towards the future of something I enjoy. Were I (in theory) to pirate something, it would be as a matter of convenience. Take, for example, a hit US TV series (House/Castle/CSI/etc). If you're a huge fan, you'd go out of your way to watch it. So much so, that when the broadcasts are a season behind in the UK, you'd pirate copies from the US to keep 'in the know'. Note, if that were me and were I that big of a fan I'd probably buy the DVDs when they did eventually arrive, but that's rather beside the point. People want to see things, or play things. I'd suggest that the vast majority of people who pirate films, dvds or music do so because they want to watch/listen to it asap. The film/tv/etc industry is very stupid in that it thinks that by delaying things, it earns money. It instead encourages piracy. Consider any film in cinemas atm. Were they released when they're done, people would go watch them. Take Salt (Angelina Jolie movie from last year) as an example. People wanted to see it. So the distributors delayed it, to hype people up. And hey presto it leaked online, and everyone downloaded it in advance, instead. Because that was how they satiated their hunger for it. If companies want piracy to stop, a good start would to be to stop syndication, delays, and withholding things from the public. They should also release the films in the cinema onto a purchasable medium once the film stops showing in cinemas. Not wait 9 months for royalty payments etc to kick in. If you could buy a DVD copy of the latest film that was out only a few weeks ago, you probably would, rather than torrent it. However, you can't, you want to watch it at home, and hey presto, you have a way of doing so. It may be illegal, but its the only means that caters to what you want. If the industries embraced torrenting, and give consumers what they wanted and didn't overcharge them (say $15 for a film on iTunes, as opposed to the $5 it's actually costing them to provide it), then perhaps they'd find not everybody wants to pirate things.
tl;dr Piracy is illegal, and should not be done. However, if the industries continue to impose restrictions/dates/delays/syndication/etc on their content, the free, easily accessible, earlier accessible content will still thrive. They're a bunch of idiots, and instead of working it out with respect to piracy, they're jut trying to kill it. See the Digital Economy Act 2010, or the ACTA for more info on how the fight is going. Pirates move with the times, but you will never beat piracy unless you offer a viable alternative, not oppress people into using your only solution.
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