[pp.int.general] Some parting thoughts

[Boris Turovskiy]

Eduardo Robles Elvira wrote:
> We are in favor of  filesharing between individuals if there is no
> profit because of simple reasons (starting a list of them):
>
>  * It is more costly to try to shut down all those pirates than the
> money the industry is supposedly loosing with them, and even then the
> filesharing is impossible to stop. (There was a recent arstechnica
> article about this, look it up)
>
>  * Those who pirate buy more music and other media than those who
> don't so industry should try to be nice with their customers instead
> of calling them pirates and trying to jail them. Which brinds us to
> the next point..
>
>  * Filesharing should be considered as a means of marketing. For
> example, I saw Inglourious Bastards movie first at home, and I liked
> it so much that I then saw it again in the cinema.
>   
I'll pick up on that one :)

* There is no conclusive argument why private filesharing should be 
illegal. It is actually the modern counterpart to me buying a book or a 
CD and giving it to a friend so that they can listen/read/watch it. 
Criminalizing filesharing is the same as saying "You can buy the book, 
but only you have the right to read it, and if you give it to someone 
else or read it aloud, then you're a criminal".

* Illegality of filesharing is from the economic point of view the 
artificial creation of scarcity for a product (in this case, data) which 
is, at the current stage of technological development, not scarce in any 
natural way. Artificial scarcity has always been frowned upon because it 
is the usual means of creating monopolies.

* There is no conclusive proof that filesharing consistently reduces 
revenue, especially if we focus on the income of artists (writers, 
musicians etc.) and not on the profits of the middlemen (like labels). 
These middlemen have accumulated huge power based on the technologies of 
the mid-20th century, but now there are alternatives available which 
benefit both consumers and artists, and it should not be a task of the 
legislators to protect the middlemen's antiquated business models.

Best regards,
Boris