Causes of Piracy

[Digital Bliss]

Guys I am doing a paper on the causes of piracy please give me your opinions and how you feel about it. Along with your thoughts about the causes of this growning trend. Thanks guys. And if so can someone get a hold of the costs to produce the actually cds not the games the prices on the cds I am curious to how much it really costs to ie packaging shipping cds labels ect.

[Afn]

Guys I am doing a paper on the causes of piracy please give me your opinions and how you feel about it. Along with your thoughts about the causes of this growning trend. Thanks guys. And if so can someone get a hold of the costs to produce the actually cds not the games the prices on the cds I am curious to how much it really costs to ie packaging shipping cds labels ect.
Get a price list from discmakers for physical cost. In volume a CD can be packaged for about $1 or less.

Before the net, radio distributed music locally, the net and audio compression technologies (mp3) changed the relationship between music listener, artist, producer and record company.

Mass communication built up a system of distributing large amounts of information and entertainment, to mass numbers of people... a captive audience. They would give away content (music, song, dance) to sell premium cd's records, videos, dvd's.

Enter the net, and you can access anything, review anything and sales drop. Add ebay and amazon that allow people to re-sell cd's and dvd's... more sales drop.

In the end, entertainment will drop to zero value. The monopolies on content production and distribution will break, and the result will be a small fragmented publishing industry, more of a cottage industry and the end of commercial art production in mass used for titalation and commerce.

My top 5-7 reasons:
1. Electronic distribution (tv, radio) is free to the listener. Mp3 is a form of electronic distribution.
2. poor production value
3. easy access to comments about product (23 people say this cd is crap, ect.)
4. aftermarket on the web makes less sales as more cd's are bought and re-bought via ebay-amazon, ect.
5. over, over, over, OVER commericalization.
6. lack of money $20 for something that costs $1 to make? Specifically, loss of value. "Why buy X, when I will regret the purchase, and it will cost me $20."
7. mass access to burners
8. cultural issues, including: Hacker ethic and sharing ethic. That sharing is more important a value than commericalization. Therefore sharing wins.

[Muffin_Man]

The entertainment industry in general has issues with change. The same resistance happened when radio, cassette tapes, and vcrs came along. And with each new medium, the industry has found new ways to profit, despite themselves. file sharing is just another change, and in many ways it is superior to the industry's current model.

Take money out of the equation, and file sharing is still preferable to cd's. the selection of songs is greater, the transmission almost instantaneous, the format of one's own choosing, and you're not forced to take the filler tracks. and all this, of course, without having to leave your home.

then there's the online services. they finally got the instant transmission and convenience right, but their selection is even less than the record stores. not only that, the formats available are very limited, both in quality and by restrictive copy protections.

Not only is P2P better for the end user, it is better for distributors. Now, here is where groups like the RIAA start to sweat. Between high-speed computers and P2P, it is possible to render the costs of music production and distribution almost irrelevant. Who needs to pay for a recording studio and industry professionals and thousands and thousands of pressed cds when you can just release music through P2P? industry artists rarely make money from cd's at this point, anyway; their money comes from live performances. They may start to realize that they dont need the labels anymore.

I personally see no downside to P2P, beyond inconveniencing a few industry executives whose own irrelevance has caused them to sue people who have fed them for years. its just a natural progression of the industry.

[Digital Bliss]

This is good thanks guys keep posting this is a 5 page paper and I need a lot of opinions mabey some pros and cons also

[mcovey]

um... i dont want to pay so i get free software. i dont agree with paying or charging for software so i can sympathize with pirates. i have pirated many a software like photoshop and dreamweaver but i use neither now because honestly dreamweaver plain sucks and photoshop is way to complicated for me, i just use the gimp. as a programmer myself, i've made some usefull (to myself) programs that i would never think to charge people for, even to hide the source code to. If one person works months on a software and really needs to charge to pay the bills and such, then i say go ahead, but what i would do is urge people strongly for a donation.

I have paid for one piece of software- the opera web browser. I just love it, it is the most well coded and best browser i've ever and probably ever will use. Of course, i did pirate it at first but really, it is such a good program I really wanted to help the creators. I consider it a donation as paying was really an option for me, as it is for most everyone.

Look at microsoft. No matter how hard they try, windows will always be able to be pirated. Not many people end up feeling guilty about it because those that know enough to pirate it will, and they will also realize just how much it sucks. I've donated some money to debian and might for open office, some great free programs.

Of course, some people (I dare call them newbies), would rather have the best and biggest and most popular, like dreamweaver, rather than the most funtional, which is usually free. Oh yeah, I personally write my code by hand. If I wanted an editor then I'd write my own.

[Siskabush]

Guys I am doing a paper on the causes of piracy please give me your opinions and how you feel about it. Along with your thoughts about the causes of this growning trend. Thanks guys. And if so can someone get a hold of the costs to produce the actually cds not the games the prices on the cds I am curious to how much it really costs to ie packaging shipping cds labels ect.

It costs 1$ to make a CD and package it. As for shipping, im pretty sure each major nation has its own pressing plant so save $$ on shipping costs.

But the main thing that is making piracy popular is the people's desire to hear different music instead of the homogenized mainstream pop scene. Not to mention the people want to look for talented artists, not commercialized phonies who lipsynch and dance on stage. The majority of pop artists' music is now just plain old advertizing (Nelly - Air force one).

Another driving factor for P2P sharing is the Music industries' refusal to compete with a new distribution medium. They still want you to pay 20$-30$ for a CD with nothing but filler. P2P lets you snag that one good song for free. Also, the labels' desire to jack up the prices on thier online services wont help much either.

[SuitablyTwisted]

Haven't seen my biggest reason yet: Out-of-print back catalogues. Lots of stuff that would never see the light of day again is now available! Downloaded most of what I already have on vinyl just to be able to listen to it without wear & tear. Also get to check out many artists that aren't even available in the US market without having to pay ridiculous import prices. Part of it, of course, is just compulsive collecting. I find an artist I like, then snag the entire discography. I've never paid for an operating system in my life, and very few programs. It's always been available free, the 'net just makes it easy. (I got into computers in 1978)

Love p2p for sharing music, used to have private FTP clubs in the pre-napster days. Now with all the hoopla going on regarding lawsuits & bogus files, I've gotten back to swapping discs with people via snailmail. Kinda like the old tape-swapping from the '70s. We used to put ads in the back of music rags & send mixtapes to each other. So sharing has been around as long as portability has. Hell, before recorded music, musicians used to share their work with their friends, who would go back to their village & perform it and so on. Can't put a price on art, and once the public found out that CDs only cost 79 cents to the label, they decided not to pay the retail markup.

Causes of piracy? Basically the urge to get whatever you can for free, so you can use the money you do have for other things. Works for just about any tangible asset: food, shelter, art, dope. If you can get it for free, with little chance of being hassled, you go for it. Same reason people snag office supplies at work, or look for an unexpired parking meter, or use coupons, etc.

[DigitalJunkie]

Technology has advanced while enterainment industry still using same business model that has been known to be over priced compared to value. These days new artists can make music on their own PCs & Digital Cameras to create better music or movie then the industry's own commercialized music & movies (with heavy marketing of music artists & movie super stars). My conclusions, the enterainment industry's own business executives & artists are over-paid!

[Kungfu_Kenobi]

Poverty.

I always snicker a bit when I read that propaganda from the RIAA, that goes like "We're losing billions to internet piracy."

I'm like "You're not losing one cent from me, guy."..."That was money you weren't seeing anyway." I suppose I could buy one or two CDs a month for the price of a broadband account.

As if...

[ducttapeBigSexy]

For me, it's mainly because I don't like to pay. When it comes to music, before I had p2p, I never bought any anyway. Now that I have p2p, I download it - the RIAA isn't seeing any difference in sales from me.

For software, I only really do it for software that costs 100's (when there's no way I could afford it). For cheaper software, like, say, antivirus software, I don't mind buying it. For anything else, I perfer using free open-source products - they work better anyway.

For games, I buy them. The only games I don't buy are ones that I want to play, but I know I'll get bored of in a few days (football games, for example, I play for about a week and never look at them again).

[SanDiegoKid]

I almost sat here and typed a bunch of poor excuses for why I pirate music/software/movies.. but I'm going to be honest and say the biggest determining factor is that it's free, easy to do, and I'm a compulsive collector. There are over 800 CD/DVD-R's just to my right, jam packed with all the goodz. I can't stop. Help.

[Mels_Smileys45]

I'm a greedy bastard. No excuses

[Afn]

The entertainment industry in general has issues with change.
My belief is digital will kill entertainment in most forms. The car was not as fast in 1904 as it was in 2004. Digital will take the same evolutionary path.

[wezman2k]

people just don't want to pay for stuff. it's as simple as that.

[serrebi101]

lets face it, if the indistry tried a few years ago, we wouldn't have this mass p2p "problem" the indistry says we have.
Trying is every artist from every comercial label[at least,] from every country, not just ones segegrated to you, on one service,

[origin]

basicly people want equality and the entertainment industry doesnt offer it nor like it. They think they should be able to charge whatever they want for movies and people will have to pay it if they want it. But see that is not negotiating to see what others have to say thats called being iggnorant, doing whatever it takes to get what they want and or need. I'll be completly honest here if the industry was more reasonable with there prices and actually cared about there consumers then I would have no problem buying that new linkin park LP but since they do as they please(the i dont give a fuck attitude) I do the same because I do not agree with the way they are handling this. the correct path is to be negotiative you must loose some to gain some, give and take it's called life now LIVE IT!

:) l8

[Digital Bliss]

Once again thank you this should be more then enough ideas to write a 5 page paper.

[Digital Bliss]

Thanks guys you are really helping out this should be easy. Now to write the 5 page paper unless you want to do it for me

[ldegheest]

TV and radio only let you listen to the same music over and over again...
Internet has become a great medium to discover all the great music they don't get on the commercial mediums.

And who has the money to buy every CD he wants to hear. You may like many groups but you won't buy all there CD's.

As for movies. Mostly it isn't worth the money you pay for it. If you really like a movie then you might buy it but otherwise...

[Travis982]

In all these replies no one has actually addressed the definition of 'piracy'.

I'm sure there are differing opinions on what piracy really is. To me it's illegal copying for gain. Therefore, I do not feel file sharing is piracy since no one is making any money from it.

The causes of commercial piracy are fairly obvious: 1. there is an unfilled demand; 2. pirated items are cheaper; 3. pirated items often appear before commercial ones (such as movies); Or 4. the legitimate item is unavailable for commercial sale.

[Malicious Intent]

Since this is all a bit one sided, check out www.pro-music.org. You will hate it, but to wirte a paper you will need to go with an open mind.

INO piracy will hurt artists if it causes the collapse of the industry. As nice a dream as artists going directly to their audience is, it isnt practicle. People dont have the time to go through the thosands of artists looking for the good one.

By having a music industry, artists dont have to be experts in PR skills to be a success.

Any greed is because anti-competition laws are not working. Complete destruction is not the answer.

[cjules13]

I almost sat here and typed a bunch of poor excuses for why I pirate music/software/movies.. but I'm going to be honest and say the biggest determining factor is that it's free, easy to do, and I'm a compulsive collector. There are over 800 CD/DVD-R's just to my right, jam packed with all the goodz. I can't stop. Help.
Awesome. :tilted

Pretty much my position too.

I was going to write "...because it's there..."

[Digital Bliss]

Malicious Intent thanks for that link i did need both sides but it seems we here are pretty one sided being file sharers and all lol

[notbob]

causes of piracy:

1)wooden leg
2)eyepatch
3)need to fit in somewhere
4)hatred of women
5)love of the sea
6)need for swag and booty

there you go

[The Hunter]

You forgot the need to have a horny parrot.