5 ms·

While I don't dispute the success of the album, I don't think this is as significant as it sounds. While the whole album was licensed for free distribution, on

by GHFigs 18y ago

While I don't dispute the success of the album, I don't think this is as significant as it sounds. While the whole album was licensed for free distribution, only the first 9 of 36 tracks were available for free from the official source. For the rest, a person would have to either buy it or obtain it through file sharing networks where it would have been available anyway.

ensignavenger 18y ago
"it would have been available anyway." Yes, but not legally- some have a moral aversion to breaking the law.
- jamesbritt 18y ago
  FTFA : "In March 2008, Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails released the first part of Ghosts I-IV via BitTorrent, and released all four albums under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license." So how would it be illegal to get it from some file-sharing site?
  - dantheman 18y ago
    ensignavenger was referring to this statment: > obtain it through file sharing networks where it would have been available anyway. when mentioning the legality. Or to rephrase, if you looked on the filesharing network it would have been there regardless of the licensing, and some people would not download it if they weren't legally allowed to.
- GHFigs 18y ago
  Yeah, that's the point. Legality and the sale price of $5 are the distinguishing features, not the fact that it was potentially available for free, as the article implies. It would have been available for free regardless, just as all of the other albums on that list are. From the consumer's perspective, downloading over a file-sharing network is the same whether it's legal or illegal. Making it legal to share it that way does not induce significantly more people to do so (some, yes, but not many); it only means the people who would have anyway are not infringing. So I think that factor is less significant than the sale price of $5, which does induce more people to buy it than a higher price would.

by GHFigs 18y ago

ensignavenger 18y ago

"it would have been available anyway." Yes, but not legally- some have a moral aversion to breaking the law.

jamesbritt 18y ago
FTFA : "In March 2008, Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails released the first part of Ghosts I-IV via BitTorrent, and released all four albums under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license." So how would it be illegal to get it from some file-sharing site?
- dantheman 18y ago
  ensignavenger was referring to this statment: > obtain it through file sharing networks where it would have been available anyway. when mentioning the legality. Or to rephrase, if you looked on the filesharing network it would have been there regardless of the licensing, and some people would not download it if they weren't legally allowed to.
GHFigs 18y ago
Yeah, that's the point. Legality and the sale price of $5 are the distinguishing features, not the fact that it was potentially available for free, as the article implies. It would have been available for free regardless, just as all of the other albums on that list are. From the consumer's perspective, downloading over a file-sharing network is the same whether it's legal or illegal. Making it legal to share it that way does not induce significantly more people to do so (some, yes, but not many); it only means the people who would have anyway are not infringing. So I think that factor is less significant than the sale price of $5, which does induce more people to buy it than a higher price would.