I fully respect Andrew's point of view as written below, but - with respect - I struggle to agree with it.
Years ago, before PCs and printers, if people wanted anything copied they had to go to the local shop or library where they could use a photocopier. Today, they just use their own scanners and printers to make their own copies. Similarly, people used to have to send their film off for printing, but these days lots of people have digi cameras and their own home photo printers. If something is technologically possible, people will use it. We can't hold back time. Lots of businesses and industries disappear - a kind of natural selection. Good business diversify and develop into new products and markets. In any event, the DVD rental store it going to be put out of business anyway by content being delivered over the net. Or should that also be stopped? Yes, the industry model we have NOW may lose out on some sales, but there is no reason why it can't develop and make a good profit using other distribution channels and business models. I think we're in danger of trying to deal with 21st century technology with 19th century thinking and laws. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andrew Bowden Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 9:18 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Percentage of License fee going towards DRM? > The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that > the friendwould otherwise have bought a copy from the DVD > store. That isoccasionally true, but more often false; and > when it is false, theclaimed loss does not occur. As people are taking my attempt at humour seriously, I'll have to respond. No. They may not come into my DVD rental store. But they *might*. They might go somewhere else. They might go online. They might go to WH Smith. However they won't do ANY of those things if you go willy-nilly re-distributing copies of the DVD you've rented from me. Ergo, me, as a small shop keeper, am about to be evicted from my house because my business has been destroyed due to hoardes of people copying DVDs and giving them to everyone else. And what about my wife and childen? > But when your friend avoids the need to rent a copy of a DVD, > thestore and the producers do not lose anything they had. A > more fittingdescription would be that the store and producers > get less income thanthey might have got. The same consequence > can result if your frienddecides to play "discuss > post-internet copyright on BBC mailing lists"instead of > watching a DVD. In a free market system, no business > isentitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer > chooses notto deal with them. I would never cry foul because someone doesn't do business with me. However my DVD rental store relies on some people doing business. Just as Joe's store down the road does. And Fred's online store. And so on. This is not about me losing out because you've copied my DVD and given it to every one you know. This is about the whole industry losing out because a proportion of the people you give that copied DVD to, would have gone to my shop otherwise and now won't rent DVD. And if the market is reduced by people redistributing for free, then other people lose their income. And hey, it's always going to be the little people who suffer most. Which is for me, an ethical argument. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
