The Pirate Party ACT seeks CR suggestions on potential policy

Dragunov: Consider this, the most highly torrented movies are also the most successful commercially.
In fact, the ratio of piracy to profits in the movie business is exponential in the movie industry's favour. The more it is pirated, the more people pay for it.
So, if we were being truly proportional to the damage caused, the movie companies should be paying torrenters for promoting the film!

 

Fuck, that's a stretch. Correlation doesn't imply causation.

Perhaps people steal it because it is popular not the other way around...

 

personally, i torrent a bunch of stuff for 3 reasons.

1. Because i can.

2. Because i really cbf waiting an extra couple of months for it to be released here, then paying a premium to access it (movies are a great example)

3. Because it just doesnt even get released here anyway, due to whatever reason or deomgraphic that dictates its not worth thier time, or if it does get released here (Tv series) it inevitably gets shifted around time slots with little to no warning, or just outright canned, often halfway through a season because they can get better ratings on something else.


The majority of the time if i really enjoyed it, i'll go buy it anyway.
pirate and proud of it, Yarrrr!!!!

 

The point is that non-commercial copying does not damage profits, and any penalty for doing so should reflect the severity of the infringement (i.e none)

There was another study about music piracy that showed that by far the largest purchasers of music were also the biggest pirates.
They were downloading songs and becoming fans of new bands then buying their CDs, going to concerts etc

 

I legally torrent the humble indie bundles for Linux.
I think I'm at a seed ratio of 30 for some packages.

 

Got a link? Curious as I always wondered how they decide that pirating costs $X. For instance I'm sure a lot of people would happily download something for free however if their only option was to pay for it would they really want it?

 

And yet somehow bands built a fan base and sold records/concerts before it was possible to pirate their work. How did they do it before all these people were so prepared to do them a favour by taking their work for nothing?

 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks/

 

New bands were previously discovered mostly by consumers by listening on the radio (for free) or by a mate sharing their copy (for free)
Now days downloads/youtube have replaced the radio, and now your mate can share their copy without losing access to it.

The music industry is doing better than ever before, with more bands making a living off their work - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...industry-is-large-growing-not-shrinking.shtml
The only losers in this are the big media cartels (RIAA/MPAA) who are losing their relevance as middlemen, and are the ones lobbying for tighter controls on copyright both in the US and here via mouthpieces such as AFACT.

 

Songs arent played on the radio for free. Not then not now. "Sharing their copy"? You really think that was a big thing? Any stats showing that? Its just conjecture. Bands only get paid for whats sold.

Find a genuine link showing artists appreciation for pirates efforts in "promoting" them on a relevant scale. Most have accepted people will rip them off and try to grin and bear it but it doesnt help put a cent in their pockets. Despite links to obscure studies done on miniscule samples.

 

Not wishing to weigh in on this discussion on one side or another.... but some points to throw into the mix (sorry )....

1. Yeah, sprinter is right... radio stations have to pay some royalty each time they play a song, apparently...

2. More and more bands are giving their music away free on their websites, sure they still sell albums as well, but their main income is from playing live. They build fan base with recordings, and sell tickets to their gigs.

Record companies aren't there for the musicians. Fuck 'em.
I have a couple of successful-ish musician friends who hate hate hate record companies for amount of rip-off factor. I'm sure that there are good ones out there, but.... I've heard so many stories about getting burned. Musician makes very little, record company reaps large profits.

You wanna support music artists? Go to live gigs!

<end vague contribution>

 

Not defending record companies, its pretty much accepted they are the big winners, but their relationship with artists is a different issue.

Its pretending you are doing the artist a favour by pirating his work that I dont agree with. If you want to steal go ahead but dont pretend its anything else.

Hypocrisy always looks bad and is endemic in politics it seems. No matter what party.

 

I love this argument. People say bands are choosing to give their music away and that justifies piracy? I gave away a dog bed to a friend the other day, does that give everyone the right to go and steal dog beds from Pet Barn?

 

Where in that story/study does it say that someone who downloads music illegally is more likely to go and buy that same album/song and reward the artist for their efforts?

Is the story here that someone is 'trying before they're buying'? Or is it that someone downloads some music from one artist and buys from another, thus making the former a bit of a sacrificial lamb for the rest of the industry?

 

More like the men saying that some women are giving 'it' away for free and using that as a justification that prostitutes are no longer afforded the choice to charge for 'it'.

 

I usually try and stay away from flaming in intelligent discussions, but what you just wrote was completely retarded and you should feel bad for having posted it. Not joking at all. That's like saying that Holden should be paying car thieves because the Commodore is both popular and frequently stolen.

No; that would be analogous to a game dev (or whatever) complaining about a freeware competitor.

A more apt version of your analogy for software piracy would be a prostitute complaining because a client is paying for a go, then passing her around to his mates. (edited because better analogy)

 

I wouldn't steal a dog bed... but if I could download one...