mikkel wrote:
Not only is it still a loss to the company, as you still figure into the element of uncertainty that makes their industry a risky investment, but, again, as you yourself said, whenever anyone copies a product and obtains it for free, it loses perceived value. You're part of the many millions of people out there who steal products and use them for free, who make people looking at buying the product think twice about paying for something that everyone else got for free by stealing it. It has massive repercussions. You're trying to justify stealing a service simply because you wouldn't have paid for it in the first place. Any way you try to look at that, it's theft, and it hurts the manufacturers.
Lets remove the word stealing from your argument because it is a rather large fallacy to need to assume piracy is stealing in order to prove that piracy is stealing. Stealing carries a lot of connotations which are the exact ones that I do not believe piracy shares. Which is why distinguishing the difference is very important. Either way consider the point you're making, decreased value due to copies being made? Is that the fault of the people doing the copying or the manufacturers who designed a product that is all to easy to copy? If you want immaterial property to be comparable to material property then lets use an example. I come up with the idea of pet rocks. Let's imagine it's totally original. There is a huge demand for them and I spend a long time finding suitable rocks, painting them, packaging them and advertising them. The base materials are of negligible worth. I am selling an idea, an experience that is tied to a rock as a medium. Lots of people would like a pet rock to love and cherish. But noone wants to pay the £5 I'm asking for one. People start making their own rocks just by looking at my original and they realise it's pretty easy to do, and they look undeniably the same as mine. They don't sell them for commercial gain, they just keep them for themselves or give them to friends. Will investors come invest in my pet rock idea? No. Is it just because there are lots of cheapskates who would rather make the same thing for free? Well yes, but it's more the fault of my rocks than the cheapskates. My rocks are easy to copy and are therefore flawed as a product. I can claim the intellectual property as my own but noone seems to be using it for commercial gain. In fact, the only indicator that people are copying them at all is the fact that everyone has one and yet I have a warehouse still full of them. Would you say I made a loss due to their greed? Or am I getting exactly what I deserved for my half thought out work? Information only comes at a cost if it is possible to control it. Anything commonly known is worthless. Is all software flawed as a product then? No of course not, but the nature of software means that it needs some way to protect itself in order to give it a monetary value. If you want to restrict the use of your product to one person so that you can sell one separately to everyone then the onus is on you to make your product accordingly. Steam is one of the most successful examples of this. Has great benefits for the consumer, and is easily controlled by the company.
mikkel wrote:
That absolutely does not make sense. You're trying to argue that stealing isn't stealing just because the thief didn't want to pay for the product. You just justified pretty much any form of theft anywhere.
Would stealing be justified if noone ever made a loss? Erm yes, actually, it probably would. It also wouldn't be stealing.
mikkel wrote:
That's such a poor, failing logic that I don't know where to begin. Are you trying to tell me that software companies have been of little value to investors throughout history?
No, but the advent of the internet has meant that software companies need to adapt. Companies who sell material goods will not refuse to sell to their competitors for fear that they will suss out their product and release something similar. They will make sure that before launch their product is something that has a value that cannot be reproduced for nothing. High speed internet compunded a problem that was always there because they are now not only easy to copy, they are easy to pass to your friends too.
mikkel wrote:
If you're suggesting that what makes a product "poorly thought out" is that people are likely to steal it, then I'm afraid law has already intervened on the side of manufacturers. You see, there are laws against theft.
Again with the stealing assumption. But really the same point I've made countless times before. No real point discussing laws, I think the laws quite clearly state that piracy is illegal. That's not what we're debating. We're debating whether or not it is as bad as stealing.
mikkel wrote:
It has nothing to do with the difficulty involved in replicating a product. Entertainment media thrives on replication, and entertainment media has its own intrinsic value that is due to the public perception of the product, and the demand that it generates. If you think that digital media derives value from being difficult to replicate, then you obviously have no understanding of how the market works.
I don't really understand your point here. All products are easily manufactured in large quantities
by the manufacturer. That is the way
all markets work. If the lowly consumer can replicate it easily, then there is a problem.
mikkel wrote:
You talk about this like everyone is guided by a strong moral compass. Media piracy is actively serving to remove any value from the media beyond the bits that make it up, and those can be had for free through theft that millions of people encourage. The number of people who will illegally copy a game and buy a legal copy if they like it is a fraction of the people who illegally copy games and keep them, regardless of whether or not they like them. If you're trying to pass off theft as being integral to a free market, you're failing.
Media is an experience. If you cannot control the distributuion of your experience then the product is already devalued.
mikkel wrote:
I find it hilarious that you cite free market values, and then argue that manufacturers shouldn't be able to set the price for their own products. You seem to think that entertainment media doesn't sell. I'm afraid that you're dead wrong. It does sell, in massive quantities, and people are willing to pay for it. YOU may not be willing to pay for it, but if you try to justify theft because of this, and if you try to blame the product for having qualities that you don't like, you're reeking of a sense of entitlement that I really cannot take seriously.
And likewise just because there are some people who are willing to pay for it doesn't mean that everyone will. If you want to sell more, drop the price. There'll be a sweetspot somewhere and if corporations aren't happy with what they're getting they clearly haven't hit it yet. Most products are well designed in that they can dictate supply. But it is much more difficult to dictate demand. That is where the consumer has power over any maufacturer or service provider.
Last edited by Aries_37 (2009-04-19 12:28:38)
