Media Piracy: Good Economics?

Alright folks, seeing as how the boards are finally back up and running after an abnormally long down-time, I'm hoping we're all ready for a fresh start. But rather than re-hashing all our previous threads, I'd like to offer something a little more brain stretching, something which, for many of us, might be on the outside of the box.

Fist off, the topic for this thread: is media piracy good for the market? If so, Why? Is it unethical? And if so, on what grounds?

We live in the age of the DMCA, when the simple distribution of information "product" outside of the bureaucratized consumer system is branded not only as illegal, but as a form of theft. I've even seen it stated on one CD that "Copying this recording without permission is a violation of the eighth commandment."

In case you haven't guessed, I would suggest this is a grave misapplication of principle, and that, on the contrary, those pulling the strings on these ideas and regulations are the ones guilty of "violation of the eighth commandment."

I'd like to see this proposition debated, rejected, or supported intelligently. For the sake of quality discussion, please make your posts as well thought out as possible.

With that said, have at it!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Media piracy has been going on for a long time. My friends and I used to make mix tapes between all of the music that each of us owned. In some cases if I really liked the tape I would go out and buy it outright. Same with VCR technology. My parents recorded and dubbed pretty much any movie that came out either on HBO, blockbuster, or what not. They also ended up buying many of them as well.

The problem at least in the music industry is that most CDs are crap. They cram 12 songs onto a CD and only 1 is good. They then turn around and charge you $15 or so to buy the thing. So in essence you pay $15 for one song and you will never listen to the rest. I am not saying all CDs are like this, but the vast majority of them are. Systems such as Itunes and the like have helped alleviate this to a point, but they are restrictive, and most likely to get even more so in the future.

As for the movie front, I download movies from usenet all the time, new releases and old. If I like the movie I will go ahead and buy it outright when it comes out on DVD. I just hate to waste $15 to $20 or more dollars on a movie if it is going to suck. I figure I have downloaded more than 100 movies from usenet over the last year. Out of those I have ended up purchasing more that half of them. Other movies were downloaded for curiousity sake more than anything else, IE Brokeback Mountain, bleh.

So all in all I would say it is good from the standpoint of being able to try before you buy.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I would like to sample a movie or an album before buying it. I'll buy it because I like it, and I want a professional copy to add to my collection. If everyone thought this way, piracy will help the market. If it does help the market, the word piracy should be replaced because piracy has a negative effect.

Regardless of which party is correct on either side, it boils down to greed. The seller wants as much money as possible and the buyer wants the best quality for as little money as possible.

Stormshadow is right about the iTunes Music Store (IMS) because being able to buy one good song versus an album of garbage is a luxury. This luxury has caused the record industry to finally convince Apple to start a pricing system in order for them to make more money. All of the current songs will remain $1. In the near future there will be three different prices for songs to satisfy the record industry and their "greed."

If the record industry had five billion customers and lost 1 million, they would attack the reason for the loss. In this case, it's piracy. No matter what, the number of losses will never effect the industry. This world is huge. There will always be buyers and there will always be pirates. Greed greed greed!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

As an underground hip-hop artist, I've come to understand one thing - Anyone who is going to pirate your music is someone who wasn't going to buy your shit in the first place.

The RIAA wants to say that P2P on the net and the proliferation of CD burners has caused a significant slide in sales - which is hogwash. In reality, almost all music is marketed towards females 12-29 years old - a demographic that isn't as tech saavy as males of the same age.

In layman's terms: Niggas will bootleg your shit, females largely will not.

The real reason why you don't see artists going 10x platnium anymore is because listeners today have an ever-decreasing attention span. This is why you see artists drop a new single literally every month. With so many music choices in the mainstream and in the underground, you can't ride out an album for 18 months like people used to do. You literally have to be in the studio working on the next album roughly 3 months after you drop an album. This is why the mixtape scene has exploded, because it keeps people's attention with new music at a relatively low cost.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I have found though that many artists though, tend to get "antsy" when asked about the pricing of a CD. If you ask them, they will tend to say, "Well, there are a lot of factors in making a CD!", get angry, and go off. Makes me wonder on that.

I am hoping things like iTunes would be the solution, but even with something like iTunes working, certain companies STILL can't have enough. I do wonder how much longer this can go on, as those companies are running out of excuses quickly...

I was speaking idiomatically.

Is "piracy" unethical or imoral? Only, and only if you downloaded, kept and made use of something you would have otherwise bought, had it not been possible for you to download it. A very big part of my CD, DVD and videogame collections a made up of items that I have only discovered after first having downloaded them. And that I would never have found otherwise.

And the fact that "piracy" is illegal (in most countries) says nothing, really. It's even illegal to lend a CD or DVD for christ sake. However, this is as much a reason not to buy a CD a downloading is. "I don't need to buy that. I'll just borrow it from ___ instead". Same goes for the second-hand market.

I think if there was more of a debate going on about "piracy", record companies could probably get a better idea about why people download music from the internet. As it is now, all you ever hear is "Record sales are declining. Must be that damned internet "piracy" buisness!!!1, etc".

But still, it's a very complicated issue and I doubt "piracy" would ever be made legal again even if it could be proven that in the end it didn't hurt sales.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

As an underground hip-hop artist, I've come to understand one thing - Anyone who is going to pirate your music is someone who wasn't going to buy your shit in the first place.

Quoted because I've found this to be largely true as well.

Most amazing jew boots

What I find funny is that the RIAA and MPAA aren't just sticking to one thing, the not only want P2P of music/movies to end, but CD Ripping, analog copying, backups, and DRM circumvention. If they'd just stick to making good music/movies and being harder on bootleggers and not file sharing, they would't be suing a woman for downloading music that's never had a PC, or a Grandma for using Kazaa when Macs can't even run that program.

FELIPE NO

I like to buy all of my media legit, as I have some satasfaction knowing that the industry is becoming stronger. If I buy more hip-hop music, the hip-hop industry becomes stronger. If I buy more anime, the anime industry becomes stronger. It isn't the cash value, it's the fact I am a buyer. I am a statistic. I count.

But...

I still shop around for a good deal. I am part of www.yourmusic.com for my new releases, I shop at 2nd Hand Tunes and Reckless Records for hard to find vinyl and underground artists, and whenever their is a sale, I'll check it out. It isn't the cash I spend, it is morevoer the fact I do spend.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I'd buy more of the Anime/VG soundtracks I download, but they charge $30+ for most of them on Amazon. On top of that the Cowboy Bebop CD-Box I bought was a bootleg (I only found that out AFTER I bought the damn thing, some of the tracks have glitches...). Of course some ultra-obscure stuff I'd never buy, it's only on ebay and overpriced...

How ya doing, buddy?

I admit I don't buy as many CDs/DVDs from what I download, but if I do like something enough, I'll seek it out and buy it.

The music quality has really delined in the last 5 years... but I know the most important thing that needs to be done: Eliminate the RIAA. The MPAA, at least, is trying to get Movies distributed in an online format of thier own initiative, not of consumer pressure. Both mediums have a lack of talent as of late, but the RIAA is the first target I see needing an attack on.

Basically, The RIAA needs to be replaced with a smart and tech-savy organization that actually understands the consumer's point of view and isn't greedy to the point that Mr. Scrooge is a philanthropist in comparison. Of course this is not possible... the RIAA should have been suied a long-time ago for thier business practices, but they are just too large to be attacked by plain consumers. They need to piss off a congressmen first, or at least a very influential private citizen.

Most amazing jew boots

Although technically it's illegal, piracy can infact be helpful. At least half of the artists I have downloaded I would have never even heard of had I not seen their work featured in an anime music video, google video, etc. So had I not downloaded, the bands name wouldn't even be in the back of my mind. So it's obvious that sales are no slumping due to piracy. If anything, piracy is only helping sell tracks. Now of course, some people will download the music, decide they like it, and still not go buy it. But that's where an artist could get smart. The previously mentioned demographic is probably more often than not to lazy to get up and go buy the CD. If the artist themselves decided to start selling their tracks at reasonable prices, (I'm talking maybe .60-.80 cents a track) withought DRM, thse lazy people could go get the music, support their newly found artist they enjoy, and all for a nice price. In a utopia world all the artists would start doing this, and Ill bet that the online downloads take over, or at least match the sales of traditional CD's. A good first step has been initiated by Itunes and the likes, but the market needs to be expanded and improved even more to be truly on par with CD sales. Namely as I said, cheaper prices for singles, a lack of Digital Rights Management, a nd an ease of service.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The problem is that most bands are incapable of producing more than one decent song every couple of years.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

I admit I don't buy as many CDs/DVDs from what I download, but if I do like something enough, I'll seek it out and buy it.

The music quality has really delined in the last 5 years... but I know the most important thing that needs to be done: Eliminate the RIAA. The MPAA, at least, is trying to get Movies distributed in an online format of thier own initiative, not of consumer pressure. Both mediums have a lack of talent as of late, but the RIAA is the first target I see needing an attack on.

Basically, The RIAA needs to be replaced with a smart and tech-savy organization that actually understands the consumer's point of view and isn't greedy to the point that Mr. Scrooge is a philanthropist in comparison. Of course this is not possible... the RIAA should have been suied a long-time ago for thier business practices, but they are just too large to be attacked by plain consumers. They need to piss off a congressmen first, or at least a very influential private citizen.

The music/movie studios need the guts to sue us themselves. Anyone who sues on the behalf of someone else is asking for their legitimacy to be questioned.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm an anime whore, so my fansubs are legit. In fact, had it not been for these sorts of people who translate basically for donations, many mainstream shows would not get the converage and licensing they do.

Naruto wasn't all that hot in America with the manga so much until the subs were everywhere.

In regards to "the real stuff," I have no problem downloading anything that is shown on television. TV is saying "Turn on your VCR and enjoy the freeness." That said, I'm gonna download a new movie coming out tomorrow.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

As an underground hip-hop artist, I've come to understand one thing - Anyone who is going to pirate your music is someone who wasn't going to buy your shit in the first place.

Originally Posted by Fatt

I like to buy all of my media legit, as I have some satasfaction knowing that the industry is becoming stronger. If I buy more hip-hop music, the hip-hop industry becomes stronger. If I buy more anime, the anime industry becomes stronger. It isn't the cash value, it's the fact I am a buyer. I am a statistic. I count.

I think these quotes illustrate two sides of an important truth: In a free market, people will give their support to those to whom they want to give it.

When you hear someone saying that copying media is tantamount to theft, you have to ask what principle drew them to that conclusion; and I think, at least in theory, that the idea behind our system of copyright law is that "a worker is worthy of his wages."

In the reality of the workforce, however, you have a choice as to whom you will hire. By purchasing a director's DVD, or a musician's album, you are essentially saying, "good work, buddy, I'd like to see some more from where that came from." High-paying accounting jobs don't pay you to take a degree in accounting - you have to prove, and improve, yourself. So by these rules, if a first time artist comes on the scene, the law shouldn't force everyone to buy it, or even to pay to rent it, before deciding whether "they get the job". We don't need every B-rated director getting financial backing for his second hapless audience because we were all paying guinea pigs the first time around.

In short, let the market decide whether a viable market exixts for a given product.

That said, however, not everyone who likes your work is going to buy it. Those who have the money and feel strongly enough about it will. Others won't, but please, don't accuse them of stealing from you. You can't "steal" publicly available information.

To drive this home, an example to illustrate the absurdity of the idea: A skilled street performer can make a killing in a well-selected location. (And if good enough, people will even go out of their way to a less well-selected location.) But the price is set appropriately: to what the market will bear. But people who like you and want to see more of you will choose to support you, whether it's a child with a nickel, or a professional with a $5 dollar bill. The people who listen and don't like it, or the people who just like listening to the flavour of the day, or even the people who are just to poor to afford it, are they all stealing from you? No, they're excercising they're right not to support you.

But our legally-backed "entertainment industries" (they seldom offer anything more than mere entertainment) say to one and all, be they rich, poor, adoring fan or arch enemy: "$20 or I'll sue you!"

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Lukage

I'm an anime whore, so my fansubs are legit. In fact, had it not been for these sorts of people who translate basically for donations, many mainstream shows would not get the converage and licensing they do.

Naruto wasn't all that hot in America with the manga so much until the subs were everywhere.

In regards to "the real stuff," I have no problem downloading anything that is shown on television. TV is saying "Turn on your VCR and enjoy the freeness." That said, I'm gonna download a new movie coming out tomorrow.

I'm not sure, but I do believe there is a precedent set by a US court that says it's okay to download TV shows for Time/Placeshifting reasons. Like having a VCR, but no need for a tape!

How ya doing, buddy?

If you share something that you did not buy with your own money you are a communist.

If somebody you know ever comes up to you talking about sharing, sacrafice, or anything dealing with the common good report them to someone of authority as soon as possible.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Watts

If you share something that you did not buy with your own money you are a communist.

If somebody you know ever comes up to you talking about sharing, sacrafice, or anything dealing with the common good report them to someone of authority as soon as possible.

Yes simply implying you will share music will get you convicted. Much like dissing the President will get you a one way trip to Guantanamo bay.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

Yes simply implying you will share music will get you convicted. Much like dissing the President will get you a one way trip to Guantanamo bay.

I never said that. I just said it was being a communist.

And dissing the president in a public forum still has consequences none the less. We're a nation at war... or something.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Watts

I never said that. I just said it was being a communist.

And dissing the president in a public forum still has consequences none the less. We're a nation at war... or something.

So you caught my sarcasm. I don't think people who share files are communist though, I think downloading is a great way to try before you buy and to get a hold of things that are impossible to get (like Photoshop, most people can't afford to pay over $200 for an art program). Just think how much overpriced crap most of us buy to satiate the capitalist system.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The RIAA thought they were in they were selling a "thing" but turns out the were just selling "information" at a very high price. They want to keep the current business model because the one they are shifting towards leads to less profits and more competition from the legal mp3 downloading market. All of this was brought about by people like us, so in that instance i'd say the piracy was good.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

I don't think people who share files are communist though,

Neither do I, just trying to get a rise outta someone.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

I think downloading is a great way to try before you buy and to get a hold of things that are impossible to get (like Photoshop, most people can't afford to pay over $200 for an art program).

Individual piracy doesn't really hurt the company in such cases since you're not likely to buy the software anyway.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

Just think how much overpriced crap most of us buy to satiate the capitalist system.

You sound all negative when you say that, like it's a bad thing. Overpriced crap most people will buy just means a enlarged profit margin for the company, and more debt for the consumer. Doesn't seem like such a bad system from where I'm sittin'! What could go wrong?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

As an underground hip-hop artist, I've come to understand one thing - Anyone who is going to pirate your music is someone who wasn't going to buy your shit in the first place.

I don't think I've read anything that you've said that was anymore agreeable.

However I would like to say that while most of the stuff I pirate is shit I wouldn't have bought anyway, ocassionally I do download stuff as a try-before-I-buy. I had no idea I would like certain artists/albums until I listened to them. That said, there is stuff I never owuld have bought had I not been able to listen to it all the way through. Stores with the "listening stations" that give you a poorly downgraded 30 second sample of a song don't do the album justice. You can't listen to say, a Pink Floyd album and hear a random 30 second clip from "Time" and be satisfied. You'd walk away thinking, why the fuck is this song just a cocaphony of clock chimes?

But, for everything I've pirated and truly enjoyed, I've eventually bought or intend to buy. Not even really for the artist (and fuck God no for the label) but for collection purposes. $20 is a fine enough price for a CD I will listen to 10-1000 times throughout my life. $20 for a one or two good songs, though?

Based on what I've read - and perhaps it's all or partially just pro-piracy propaganda - the artists aren't really getting shit for their CD sales, but CD sales are an idication of which artists need to be nixed and which ones don't. If you want to support an artist, that's all an album sale is ever good for. If an artist isn't at least selling albums then they might never make it that far. So I try to buy a good album especially when the artist is obscure.

Piracy isn't unethical. People claim it is the same as stealing, but it's not. If I download an album, somewhere in the world where I might have bought that CD, that CD is still sitting on the shelf. Eventually, after collecting dust (or perhaps not) it will be sent back to the label (I actually didn't know this until I saw it happen while working retail; massive amounts of CDs gather, boxed, and shipped). The store itself gets its money back, and the record label has lost the money for its shitty item. But I have not taken anything physical, therefore I don't think it counts as stealing.

Let's say I have the magical ability of alchemy and I could turn dirt into food. Would it be fair to accuse me of stealing from the local grocery store because I have replicated the essence of food instead of buying it? What if I start sharing alchemized food items and giving them to people who don't want to pay for them? Am I doing something wrong because me giving away which rightfully belongs to no one causes the original creator to not get paid?

Filesharing, in my opinion, is indeed a very pure form of communism. People don't want to admit it, and lots of people have an automatic bias toward communism, but I feel that's what filesharing and the free trade of information is leading to. There will (perhaps very soon) come an age where we don't need people to mop our floors or slap together our fast food. Only the most complex physical tasks (like surgery) won't be automated. Perhaps even those tasks will be automated and merely only watched over.

As cliche as it sounds, I can easily imagine machines mopping the floors and our fast food being made on conveyor belts. It's a logical progression as the cost of technology and its repairs becomes cheaper than the cost of paying real humans.

So, in an age where physical work and physical property cannot be sold because they are of no value, what will be left to sell? Information; intellectual property. Music, books, paintings, etc.

But information can be duplicated, and at an alarming rate. Likewise, our world is becoming so connected due to the internet and cellular technology, it will be impossible to keep it under control. Unless the future is Orwellian, there will be no way to keep us from broadcasting music that we've heard right out of our own brains and into the brains of others.

So the end result no sale of information, no sale of physical goods. At that point we'd have no choice but to throw away our selfishness and share what we know, what we've thought of, and what we've experienced.

It's a scary thought, indeed, but only because we were born into a selfish world. Or perhaps we are inherently selfish and can never be content unless we know that if we truly wnt something we can have it?

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Legato

As cliche as it sounds, I can easily imagine machines mopping the floors and our fast food being made on conveyor belts. It's a logical progression as the cost of technology and its repairs becomes cheaper than the cost of paying real humans.

So, in an age where physical work and physical property cannot be sold because they are of no value, what will be left to sell? Information; intellectual property. Music, books, paintings, etc.

You jump awfully far in your reasoning by saying that allocation of menial jobs would make the physical products of such jobs of "no value." The fact is, the owners of organizations that produce either goods or services will always require some compensation for doing so. This will always remain true, even if their overhead were to drop to zero.

By the same token, no matter how far technology increases, I think humans will always find themselves facing a full workweek. Looking at the current trend, if anything, the industrial and information ages have only increased the speed at which things occur, and how efficiently. The workload itself, however, remains constant.

In spite of its utopian illusions, technology will never eliminate or even significantly reduce humanity's workload nor the capitalist drive within its entrepreneurs.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I left a chunk out of my reasoning, yes. My point was the replacement of humans with machines and AI; the replacement of salespeople with online interactive demos and music samples, etc, will make a lot of jobs nonexistent (unless companies are forced to employ humans over machines) and eventually there would be so few jobs that cannot be performed by humans for the most part, having a 9-5 steady job would be a thing of the past, and only maintenance and surveillance of machines would be necessary. Surely we will need programmers and scientists, but burger flippers and janitors?

I'm not entirely sure how this would play out, when the only jobs are the jobs that require true human intellect and fuzzy logic beyond that of a machine; I'm just saying that there's going to be significantly less work to go around (let's also add in a growing population into the equation.)

Less physical work means increases sales in intellectual property.

"I designed this new robot; not only does it mop floors but it waxes them."

Company A buys it, Company B reverse engineers it and makes an imitation/improvement and sells it. Perhaps the tools are available to make one in your house, so a "pirate" takes the concept and tells you how to make a mopbot in your house for cheap instead of buying one. Another dude creates custom firmware for it, now it will mow your lawn too. You no longer need to buy that lawnmower bot, that's a sale lost for Company C. Needless to say, you can't do this type of thing with real people.

You can't even say this shit is ridiculous. Robots that sweep floors are already available; they just aren't mainstream.

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

By the same token, no matter how far technology increases, I think humans will always find themselves facing a full workweek. Looking at the current trend, if anything, the industrial and information ages have only increased the speed at which things occur, and how efficiently. The workload itself, however, remains constant.

So do you think it's accurate to say that the amount of work we find ourselves doing today is nearly the same as the amount we would typically be doing, say, a hundred years ago (on any given part of the planet)? Several hundred years ago? Certainly this is easier and less time consuming than foraging for food and trying to find fallen pieces of wood suitable for making fire.

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

In spite of its utopian illusions, technology will never eliminate or even significantly reduce humanity's workload

I don't consider my vision of the future "utopian", I look at it as very scary but realistic. Granted, a lot of things don't turn out like they're supposed to because of singular grand events that alter the course of time. I'm saying if things keep going the way they do now, society will eventually be this way or something like it.

Secondly, I think our workload is reduced constantly thanks to technology. We have the potential to get any song we want for free right off the internet, at our convenience. Previously - say, twenty years ago - how easy was it to get a copy of a book or tape you didn't want to pay for? You might go the library, but that takes physical effort and some time. You might copy a tape by connecting two tape players, but that takes effort and time as well.

Today, I can download a book in maybe thirty seconds, I can acquire nearly any album I want in thirty minutes. I could theoretically gather more (subjectively) useful information in a week, maybe in a day than I could process in perhaps my entire lifetime.

This doesn't necessarily count as "work". I'm not getting paid for it, but it just shows how thanks to the internet and digital technology I can do shit exponentially faster than I could in the past. This has, does, and will apply to all things we do, as time moves on.

So, I've just pointed out examples of how quickly I could use computers/the internet/software to accomplish tasks that previously took hours, days, or weeks. I ask you, what has come to be as a direct result or indirect result of such technologies that has slowed us down and given us just as much work to do today as we had to do in previous decades?

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

nor the capitalist drive within its entrepreneurs.

You might not be able to take the drive out of the entrepreneurs, but with the right effort you can inadvertently have them shove it up their asses.

Rant:
I think, if anything, a larger number of people are getting fed up with capitalism and what it's brought about. (I consider the concept of communism every day.) One of those things are $20 CDs with 1-3 good tracks, $9 movie tickets to blatantly shitty ass movies that they practically have no choice to see because nothing better came out that Friday, gas prices, etc. But no one wants to step up their game and make good shit, they just want to sue kids and hope it'll stop if the sue enough people to scare millions of users off of The Pirate Bay so they stop downloading their shitty movies.

Go to a fast food joint and get the same goop on top of goop on wedged between a stale bun with a piece of microwaved soybeef in the middle of it. This is capitalism. You can tell these kids are getting paid well and they haven't lost the will to work because they took turns spitting in my burger.

Can't buy a jar of mayo and a box of toaster waffles without knowing either item is probably paying the same conglomerate that's ultimately going to buy another conglomerate until I'm buying my jeans, tootbrushes, and waffles from the same conglomerate.

Capitalism sucks ass.

Jam it back in, in the dark.