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Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
In this day and age ownership of digital media is often an illusion. When you buy a book or movie there are severe restrictions on what you can do with these files. In some cases, purchased content can simply disappear overnight. These limitations keep copyright holders in control, but they breed pirates at the same time.
[...] Millions of people have now replaced their physical media collections for digital ones, often stored in the cloud. While that can be rather convenient, it comes with restrictions that are unheard of offline.
[...R]esearchers examined how the absence of the right to resell and lend affects people's choice to buy. They found that, among those who are familiar with BitTorrent, roughly a third would prefer The Pirate Bay over Apple or Amazon if they are faced with these limitations.
These rights restrictions apparently breed pirates.
"Based on our survey data, consumers are more likely to opt out of lawful markets for copyrighted works and download illegally if there is no lawful way to obtain the rights to lend, resell, and use those copies on their device of choice," the researchers concluded.
The paper in question is two years old by now, but still very relevant today. While we don't expect that anything will change soon, people should at least be aware that you don't always own what you buy.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/you-dont-really-own-that-movie-you-bought-but-pirates-180915/
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:26AM (3 children)
They were potential customers.
If we could get a reasonable*selection of entertainments (movie, "tv", game, whatever), at a reasonable* price, we'd most likely pay.
* "reasonable" for "suppliers" seems to be defined as "contains advertisements, warnings an other stuff, and you can't move it to your own storage device.
Going to the movies costs alot. Staying at home to watch should not cost only half the ticket price (or more!)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:18AM (2 children)
I took the kids up to the Prospect Park bandshell for Celebrate Brooklyn! a couple weeks ago to see Jonathan Coulton perform. It was a great show. He writes clever songs around nerdy themes. We could have grabbed the new album off bit torrent, but bought a CD and a T-shirt because we wanted to support his work.
It occurred to me we weren't rewarding him for those songs, we were investing in the next songs, those he hasn't written yet.
The recording industry isn't about creating new music, it's about extracting infinite reward from music that already exists, in a sort of cultural necrophilia. They feast on the dead.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:59PM (1 child)
Indeed. I happen to like cds, and will buy them from performers at shows, where the money actually goes to the performer, as cash into their hand. Then I rip the cd, knowing, eventually, it will get scratched, or lost.
Not sure how much artists make on things like soundcloud, but buying from an artist's website seems to be similar.. Straight to the artist, not to the leeches.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:00PM
Would you still buy it if you could not rip it?
I don't buy DVDs or even have a blueray player because I can't back it up - which is legal here!