| reply to hihi9
leeching Leeching is the problem (that's one way to look at it).
If everyone is forced to "share" on a 1:1 basis, then it's more like time-shifting. In other words, you essentially have to buy things to share, there are no "broadcast"-like p2p technologies -- i.e. -- no leeching.
Scaring people away from sharing-oriented networks has led to a legal environment which creates a strong incentive to leech. This creates a broadcast environment where there are fewer targets to take down. But what it seems these folks are now discovering is that these broadcast environments CAN'T be taken down, given the amount of money the entertainment industry or their representatives have at their disposal.
Sure, things are possible -- all kinds of things are possible -- but is there enough money to implement it, or is it just throwing money down the drain because there isn't enough money to actually ensure a successful outcome (sounds like Iraq a little bit). Wishful thinking in other words, that you could eliminate file sharing on a global level without a significantly larger investment than you can afford.
In any case, leeching, it seems to me, is more problematic ethically, because it's one person sharing something with many, many other people. Leeching mirrors the music industry's formula (i.e. quantity of sales required to actually make money on an artist) and, it would seem to me, that a leeching model is more destructive than a sharing model, because in a sharing model, at least the idea that you can't get "something for nothing" is reinforced, whereas in these unofficial broadcast networks, the idea becomes that music isn't really worth anything and that why pay for it when you can just get it for free? In this way, all music and other multimedia gets devalued, and only gets viewed as something that is or should be free. This is wrong. It creates absolutely no incentive for artists to do anything (in theory, again). Some artists are able to rise above it, so that just goes to show ya...
A sharing consciousness could drive sales, it could theoretically offer a reverse communication channel (i.e. feedback) about things like eco-friendly album jackets, DRM, and much more. It could build closer bonds between artist(s) and fans.
I consider these just broad conceptual ideas, rough approximations, so to speak. Certainly the idea of sharing things (e.g. I rent a movie, my friends come over and we watch it together) doesn't hurt anyone, and strikes a better balance. There are some people who might seem like morons who would scream and shout that everyone of your friends that comes over needs to have rented a copy of the movie or else you need to go through the red tape of opening up a movie theatre and then charge admission (of course, they'll only scream and shout this stuff for you if you can afford their fees, which probably makes them anything but morons). The morons are the ones who pay their fees.
I think the push towards a "broadcast" environment with lots of leeches makes it strategically easier (in theory) to "take it down", but it's probably wiser to have things self-regulate so that the best places to hang out require significant sharing but also offer significant rewards for that sharing. Of course, these types of places are easier to infiltrate and take down, so people move to the broadcast-type networks (e.g. turning off sharing and downloading from places that don't require it).
The heretofore big spenders on unnecessary and strategically blunderous anti-piracy services are probably finding out that it's the unofficial broadcast networks they can't take down, and the more sharing-oriented networks they get taken down, the worse the broadcast problem becomes. Because, on balance, the sharing-oriented networks require more input from the individual file sharer -- I mean, this doesn't absolve them from any responsibility, but this type of situation is more balanced, more workable than the growing chasm of unofficial broadcast-like filesharing networks and the legitimate services, many of whom are technology-bound and revenue-paranoid to too great of an unnecessary degree, negatively influencing their ability to provide anything to actually get excited about. If your customers can't get excited about your entertainment product or entertainment service, you have a little problem. |
