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Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the

by zheng 14y ago

Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the economics of the song-making business and a lot to do with the economics of iTunes/etc. Secondly, what is "convenient"? Why is iTunes downloading convenient, but watching GoT on HBO's online service not? I'm not saying they are equal, I think iTunes is easier, but why does the line fall in between them? Basically, the writer in question thinks the line still falls on the other side of iTunes, so why does that make their behavior disgraceful?

whichdan 14y ago
To watch GoT online, you need to have HBO bundled with your cable package, so for someone without cable, that's essentially $100/mo. I would absolutely pay $10-20/mo or $30-40 to watch GoT just on HBO online or streaming through Amazon. So I would say the inconvenience is more aligned with having to sign up for cable than anything else.
- gte910h 14y ago
  You can get an Australian iTunes account to get GOT in a timely manner.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Any OS restrictions on that GoT/HBO facility? Netflix does.
  - whichdan 14y ago
    http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html#/about/faqs/site-help/site-requirements.html http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html#/about/faqs/si... "HBO.com is optimized for the most recent browsers and requires Flash and a broadband connection. Specifically, HBO.com supports Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+ and Safari 2.03+ HBO.com requires the free Flash plug-in, version 9.0124 or greater." Assuming they don't explicitly block Chrome, either that or FireFox should work fine on Linux.
objclxt 14y ago
It's very difficult to do 'micropayments' on a credit-card based architecture - card fees are usually a percentage + flat rate cost (say 2% and the first 20 cents of any transactions). Because of this flat fee anything below around 99 cents quickly becomes unprofitable to sell. It's why companies that do microtransactions do so with other payment methods, like alternative currency (FB credits, etc). Of course, you can also use service such as Spotify if actually having the files themselves isn't important to you (I'm more than happy to pay £5 per month to Spotify for what's actually a quite impressive library). For large consumers of music that can be quite attractively priced.
- Codhisattva 14y ago
  iTunes store shows that it's no longer difficult once you have a critical mass of business. Not something in reach for indies, but Dwolla is changing that. Side note: Spotify is horrible for musicians.
  - briandear 14y ago
    Indies can easily get on iTunes.
tptacek 14y ago
Why do you get to demand a third choice, besides "Pay 99 Cents" and "Don't Get The Song"? A small bag of M&Ms costs, I don't know, 79 cents? Why is 79 cents considered reasonable for 29 peanut M&Ms? If I object to that price, and instead pony up the marginal cost of those M&Ms and their packaging (more like 13 cents), am I being reasonable or unreasonable?
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  First, to answer the broader question: we get to "demand" another choice simply by expressing an opinion about the structure of the market, the lack of sensible choices, and the existence of bugs in the legal system that need fixing. At least in this case, I don't think anyone in this discussion harbors any delusions that downloading a song qualifies as legal, but most of the people in this discussion can make a sensible distinction between right and legal; anyone wanting to change the legal system has to have the ability to discuss bugs in that system. That discussion remains distinct from the question of whether any individual person would choose to (openly or secretly) flaunt the existing legal system and take the associated risks; I don't personally want to take those risks, but that doesn't mean I see those choices as wrong, just currently illegal. To answer the more specific question: since you've already seen all of these arguments play out enough times to become jaded by them, you already know the entire line of arguments differentiating physical property with scarcity from infinitely copyable digital files. In short, taking a bag of M&Ms means the owner of them no longer has it, whereas copying (not taking) a file leaves the original in place.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Did you read my comment, or did your nerd brain instantly detect "comparison between $PHYSICAL_PRODUCT and $ENTITY_EXPRESSIBLE_AS_A_NUMBER" and cause you to blurt out this comment? Because I addressed the point you thought you were making against my comment. I mean this playfully. If we were discussing DOM corruption or block cipher modes I would probably have a hard time carefully reading comments that disagreed with my worldview too.
    - 14y ago
ghshephard 14y ago
At least in the western world, $0.70-$1.29 for permanent, non-drm ownership of a track is within the norms of what people have been willing to pay for the last 60 years for music, inflation adjusted. I consider that historical precedent to suggest that those prices are "reasonable." Itunes (or Amazon) downloading is convenient because I can download almost _any song I can conceive of_ in 30 seconds. I've tried purchasing HBO at least four times over the last 3+ years on "Special" deals here in Redwood City - Each time, my absolute minimum monthly cost has been $85 (Digital Cable + Special HBO Offer) - and also required additional installation and hardware costs on the order of $200 or so. I agree - that there is a grey line - but, for me, "30 seconds and $1.29 for a song" is reasonable, but "$1020 and $200 worth of hardware and wait 2 weeks for installation" is unreasonable. It's subjective - but I feel music downloaders don't have much in the way of excuses, but those people torrenting GoT, especially if they _always_ purchase it on DVD when it's available, at least have a defensible moral (if not legal) position.
- maxerickson 14y ago
  Is the notion of copyrights obviously the default moral position? I think attribution rights probably are. The grant and transfer of long term distribution rights is less clear.

by zheng 14y ago

whichdan 14y ago

To watch GoT online, you need to have HBO bundled with your cable package, so for someone without cable, that's essentially $100/mo. I would absolutely pay $10-20/mo or $30-40 to watch GoT just on HBO online or streaming through Amazon. So I would say the inconvenience is more aligned with having to sign up for cable than anything else.

gte910h 14y ago
You can get an Australian iTunes account to get GOT in a timely manner.
rhizome 14y ago
Any OS restrictions on that GoT/HBO facility? Netflix does.
- whichdan 14y ago
  http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html#/about/faqs/site-help/site-requirements.html http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/index.html#/about/faqs/si... "HBO.com is optimized for the most recent browsers and requires Flash and a broadband connection. Specifically, HBO.com supports Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+ and Safari 2.03+ HBO.com requires the free Flash plug-in, version 9.0124 or greater." Assuming they don't explicitly block Chrome, either that or FireFox should work fine on Linux.

objclxt 14y ago

It's very difficult to do 'micropayments' on a credit-card based architecture - card fees are usually a percentage + flat rate cost (say 2% and the first 20 cents of any transactions). Because of this flat fee anything below around 99 cents quickly becomes unprofitable to sell. It's why companies that do microtransactions do so with other payment methods, like alternative currency (FB credits, etc). Of course, you can also use service such as Spotify if actually having the files themselves isn't important to you (I'm more than happy to pay £5 per month to Spotify for what's actually a quite impressive library). For large consumers of music that can be quite attractively priced.

Codhisattva 14y ago
iTunes store shows that it's no longer difficult once you have a critical mass of business. Not something in reach for indies, but Dwolla is changing that. Side note: Spotify is horrible for musicians.
- briandear 14y ago
  Indies can easily get on iTunes.

tptacek 14y ago

Why do you get to demand a third choice, besides "Pay 99 Cents" and "Don't Get The Song"? A small bag of M&Ms costs, I don't know, 79 cents? Why is 79 cents considered reasonable for 29 peanut M&Ms? If I object to that price, and instead pony up the marginal cost of those M&Ms and their packaging (more like 13 cents), am I being reasonable or unreasonable?

JoshTriplett 14y ago
First, to answer the broader question: we get to "demand" another choice simply by expressing an opinion about the structure of the market, the lack of sensible choices, and the existence of bugs in the legal system that need fixing. At least in this case, I don't think anyone in this discussion harbors any delusions that downloading a song qualifies as legal, but most of the people in this discussion can make a sensible distinction between right and legal; anyone wanting to change the legal system has to have the ability to discuss bugs in that system. That discussion remains distinct from the question of whether any individual person would choose to (openly or secretly) flaunt the existing legal system and take the associated risks; I don't personally want to take those risks, but that doesn't mean I see those choices as wrong, just currently illegal. To answer the more specific question: since you've already seen all of these arguments play out enough times to become jaded by them, you already know the entire line of arguments differentiating physical property with scarcity from infinitely copyable digital files. In short, taking a bag of M&Ms means the owner of them no longer has it, whereas copying (not taking) a file leaves the original in place.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Did you read my comment, or did your nerd brain instantly detect "comparison between $PHYSICAL_PRODUCT and $ENTITY_EXPRESSIBLE_AS_A_NUMBER" and cause you to blurt out this comment? Because I addressed the point you thought you were making against my comment. I mean this playfully. If we were discussing DOM corruption or block cipher modes I would probably have a hard time carefully reading comments that disagreed with my worldview too.
  - 14y ago

ghshephard 14y ago

At least in the western world, $0.70-$1.29 for permanent, non-drm ownership of a track is within the norms of what people have been willing to pay for the last 60 years for music, inflation adjusted. I consider that historical precedent to suggest that those prices are "reasonable." Itunes (or Amazon) downloading is convenient because I can download almost _any song I can conceive of_ in 30 seconds. I've tried purchasing HBO at least four times over the last 3+ years on "Special" deals here in Redwood City - Each time, my absolute minimum monthly cost has been $85 (Digital Cable + Special HBO Offer) - and also required additional installation and hardware costs on the order of $200 or so. I agree - that there is a grey line - but, for me, "30 seconds and $1.29 for a song" is reasonable, but "$1020 and $200 worth of hardware and wait 2 weeks for installation" is unreasonable. It's subjective - but I feel music downloaders don't have much in the way of excuses, but those people torrenting GoT, especially if they _always_ purchase it on DVD when it's available, at least have a defensible moral (if not legal) position.

maxerickson 14y ago
Is the notion of copyrights obviously the default moral position? I think attribution rights probably are. The grant and transfer of long term distribution rights is less clear.