I thought I’d throw this out there. \u00a0A friend recently got up on a high horse, looked down from on-high and said that media piracy is immoral because you’re depriving the creator of income. As a content provider, I like his thinking (even though I actually believe piracy ultimately sells more content than it cannibalizes and that piracy protection causes more piracy than they think) but the guy is a hypocrite. Sure, he doesn’t illegally pirate but he – and maybe YOU – are denying the creators of income all the time! Here’s a few thoughts on how you’re doing it and how it being legal doesn’t make any difference to the authors, producers, musicians etc., you’re “ripping off.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TV<\/p>\n
1. Have you ever recorded a show and paused recording during commercials?<\/p>\n
2. Do you fast forward through TV commercials?<\/p>\n
MOVIES<\/p>\n
1. Have you ever recorded a movie from HBO and given it to a friend?<\/p>\n
2. Have you ever bought a movie USED?<\/p>\n
3. Do you rent movies?<\/p>\n
MUSIC<\/p>\n
1. Ever made a mix tape or CD?<\/p>\n
2. Ever bought one Used?<\/p>\n
3. Ever recorded anything off the radio or from a friend?<\/p>\n
VIDEO GAMES<\/p>\n
1. Ever rented one or borrowed one?<\/p>\n
2. Ever bought one Used?<\/p>\n
BOOKS<\/p>\n
1. Do you use the Library?<\/p>\n
2. Do you buy books used or let people borrow one?<\/p>\n
WEB<\/p>\n
1. Do you donate to small blogs that you read often?<\/p>\n
2. Do you use any kind of Ad-blocking software?<\/p>\n
You probably get my drift by now. All the above are technically legal or legal under circumstances and every single one denies a content provider income. There’s not a whole lot of difference, to me as an author, if you get my book from a library or borrow it from a friend. I get nothing. If you buy it Used, you’re only helping the Used Store, not the content provider. (Yes, libraries are important for a lot of reasons and yes libraries buy massive quantities of books that otherwise wouldn’t be bought and that is a factor too.)<\/p>\n
In an ideal world every single one of us would send a small amount to, for lack of a better example, Stephen King every time one reads a Stephen King novel for free. Legally or not. Music would always be paid for and websites would make more than a pittance off “per click” advertising rates. Movies would never be free and you’d always have to endure advertising on the content providers terms. Circumventing this is arguably immoral, if not illegal.<\/p>\n
Just throwing this concept out there. I’m not endorsing piracy and I’m not condemning the library system. Both can create fans and encourage the actual buying of content. Legality is always a factor, but don’t pretend you’re in this for the content creator. You like a deal and when you get a deal, someone suffers for it. But as an aspiring author I cringe every time I see people borrowing a book or buying it USED because if everybody did that, authors would make a lot less money.<\/p>\n
Hell, as an author I’d be happier if you pirated my work rather than support Half Price Books, places like GameStop or somebody’s Rummage sale. At least with piracy, nobody is benefitting from the transaction in lieu of the musician. Add in the fact that most Internet piracy is done with little or no benefit to the pirate (this is where those pirated street DVDs differ from net piracy).<\/p>\n
Something to think about next time you hit the resell shops, as we all do, or lend something out.<\/p>\n
Note: This was partially inspired by a realization that my wife has leant out a book I bought that was written by a friend of mine. She’s leant it to three separate people, thus cannibalizing my friend’s sales each time it’s borrowed. Add to that the fact that her book is available Used at Amazon for a fraction of the asking price and, really, it’s only through the grace of collectors and early adopters that she’s sold any copies at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I’d throw this out there. \u00a0A friend recently got up on a high horse, looked down from on-high and said that media piracy is immoral because you’re depriving the creator of income. As a content provider, I like his thinking (even though I actually believe piracy ultimately sells more content than it cannibalizes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}