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Re: [News] Radiohead is Blooming in Open Source Model

____/ [H]omer on Friday 19 October 2007 14:20 : \____

> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
> 
>> Free Radiohead music pirated
>> 
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Big Champagne, a Los-Angeles-based company that tracks illegal
>> | downloading on the Internet said that while 1.2 million people
>> | legitimately downloaded the album online, 500,000 picked it up
>> | from torrent sites.
>> |
>> | [....]
>> |
>> | It has also had more copies sold. Radiohead's previous album sold
>> | only 300,000 copies in the first week.
>> `----
>> 
>>
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/18/free-radiohead-music-pirated
> 
> This whole "album was pirated" thing is a misnomer, and I take great
> exception to it, because it seems to imply that just /using/ bittorrent
> is, in and of itself, piracy.
> 
> First of all, the album was free (voluntary payment), so it simply is
> not possible to /steal/ that which is /free/.
> 
> Secondly, the reason so many people downloaded the album off BT was
> because (unsurprisingly) Radiohead's website was pounded to Hell by a
> screaming hoard of 1.2 million downloaders. The BT actually /alleviated/
> the problem, which would have been /much/ worse otherwise.
> 
> I always use BT where I can, as an alternative to hammering people's
> websites, especially WRT distro releases. It is IMHO the socially
> /responsible/ thing to do. The fact that millions of Windows users
> download their their entire catalogue of pirated software off BT on a
> daily basis, does /not/ mean that /all/ traffic on BT is illegal.
> 
> The best bit about this story is the revelation that, apparently, making
> payment voluntary seems to /increase/ *sales* (not just downloads). IOW
> the open source paradigm really does translate well to the music biz,
> and IMHO could work equally well with the film industry. All that hoo-ha
> about DRM and suing 12 year-old girls for "piracy" felonies, was just so
> much paranoia. If the RI/MP/AA loosened their grip a little, stopped
> being such a bunch of greedy arseholes, and allowed consumers some
> breathing space, they'd find that the money will /still/ roll in anyway,
> even /without/ their precious "protection" (racket).

At the end of the day you wind up with a /wealth/ of information making the
rounds and reaching more people (also those who could not afford it). This
increases knowledge and entertainment value and gives more exposure to more
artists. Some months ago, Tim O'Reilly published an interesting blog item with
graphs that show book sales as a function of time. He shows that when
literature was made available as a free download (for a variety of books),
sales did not decline. I can't recall if they actually increased at that stage
(free-of-change availability), but either way, a larger audience was reached
and profit was not hurt. Matt Asay showed some similar graphs for software,
IIRC.

Some people (let's call them "luddites") assume that there is a limited quota
of content or tools (software) consumed, but it's a fallacy. By lowering cost
you get saturation. People consume more and the overall expenditure remains
the same. People have money to burn, and they shall burn it one way or
another.

Other economic analyses that relate to this look at software patents and
explain why the idea is moronic. You limit the value of devices and various
products and achieve absolutely nothing. Both the consumer and the
manufacturers lose.

-- 
                ~~ Best of wishes

Is it a stupid sig? Why yes it is!
http://Schestowitz.com  |  GNU is Not UNIX  |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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