Pirates' bluff called?

Topics: Intellectual Property
18 Oct 2007

From: Ervan Darnell


One of the claims music pirates (including at least two of you reading
this) make in defense of their behavior is that music is "too expensive"
or that there is something immoral about distributing it on plastic
versus download. I've always thought these were pathetic excuses for
"stealing it is cheaper".

Radiohead put the theory to test this week and added evidence to my theory:

> Radiohead [...] made its latest album, /In Rainbows,/ available for
> direct downloading from the Web at an unusual price: whatever fans
> feel like paying. Downloaders who want to pay nothing can enter "zero"
> in the site's price field and download the album for free.
>
> [....] According to music industry analysts, hundreds of thousands of
> Web users who frequent copyright-infringing file-sharing sites,
> including The Pirate Bay and TorrentSpy, have chosen to download /In
> Rainbows/ illegally, [1]
>
The apologists are at work saying that listeners didn't know they could
legally buy it for nothing or cheap. I'm sure that's true in some
cases. But for all of those who did know, it says that neither method
of distribution nor "too expensive" had any relevance. More of the
money was likely going directly to the artist as the middle man was cut
out to some extent, and it still didn't matter. Pirates pirated it
because they could.

Part of me says: For shame! It's only music for entertainment, not food
for survival. To steal it instead of pay the artist a fair amount is a
personal moral failing.

The economist in me says: of course. This sort of tragedy of the
commons (where some can get it for free) will cause a race to the
bottom. That race will drag social convention behind it and eventually
dissuade even those who would pay because they don't want to be played
for the sucker (or pay a higher price to cover the piracy losses).
"Everybody play nice and pay a fair amount" just isn't a sound economic
principle.

[1]
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/16/radiohead-download-piracy-tech-internet-cx_ag_1016techradiohead.html?boxes=author

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