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[Hop]

I'm not saying it has to be anything extravagant, maybe just something like the first run of the albums are autographed, or include a free t-shirt. Sometimes you have to give people a reason to buy something vs getting it free.

Gabe Newell has been quoted as describing piracy as a service problem, and Steam as part of an attempted solution. And it's for the reasons you're mentioning- you get incentives when buying on Steam that aren't as easily available to pirates, because they're part of the service. Little things like achievements and the overlay and TF2 hats. Because if you're selling the exact same thing that pirates can get for free, it's economically rational to pirate. It certainly seems like the ones complaining loudest about piracy don't realize that.

(I think this is related to why people get insulted by "online passes" and whatnot. It's taking the same tack and applying it to perfectly-legal secondhand sales, as though buying used is equal to piracy.)

 

[ksan]

Just the fact that you have to both make the assumption that:
1. If people couldn't pirate; they would actually buy the stuff they were pirating
2. That the things they would buy, if they couldn't pirate, would be more beneficial for the economy than what they're spending their money on currently
Makes the claim pretty damn ridiculous

 

[The Technomancer]

I'm not saying it has to be anything extravagant, maybe just something like the first run of the albums are autographed, or include a free t-shirt. Sometimes you have to give people a reason to buy something vs getting it free.

Its a pragmatic solution, but ideologically I don't like it at all.

 

[funkystudent]

Sure. Piracy hurts a lot more then rich executives and million selling artiest.

Music piracy killed the music retail business a lot quicker then amazon and itunes could and I bet movie piracy probably cost a lot of regular people there jobs in Cinemas and movie rental places.

 

[dinazimmerman]

Sure. Piracy hurts a lot more then rich executives and million selling artiest.

Music piracy killed the music retail business a lot quicker then amazon and itunes could and I bet movie piracy probably cost a lot of regular people there jobs in Cinemas and movie rental places.

Did the people with retail jobs in record stores and movie rental places not eventually find similar retail jobs elsewhere?

 

[ivysaur12]

Well I guess I should rephrase that. I don't think piracy is hurting them. I think the options of other forms of entertainment is hurting them, sure.

If you can list of an example how piracy is hurting them I'd be willing to hear. At least for Broadcast television. I can see it being more of a problem for Cable Tv shows.

There's no possible way you can pin-point what exactly is hurting what. TV now has 500+ channels instead of 3. At the same time, content creators need to exist within the current business model because they can't make money off of internet content (yet, hi Netflix and Hulu in 5 years). The problem with the current model is that it requires live viewing. Advertisers don't care who DVRs what (because you can skip through ads) or who watches online (because you can't collect demographic data). They want live viewing. So if come home late, don't DVR a show, watch it later, they might stream it online illegally. Which might be able to build buzz for certain shows in the long run, but in the short term, it might get a show canceled.

Obviously, piracy is not the only problem. The biggest is the business model used. And even in that business model, piracy is not the sole factor that contributed to depressed ratings. But TV doesn't make money by people buying it, which makes it a bit different than music or film. That's one of the reasons I bring it up, because of the "rock and a hard place" I brought up before about the content creators. The business model needs to change because it's screwing over the little guy.

You can already see the effect that Hulu and Netflix are having on US pirates. More needs to be done, though. Especially because Hulu can't make a lot of money because there hasn't been a way to collect demographic data. And advertisers won't pay big bucks unless they have demographic data:

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-tv-shows-of-2011-111216/

With 2011 nearing its end, today we begin our annual look at the most-pirated entertainment titles across various categories, starting with TV-shows. Dexter comes out on top this year, followed by HBO’s debut series Game of Thrones. Although the years of exponential growth in download numbers have passed, episodes of the top TV-shows are still shared among millions of people.

With 3,620,000 downloads per single episode, Dexter has the honor of becoming the most pirated TV-show of the year.

Despite the fact that Dexter and runner-up Game of Thrones have more downloads than television viewers in the US, the overall number of TV-show downloads is leveling off.

The percentage of TV-show downloaders, from the US in particular, has steadily declined in recent years. This is in part thanks to alternative viewing options such as Hulu and Netflix. In other regions, such as Australia and Europe, the demand for US TV-shows remains strong.

Outside the US fans sometimes have to wait endlessly before their favorite show airs on TV in their own country. Many of them are simply not that patient or willing to torture themselves, and turn to BitTorrent in desperation.

The above suggests that availability is one of the key solutions to decreased TV piracy, and this was confirmed earlier this year. When Fox decided to delay the airing of new episodes on Hulu in August, many former Hulu users turned to BitTorrent where the number of US downloads more than doubled.

In common with many branches of the entertainment industry, the challenge for TV companies is to come up with a business model that allows users to consume what they want at any given time, without losing revenue in the process. When that puzzle is solved worldwide the number of unauthorized downloads will be pretty much insignificant.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows (single episode) of 2011, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2011
rank show downloads est. US TV viewers
torrentfreak.com
1 Dexter 3,620,000 2,190,000
2 Game of Thrones 3,400,000 3,040,000
3 The Big Bang Theory 3,090,000 15,980,000
4 House 2,760,000 9,780,000
5 How I Met Your Mother 2,410,000 12,220,000
6 Glee 2,200,000 9,210,000
7 The Walking Dead 2,060,000 7,260,000
8 Terra Nova 1,910,000 9,220,000
9 True Blood 1,850,000 5,530,000
10 Breaking Bad 1,730,000 2,580,000

Torrent Freak is completely correct in their assessment. Because Execs are stubborn, the little guy is screwed over by these policies.

 

[mj1108]

Music piracy killed the music retail business a lot quicker then amazon and itunes could

Oh man... You really believe this?

 

[BruiserBear]

In my experience (in terms of music), piracy generates interest and ultimately benefits the artist.

For fucks sake will people shut up with this nonsense?


It's nothing more than pirates trying to make themselves feel better about their activities. You might be able to site one or two examples, but that doesn't mean a thing for the thousands of other artists who have lost money to such activities.

 

[jmdajr]

Again, the CEO's and board of directors of these companies would not create more jobs with this money or pay more to the people that work for them in the "middle" or "lower" class. It's just more money to line their pockets, unless you believe in trickle down economics lol

I think that's the wrong attitude to have. I think if there was a way for the right people to get the money they deserve, they would still get screwed. Main reason people pirate is for free entertainment. It's not because they are saying FU to the man.

 

[lupinko]

Oh man... You really believe this?

Well playing devils advocate what is your rebuttle to that poster's claim?

 

[Seth C]

Of course it doesn't. 10% of the population of this country holds 90% of the wealth. Unless those 10% are big pirates, the rest of us don't have any money to save anyway. We are spending all the money we get, so lack of piracy wouldn't change anything.

Come to grips with it, rich corporate fucks, you already stole all of our money. We can't give you any more because we don't have any.

 

[Kaladin]

Music piracy killed the music retail business a lot quicker then amazon and itunes could

I would argue high prices of compact discs at a time when people thought the album should cost $9.99 and not a penny more killed the music retail business.

 

[ronito]

What we see on SOPA and PIPA are industries that are unwilling to change with technology and want to legislate their survival.

 

[jmdajr]

There's no possible way you can pin-point what exactly is hurting what. TV now has 500+ channels instead of 3. At the same time, content creators need to exist within the current business model because they can't make money off of internet content (yet, hi Netflix and Hulu in 5 years). The problem with the current model is that it requires live viewing. Advertisers don't care who DVRs what (because you can skip through ads) or who watches online (because you can't collect demographic data). They want live viewing. So if come home late, don't DVR a show, watch it later, they might stream it online illegally. Which might be able to build buzz for certain shows in the long run, but in the short term, it might get a show canceled.

etc.

Good post. Yeah it's not so easy. Netflix is awesome for 7.99 a pop. But it's old content. And.....if more people rather use that than regular forms of entertainment, soon you will see less and less forms of new content, because the revenue streams dry up. Which in turn leads to...less context for Netflix in the future. Maybe a bit exaggerated but I assume this is where all the talk is going. How to reasonably keep the revenue coming in.

 

[BruiserBear]

Of course it doesn't. 10% of the population of this country holds 90% of the wealth. Unless those 10% are big pirates, the rest of us don't have any money to save anyway. We are spending all the money we get, so lack of piracy wouldn't change anything.

Come to grips with it, rich corporate fucks, you already stole all of our money. We can't give you any more because we don't have any.

Oh please.

 

[Seth C]

What we see on SOPA and PIPA are industries that are unwilling to change with technology and want to legislate their survival.

They basically want to have the same control over new media that they had over old media so that they continue breeding the entitled, greedy consumers that they apparently hate because they pirate some small portion of the useless shit they work so hard to convince us we absolutely must have at all costs.

 

[dinazimmerman]

For fucks sake will people shut up with this nonsense?


It's nothing more than pirates trying to make themselves feel better about their activities. You might be able to site one or two examples, but that doesn't mean a thing for the thousands of other artists who have lost money to such activities.

It's not just anecdotal evidence. Researchers (http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-132.pdf) have found that concert prices have risen much more quickly than inflation, and "the difference appears to have widened since the advent of file sharing." Moreover, "studying 2,135 artists over a ten-year period, they also conclude that the demand for concerts increased due to file sharing.... Overall, the shift in relative prices and activities led to a sharp increase in income for the typical artist included in the authors’ dataset."

Also, why do you take it for granted that "piracy" is immoral? "Intellectual property" is a relatively new concept in human history. I find it strange to declare piracy as immoral when the effect on the economy is negligible if not positive.

 

[BoboBrazil]

I think that's the wrong attitude to have. I think if there was a way for the right people to get the money they deserve, they would still get screwed. Main reason people pirate is for free entertainment. It's not because they are saying FU to the man.

It's the right attitude to have. There is a long history of the CEO's and executives of these companies not wanting to share the wealth or pay more to the people that actually do the work and earn CEO's the money. Did you forget the writer's strike from a few years ago already? They are spending more trying to stop piracy than the income stopping it would most likely generate.

 

[MC Safety]

Of course it doesn't. 10% of the population of this country holds 90% of the wealth. Unless those 10% are big pirates, the rest of us don't have any money to save anyway. We are spending all the money we get, so lack of piracy wouldn't change anything.

Come to grips with it, rich corporate fucks, you already stole all of our money. We can't give you any more because we don't have any.

Here we go again with the king of rationalizations. You are not entitled to free music, games, movies, etc., because they are produced or produced and distributed by big companies.

 

[Reprise]

Well playing devils advocate what is your rebuttle to that poster's claim?

Digital Distribution (i.e. ITunes, etc)

Nobody carries a portable cd player around these days when they can carry 1000 albums on their mobile phone device.

The stores had no way of hooking onto that train and basically died out.

 

[ivysaur12]

Good post. Yeah it's not so easy. Netflix is awesome for 7.99 a pop. But it's old content. And.....if more people rather use that than regular forms of entertainment, soon you will see less and less forms of new content, because the revenue streams dry up. Which in turn leads to...less context for Netflix in the future. Maybe a bit exaggerated but I assume this is where all the talk is going.

The solution will happen, just execs don't want to take that risk because it's a risk. Which is inherently silly because business lives or does by a workable business model.

 

[Seth C]

Oh please.

Oh please what? How much of a dent in the economy do you truly believe piracy can have when 90% of the population has a paltry 10% of the money to spend and that money also has to cover mortgages, rent, food, transportation, clothing, education, etc.? It can be, at most, a fraction of 1%. There is simply no way around that. People are already going in debt and going bankrupt BUYING all of these material possessions. They are spending more money than they have on it already, WITH piracy. So where would the additional money come from? It's imaginary.

Here we go again with the king of rationalizations. You are not entitled to free music, games, movies, etc., because they are produced or produced and distributed by big companies.

No one is entitled to it, but without piracy they still wouldn't be buying any more of their products because they simply CANNOT. The question was, does piracy really have such an impact on the economy. It doesn't. It can't. The majority of people have no additional money to spend on the things they currently pirate. They are already spending every penny they make. That's all. I'm not advocating piracy, I'm simply arguing that it doesn't have an impact on the economy, or not a significant one at least.

Of course, that doesn't mean I feel sorry for them either. They work very hard and spend a lot of money to create the entitled consumer, because while they know some will pirate, that type of mentality also creates their best customer.

 

[dinazimmerman]

They are spending more trying to stop piracy than the income stopping it would most likely generate.

This is an important point. The lobbying efforts of these corporations are very costly and wasteful.

 

[The Lamonster]

So is BruiserBear a struggling musical artist who can't make it big because of piracy?

 

[joelseph]

Economy: The wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.

Our current economic environment operates on paying the producer to consume their product. Piracy circumvents the payment part of that process. Therefore piracy hurts our economy. Trying to lawyer around that is just justifying yeah?

 

[ReBurn]

This is probably my favorite argument, ever. Not because of what the president says. But because it's funny to read that entertainment providers believe that every time someone makes a copy of something that they lose a sale. Like all of those people would buy it if they couldn't obtain a copy for free.

 

[Reprise]

Economy: The wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.

Our current economic environment operates on paying the producer to consume their product. Piracy circumvents the payment part of that process. Therefore piracy hurts our economy. Trying to lawyer around that is just justifying yeah?

But that money doesn't just disappear it gets spent somewhere else.

 

[jmdajr]

It's the right attitude to have. There is a long history of the CEO's and executives of these companies not wanting to share the wealth or pay more to the people that actually do the work and earn CEO's the money. Did you forget the writer's strike from a few years ago already? They are spending more trying to stop piracy than the income stopping it would most likely generate.

Hey I'm all for people getting the money they deserve. I just don't know how we get there.
Seems with piracy it's that no one should get the profits.

 

[remnant]

Because not hurting the economy does not make it legal.

The fuck? When has GAF accepted this logic? if this was the case threads about any drug abuse should be closed.

No one is entitled to it, but without piracy they still wouldn't be buying any more of their products because they simply CANNOT. The question was, does piracy really have such an impact on the economy. It doesn't. It can't. The majority of people have no additional money to spend on the things they currently pirate. They are already spending every penny they make. That's all. I'm not advocating piracy, I'm simply arguing that it doesn't have an impact on the economy, or not a significant one at lease.

Does stealing physical goods have an impact on the economy?

 

[dinazimmerman]

Economy: The wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.

Our current economic environment operates on paying the producer to consume their product. Piracy circumvents the payment part of that process. Therefore piracy hurts our economy. Trying to lawyer around that is just justifying yeah?

This has to be a troll post.

 

[RedShift]

Am I a paranoid conspiracy theorist for thinking that the thing that is driving the entertainment industry to create draconian laws that give them control over the internet isn't piracy, its simply that the Internet is starting to consume too much of people's free time that they could be spending in front of the TV.

I think that they're more afraid of the Internet and its free user generated content making them more and more irrelevant and replacing the television as the go to entertainment advice then they are of teenagers torrenting. Every hour you spend on r/funny is an hour you could have watch a TV show you didn't really care about, along with 15-20 minutes of adverts.


If I was going to get even more conspiracy theorist I'd point out that nearly all file sharing software is hosted on websites owned by one of the Big Four corporations of the entertainment industry, at least until recently.

 

[ivysaur12]

Am I a paranoid conspiracy theorist for thinking that the thing that is driving the entertainment industry to create draconian laws that give them control over the internet isn't piracy, its simply that the Internet is starting to consume too much of people's free time that they could be spending in front of the TV.

I think that they're more afraid of the Internet and its free user generated content making them more and more irrelevant and replacing the television as the go to entertainment advice then they are of teenagers torrenting. Every hour you spend on r/funny is an hour you could have watch a TV show you didn't really care about, along with 15-20 minutes of adverts.


If I was going to get even more conspiracy theorist I'd point out that nearly all file sharing software is hosted on websites owned by one of the Big Four corporations of the entertainment industry, at least until recently.

Yes, you are a paranoid conspiracy theorists.

 

[jmdajr]

It's all good. Bottom line, don't work in the entertainment industry because fuck you.
Makes sense to me. No one was going to buy your crap in the first place.

 

[MC Safety]

So is BruiserBear a struggling musical artist who can't make it big because of piracy?

Of course. Anyone who takes a stance against piracy is a struggling artist who feels resentmentful (but really can't make it on his own talent).

Gaming age posters generally have a sense of how piracy impacts the game industry. Whether it's enforced by moderation or the membership is simply acutely aware given the nature of the board is irrelevant: We're more or less in the know about how games are impacted by piracy. Why the posters can't or won't make the same association with other forms of media escapes me.

 

[A27_StarWolf]

I'm sure piracy hurts any products success to a degree.

 

[Osiris]

My friend was in a band in the early 90's that did really well for itself, enough so that people still search for his music, both online and in retail, but not so well that he ended up rich or anything silly.

However, whilst there was still some demand, the demand wasn't large enough or significant enough for his label so they dropped him and stopped producing / selling his work about 5 or so years ago and he bought back the rights to all his material. He is now the sole provider.

Piracy is killing his business, the rise of torrent sites has decimated his sales, and in times past when he's made the mistake of pointing out on torrent sites in comment threads for torrents of his work that they are directly affecting him, the original artist and costing him sales he was generally told to "STFU lol".

To say there's no effect is as inaccurate as to say there's a massive effect, and there's as much bullshit justification going around by consumers as there is by the media industry.

 

[ReBurn]

My friend was in a band in the early 90's that did really well for itself, enough so that people still search for his music, both online and in retail, but not so well that he ended up rich or anything silly.

However, whilst there was still some demand, the demand wasn't large enough or significant enough for his label so they dropped him and stopped producing / selling his work about 5 or so years ago and he bought back the rights to all his material. He is now the sole provider.

Piracy is killing his business, the rise of torrent sites has decimated his sales, and in times past when he's made the mistake of pointing out on torrent sites in comment threads for torrents of his work that they are directly affecting him, the original artist and costing him sales he was generally told to "STFU lol".

To say there's no effect is as inaccurate as to say there's a massive effect, and there's as much bullshit justification going around by consumers as there is by the media industry.

How did your friend know that that the torrents decimated his sales instead of waning popularity? Were there hundreds of people consuming it at any given time? I'm really curious how he could tell that the torrents are why people stopped buying his stuff.

 

[Seth C]

Does stealing physical goods have an impact on the economy?

It has a fiscal impact on the business from which you stole the physical goods, simply because you stole something they had already paid for and they were counting on reselling to maintain the ability for the store to support their ability to buy their own food, clothing, and shelter.

Does it have an impact on our nation's economy? No, it does not. The person who stole it is spending every penny they have on other consumer goods. They have no further money to put into the economy.

Unless that thief is one of the top 10% of earners, of course. In that case the money they are hoarding rather than cycling back through the economy does have an impact on the economy.

 

[Jenga]

I'm sure piracy hurts any products success to a degree.

omg r u trolling?!

 

[Onemic]

My friend was in a band in the early 90's that did really well for itself, enough so that people still search for his music, both online and in retail, but not so well that he ended up rich or anything silly.

However, whilst there was still some demand, the demand wasn't large enough or significant enough for his label so they dropped him and stopped producing / selling his work about 5 or so years ago and he bought back the rights to all his material. He is now the sole provider.

Piracy is killing his business, the rise of torrent sites has decimated his sales, and in times past when he's made the mistake of pointing out on torrent sites in comment threads for torrents of his work that they are directly affecting him, the original artist and costing him sales he was generally told to "STFU lol".

To say there's no effect is as inaccurate as to say there's a massive effect, and there's as much bullshit justification going around by consumers as there is by the media industry.

How does the rise of torrent sites automatically make that the reason why his band failed? You know it could be....the music itself.

If anything getting music online bolsters support for a band, as there are many bands that people never would have known about or even listened to if it wasn't available over torrent sites and the like, which potentially leads to higher concert sales.

 

[remnant]

Of course. Anyone who takes a stance against piracy is a struggling artist who feels resentmentful (but really can't make it on his own talent).

Gaming age posters generally have a sense of how piracy impacts the game industry. Whether it's enforced by moderation or the membership is simply acutely aware given the nature of the board is irrelevant: We're more or less in the know about how games are impacted by piracy. Why the posters can't or won't make the same association with other forms of media escapes me.

Neogaf forces this morality on a lot of people though. If Evilore didn't have the "no games piracy" rule we would probably have a handful of big piracy threads over in gaming, with people using the same exact argument they use here.

It's greed and a lack of respect for people's work. Simple as that.

 

[Seth C]

How did your friend know that that the torrents decimated his sales instead of waning popularity? Were there hundreds of people consuming it at any given time? I'm really curious how he could tell that the torrents are why people stopped buying his stuff.

And why didn't he just cut out the middle man? If so many people were searching for his stuff why didn't he self produce and distribute? That's the beautiful thing about the internet. He can easily put his music out there. He doesn't need a record label to do it.

 

[ultron87]

Just the fact that you have to both make the assumption that:
1. If people couldn't pirate; they would actually buy the stuff they were pirating

Saying that no one would buy anything they'd pirate if pirating wasn't an option is an equally ludicrous claim.

Not that that means that piracy is destroying the economy; however, it certainly is removing some percentage from the overall sales of the product. Whether that is a large percentage or small percentage is something I've never seen concrete numbers on.

 

[Osiris]

How did your friend know that that the torrents decimated his sales instead of waning popularity? Were there hundreds of people consuming it at any given time? I'm really curious how he could tell that the torrents are why people stopped buying his stuff.

Because his sales dropped off a cliff the very month that his stuff (eventually) ended up on IsoHunt in 2006. He had a steady stream of figures from the record company prior to the buy back of rights in '97, and his own figures from 1997 to 2006, the month that his material became available by torrent his sales dropped from a few thousand a month to a hundred a month or so after a steady rate for over 9 years, and the torrents seeding stats correlated with the change in demand.

How does the rise of torrent sites automatically make that the reason why his band failed? You know it could be....the music itself.

If anything getting music online bolsters support for a band, as there are many bands that people never would have known about or even listened to if it wasn't available over torrent sites and the like, which potentially leads to higher concert sales.

You're missing the point.

The sales didn't cause the failure of the band but time passes and they split and went on to different projects over the years, this one person settled down for a family due to age & he was no longer a performing musician, but invested his own money into a venture providing the music for those that still wanted it, unfortunately free distribultion of his music was something that he is proving unable to compete with.

 

[joelseph]

This has to be a troll post.

It's not. What don't you agree with big boy?

 

[ronito]

My friend was in a band in the early 90's that did really well for itself, enough so that people still search for his music, both online and in retail, but not so well that he ended up rich or anything silly.

However, whilst there was still some demand, the demand wasn't large enough or significant enough for his label so they dropped him and stopped producing / selling his work about 5 or so years ago and he bought back the rights to all his material. He is now the sole provider.

Piracy is killing his business, the rise of torrent sites has decimated his sales, and in times past when he's made the mistake of pointing out on torrent sites in comment threads for torrents of his work that they are directly affecting him, the original artist and costing him sales he was generally told to "STFU lol".

To say there's no effect is as inaccurate as to say there's a massive effect, and there's as much bullshit justification going around by consumers as there is by the media industry.

And I have friends who went from nobodies to having a following by embracing the fact that people will pirate their music and all that.

 

[Jenga]

And I have friends who went from nobodies to having a following by embracing the fact that people will pirate their music and all that.

and im friend's with jesus who says the world is gonna end tomorrow unless we all have sex

 

[Arcane Hayter]

Of course it doesn't. 10% of the population of this country holds 90% of the wealth. Unless those 10% are big pirates, the rest of us don't have any money to save anyway. We are spending all the money we get, so lack of piracy wouldn't change anything.

Come to grips with it, rich corporate fucks, you already stole all of our money. We can't give you any more because we don't have any.

I know everyone is bashing you for this, but I feel the same way. The more extra income I earn and the more money I have sitting in savings leads me to spend a lot more of my money on entertainment.
Do I feel entitled to the same level of entertainment when times are lean? No I don't but it forces me to be a really competitive shopper.
I'm pretty sure Paramount would make more money off of me if I took my family to the theater the week of release then waiting six months and watching it on Netflix.
If I had the money I would spend the money on more non-essentials.

 

[Seth C]

It's all good. Bottom line, don't work in the entertainment industry because fuck you.
Makes sense to me. No one was going to buy your crap in the first place.

If you make a product people want and you sell it at a price they consider to be a value, they will buy it if they have money to do so. If you don't, they won't. Might they turn to piracy to obtain if it that is an option? Yes. However, people have a limited amount of money. If someone else makes a product they want MORE than they want yours, or at a better VALUE than yours, and they run out of money before they get to you...sorry, that's part of capitalism, too. It may not be the part you like but it is there.

If it were up to media companies second hand sales would also be a form of piracy (they've tried to stop it). Make a product people want and sell it to them at a price they consider to be a good value. But people still can't spend money they don't have. Again, sorry. Stopping piracy won't change that, unfortunately.

I say all of this as a person with an entire wall filled with all the useless entertainment I've bought. I have more unopened Xbox 360 games than I do opened ones. But I still bought that Capcom game second hand for $3, because I didn't want it bad enough to pay more. Oh well.

 

[ReBurn]

How does the rise of torrent sites automatically make that the reason why his band failed? You know it could be....the music itself.

If anything getting music online bolsters support for a band, as there are many bands that people never would have known about or even listened to if it wasn't available over torrent sites and the like, which potentially leads to higher concert sales.

I don't know about torrents specifically, but I've been given more than a dozen free CD's outside of live music venues by people in bands hoping to generate some ground swell. Local bands that are trying to get people to see their shows and follow them.

I'm not sure that I believe that torrent sites drive interest in new music as much as a site like YouTube or Spotify does. I find it hard to imagine someone browsing music torrents, seeing a band they've never heard of and downloading just to see what it sounds like. Not that it doesn't happen. I guess I could see something like Spotify's related artists tab throwing up a name and someone going out to get some music to see if they would like it. But there are probably ways to check it out without torrents.

I believe that torrents really are all about getting something for nothing, but I don't believe that all of those who download via torrent would (or could) have purchased anyway.