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Wednesday, May 8, 2002
13:28 - Yeah, what he said.
http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20020506

(top) link


Touché.

This is the strip from yesterday, and the author has been taking heat for it:

Those who wrote feel it's ridiculous to suggest that movie studios release multiple versions of DVDs because of piracy. Agreed.

rather than get into multiple email discussions with everyone who wrote in, let me go ahead and concede the point. Movie studios release multiple versions of DVDs because it's profitable, not because piracy forces them to do so.

I am, however, suprised at how many people actually defended piracy. Maybe it shouldn't surprise me, considering how many gamers and tech people I know. If I had a nickel for everytime someone said "Dude, burn me a copy." I would be rich.

And I think, ultimately, that's the strongest argument against piracy.

I think that stealing content is wrong. Period. I'm not getting preachy here, because I'm as guilty of stealing content as the next guy. Some offenses have been worse than others. I mean, I tape and rebroadcast football games without the express written permission of the NFL.

I'm not above admitting my guilt, but please...PLEASE don't tell me that it's okay to steal. At least have the balls to admit that it's wrong. You know?

Well said.

Content producers expect a certain amount of stretching of the rules on the part of consumers. People will tape football games, people will fast-forward past commercials, people will copy favorite CDs to their MP3 players. That's "fair use", and content producers gamble that such actions will not occur to a degree that will impact sales. Steven den Beste had an article about exactly that a little while ago, on the subject of whether a TV viewer is "obligated" to watch commercials in order to get content for free (in this case, skipping through commercials is economically equivalent to taping a show or e-mailing someone an MP3):

The producers of ad-supported material are basically taking a statistical gamble. It's never been the case that ad-viewing has been 100%; it's never even been remotely that high. The advertisers base their ad-rates on an assumed lesser rate, multiplied by a certain chance that any given person viewing the ad will then become a customer. If the amount of new business brought in offsets the cost of the ad, then it's good business practice. And ad rates are set based on the expected return.

But that's between the broadcaster and the advertiser. If the effectiveness of the ads drops, then the advertiser will pay less to the broadcaster, and the broadcaster has a problem. But the fact that they both need the ads to be viewed has nothing to do with the viewers.

But when you start harrumphing about how software companies are greedy for expecting to be paid the advertised price for their product, or how movie producers should not have the right to terminate with extreme prejudice people who make bootleg copies of movies and make them widely available on the Internet, you cross the line into "actively trying to undermine the market". You may not be doing it maliciously. All you want is notoriety ("I'm so l33t! This v1d iz encoded by --=-[]-DeAtHwOlF-[]-=-- !!!!1!1`") and convenience.

But you're breaking the law, and (more importantly) you're betraying the trust of "fair use"-- the trust that companies have given you on the assumption that you will be reasonable about what you do with the content.

And when you betray the trust that gave you the technological freedom to make those copies, you send them the message that you can't be trusted with that capability-- and then Fritz Hollings gets to pass bills that make it illegal to rip a CD onto your MP3 player.

I hope you're proud of yourselves.

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