Via TorrentFreak: “Entertainment industry lobby groups often describe file-sharers as thieves who refuse to pay for any type of digital content. But not everyone agrees with this view. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson sees copyright abuse as the underlying cause of the piracy problem. In a brilliant article, Rene Summer, Director of Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson, explains how copyright holders themselves actually breed pirates by clinging to outdated business methods.” No faeces, Sherlock.
The word ‘faeces’ is disgusting. Just say ‘shit’.
I would have to completely agree with the above poster. There’s nothing wrong with the word “shit,” and it can get the point across much more smoothly.
Faeces is actually a better term to use in reporting as it’s allowed for day time broadcasting.
That aside I do agree with you that it sounds more grotesque. However the problem with languages is what’s repulsive for one person might not be for another. For me, I’ve heard and used the “s” word a lot, so have become desensitised to it. But others would understandably consider it a “no no” term.
What you need, if you say “no faeces…” is a detective’s name beginning with F. It would make sense then.
Edited 2011-07-02 21:49 UTC
In that case, try “No feces, Frank (Serpico)”.
Brilliant bits.
“File-sharing is a symptom of a problem, rather than a problem in itself. This problem is the inadequate availability of legal, timely, competitively priced and wide-ranging choices of affordable digital-content offerings. Consumers also expect to be able to make decisions freely regarding when and how to consume the content of their choice. By clinging to outdated business methods such as windowing and territoriality, economic-rights holders are in fact creating the consumer behavior against when they so violently protest.”
He goes on to call for the european union-ification of digital content law, forcing there to be no digital borders for content in europe. That’s the good kind of socialization, and requested by a business no less.
That’s not exactly socialism. But erasing content restriction borders in EU would be a major step forward.
Why the ***** do the media companies and content owners force Amazon MP3 store to be region based? They get their cut off each sale, not one single pay-off.
I buy music when I’m in UK or Germany from Amazon MP3, without blinking… Yet when I am in my home country, I am not allowed to buy anymore. What do I do? I infringe on copyrights once in a while.
It’s not about the money at this point – it’s all about convenience for me. Buying an MP3 on Amazon is way more convenient than fetching a torrent. Getting a proxy to appear from UK or US is much less convenient than fetching a torrent.
Problem is, I’m not really sure you can expect people who are used to paying $0 for a product to start ponying up real cash. For example, even if they started charging $.10 per song on iTunes/Amazon/etc instead of $1.00, that’s still $.10 more than a lot of pirates would be willing to pay. I’m sure it would help, but no amount of reforming business models is going to stamp it out entirely.
Of course, legislation won’t due the trick either, and I’m sure these clowns will figure that out eventually. Basically, it’s like this… if you try to sell a product that is infinitely reproducible and instantly transportable across the world for $0, a great many people are going to use that product and not pay for it. If that is too much for you to deal with, then you simply stop making/selling that product. There really is no other way around it.
When somebody invents a 3D printer and you can reproduce a car for $0, that’s going to turn this entire economy on its ass.
Judging by the cost of inkjet cartridges, I’m not so sure they anyone has to worry about that. Their are fixed energy and material costs for a car, you’d only be cutting out labor, distribution,marketing, and design costs.
But other items with lower material costs and higher profit margins will be susceptible to a similar effect with 3d printers.
Well, not really in this scenario. If you needed more gas or a spare part for your car, you could simply ‘print’ whatever you need, or just make a brand new copy of the car every time you needed more gas
(I’d assume there’d be a way to ‘delete’ objects, as well as print them.)
I’m not sure you understood.
A brand new car may cost $20,000 USD, the raw cost of materials may still be $10,000 USD. $10,000 > $0. It would reduce costs, but not eliminate them.
By the time that is possible we’ll all
a) be underwater
b) cars won’t need petrol (gas) to run
C) both a) and b) (everybody drives electric boats).
Edited 2011-07-02 18:27 UTC
“Well, not really in this scenario. If you needed more gas or a spare part for your car, you could simply ‘print’ whatever you need, or just make a brand new copy of the car every time you needed more gas”
I really don’t understand the message that this analogy is intended to convey.
However you may be interested in the reprap project:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
I saw one at maker fair. It would be awesome if these got more sophisticated and we could all own one.
Even with this type of home automation though, a manufacturer may be able to produce 1000 units in a single mold for the same energy costs it takes you to extrude 1 unit.
WorknMan,
“When somebody invents a 3D printer and you can reproduce a car for $0, that’s going to turn this entire economy on its ass.”
A bit exaggerated, yes?
You can say the same thing about any other industry which has seen a strong workforce shrivel into oblivion at the hand of automation.
Expressive media in digital form is very obviously different from physical goods. The most fundamental difference is that there is no physical limit on supply. The natural law of supply and demand dictates a price approaching zero. It’s only because of artificial controls on supply that copies have any value.
You got the point but the details are a bit different. In a competitive market margins approach 0 and prices approach production and distribution costs.
And they do, for most other goods… A lil’ problem is that media industry has inflated production costs.
If this downloadable “content” in question doesn’t actively try to police me, treat me as a thief, and limit my use of it (ie. DRM), then I’d gladly pay for it. If it does do these things though… even if it’s only a dime… I’ll obtain it illegally for $0.00 before I’d pay the company even ten cents.
But really, I’m far more likely to just not buy it, not download it, period. There is other stuff out there–and if a company feels that they need to control and limit me, then I immediately lose any desire to do business with them and they can shove their DRM-infected bullshit right up their asses.
Edited 2011-07-02 05:30 UTC
If they get even 10% of those pirates, then they are golden. Hell! They’ll get me if they start selling content in my country and not displaying “We can’t sell in your country…”
I’ve bought a lot of digital media while travelling to UK and US. Yet when I’m at home, I resort to torrents – because of lack of service or poor quality of service(at best).
There is this paradox – they treat me and my countrymen as thieves, so most of us resort to “stealing”. Even those that will pay for a good service.
I think most people are willing to pay for products/software. If it´s for the right price and accessible.
Today I´m not downloading music I subscribe to wimp for a monthly fee. (like spotyfi). I do it because it´s easy and to the right price.
I still can´t buy movies from iTunes, and the web pages I can buy movies from here don´t support my old G4. So I download movies.
But for easy access and the right price. I´m happy to pay for it.
Espen
and I like the company sending such a message to the public.
Sure, we can’t be sure if this article reflects what Ericsson excecs are really thinking about, but I found that all companies they are extremely careful not to say something they inherently disagree with (just look at RiM’s answer to the open letter or how Apple execs are responding to their critics; particularly at what both these companies don’t say).
Does it matter in practice what the company says? Well, I for one would feel a lot better applying for a job at Ericsson or buying their product rather than going to one of their competitors. (I’m about to start looking for a new job soon and my cellphone upgrade is long overdue so that’s not an empty message).
Unfortunately Ericsson doesn’t sell any consumer products. The cell phones are made by Sony Ericsson 50% owned by Ericsson 50% by Sony, and I’m not sure they would agree with the ideas of this guy.
You’re probably right the Sony part. Unfortunately.