3 ms·

The side effect of privatizing what could be a public good is that is means denying to billions what they could have for free so that a relative handful will ha

The side effect of privatizing what could be a public good is that is means denying to billions what they could have for free so that a relative handful will have an incentive to pay for it.

yason 14y ago
This, exactly this. Moreover, I think that piracy mostly happens because either it's the only way or because it's way too cheap. The first case is similar to how I was as a kid: I pirated all my games and software and copied all my music, and then bought the best games and the best albums that I could afford. I owned the games and cds that I considered the best, and worth owning. I paid for them so that I could own them: not because I would've wanted to make sure the authors could make a living. No amount of piracy laws and copyright enforcement would've added anything to the funds I had at my disposal. I already spent whatever I had. The second case is why some people hoard files. They download full discographies and filmographies of nearly everything there is because copying is so cheap it's practically gratis, copying can be fun, and just to make sure that if the world comes to an end they'll still have years of entertainment in their hands. They probably watch and listen one percent of what they're downloaded, and they probably actually buy one percent of that one percent. There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  >There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less. I think this is (close to) the case of people who are actually a problem. The first two cases don't represent much lost oppurtunity. In this case, the people pirating might go out and buy the stuff. Because of this, the oppurtunity cost of them already having some of the stuff is far more significant than in the first two cases (where there was minimal oppurtunity lost)

The side effect of privatizing what could be a public good is that is means denying to billions what they could have for free so that a relative handful will have an incentive to pay for it.

yason 14y ago

This, exactly this. Moreover, I think that piracy mostly happens because either it's the only way or because it's way too cheap. The first case is similar to how I was as a kid: I pirated all my games and software and copied all my music, and then bought the best games and the best albums that I could afford. I owned the games and cds that I considered the best, and worth owning. I paid for them so that I could own them: not because I would've wanted to make sure the authors could make a living. No amount of piracy laws and copyright enforcement would've added anything to the funds I had at my disposal. I already spent whatever I had. The second case is why some people hoard files. They download full discographies and filmographies of nearly everything there is because copying is so cheap it's practically gratis, copying can be fun, and just to make sure that if the world comes to an end they'll still have years of entertainment in their hands. They probably watch and listen one percent of what they're downloaded, and they probably actually buy one percent of that one percent. There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less.

gizmo686 14y ago
>There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less. I think this is (close to) the case of people who are actually a problem. The first two cases don't represent much lost oppurtunity. In this case, the people pirating might go out and buy the stuff. Because of this, the oppurtunity cost of them already having some of the stuff is far more significant than in the first two cases (where there was minimal oppurtunity lost)