Re: "figuring out ways to help provide the public what they want."
The "public" is a potential customer. They are always *potential* customers, pirates or not. We spend millions of dollars collectively on advertising to encourage potential customers (the public) to pay for products. Just becaues one of those individuals chooses against paying for your product does NOT mean they are not customers or have somehow wronged you.
All pirates are potential customers that have chosen, for one reason or another, to not pay for your product. As someone who wishes to profit off your product, it is YOUR job to sell your product, not the potential customer's job to pay you for what you feel entitled to.
The stupid wasp analogy aside (really? That's the best you could come up with?), increasing levels of piracy are only an issue if there is a corresponding decrease in sales. Imaginary profits can't be lost. As media consumption increases, and the market refuses to meet the demand, more of that demand is going to be supplied by pirates.
The entertainment industry is not losing any money because they aren't offering the same service. It's like a car company trying to claim buses caused them to lose money and lobbied for legislation to ban public transit. You can't lose money when you aren't offering the same product.
So yes, pirates won't pay for a product that doesn't exist. Obviously that will destroy the entertainment industry. I can only hope it dies sooner rather than later so someone with some brains can make a fortune on providing customers with the product they want to buy, not the product you want to sell. There's a difference. Try not to think too hard about it.
Re: Not inconsistent to catch two thieves at once.
Ooob, are you being serious or is this a joke? I honestly can't tell.
Let me see if I understand. So a person deposits stolen money into a bank. The police find out there is stolen money in the bank. The police should charge the bank with aiding criminal activity? Or for not identifying that the money was stolen before accepting it?
Never mind. The only rational solution is to ban banks altogether. Obviously.
What market costs? This is where the old way of doing business is WAY out of line with the new. You don't need production and promotion costs!
Modern technology has made what used to be the domain of hollywood and big studios available to the home user. Production can be done at a fraction of the cost it used to require; the only reason it still costs so much is because of all the licensing deals with the old systems that drive the prices through the roof.
And promotion is now essentially free. All a creator has to do is make something good and stick it online. If it's on a service that someone suscribes to or is paid by advertising (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, etc.) word will get around. The internet will, for free, promote the heck out of anything it likes.
If these services weren't profitable and couldn't compete with free they wouldn't exist at all. They do, despite ridiculous licensing fees and inane distribution restrictions (*cough* Hulu Plus *cough*). Remove those restrictions and artificial costs, take out the useless middlemen, and the creators make more profit than ever.
If companies spent even a fraction of the money they now spend on lawyers on production instead this whole copyright issue would be irrelevant. If you want to know where all the money is going it's not the internet "pirate," it's the copyright pirate-er, lawyer.
I've always been skeptical about this law. Let's think about the classic example...someone shouts "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. What do you honestly expect is going to happen? Everyone is going to flee for the exits, trampling women and children?
Yeah, right. Everyone is going to look around, see there isn't a fire, and tell the idiot to shut up and stop talking in a movie. Heck, even if there was a fire half the theater would walk calmly out and the other half would probably walk over and stare at the flames like idiots.
Just last week in Hawaii there was a tsunami warning and half of Honolulu went down onto the beach to watch the water receed. Thankfully there was only a six-foot draw but these guys KNEW that there was potential danger.
This is just like when people said Wikipedia would never work because people would go in and add bogus information to all the pages. Does that happen? Sure. But then 50 more people call out their BS and it goes away.
Let's be perfectly honest here. Can anyone think of a single social issue, ever, that has been solved solely by making more laws? Sure, some of these issues had laws regarding them as well, but it was always pressure from society that actually made the change.
On the post: Swedish Pirate Party Stops Hosting The Pirate Bay, But Intends To Sue Anti-Piracy Organization For Unlawful Coercion
Re: "figuring out ways to help provide the public what they want."
All pirates are potential customers that have chosen, for one reason or another, to not pay for your product. As someone who wishes to profit off your product, it is YOUR job to sell your product, not the potential customer's job to pay you for what you feel entitled to.
The stupid wasp analogy aside (really? That's the best you could come up with?), increasing levels of piracy are only an issue if there is a corresponding decrease in sales. Imaginary profits can't be lost. As media consumption increases, and the market refuses to meet the demand, more of that demand is going to be supplied by pirates.
The entertainment industry is not losing any money because they aren't offering the same service. It's like a car company trying to claim buses caused them to lose money and lobbied for legislation to ban public transit. You can't lose money when you aren't offering the same product.
So yes, pirates won't pay for a product that doesn't exist. Obviously that will destroy the entertainment industry. I can only hope it dies sooner rather than later so someone with some brains can make a fortune on providing customers with the product they want to buy, not the product you want to sell. There's a difference. Try not to think too hard about it.
On the post: Megaupload Helped DOJ In NinjaVideo Prosecution; And DOJ Uses That Against Megaupload
Re: Not inconsistent to catch two thieves at once.
Let me see if I understand. So a person deposits stolen money into a bank. The police find out there is stolen money in the bank. The police should charge the bank with aiding criminal activity? Or for not identifying that the money was stolen before accepting it?
Never mind. The only rational solution is to ban banks altogether. Obviously.
/sigh
On the post: Copyright Hardliners Adapt 'Copyright Reform' Language; They Just Mean In The Other Direction
Re: Re:
Modern technology has made what used to be the domain of hollywood and big studios available to the home user. Production can be done at a fraction of the cost it used to require; the only reason it still costs so much is because of all the licensing deals with the old systems that drive the prices through the roof.
And promotion is now essentially free. All a creator has to do is make something good and stick it online. If it's on a service that someone suscribes to or is paid by advertising (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, etc.) word will get around. The internet will, for free, promote the heck out of anything it likes.
If these services weren't profitable and couldn't compete with free they wouldn't exist at all. They do, despite ridiculous licensing fees and inane distribution restrictions (*cough* Hulu Plus *cough*). Remove those restrictions and artificial costs, take out the useless middlemen, and the creators make more profit than ever.
If companies spent even a fraction of the money they now spend on lawyers on production instead this whole copyright issue would be irrelevant. If you want to know where all the money is going it's not the internet "pirate," it's the copyright pirate-er, lawyer.
On the post: Being A Jackass On Twitter Shouldn't Be Illegal; Public Shame Should Be Enough
Fire in a crowded theater...
Yeah, right. Everyone is going to look around, see there isn't a fire, and tell the idiot to shut up and stop talking in a movie. Heck, even if there was a fire half the theater would walk calmly out and the other half would probably walk over and stare at the flames like idiots.
Just last week in Hawaii there was a tsunami warning and half of Honolulu went down onto the beach to watch the water receed. Thankfully there was only a six-foot draw but these guys KNEW that there was potential danger.
This is just like when people said Wikipedia would never work because people would go in and add bogus information to all the pages. Does that happen? Sure. But then 50 more people call out their BS and it goes away.
Let's be perfectly honest here. Can anyone think of a single social issue, ever, that has been solved solely by making more laws? Sure, some of these issues had laws regarding them as well, but it was always pressure from society that actually made the change.
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