[pp.int.general] Piracy and poor countries: Big Content wants to have its cake and eat it too

[NingúnOtro]

El mar, 03-05-2011 a las 18:44 +0200, Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet)
escribió:
> > Here is the link to get this amazing report:
> 
> > http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-report/
> 
> I just came from a panel in the European Parliament where this report
> was presented. It appears really worthwhile.
> 
> Golden quotes from the panel. "This discussion has been cluttered by
> lobbyists and a lack of facts."
> 

Lobbyists and lack of facts, indeed.

As far as I can see, arguments about facts always talk about squeezing a
last few bucks out of 50 year old works by giving the rights owners
another 45 or now 20 years.

I think we all know that it is very hard to find 50 year old recordings
for sale commercially... and I do not think more time will be any
incentive to that.

What I believe is that the contents industry is scared to death by a few
coincidences...

1) General Crisis is rampant... and this means on one side people who
lose their jobs are left with far lower budgets... as basic needs get
harder to cover... there is less left for non-basic "time-filling"
content as sold by the industry. At the same time, people who lose their
job find themselves with an awful lot of idle time they need to "spend"
cheaply if they do not want to die out of sheer boredom... so they pay
their broadband connection as cheap as possible... and then hunt for
free content.

There are two kinds of people, those that still care about logic and
ethic, who will look after content with free licenses and/or in the
public domain, and those that do not give a damn (or may even think that
what they do is fair retaliation for the industry being such a nuisance)
and will download whatever is made available.

2) The modern logistics of "whatever is made available".

The content industry has some long term investments... lets say it buys
a 1.000 million studio and it pays 20 million a year + interests over 50
years. It has to sell whatever it produces in such a way as to earn at
least 20 million + interests + yearly working & maintenance costs EACH
year in order not to go broke.

People are already buying less because their income dwindles. Of course,
the content industry is not the only one affected.

But then, the other industries do not have to cope with the murderous
competition of WORLDWIDE, DEMATERIALIZED, ZERO-COST DELIVERY of
COMPETING CONTENT.

Second-hand book and record stores were no real competition because
there was a need for physical proximity of the goodies and the
convenience of the proximity of their distribution channels outperformed
both second-hand stores and public libraries.

Ubiquitous internet and ubiquitous digitalisation HAS INVERSED THIS
SITUATION TO THEIR DISADVANTAGE.

There is ONE BIG REASON why the industry does not like digitalisation at
all... One customer has only a limited time available to look at
content. Lets say he is sold a book at a price of 20€ and it takes 3
hours to read. Lets say the profit margin is 15€. That makes a statistic
of 5€ per client per hour. The client pays because he gets something
material and three hours of reading.

Now, the client is very reluctant about paying the same 20€ for the same
3 hours of reading if he does not get something material that represents
the counterpart of his money. So he does not buy digital at 20€, he'd
buy the product for 3€ and he still is left with the feeling that 2,9€
of it is pure profit margin for the business, more than enough.

And it is enough! Enough as a big chunk of the total price... but not
enough in such a way as to have the business earn at least 20 million +
interests + yearly working & maintenance costs EACH year in order not to
go broke. At 2,9€ profit margin... that makes a statistic of only 1€ per
client per hour (FIVE TIMES LESS THAN WITH THE PRINTED BOOK).

There is a huge and increased competition for the hours of attention of
every possible customer (time is compressible nor expandable)... and
there is far less to be made as a profit margin from every captured
hour... but still the loans and mortgages on the material production
facilities demand 20 million a year + interests!

Of course, the more free content is made available, be it legally or
otherwise... the more consumer hours are lost to the industry. It does
not matter whether the reasons are legit or not... THEY ARE LOST.


This is why the industry focuses its efforts on:

1) Avoiding at all costs that even more free content becomes
available... extending copyright, extending copyright, ...

2) Help censor the internet in any way that collaterally makes
downloading anything, be it legal or illegal, a pain in the ass for
somebody... so that they self-censor (that is what they try to put as a
burden on the carriers).


The government is glad to help... because the business is a big chunk of
the GDP, and because it is a handy excuse behind which to hide so as not
to publicize that it seeks control of what circulates on the internet
for other reasons (to make opposition impossible).
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