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"I mean, would some one like Rhianna be happy to see her fans potentially get fined or even jailed? Ironically if you fine people they have less cash to spend o

"I mean, would some one like Rhianna be happy to see her fans potentially get fined or even jailed? Ironically if you fine people they have less cash to spend on these muppets." Yes, but if you allow piracy to continue, people will think it's just fine and it will eventually drive the price of music and movie down to $0. You are hurting pretty much every artists by pirating..but you just don't seem to care. You must be part of the entitlement generation. "Any concrete proof that "piracy" is actually costing them actual real money?" Why does the HN community get so upset when the GNU is violated and a company uses GNU code in a proprietary application (remember the wordpress thesis themes)? It's the same exact principal as pirating apps. "It certainly was for Louis CK." It worked once..and it may work a few more times. But, when people are used to the cheap prices, the piracy will eat up all the profits again. Ever talk to an app developer? 99 cent apps are pirated all the time...which tells me it has nothing to do with the money (IE: "it's too expensive" is a bullshit excuse). "so then cant they invest rather than using government to beat on their customers?" If copyright/patent laws ever get repealed, don't complain when we only have a few big companies left. I'm going to save my cash..so I can start taking a small company's ideas and use my resources (that I know they don't have) to bring it to the market and put them out of business before they even have a chance. But the truth of the matter is, people like you will still be complaining.... "Why does government support failing business by using the law to do so" If there is no market, then why is the music even pirated? Piracy shows you the legitimacy of a business. Artists that aren't popular will not be pirated as much as the popular ones. "I'm sorry, this whole thing is absurd." So is your rant. I'm not sure why so many people in the HN community wants to put themselves out of business by pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. When this happens, don't complain and don't try to unionize: you did it to yourself.

bediger4000 14y ago
... wll eventually drive the price of music and movie down to $0. Yes, yes, I went to college, I know how free-market capitalism works. In a competitive marketplace, the price of a good should end up at its marginal cost of production. Technology has changed this cost from $19.99 (or whatever) to some fraction of a cent. Ordinarily, we applaud this sort of thing. Laptop computers cost $300, and have more computing capability than a multi-million dollar mainframe did 20 years ago. A decent car runs about $12,000, and gets mileage and performance that would stun consumers in 1950. Why must we as a society treat movies and music differently? To do so distorts markets, and takes away civil liberties.
- com2kid 14y ago
  You are forgetting that artists have to pay for equipment, eat, have a place to live, etc. And then there is the cost of a renting out a studio, a good sound mixer, additional musicians to play parts that your main band may not be capable of, etc. The cost of reproduction may be close to zero, but the cost of production is most certainly not dropping. Technology may allow some genres of music to be one man bands, but that is certainly not true for all music genres. Orchestras cost money.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I think we can discuss that problem when it actually becomes anything other than a fantasy. There are solutions to the "artists are literally starving" problem, but there is really no sense considering them while artists are still flying around in private jets.
    - com2kid 14y ago
      Sure pop stars are, but there are hundreds of thousands of artists who aren't signed to big labels. I really don't care one way or the other about any artist who plays on the radio. I want to ensure the artists I listen to are able to continue making music, therefore I buy their music.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Do you really think there are artists out there that would be paid a decent living wage, were it not for piracy?
- michaelt 14y ago
  The marginal cost of the second ticket to see my favorite film (Scarface, Al Pacino) is a few cents. The marginal cost of the first ticket is $25 million. We could switch over to that system - it's not unprecedented, historically many rich people have been patrons of the arts and commissioned new works. You might find the art market shifts so it aims less at the man on the street and more at the millionaire in the boardroom. Whether that would be a good or a bad thing is a matter of opinion. What do you think?
vibrunazo 14y ago
> I'm not sure why so many people in the HN community wants to put themselves out of business by pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. When this happens, don't complain and don't try to unionize: you did it to yourself. I think you're confusing saying something is true to wishing it was true. Just because you want it to be true, it doesn't make it true. There's actually a named logical fallacy for this, but I forget which. Personally, I would love if the market would to throw all their money at me because I'm pretty. But the reality is that it wont. You can either sit and whine that you wish the value of your craft wasn't heading to zero. Or you can build around it and find workable solutions. Like many software developers have done. And like the music and movie industry are taking too long to do the same.
tikhonj 14y ago
>...pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. This isn't remotely true. Sure, the value of a copy of software might become $0. But I'm not a software copyist! I'm a programmer. (Well, sort of :P.) I do not get paid to give people copies of my software--I get paid to write the software. There is a difference! This just means that I will not be able to make money writing software to do something somebody else has already done. After all, why pay me when they can just have a copy of the existing program? But this is a good thing! After all, since the solution already exists, it would be a waste of resources to replicate it. Instead, I would be relegated to writing software that is novel. A horrible thought indeed. Essentially, if some business needs a program to do something, and that program does not exist (which is a rather common occurrence) they would have to hire programmers to write it. Even if it did exist, they would have to hire programmers to integrate it, add features and fix bugs. And those programmers would be more effective because they would have access to a great software commons of all the software ever written--"don't repeat yourself" would become "don't repeat anyone". I wonder if you're going to be making the same arguments when automatic programming comes around. After all, technology like that also pushes the value of your "craft" down to $0!
jberryman 14y ago
> You must be part of the entitlement generation. Ooh, I want to play! What's your birth year?
Dylan16807 14y ago
Why does the HN community get so upset when the GNU is violated and a company uses GNU code in a proprietary application (remember the wordpress thesis themes)? Because they're plagiarizing and profiting off someone else's work without sharing in kind. It's the same exact principal as pirating apps. It's generally not.

bediger4000 14y ago

... wll eventually drive the price of music and movie down to $0. Yes, yes, I went to college, I know how free-market capitalism works. In a competitive marketplace, the price of a good should end up at its marginal cost of production. Technology has changed this cost from $19.99 (or whatever) to some fraction of a cent. Ordinarily, we applaud this sort of thing. Laptop computers cost $300, and have more computing capability than a multi-million dollar mainframe did 20 years ago. A decent car runs about $12,000, and gets mileage and performance that would stun consumers in 1950. Why must we as a society treat movies and music differently? To do so distorts markets, and takes away civil liberties.

com2kid 14y ago
You are forgetting that artists have to pay for equipment, eat, have a place to live, etc. And then there is the cost of a renting out a studio, a good sound mixer, additional musicians to play parts that your main band may not be capable of, etc. The cost of reproduction may be close to zero, but the cost of production is most certainly not dropping. Technology may allow some genres of music to be one man bands, but that is certainly not true for all music genres. Orchestras cost money.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I think we can discuss that problem when it actually becomes anything other than a fantasy. There are solutions to the "artists are literally starving" problem, but there is really no sense considering them while artists are still flying around in private jets.
  - com2kid 14y ago
    Sure pop stars are, but there are hundreds of thousands of artists who aren't signed to big labels. I really don't care one way or the other about any artist who plays on the radio. I want to ensure the artists I listen to are able to continue making music, therefore I buy their music.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Do you really think there are artists out there that would be paid a decent living wage, were it not for piracy?
michaelt 14y ago
The marginal cost of the second ticket to see my favorite film (Scarface, Al Pacino) is a few cents. The marginal cost of the first ticket is $25 million. We could switch over to that system - it's not unprecedented, historically many rich people have been patrons of the arts and commissioned new works. You might find the art market shifts so it aims less at the man on the street and more at the millionaire in the boardroom. Whether that would be a good or a bad thing is a matter of opinion. What do you think?

vibrunazo 14y ago

> I'm not sure why so many people in the HN community wants to put themselves out of business by pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. When this happens, don't complain and don't try to unionize: you did it to yourself. I think you're confusing saying something is true to wishing it was true. Just because you want it to be true, it doesn't make it true. There's actually a named logical fallacy for this, but I forget which. Personally, I would love if the market would to throw all their money at me because I'm pretty. But the reality is that it wont. You can either sit and whine that you wish the value of your craft wasn't heading to zero. Or you can build around it and find workable solutions. Like many software developers have done. And like the music and movie industry are taking too long to do the same.

tikhonj 14y ago

>...pushing the $ value of their craft down to $0. This isn't remotely true. Sure, the value of a copy of software might become $0. But I'm not a software copyist! I'm a programmer. (Well, sort of :P.) I do not get paid to give people copies of my software--I get paid to write the software. There is a difference! This just means that I will not be able to make money writing software to do something somebody else has already done. After all, why pay me when they can just have a copy of the existing program? But this is a good thing! After all, since the solution already exists, it would be a waste of resources to replicate it. Instead, I would be relegated to writing software that is novel. A horrible thought indeed. Essentially, if some business needs a program to do something, and that program does not exist (which is a rather common occurrence) they would have to hire programmers to write it. Even if it did exist, they would have to hire programmers to integrate it, add features and fix bugs. And those programmers would be more effective because they would have access to a great software commons of all the software ever written--"don't repeat yourself" would become "don't repeat anyone". I wonder if you're going to be making the same arguments when automatic programming comes around. After all, technology like that also pushes the value of your "craft" down to $0!

jberryman 14y ago

> You must be part of the entitlement generation. Ooh, I want to play! What's your birth year?

Dylan16807 14y ago

Why does the HN community get so upset when the GNU is violated and a company uses GNU code in a proprietary application (remember the wordpress thesis themes)? Because they're plagiarizing and profiting off someone else's work without sharing in kind. It's the same exact principal as pirating apps. It's generally not.