2012-05-07, 02:47 PM
Piracy matters the same way a competitor matters from the perspective of a company. It's another entity that provides a substitute (in this case, often identical) product. It hurts the bottom line the same way Coke's bottom line is hurt every time you buy Pepsi "instead". The difference in this analogy is that there is basically no marginal cost to make another unit of the good, unlike the cost to make a can of Pepsi. But the same is true for our "Coke", they don't pay anything either for one more DVD.
Coke made a serious matter out of people asking for a coke at restaurants and being served Pepsi. They would actually threaten to sue any establishment caught doing that. That's why you hear "is Pepsi ok?" now. What was Coke's case based on? Intellectual property. The name Coke, and presumably all the advertising and work done by Coca-Cola Inc was actually selling a competitor's product. But working things through, how should a court decide the damages that Coke should be awarded? Based on the advertising money they spent with no guarantee it would translate into sales? Or based on the cost of the substituted products? Returning to the analogy, if it's the former, granny gets sued for $300,000 per song downloaded. If it's the latter, then only pirates who sell others' intellectual property are subject to damages.
My stand is that there is a categorical difference between goods with inherent cost and goods with no inherent cost. Copying digital information has no cost besides the trivial, it should not be afforded the same protections as something with tangible value.
There isn't really a credible argument to be made that piracy is a particular threat "now" as opposed to previously. Media owners instead recognize that whenever there is a technology shift, they have a new opportunity to keep it on their terms, usually through legislation. They went after the VCR, they went after p2p, they're going after streaming.
Watch the next format war to understand how crucial these companies view technology shifts.
Certainly there are more things competing for people's attention, however I'd say media that can be digitized is a more significant aspect of human culture now than at any point in the past. Whether a bit in question is owned by an existing large media company is more or less immaterial to the change.
Coke made a serious matter out of people asking for a coke at restaurants and being served Pepsi. They would actually threaten to sue any establishment caught doing that. That's why you hear "is Pepsi ok?" now. What was Coke's case based on? Intellectual property. The name Coke, and presumably all the advertising and work done by Coca-Cola Inc was actually selling a competitor's product. But working things through, how should a court decide the damages that Coke should be awarded? Based on the advertising money they spent with no guarantee it would translate into sales? Or based on the cost of the substituted products? Returning to the analogy, if it's the former, granny gets sued for $300,000 per song downloaded. If it's the latter, then only pirates who sell others' intellectual property are subject to damages.
My stand is that there is a categorical difference between goods with inherent cost and goods with no inherent cost. Copying digital information has no cost besides the trivial, it should not be afforded the same protections as something with tangible value.
There isn't really a credible argument to be made that piracy is a particular threat "now" as opposed to previously. Media owners instead recognize that whenever there is a technology shift, they have a new opportunity to keep it on their terms, usually through legislation. They went after the VCR, they went after p2p, they're going after streaming.
Watch the next format war to understand how crucial these companies view technology shifts.
Certainly there are more things competing for people's attention, however I'd say media that can be digitized is a more significant aspect of human culture now than at any point in the past. Whether a bit in question is owned by an existing large media company is more or less immaterial to the change.