Intellectual Property Rights: Piracy FTW :b: :b:

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kidicious

That's where you are wrong the price on copyrighted material is completely driven by demand. That's what copyrighting does. You have to pay a high price because no one else can sell it.

That's actually substantially incorrect. There are many factors in the pricing of copyrighted material, including production (labor primarily) cost, industry standard pricing, advertising costs, etc.

Clearly security measures and such are paid for somehow; they reduce profits, reduce the man hours available to make (music/videos/games), and increase price. Not every copyrighted material producer makes money hand over fist; especially for computer games, many games actually *gasp* lose money, and there is often very little elasticity of prce relative to demand with computer games. How much was a copy of Bioshock, for example? $49.99. How much was a copy of most other "first rank" PC games? $49.99. Regardless of the fact that BioShock was known, in advance, to likely outsell other first rank games by a significant margin. The real question is, if security measures were not required, would all first rank games be $44.99 or $39.99? We'll probably never know ...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Meh, piracy advocates never are convinced that they're stealing, because that would mean they're bad people. Nobody wants to believe that they're a bad person

No me. I don't think stealing is always bad. I've stold things from stores and not felt any guilt at all. In fact, it felt good.

Potential income is a meaningful economic term. If you're not able to understand it, go take macro economics 101.

I agree that it has a meaning.

Sharing is stealing just as much as selling for profit is.

I'll remember to tell my friends to cover their ears while I play my music.

In order to have this argument, one must define terms. Merriam Webster Law Dictionary defines "to steal" as "to take or appropriate without right or consent and with intent to keep or make use of".

X downloads an MP3 from a shared site. X has appropriated said MP3. X has no right to said mp3. X intends to keep or make use of it (listen to it once). Therefore, X has stolen said MP3.

The important thing to note here is that, legally, stealing does not take the target into account. You could argue the moral issue - it might be morally worse to deprive another of the use of something while simultaneously using something you have no right to - but it is stealing nonetheless. Non-legal definitions still contain this same phrasing - excluding the original owner from the definition entirely, focusing on the one who is stealing. (Dictionary.com's first and second definitions for 'to steal' in its 'major' dictionaries, for a couple of examples.)

Further, an apt example is a condo owner. Let's say Y owns a condo. Y owes $300 a month in assessments, which go to pay for the night watchman, the desk attendant, and the gardener.

If Y does not pay the assessment, is Y stealing? Is Y morally wrong? Even if Y would rather have not had the gardener if he had to pay him?

Yes, Y is clearly stealing. Y enjoyed the services of the three workers, even if Y would have not paid for them otherwise and would happily have not had them in the first place. The three workers came to their employment with the understanding that they would be paid as a result; Y not paying them is stealing from them, even though he took nothing from them, and even though he would have been happy for them not to have come.

The problem with all that is that stealing means that it has costed someone something. That's not the case in your examples. If someone steals my CDs I don't have them anymore.

Similarly, the music companies (and the artists) are losing money that they have a right to, even if you "would not have bought it anyway". If you don't want to buy it, then don't - just don't listen to it at all. That's the choice, you see - you either think it is worth the $15 to buy the CD, or you don't listen to it.

Do you not see how that equation shifts once you're able to obtain it for free? Sure, you still "buy movies and cds". Certainly. But, exactly how many CDs did you listen to for free and not buy, that you would have bought had you not had the 'free' option? You will say "none" more than likely, but I believe that is not true - if not for you, then for 99.9% of people who download music. It is a utility curve plain and simple, and that utility curve shifts if you are able to obtain the items for free.

If you want to talk about legal rights fine, but don't tell me that I'm hurting someone by listening to music. That's ridiculous. If you want to say you have a right to my money then fine. I disagree that you should. Therefore I continue to listen.

To be honest, I don't much care if you steal music. I'm not the sort to believe other people must follow my moral code or behave themselves as I would.

Good. This should be a short argument then.

But don't pretend it's not stealing. That's demeaning the artists and the people who actually do actual work to give you those CDs and DVDs. Steal, lie, cheat, whatever - but be honest with yourself and with the world about what you're doing. Nothing is worse than a hypocrite, except for one that lies to himself.

If they don't want people to listen to their music they shouldn't make CDs.

[snoopy369]

If you had read my post you'd understand why none of your arguments made any sense

Just as long as you admit you're stealing your music, I don't care. I'd rather associate with thieves than hypocrites any day. (As long as they keep their mitts off my stuff )

If you want to argue with the definition of stealing, go take it up with Noah Webster, George and Charles Merriam, or Henry Black, if you can find them to argue with you

Or keep lying to yourself about the matter...

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I feel your pain.

That's like saying robbers hurt property owners because they have to push a button on their alarm.

No, it's more like saying that robbers hurt property owners because their theft/damage of property drives up insurance rates. Then that the houses they can buy are all equipped with annoying alarm systems that restrict the things the owners themselves can do in their own house. And to top it off, the owner has to pay for the installation as well.

It's nice that you equate yourself with robbers though. It's the only apt thing in your whole analogy really...

That's where you are wrong the price on copyrighted material is completely driven by demand.

Only one factor involved in prices...

That's what copyrighting does. You have to pay a high price because no one else can sell it.

Copyright allows content creators to profit from their work, thus helping promote content creation.

Competition exists in the content market. Content is competing with other content for consumption. You don't go buy a ticket for every movie, or rent out the whole blockbuster, or buy every game/cd in the store... you chose the one(s) that most interest you.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
That's actually substantially incorrect. There are many factors in the pricing of copyrighted material, including production (labor primarily) cost

What a load of nonsense?! If you think that a music company considers at all how much their labor costs are when they price their product you are mistaken. It's incredibly insignificant.

, industry standard pricing,

That doesn't mean anything.

advertising costs, etc.

That's what increases the demand so you can't really say that they are raising the price because of the cost of advertising. Also advertising lowers average costs.

Copyrighted material is the type of product that has very high sales initially and then sales fall off drastically. To say that they price the product according to the variable costs shows how much you know about business. They price it for the highest price that they can get. Competition is not a factor.

Clearly security measures and such are paid for somehow; they reduce profits, reduce the man hours available to make (music/videos/games), and increase price. Not every copyrighted material producer makes money hand over fist; especially for computer games, many games actually *gasp* lose money, and there is often very little elasticity of prce relative to demand with computer games. How much was a copy of Bioshock, for example? $49.99. How much was a copy of most other "first rank" PC games? $49.99. Regardless of the fact that BioShock was known, in advance, to likely outsell other first rank games by a significant margin. The real question is, if security measures were not required, would all first rank games be $44.99 or $39.99? We'll probably never know ...

Yes we do.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Just as long as you admit you're stealing your music, I don't care.

If it's stealing then my friends should pay also if they hear it right?

[Wiglaf]

No me. I don't think stealing is always bad. I've stold things from stores and not felt any guilt at all. In fact, it felt good.

Well that settles this argument doesn't it?

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Aeson
This is what piracy does for the law abiding consumer. It gives corporations a justification for all this crap. And if you think that's not harmful, you're just an idiot.

Corporations may feel that adding anti-piracy measures to their products results in a net increase in profit, however I am of the belief that such measures do more harm than good to the company's bottom line. First, a great deal of people who pirate a product would not pay full price for that product; stopping such a person from using the product is irrelevant to the company's bottom line. Those that would have paid full price for the product were a pirated product less convenient are more than balanced out by those who now avoid buying the product due to the inherant annoyingness of its anti-piracy measures.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Aeson
No, it's more like saying that robbers hurt property owners because their theft/damage of property drives up insurance rates. Then that the houses they can buy are all equipped with annoying alarm systems that restrict the things the owners themselves can do in their own house. And to top it off, the owner has to pay for the installation as well.

It's not like that at all. You seperated the economic cost of security measures with the inconvenience of them just as you should have.

Only one factor involved in prices...

yea

Copyright allows content creators to profit from their work, thus helping promote content creation.

Competition exists in the content market. Content is competing with other content for consumption. You don't go buy a ticket for every movie, or rent out the whole blockbuster, or buy every game/cd in the store... you chose the one(s) that most interest you.

That's not the samething as say competition in the apples market. Competition in the apples market means that the price of apples is driven by supply. Competition in a copyrighted materials market means that the price is driven by demand.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

Corporations may feel that adding anti-piracy measures to their products results in a net increase in profit, however I am of the belief that such measures do more harm than good to the company's bottom line. First, a great deal of people who pirate a product would not pay full price for that product; stopping such a person from using the product is irrelevant to the company's bottom line. Those that would have paid full price for the product were a pirated product less convenient are more than balanced out by those who now avoid buying the product due to the inherant annoyingness of its anti-piracy measures.

This isn't what I'm talking about.

Regardless of whether it's financially justified... it's obvious that corporations do incorporate anti-piracy measures which the law abiding consumer ends up having to deal with.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Which one of the threads on this exact subject would you like the discussion in?

[Wiglaf]

What do those smilies mean? Dinodoc's comment really made little sense.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It's not like that at all. You seperated the economic cost of security measures with the inconvenience of them just as you should have.

They are all derived from the same impetus.

That's not the samething as say competition in the apples market. Competition in the apples market means that the price of apples is driven by supply.

Supply and demand, as well as operational costs and profit margins.

Or do you really think that if no one wanted apples they'd cost the same as they do now? Or if there was a drastic increase in labor costs, you think the apple growers would just eat that and not change pricing?

Competition in a copyrighted materials market means that the price is driven by demand.

One of the factors in price is demand. There are other factors that have to be taken into account in setting a price as well though.

If you were correct that only demand matters in a content market, then a PC game which a million people want to play would cost the same as a CD (or even a single) which a million people want to listen to. But we all know it would be more like ~$40 for the game, and ~$10 for the CD (~$1 for the single).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
What do those smilies mean? Dinodoc's comment really made little sense.

Well one of them means I don't know.

I'm mister polite now in case you didn't notice.

[SlowwHand]

Yeah right. Like we're going to believe and trust you a lot.