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First off, downloading copyrighted material without paying is stealing. Period. For the sake of argument, it's bad. However, lying is also bad. Spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) is a propagandists' tool at least as morally questionable as simply taking what doesn't belong to you.
Propagandists would have you believe that every download unpaid for is a lost sale. The numbers are always dragged out and they're always big. But the numbers are a total fabrication, they have no meaning because there is no way of knowing if anyone would actually pay for the download in the first place.
Imagine there's a kiosk in a mall with a give away of free watches, one per customer. They're cheap little plastic watches that you could buy in a store for maybe $10, but here they're free. Even people who don't wear watches might grab one, just because of perceived value.
Now the watches are offered for, say, $1. The number of units moving compared to free is probably drastically lower, but still much better than a regular sales day at the mall. As the price climbs, the units moved falls. It's very, very simple economics.
The propagandists want people to believe that every single free watch moved would be a sale. At the full retail price of $14.99. The loss is tallied and it's huge; sales of such watches have never been so high. Conclusion, free watches are loosing the industry that much money. It's terrible.
This is the logic of lost sales due to downloading. It's disingenuous FUD. Every time the lost millions are talked about I twitch. I want to fight back somehow, buy something, steal something, but nothing will really send a message. Perhaps buy from someone the liars don't own? Ironically, that's often the stuff I can legally download for free.
Are downloads crippling the revenue of groups like the RIAA? They certainly would like people to blame evil downloading as the next Brittany clone tanks. They have been aggressive against mothers and children. While no research can really be conclusive, the opposing view has some strong studies, which will be ignored. Of course, they can always make up those mythical lost sales by eating their own.
Oh, and my retail price as loss scenario? As RIAA sues for $750-per-song, that could be low balling it.
Propagandists would have you believe that every download unpaid for is a lost sale. The numbers are always dragged out and they're always big. But the numbers are a total fabrication, they have no meaning because there is no way of knowing if anyone would actually pay for the download in the first place.
Imagine there's a kiosk in a mall with a give away of free watches, one per customer. They're cheap little plastic watches that you could buy in a store for maybe $10, but here they're free. Even people who don't wear watches might grab one, just because of perceived value.
Now the watches are offered for, say, $1. The number of units moving compared to free is probably drastically lower, but still much better than a regular sales day at the mall. As the price climbs, the units moved falls. It's very, very simple economics.
The propagandists want people to believe that every single free watch moved would be a sale. At the full retail price of $14.99. The loss is tallied and it's huge; sales of such watches have never been so high. Conclusion, free watches are loosing the industry that much money. It's terrible.
This is the logic of lost sales due to downloading. It's disingenuous FUD. Every time the lost millions are talked about I twitch. I want to fight back somehow, buy something, steal something, but nothing will really send a message. Perhaps buy from someone the liars don't own? Ironically, that's often the stuff I can legally download for free.
Are downloads crippling the revenue of groups like the RIAA? They certainly would like people to blame evil downloading as the next Brittany clone tanks. They have been aggressive against mothers and children. While no research can really be conclusive, the opposing view has some strong studies, which will be ignored. Of course, they can always make up those mythical lost sales by eating their own.
Oh, and my retail price as loss scenario? As RIAA sues for $750-per-song, that could be low balling it.
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I love the concept of cutting out the money-sucking middleman-asshats, and letting the talent market directly to its customer base. Modular bites of entertainment, at a per-unit price paid directly to the talent entity (as opposed to the production entity, which should get paid by the talent for their support, IMO, not the other way around) has a lot going for it.