[CodeMage]

You don't need music or movies to live. If they all decide to do it, just stop buying all together.

Correction: you don't need them to survive. They are, however, a part of everyone's lives nowadays. We all grew up listening to music and watching movies. It would require tremendous external pressure (such as war or plague) to change that. Maslow's Pyramid and all that jazz.

Music is so cheap. All of the original demands 10 years ago have been met. Guess what? piracy is worse than ever. It reminds me why you never negotiate with terrorists.

I'm not sure what demands were made 10 years ago, but I can tell you that I, as a customer, am far from satisfied. I want to be able to

1) buy digital music (MP3, OGG, I don't care) in an online store

2) access that store via HTTP(S) using my browser, not some proprietary bloatware

3) find a variety of songs in the store, have lots of stuff to choose

4) download that music to any device I have, as many times as I want

5) be able to play that music without being connected to the Internet

6) do all of the above regardless of the fact that I don't live in US, UK or Germany, to name a few favorite countries

When those conditions are met, you'll have people like me -- people who want to try buying the content instead of pirating -- try to switch to these new services. The piracy will start declining, albeit very, very slowly.

People have had a freaking decade to get used to getting stuff for free, because the industry refused to adapt. Worse, the industry is still resisting the change and refusing to evolve. These things have their own momentum and inertia. It would be extreme optimism to expect a change to happen overnight, once good alternatives are available. As things stand, it's beyond extreme optimism to expect that change -- it's completely ridiculous.

[cobrausn]

So, because their product is not up to your arbitrary set of demands, you feel justified in pirating it? Couldn't they meet those and you could just come up with more demands?

I don't buy it. Hiding behind a list of demands that must be met in order for you to be okay with actually financially compensating the people who financially backed, created, and then distributed said content is just posturing. At least, that's how it looks from the perspective of someone who a) doesn't pirate and b) doesn't buy media when the terms are not to his liking.

I've met a few people who pirate songs and then buy band merchandise in order to get proceeds to the band (more than otherwise, if I am to understand it correctly). Those guys are cool guys, and they back their moral rhetoric with their actions. Something tells me the majority of pirates are not like these guys, though (admittedly) I have no facts to back that up - just the anecdotal evidence of knowing quite a few pirates, most of whom, to put it bluntly, really don't give a fuck - they just want the content.

[jiggy2011]

I think these demands are reasonable, especially the geographical one since you can't buy something if it's not available for you to buy.

The issue is that sometimes when you pay for something you end up with an inferior product, for example being required to install additional software that you either don't like or may not even be available for your platform.

I think you can mitigate piracy a lot by simply providing a slightly better service. For example I know plenty of people who used to pirate most of their games but now they buy them on steam as soon as the price is reasonable to them.

[cobrausn]

I can always add one more reasonable demand to my previous list of reasonable demands to hide behind. The final one will be 'accept bitcoin payment' and then I'll never need to pay for anything again! Let's face it, they could charge 0.01 USD over the face of the globe and the only requirement would be paypal or credit card, and that would be too much for some people. Piracy would still run rampant, because piracy is easier than paying (to some people).

Cynicism aside, the geographical requirement is reasonable. I still won't pirate even if it's not available here unless there is some way to pay for it (damn my parents and their persistent morals) but I do see the argument for 'There absolutely is no other way for me to get it.' It's nearly impossible to argue against that one, especially considering any geographical restrictions are likely arbitrary. Though I fail to see why anyone would restrict themselves from a potential market, especially if your content is digital.

[jiggy2011]

Sure, there will always be people with unreasonable expectations but I think that the more of peoples requirements you can satisfy the less appealing piracy becomes.

There are also network effects at work, I remember when Napster first became popular (I was quite young at the time) and literally overnight everyone at school had gone from owning a handful of CDs and cassettes to having huge music collections.

People spent a lot of their time discussing the various artists they had discovered through Napster and you would have been considered pretty odd if you didn't have at least a couple of gigabytes of music. Not to mention that everybody suddenly had more disposable income to spend on other things. So whilst you could take a moral stance on it, you would most likely become an outcast to a certain extent. Besides, people tend to decide their morals based on what they see others do.

This can also work the other way though, as with my Steam example. As well as selling games in a convenient way they also provide tools you can use to find out what your friends are playing and join games with them. This means that adoption can spread around a peer group pretty quickly.

[cobrausn]

Discussing an artist whose music you've heard is in no way guaranteed to compensate that artist. At best, someone, somewhere, will hear the word of mouth and spend some money that goes back in the direction of the artist. There is no guarantee though - you end up hand-waving in a benefit when it cannot be proven that your piracy helped anything, though it can be proven that you didn't pay for what they are asking you to pay for as, currently, the means of profit is mostly tied to the distribution channels, not the production. Saying 'they should have done things differently' and then pirating their music is a lot like blaming the victim.

Now, hearing their music and then going out and buying a CD / paying for a legal download / picking up some show tickets or t-shirts is a different story, and is the best possible outcome of piracy. I'm not arguing against these people - these people are cool people, and are trying to affect a change in the system. If more people did this, show and swag revenue would increase and reduce the dependency on the digital content distribution as a source of income, which might have a very meaningful impact on new artists when they see the example.

I'm not really going to address the 'social pariah' argument, because I've never been one nor do I know what it is like to be have friends that would 'shun' for the crime of not pirating music (not committing a crime?). I will say that using the 'everyone is doing it argument' is not particularly constructive.

Games, IMHO, are a completely different animal in many respects, and since the only way to actually compensate the developer (currently) is to pay for the game, then I am actually about as hard-lined on this as it is possible to be - you shouldn't be playing the game if you haven't paid for it. Steam is a great example of offering services in exchange for content restrictions, and is (IMHO) the reason PC gaming is still alive as anything other than an indie-playground.

My personal opinion is that PC games (in particular) are actually headed in the direction of always-on MMO-like behavior that requires an internet connection in order to be part of the game world, and this is by design. I'm not necessarily talking Ubisoft's reprehensible always-on-even-during-singleplayer DRM, i'm talking about games that will act like MMOs in order to ensure the playerbase needs to be online in order to get most of the game. Sure, you can play a gimped pirated version, but why would you? All the good stuff is on their servers, which require authentication.

I will point out that despite the ease with which one could pirate a game like Skyrim, it still sold 2.8 million units in November alone. Mostly, I'm sure, because people want to pay for the game, not because of anti-piracy measures... other than Steam, which I suppose counts as that.

So I guess what I am saying is that despite the fact that I will argue for the moral necessity of funding development of digital content by paying for it until such a time as the means of distribution is no longer the primary income source, I am unconvinced that piracy is such a huge problem that it requires anything more than prosecution of the most blatant violators and those that profit from it.

[jarek]

Just wondering, do you have any guidelines as to what it takes to become a cool guy? Does buying a $20 tshirt justify my previous pirating of a band's three albums? How about paying $25 for tshirt+CD after pirating two albums? Is there an equation for this? I'd like to make sure I'm a cool guy here.

[CodeMage]

You did read the comment where I said that piracy is not legal, no matter how one puts it, right? Just checking, before I go on.

First of all, I resent your assumptions and insinuations. Self-righteous rhetoric like that sounds appealing to the listener, but it doesn't really add any rational weight to your arguments. Contrary to what you imply, I do buy the music I like, whenever I can find an outlet that satisfies my conditions. I could just go on listening to that stuff on YouTube and even pirate it down do MP3 from there, but I try my best to find a way to buy it. Occasionally, I succeed in that. Does that make me one of those "cool guys" you're talking about? Or am I still one of those who "don't give a fuck", according to your admittedly anectodal evidence you used in your own moral rhetoric?

Anyway, yes, I feel justified pirating stuff that doesn't meet those demands, because -- contrary to what you claim -- those demands are not arbitrary. Almost all of those demands are there to protect my rights, the ones the industry insists on denying.

The demand #2 protects the same rights you enjoy when you drive the car of your own choosing on a road. Having to use a proprietary application to purchase a song is pretty much like being told you are allowed to drive only a Honda along the Route 66.

Demands #4 and #5 are there to ensure that I can listen to the songs I bought with my money, songs that I have a right to listen to, with as few restrictions as possible. I'm pretty sure someone could offer to sell you a hairdryer that works every day except on Fridays, but I'm also pretty sure you wouldn't buy it unless you had no other choice.

Demand #6 is there to cut through the arbitrary bullshit imposed by the industry. I could wrap my mind around export restrictions on crypto that used to be in place before, but applying similar logic to music should be unacceptable. It's as if you were granted the right to be called by your own name only in certain countries; in the rest, people will just have to point fingers at you.

I admit that demands #1 and #3 are just there to ensure a comfortable experience. Without them, things are perfectly fine, as long as I don't mind having to go buy useless physical media or finding it anywhere between hard and impossible to find music that I like in case my taste doesn't conform to that of the mainstream masses.

I'm aware that you could find flaws in most of the analogies I used above and that most of them boil down to "Yes, but these are not physical objects we talk about, it's digital stuff that can be copied endlessly, without degradation." See, that is why we're talking about evolution here and why the industry is shitting bricks. The only thing I can say on that topic is that it's not really my problem as a customer. People who ask me "how would you fix the problem, then?" are missing the point: it doesn't take a doctor to point out that someone is bleeding to death. Right now, things are bad and there's no reason not to point it out, even if you don't have a solution.

I believe my demands are reasonable. In the end, it doesn't matter much. This is, and has always been, a power struggle. It's naive to claim that this is about artists and paint it morally right or wrong. But let's pretend that it is, just for a moment. How come nobody applies to artists the same argument on which I called BS? How come nobody says "Well, then, artists should stop signing contracts with companies that keep pissing off all these people?" Why do you expect consumers to vote with their wallets -- when they can't, due to collusion in the industry -- but not the artists to vote with their feet?

If the answer is "pirates are breaking the law and the industry and artists are not", that's just legality. I've already said that piracy is illegal and nothing short of a change in laws will change that. It also used to be legal to deny rights to women and people of certain races. My point is that I feel that my rights and my freedom are being denied. Not essential, fundamental rights and freedoms. As a matter of fact, some of the rights I'm talking didn't even exist before technology enabled them to exist. That's no argument that invalidates those rights.

Think about it: we're the consumers, it's our money that the industry thrives on. Damn straight we have demands.

[cobrausn]

So you think your demands are protecting your rights, and you think you're hurting the industry that goes against them. We've established that. But these rights haven't actually been established as 'rights' - which might need to change - which makes them just consumer demands on your part. It seems to me as though we've reached the point where piracy makes them make more repressive DRM, which makes more people pirate, which gives them more legal ammo to make more repressive DRM and lobby for laws, etc. and so on to infinity or until the laws change. You can see why I don't choose to be a part of this cycle.

Besides, the reason artists sign contracts is the same reason game developers go work for companies like Ubisoft who then make their games use repressive DRM that they completely disagree with - that is the industry we have, and they'd rather be a part of it, making money and exercising their talents, than standing on the outside struggling to get by while they rage against the machine. It's not their fault the current institution is set up the way it is.

Also, I'm pretty sure if Honda sold a car that only worked on Route 66, people would just not buy it, but I feel the comparison doesn't completely do it all justice because we've long argued that physical goods are not equivalent to digital media, otherwise piracy would be stealing instead of... well, piracy.

[CodeMage]

But these rights haven't actually been established as 'rights' - which might need to change - which makes them just consumer demands on your part.

Like I said before, I'm not arguing the legality here. I'm not sure what prevents the big shots in other industries colluding to treat their customers like crap, but I don't really care whether it's laws or something else.

You can see why I don't choose to be a part of this cycle.

Of course. That's your decision. I wasn't objecting to that. I was objecting to the tone of moral superiority and implied accusations.

Besides, the reason artists sign contracts is the same reason game developers go work for companies like Ubisoft who then make their games use repressive DRM that they completely disagree with - that is the industry we have, and they'd rather be a part of it, making money and exercising their talents, than standing on the outside struggling to get by while they rage against the machine.

Smells like a false dichotomy.

It's not their fault the current institution is set up the way it is.

Not my fault, either. Let's face it, both artists and pirates have choices and a wide variety of reasons and motivators behind the choices they actually make. Yet pirates are invariably branded as bad guys, parasites and criminals, while artists are generally perceived as having no other choice. Why? On the surface, it's because piracy is not legal. Scratch a little deeper and you'll see that the real reason is because it's easy to just shrug and say "that's the way things are".

Are there pirates who are mere parasites, who just want free stuff? Of course, there's a whole lot of them. Would all of them still be pirates, even if there was a really good, cheap alternative? My anecdotal experience of human nature makes me incline towards "No, a lot of them would buy their stuff without thinking twice." But that's just me, of course.

Thing is, what pisses me off is the way entertainment industry treats people who would like to spend money and be respected in return. And yet pirates are the bad guys, just because there are laws that need to change.

Also, I'm pretty sure if Honda sold a car that only worked on Route 66, people would just not buy it, but I feel the comparison doesn't completely do it all justice because we've long argued that physical goods are not equivalent to digital media, otherwise piracy would be stealing instead of... well, piracy.

Missed the point. The analogy was "Route 66 accepts only Honda", not "Honda can only run on Route 66" and the point of it was that such nonsense would not be acceptable, even if all of the car manufacturers got together with the government and made that kind of stuff legal.

[gareim]

Amazon answered your demands already. You can buy music via a browser, there's a large selection, it's DRM-free, you can stream or download as many times as you'd like, and you can play it while offline.

Amazon also offers a pretty fair price. $0.99 isn't a lot (and it's even cheaper per song if you buy the album). If $0.99 is too much, then I suggest the person go get a better job rather than pirating songs and feeling an entitlement to someone else's work.

[pyre]

... and Amazon offers this service in all countries around the world?

... and I don't need to download a 'special' piece of software to download an entire album at once (vs. requiring me to click on each individual track and download it separately)?

[gareim]

Oh, you're right. Maybe there's a few songs here and there not available through no fault of Amazon's. Maybe you have to download a piece of software freely available on all major platforms to download an album. Or, you know, just click buy multiple times (it doesn't take that long honest-to-goodness). But I get that since everything isn't PERFECT, you might as well go pirate everything, cause you know, that's your right.

[pyre]

I didn't say that it was justification for piracy. I was pointing out that your claim that Amazon met all of the parent post's 'demands' was false.

[CodeMage]

Yes, it did, except for the last one, which just happens to be crucial, since I live in Chile. Did you honestly think I did no research whatsoever? I understand when people want to discuss someone's arguments, but in order to miss checking out Amazon, I would have to be either a liar or a fool. Neither of those is an assumption on which you can base a discussion.