On 13/02/07, Richard Lockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
No - he was arguing that it should be freely distributable by anyone with no restrictions. Making as many copies as you like and then - this is the crucial part - giving it to other people for no money. That's free (gratis). And I quite agree about P2P currently having negligible effect on legal sales. That's because P2P sharing of copyright music is still illegal, and most users don't have the software to do it. As soon as it becomes legal, an easy to use version of some P2P s/w gets bundled with every new Dell & HP PC and everyone's using it - and very few people actually need to buy music. P2P sharing then becomes a mass market activity, and not (as is my personal experience) the preserve of geeks, teenagers (not huge buyers of CDs anyway) and music afficianados wanting rare recordings that often can't be got hold of any other way. Cheers, Rich.
Not mass market? The Pirate Bay has just been featured in Vanity Fair: http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/features/2007/03/piratebay200703 I'd call that pretty mass market. Something has to have market appeal to make it into a high end magazine like that. As for ease of use most BitTorrent clients are quite easy to use. Personally the only time I use BitTorrent for acquiring things I haven't paid for is downloading of Linux distros. Otherwise if I download a BBC programme or episode of SG1 that I forgot to set my PVR to record, I don't see I've done anything morally or ethically wrong. The only time I've ever infringed any one's copyright without payment is with an out of print RPG book, I couldn't even find it on ebay, so I had no other real choice. I suspect that most other P2P users are in a similar position, they are either re-downloading something they've already paid for, or downloading something they would never otherwise exchange money for (either because they can't as in my case, or because they cant get the latest pop tune out of their head, and won't ever pay money for Britney Spears, but grabbing a .torrent is convenient, so they do). I don't think that as P2P usage goes up piracy will go up, I think that levels will stay around the same amount, all P2P does is make it easier for me to share the stuff I watch, just now instead of recording a VHS tape and giving it to my dad, I can grab a .torrent, download and burn the latest episode(s) of Dr. Who to DVD, and give that to my dad instead.
