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Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, t

Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. So the company is spending their own money and time coming up with ways to prevent people from accessing their content which the other person wouldn't have paid for in the first place, then using that to show how much money they've lost. Think about it like this: a comedian tells a joke that offends someone. But the people who get offended aren't the audience of that comedian, and wouldn't have seen the comedian's show anyway. Should the comedian worry at all about these people boycotting the show if they never have and never will buy tickets anyway? Ending the devil's advocate, if these companies want to completely control popular culture and change the definition of society, they have to understand that memes (not the Internet kind, the real life kind) spread until they are pervasive. There's a limit to how much Disney can force Avengers into our cultural identity then demand payment for it. Either Avengers becomes a cultural meme and spreads virally, or you can keep people from seeing it unless you control the experience end-to-end and only have it become a moderate success and only make a moderate amount of money.

rhino369 8y ago
>Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. Entitled to money for services rendered is differnet than just being entitled to money. They don't think they deserve your money if you don't want to pay. They just don't think you should also get the product. I seriously doubt the people spending time pirating and watching media would just suddenly take up reading books from the library or maybe sewing. They'd probably spend some money on media. Not every pirated media is a lost sale. But some of them are. I know when I sailed the high seas I just ended up forking down money for stuff I couldn't successfully pirate (multiplayer games and movies in theatres).
tzs 8y ago
> Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. So the company is spending their own money and time coming up with ways to prevent people from accessing their content which the other person wouldn't have paid for in the first place, then using that to show how much money they've lost That analysis maybe works in the context of an individual piece of content from a single company, but it is a lot more shaky when applied to multiple pieces of content from multiple companies. For instance, suppose someone wants to watch a movie tonight. Their first choice is not yet available on any streaming platform they subscribe to, nor is it available on any of the rental platforms they have reasonable access to. It's only available for purchase at $25. If they cannot pirate it they aren't likely to cancel their movie night. They are likely to move on to their second or third choice that is available on one of their streaming services or is rentable. If they pirate their first choice, then the company that provides that movie loses nothing because, as you note, they were not going to get the money anyway. The company providing their second choice however does lose out on the sale they would have made if there was no piracy. (Well, actually, the company that makes their first choice loses nothing that night. If they could not have pirated it, they probably would not have given up on watching it. They would more likely have postponed it to a later movie night after it does become available for rental or streaming).

rhino369 8y ago

>Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. Entitled to money for services rendered is differnet than just being entitled to money. They don't think they deserve your money if you don't want to pay. They just don't think you should also get the product. I seriously doubt the people spending time pirating and watching media would just suddenly take up reading books from the library or maybe sewing. They'd probably spend some money on media. Not every pirated media is a lost sale. But some of them are. I know when I sailed the high seas I just ended up forking down money for stuff I couldn't successfully pirate (multiplayer games and movies in theatres).

tzs 8y ago

> Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. So the company is spending their own money and time coming up with ways to prevent people from accessing their content which the other person wouldn't have paid for in the first place, then using that to show how much money they've lost That analysis maybe works in the context of an individual piece of content from a single company, but it is a lot more shaky when applied to multiple pieces of content from multiple companies. For instance, suppose someone wants to watch a movie tonight. Their first choice is not yet available on any streaming platform they subscribe to, nor is it available on any of the rental platforms they have reasonable access to. It's only available for purchase at $25. If they cannot pirate it they aren't likely to cancel their movie night. They are likely to move on to their second or third choice that is available on one of their streaming services or is rentable. If they pirate their first choice, then the company that provides that movie loses nothing because, as you note, they were not going to get the money anyway. The company providing their second choice however does lose out on the sale they would have made if there was no piracy. (Well, actually, the company that makes their first choice loses nothing that night. If they could not have pirated it, they probably would not have given up on watching it. They would more likely have postponed it to a later movie night after it does become available for rental or streaming).