What the Times is up against is the age-old confusion of price (what it costs) versus value (what it's worth to somebody). The former is generally what some party demands for access/use/ownership, and the latter is what other parties are willing to pay for it.
The latter is the problem, since it's different for each and every person, and even for them, it varies from moment to moment and is powerfully influenced by circumstance.
To give an example of this, consider a bottle of water. For us, the average price is about $1. Anybody remember the old Twilight Zone episode where two men were stranded in a desert and carrying bars of gold. One of the men had a full canteen. He demanded a bar for (you ready for this) one drink from his canteen. And got it.
End of episode: the man with the canteen runs out of water, reaches a road, but he's dying of thirst, and offers his gold to a passing driver before he dies. The driver comments "He offered me gold. Seems to think it was worth something." The driver's companion asks "Isn't it?" Reply: "Not since they figured out how to synthesize it."
The people running the NYT clearly place a high value on their content. Their problem is, they're pricing it accordingly and overlooking the fact that, while "their" content is their rice bowl, it's not anybody else's.
I mean, the migraines I get are presumably free with the tickets (the glasses cost $3 where I live), but how is this adding any value to the film, instead of to painkillers?
Interesting Parallels to what Eric Flint Has Said For Years
I find it interesting that other people are finally waking up to what author Eric Flint (1632 et. many al.) has said for years in his "Salvos Against Big Brother" columns
in "Jim Baen's Universe" magazine. The articles had all of the above and more in them and they started in 2006.
Availability isn't the only factor in buy vs. pirate, though.
As an example, a friend of mine recently discovered a large selection of pirated books. She told me over a dozen Harlequin romances, and a Rachael Caine book, all of which she was interested in.
I asked her what she'd done. The reply was interesting. The Caine book was by a publisher which had stripped all of Rachael's work from fictionwise during the great Amazon-Publisher War. So she kept the pirate edition.
I asked her about the Harlequins. Her reply was "They've never f***ed me over for either price or availability. I bought those, of course.
How publishers and other "content providers" are perceived is clearly also important.
You seem to be confusing potential sales with actual sales.
Every encounter with the program is a potential sale, but not every potential sale becomes actual, even if the program isn't pirated. And it's easy to see every pirated sale as "lost" even if, in many if not most cases, the individual encountering the program is somebody who would not buy it in any case.
For example, I don't have time for games. I'm a software professional by day and proofreader by night. My eyeballs are committed 100%. I might examine a pirated copy of the game to test it, but I would not, under any circumstances I can imagine buy the game. NO sale would be lost to the pirated copy. So how is the developer hurt by a non-buyer trying and then deleting a fully-functional pirate copy?
And over the "long term," as Eric Flint once remarked, "obscurity is the Great Enemy." The game leaped from obscurity, and over time, the developer will be making a lot more money from it than he would if it languished in obscurity as "just one more damned app."
And just HOW are they going to apply DRM to paper?
If you really want an electronic copy, and the idiots publishing it want $19 for an electronic copy of a long-in-print book, get a used one, chop the spine and feed it through a scanner. Instant PDF.
What is the golden goose? Customer regard and loyalty. Hollywood has become a town run by lawyers and accountants whose sole focus is money. Picture quality? Theater experience? The audience itself? Who in the Hollywood executive suites gives a damn about them? We're just wallets, and don't count.
The result is that they're losing their audience. Theaters have become a place for teenagers to get out of the house and out from under parental eyes, and the "quality" of the pictures shows it. The result, at least at my end, is Netflix, Redbox, and never EVER buy a DVD.
Re: Re: Re: I had trouble reading this article and the blog entry
Actually, aside from the fact that this is seriously off-topic, I can testify both to the spelling and (Hauls out non-geek credit killing knife.) it's NOT Klingon.
Re: Re: I had trouble reading this article and the blog entry
No. It's a term for someone whose mother was so ugly, stupid, and ill-behaved that creating them required the compassionate assistance of a member of her immediate family.
On the post: It Took The NY Times 14 Months And $40 Million Dollars To Build The World's Stupidest Paywall?
Price vs. Value
The latter is the problem, since it's different for each and every person, and even for them, it varies from moment to moment and is powerfully influenced by circumstance.
To give an example of this, consider a bottle of water. For us, the average price is about $1. Anybody remember the old Twilight Zone episode where two men were stranded in a desert and carrying bars of gold. One of the men had a full canteen. He demanded a bar for (you ready for this) one drink from his canteen. And got it.
End of episode: the man with the canteen runs out of water, reaches a road, but he's dying of thirst, and offers his gold to a passing driver before he dies. The driver comments "He offered me gold. Seems to think it was worth something." The driver's companion asks "Isn't it?" Reply: "Not since they figured out how to synthesize it."
The people running the NYT clearly place a high value on their content. Their problem is, they're pricing it accordingly and overlooking the fact that, while "their" content is their rice bowl, it's not anybody else's.
On the post: Next Generation 'Piracy': Piracy Goes 3D
How is 3D "adding" value?
On the post: Bon Jovi Thinks Steve Jobs Killed Music; More Old Rockers Shooing Those Darn Kids Off Their Lawn
"Magical Moment"
On the post: Confirmed: Chris Dodd Lies, Takes Top Lobbying Job, Promises To Trample Consumer Rights
You expected truth from a politician?
On the post: Supreme Court Says AT&T Has No Right To 'Personal Privacy'
To quote Poul Anderson
On the post: Not All Porn Companies Suing File Sharers; Some Are Looking To Adapt And Compete
Interesting Parallels to what Eric Flint Has Said For Years
in "Jim Baen's Universe" magazine. The articles had all of the above and more in them and they started in 2006.
On the post: How Neil Gaiman Went From Fearing 'Piracy' To Believing It's 'An Incredibly Good Thing'
Availability isn't the only factor in buy vs. pirate, though.
I asked her what she'd done. The reply was interesting. The Caine book was by a publisher which had stripped all of Rachael's work from fictionwise during the great Amazon-Publisher War. So she kept the pirate edition.
I asked her about the Harlequins. Her reply was "They've never f***ed me over for either price or availability. I bought those, of course.
How publishers and other "content providers" are perceived is clearly also important.
On the post: Nintendo President: The Free Market Is Not A Game We Like To Play
To quote Mal in one of the outtakes from "Serenity"
On the post: You Would Think Sony Knew Better Than To Install A Rootkit In The PS3 [Updated]
If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
On the post: YouTube Notes That Free Music, With Ads, Pays As Well, If Not Better, Than Paid
Waste of time and annoys the pig.
On the post: FiveFingers Blocks Right Finger -- Just Asking For Middle One
Does that include the ridiculous "noRightClick.js" script?
They didn't even bother to minimize it.
On the post: How Facebook Dealt With The Tunisian Government Trying To Steal Every User's Passwords
Re: All Sites Should Be Doing This For Passwords
Experience is a harsh school, but some will learn in none other.
On the post: Taking The Long View: App Developer Happy That Piracy Doubled His Sales
re: Anonymous Coward, Jan 24th, 2011 @ 12:39pm
Every encounter with the program is a potential sale, but not every potential sale becomes actual, even if the program isn't pirated. And it's easy to see every pirated sale as "lost" even if, in many if not most cases, the individual encountering the program is somebody who would not buy it in any case.
For example, I don't have time for games. I'm a software professional by day and proofreader by night. My eyeballs are committed 100%. I might examine a pirated copy of the game to test it, but I would not, under any circumstances I can imagine buy the game. NO sale would be lost to the pirated copy. So how is the developer hurt by a non-buyer trying and then deleting a fully-functional pirate copy?
And over the "long term," as Eric Flint once remarked, "obscurity is the Great Enemy." The game leaped from obscurity, and over time, the developer will be making a lot more money from it than he would if it languished in obscurity as "just one more damned app."
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Re: Re: 'sOK
If you really want an electronic copy, and the idiots publishing it want $19 for an electronic copy of a long-in-print book, get a used one, chop the spine and feed it through a scanner. Instant PDF.
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Hollywood has *already* killed the golden goose.
What is the golden goose? Customer regard and loyalty. Hollywood has become a town run by lawyers and accountants whose sole focus is money. Picture quality? Theater experience? The audience itself? Who in the Hollywood executive suites gives a damn about them? We're just wallets, and don't count.
The result is that they're losing their audience. Theaters have become a place for teenagers to get out of the house and out from under parental eyes, and the "quality" of the pictures shows it. The result, at least at my end, is Netflix, Redbox, and never EVER buy a DVD.
Feh.
On the post: Why Won't Copyright Holders Run Studies On The Actual Impact Of Piracy?
Their Minds Are Made Up
On the post: Expendables Producers Decide To Demand Cash From Fans Who Downloaded
Expendables is worth stealing?
On the post: Another Reminder That You Don't Own Your eBooks: Amazon Removing More eBooks You 'Bought' From Archives
Technical glitch my butt!
On the post: Copyright Troll Righthaven's Number One Supporter Caught Putting Infringing Material On His Own Blog
Re: Re: Re: I had trouble reading this article and the blog entry
On the post: Copyright Troll Righthaven's Number One Supporter Caught Putting Infringing Material On His Own Blog
Re: Re: I had trouble reading this article and the blog entry
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