The RIAA and MPAA represent their own interests, not the interests of the people who actually make things. As long as the middlemen are running the show, both the creators and the consumers will be unhappy.
I am no fan of the RIAA or MPAA. But if both of those organizations were magically dissolved tomorrow, people would still be pirating content. Probably to the same extent they are right now.
My point is that piracy was an act of convenient theft long before it became an act of supposedly high-minded moral rebellion. And if the impetus for the moral rebellion were removed, the theft would continue. Let's not pretend otherwise.
It's only "rebellion" because the AA's decided that it should be illegal. There's no moral justification for suing me for distributing music and movies. In fact, the "first-sale doctrine" normally prohibits that kind of behavior. The distributors don't want to compete with pirates, that's the whole problem. If they AA's went away, then who would piracy hurt?
Yeah, it's true :) My point is, easier distribution is good for the creators and the customers. Lots of musicians make a living by putting all their music online for free. Podcasters obviously do fine in the face of massive "piracy" of their free shows. It's not that hard to make money when people are sharing your stuff, even on a commercial scale. Every Blu-ray movie is available as a torrent. But millions of people still buy them.
No really, all pronobozo's music is available from torrents that he puts on his website. People who want to give him money can buy the exact same music on Amazon or iTunes.
http://www.pronobozo.com/music *If you download the music for free, at least do me a favor of telling a few of your friends to come to the site as well. If you can afford it please make the 5 minute effort to purchase the album, it’s very much appreciated and lets me know you want to fuel the art. -pronobozo"
It's not advertising. It's the same product. He makes the product, then you can choose to give him money if you want to. "Piracy" doesn't hurt his business model.
He makes money from the product for sale, even if it's the same one.
If this is not clear, you can try a thought experiment: how much money would he make if he discontinued selling the product for some amount of money (and did not substitute it with donations or something else)? How much money would he make if he stopped giving it away for free? Arguable less, but > 0, no?
I guess I don't understand. He puts the music on his website for free. People give him money for this music, using the button on his website that says "PAY ANYTHING" http://www.pronobozo.com/music/ So... he puts out his music for free, and people pay him for it.
How much money would he make if he stopped giving it away for free? About the same, since his music is CC licensed and allows free distribution anyway. If he stopped licensing it that way, he would lose a lot of money because a lot of his supporters are pro-free culture types. It would be a different business model than the one he's using now.
