[jfindley]

I'm not sure that's true.

While I'm not a fan of the entitlement-culture that's a massive feature of large parts of the popular internet, there's more to this than simple entitlement. Demanding content for free is entitlement. Being happy to pay for content, but being denied access based on your geographical location isn't entitlement - at least to me, and I think to a lot of people both on and off the internet.

What content owners have seemed to fail to grasp, repeatedly, is that governments operate at least partly by consent[0]. No matter how successful you are at convincing the government of a country to pass the law you want, if it's a law that's very difficult to enforce and is generally perceived as being unfair/unreasonable, it will often get ignored entirely.

The problem in this particular case is that in much of the world, the content owners have taken an incredibly aggressive stance, making it extremely difficult or impossible to access lots of content legally. This is often regarded as unfair by the general population of that country - "Why can't I listen to this song/watch this film? It's been available in <other country> for months/years".

From a legal standpoint, the content owner is within their rights to say: "Actually, I don't really care about country Y. I'll not bother releasing my content there."[1] However, in practice, it's unlikely their wishes will be respected.

No matter how you or they might feel about it, in the real world, content owners have two options:

1) Make it legally available under reasonable terms.

2) Accept that it will be available illegally.

There is no third option.

0: Yes, there's debate as to what degree this applies, but for the purposes of my point that shouldn't matter, as long as you accept that there's at least some degree of consent required.

1: In theoretical discussions of this topic, it's often presumed that market forces will counteract this, and incentivise the owner to make their content widely available in most markets - this is demonstrably not the case in practice however.

[digi_owl]

Bingo. Where i'm from, it was legal to copy cassettes and pass them on to friends and family. This in part because the politicians realized that trying to enforce a strict ban meant either banning players outright, or place a cop in every home across the nation.

Though i guess it helped that they had the big scary communist block to be compared to if they had tried.

This because they also ended up allowing imported CB radios to be operated, even though the band was originally allocated for a different use.

[caskance]

Being "happy to pay for content" is not binary. In the most extreme case, if you were willing to pay for distribution rights for your country, you would be able to get that content.

[chc]

Do you feel that this is a reasonable, substantial objection or just a "Well, technically…"? Because it sounds like the latter to me.

[caskance]

It's a contrived example to show that when people say "I'm willing to pay for content", what they really mean is "I'm willing to pay a small amount for content that may or may not be as much as the content actually costs".

It's like saying "I am willing to pay for a car" and then complaining that nobody will sell you an Audi S6 for five thousand dollars.

[chc]

This contrived example doesn't go anywhere near showing that. The fact that somebody won't single-handedly buy distribution rights to the movie doesn't mean they wouldn't pay a reasonable price for it ("reasonable" here meaning "in line with what other people pay").

[Nadya]

If a no-name artist wanted $100,000 for their painting they'd be laughed out of most places and die well before ever selling a single painting. Your example works both ways.

Good/services are ultimately priced by the people willing to purchase. The producer can charge more than what people are asking - but can only go so high. The higher the producer charges, the less people buy their good/product. Sometimes this trade off is worth it (ie. luxury brands).

If nobody was willing to pay so much as a penny over $5,000 for an Audi S6 you can bet one of two things happening:

  a) An Audi S6 would be sold for $5,000 (and never see production again)
  b) No Audi S6 would ever be sold (and never see production again)

[npizzolato]

The example breaks down with torrenting because it introduces a third option. For the no-name artist,

    a) Some people would pay $100,000 and get the painting.
    b) Some people would think $100,000 is ridiculous, not pay, and not get the painting.
    c) Some people would copy/steal/whatever the painting, and get the painting for $0.

Is it really surprising that many people choose c? Those people might say they'd actually pay for it if it was $10 instead, and some of them might be telling the truth, but I think many people would still choose option c. $0 is hard to pass up.

[Nadya]

Some Audi S6 would be sold for $5,000 by desperate salespeople who need to get it off the lot. I just left it out because option A isn't all that realistic in either scenario.

Option "D" (offering to pay, taking for free) comes with knowing that the artist might not be able to support themselves to make more. I've always supported artists/studios I want to see create more art and I think any adult pirating understands the economy enough to know this - and most teenagers understand it on some level (but also understandbly aren't usually made of money).

One could also argue that increased exposure is a form of indirect profit. If 3,000,000 people steal a copy of the painting someone might be willing to buy that painting for $100,000 for bragging rights. Hey guys, I own the original painting! This exposure could increase their potential sales.

The issue of pirates is never black and white. Frankly, the music industry would never see $0.01 from me if I couldn't pirate/listen to free on YT and decide "I wish to support this artist and hopefully hear a new album from them in the future."

I know I'm not the only person who would never spend a single penny otherwise.

[bsder]

> if you were willing to pay for distribution rights for your country, you would be able to get that content.

This is not a priori true. There are agreements that prevent release in certain areas unless done through a specific middleman.

So, as an individual, you would NOT be able to get all rights.

Blanket statements are very likely to be untrue when dealing with this industry.