tootie

All I can say to this is, "WTF???"

No, we're not in the same boat as the music industry. Most content producers stand to make at best a few thousand dollars from each photo set because the internet is just about the only sales venue they have (except for occasional sales to magazine, which still doesn't amount to THAT much.)

Plus, artists' songs are played every day FOR FREE on the radio and TV's music channels. They reach millions and millions of people quickly and easily. Those people go out and buy the CD's sometimes. Content producers get a few hundreds hits to their sites per day on good days, maybe a few thousand for some of the larger ones?

Music artists make millions of dollars per year, while some content producers are lucky to make 100k a year or even less for newer ones. Some of the really top-notch ones might clear upwards of a million or two (maybe more, I don't know), but certainly nowhere near what a music artist like Britney Spears or (cough, cough) Metallica would make.

I'm not saying it's right to trade MP3's, because in all actuality it's not. But since content producers have no other real means of distribution (meaning they don't have CD sales at Wal-Mart and Wherehouse Music or sold-out concerts or DVD sales or licensed merchandise sales or...) then everything stolen on the internet is taking money right out of the hands of hard-working photographers and distributors. These photographers and distributors make nowhere near the amount that serious musicians make so stealing from them is just like walking into their house and stealing their TV or somthing... you're costing them money that they might not have otherwise.

Not to mention these places that go into paysites and steal EVERYTHING, then put it all up for free. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who gets that paysite for free, is potentially costing that paysite owner $20 to $40 a month in the lost billing fees, and in the case of hacked passwords... if one gets out to a few thousand people it could cost them mulit-thousands of dollars in bandwidth.

Now, personally I don't care if this is the real Necro posting here or not. I'm just hoping that one person will view this post and make a good, stand-up decision about content theft. I stole some content when I first started almost 7 years ago, and I read a post just like this, telling about why it was wrong. At the time, I had no idea that the content I had stolen was not public domain since it came from newsgroups. Perhaps there are still people who believe this and my point is to educate. It is not that expensive to buy content, and anyone who wants to give away free pictures (like those that post hundreds of free pics on message boards) should know that you can make some money doing it and STILL STAY LEGAL!

I learned, I cared, and if just one person even BEGINS to see the light from this post, I'll feel my point has been made. And hey, if not, at least I got some typing practice in.

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