I Think Your App Should Be Free • Hacker News Board

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#91

Post by toyg » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:27 AM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #80

toyg wrote: post #75

If you look at the history of smartphone development, you'll find a better analogy. You see, back in the '00s, it used to be common knowledge that "nobody pays for third-party smartphone apps". It was scientifically proved over and over again, on platforms like Symbian and Palm, by research after research. You see, back then getting hold of a mobile app was relatively hard; you had to go hunting for it online, find i…

"Digital Slavery"? We're talking about owning, or not owning an MP3. Going without it is hardly slavery. It is really very simple. If someone feels the price an artists asks for their songs is too much, or feels that obtaining a copy legally is too much "work", then they don't need to have a copy. They're not entitled to it for any reason whatsoever.

Look around you. Entertainment cartels are pushing draconian legislation across the world, making copyright infringement a criminal felony, with harsher penalties than manslaughter; they are threatening to disconnect people from the internet, which in many cases would compromise their livelihood; they are pushing DRM into software and hardware, so that you don't own your device, they do; they support Chinese-style firewalls to blacklist "pirate" websites. All this regardless of whether I actually want to buy their crappy products.

If that's not digital slavery...

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#92

Post by lurker19 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:28 AM UTC

jamesaguilar wrote: post #44

snippyhollow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't steal anything (nobody no longer has it because of you), you pirated it.

I think nearly everyone here is aware of the distinction. Speaking only for myself, I will continue to say "steal" since both words describe the same action (assuming you're not a prescriptive linguist), and steal better connotes what I believe to be the economic impact.

The phone company steals from me every time my DSL fails and I spend an hour on the phone with a tech or by another replacement modem.

HTC steals from me every time the USB cable doesn't dock securely in the port.

Microsoft steals from me every time Windows crashes.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#93

Post by toyg » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:30 AM UTC

danssig wrote: post #85

toyg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite ironic, considering that Mozart made most of his (relatively little) money by touring and composing for wealthy patrons. Somebody else made much more money out of him: sheet printers, who also ended up being the real force behind original legislation on copyright. Plus ça change...

It's not ironic. He made his living (little as it might have been) by doing what he wanted to do. He wasn't cleaning toilets on the side to supplement his hobby of composing. Other people making more money off his work doesn't change anything. His passion supported him financially.

He wasn't relying on copyright laws, which is what the parent poster was implicitly talking up with his statement; i.e. a world without copyright laws did in fact produce a Mozart, and it will keep producing it regardless of legislation.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#94

Post by sireat » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:34 AM UTC

krig wrote: post #63

cageface wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only reward amateurs then amateur content is all you will get. Some skills take decades to master. The world you describe will never produce a Mozart.

I'm not describing the world that I want . I'm describing what I think is what is happening. At the same time, I don't think you can say that we'll only get Rebecca Black in the future, you can't know that. Mozart had a lot of factors playing into his level of success (timing, the right parents, innate skill, etc). At the same time, Mozart lived before albums or musical copyright, and worked under the patronage syste…

14-year old Mozart would be at home with todays file sharers and sheet transcribers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#95

Post by jrockway » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:37 AM UTC

leon_ wrote: post #40

jrockway wrote: post #20

What is the moral of this story? "I'm an App Developer, therefore I shouldn't pirate music"? Ultimately, piracy breaks down to "people want your stuff, but you've priced it too highly". In the case of apps, that's all it is. In the case of music, it's a little different. Music is cheap, but it's rare that you can get it in a good format: everything is lossy, and for people with good audio kit and good hearing, that m…

> Ultimately, piracy breaks down to "people want your stuff, but you've priced it too highly". I'd say it's rather: > Ultimately, piracy breaks down to "people want your stuff, but you've priced it".

$0 is a price. Compare how much Google charges you to watch videos or search the Internet, and then look at the value of the company.

Yeah. Turns out that charging $20 for a CD is not a winning business model.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#96

Post by rmc » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:42 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #61

krig wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are absolutely wrong about this. You might be correct when it comes to mid- to low level professional music/software. But the threshold to producing and releasing music and software is getting lower all the time. These days, kids can go online and find tons and tons of instructional material and peer support for learning to play musical instruments or make software. They can noodle around at home with ama…

If you only reward amateurs then amateur content is all you will get. Some skills take decades to master. The world you describe will never produce a Mozart.

Mozart didn't have copyright on his works.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#97

Post by ericd » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:43 AM UTC

FxChiP wrote: post #77

glimcat wrote: post #18

I really don't care if teenagers with no money run a free copy of my stuff. They weren't going to buy it anyway - and now they're out there increasing its penetration. From a business perspective, it's often a win if you stop fallaciously calculating every illegitimate copy as a loss of the sticker price. From a strictly personal standpoint, I take it as a compliment that they like it enough to go to the trouble.

"it's often a win if you stop fallaciously calculating every illegitimate copy as a loss of the sticker price." This really depends on how you define loss. In a standard legitimate sale of a product, there is a bidirectional exchange of value -- the customer submits currency whose total value is equivalent to the value requested for the product being purchased. Simultaneously, for submitting the currency of that valu…

Most people define loss as the difference in assumed outcomes between scenario #1 and the illegal scenario #2 - a business has never been entitled to the full value of a person's enjoyment of a product. That's why most people scoff at the amounts cited by the record labels.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#98

Post by earbitscom » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:48 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #91

earbitscom wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Digital Slavery"? We're talking about owning, or not owning an MP3. Going without it is hardly slavery. It is really very simple. If someone feels the price an artists asks for their songs is too much, or feels that obtaining a copy legally is too much "work", then they don't need to have a copy. They're not entitled to it for any reason whatsoever.

Look around you. Entertainment cartels are pushing draconian legislation across the world, making copyright infringement a criminal felony, with harsher penalties than manslaughter; they are threatening to disconnect people from the internet, which in many cases would compromise their livelihood; they are pushing DRM into software and hardware, so that you don't own your device, they do; they support Chinese-style fi…

They don't care if you want to buy their products. They simply care that, if you do not, you do not also take those products without paying for them. If people were not taking for free things that cost significant money to produce, and did not keep ignoring the light-handed laws that already exist, there would be no need for more draconian measures. But most importantly, what does any of this have to do with whether or not you are entitled to a free copy of the new Bieber album? Don't take things that don't belong to you, and you don't need to worry about having your internet taken away. It's pretty much the same as drunk driving and everything else.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#99

Post by rmc » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:49 AM UTC

shabble wrote: post #21

For all the potential parallels with the music industry, I think there are quite a few significant differences. Firstly, what are the current equivalents of a mobile App Store for (pirated) music? There are definitely a bunch of places you can find it if you look, but few of them are as "one-stop-shop" as current app stores. Secondly, does pirated music often outrank the artists/album name/track titles in general int…

what are the current equivalents of a mobile App Store for (pirated) music? There are definitely a bunch of places you can find it if you look, but few of them are as "one-stop-shop" as current app stores.

Large torrent sites, like The Pirate Bay or Demonoid, are one-stop-shops for music & film downloads.

does pirated music often outrank the artists/album name/track titles in general internet searches?

No, not for the band/track/album name, but for "$ALBUMNAME torrent" or "$ALBUMNAME download" pirate sites are high up.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#100

Post by toyg » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 9:50 AM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #81

krig wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still "making it", whatever that means. But, yeah. Welcome to the reality of 90% of all musicians, actors, artists, entrepreneurs out there.

90% of musicians make music nobody wants that bad. We're talking about people who make music that people do want, and those people not paying for it for no other reason than they don't have to. People who make products we want badly enough to need one of our own should be compensated for their efforts. They should not have to go out and play it in clubs, or sell you a t-shirt. If you want a copy of their song, you sh…

90% of musicians make music nobody even heard of.

Face it, we're not born with a burning desire to buy Metallica albums. You grow up listening to radio or watching tv, getting exposed to certain types of music (typically between 2 and 6 minutes, most on 4/4, with accompanying lyrics sung by one or two artists) and that's the music you'll end up wanting "that bad" -- pure coincidence?

Artists who succeed following traditional models (who, incidentally, are the most supportive of draconian copyright laws) are the ones who marketed themselves more heavily and got more access to traditional media: they went on TV, did interviews and concerts, paid for airplay... -- without any of that, they wouldn't be "popular". To do this, they had to borrow a lot of money from their label, and often will see very little financial reward.

So why they should not have to go out and sell you a t-shirt, instead of borrowing from a label to buy (increasingly more irrelevant) airplay? What's the big deal ?