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My argument doesn’t speak about the affordability. It speaks about an exchange of money for value. Not if one can spend the money, but if that money would be we

by caseyy 2y ago

My argument doesn’t speak about the affordability. It speaks about an exchange of money for value. Not if one can spend the money, but if that money would be well-spent. :) Piracy is often significant effort and risk. Not high but significant. First, one must learn the means to pirate content. Second, they must keep strong privacy and security habits while doing so. Third, pirated content may have malware, even pdfs. Finally, the quality is often a bit lower. There are very real downsides to privacy — effort and others. Then there are also benefits that I spoke of. Steam has largely validated what I’m saying. So no need for extra arguing. Look into how it cleaned up video game piracy. Many people used to, especially in less economically developed regions such as Eastern Europe, pirate as main means of video game consumption. Now, it’s mostly Valve’s Steam.

listenallyall 2y ago
Value is directly affected by ease of piracy, or alternative distribution. People paid $12-16 per CD for decades, yes it felt a tad expensive but that was the deal and people were generally happy. Napster then torrents lowered sales, Spotify has pretty much killed it. The value of a CD hasn't changed, nor has affordability (in fact many more people can afford than in the 80s-90s) - but nobody's buying because other distribution exists. You can argue Spotify doesn't pay artists fairly and all that but they do have deals and contracts in place. The pirates don't, didn't, never will. And the "significant effort and risk" argument is garbage when multiple methods of transmitting pirated content (and checksumming it) is easy as cake.
- caseyy 2y ago
  I see you are taking the conversation in two different directions, so I will respond to both. People used to pay more for music due to scarcity. Piracy makes music more easily available — you are right, so it does decrease scarcity by competition. But so do many other things like the streaming platforms you mention. The same can be said for average quality published works — very many are available, much too many to charge scarcity pricing. With AI texts flooding the market, the value is further lowered. I am merely bringing attention to the reality that the works we author compete with market forces, and that through this competition, piracy can and has demonstrably been out-competed in some cases. If the author can’t compete but they want the sales, then it’s a good idea to rethink putting the work out there. The second point about effort and risk, I don’t think can be dismissed so easily. Checksuming is all well and good, and other protections. But go out into the real world and ask people in the street how many checksum their downloads. :)
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    If an artist can't sell music anymore because of Spotify, well, it's likely they signed a sub-optimal contract, but at least they had the opportunity to negotiate better terms, and likely can do so at renewal time. Or choose not to offer their music on Spotify at all. No such option exists when dealing with pirates.
    - caseyy 2y ago
      Spotify itself is an effective way to deal with pirates in the music industry — https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/spotify-has-everything-piracy-drops-as-streaming-wins-over-illegal-downloaders/073373 https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/spotify-has-everythin... You really just have to offer a better deal, and it doesn’t have to be a perfect one. Don’t hyper-focus on preventing IP from being shared by people. So long as there are mass storage devices and paper copy machines, there will be piracy. People used to even transmit computer programs over radio at night in Eastern Europe shortly before the collapse of USSR. You can’t outlaw all means of piracy even if you take down all the sites, but there is a different way to combat it with your own creative products — offering a better legal deal to pirates. And there is evidence that it works. :) And if it doesn’t work for you, then the market doesn’t work for you. That’s the practical reality. We can daydream about piracy not existing but it will remain a daydream — maybe a nice daydream, I don’t know. But I do know it is not the market we have in reality.

by caseyy 2y ago

listenallyall 2y ago

Value is directly affected by ease of piracy, or alternative distribution. People paid $12-16 per CD for decades, yes it felt a tad expensive but that was the deal and people were generally happy. Napster then torrents lowered sales, Spotify has pretty much killed it. The value of a CD hasn't changed, nor has affordability (in fact many more people can afford than in the 80s-90s) - but nobody's buying because other distribution exists. You can argue Spotify doesn't pay artists fairly and all that but they do have deals and contracts in place. The pirates don't, didn't, never will. And the "significant effort and risk" argument is garbage when multiple methods of transmitting pirated content (and checksumming it) is easy as cake.

caseyy 2y ago
I see you are taking the conversation in two different directions, so I will respond to both. People used to pay more for music due to scarcity. Piracy makes music more easily available — you are right, so it does decrease scarcity by competition. But so do many other things like the streaming platforms you mention. The same can be said for average quality published works — very many are available, much too many to charge scarcity pricing. With AI texts flooding the market, the value is further lowered. I am merely bringing attention to the reality that the works we author compete with market forces, and that through this competition, piracy can and has demonstrably been out-competed in some cases. If the author can’t compete but they want the sales, then it’s a good idea to rethink putting the work out there. The second point about effort and risk, I don’t think can be dismissed so easily. Checksuming is all well and good, and other protections. But go out into the real world and ask people in the street how many checksum their downloads. :)
- listenallyall 2y ago
  If an artist can't sell music anymore because of Spotify, well, it's likely they signed a sub-optimal contract, but at least they had the opportunity to negotiate better terms, and likely can do so at renewal time. Or choose not to offer their music on Spotify at all. No such option exists when dealing with pirates.
  - caseyy 2y ago
    Spotify itself is an effective way to deal with pirates in the music industry — https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/spotify-has-everything-piracy-drops-as-streaming-wins-over-illegal-downloaders/073373 https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/spotify-has-everythin... You really just have to offer a better deal, and it doesn’t have to be a perfect one. Don’t hyper-focus on preventing IP from being shared by people. So long as there are mass storage devices and paper copy machines, there will be piracy. People used to even transmit computer programs over radio at night in Eastern Europe shortly before the collapse of USSR. You can’t outlaw all means of piracy even if you take down all the sites, but there is a different way to combat it with your own creative products — offering a better legal deal to pirates. And there is evidence that it works. :) And if it doesn’t work for you, then the market doesn’t work for you. That’s the practical reality. We can daydream about piracy not existing but it will remain a daydream — maybe a nice daydream, I don’t know. But I do know it is not the market we have in reality.