| reply to BF69
Re: Yep! Umm.. he DID buy the BluRay dumba$$, thats what he was saying. He used it to try the movie out before he bought it and he likely never would have bought the movie if he hadn't tried it out first.
It's not stupid at all - it's people recognizing that content producers have to be rewarded for both production and quality. It's just trying before you buy it without permission that is irking them. The other group of media consumers, those who download and never pay, are those who typically don't have the money to buy anyways. It's unauthorized use, but not lost profit, because they didn't have the money to buy it anyways. I'm not saying that makes it right, i'm just saying it's stupid for certain groups to keep exaggerating their losses in a pathetic bid for sympathy when they already milk their own artists to ridiculous levels. Going to one concert by an artist gives them more profit than buying 20 CD's, it's the record companies that make the most money.
And what do you mean the exception that proves the rule? The statistics just PROVED that the people who "steal" movies and such via P2P buy far more than the people who dont, as a statistic whole aggregate, and that's even taking into account the "cant afford" crowd of college students and stuff who never buy. The message to hollywood is clear - just get out of the way of the sale, quit being so control-freaky that you are cutting into your own sales.
For what its worth the legitimacy of copyright owners claims vary. The RIAA is ridiculously abusive and uses extortion. "Oh gee, I can listen to this music for free on FM or at the library but if I dare to listen to it on mp3 they will sue me". They spend a small amount on production and still charge $15 for CD's made in the 1940's extorting the artists and the listeners. I dont download RIAA music and I dont buy it at all anymore, I consider the entire industry contemptable.
Movies have a somewhat better argument. They cost tens of millions to make and yet you can buy some of them for $5 a few years later at Walmart, it's almost shameful to be so cheap to not fork over that. When a movie is on bittorrent before the theaters that can cause lost profit although any good movie is worth seeing in the theater. However i've seen movies on divx that friends downloaded that made me later see it in the theater or buy it on BluRay because I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. So much crap is put out it's hard to know whats worth risking $9 on. I've started watching a divx friends have gotten for 20 mins and then said "I HAVE to see this 'big'" and gone to the theater or bought the BluRay that day.
For myself I dont download music at all (although friends have borrowed me indie CD's of stuff they've downloaded and then i've bought, should I be arrested for unauthorized listening via the borrowed CD?) nor do I download any movie available either in the theater or for rent but i've downloaded rarer movies I can't find for rent to see if I want to buy them (and half the time I do) and TV episodes (which is just timeshifting, the first episode is never on when you want to get into a new series) and often bought the DVD's of the series when they turned out good, like House.
I know that if everyone's P2P were shut off and I couldn't download or borrow I wouldn't know whats good anymore and would buy less than half of what I do now. |
