I think the Pirate Bays guys were criminals.
I also think the MPAA/RIAA will never stop filesharing.
I think that their old distribution model is broken, and that if they want to make money they should go with a method that has been proven to work: offer legal
downloads of their products at a nominal fee or a one-time streaming upload of a movie for an even smaller fee. Generally speaking, most people are honest and
the majority will still pay a "fair" price for a movie. The trouble is definign what "fair" is. The MPAA/RIAA want to define the term, but
that is because they fail at economics forever.
Econ 101 says that the price of a product will always be determined by a combination of supply and demand. If supply exceeds demand the price will go down, if
demand exceeds supply the price will go up. Until the advent of high-speed internet the MPAA/RIAA had a lock on the "supply" side. Witness "The
Disney Vault" among other marketing scehemes. It was possible for the producers to control how much of their product was available, when it was avaialble
and so on, thus driving up demand and increasing price point. However with the advent of high-speed internet supply has become a variable approaching infinity.
In effect, once a product exist in digital form it is possible to make infinite copies of it and dsitribute it infinitely. This has raised suppyl far higher
than demand and thus should drive price down.
The MPAA/RIAA don't want this. Their business model is built on controlling the supply to stimulate demand so they can charge what they wish. But with
supply far exceeding demand nobody is willing to pay $25 for a single CD of 12 songs, three of which they like. So the MPAA/RIAA resort to draconian means to
try and control the supply, which of course doesn't work. So long as they aren't willing to let the market (ie us) set the price rather then having the
price set by them, they'll continue to engage in such tactics.
In summary: support the iTunes and any other legal pay-for-download music and/or movie sites. The more we the consumer point out that pay-for-download is the
future, the harder and harder it will be for the industry to resist. And for the industry: accept that pirates exist and that you will only ever get $1-2
dollars a song now, refinance your operations accordingly.
------------------
Epsilon
I also think the MPAA/RIAA will never stop filesharing.
I think that their old distribution model is broken, and that if they want to make money they should go with a method that has been proven to work: offer legal
downloads of their products at a nominal fee or a one-time streaming upload of a movie for an even smaller fee. Generally speaking, most people are honest and
the majority will still pay a "fair" price for a movie. The trouble is definign what "fair" is. The MPAA/RIAA want to define the term, but
that is because they fail at economics forever.
Econ 101 says that the price of a product will always be determined by a combination of supply and demand. If supply exceeds demand the price will go down, if
demand exceeds supply the price will go up. Until the advent of high-speed internet the MPAA/RIAA had a lock on the "supply" side. Witness "The
Disney Vault" among other marketing scehemes. It was possible for the producers to control how much of their product was available, when it was avaialble
and so on, thus driving up demand and increasing price point. However with the advent of high-speed internet supply has become a variable approaching infinity.
In effect, once a product exist in digital form it is possible to make infinite copies of it and dsitribute it infinitely. This has raised suppyl far higher
than demand and thus should drive price down.
The MPAA/RIAA don't want this. Their business model is built on controlling the supply to stimulate demand so they can charge what they wish. But with
supply far exceeding demand nobody is willing to pay $25 for a single CD of 12 songs, three of which they like. So the MPAA/RIAA resort to draconian means to
try and control the supply, which of course doesn't work. So long as they aren't willing to let the market (ie us) set the price rather then having the
price set by them, they'll continue to engage in such tactics.
In summary: support the iTunes and any other legal pay-for-download music and/or movie sites. The more we the consumer point out that pay-for-download is the
future, the harder and harder it will be for the industry to resist. And for the industry: accept that pirates exist and that you will only ever get $1-2
dollars a song now, refinance your operations accordingly.
------------------
Epsilon