Discussions

Central to the debate about "Piracy" is "Who frames the issue?" We're bombarded with fraudulent statistics claiming massive losses... Back when I first bought a PC (running DOS from floppies) my "Killer App" was a DTP package called "Timeworks". At about the time when Windows 3.0 came out, along came a rival product called "Page Plus". Timeworks refused to give obsolete copies away with magazines... Page Plus did the opposite (And have been doing so throughout the many years that have intervened) TImeworks is no more. But Page Plus - which gained market share by ENCOURAGING people to pirate it (and then offering cheap, "no-middleman", upgrades) now pretty much OWNS the budget DTP market.

Peer-to-Peer is beyond doubt the "low hanging fruit": the easiest to identify, and the easiest to prosecute. And - thanks to how it works - people who download ALSO upload chunks of files to others (Uploaders are normally treated more harshly than downloaders) But, meanwhile, in another part of the forrest, the pirates have switched to Means like "Rapidshare" and "Megaupload" to diseminate music, movies and software. Much harder to catch the culprits.

Things change. The development of the automobile put buggywhip makers out of business. Gramophones destroyed the sheet music business. The trend is clearly towards a music "market" in which recordings are merely adverts for the "Real Thing" (where the money is!) - Live concerts. The days when a musician NEEDED a recording contract, or would never get heard, are long gone. With a laptop and access to the internet, an up-and-coming musician / band can create a presence - and a following - without external help. The more MP3's they give away for free, the more seats they can sell at their next performance. But, I suppose people have been trying to halt the march of progress (for their own benefit!) since the Peasant's Revolt. It didn't work then either....