[Spheric Harlot]

^ agreed, with both posts.

The trouble is that people never understood that by buying a record or tape or cd or sheet music, they were not buying music, they were buying a license to access and use it. (witness the endless discussions about how much it cost to manufacture a CD - that was never the point.)

The industry never clarified this, because they didn't need to in the age of of physical media.

It may be too late now.

[subego]

I hope so. It's a hugely dumb ass-model.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Not another piracy thread.

No it's not, but if we're talking about ethics of consumers vs ethics of businesses, the fact is, it's really unethical to sue someone into bankruptcy over a handful of shared tracks, claiming that you lost half a mil on each song.

If your argument hinges exclusively on the tired old simplistic "losses not incurred", you're ALWAYS going to get countered by "gains not made ARE losses", and nobody's ever the wiser.

Well, my argument is that there's no missed gains if the person downloading the music has no interest in paying for it to begin with. As in, if the music is shitty enough and it's not worth $17 for a CD or album download, there's not really any unrealized loss.

Watching a movie on Netflix isn't a lost DVD sale - I wasn't going to buy the DVD in the first place.

[Spheric Harlot]

No, but you would have rented it from a store that paid a price for it which included a license to rent it out.

If there is a gain on on side, there is a loss on the other. If the person downloading the song had no intention of acquiring it, why did he acquire it? Just assuming that no sale would have taken place is bullshit, it's not even bullshit *logic*. Because obviously, nobody ever bought music, and everybody that would have still does. Nu-uh.
Note that I'm not interested in riding the moral high-horse; just pointing out that if you simplify stuff down to that level, you're definitely wrong, because somebody else can immediately make an counter-argument that is at least as right as yours.

It just. Isn't. That. Simple.

I'm with you on the off-the-scale responses. Those are just ludicrous and have been tremendously counter-productive.

[Shaddim]

Netflix is paying a license fee for you to watch a show or movie, just like Pandora does with music, so money is changing hands somewhere when you do.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Netflix is paying a license fee for you to watch a show or movie, just like Pandora does with music, so money is changing hands somewhere when you do.

Yep.