Duane Gundrum Uncategorized Survey results indicate that people lie a lot

Survey results indicate that people lie a lot

Coredata did a survey in Australia the other day where their results indicated that if people had better access to TV shows, movies and music, in a method much like bit torrent (how they illegally download them now), then they’d be more likely to pay for the stuff they currently steal. Yeah, right. Let’s unpack this survey a bit to see what was really being said here.

First, it was conducted in Australia, so let’s put that part into perspective. The survey results people want to cross apply this to everywhere, including the US and Europe, but the survey was conducted in Australia, meaning that people who don’t have steady access to a lot of western material, especially US shows, movies and music, are, of course, going to have to turn to whatever mechanism they can in order to get the material. When I was in South Korea, I couldn’t get US shows, so the only way to get them was to either buy them through iTunes (and lie that I was actually in the states at the time I got the material), or to download it illegally. Not much of a choice. Yeah, if it was legally available, I would have probably paid for it that way. But it wasn’t, so I did without (unlike others who would have pirated it).

Now, let’s unpack another part of this and pretend that this survey was done in the US. Sure, if I was a pirate, and someone asked me what it would take for me to buy my stuff legally, I’d say that if they made it more available, and easier to obtain, I’d probably buy it. But if I’m already doing it illegally, chances are pretty good that when they produced it in an easier way for me to get, I’d probably still steal it because I’m a piece of crap already, so why would I suddenly gain a moral backbone and start doing things legitimately? Answer…I probably wouldn’t. And that’s what’s not being discussed in this survey because what no one wants to admit is that people today have an expectation that intellectual property should be free, so they’re going to do what they can to keep getting that stuff free.

Unfortunately, the cart is already out of the stable, or whatever metaphor seems to work. Today’s generation doesn’t see anything wrong with piracy, or at least enough of them that are already pirating stuff don’t seem to see a problem. The RIAA’s attempts to stop illegal downloading of music isn’t a deterrent to these people; it’s an inconvenience. To them, the RIAA is outdated and being stupid in its actions. I don’t see any sort of process that is going to change that opinion because the Internet was developed with the idea that it creates free information, and as a result, should be perceived as a free for all environment. Old styles of control are coming in direct contact with new media that has no central authority of control, so there’s going to be a battle for a very long time until one side wins completely. And unfortunately, I don’t think the old ways are going to win out because the old people, people like me who still buy the music they listen to, are slowly disappearing, and we’re not being replaced by enough younger people who feel the same way. Instead, we’re being replaced by people who think it should all be free, and we’re seen as stupid for paying for the products that we do.

Itunes is a good example of a market that is holding its own, but is eventually going to implode on itself. I still buy television shows every now and then on iTunes, but every time I do so, I feel stupid for doing so. Hulu.com offers television shows for free, sometimes the same ones I might actually buy. Little by little, Hulu is suffering for trying to be in the middle of this war, as was seen when Comedy Central pulled its shows off of Hulu, thinking it would just get the Hulu people to come to Comedy Central’s site. But that didn’t happen; people just stopped watching the Daily Show online, because their access to it through Hulu was removed. But the problem with the iTunes model is that the prices are sometimes astronomical. They still try to get $2.99 for a television show, which is ridiculous. I sometimes pay $1.99 for the weaker version of the same show, but even that seems like too much money. The problem with Apple is they are seriously greedy bastards who think they have such a great product that they can overcharge and get it. Read some of the comments on iTunes movies and shows, and you’d be shocked at how pissed people get at Apple for their control mechanisms they use to squeeze every dime out of their customers.

So, this leaves us still in a nether world of the Internet where we have people who think that all of this should be free, so they are basically pirating all of this stuff on the backs of the rest of us who are paying for it. But that can’t last as a sustainable market process because people like me start to get pissed that we’re being overcharged to pay for the pirate market. I”ve bought very few CDs in the last few years because the prices just haven’t been what I find myself comfortable with. The newest CD to come out, which I would have bought, was the new one from Court Yard Hounds, an offshoot of the Dixie Chicks. But to buy it on iTunes is $13, and that’s ridiculous when a long time ago we were promised that CDs would cost us $9.99. Itunes should be even cheaper because it doesn’t even require any packaging, but instead they decided to go with greed instead of attract their customers. So I won’t buy it. And that is why more people will end up pirating it, leading to prices going up even further until something happens, like the industry collapses.

Cause when people aren’t paying for it, that’s all that can happen. So unless people want to go back to the idea of music being wandering minstrels performing for the king and the local ale house, someone should really think about this because the old ways aren’t working, and too many stupid people are making the decisions for too many others, which means that if you understand game theory, the result is a bankrupt marketplace, and while those of us who like anarchy and chaos might like this, I’m going to go out on a limb and think that perhaps that’s the not the best alternative for everyone else.

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