Q&A: Why money doesn't motivate file-sharers

File sharing is microcosm of human nature, who would have guessed.

I don't know if he is right or not but what he says makes a lot more sense than anything I have heard from various copyright organisations.

By JamesD29 on 7 Dec 2010

Mr N

A refreshing and frankly surprising take on piracy. He's right in saying nothing will stop it so they should introduce something like the TV license so that you have access to all media content during that particular year. This would give people a reason to seek out new music and not feel as if they're doing anything wrong.

By mng70 on 7 Dec 2010

Finally

I thought it would never come, but finally someone who has a half decent idea of how to evolve the system, unlike the bpi who just want to monitor everything you do then fine you thousands if they suspect you, in most cases without evidence.

By Mccers on 7 Dec 2010

Lets not get carried away

Where are these 'seeders' when it comes to giving of their own money to charity or to benefit someone deserving? It is always the same when liberal-minded professors are excusing what is essentially a form of anarchism and deftly pulling a shell game in the absence of personal accountability + legitimate ownership.

The real answer is that entertainment companies, distributors and copyright lawyers really are the skankiest, most-ingracious, loathsome dirt-bags. That is enough to start me sharing when I think of it.

Joe Cox (like so many others) is wrong when using the 'Robin Hood' simile. Robin Hood was returning essentially illegal taxes to the people so they could eat. File sharing is simply the theft of non-essential data. There is nothing altruistic about it.

By Alperian on 7 Dec 2010

Greed

I think the real reason don't count copying this stuff is because the general public have no sympathy with the music and movie industries. The ripped us off over CDs and DVDs. The premium went up automatically for these media and they've never really come back down. Lots of people would then see them as fair targets (seeing they ripped us off in the first place).
Maybe they should pay their artists and actors a little less and they can cut the price of the expensive media.

By Steve_Adey on 7 Dec 2010

Lets not get carried away

Robin Hood was created for financial gain and the movie industry has made a lot of money out of him.

By Steve_Adey on 7 Dec 2010

@Alperian:

Lol, some extremities - seeders are either 'Robin Hoods' or anarchists, fighting against the system, aren't they? What about a possibility that lots of people share the files just because it costs them nothing, so they see no reason not to share?

By Lomskij on 7 Dec 2010

I said before

and will say again, what the governments are doing is not sorting out the problem but trying to hide it behind some shelves, what i mean by sorting the problem, is that the governments should realize that the piracy would never stop, and that when torrents would go away, and they will, i have no doubt, there are still other ways to pirate things, and those other ways, cannot be proved at all by anyone. so optimal solution is to create a market like that. so you pay small fee a month and you get access to everything you want, ranging from movies, games to music and books. and i agree that music industry ripped us off, and the "seeders" are Robin Hoods, because Robin Hoods idea is taking from the rich and giving to the poor, redistribution of income so called, but in piracy sense, taking from the people like BONO, who have multi-million wealth (and who says "i need more" and other say stop being a d!ck we think you have enough) and giving his songs to people who maybe, like it. and in my opinion, if someone likes something, they will go and buy it, and most people don't like everything.
If the singer is good, he will make money and if the film is good, they will make money, if the singer and songs are bad, economically they will not be making money (demand/supply), same goes for movies, etc. but how do we know if its good, we have no way to try it out. I think this economically motivated idea about illegal downloads is a bit floored. Since No one actually collects any data on it, and just because its obvious reason, does not mean its true.

By mobilegnet on 7 Dec 2010

Fees were tried in Canada

Actually, they still charge a fee on CD's.. but the fees were very unpopular, especially when they tried to extend them to mp3 players, ipods, hard drives etc...
In fact NO money was ever distributed to artisdt from the fund. I was all spent on legal fees and lobbying.
Guess they blew it. (and the Cabinet Minister responsible at the time is still off the bottom of the radar for this and several other reasons)

By JohnA on 7 Dec 2010

Altruism = essentials?

Nonsense, of course you can be altruistic about things that aren't essential. It's a red herring to suggest otherwise. I'm not loaning my scarf and gloves to someone when it snows because they'll die otherwise, it's so they can feel a bit more comfortable.

It's not theft because even if someone copies it you still have it. If you want to use serious words you need to get them right.

You simply don't get to decide what causes people should be generous about. If I don't give to cancer to research does that mean I can't loan someone my CDs? Leave it out.

By steviesteveo12 on 7 Dec 2010

"It's not theft because even if someone copies it you still have it"

But what is it?

If someone copies my Windows disks and puts them on a file-sharing site, is that legal and honest? I think not. (Leave aside whether you think software should be open-source or not - what's the accepted law?).

If you can come up with a better term than "theft", fine, but I don't think someone copying it while you still have it but in defiance of rules is honest, just because you still have it.

By AdrianB on 7 Dec 2010

That's easy - it's called copyright infringement.

You shouldn't think "it's not theft" is the same as "it's perfectly ok". I mean what I say - it's not theft.

By steviesteveo12 on 7 Dec 2010

Basically there are many things in life that are a) not perfectly on the level and, at the same time, b) not a criminal offence.

By steviesteveo12 on 7 Dec 2010

Wake Up.

The Digital Economy Act wasn't primarily about file sharing. It was about restricting the internet. Too many people are talking about too mnay things and the elites don't like it. Mark my words, you will all see this in the next 3 years and won't be able to deny it. This isn't something the powers that be can achieved with stealth. It will be very messy. Of course, along with taking down any old website they like under the pretext of copyright you will also be fed the usual Al Qaeda nonsense. There aren't many villages left with an idiot that still believes what they were told about those transatlantic Events a few years back. Wake up.

By adolfobama on 8 Dec 2010

altruistic? no, not really

Claiming pirates are altruistic is similar to claiming trade unionists are altruistic: both are untrue. In both cases, the majority of people concerned are doing it for themselves, not others. They want to gain financially, so they join the gang.

To qualify this, I'd add that the uploaders may be perceived to be altruistic, but the majority (the downloaders) are simply in it for financial gain. Both parties are pirates.

Yesterday I read a comment in another forum that suggested that all content should be free and people pay for it if they like it (end result, few pay) and the creator only earns from touring or performance. So how does that work for software? And anyway, what if we're talking about music and the artist chooses not to perform their work, or cant perform their work because of it's technical complexity? Are we suggesting they should not earn anything for it? All I'm hearing is people wanting something for nothing.

By Mat1971 on 8 Dec 2010

@steviestevio "you simply don't get to decide what causes people should be generous about"

One cannot be generous when you are giving away something that belongs to someone else. Get it?

This always gets lost in the logic shuffle in these arguments.

By Alperian on 8 Dec 2010

twofer

@Alperian

Well, your point seems to be that if these people were genuinely altruistic they would have adopted a panda or something - something that fits your own definition of "someone deserving" as you put it. I'm saying that is not the only way that altruism expresses itself. I'm saying that, in reality, people are generous with stuff that isn't theirs all the time. Have you ever offered someone a cup of company tea? How dare you be generous with that, it clearly belongs to someone else. In theory, yes I agree but reality does not agree with theory here.

I think that @Mat1971 is starting off a evolutionary biology discussion on the nature of altruism. If we have to say that it's not altruistic if you benefit from it then altruism is a myth. Is it altruism to open a door for a pregnant woman if you get some exercise and feel warm inside in the process? I would note that the whole article you're commenting on is specifically about uploaders and specifically not about downloaders so when you say "I'd add that the uploaders may be perceived to be altruistic" I would have to say "yeah, exactly".

By steviesteveo12 on 8 Dec 2010

@steviestevio12

Would you jump into a torrent d/l if you saw that it had no seeders? (I know that if a torrent has enough leechers it can provide 100% of the data but no guarentees).

So basically, seeders are the enablers that make the whole piracy machine burn and turn. There is nothing kind about this.

I don't think that it is altruism at all. I think that it elevates their sad and self-important esteem-lacking lives to provide data from anywhere to anyone in order to be needed and consider themselves of some worth.

By Alperian on 8 Dec 2010

self-important AND esteem-lacking?

I think you need a dictionary.

By greemble on 8 Dec 2010

@alperian

You don't like downloaders, I get that. It's irrelevant to what a whole other group of people intend when they do things. Please stay on topic. We are here, on this page, to talk about an academic's (Joe Cox) theory about why people upload. There are many other pages on the internet where they will talk about why people download but that is not this page.

Doing a favour for people is kind (it's practically in the dictionary under "kindness"). Providing that favour for complete strangers is especially kind. It's not particularly kind for someone to accept the favour but, again, that's not what we're talking about.

By steviesteveo12 on 8 Dec 2010

CD Premium

Steve_Adey - do you really think music and film hasn't come down in price?

The typical price for a chart CD in 1986 was around 11.99. The typical price now is around 8.99, equivalent to £4 in 1986 prices, while the 1986 price would be about 24.50 today.

That's a large decline in value - regardless of any discussion about how music should be priced.

By JulesLt on 9 Dec 2010

Just wondering

If 1 buy a packet of F1 hybrid seeds, propagate them, then take cuttings which I give out to friends and neighbours am I a pirate?
Apart from the scale is there any real difference?

By djenkins14 on 9 Dec 2010

Just wondering

If 1 buy a packet of F1 hybrid seeds, propagate them, then take cuttings which I give out to friends and neighbours am I a pirate?
Apart from the scale is there any real difference?

By djenkins14 on 9 Dec 2010

djenkins - You ask is there any real difference?

Well, if you agreed that you wouldn't do that, then no, there isn't. Since I doubt that you did, then there's a big difference.

By AdrianB on 9 Dec 2010

Solved!

Why don't we even the playing field for everyone.

Music,movies,games and software, all intellectual rights - yeah?
Rubbish, it's a product that's tangible and has monetary value even when sold on. My brother is a compulsive downloader who constantly downloads and fills his pc's hard drive with all sorts of material most of which never gets touched. The only reason and I must emphasize 'only', is because it's free. He would never in a million years buy any of the stuff, even if he had the bloody money to do so.
This applies to the vast majority of people who've become addicted to hoarding masses of material on their computers. How on earth can you listen to 20,000 songs, or play 100's of games, or watch 1,000's of movies.
None of the industries have lost much because most of the downloading is being done by people who's disposable income is already rinsed by Sky/cable TV, Mobile phone, home insurance, utility bills, food to bloody well stay alive.
There's nothing left. How can anyone have lost out when there's no money for a sale?

When I was in my twenty's I was a fairly good amateur artist and used to visit art museums and copy some of the greats. I didn't purchase a print or a post card from the gift shop, I created my own copy, get it - copy. Not an original and probably not worth much either.
That's the main point for me it's a digital copy and can not in any way be comparable to owning an original with all of the ownership advantages that brings.
How much money do Governments and Media entertainment industries think working class people have?
Everybody's income is sliced up so many ways now that there isn't much left for anything else.
We live in a greedy world where wealth is God and modern technology as provided so many things to tempt our money away.

We pay Income Tax, National insurance – contributions and VAT.
In January VAT will be 20%, so when I visit Comet to purchase a new flat screen TV for £1000, after having my wage taxed, I'll hand over 200 'REAL' pounds to the government.
I go home and download a digital 'COPY' of a song and I'm a thief!

By taxigirlx on 10 Dec 2010