3 ms·

You can't compete with free piracy for digital products, period. Legitimate retail isn't in competition with the pirate bay.

baddox 12y ago
Of course you can compete with free piracy for digital products. If you couldn't, then I wouldn't purchase any piratable digital products, but I absolutely do. iTunes, for example, is in many cases much quicker, more convenient, and more reliable than pirating music. Likewise with Kindle e-books.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  So wait, is piracy hurting artists or not? I always have trouble remembering which argument is being invoked to justify "taking stuff for free" this week.
  - baddox 12y ago
    None of that sounds like the point I was making, but since you asked, I would guess that piracy hurts some artists and helps others.
dublinben 12y ago
Of course you can, look at the wild success of Steam and iTunes. They've created billion dollar businesses out of being more convenient than the free alternatives. These services, and every other retail platform is absolutely in competition with grey and black market competitors. Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down?
- rhino369 12y ago
  Steam and itunes are wildly successful because they are easier and cheaper than bestbuy and samgoodie. People who want to pirate can download MP3's and PC games with ease. Some of the most pirated games are on steam. Headphones (sickbeard for music) makes pirating music even easier than iTunes. >Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down? Because piracy costs them sales. It's still not competition when you take the product without paying for it.
simonh 12y ago
I don't think that's true, and I don't thing e.g. Apple does, which is why they pushed so hard for DRM free music. I think they know perfectly well that if DRM protected content offers a worse user experience than pirated material, people will pirate instead of buying. The success of Napster proved this. However, offering a reasonably priced, easy to use and hassle free customer experience has a lot of value, which people are prepared to pay for. The success of the iTunes store proves this.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
You can compete on quality control. Pirate media has a tendency to be shoddy. Metadata is missing or incorrect, audic/video quality is poor, special features are missing, books in particular often have missing formatting or are just crappy image scans, with or without dodgy OCR. If you pay for something, though, you are ~98% certain to get the expected and intended quality.

baddox 12y ago

Of course you can compete with free piracy for digital products. If you couldn't, then I wouldn't purchase any piratable digital products, but I absolutely do. iTunes, for example, is in many cases much quicker, more convenient, and more reliable than pirating music. Likewise with Kindle e-books.

rodgerd 12y ago
So wait, is piracy hurting artists or not? I always have trouble remembering which argument is being invoked to justify "taking stuff for free" this week.
- baddox 12y ago
  None of that sounds like the point I was making, but since you asked, I would guess that piracy hurts some artists and helps others.

dublinben 12y ago

Of course you can, look at the wild success of Steam and iTunes. They've created billion dollar businesses out of being more convenient than the free alternatives. These services, and every other retail platform is absolutely in competition with grey and black market competitors. Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down?

rhino369 12y ago
Steam and itunes are wildly successful because they are easier and cheaper than bestbuy and samgoodie. People who want to pirate can download MP3's and PC games with ease. Some of the most pirated games are on steam. Headphones (sickbeard for music) makes pirating music even easier than iTunes. >Why do you think the RIAA/MPAA/etc. try so hard to shut them down? Because piracy costs them sales. It's still not competition when you take the product without paying for it.

simonh 12y ago

I don't think that's true, and I don't thing e.g. Apple does, which is why they pushed so hard for DRM free music. I think they know perfectly well that if DRM protected content offers a worse user experience than pirated material, people will pirate instead of buying. The success of Napster proved this. However, offering a reasonably priced, easy to use and hassle free customer experience has a lot of value, which people are prepared to pay for. The success of the iTunes store proves this.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago

You can compete on quality control. Pirate media has a tendency to be shoddy. Metadata is missing or incorrect, audic/video quality is poor, special features are missing, books in particular often have missing formatting or are just crappy image scans, with or without dodgy OCR. If you pay for something, though, you are ~98% certain to get the expected and intended quality.