4 ms·

Putting aside arguments as to the morality of copyright infringement, I'm surprised you think that the pro-copyright lobby will win. The odds are hugely stacked

Putting aside arguments as to the morality of copyright infringement, I'm surprised you think that the pro-copyright lobby will win. The odds are hugely stacked against them. The content industry has a large amount of financial and legal backing, but the pirates are backed by technological progress. As bandwidth increases, it becomes faster to download material, and easier to hide your activities from prying eyes. The content industry has enough problems with piracy now; how do you think it'll fare in the next decade when there's enough bandwidth to run anonymous P2P networks at decent speeds?

lucumo 17y ago
If what you're saying is true, then it will not be a victory in the sense of A defeats B, it will be one where the world is changed. If pirates win, the whole industry as it is now will disappear and a revenue model will win. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I'll leave up to you. But it seems likely that if the pirates win, both the industry _and_ the pirates will disappear...
- weavejester 17y ago
  I don't think the content industry will disappear. Whilst technology might make it harder to make money from creating content, it also makes it cheaper to create, distribute and market that content. I think we'll see a lot of middlemen go out of business, perhaps a less lucrative movie industry, but I don't think we'll see the end of music or movies, even if copyright disappears entirely.
- Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
  >Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I'll leave up to you. But it seems likely that if the pirates win, both the industry _and_ the pirates will disappear... Pirates will disappear as pirates, they will still be there as music sharers. The meaning of your post is not very clear to me, i don't know if you mean commercially produced music will disappear. If that's what you think, it's an incredibly short sighted view, and is not at all likely to happen, even if music sharing is legalized across all countries in the world. Although, your writing leaves room for interpretation, you may also be speaking about a different economical model, in wich case i agree with you
  - lucumo 17y ago
    > Although, your writing leaves room for interpretation, you may also be speaking about a different economical model, in wich case i agree with you. We are in agreement then :-) That was what I meant to say.
ErrantX 17y ago
THe only change I see (if the "pirates win" - and disregarding that that is a broad and odd sentence in itself) is lots of companies going out of business, a decline in published music quality and lots and lots of bands struggling to make money (oh and faty cat agents who figured that live bookings are their only revenue stream). Lose, lose IMO.
- Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
  This post was downmodded and not replied to so i figured i would give an insight as to why i think this is very bad and emotionnaly stacked analysis of the situation. The easiest part to dismantle is the part about the "lots of bands struggling to make money". I am a semi professionnal musician, and as such i also know a lot of "bands struggling to make money" guys. There are already a plenty. Maybe 99,50 % of the musicians are struggling to make money, and it has been like that since a very long time. And guess what, some of them make it and succesfully make a living out of it, and NONE of them depend on royalties to do so, because technically when you're a struggling musician you make approximately 90% of your income on gigs and 10% on publishing your music. And i'm being generous here. Much more often, and it has been like that since the beginning of indie production, bands invest money into producing their CD, and they never make a net income on it. Except it's still interresting to do it, for the promotion of the band. On the last year, with my band, we made approximately 25.000 € on gigs, and a whopping 800 € on vinyl/Cd releases. The consequence of that is that musicians that make a substantial income in royalties doesn't need them to live/survive because when you're up to that point you also earn way enough money to survive with your live performances. A lots of recent studies shows that people are definately not buying less music than before, and on the other hand getting it for free has never been so easy. Also the www and P2P has been fantastic opportunities to musicians insofar, to promote themselves and sell/give away their music, and hence get a much bigger audience than they had before, without needing to go through the very tight and controlled channel of major record companies. You see a potential decrease in quality ? As a musican i see a very net increase. Making music and broadcasting it has never been so easy. The movies industry is a different matter. Production prices are way higher, and potentially you could see it be much more impacted by the P2P sharing. For a simple reason : Movie makers need their movie industry. Musicians don't, at least they don't need it for broadcasting and producing anymore.

lucumo 17y ago

If what you're saying is true, then it will not be a victory in the sense of A defeats B, it will be one where the world is changed. If pirates win, the whole industry as it is now will disappear and a revenue model will win. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I'll leave up to you. But it seems likely that if the pirates win, both the industry _and_ the pirates will disappear...

weavejester 17y ago
I don't think the content industry will disappear. Whilst technology might make it harder to make money from creating content, it also makes it cheaper to create, distribute and market that content. I think we'll see a lot of middlemen go out of business, perhaps a less lucrative movie industry, but I don't think we'll see the end of music or movies, even if copyright disappears entirely.
Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
>Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I'll leave up to you. But it seems likely that if the pirates win, both the industry _and_ the pirates will disappear... Pirates will disappear as pirates, they will still be there as music sharers. The meaning of your post is not very clear to me, i don't know if you mean commercially produced music will disappear. If that's what you think, it's an incredibly short sighted view, and is not at all likely to happen, even if music sharing is legalized across all countries in the world. Although, your writing leaves room for interpretation, you may also be speaking about a different economical model, in wich case i agree with you
- lucumo 17y ago
  > Although, your writing leaves room for interpretation, you may also be speaking about a different economical model, in wich case i agree with you. We are in agreement then :-) That was what I meant to say.

ErrantX 17y ago

THe only change I see (if the "pirates win" - and disregarding that that is a broad and odd sentence in itself) is lots of companies going out of business, a decline in published music quality and lots and lots of bands struggling to make money (oh and faty cat agents who figured that live bookings are their only revenue stream). Lose, lose IMO.

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
This post was downmodded and not replied to so i figured i would give an insight as to why i think this is very bad and emotionnaly stacked analysis of the situation. The easiest part to dismantle is the part about the "lots of bands struggling to make money". I am a semi professionnal musician, and as such i also know a lot of "bands struggling to make money" guys. There are already a plenty. Maybe 99,50 % of the musicians are struggling to make money, and it has been like that since a very long time. And guess what, some of them make it and succesfully make a living out of it, and NONE of them depend on royalties to do so, because technically when you're a struggling musician you make approximately 90% of your income on gigs and 10% on publishing your music. And i'm being generous here. Much more often, and it has been like that since the beginning of indie production, bands invest money into producing their CD, and they never make a net income on it. Except it's still interresting to do it, for the promotion of the band. On the last year, with my band, we made approximately 25.000 € on gigs, and a whopping 800 € on vinyl/Cd releases. The consequence of that is that musicians that make a substantial income in royalties doesn't need them to live/survive because when you're up to that point you also earn way enough money to survive with your live performances. A lots of recent studies shows that people are definately not buying less music than before, and on the other hand getting it for free has never been so easy. Also the www and P2P has been fantastic opportunities to musicians insofar, to promote themselves and sell/give away their music, and hence get a much bigger audience than they had before, without needing to go through the very tight and controlled channel of major record companies. You see a potential decrease in quality ? As a musican i see a very net increase. Making music and broadcasting it has never been so easy. The movies industry is a different matter. Production prices are way higher, and potentially you could see it be much more impacted by the P2P sharing. For a simple reason : Movie makers need their movie industry. Musicians don't, at least they don't need it for broadcasting and producing anymore.