Quote:
Originally Posted by EPrecording  This is possibly the biggest problem with the arguments being raised on this forum. They always seem to return to the individual, when it should directly embody the industry. You seem to be heading towards an Ad Hominem as the basis for your argument, for which I will avoid as it is largely irrelevant. The very notion that a persons presence in the industry equates to success is ridiculous. People tried and failed in 1930. 1940. 1980. 1990. 2010... and every year in between. |
right...
piracy is not about technological displacement, it's about theft, aided by technology
the recorded music industry is not loosing jobs to better competition... better product, lower prices, etc. we've always had that.
in that example we'd be loosing sales to these guys, and we're not:
http://www.soundclick.com
soundclick represent "open source music" freely given away by people who "develop" it in the own time for their own motives... but that's not what people want.
we're not loosing revenue to people who are making a better
competing product available and cheaper than we can make ourselves, we're loosing revenue to people who are making
OUR product available cheaper (free actually) than we can - for obvious reasons.
we're also not up in arms about technological displacement. that's what happen to hollywood after WWII when television was introduced. it was a game changer, it displaced a lot of people. same as with films going from silent to talkie.
in each of those cases, a new legitimate model emerged, and there was a true opportunity to adapt to the new model, which worked for others and had
proven to be profitable although different.
this is also true of detroit. japanese car makers made smaller, more fuel efficient cars that were also more economical and affordable. detroit made big gas guzzlers that suffered from needing frequent repairs. but detroit could have made cars to compete the japanese. the japanese were not making cadillacs and selling them back to us at half price.
one thing television could not do was air movies, or adapt radio shows to television without negotiating and compensating the copyright holders. the displacement of television drove down the demand for films and the studios suffered. but people could go to television and be writers, directors, musicians, production assistants in that new medium.
with internet piracy, it as if television would have been able to take and broadcast any content that had previously existed without having to compensate those people or pay to create and employ any content creators of their own.
that would be a great model, other people, over several decades, have invested in and built libraries of content that television could have broadcast with no investment cost, while monetizing that content against advertising revenue and corporate sponsorships....
that's what's happening now.
what we have now is a technological disruption, which is fine and actually exciting!.
but more so, we have the wholesale theft of content for the sole benefit of third parties who have made no investment, and make no purchase.
there is no way to adapt, because the disruption is theft and not technological.
the technology only allows for the exploitation and theft, in the same way television as an emerging technology made it possible to "pirate" movies and broadcast them.
but that didn't happen.
laws, and consequences for breaking the laws prevented television from raping the film studio vaults for free content.
no one has the "right" to steal or infringe upon someone else's creative work or labor. I tire of all the rationalizations when in the end, if people couldn't do it without consequence, the majority wouldn't... and really, it's just that simple.