I take it you've never used Steam. I can't give free copies of games I've bought to friends. What I can do is buy the game and send it to my friend's account instead of mine. It's a very simple and apparently popular system. Gifts and free redistribution are two different things.
Another advantage the Steam-for-movies concept has over Netflix is that it makes more than a couple dimes per viewer. As in, people pay for each item instead of just buying a subscription. This only works, however, if the service is as accessible as Netflix, meaning it's on everything that can play video. And it doesn't even need to charge what retail does to make the producers more money per sale. Steam provides 70% of purchase price to the content creators, as opposed to 30% at retail, so selling at anything more than half the price of retail means the company makes more money than if they sell a box.
Actually most of that is just what Steam does but with the word "games" replaced with "movies". So the business model has been proven to work.
Sorry, cynics, but reality's actually kinda cool sometimes.
Those who count on voters for support need to understand that this nation is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their rights are at stake. Don’t ask me to vote for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my rights are at stake.
It's comments like this that make me think that people don't really grasp what "free" and "infinite" mean here. I've seen a number of comments here in the vein of "nothing is really free" and "everything is finite", which while true are also completely wrong. For economic purposes, a file is free and infinite. It is not possible for iTunes or the Pirate Bay to run out of Metallica albums; they have the data, and even if everyone in the world downloaded several copies from each they would not have lost a bit of it. Supply expands to meet demand without any additional input; that is the only useful definition of a free and infinite resource. Even air is more limited than data. It's annoying seeing people repeating wise-sounding generalizations and pretending that what they said is actually insightful or relevant.
That's good for education, and I wish I had been taught by your wife, but I was extending the comparison between school books and SOPA that a previous poster made. When dealing with acts of Congress you do not need to succeed in life, you need the opinions of people who know how to read acts of Congress and their ramifications. Relying on your own judgement leads to supporting bills that you don't fully understand or haven't fully considered, or opposing bills just because they sound similar to something you didn't like.
In a classroom setting a student will almost always decline to read a book in favor of Sparknotes or a friend who has a greater tolerance for literature. They may not have read the actual text, but they know that George shoots Lennie and likely have a better idea of the symbolism and crap that's in the story than if they read it themselves. Allowing more knowledgeable people to interpret something for you is not a bad thing. After all, they know more than you do.
The end doesn't condemn the means any more than it justifies it. Their end may be to get free stuff, but if their means results in preserving cultural artifacts from the long-ago era of the late 1900's, then until a better preservation method is proposed and enacted lenience is necessary anyway.
On the post: Hollywood Wants To Kill Piracy? No Problem: Just Offer Something Better
Re: Wah. What a little baby.
Another advantage the Steam-for-movies concept has over Netflix is that it makes more than a couple dimes per viewer. As in, people pay for each item instead of just buying a subscription. This only works, however, if the service is as accessible as Netflix, meaning it's on everything that can play video. And it doesn't even need to charge what retail does to make the producers more money per sale. Steam provides 70% of purchase price to the content creators, as opposed to 30% at retail, so selling at anything more than half the price of retail means the company makes more money than if they sell a box.
Actually most of that is just what Steam does but with the word "games" replaced with "movies". So the business model has been proven to work.
Sorry, cynics, but reality's actually kinda cool sometimes.
On the post: White House Petition Demands TPP Process Be Open & Transparent
On the post: The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free
Re: Nothing Free
On the post: Young People Followed SOPA News More Than Election News
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On the post: Young People Followed SOPA News More Than Election News
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On the post: Why Piracy Is Indispensable For The Survival Of Our Culture
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On the post: Hollywood Gets To Party With TPP Negotiators; Public Interest Groups Get Thrown Out Of Hotel
Re: Bets
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