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Thoughts on Piracy and DRM from AI War Creator

christophermpark.blogspot.com

21–24 of 24 posts

Re: Thoughts on Piracy and DRM from AI War Creator

#21
post #4

He is close to arriving to the conclusion I generally have reached when thinking about piracy issues when he says this: > People have been violating copyright and pirating and plagiarizing since long before the modern era. There's just something, deep down, that makes people believe that these sorts of ethereal products, or knowledge, can't or shouldn't be protected. To me, the real issue is this: No one spontaneousl…

> If I had an infinite supply of food, I would not think twice about handing it out to others. I don't know why people keep making this analogy, but it's a poor one imho. Here's a better view: * you have to work hard to produce that infinite supply of food, and when you're done people are not going to instantly buy your food ... it takes some time before your expenses are covered * as time passes people will grow tir…

> > If I had an infinite supply of food, I would not think twice about handing it out to others.

> I don't know why people keep making this analogy, but it's a poor one imho.

You missed his point. It's the customers that suddenly find themselves with an infinite supply of food, for practical purposes, so why should their friends have to pay for food?

Re: Thoughts on Piracy and DRM from AI War Creator

#22

This recalls to mind what I think is a very compelling argument found at the beginning of "Freakonomics." Namely that people are not stupid, and they know that if they stop paying for the bagels, the bagels will dissapper. In the book, they examine the pay-rates and stealing rates of a service operated by a guy who just left a can for people to put their payment in and collected it each day when he dropped off the fr…

I could not agree more. Now that iTunes has dropped DRM, I have paid for all my music since then. The last time I copied something, there were no non-DRM version on iTunes and Amazon was not selling the non-DRM version in Canada. So as a last resort I took a Torrent. Give me an easy way to pay you for what I want and you'll get my money.

Re: Thoughts on Piracy and DRM from AI War Creator

#23
post #15
post #4

He is close to arriving to the conclusion I generally have reached when thinking about piracy issues when he says this: > People have been violating copyright and pirating and plagiarizing since long before the modern era. There's just something, deep down, that makes people believe that these sorts of ethereal products, or knowledge, can't or shouldn't be protected. To me, the real issue is this: No one spontaneousl…

Well, it's not quite that black-and-white. DRM and copy protection has always been broken and copyright laws have always been hard to enforce, so people have always been able to get what they want for less than the asking price. Every IP-based enterprise's business model has been broken for years; Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists shows his company's model was broken even before it started. If people had no intern…

I agree with your point, but let me clarify what I mean: I don't mean to say that people are averse to paying for content they want. On the contrary, I do think most people are happy to pay what they feel is a reasonable price for things.

The thing though, is this: Once I've bought something I wanted and I have it, and it's infinitely sharable - why not share it with my friends, or even just anyone who might want it? That's where I think the real issue lies. I don't think most people see anything wrong with sharing something when it costs them nothing to do it. To the contrary, I think people in general are social and caring, and even desire sharing with others when possible.

Also, I think people are happy to pay someone for creating or providing goods they want. I don't think many people want to pay for copies of digital content, because single digital copies truly are worth nothing.

Re: Thoughts on Piracy and DRM from AI War Creator

#24
post #22

This recalls to mind what I think is a very compelling argument found at the beginning of "Freakonomics." Namely that people are not stupid, and they know that if they stop paying for the bagels, the bagels will dissapper. In the book, they examine the pay-rates and stealing rates of a service operated by a guy who just left a can for people to put their payment in and collected it each day when he dropped off the fr…

I could not agree more. Now that iTunes has dropped DRM, I have paid for all my music since then. The last time I copied something, there were no non-DRM version on iTunes and Amazon was not selling the non-DRM version in Canada. So as a last resort I took a Torrent. Give me an easy way to pay you for what I want and you'll get my money.

It's such a tiny country. We must know each other!
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