4 ms·

Piracy is not a market correction. It is a superior product. What.cd and waffles.fm, with their depth of product and usability, make iTunes and Amazon music see

• mtoledo 17y ago
  In my mind, justifying piracy just because their products are superior is like justifying theft just because the commercial versions are crippled. Besides, piracy is observed in other industries where there's no such difference (games, books), so I don't think that's the driving force.
  • ewjordan 17y ago
    Nobody's saying piracy is right. Just that it's a natural, predictable occurrence that will be part of any digital economy, and that any realistic theory of markets needs to account for it. Most Econ 101 treatments assume full compliance with laws, which in this case is an absolutely devastating assumption, because supply and demand don't tell us much at all when copying is as easy and anonymous as it is. The problem: economically, in many (most?) cases piracy is the rational choice. If I want a product that is sold for $20, but it's available for free (illegally) as a torrent, then I have to weigh the $20 savings vs. the risk of being caught and the financial penalty if caught. Since the risk of being caught is extremely small, well under 1% (practically zero in some cases), even a several thousand dollar fine is not enough to tip the scales in favor of purchase. ...until we consider morals, which in a sense can be considered to have financial value. To some people, the desire to "do right" is worth a lot, enough to make piracy "cost" more than the purchase. But for many more, the moral value of paying for a game/CD/movie/etc legitimately does not balance out the gain they would receive by pirating. These decisions depend on the particulars, obviously - if you like the artist, you'll assign a higher moral value to paying them, and if you hate a company, you're not going to give a second thought to pirating their software. Put another way: do you feel $9 worth of bad when you pirate a $10 CD? If not, then you are making the wrong decision when you pay for it. The original claim is correct, but in a roundabout way: piracy is (at least in part) a result of the fact that prices are higher than the moral cost that people suffer when they pirate them, and it should be exerting a downward price pressure to normalize the two factors (actually, it should be applying a downward pressure only until an optimal point - there are many subtleties involved in figuring that point out, and I'm not actually sure that we're too far off from it, but I'll leave speculation about that for another rant...). Groups like the RIAA have tried to respond by raising the cost of piracy instead of lowering the cost of purchase (these costs include things like inconvenience, payment hassles, etc). It seems unlikely that they will be able to push the average cost to a pirate high enough, though, unless they can massively increase the enforcement rate, which is rather unlikely. So we're stuck in a bit of a market stalemate. The upside (depending on your POV) of which is that it's pretty much a no-brainer for a lot of people to pirate a lot of stuff, and they're getting loads of value for very little cost. Edit: Yes, I am suggesting that instead of price approaching marginal cost ($0), it should be approaching the less tangible "I'm a bad person" moral cost that people incur when they don't pay for something, plus the inconvenience cost of pirating, both of which are usually (but not always) nonzero. Note the difference between this and donation systems: the crucial difference is that the "I'm a good person" value that people get by donating to an artist is not equal to the moral value they lose by pirating, which is typically higher. I suspect it is better to charge for something, even if you know and accept that some people will pirate it, than to give it away for free and solicit donations.
    • nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      give this man your upvotes. repeat after me: economic statement are value free. nobody said piracy was good or bad. piracy is a natural outcome given human preferences.
      • seertaak 17y ago
        Ok, so now repeat after me: murder is not good or bad. Murder simply is; a natural outcome given human preferences. I'm obviously being flippant: being a 'natural outcome given human preferences' does not render piracy immune from judgement as good or bad. As I'm sure you'll agree, murder is one perfectly natural activity (as evidenced by its prominence in regions of the world where the rule of law is weak) which is undeniably bad. And I think piracy is bad. To those that think it is ok, I meekly and politely suggest that you make an effort to empathize with an indie game programmer whose work is pirated many times in excess of sales, leaving said programmer without the requisite resources for follow-ups or improvements -- to say nothing of personal compensation. The pirate (or filesharer) derives enjoyment out of the programmer's work, and yet the programmer has not been compensated, nor has he consented to the pirate's use. This is unjust. To claim that e.g. filesharing, where the activity is 'non-commercial', is not theft (and therefore not unjust) simply because the file is duplicated rather than moved is just as specious as to claim that an employee at Google should be allowed to take Google's proprietary source code and algorithms, leave the company, and to publish them on github or elsewhere, because 'sharing is caring', and because, hey, the original is still on Google's servers, right? -- without fear that they will be punished by the law. Or put yourself in the shoes of a musician, like me (shameless plug: www.myspace.com/martindifeo), who after spending considerable time and energy and financial resources into his music, is faced with people telling him, with no apparent irony, on the one hand that they love music and respect musicians, and on the other that he (and other digital content creators) must simply accept that his music will be pirated. (The OP may not explicitly say it, but this statement is actually somewhat timid. For those who hold the view that music piracy is unavoidable, and therefore simply to be incorporated into the 'business model' or 'economic model', typically couple this view with a vehement opposition to the introduction of any legal or technological instrument to actually enforce digital rights, be it DRM, deep-packet inspection, graduated response, etc., thereby encouraging and, in effect, lobbying for the very conditions he claims are unavoidable.) The OP proposes instead that the musician engage, in effect, in a PR campaign to win over the 'hearts and minds' of fans, in order to induce them to pay some 'token gesture' fee for the music even though, let's be honest, it's totally unnecessary as the OP himself states. I, for one, would like to think that my (ok...I'm being optimistic here) fans aren't idiots, and I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of having to guilt-trip or otherwise trick them into pitying me enough to send me a few coppers. I'm not destitute, I wasn't e.g. born in the slums of Rio de Janeiro... I can't play the pity card very well. I don't want to take on causes, no matter how noble, simply to curry favour. Call me crazy, but I think that the normal and correct way for transactions to occur in a modern, civilized, capitalist economy calls for the producer of the good to set the price -- without fear that his product can be appropriated unlawfully. If that price is too high, then consumers are free not to purchase, or, more pertinently, to purchase from a lower-priced competitor. And, no, by competitor, I don't mean to say TPB or the like, I mean another musicians who offers his music for free or at lower cost. I challenge anyone to name a single instance in history in which widespread and systematic violation of property rights -- real or intellectual -- have led to anything other than net impoverishment. To believe that, simply because it is coupled to the technological marvel that is the internet, piracy and filesharing are ok and to be tolerated, is akin to saying that fusion bombs are 'ok' because, after all, they employ such exquisite quantum physics. Technological advances can be used to encourage good, civil behaviour, and for bad, disrespectful behaviour, like filesharing and piracy, where one minority constituency (the musicians and associated lines of work) are violated and left impoverished for the benefit of the majority (the consumers). AK47s can be purchased for a mere few hundred dollars in many regions, such is the wonder of modern manufacturing. Should we therefore all expect, to use a topical phrase, a bullet in the (mother*$%^ing) head? ;) Just the thoughts of a concerned musician and onetime hacker...
• ErrantX 17y ago
  > When the music industry can offer a product superior to piracy Problem there is that the vast majority of people - be they pirates or normal consumers- cant tell the difference between the quality. (also, TBH it's complete bull because a large amount of ripped music is of pretty poor quality in my experience)
  • rms 17y ago
    I was referring specifically to the music hydra and its 175,000 users as the example of the superior product. All of the rips on the hydra are of the highest quality and in multiple formats, as I said in my post.
    • ErrantX 17y ago
      Methinks that the relatively small community (and market) is what helps keep the quality up. Larger communities would probably see a decline in overall quality because generally people aren't too worried. Or rather, the people pirating music because of a desire for higher quality is, I suspect, only a small portion of the group - most want a free lunch.
      • rms 17y ago
        I disagree, the music already exists in the hydra. It costs nothing to duplicate. More and more users can be added without having to diminish the qualities of the existing rips, as only one rip of each type is allowed. Adding more downloaders would actually benefit the ratio economy more than hurt it. What happens when the hydra hits a million users? The cost of duplicating digital music is nothing and it doesn't take all that much bandwidth to run a bittorrent tracker. 2 million users? 10 million users? For reference, it took about a month for what and waffles to get to the stage where the user experience was comparable to oink. I expect the hydra to grow even faster in the next round. I give 50/50 odds that the RIAA will disintegrate before the hydra.
• ewjordan 17y ago
  When the marginal cost of production falls to zero, classical economics ceases to function and extra-market restrictions are needed to force the continued existence of the market. You don't even need marginal costs to be zero - external utility factors are required for even the most basic of markets to function, laws being the primary example, but there are others. For one, most people feel bad when they steal. They feel embarrassed when they are caught, even before they are punished. The likelihood of being caught stealing a physical product is rather high, and once you layer on the punishments, which are rather large, it's enough to make most people refrain from shoplifting. Unfortunately for digital media, stealing and getting caught are both extremely impersonal acts, so there's very little embarrassment or guilt involved. And getting caught is so rare that the financial penalties are all but meaningless. In my opinion all of these industries need to stop worrying about what is "due" them for their hard work, and start worrying about what the optimal price points, payment systems, and purchase/discovery paths are to get paying customers. These may be very different from the current levels, and may require radical steps: I don't think it's out of the question to offer vastly different prices, going as low as you can imagine, to different people based on how likely you think it is they will purchase the item. If it costs nothing to sell a digital copy of Britney's new CD, then it's crazy not to let someone buy it for $.25 if you're pretty sure they'd otherwise either pirate or ignore it. These changes may end up meaning that margins and/or revenues are significantly cut from the pre-Internet era, but that's life. And if things do get so bad that certain types of information can no longer be produced, so be it, the market has spoken.
  • actf 17y ago
    Like you say, even the most basic markets require external factors like laws to function. The real estate market for example would, I believe, break down if it weren't for laws prohibiting people from trespassing, squatting, etc. The retail market would also break down if it wasn't for the enforcement and existence of shoplifting laws. It seems software is in a position where the existing laws (or the enforcement of such laws, depending on how you look at it) are not adequate to sustain the market. > Unfortunately for digital media, stealing and getting caught are both extremely impersonal acts, so there's very little embarrassment or guilt involved. And getting caught is so rare that the financial penalties are all but meaningless. I think your assessment is absolutely spot on and I couldn't have said it better myself. Right now other than my own personal guilt, there is absolutely no reason for me not to pirate software. The chances of getting caught are extremely slim. I know many people who use pirated software extensively in a business environment and even there they stand almost no chance of being caught - and even if they were there would be very minor consequences. I feel that it's getting to the point where to be competitive in the market you have to use pirated software. How can you stay competitive when those you're competing against aren't competing on a level playing field. I see only two possible solutions to the problem: 1) Some sort of miracle fix from the software industry - for example everything going to the web (in reality I doubt this will happen though) or 2) Actual enforcement and or the addition of new piracy laws so that piracy has some real consequences.