"PrinceGaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>No, no, no, no, no. Nobody is losing any money if I copy a CD
>that I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of buying. If I
>buy the CD the artist makes money. If I copy someone elses the
>atist makes *no* money. If I don't copy someone elses but don't
>buy the CD myself-- the artist makes *no* money. So the artist
>loses nothing. Thats what I was talking about originally.
I understand the argument, but I've never bought it ;-) For two reasons:
1) If you want to copy an album, song, etc., you must like it. There must
be some desire to have it. If recording devices did not exist, who knows
if you might eventually have bought it in some form. While I agree that
there are some albums we might never buy, there are also those we don't
think we'll ever buy but we end up buying later. It's difficult for us to
objectively differentiate between the two.
2) Every time someone copies an album, book, software program, they are
eliminating a part of the market for that work. Just because you can't
point to physical money doesn't mean no one has lost anything. Our legal
and economic systems are full of examples of this type of "loss."
>> >Congress has done studies that are at worst inconclusive, but
>> >more realisticly seem to indicate that casual copying of music
>> >helps CD sales rather than hurting it.
>
>I agree with that.
I've never seen such a study, but I doubt that "Congress' studies"
actually show that. I would like to see the text of those "studies." I
would buy the assertion that people recording music off the radio might
help album sales, but I doubt that people copying whole albums helps
album sales.
>I agree with the guy who suggested copying each others discs may
>well increase overall sales, instead of buying 1CD and having 1
>album, you buy 2 instead and have 4, 6 or however many including
>the copies. In effect, copying makes 'em cheaper so you buy
>more... Thats how I like to justify it to myself anyway.
But Gaz, think about what you just wrote mathematically ;-) Copying makes
them cheaper, so you buy more? It doesn't make them cheaper -- CDs cost
the same. If you and your friends buy CDs and then exchange copies,
you're each getting more albums, but between all of you you're actually
buying fewer albums. If there are four of you, and you each buy two CDs
and copy everyone else's, you've bought a total of 8 CDs but each of you
has copies of all 8. (I know, I know, that sounds great... <grin>) Now,
if you didn't copy each others' CDs, you'd still have purchased 8 CDs,
but you'd each only have two CDs. You might all go out and buy another
one that one of your friends' bought that you really wanted. So if
anything copying them provides a disincentive to both buying CDs in the
first place, and buying more later.
>Well I have written software and made money personally from it,
>not a lot but enough to make it worth releasing
You might have a different view if it was your livelihood ;-)
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