Quote:
I still fail to see why me having a copy damages them if it didn't actually result in them losing a potential sale.
There is no loss of income if they didn't lose a potential sale. There is only loss of income if the downloader would have bought the content had he not downloaded it.
|
I guess this is where we fundamentally disagree. To me is a clear situation. If you download a CD illegally you now have a copy of it and the band (or whoever owns the music) didn't get paid for it. You have something of theirs and you didn't pay for it. It doesn't matter if you would have never bought it or not, you still have it and they didn't get paid for it. Maybe some bands benefit from this because there are people that would have never bought the CD that listen to it and end up liking it. Maybe they buy future CDs or they pay to go see them in concert when they come to town. In the end though it still doesn't change the original situation. If you download a CD you have it. You are in possession of the music and you didn't pay for it and that is damaging to owner of the music.
Think of it like this. Say you own a giant apartment complex. At any given time 10% of the apartments are empty. I find this out and sneak into one of them and I live there. I don't pay rent, but I don't bother anyone either. You aren't out renting the apartment because if you found out I was there I would leave and if you ever rent it out I would leave. So it is empty. You are gaining nothing by having it sit empty, so then really, you are losing nothing by having me live there for free. I would have never paid to live here if I was forced, so you don't really lose anything. Correct? I really don't think so. I get a benefit. that benfit being a place to live. You, the owner of that apartment, are not being compensated for my use of that apartment so I am damaging you. The same goes for music. You download a CD you get the CD and have the benefit of owning it. The owner of it gets nothing from you owning it so they are damaged. The argument that you would have never bought it doesn't matter. You have it, that is what matters.
Quote:
|
Oh, but it is very different from a gift. If you had bought them as a gift, there would be another sale. Instead, now, there only is a single sale.
|
I guess I miss-spoke when I made my original point. I meant to say if I bought you a book and gave it to you as a gift, I purchased it, but gave it to you. I didn't read it, I just gave it to you. So there would be only one copy in existence.
Quote:
The thing about there only being a single copy when something gets borrowed only really makes sense if you consider the physical item to be the important part, rather than the intellectual content. But physical copies aren't usually what people are paying for - they pay for the intellectual content.
With things like books and movies, which people often only read or watch once, borrowing a copy has the same possibility of preventing a potential sale from happening as downloading a copy does.
A good example is a certain site I know, which arranges for people to trade their DVDs. This allows people to watch tons of movies for the price of one or a few DVDs, since they just keep trading out the ones they have already seen for new ones.
The only fundamental differences with downloading movies here are that a physical content bearer is coupled with the content, and that only 1 person at a time will be using the content - but with possibly dozens of people eventually using a single paid copy of the content.
Imagine two students in a dorm. One has a DVD that the other wants to watch. Is walking over to the other's room and handing him the DVD that much different from sending a digital copy?
|
It really isn't the same. If I buy a DVD and watch it then give it a friend who watches it and gives it to someone they work with who watches it and gives it to their mom then four or more people all got to watch the movie but only one DVD was ever purchased. Here is the difference. If I rip that DVD and send you a digital copy of it. I still own the DVD and you now own a copy of it. If you give it five friends they now all own it. So now there are seven copies of it in existence. Sure six of them are digital, but they are still copies. People can and do delete them, but many don't and they can watch the movie again whenever they want. With the original scenario I would no longer have the DVD if I wanted to watch it again I would have to borrow, rent or buy it. With downloading I was able to share it time and again without ever having to give it up.
Quote:
I think you will find that many content producers disagree with you on the idea that songs on the radio or shows on television are meant as gifts. In fact, a number of content producers have been taking action against exactly these things.
This has caused many countries to impose a kind of "content tax" on writable media (cds, dvds, tapes, etc), the proceeds of which go to the content industry. Ironically, that's given a pretty strong justification to downloaders - they pay the content industry whenever they buy writable media, so why should they not be allowed to take the product they're already paying for?
|
I won't pretend to be well versed enough in intellectual property law and international content tax law to argue this. My original point is that TV shows are shown for free with a basic understanding. You get to watch the show for free in exchange for sitting through some commercials. One of the problems the industry is wrestling with is the TIVO situation because people record the shows then fast forward through the commercials. That problem has existed ever since the VCR has been around, but TIVO makes it much more convenient to record multiple shows. Many people record shows all week the watch them on the weekend and fast forward past all the commercials. The studios are now working product placements into the shows as a way to get sponsors more visibility. In the end the studios understand people record the shows and watch them later and often watch them multiple times. they aren't too worried about it because they give the shows away on TV and were not expecting you to pay for them in the first place. The same can be said for some music singles. They play them on the radio, TV and websites as a promotional tool. Many bands give away a single song to encourage people to buy their full CD so recording a song off the radio isn't a big deal because they put it on there for you to listen to for free and were not expecting to get paid from you for it.
Quote:
I think you've hit the real problem at the heart of all this here: the problem isn't so much one of principle, as it is one of scale.
Before, sharing was limited by technical means, meaning it could not have any serious impact on the content creation industry. These days, technology enables people to share content with a virtually unlimited amount of people, causing it to have a much bigger impact on the content creation industry.
The question is whether this development can be stopped without arbitrary, draconian laws being imposed, though. Remember, laws that stop the spreading of content can usually also be used to stop the spreading of information.
A new balance between content creation, consumers and laws will have to be found. Ineffective laws can only be arbitrarily applied for so long, but eventually, something serious will need to change.
|
In the end this is the real case. Downloading isn't going to stop. As broadband rolls out worldwide it will be harder and harder to stop illegal downloading. Companies could bankrupt themselves prosecuting it and it would still not stop. Any broad measure they might take would greatly hinder access for all those that don't do this. Rick Rubin has often wondered if in the future you just give the music away for free and try to make the money in different areas like touring and licensing and merchandise and stuff like that. I don't know that something like that would work, but you never know. I think over the next five years or so we will see some pretty big cases and ideas coming forth on how to deal with older copyright laws and rights of copyright owners in the modern digital age.