John Noble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackofallgeeks) wrote2008-05-09 07:56 am
jackofallgeeks) wrote2008-05-09 07:56 am
Entry tags:
The Piracy Problem
This
really sums up the piracy problem, and it's solution, rather nicely. Piracy
springs up in the face of draconian limitations; they tell us what we can
and can not do, and we buck agasinst it. Someone begins to pirate. The
pirated product is more useful than the retail product in terms of price
and, in most cases, either quality or convenience based on what we aren't
allowed to do with the retail version. In response to piracy companies have
been making their products worse, adding in things like DRM which
further degrade the quality or convenience of the retail product -- and
presumably raining the cost, too. That's dumb. By adding on these
'anti-piracy' mechanisms they're just making the pirated copies that much
better.
If instead they worked to make their product comprable to the pirated
version... Let's be honest, if the only difference were price most people
would by it retail rather than get it for free just to have confidence that
they know what they're getting and to have recourse if they're wrong. And
if all a pirate can offer is the same product minus DRM, then removing the
DRM takes away all of his advantage. DRM is dumb.
really sums up the piracy problem, and it's solution, rather nicely. Piracy
springs up in the face of draconian limitations; they tell us what we can
and can not do, and we buck agasinst it. Someone begins to pirate. The
pirated product is more useful than the retail product in terms of price
and, in most cases, either quality or convenience based on what we aren't
allowed to do with the retail version. In response to piracy companies have
been making their products worse, adding in things like DRM which
further degrade the quality or convenience of the retail product -- and
presumably raining the cost, too. That's dumb. By adding on these
'anti-piracy' mechanisms they're just making the pirated copies that much
better.
If instead they worked to make their product comprable to the pirated
version... Let's be honest, if the only difference were price most people
would by it retail rather than get it for free just to have confidence that
they know what they're getting and to have recourse if they're wrong. And
if all a pirate can offer is the same product minus DRM, then removing the
DRM takes away all of his advantage. DRM is dumb.
no subject
First, let me flag my ignorance - I have no idea how much of a bite Napster and similar things took out of record company profits. Enough to make them worried, apparently, but if it's really small, tell me I'm talking through my hat.
But... it seems like a significant number of folks (like me!) used Napster, solely because of the price point. Ripping a CD to mp3 was pretty easy, and mp3 players weren't around at the time, so the convenience aspect was more or less a wash - dling from Napster and burning to CD was pretty easy, but then so was going down to HMV and buying the CD. The difference was just the price - HMV couldn't compete with Napster's price of $0.00. And people used Napster not because CDs were restrictive - but just because it was cheaper.
(no subject)