18th September 2005, 8:55 AM
Well, in the defense of the people who scanned the interweb's various forums to cull this data, at least now they have some empirical EVIDENCE that this is true. Just you wait, the guy giving the president of "movie company limited" (or whatever) this info is going to have that data weighed with equal time to the astrologer telling him that since virgo is in pisces (yeah, that's impossible I know, but it's not like the rest of astrology isn't) MORE ACTION MOVIES!
That said, the people blaiming piracy aren't completely off, but they really don't have the evidence to back up their claims. They really need to actually check the number of people who BUY music, including those that may have used to buy music at one time and switched only BECAUSE the music was now free. Then, examine how many people WOULD have bought the music anyway if they could not have downloaded it for free. THEN they have a good estimate of how much damage was actually done to the music industry by piracy.
But, I keep hearing that "the music sucks" is the reason. I still don't really get why they would pirate BECAUSE the music sucks. I mean, if the song sucks, I would think you wouldn't even want to get a free copy of it.
That said, the people blaiming piracy aren't completely off, but they really don't have the evidence to back up their claims. They really need to actually check the number of people who BUY music, including those that may have used to buy music at one time and switched only BECAUSE the music was now free. Then, examine how many people WOULD have bought the music anyway if they could not have downloaded it for free. THEN they have a good estimate of how much damage was actually done to the music industry by piracy.
But, I keep hearing that "the music sucks" is the reason. I still don't really get why they would pirate BECAUSE the music sucks. I mean, if the song sucks, I would think you wouldn't even want to get a free copy of it.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)