| Oyvoyvoyv said: To point 1. The copies are cheap, but making the game (for instance) is expensive.
To point 2. I think that's just completely wrong. With Pirate Bay, you keep the song/movie/game for yourself, in addition to giving it to someone else. By buying it used, the seller no longer has it. |
Top-tier games for new consoles can be expensive, but the vast majority of games are not. Mobile media, cellphones, handhelds of all kinds - that's where most of the games are and will continue to be. That means a totally different marketing and financial model. We have to stop assuming that Big Money = High Quality = The Way To Go. That's what Hollywood's ripoff artists and Rupert Murdoch would like us to believe, but it's just not true. We need a diversity of financing and funding models, including freeware, low-cost payware, and public mass media.
As for Point 2: when I make a non-commercial digital copy, I'm not taking away, violating, or infringing on the ability of anyone else to enjoy that product. I've made a new copy, on my own hardware, for my own private use. That should be as legal as glancing at a book, taking a photo of a river, or writing down a poem using words I've read in a book somewhere.
One final point: most human beings on this planet (70%) simply can't afford $30/30EUR DVDs and Big Media's IP monopolies. They would never have the money to watch a film or listen to any music in a pure profit system, so they pick up pirated copies for free, or at much lower prices. Rather than criminalizing file-sharing, we should be asking deeper questions about whether we really want a vicious, cretinous market fundamentalism to dominate all aspects of human culture.
