Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? 1115
Andorin writes "Anyone familiar with the piracy debate knows about the claims from organizations like the RIAA that piracy causes billions of dollars in damages and costs thousands of jobs. Other studies have concluded differently, ranging from finding practically no damages to a newer study that cites 'up to 20%' as a more accurate number (PDF). I figure there's got to be an easier way to do this, so here's my question: Does anyone know of any creative works that were provably a financial failure due to piracy? The emphasis on 'provably' is important, as some form of evidence is necessary. Accurately and precisely quantifying damages from p2p is impossibly hard, of course, but answering questions like this may lead us to a clearer picture of just how harmful file sharing really is. I would think that if piracy does cause some amount of substantial harm, we would see that fact reflected in our creative works, but I've never heard of a work that tanked because people shared it online."
Short answer (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Gone must be the days when a creative work was loved for its contribution to the arts... Plato, Socrates -- failures, all of them, because their works are no longer copyrighted and thus can no longer make a contribution to society. /sarcasm
If the quality is good enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then people will pay for it.
If it's half-good it may still be worth listening to/watching, but not necessarily worth to pay for. (I'll wait until it comes on TV)
And then there is the rest - that's mediocre at best. Downloaded, test listened and then scrapped.
Let the rationalizations begin (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh - I've never heard of a retail outlet that failed because of women stealing bras from the packages, but it's still illegal and wrong.
There are a tremendous number of people who have grown up in an age where it is so easy to copy information, and where it is so easy to self-publish so you *think* you're creative, and the idea that it's not theft to benefit from someone else's hard work just because their work is easily copyable in a computer...it boggles my mind.
YOU sell widgets in a store, don't you? You and your store should definitely get paid for that. I write music for a living...I should only get paid for the first copy sold?
Failed to get funding (Score:4, Insightful)
Harry Potter Films! (Score:3, Insightful)
At least by Hollywood accounting practices.
too hypothetical (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is inherently speculative. It isn't terribly difficult to find examples of, say a comic book series that was canceled because sales were 10% below what was needed to break even, or a movie that didn't quite make back the investment (even assuming non-Hollywood accounting). The number of creative endeavors which are just on the edge of financial solvency is pretty darn large. But what's essentially impossible to determine is what the actual impact of "sharing" on what-sales-would-have-been was in any given case. The best you could do would be to estimate a general range, and stipulate that any work that was within that range of being profitable "failed" because of it.
effects could be on future works (Score:5, Insightful)
what newer creative works were never done because a previous
one never succeeded enough due to piracy?
(so, how would you even define "tanked" for a creative work anyway?)
Re:Actually Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not quite what the poster had in mind I think; While definitely copyright violation, this is more in line with the CRIA and their "Pending" lists, with willful violation for profit.
I think the poster was more asking about the impact of not-for-profit copyright violation. (EG, Torrenting and pals.)
Re:Halo Series for Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
none of the other halo titles were released on Mac and one of the reasons cited...
...was that Mac is rarely the primary platform for game developers? Most mac games are ported from the PC or co-developed. Piracy has been blamed for everything from the terrorism to low birth rate. Also, while on the topic of 'citing' -- citation needed. When discussing piracy, the level of hysteria surrounding the issue thanks to corporate interests makes it imperative that you list your sources and facts, not just a vague conclusion.
Re:Halo Series for Mac (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure Bungie selling out to Microsoft had nothing to do with it either.
Actually, vastly more than one. (Score:5, Insightful)
You ever hear about hollywood accounting? Virtually anyone important enough that they'll receive "points" has been defrauded by their own studio/label.
You'll figure out why the RIAA/MPAA are so anti-piracy as soon as you grok that single fact. Any distribution channel or even publicity that doesn't trace back to efforts they may label their own will create a scenario where they face more serious lawsuits from their talent, plus more talent founding competitors.
It's time to put this dog to sleep. Don't buy their shit. Don't talk about their shit. Don't even watch their shit pirated unless you absolutely must based upon your childhood comic book consumption.
The next two time you feel like watching a movie, try Let The Right One In and Primer. I promise you they're both better than anything released by Hollywood during the last 5 years.
Excellent call! (Score:5, Insightful)
When I first read the title, I thought that kdawson (I know, I know) was asking if a creative work failed in the sense that no one accepted it, it was not disseminated, etc. Then TFS says "financial" failure.
Problem is, the question (in any aspect) is too one-dimensional. Paul Gauguin was a financial failure, as were most painters who weren't sponsored by some aristocrat or other. Yet one would hardly call his (or their) works "failures" in most aspects of the term. Meanwhile, even in just the one aspect - money - well? Today, just try and buy an original Gauguin and say it's a failure. I dare you.
Even with recent/modern creative endeavors, the question is stupid. If you're creating a work of (art, music, or similar) just for the money, that creation is almost guaranteed to suck. See also the products of Britney Spears (...remember her? no worries if you don't), "Lady Gaga", or whatever manufactured 'star' of the moment you care to name. Viewed dispassionately and apart from the personality, the music quite frankly sucks ass. If we shift to works of writing, you can almost always tell at which point a writer loses his/her passion for the craft, and instead just does it for the money - the quality drops accordingly. Visual art? Heh - I'll pick on The Simpsons... about five years ago, it was glaringly obvious that Matt was just doing it for the paycheck.
But anyway, long story short - IMHO, the only way a work succeeds or fails is in the metric of how widely accepted it is, and in how long it remains in the public consciousness. The successes become treasures that never die in spite of passing centuries, the failures are forgotten in less than a decade no matter how widely marketed.
what about fair use? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be useful to compare this survey with one that estimated the gains or productivity arrived from fair use of other works. What literature, art, music, programs, inventions, etc. derived from building upon other works have contributed to the GDP?
You can begin by adding most of the annual income and net worth of Disney.
Re:Actually Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it was piracy in Defoe's original use of it wrt copying. What it wasn't was copyright infringement (in the US) (at the time).
Re:Failed to get funding (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, look at, say, academic journals - demand copyright from authors, maintain a stranglehold on publishing rights, and then keep raising fees as fewer people pay. This is a bad model that piracy will eventually destroy, and replace with a better one.
Or take record sales - the RCA/sony types have trouble profiting from their old model. As a result, smaller producers are emerging that lower costs and pay artists more, making it easier to produce music. Or, small production companies specialize in a genre, so people can learn of new bands they'd like based solely off the producer.
Piracy helps destroy outdated business models. Much like carriage-drivers during the emergence of cars, there will always be someone trying to legislate, pressure, coerce, or do anything necessary to prevent being run out of business.
The question is (Score:4, Insightful)
no (Score:3, Insightful)
now.. can you prove God doesn't exist?
And despite the popular claim of the opposite, you can prove a negative, generally by proving a different paradoxical positive, but still...
For my actual thoughts on it... I think there is a balancing act to be had in it. If you work is good enough that enough people will buy it to make it a success, then enough people will be willing to pirate it to hurt sales also. One of the big reasons for the online "pirating" today isn't the ease of copying (though it contributes) it is that the balance on the opposite side (copyright) has grown too heavy.
With copyrights as long as they are now, there is very little content that CAN'T be pirated, by definition. With shorter copyrights, more content would be available unencumbered. If you knew that you could get it legally, for free in a couple of years, (wait for it to come out on DVD... Wait till it is out on TV... etc arguments) would you be in such a rush to steal it? Again, only if the work was "good enough" to warrant the risk. Even then, the risk would have to be seen as less than the costs of buying it legally.
Not really the whole answer, but enough for a /. post
Re:Excellent call! (Score:5, Insightful)
It was either Hugh Hefner or someone else at Playboy who said that they realize that their work is pirated and while they have been known to crack the whip when it got out of hand, they also realize that at least their work is good enough for someone to consider to pirate and that it keeps them in the public view even if they aren't directly making money from it.
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:5, Insightful)
I write music for a living...I should only get paid for the first copy sold?
Depends. If you're any good, I'd like to see you paid for about 7 years after you wrote the work. Then I'd like to see your work go into the public domain to be used by others in any way they want, for free. Meanwhile, you're going to write other stuff, because you're good at what you do, aren't you? If not, fuck off and stack shelves for a living, like me.
The big problem at the moment is NOT that people are copying stuff, it's that artists (well, publishers really) are demanding payment for works for literally hundreds of years after they were first produced. That's wrong, and it must stop because without a public domain, you can forget about anyone producing any art at all.
A good example, generally plenty more (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Right so.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I like Mickey Spillane's books; he is a wonderful author in my opinion. His opinion of himself, though, is: "I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book."
Also, "I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends."
So you can see where he's coming from. Writing for him was just a job. According to Wikipedia, "In 1980, Spillane was responsible for seven of the top 15 all-time best-selling fiction titles in the U.S."
Re:uhm, missing the point (Score:1, Insightful)
LOL, of course you're just playing Robinhood, bootlegging Twilight films to get revenge on successful businesses that you personally determined are "too rich." Wonder if you'll feel the same way when someone decides that YOU'RE too rich.
Re:Video stores... (Score:2, Insightful)
And the problem with capitalists is that when they run out of other people's money they expect the socialists to bail them out.
Lady Gaga sucks??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Speak for yourself there buddy, I love lady Gaga to death! And how the heck do you propose to judge her music dispassionately? Counting the number of chords per second or something?
Re:Short answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Starsiege: Tribes took quite a hit from piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
A good example of the absurdity of the "we wouldn't have bought it anyway argument." If Slashdotters weren't in denial because of their addiction to mass media content and aversion to paying a fair price for it (what rational person thinks 0 is a fair price for something they want?), they'd be able to see that some fraction of those 220k+ people would have bought the game in the absense of piracy. Maybe 5%, maybe 75%. Either way, infringement hurts producers of intellectual property and causes the market to produce and inefficiently low amount of it.
Re:Creation of works in the first place (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because the MPAA and RIAA are a bunch of thugs engaged in legal extortion, doesn't excuse the fact that illegal copies destroys the financial lives of artists. Do you expect that people who do art must be forced to have a day job to do their art? If you code for a living do you think that you should be forced to work at low end job so you can code in your spare time? If you read a lot of the posts here it is clear the Slashdot Pundits expect that others should work for free to provide them with online entertainment.
Music 60 years from now... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll pass on discussing the relative merits of being a fan of Ms. Gaga, to get to something you mentioned:
And how the heck do you propose to judge her music dispassionately? Counting the number of chords per second or something?
I guess I was imprecise. What I meant was this: If you just heard the song; without the marketing, the media-pumping, or even a picture of her. Or even better, if you heard the song played 50 years in the future, without ever hearing of her beforehand.
A case in point: I collect (half-assedly, I admit) old 78 RPM records to test on an old 1947 Trav-Ler record player and radio that I rebuilt (finding the tubes was the most challenging part). I have stuff that was "pressed" in 1918 (this is pre-vinyl, so they were made the hard way back then). The non-successful musicians' records are drop-easy to find - Goodwill's clearance warehouse occasionally has bins of them... and in spite of excellent quality materials (and a new needle), the music is, well, awful. Little wonder I can buy them at roughly $0.25 per pound. OTOH, finding something from a successful musician (e.g. Glenn Miller) means having to hunt the records down, and sometimes paying a lot more for a mint-quality record than one would for a modern CD of the same musician's work.
To that end, what do you think a Lady Gaga CD will go for in (roughly) 2070, do you think? More importantly, how widely do you think her songs would be played by then? Would anyone still alive then even know or care who she was? That my friend is the big metric of success or failure concerning creative works.
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest threat to Big Media is ultimately their own back catalogs.
It doesn't matter if it is SOLD, pirated, viewed for free (with commercials) or if it's in the public domain.
A glut of the old stuff devalues the new stuff, especially when the old stuff is better.
Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in patented space many works (especially medical devices) struggle to make a profit before patent protection runs out. Patents are more beneficial to the world at large in this respect - ideas which can be realized in a reasonable time are pursued, and then within 20 years they become public domain. The effective infinite life of Copyright is wrong on so many levels. I think a reasonably time limited copyright scheme would be more respected / less violated, and more productive in the creation of new works, as opposed to the infinite repackaging of existing brands that we have today.
Re:Starsiege: Tribes took quite a hit from piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
So he was dumb. Assume there will be sharing. Plan for it. Set the system up so you will get paid. This is how it works in magazine publishing. I sell ads in my magazine. The advertisers HOPE that the copies of my magazine will get read by as many people as possible. I do NOT expect that every person who reads it will have bought it. Doctors, dentists, liers, etc have them in their office for customers to read. People share them with family and friends. That is reality and it works fine. Dynamix's failure to setup a money making stream is their failure. Stop blaming the customer and reality. Utilize the way people WILL behave to your benefit.
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about information distribution channels. Read about the outcry of book publishers and some authors about public libraries in the beginning of the 20th century -- same arguments as today. Should a writer publish a book which anyone can read for free? Where is the profit in this?
Well, the profit is, of course, that people in districts with public libraries buy more books. You cannot print and sell a book that you have no right to distribute but it is OK to lend it thus distributing the knowledge. To give a friend a copy the book is also OK in my book (pun intended) because of three reasons (all of them apply to music as well):
-- I'd most likely give or take the whole book for some time instead of buying a new copy if it is not possible to copy it.
-- If a person likes the copy it will more likely buy a new book from the same author.
-- No author or publisher can strongarm me to buy their book -- they have to convince me, make me want to buy it. Called marketing it is. I am much less likely to purchase a book if the publisher is copyright-crazy or plain greedy.
Same applies to modern media -- the author is the only person who should decide how to sell his work but good luck forbidding sharing. You'll shot yourself in the foot anyway.
If you create a product that can easily be copied than it will be copied. You can try and fight it, you can try and profit from it. Your call. Don't like the distribution media? Make live concerts only. Couldn't care less.
To make it clear -- I am strongly opposed of the people that illegally make profits from other's hard work. Only the author has the right to decide who sells his works and (e.g. with software) on what conditions a copy should be used to earn money. But sharing involves no financial gain for anyone and therefore the author doesn't actually lose anything -- in fact you get free publicity and expose which will more than cover any theoretical loss you might have suffered from sharing.
Re:A good example, generally plenty more (Score:5, Insightful)
To the readers of my comment: my point is that there's clear, reasonable evidence of the harms of piracy. But we're faced with a questioner who has an adversarial and unconvertible frame of mind.
Okay, let's look at Crysis. You say that Crysis sold fewer copies than previous games "of its scope." You cherry pick one of the most successful games of all time, Doom 3, but the most direct comparison is the one previous game produced by Crytek: Far Cry. Far Cry sold 730,000 copies in its first 4 months (http://www.wiki4games.com/Far_Cry#cite_note-1).
Crysis exceeded sales expectations according to EA, selling 1 million copies in its first 3.5 months (http://www.incrysis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=612&Itemid=2), eliminating your argument. This came despite the fact that Crysis could barely run even on enthusiast PCs for a year after release, while Far Cry was released to a much larger audience of computers that could run it acceptably.
We know that Crysis was a very popular target of pirates, and Crytek tells us that this is proof that their sales were hurt by piracy, but there's absolutely no evidence connecting the two. Of every 100 downloads, how many would have purchased the game if they hadn't pirated it? Of every 100 downloads, how many see the game, like it, and then buy it in order to play online or out of respect for the developers? People like you assume that the first number is vastly larger than the second, but there's never been any evidence to support that position. I suggest that it's just as likely that piracy increases game sales, and I believe that the automatic assumption that piracy is the scourge claimed by some within the industry is incredibly naive.
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:1, Insightful)
Two-edged Sword of Technology (Score:4, Insightful)
...the real damage is done in works which are never created in the first place due to the perception that piracy would make them financially irrelevant.
This was my initial thought too. However what I don't understand is why the technology sword does not cut both ways. It is true that technology makes it far easier than it has ever been before to pirate material but it also makes it far easier than ever before to produce that material. Unlike the past there is no need to risk a massive budget on every new act. Give the riskier acts smaller budgets and see what they can do with them. After all if they are less popular they will probably also be less pirated and the ones which do take off can give you a great return on your small investment.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:*Some* people will pay (Score:2, Insightful)
People who listen to music are more likely to buy it, in other words?
Re:Excellent call! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent call! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://radar.oreilly.com/2006/08/piracy-is-progressive-taxation.html [oreilly.com]
"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy."
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many walk away because their product will not make a profit... based on how many in the past have failed, due to piracy? You have to have one before the other will happen. So, the question is: have any actually failed? If not, why would they walk away?
The Movie industry has been crying foul (one major studio CEO recently said in a speech that piracy is "killing the industry")... while that same industry has been racking up record profits. Sorry, but that made my bullshit detector go off the charts.
The music industry has seen declining CD sales... but there are numerous possible reasons for CD sales to be in decline without even considering piracy (like the fact that the music industry refused to change and give people what they want today). Some of those reasons no doubt actually apply.
So the question still comes back to: has anything really failed financially because of piracy? And "creative accounting" is not acceptable... we all know how the movie studios make movies look like they are losing money so they don't have to pay out percentages. An example from just the other day was how Harry Potter brought in $977 million (almost a billion) dollars, yet the studios used creative accounting to "show" that this most successful series of all time "lost" $167 million. And the courts are starting to call them on it.
I do agree that the extension of Copyright beyond all reason needs to change. Copyright was created for the good of the public. But the public does not benefit if the Copyright lasts 100 years or more!
Re:Music 60 years from now... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know who it was, but someone here in /. had a sig I totally agree with:
"Remember kids, if they're not playing real instruments, it's not real music"
Techno fans, flame away, I won't respond to them.
On the other hand, I once heard a very skilled keyboard player in a band comment "I'll use whatever technology is available to get the sound I want."
Re:Music 60 years from now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Starsiege: Tribes took quite a hit from piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Hopefully nobody in your neighborhood leaves their doors unlocked when they go out since by your logic you should then be allowed to just go in and take their stuff.
Re:Lady Gaga sucks??? (Score:3, Insightful)
God, I can't believe I'm about to comment on this. I am almost entirely unfamiliar with Lady Gaga and wouldn't know any of her songs if you sat me down and played them for me. That's just not the universe I live in.
However, it was your comparison to Marilyn Manson that got me thinking. I am not a Manson fan by any means, I don't like his music, I don't like his image, I don't like him. But! I can step back from that enough to realize that the music that he's performing isn't really his art. His image and the ways that he manipulates it and the ways that he manipulates public opinion around him are his art. And in that sense, he is an absolute unquestionable success. Eminem too, although obviously his music is part of his art and he takes it seriously (or maybe I just like him more), just looking at his musical achievements doesn't really tell the story.
From the little (very very little) I know of Lady Gaga, maybe she's up to the same sort of thing.
Re:*Some* people will pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Chances are, some people also will not.
So what? It's not like anyone's losing any money in that case, because the money wasn't there in the first place. Those that wouldn't have bought it wouldn't have bought it.
I don't see how this is any different from making copies of cassette tapes when I was 10. That was also rampant at the time, everyone did it, they even put out specially designed tape decks that would play through the cassette at double speed specifically so you could make copies of it without having to sit there all day. And yet the record labels are still making music today.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which investors? Which project? Citations needed.
Re:*Some* people will pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok I am seeing what you meant now. It is unfair for the ethical people to support the content for the unethical, regardless of finance.
If everyone freeloaded bad stuff would happen to the existing model of buying bytes. Free advertising would not work for discs or downloads because by definition none would be bought.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The law needs to be built on facts: If there aren't some provable cases, how can the law impose punitive damages fairly? Remember, for the US, there's the cruel and unusual punishment angle - if there are no provable cases of piracy stifling creative expression, then one of the grounds for the law's severity is undermined, and so the argument that the law is unconstitutionally cruel gains weight.
2. How can there possibly be works that were never made because of piracy without there also being works that were attempted and failed? Are you seriously claiming that every film that bombed at the box office for one reason or another somehow proves the producers have perfect judgement about avoiding the risks caused by piracy, so they never attempt to make the ones that fail from that cause? If the various Heaven's Gate's and Howard the Duck's don't prove that Hollywood, at least, can fail abysmally to evaluate risks rationally, then no wonder you're arguing against proof, because to you nothing what-so-ever can be proved. Admit that they sometimes get it wrong, and if piracy is one of the factors in any significant way, there will simply have to be the product that failed from piracy. Provably.
With that said, a possible damage caused by piracy might well be works never created in the first place. If there are some provable cases where someone can demonstrate investors at least should have walked away because of piracy, then we can infer that piracy caused damage, either in the form of losses if they went ahead anyway, or your 'damage if the project was never made'. But claiming that piracy causes only the type of damage that, by you, can't be proved is also claiming that a bunch of big commercial content holders have perfect track records - obviously false to fact.
I think there's something to that (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in my highschool and university days, I pirated a lot. Reason was money. I had little discretionary income so I'd take things where I could get it. However as I've gotten older and moved on to the working world, I've little need to pirate stuff. I simply buy it. It is faster and easier, plus I really do like doing the right thing.
Few, if any, sales were lost to my piracy. I simply could not afford the things I was pirating.
Re:Short answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish they would go straight to $3 million films. Cut out the overpaid actors, there's a great start. There are plenty of talented actors who would fill the headliners' shoes completely, and possibly better. The only reason they get so much money is because the name draws people into theaters.
look what happens then. $25 million payday to star in a medicre movie, and the star agrees to do it, and their box office value starts dropping. They are using my ticket price to hire someone I know so I evaluate the movie on its stars instead of its plot. Then audiences enjoy the movie based on its writing or cinematography, or hate it for those reasons plus the actors' poor delivery.
I loved Cruise in Tropic Thunder until I realized it was him. I can still enjoy the movie but it makes me feel uncomfortable because I've seen so many of his overacted crapfests. I loved Vanilla Sky despite him, mostly because the story was stolen (Obre los ojos) and slightly updated. There are people I will see in any movie because they only select good scripts and good directors/producers to work with, and the result is good. The actor does the filtering for me.
Box office name recognition is the worst thing to happen to movies ever. I'm not just talking about actors, I'm talking about expensive licensing deals too. Pay a bunch of money, make a Batman movie, and it doesn't matter how terrible it is you're a millionaire. Video game movies, novel-based movies, anything with a well-known name. Name recognition is crap.
Get a good script, good actors, and actually spend money promoting it like they do the big blockbusters. That's how you get people in the seats. Stop spending money on name recognition and the costs go down and audiences will return to movie-going. A $3 million movie with a $3 million advertising budget needs to sell maybe a million tickets to break even.
Actors and licensees don't need to be set up for life on one movie. If acting is your job, you can live on $500k per year. That will cover plane tickets and expensive clothes. Do 2 movies per year and, minus taxes and expenses, you'll have a very comfortable life *working*, not spending my ticket money on hookers and blow and mansions for MTV's Cribs.
Let's have the $3 million movie movie, I'm all for it.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Movie industry has been crying foul (one major studio CEO recently said in a speech that piracy is "killing the industry")... while that same industry has been racking up record profits. Sorry, but that made my bullshit detector go off the charts.
It should. Back in their lawsuit against the video recorder, the movie industry put in a sworn statement that they would go bancrupt unless the video recorder would be outlawed.
The fact that this perjury was never followed up on is one of the reasons they continue to think they can tell blatant lies in full view of everyone and nothing will happen to them.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
"The real damage caused by piracy aren't the works which were created and then failed to produce return on investment"
Of course not. Ther real damage caused by piracy are the sunk vessels and the lost lifes. Everybody knows that.
"the real damage is done in works which are never created in the first place due to the perception that piracy would make them financially irrelevant"
Works that, as History evidences on too many cases to be numbered, are totally irrelevant. On one hand, this can be said about everything since it's unprovable. You know, the world lost an Einstein this morning because an abortion; you think Michellangelo is great but the world lost the very real genious because it was his cousin the one with the real talent but one evening it was Michellangelo the one that spent his time carving a rock while his cousin was said to go work elsewhere... on the other hand, real artistic talent "wants" to arise: Van Gogh *had* to paint even against the fact he was unable to sell a picture. Since talent rises no matter what is arguably (cynic mode on) an economic loss paying artists for what they would do even for free in their free time or even going to poverty in the try.
Re:Excellent call! (Score:5, Insightful)
Lady Gaga does it all for the money? You've got to be the biggest blistering idiot I've seen on slashdot. She went to NYU, performed in burlesque shows, and writes the songs she performs--not to mention she came from humble beginnings. And for Britney Spears, she has averaged 1 album every 2 years so she is definitely not "forgotten". You don't know anything about the stars you've mentioned and you don't know anything about the performance art of Lady Gaga. You're just another jackass blathering on about how much he hates a certain genre of music. It's very easy throw out bullshit and get a crowd of idiots to agree with you as you've so wonderfully demonstrated. Well, I'm here to tell you that you're an ignorant buffoon and you don't know anything about the artists you've listed. Maybe you should mind your own business and listen to whatever it is you listen to--probably a chest full of 8-track's of the Bee Gees, Chicago, and Styx.
Also one more thing. EVERYONE DOES IT FOR THE MONEY. If you're going to hold artists to the money standard, then I want to see you go to work and refuse to accept your paycheck. Go ahead. DO IT. Stop being a hypocrite.
Re:Music 60 years from now... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's a "real instrument"?
Is an electric guitar less real than an acoustic guitar? Why?
Is a synthesizer driven by keyboard less real than a violin? Why?
Why does the mechanism to create the sound waves make a difference to whether something is music or not?
Re:sort of.. (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? Are you nuts? Business isn't a zero sum game. I've been told by plenty of old business greyhairs that it doesn't matter how much money your business partners etc... make off the back of your efforts, it just matters what YOU make. Plenty of people shoot themselves in the foot because of jealousy. If it's a choice between making 5 billion for $EVIL_COMPANY and making another $200,000 yourself, or keeping the status quo you GO FOR THE DOLLARS!
I would NEVER buy mysterious noname software sight unseen. Even trial versions often don't give you enough time for the mysterious bugs to bubble to the surface. If it's pirated hard you can guarantee that some of those pirates will be recommending your software to the boss if they've thrashed it for months and it does indeed perform better. Would you walk away from a business just because you had to pay for advertising?
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why companies need to fight piracy. If not, they will lose the ability to sell any product.
I'd argue this. Competition is what scares these companies to death (and primarily for them, potential competition). Piracy might be one piece of the problem for them, but as far as I see it, they have a much larger issue: value. People will pay for something if its value is greater than or equal to the price. Think of Blu-Ray. To many, the value of having a copy of a movie was not the $25-$35+ the movie companies were charging for them at first. But, as is usually the case, the price came down over time, and now people are buying them for $15-20, or maybe $25 for a new release. Also, players are selling much better. It's true that those did come down in price as well, and it's hard to determine if the price of players dropping caused the price of the media to drop, or vice versa. However, I have talked to a lot of people about this, and from what I have been told, and I do agree, is that people couldn't justify paying an extra $10-20 per movie just to have the hi-def. In other words, they would have bought the player if the discs cost about the same as DVDs. So, basically, prices went down, sales went up, and value stayed the same.
Software, however has a completely different problem, even though it still stems directly from value. 10-15 years ago, if you wanted to do high end photo editing, Photoshop was the only real game in town. As time progressed, so did technology, and programmers were able to write photo editors with much more ease, and distribution of software matured. No longer did someone with a large program have to pay a company to do CD stamping, box design, etc. Now we even have quite good OSS to do many of the same things (GIMP, obviously). So, now the value of any particular piece of software is declining due to competition, not to piracy. Professional photographers, I promise you, will still shell-out for a legitimately licensed copy of Photoshop. If they don't need something quite like that but still want support, maybe they buy Paint Shop Pro or the like. GIMP is for those who want the freebie (don't get me wrong--if it was a closed product, it would sell at a decent price, assuming it is as well known as it is now).
So, I guess I just see it as simple economics, and piracy is nothing more than a barely discernible blip on the radar. What has changed the game is competition, but some companies just want to whine about pirates who cost them practically nothing in lost sales (maybe increase sales in a try-before-you-buy way). They are trying to scare the competition out of the marketplace in order to keep the value of their products high, because once you have multiple options for doing the same kind of thing, the value of all programs in the group begins to fall off a cliff do to competition. Seems pretty simple to me. Play the piracy card, scare away new entrants to the market, keep the value of your stuff high, and you have it made.
Re:*Some* people will pay (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason those people pay what they do is because they value the product that highly.
People pay because they have two options: (1) Pay and get the product, (2) don't pay and don't get the product. When people decide that the product is worth more to them than the money they're paying, then they buy. Piracy is the third option: don't pay and get the product. You can't reasonably argue that people are going to choose option #1 over option #3 because they "value the product".
The thing you overlook is that most pirates would not consume the product at all if they had to pay for it (in those cases where price rather than something else is the deciding factor in the decision to pirate).
No, we're well aware of that. When games like Demigod are seeing 85% of the people showing up on their servers are pirating it, and 85-90% of the people playing World of Goo pirated it, then you start to get an understanding that - if even a fraction of the pirates paid for it, it would cause a big increase in sales. For example, if 10% of the people pirating Demigod paid for it, then sales would be up by over 50%. Saying "the majority of pirates wouldn't have paid, therefore you're wrong about piracy hurting anybody" is a complete non-sequitur. It doesn't even make sense when I use the generous assumption that 90% of the pirates wouldn't have paid. Don't tell us that we don't know anything about economics.
Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why there's no market for expensive bottled water since everyone can get free water at a drinking fountain. Oh wait...
First of all, that's not true. There are some iPhone apps (like turn-by-turn navigation apps) that cost $50-$70 and sell surprisingly well. Secondly, app pricing is based on supply and demand. Any first-year CS student can write a fart-app or flashlight-app in 10 minutes, and thus there are hundreds of them in the app store and the price is driven down to $0.99 (or even free). Who would pay $30 for such an app? If the creator thinks he can sell 100,000 copies at $0.99 or 1,000 copies at $30, which price should he choose?
Re:Missing the point... (Score:2, Insightful)
The writer for Forest Gump got nothing (he did get USD 350K for the screenplay rights) when he contracted for 3% of the net profits of the movie because it made a "net loss". Whereas the director and star of the movie got at least USD 40million each because they opted for "gross profit".
Since then, the writer has sworn off writing a sequel for Forest Gump since it was a "failure". Alas for us fans that enjoyed the book and/or the movie.
Therefore, "creative accounting" = "piracy performed in the accounting dept"
Impossible question. (Score:2, Insightful)
In order to actually give you an answer, someone would need to show both that the work lost money and that it was because of people illegally downloading it for free. I see several problems with your request.
-1- I have to show that the work ACTUALLY lost money (Harry Potter).
-2- I have to show that the people would have paid if they couldn't download it for free.
-3- I have to have an accurate count of downloads to see if it would have made money.
Of course, I could also ask a question or two in return. If everyone in town takes a little corn out of a farmers field, but the farmer cannot get an accurate count of how much was stolen by each person, where they still stealing? If he goes bankrupt, could I justify by asking if the corn I took was the corn that put him out of business? If he raised his prices to cover the loss, could I claim that he would have raised his prices anyway, so it's OK?
Re:Music 60 years from now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Techno fans, flame away, I won't respond to them.
Looks like they didn't need to flame - they had mod points!
PC SP gaming (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html [tweakguides.com]
A lot of gaming houses are moving away from PC as their primary platform for single player games as a direct consequence of piracy on the PC. Yes, there is pirated stuff for consoles as well but apparently not enough to hurt sales as much. And yes, PC versions of games are still going to be available. The thing is that the games are going to be designed first and foremost for consoles and more casual(read braindead) type of gaming.
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:4, Insightful)
>>Software, however has a completely different problem, even though it still stems directly from value.
I knew the person that wrote some popular BBS code. I'm tempted to say it was Searchlight BBS, but it's been a long time.
He released it as shareware, got massively popular, but he said he made hardly any money out of it. And the people that were pirating it would constantly ask him for tech support, as well. So it's not quite true that software has no overhead.
He was kind of bitter about the whole thing, and really hated software pirates because they screwed the small guy a lot worse than companies like Microsoft. Even though the dollar amounts are obviously much larger for Microsoft, if he can't put food on his plate writing software, the software is going to go away.
So, TFA - there's your answer.
Re:Let the rationalizations begin (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're an electrician, you're not hand crafting all of the wires you install. The architect/construction engineer specs this wire with this many strands and that's what you install. Everything is specced and standardized.
And you built your own instruments, and designed your own music scale did you? Ass monkey.
And another thing, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
You may be thinking "but death metal is such a niche, it won't happen." Happened already with other genres. Don't think the music of the '70s, or '50s, or '30s or whatever was actually as monolythic as you'd think. Back in the days of Glenn Miller -- just because that was used by the GGP as an example -- i.e., the 30's, fans of proper jaz as played by the likes of Benny Goodman and Count Basie sneered at the plebs who listened to the manufactured commercial gimmick music of Glenn Miller (or so they saw it), and viceversa. And fans of the newfangled ethnic or hillbilly music sneered at both, and viceversa. And then there were such manufactured superstars (at least in the eyes of those who didn't like them) as Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, and a lot of arguments went back and forth over _that_ topic.
It was rappers vs metalheads all over again.
Only nowadays they all gang up on the newfangled music of kids these days, and form some united front called "the music of the 30's."
So in 2070 you'll probably have grey fans of death metal and rappers turned grey and wizzened Britney Spears fans and grandmas who used to get all wet about the Backstreet Boys, acting like they were brothers in arms all along. And listening to them you'd think it was some uniform "music of the 90's" where everyone listened to all of that indiscriminately. And talking about how not only Meat Hook Sodomy was better than what kids listen to these days, but so were rap masterpieces like "I'm fucking you tonight", and so was anything Britney ever sung, and so on. Even if nowadays you couldn't get a fan of any of those, to have anything good to say about any of the others.
But nostalgia is a funny thing, and the enemy of my enemy...
Re:Music 60 years from now... (Score:3, Insightful)
of course, there's a difference between actually have some skill on whatever you use to make that sound (like playing a midi keyboard isn't the same as playing a piano, but you'll find it hard to call either a fake), and just pressing a button to play the music.
Another quote (and I can't remember the source). "If I just had to press a button to make a hit record, I'd be pressing it all the time". No hit record is "just pressing a button".
Re:I can think of 2 reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything sux and yet they (the movie/music/software companies) expect us to pay and pay and pay through our nose for their wares.
If it sux so much, why are so many downloading it. Hell they are making a lot of money still, so many people are paying for it too.
So really you are saying that you think it sux and its not worth it. But a lot of folks clearly disagree with this opinion.
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:2, Insightful)
In the case of many acquaintances of mine, it is largely associated with the fact that they are total cheapskates. This seems, I'm sorry to say, to be an unfortunately common characteristic among geeks and nerds. I don't know why, and I don't share the mentality (I err in the opposite direction), but nevertheless there it is...
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:3, Insightful)
He just PAYS FOR IT, because it really is faster, and easier. The pirate who wants to play Super Duper Mario Brothers Meet the Exterminator and Predator has to find a download, find a crack, apply the crack, etc ad nauseum. Then, he probably can't play the online version, which includes the "value added" appearance of Alien.
Kinda.
That's how it's supposed to work. If a company is smart, they go to lengths to ensure that the value of their product is higher than that of the pirated product.
Unfortunately, some companies (like EA and Ubisoft) don't quite get it right. Instead of ensuring that the legitimate copies are the best, they layer on obtrusive DRM (e.g. Spore) and stupid limitations (requiring a network connection to play a single-player game), thereby changing the value proposition in the wrong direction.
This is complicated by the fact that your description of piracy isn't really how it works anymore. Here's how it usually works:
Now faced with the above scenario, you can see how the value comparison changes. In this scenario, the user can either 1) pay for the product and be subject to a number of limitations (DRM, etc.) or 2) get the product for free and deal with fewer restrictions on its usage.
And that's not even including the folks who "pirate" things that they already licensed. Case in point: I licensed NFS: Most Wanted a couple years ago. Unfortunately, the copy protection (SafeDisc IIRC) didn't function correctly, and the game refused to recognize that I had the CD in the drive with any degree of reliability. As a result, I downloaded a "pirated" release of the game, which work flawlessly.
Conversely, Positech Games [positech.co.uk] (who make some kick-ass strategy/management games) sells all of their games DRM-free. I've purchased several of his games, primarily because the pirated product adds nothing other than a count of copyright infringement.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
some people don't consider drinking fountain water to be as pure and healthy as bottled water
Except some bottled water brands come directly from a municipal water supply.
Is your bottled water coming from a faucet? [msn.com]
Some have additional filtering, some don't. I have seen bottled water in city buildings where the city has created an unmodified, bottled product for their own use and sale.
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:3, Insightful)
A song != an album.
Re:*Some* people will pay (Score:3, Insightful)
And I disagree with those studies. For one thing, there's the correlation-causation problem. In other words, let's say that piracy has no effect on sales. Let's also say that people who love music are more likely to pirate music and buy music. Based on these facts, you'd find that people who pirate are more likely to buy. However, in our example, we've already said that piracy has no effect on sales. This would be correlation, and it would mean that piracy did not increase sales (even though some people might interpret it that way). In fact, it's entirely possible for piracy to decrease sales and you'd still see a positive correlation between people who pirate and sales to those same people. This could happen if you have two groups of people: Group A loves music - they pirate and the buy music. Group B isn't a big music fan - they don't pirate or buy much music. Even if piracy caused a decline in purchases among Group A, they might still have higher purchase rates than Group B. This would lead to a correlation between piracy and purchasing - which could erroneously be interpreted as "piracy increases sales".
I also don't believe those studies are accurate. I can think of quite a few reasons why those statistic would be inaccurate - the most obvious being that pirates lie about the amount of material they purchase. I think there's evidence to suggest that those numbers are inaccurate. For example, a number of industries have gotten hit within the last decade with declining sales. The music industry sales are down 50% since 10 years ago. Domestic box office revenue is down 15% when adjusted for inflation and population growth. DVD sales are down (http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/avatar-dvd-sales-are-out-of-this-world-is-it-the-last-hurrah/19455023/). The porn industry is taking a big hit. It's hard for me to believe that those industries are seeing declining sales given that "piracy is generally a net positive" and piracy has been on the increase over that same period. I remember seeing one statistic that said pirates buy 12x as much music as non-pirates. Assuming that piracy caused people to buy 12x as much music, then how does one explain the 50% decline in music sales? Are we supposed to believe that, if piracy didn't exist, that music sales would've seen an 80% decline in sales? It seems unbelievable that music sales would've naturally fallen off by 80% in 10 years - as if people just stopped listening to music.
Re:I think there's something to that (Score:3, Insightful)
>>How is it piracy to download shareware?
It's not, but it is piracy to copy the full version, which is exactly what happened. He estimated that less than 10% of the sites running the full version of his software had paid for it.
Re:Counterpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all 70s (or 60s, 50s, 80s, 90s) music is widely listened too. The good stuff is widely listened to. If you look at the percentage of what is still listened to vs. all music produced, it is probably the same across all genres and decades. The percentage might be declining these days, but only because there is a greater quantitiy of music being released, not less "good" music.
But you hit the nail on the head with the term "culture". Music that gave rise to a culture will always be remembered by the people who are influenced by that culture.
Re:Someone pointed to a study in a previous thread (Score:3, Insightful)
Plenty of sales have been lost to piracy
[citation needed], and not one commissioned by liars and thieves (RIAA/MPAA).
Whenever a person decides to be legal and goes out to buy a DVD and from a convincingly legit-looking bootlegger selling copies
That's not piracy, that's counterfeiting. Yes, sales are lost due to counterfeiting, sales are also lost from shoplifting, but neither one is piracy.