The link you posted appears to offer no evidence of the statement being examined, and citing the thread in which the statement is made as “evidence” is what’s known as “lame”. Indeed, the only reference made in the article to artists’ royalties from CDs confirms their existence. Therefore, artists get money when a CD is bought. If there is a reason that Janis Ian owes her studio money, it is another reason. Indeed, as she says, she buys CDs from her label to sell at her shows. In this case, the cost of the CDs ends up deducted from her royalty checks, and the profit from them goes on the balance sheet of her shows, thus negating the use of royalty checks as an indication of CD profits.
Now, do you have an actual cite, as in statistic, or are you going to continue to cite yourself and ambiguous/contrary anecdotal evidence from the web?
Hmmm… I didn’t know that the statements of somebody who actually worked in the field were ambiguous and contrary. I was under the impression that information from the horse’s mouth would be true. Shows what I know.
Statistic, eh? I suppose I could ask every damn artist how much money they’d make. Your post seems to be hinting “prove me right.” I offer the following response: “prove me wrong.”
My point in mentioning the thread was that I’m not the first to suggest what I’m saying. But if that’s not how it’s done here, okay, I digress.
As for confirming the existence of CDs, I think you are referring to this bit of text:
Whereas I, on the other hand, am referring to this piece of text:
Now tell me this, at $15 per CD (according to the article) if a hypothetical CD sells 100,000 copies, will it really take more than $1,500,000 to record the music and manufacture the media, plus distribution and advertisement? What if the CD sold 1,000,000 copies?
Please read my post, as you have clearly not done so yet. I clearly explained why it was perfectly possible for an artist to be receiving royalties for CDs and yet owe money to the label on balance. Indeed, the reasoning came from your very own cite, which is why I called it contrary. It contradicts the very point you are trying to make, namely that when you buy a CD, the artist gets nothing. This is a load of horseshit.
Okay, I should have posted that more clearly in the first place. I meant to say, when you buy a CD, any compensation the artist gets is usually exceeded by the cost the record company soaks them.
Again, you’re missing the point. The cost is, according to her own testimony, from buying CDs from her label which she then sells at shows. This is not exploitation, this is just accounting. Assuming she sells the discs at a profit, then all the cost deducted from her royalty checks and more will be credited to the balance sheet of her concerts. This does not mean that her record company is screwing her. In fact, it is enabling her to maximise her profits from her gigs by providing her CDs to sell at them. Those bastards!
Right, that’s assuming she sells them at profit. You know what they say about assuming. It makes an A-S-S out of U-&-ME.
So maybe she doesn’t lose money by signing over her work to the RIAA. Debating this is only going to turn the thread into Economics 101, and it’s almost 3 AM over here.
However, she does say that she’s thrilled when someone downloads her songs and then attends a concert.
Well if she’s too dim to sell the CDs at a profit, who the fuck’s fault is that? She doesn’t have to buy them from the label, and if she stopped, the royalty checks would magically become positive! This isn’t economics 101, this is bloody addition and subtraction.
If she likes filesharing, that’s great; she should distribute her music that way, and should not sign contracts for CD marketing. She does not prove that CD sales are not a source of revenue for artists, she does not prove that artists are being screwed by the RIAA and she certainly does not prove that artists who don’t like filesharing should have their work nicked. Debating this is a crucial point, as apparently many people seem to think that the artists get nothing from CDs, so it is okay to copy them. I believe this is bullshit on numerous counts, however since there seems to be no hope of combating the skewed morality at work there, it remains solely to combat the underlying assumption, which I believe to be bullshit also.
If filesharing + gigs is such a wildly brilliant combination, why aren’t more artists distributing their music like this, hmm? Why aren’t the uber-rich megastars of the pop world happily free of this alleged exploitation through the wonders of filesharing, and why is a record deal still the holy grail of just about every small band in existence? If the answer winging its way to your keyboard is “because the RIAA suppress them” I would greatly appreciate it if you could outline the way in which this is achieved. At present it seems you believe the RIAA to be somewhere between the Illuminati and almighty Odin in terms of their omnipotence.
So now I know what Janis Ian’s opinion is. Gotta cite though?
I mean here’s a guy who says he’s been in the industry for a squillion years and every royalty check shows he owes his recording company money. So riddle me this. Firstly what sort of a “check” involves him paying the person who sends him the check? Secondly, why the fuck does he keep signing up with record companies if they never pay him?
Answer: he’s exaggerating, or he’s very very stupid or (most likely) he knows that he owes the label money because they spend a lot on marketing, recording etc and in that way he is compensated (because he makes money out of concerts etc as a result.
Funny how concerned you are about getting the consent of the hardwarestore owner about these issues. Not a courtesy you see fit to extend to copyright owners. I don’t see you saying “oh you’d need to find out exactly how much time the copyright owner put into recording his song” before you leech it. And you’ve now admitted, I see, that leeching songs does diminish a copyright holder’s opportunity (albeit that you don’t give a shit).
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You are not about to admit the substance of my analogy if it kills you, you just keep nitpicking at the precise “cost” involved. Sooner or later any sensible person actually trying to understand the issues (this does not include you, Mr2001) would have to admit that there is an amount that you could pay the hardwarestore owner that would compensate him for his costs but provide no profit for him to put bread on the table.
But you just go on nitpicking, I am well beyond the point at which I would kid myself you are going to understand anything.
And as to whether the copyright owner has the same thing after you leech a potential sale off him, well, below you admit you understand about opportunity cost, albeit that you don’t give a shit. Contradicting yourself much?
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Funny this. I never suggested the analogy about replacing the bucket and hammer with exact replicas, you did. I suggested this was stupid because where do you get the exact replica. Then you pretend to poke fun as if it was my idea that an exact replica was required in the first place.
Lame.
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The astute reader knows that file formats are just a sideshow. When I’ve downloaded an MP3 of a song, I can play that song. I will no longer buy that song on CD, because I have that song. It’s pretty simple. You’re just backing and filling to avoid the admitting what was obvious from your last post: you have a blind spot regarding file sharing that you don’t have when it comes to other forms of commerce.
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Keep on shoutin’ it. It’s bound to become true sooner or later.
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Well I was speaking loosely, and for that yes I apologise. What I was meaning was that you have a monopoly in the sense of an entitlement to attempt commercial exploitation. My comments were in response to you talking about use of copyright for your own enjoyment, and so when I answered I was talking about that not being prevented by copyright. I was not thinking about copying and passing on to friends. My bad. Doesn’t alter the general thrust of my arguments though.
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No, and I never said anyone did. What you have a right to is your own stuff. And if anyone wants your stuff, they can pay for it.
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Outlawing competition? What’s that all about? But we are certainly getting to the crux of your hypocrisy here. You care about hardwarestore owners, you just don’t care about copyright owners. You say you understand that leeching copyright owners of their work harms the value of their opportunity, but for some strange reason you just don’t care. Fine, you have an odd morality. Just don’t be surprised that others might find your morality vacuous.
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It could use some humour, but it is certainly not short on straw men. I never said that taking someone’s song meant that they had no song. I said that they are down one potential sale opportunity for that song. And you have now agreed with me about this (albeit that you have said you don’t give a shit).
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Just as leeching someone’s song takes away a scarce resource, namely the resource of people who, but for the leeching, might have bought the song, if there hadn’t been an opportunity to leech it instead.
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It’s amazing how much you care about venue owners and their rights. They can choose who uses their seats at any time, even if they had no plans to use them. Just because they’re his, presumably. I’m not saying I disagree, but why is it that they have the right to withhold their seats even if they don’t want to use them, when copyright holders have no moral right to prevent others using their songs, even if it won’t according to you, affect them?
Are you the same Mr2001 who said that or do you just have a bizarre grudge against copyright owners?
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It’s an issue of consent. Few bands are so mean that they’d begrudge some people standing outside a concert unable to see and unable to hear clearly. But they’d begrudge people sneaking into a venue for the full show, while ripping the band off from making any profit for their efforts.
Now instead of sidetracking off into something you’re able to answer without demonstrating the vacuousness of your position, why don’t you answer the friggin question: as between the band and the fraudulent concert goer, is it moral for the latter to deprive the former of their profit?
Well you say that, but of course you are steadfastly refusing to answer the hardwarestore analogy, because (I suspect) you know that you cannot actually think of any real difference, other than some vacuous distinction between hardware and software, why ripping off one thing for non commercial use is any different from ripping off the other for non commercial use.
You don’t “take” the show home with you.
You don’t eavesdrop on the show at your convenience.
Which is worse? Standing outside a music venue eavesdropping on a concert, or taking the signal from the mixing board and making it instantaneously accessible to thousands on the internet?
Jesus Christ, yosemitebabe, I thought you were smarter than this. I answered “yes” twice to essentially the same question, though not in so few words. How many more times are you going to ask me the same thing?
OK, let’s consider three hypothetical situations that could happen after copyright law is changed:
All artists choose not to create new works. No more art is produced and society only has free access to stuff that was created in the past.
All artists continue to create new works. The same amount of art is produced as is now, and society has much more free access to it.
Some artists choose not to create new works, others keep creating. Less art is produced, but society has more access to it.
Clearly, society loses in #1 and wins in #2. What about #3? It’s a tradeoff between the number of artists that stop creating, and the amount of access society gains to existing and new art. If most artists stop, it’s a loss. If only a few stop, it’s a win. How many would stop? We don’t know.
This could easily be stopped by making it illegal to share content that was obtained illegally.
You may not be aware of it, but the courts are already involved in this. Here is a discussion of artists’ rights, including the right to attribution:
Yes, it’s too bad. You’re not pulling my heartstrings, though. If the artist wants to make money, he should make something that people want now, not something people might possibly want someday in the future.
Architects don’t make money by designing houses that contemporary people don’t want to live in. Auto makers don’t make money by designing ugly, inefficient cars that contemporary people don’t want to drive. They don’t get a handout just because land yachts might someday come back in style, or people might someday want a house shaped like a pineapple. Why should it be any different for artists?
Yes, it’s funny how physical property is different from intellectual property, isn’t it?
Sorry to hear I’m not in your club. The astute readers will notice that I did, in fact, admit that there’s an amount you could pay the hardware store owner to compensate him for his time. You find out that amount by asking him.
A lost opportunity is unimpressive. I lose opportunities all the time and I don’t expect people to pay me compensation: Someone took the last copy of Office Space from the video store! Gasp! Someone did something mean and now people don’t want to buy my products! Double gasp! Who can I sue? :rolleyes:
If the only reason to buy a CD were to listen to the songs, then you would have a point. Sadly, you don’t. In many of the copyright threads, some people have expressed why one might prefer CDs instead of MP3s: liner notes, something physical to hold, free goodies inside the CD case, not owning a computer or CD burner, or just the warm fuzzy feeling of supporting their favorite band.
Bravo! Good job proving me wrong with that cite.
Oh wait, you don’t have one? Perhaps you’re afraid of finding out that revenue per album has actually increased, not decreased:
You’re leaving something out. I’d have no opposition to a copyright law that simply gave the owner an entitlement to attempt commercial exploitation, but today’s copyright goes farther than that: It prevents other people from competing, by making it illegal to distribute someone else’s IP either commercially or noncommercially. You don’t just get a monopoly on commercial use, you get a monopoly on all distribution.
No: I believe owners of physical property have rights that simply don’t exist for intellectual property.
You said it was possible to “take” someone’s intellectual property. If you can’t explain how anyone would actually do that, perhaps you should retract that little gem too.
Customers aren’t a resource to be owned, they’re people who can make their own decisions, and they don’t have to justify those decisions to the people who wish to part them from their money. If people don’t want to buy your product for a certain price, you need to either lower your price or increase the value of your product - not make it illegal for others to supply a similar product for cheaper.
(I say “similar” because, as I mentioned above, a CD and an MP3 are not totally equivalent products. A CD has uses that an MP3 doesn’t. However, many would-be customers are persuaded to choose the less useful MP3 because of its much lower price.)
Because copyright holders can use their songs while other people are also using them, simultaneously.
B isn’t true for intellectual property, so C doesn’t follow.
Yes, listening to the show without paying (“depriving the band of their profit”) is moral - the show is going on whether or not people are listening for free; the band doesn’t have to play any louder because of the cheapskates.
The only immoral part is defrauding the venue owner by using a counterfeit ticket. That’s the difference between standing on the sidewalk (moral) and sneaking into the arena (immoral). Even if we say the “sidewalk” is actually a 10th story apartment across the street from the roofless concert arena, and the cheapskates are armed with binoculars and listening devices so they can see and hear as clearly as anyone in the arena, it’s still moral for them to listen for free.
Like I’ve said all along: The difference is that the hardware store owner loses his property, but the copyright owner doesn’t. You don’t get to decide that a certain amount of cash has the same value to him as a hammer and his time, that’s something for him to decide.
The copyright owner, on the other hand, loses nothing but a potential opportunity to potentially make some potential cash from a potential customer - something that he loses to many perfectly moral causes every day, and that he may never have had in the first place. If the copyright owner’s potential customer is dirt poor, or for any other reason wouldn’t have bought a copy of the work even if he couldn’t get a free copy elsewhere, then the owner has lost nothing at all.
I’m sorry, you must not have realized the point of friend Princhester’s analogy. Better luck next time.
OK, I’ll take on this strawman: Who says either is “bad”? The band doesn’t have to play any louder to send their music over the internet. The only difference between eavesdropping over the internet and eavesdropping from the sidewalk is the number of people involved.
But you’re willing to take that gamble, eh? Well, a lot of us aren’t.
This has got to be the biggest load of BULLSHIT ever. So just pass a law that no one will be able to enforce? That’s your solution? “It could be easily stopped?” You’re shitting me.
How does one prove that content was shared illegally? It could end up as a “he said she said” kind of thing.
Let’s say I get my photos developed and send a copy to great aunt Edna, who has vowed that she’d never share the photos with anyone. Two years later, I see my photos online. Who leaked the photos? The photo lab (which signed a contract promising not to release them)? Aunt Edna? One of Aunt Edna’s snoopy friends who rifled through her drawers?
Who do I sue? Can I even sue? Who will the police arrest? Has the law even been broken?
What would your suggestion be in this case? Never show any photos to anyone (even dear aunts) without having them sign a contract? And even if they all sign contracts, if the work is leaked, how will I be able to prove who leaked it, especially if the leak is not discovered until years afterwards?
You’re not serious. You proposed a half-baked idea that won’t pan out, so now you are grasping at straws. Your one-line suggestion to “pass a law” has got to be the most weak, pathetic non-answer ever.
I don’t believe for a second that even the most avid file-sharing fan seriously would advocate the idea of sharing just “anything” that they stumple upon. I don’t believe that any other file-sharing advocate would agree that all photo labs and framing shops should legally be allowed to “copy” anyone’s photos or paintings and share them to the entire world, and the only way to legally prevent them from doing that would be to force them to enter into a legally binding contract where they would promise not to copy their clients’ work.
I don’t believe anyone else here supports that. Not a one. Just you. And it doesn’t pan out. Not even remotely. So I think if you’re going to stick to that idea, you’re going to have to really flesh it out and explain how you’ll make it work, and you’lll have to do better than to give a one-liner about “pass a law.”
So, how will it work? How will the government enforce a law that people pretty much will know is unenforcable? If the photos (or video, manuscript, artwork) was shown to more than one person, the artist will not know who leaked it. And even if the artist did only show it to one person (to their knowledge), the artist still doesn’t know for sure who leaked it—someone might have broken in and copied it, their kid or nosy neighbor may have copied it, who knows? How is the law going to be able to pin the blame on the real culprit in the vast majority of the cases?
And please. Don’t say that the artist has to put all their work under lock and key. I want to hear a solution that does not involve anyone who owns intellectual property (which is pretty much any of us) having to act like they are protecting state secrets.
So, please. Tell me. How do you make this policy work, without lamely suggesting a unenforcable law?
Princhester is right about you (not that I ever doubted that). You have a thing against copyright owners. Or more specifically, artistic type copyright owners. It must be. Otherwise, I can’t imagine how you can blithely claim that the simple solution to making any money off of their work is to make trendy, popular things that people want now. Don’t dare do anything “cutting edge” or “ahead of its time” or “fringe,” because people don’t always want that NOW and if they don’t want it NOW then apparently it’s not worth doing. Or at least not worth getting paid for.
That is pathetic.
Once again, you ignore the point. Who exactly will be giving a “hand out” to a copyright holder of a “yet undiscovered” work? Are you giving them a “hand out”? Are you out of pocket? What are you paying them, in dollars and cents? The whole point is that they aren’t getting any money on the work.
And don’t bleat about how they are getting a “hand out” because they are graciously allowed to “keep” the copyright to their own work. How much exactly is this “hand out” to this (apparently) worthless work worth? Since no one wants it (apparently), it’s worth exactly $0.00. So they are getting a “hand out” of $0.00. Boy, that’s gotta really hit you hard in the wallet. :rolleyes:
Actually, it’s kind of ironic, because I think you have it backwards with this “hand out” thing. You want the hand-out. If it so happens that it’s a before-its-time work that all of a sudden is “discovered” and valued by society, you want it “handed out” to you rather than allowing the artist who actually created it to get any payment for it.
Clearly, there is a difference in the nature of physical and intellectual property. Why it is a difference that causes you to consider it moral to rip off one, but not moral to rip off the other, you are yet to coherently explain.
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We’re going around in circles. This is not about consent or agreement or asking the hardware store owner how much he’d like to be paid for his time. It can’t be, because you don’t afford the right to consent or agreement or profit opportunities to copyright owners. Why?
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No you’ve tried this one before. It was bullshit then regarding the last cup of water, it’s bullshit now. Neither analogy relates to the question of whether leeching someone of the opportunities that arise from their own work is moral or not.
A few anecdotes do not an impressive cite make.
[quote]
**Bravo! Good job proving me wrong with that cite.
Oh wait, you don’t have one? Perhaps you’re afraid of finding out that revenue per album has actually increased, not decreased:**
Good cite. That’s a hellava angry man you’re quoting from there. I sure trust him. And by the way, what’s the revenue per album prove?
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Prevents from competing by making it illegal to distribute someone else’s IP? Does that actually seem wrong to you?
It’s so unfair, I am prevented from competing with my local hardware store by distributing their stock. Woe is me.
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Clearly. The question is: why?
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Indeed. Intellectual property being a bundle of rights, and leeching that property being an act that diminishes the value of those rights. Not retracting that at all. Indeed, you have said that you agree with that proposition, you just don’t care.
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Off on your favourite straw man again I see. I have never said consumers must buy anything. But if they want what someone else owns, they have to buy it or go without. You say that if people don’t want to buy your product, you have to lower your price or increase your value. Of course, if the consumer can leech your product without paying any price at all, you have to lower your price to pretty much zero, or you’re screwed. But you don’t care about that.
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You’re backing and filling something chronic. In your last post, you said that even if the venue owner didn’t want to use his seats or had no use for them, he still had the right to exclude others. No mention at all of this being because he might want to use them. Then I point out the hypocrisy of allowing venue owners the right to withhold what they own even if it wouldn’t hurt them to let someone else use it (a right you do not afford copyright owners). And now you are pretending that you said something different.
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So they’d just go broke. But you don’t give a shit. You only give a shit about certain forms of leeching and not others.
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We’re going round in circles. You’re never going to admit you understand the thrust of my analogy, you are just going to nitpick ad nauseum, because you know the thrust of my analogy corners your argument.
(cont.) And why does the hardwarestore owner get to decide how much his time is worth? Copyright owners don’t get that right (in your morality) they just get leeched from, and their opportunities diminished, and you don’t give a shit.
Princhester, have you ever bought a CD? Why do you need a cite for the contents of a CD case? Just now I pulled out a CD that I bought in a music store. It contains lyrics, cover art, credits, and a couple of photos of the band. I would have none of these things were I to invest my time in getting a program like Kazaa to rip off the tracks online. And as Mr2001 mentioned above, some CDs come with liner notes and “free goodies” (I’d prefer he elaborate on that one, though). And I supported both that band and their record company by buying one of their albums.
If you really believe so strongly in buying music or going without, then it seems to me you’d have at least one CD or other media laying around. Go cite it.
It would be just as easy to enforce as copyright law is today, for better or worse. Unless you’re suggesting we need to have even stricter and more invasive copyright laws, I don’t see the meat of your objection.
Well, you could sue whoever is distributing it online, for distributing your work which was obtained illegally. You could subpoena the photo lab and see what documented procedure they have for ensuring that your photos never fell into the wrong hands.
Now let’s say that happened under the same copyright laws we have today. Who do you sue? How can you prove you took the photos, or that you never gave your consent for anyone else to copy them?
As for “who will the police arrest”, that’s laughable. I hope you don’t seriously believe the police make a habit of hauling people away in cuffs for copyright violations.
I’m the only person who doesn’t support copyright, huh? I suggest you check out the “Should the RIAA offer music downloads” thread in GD.
The same way they enforce unenforcable laws today. Copyright law is doing a great job of stopping file sharing, don’t you think?
Let’s hear your solution, if you’re so hip on making things enforcable. How do you plan to make copyright law enforcable? How is what we have now any more enforcable than what I’ve suggested?
That’s hilarious, considering that I’m a copyright owner myself. I might even be an artistic type one, despite the outrage of the snobs who claim “Only painters and photographers can REALLY have artistic feelings!”
Say, do you want to buy a buggy whip? Oh, you may have heard that buggy whips are out of style, what with those horseless carriages roaming the streets, but mark my words - the horse-drawn carriage is coming back, Real Soon Now, and you’re gonna need a whole barrel of buggy whips. Could be 2015, could be 2050, could be the year 3000… but someday, you’ll need those buggy whips.
What’s that? You don’t want one? You must hate buggy whip makers! I’m on the cutting edge, I’m ahead of my time, and I guess you just don’t think that’s worth getting paid for!
:: pouts ::
:: lobbies Congress to make it illegal for anyone but me to sell buggy whips for the next 150 years ::
Isn’t that silly?
A copyright is a handout. It’s a government-backed monopoly that my tax dollars are paying to enforce (futile as that effort may be), and it limits my freedom of expression in order to preserve some unpopular artist’s gamble that people might someday want to buy his work.
You are, of course, entitled to this opinion, no matter how unrealistic or retarded it may be. You can even share it with your friends on the SDMB. There are no laws preventing you from sharing it just because it might have some vaguely defined effect on me or on the market for my own opinions.
I’ve explained it many times. If it isn’t good enough for you, well, sorry. [sarcasm=callback]I guess my logic is just “cutting edge” or “ahead of its time” and someday people will flock to it, just you wait! In the meantime I’m going to need a $5 royalty from anyone who wants to quote it. ;)[/sarcasm]
Here it is once more: The owner of physical property has the right to decide who can use his property at any given time, in order to ensure that he himself can use it for any purpose he wants at any time he wants. On the other hand, the owner of intellectual property can use it for any purpose at any time, even if a thousand other people are using it simultaneously, so he doesn’t need any “exclusive use” rights in order to be able to exploit his property.
I do afford them the right to profit - but not the right to eliminate competition.
I don’t afford them the right to have their property used only by consent because, as I said above, that’s a right that’s necessary for physical property, but not for intellectual property. The copyright owner can listen to his song, sell his CD, or contract to put his song on a movie soundtrack, even while other people are also using the same song for different purposes. I don’t see a reason to go handing out unnecessary property rights, when those rights are gained at the expense of everyone else’s free expression.
You said it: It was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now. It’s bullshit when applied to the cup of water, it’s bullshit applied to the last video tape, and–you missed this one–it’s bullshit when applied to selling a product.
If someone doesn’t want to buy a product from you, that’s too bad. Come up with a better product or lower your prices. If you can’t make money selling CDs because people prefer the cheaper, less useful MP3s they can get elsewhere, then spice up your CDs so people will prefer them instead.
Since this is the Pit, it’ll suffice to show that there are credible reasons to prefer CDs. I note that I’ve still provided more cites than you have.
The numbers themselves aren’t angry, just the text around them.
Revenue per album proves that file sharing doesn’t cause a drop in sales. Suppose that Britney’s new album comes out, and everyone who would have bought it downloads the MP3s from the internet instead. Suppose Eminem’s new album comes out, and again, everyone downloads the MP3s instead of buying the CD. Metallica’s new album comes out, and everyone downloads it instead of buying it. You’d expect the revenue per album to drop, yes? They’re releasing just as many albums as they did before, but they’re making fewer sales. Each album is selling fewer copies than it did before file sharing.
Instead, we see the opposite. Overall sales are down (thanks, recession), but the number of releases is down a lot more. Each new album is selling more copies, not fewer.
Yes, that’s a fine statement when applied to physical property, and a fine illustration of the difference between physical and intellectual property.
If I want a hammer, and the store owner’s price is too high, then I have to go without. Why? Because he has the hammer, and for me to have a hammer, he has to give it up. I have to give him something that’s more valuable to him than the hammer to convince him to give it up.
On the other hand, that isn’t true of IP. I can get a copy of a song without anyone else having to give it up. I don’t need to convince anyone to give up their copy of the song. Limiting my ability to get a copy of that song is just a gratuitous restriction on what would otherwise be a free market.
Indeed, I don’t care about the profits of people who don’t understand the market. If the competition is giving away their product for free, you won’t be able to beat them on price, so beat them on value. Put some coupons or other bonus material inside the CD case: photos, posters, or interviews with the band.
Another pathetic attempt to deny what’s been said. Let’s look at what I actually posted, right here on page 9 (bolding added):
Because the hardware store owner actually has to spend his time replacing the hammer you took. The band doesn’t have to record their song over again each time someone downloads it. It’s already been created; there’s no marginal cost when someone makes a copy, merely a “lost opportunity” that may never have existed at all.
One of the Daft Punk CDs I bought came with a code number inside that gave me access to download a bunch of songs from their web site. I’ve also heard of CDs coming with coupons for merchandise and concert tickets inside - I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a CD instead of downoading if it meant getting a discount on something I want to buy.
Once again, you show that you’re more interested in pulling quotes out of context than actually reading the thread.
Those of us who pay attention realize that even if noncommercial copying were legal, there would still be ways to obtain copies illegally (in this case, breaking a contract), which is what I was referring to.
Yes, you’re very observant. Murder and genocide are both immoral; eavesdropping from the sidewalk and eavesdropping over the internet are both moral. The difference in scale doesn’t affect the morality of the act. I think you’re finally catching on!
