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Ok. That's fine. But I now fully consider piracy for HBO to be a business decision and I don't want to hear any moral condemnation and cries for government in
by aero142 14y ago
Ok. That's fine. But I now fully consider piracy for HBO to be a business decision and I don't want to hear any moral condemnation and cries for government intervention from them.
- ig1 14y agoHBO isn't some critical drug that you need to live, it's an entertainment channel. You don't have a need for HBO that gives you a moral right to make an unauthorized copy of it. If you want to make a copy of it, fine, but don't try and pretend it's anything other than lack of self-control on your part by trying to gloss with a "moral high ground".
- magicalist 14y agoI agree completely, but it's important to remember the other side as well: in the United States, control over your intellectual property is not considered a moral right either. While there is no justification to be found in that distinction for pirating the show, it makes it much less clear that you have a moral imperative to maintain "self-control" and not pirate it.
- moron 14y agoSure, agreed. But it is reasonable to assume from this that HBO considers whatever losses it is suffering from piracy to be acceptable in some sense, or at least preferable to selling their shows online, which is interesting in its own right.
- aero142 14y agoI'm not talking about self justification here, i'm talking about business and politics. Lately the entertainment industry has been campaigning for government intervention to clamp down on the internet because content producers can't make enough money because of piracy. To me, this argument clearly states that they believe they make more money from a premium price with a restricted supply that encourages piracy than they would from an easily available product that would reduce piracy. I am perfectly fine with them making this business decision. However, as a citizen who would like to have as little government intervention as possible while still protecting functioning markets, I see no problem here and don't want to hear about how they need government intervention to prevent content creators like them from going out of business.
- ryannielsen 14y agoTo me, this argument clearly states that they believe they make more money from a premium price with a restricted supply that encourages piracy than they would from an easily available product that would reduce piracy. Do you also steal diamonds? Gas? McRibs? After all, those are also products who's supply is artificially constrained. I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but however you try and justify theft, it's still theft. The market is functioning, you just don't like how it works right now.
- aero142 14y agoHrm, Very interesting response. Software and media are both zero marginal cost products, so when someone pirates it, I don't consider it theft. Left to run rampant, piracy could create a situation where it wasn't viable to run that business anymore, which I would care about. However, the claim has long been countered by people saying that the business themselves are in a better position to deal with this problem without additional government involvement. I believe this article and the other from dcurtis clearly shows that the later is true for HBO. Yes, the market is functioning, and I like it just fine. Piracy is creating a ceiling on how much a company can charge for their product while still making it widely available for enjoyment of people. Piracy in this case is serving as price discrimination allowing the most possible number of people to enjoy it while those who are able to afford it or care enough are paying for it. It appears as though the current market is doing a rather nice job of maximizing social benefit. Would I steal gas or McRibs, no, those are both a clearly limited item. Now diamonds are a fun one I have never thought of. Rumor has it that there are warehouses full of diamonds they DeBeers keeps of the market to drive up the price of diamonds as a jewelry item. Hypothetically, lets say I had designed a new industrial laser than would help make the lives of other human beings better off, but I need a giant diamond that at current artificially restricted price doesn't make economic sense. In this case, yes, I think I would steal a diamond and not feel bad about it. But then again, although I am not a purist, many of my ideas about morality are utilitarian. Especially with zero marginal cost goods.
- doktrin 14y agoThis doesn't make sense. They would be fully entitled to protect their IP even if they chose to distribute it exclusively from a single retail store in Topeka, Kansas.
- aero142 14y agoYes, and when they go out of business and post their sad little page about how content producers can't make money in this age of piracy, are you going to believe them and support the next internet clampdown legislation, or are you going to remember that their business model was dumb and they deserve to go out of business(not the HBO is making the wrong choice, it is probably the correct choice for them).
- doktrin 14y agoThat is a straw man argument. Throwing up a smokescreen of "big government Internet clampdown" is not a justification for theft. Whether or not you agree with their business model is irrelevant. They have a right to protect their content, full stop.
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoRepeat after me: PIRACY IS NOT THEFT.
- res0nat0r 14y agoThats the beauty if a free market economy. They want to charge X to access their service, and you think it is worth Y. Since you don't agree you are free to not purchase it. Hence why piracy is illegal since it subverts this system.