Intellectual Property rights and the threat to Enterprise

[Shryke]

You're right, digital goods are an exception. Welcome to 2011.

Digital goods are different because you CAN take them without paying, not because you should.

We do many things that don't earn us money, although we'd like them too. And I know the answer to this from your camp is: "well then, how about artists just stop freaking making art, what then?" My answer to that is, well yes, some of the artists probably will stop "making" art, which is fine by me. As I said, art is discovery. Someone else will discover it sooner or later, perhaps someone who doesn't care for making money specifically from their time discovering said art. There are plenty of those people, ya know.

So basically you don't actually give a shit about the medium you are consuming. Lovely attitude there. What gain is served by this idea beyond you getting shit for free?

It seems you don't actually give a shit about defining some new paradigm for artists, you just don't want to pay for the stuff other people make. Because, as you point out right here, when push comes to shove, you'd prefer you get shit for free over the existence of art.

[Prince Alexander]

Digital goods are different because you CAN take them without paying, not because you should.

So basically you don't actually give a shit about the medium you are consuming. Lovely attitude there. What gain is served by this idea beyond you getting shit for free?

It seems you don't actually give a shit about defining some new paradigm for artists, you just don't want to pay for the stuff other people make. Because, as you point out right here, when push comes to shove, you'd prefer you get shit for free over the existence of art.

I think you're downplaying my arguments in a very broad way. Not everything is as primitive as "getting shit for free". Sometimes it's a matter of principle, sometimes economy, sometimes greed, indeed.

you'd prefer you get shit for free over the existence of art.

As everything in life, things are more complicated than this. I'm not sure I have the time for an essay here. Bottomline: I wouldn't say less of any X (like art) is a bad thing. Deficit generates value. And it's not like a book that wasn't written because author Y is too poor is lost to humanity. There are probably hundreds of Ys born every year, and the very exceptional, genius, one in a million Zs, are not likely to be that concerned with money anyways, they'll be drinking themselves to death.

[Prince Alexander]

If you were voting with your wallet, you'd be not buying it. Instead, you are still taking it but not paying for it.

Not really. If I'm too poor to buy a sports car, but my buddy has one, I'll beg him to lend it to me. If the sports car producer notices that the wow factor/demand of their cars is going down because everyone has tried their buddy's anyways, they'll have to think of something new (like, probably redesign the new gen to reset the wow factor every 4 years). Of course cars are tangible goods with very strict production costs. Which goes back to my original argument that digital/intangible goods are an exception.

[TerraPrime]

I think that's the inherent flaw in the "the price is not fair" argument, as in, how can you compete with free pirating? If a song that is downloadable for 99 cents is still unfair, then... what? Price it at 5 cents? One cent? That's still more than free, isn't it? In most online music stores, you get to listen to half to a third of the song as a sample, then you can decide if you'll buy it. If you do, it's 99 cents for a song that you can listen to, and enjoy, over and over again. That's a pretty damn good deal. The movies, as others point out, are not quite there yet on pricing. Still, you can legally stream most movies at the price range of $1 to $4. You don't get to keep a digital copy of it, but you do get to enjoy it, for a whole group of people/friends/family, even, for a very reasonable price. If you look at computer games that do not require online continual subscription, at $60, you typically get ~40 hrs of game play (more or less depending on the game and your own personality), which amounts to a little over a dollar per hour of entertainment.

So, really, I think with the exceptions of some DVD/Blue Ray discs, the price for digital entertainment media seems... reasonable.

I actually think book prices seem a bit high these days, for regular hard-covers. They usually selling for roughly $25 to $30 dollars, and for most books, you finish in what, 6 hours or so, depending on how big the book is and how fast you read it. Most books you don't re-read, either. For books that I know I will re-read, it's not bad. But for books that I'm pretty sure I will read only once, that does seem a bit high.

But you know, as FLOW and Ini pointed out, the proper response to the cost of entertainment being higher than what you're willing to pay is to then not use that form of entertainment, NOT to illegally download or pirate it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

Well said.

[Ken Stone]

Exactly. Ken Stone's math equation is correct but, like most eBook readers in my experience, he drastically overestimates the value of some of his variables.

Most of the cost of a book is editing, writing, promotion, etc, etc, etc. Distribution (the only thing eBooks save on) is a miniscule cost.

How much would it cost me to get a thousand page book of blank pages? It's got to be a couple of bucks at least. Now add in the cost of transporting it around, having it sit in a warehouse, the opportunity cost of holding a book that might not sell. As someone mentioned upstream, you can't easily share an ebook, meaning you can expect to sell more. Also, dead-tree editions of literature go stale, and are discounted. With ebooks you don't have that issue. Another reason they should be cheaper.

Ser Scott - ETA: Taking it to a new thread

[sologdin]

99 cents is still unfair, then... what? Price it at 5 cents? One cent? That's still more than free, isn't it?

free is also unfair, donchaknow, because they should be paying me to read their hacky crap.

[TerraPrime]

free is also unfair, donchaknow, because they should be paying me to read their hacky crap.

Then you shouldn't have left the professoriate. :P

[TrueMetis]

2. Most of the time. The only thing I consistently pirate are a handful of manga chapters (some of which aren't even licensed in the US). This is mostly because I just want to read the latest chapters, and the only way to get the chapters legally most of the time is to wait six months for novel-size volumes with multiple chapters to come out (which I won't read a second time, so buying it is mostly worthless to me). Give me a way to read the latest chapters legally, and I'll gladly pay for them (just like how I subscribed to Crunchyroll once they started streaming some of the latest anime episodes from series I like legally).

This is a big one for me, on top of having no money for this type of thing, I'm not sure where I would buy the manga I enjoy reading or whether it would be in English anyway. Since the sites I read on have fan scanlations that would suggest that they aren't in English and potentially won't be for years.

The other things I've pirated I do plan on buying, eventually.

[SpicyTurkey]

There is no such thing as an unfair price. A price only becomes unfair when one is forced to buy it.

[felice]

How much would it cost me to get a thousand page book of blank pages? It's got to be a couple of bucks at least. Now add in the cost of transporting it around, having it sit in a warehouse, the opportunity cost of holding a book that might not sell.

And the retail markup, which multiplies rather than adds to the physical production costs. Running costs for an ebook-only store are minuscule compared to even a mail order company, let alone a high street book store. And a couple of bucks to produce a thousand page book? Maybe if you're producing tens of thousands of copies, but for smaller print runs or print-on-demand, you're looking at paying much more. Ebooks shouldn't cost half as much as hardcopies.

none of us are any worse off than we'd otherwise be simply because we're unable to afford something.

If that's true, then we're not any better off if we do buy it. In which case, what's the justification for making people pay for it?

I'm not sure while waiting until you can afford something is such an unreasonable thing to ask of people in high school/college.

It doesn't benefit anyone to make them wait, though. If they download what they want for free instead of waiting, they'll just buy something different when they can afford it (and they'd probably be buying something different anyway, since their tastes would change).

[sologdin]

There is no such thing as an unfair price. A price only becomes unfair when one is forced to buy it.

so there are or there aren't unfair prices?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Sologdin,

Can you give a hard definition of an "unfair price"?

[The Kassi (mark two)]

Sologdin,

Can you give a hard definition of an "unfair price"?

In all honesty it is hard to argue that pricing in the entertainment industry is fair. It is specifically designed to be unfair, as all titles are priced similarly regardless of the quality, the amount of time it takes to consume it, or how much it cost to develop.

Someone asked something akin to 'in what other industry do you get to have something for free if you decide the price they are asking is too high.' They were right to point out that such a concept is unfair. As counter point however, in what industry besides entertainment are all the products priced the same, and you only get to learn if it is worth the price asked until after you pay it, without the ability to return the item if you deem it insufficient?

The internet is doing a lot to change this, but it is not like that has been an available option for most folks for more then ten years. Heck game developers are actively attempting to kill used game sales because it hurts their ability to pump out games that offer closer to six hours of content then ten. Even with the internet out there, publishers are still trying to wring cash from the rubes by selling them chaff at a premium price.

People have a right to their intellectual property, and the methods employed by publishers do not justify simply taking it, but acknowledging that isn't the same as calling the current realities of the market fair. There is no hard definition of an unfair price for a book, or a movie, or a game, or some music. Defining the price by it's physical shell, rather then the content within is why it is unfair. I can name a book series where the first three books are worth at least a hundred each. The next two were only of value as kindling, and the sixth or seventh book was darn near priceless, with the ones that followed were of such poor quality I should have been refunded and offered an apology.

With such a discrepancy in one series, how is it sane to argue that a price lock for the overwhelming majority of items in an entire medium is somehow fair. It is no more fair for movies then it would be for trucks.

[Shryke]

I think you're downplaying my arguments in a very broad way. Not everything is as primitive as "getting shit for free". Sometimes it's a matter of principle, sometimes economy, sometimes greed, indeed.

It's a matter of principle that you want that shit but don't want to pay for it.

As everything in life, things are more complicated than this. I'm not sure I have the time for an essay here. Bottomline: I wouldn't say less of any X (like art) is a bad thing. Deficit generates value. And it's not like a book that wasn't written because author Y is too poor is lost to humanity. There are probably hundreds of Ys born every year, and the very exceptional, genius, one in a million Zs, are not likely to be that concerned with money anyways, they'll be drinking themselves to death.

"Deficit generates value"? WTF does that mean? Scarcity can raise the value of something, but only in that there is less of that same thing. A book not written does not raise the quality of other books.

And how is a piece of art or an invention or anything of the like that isn't made not a loss for humanity?

I don't think you really understand the whole idea of IP. It exists to let people who create non-tangible products profit from them for the explicit purpose of leading to the creation of more non-tangible products. And the creation of more non-tangible products (art, inventions, etc) is good for everyone.

[Shryke]

Not really. If I'm too poor to buy a sports car, but my buddy has one, I'll beg him to lend it to me. If the sports car producer notices that the wow factor/demand of their cars is going down because everyone has tried their buddy's anyways, they'll have to think of something new (like, probably redesign the new gen to reset the wow factor every 4 years). Of course cars are tangible goods with very strict production costs. Which goes back to my original argument that digital/intangible goods are an exception.

Your car analogy makes no sense.

The issue again is that you are saying it's an issue of price ... except you are paying nothing for it. So apparently the price issue here is that there is a price at all.

[sologdin]

scot--

no idea. the post i'd quoted said that there are not and are simultaneously unfair prices. just getting a clarification.

[Verboten]

I think the general point was it's not unfair until you are inconvenienced by it.

[AverageGuy]

1. Do you respect the IP of independent artists? (self-employed novelists etc)
   
2. Do you respect the IP of corporates? (United Media Group poptarts etc)
   
3. How much, if anything, are you willing to pay to support the above?
   

1. Yes. *

2. Yes. *

3. The price on the cover.

*Assumes availability in the U.S., which holds true for pretty much everything I'm interested in.

My answers wouldn't have always been the same. I still have issues with aspects of IP law. However, since graduating from college, which I guess is over the past five years, I've had infinitely more money to throw around, meaning the costs of movies and music is not nearly so prohibitive, and I do want to support the artists I follow.

Also, just because I saw one person spout it, I don't buy the idea that great artists are going to sit around and produce whether or not they get paid. Young artists might, but they don't tend to be the best. Actually getting to the point of being a professional, where they can support themselves through their art, frees up hundreds of hours to refine their work. Passion's great, but that alone won't work.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Verboten,

Why is it "unfair" if you are inconvienenced by the price?