What would these people be playing these songs on that they can't pay 99 cents for?Originally Posted by Greygor
An article by another Emily White, the co-founder of Whitesmith Entertainment & Readymade Records.
In Defense Of Emily White (The NPR Intern)
“...All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?”
No, it’s not. And I’m sorry that it often takes companies and rights holders literally years to catch up with technology, what music fans / consumers want, as well as with reality.
You can buy an ipod with welfare money, Willie.
Once again, I never said they couldn't I just said it is relatively much more expensive for them. Remember I'm not excusing piracy, I'm just saying I can understand it.
The argument is that with many goods there is flexibility in pricing that reflects the local economy. Often there are offers that allow people to buy things more easily that they normally couldn't afford. When I was in the Philippines most electrical stores that I came across allowed for the spreading of payments over a 12 - 18 month period for anything costing $50 or more. This explained why virtually everyone had a phone/mp3 player etc even though they were paid so poorly on a daily basis.
However this doesn't always stay true for music tracks. iTunes is a perfect example, I remember there was a complaint in Australia that for the same album Australian users were paying up to 73% more than a US iTunes user.
This is not restricted to just Australia
Back to the Philippines again, I'm not sure if they are still prevented from using iTunes but I believe at one time that was true.
So I stand by my initial thoughts that there are 2 areas that contribute to piracy even though it doesn't justify it.
1. Lack of access to legal download methods
2. Inequality in pricing
If the business model used can address this we may well see a reduction in piracy (but probably not as big as one would hope as their are still a lot of assholes out there who feel entitled).
What's the percentage of illegal downloads in the Philippines in regards to total piracy?Once again, I never said they couldn't I just said it is relatively much more expensive for them. Remember I'm not excusing piracy, I'm just saying I can understand it.
The argument is that with many goods there is flexibility in pricing that reflects the local economy. Often there are offers that allow people to buy things more easily that they normally couldn't afford. When I was in the Philippines most electrical stores that I came across allowed for the spreading of payments over a 12 - 18 month period for anything costing $50 or more. This explained why virtually everyone had a phone/mp3 player etc even though they were paid so poorly on a daily basis.
However this doesn't always stay true for music tracks. iTunes is a perfect example, I remember there was a complaint in Australia that for the same album Australian users were paying up to 73% more than a US iTunes user.
This is not restricted to just Australia
Back to the Philippines again, I'm not sure if they are still prevented from using iTunes but I believe at one time that was true.
So I stand by my initial thoughts that there are 2 areas that contribute to piracy even though it doesn't justify it.
1. Lack of access to legal download methods
2. Inequality in pricing
If the business model used can address this we may well see a reduction in piracy (but probably not as big as one would hope as their are still a lot of assholes out there who feel entitled).
She's an intern. If they paid her, she could afford to buy music.
I wanted to know that, but don't just swoop on Philippines because I used it as an example.
I tried to search for a piracy breakdown per country to see if there is any obvious correlations, but I failed.
if anyone else with better google-fu than me wants to give it a try feel free.
One thing I do remember reading is that Spain has a very bad rep for illegal downloading. Actually let me rephrase that. Spain had a very bad reputation for downloading film and music. I believe (and I'm willing to be corrected on this) at one time it was illegal to distribute but not to download. And yet the average pay here at the time was sufficient to buy stuff legally. I guess there were just a lot of entitled assholes here with access to stuff that it wasn't illegal to download, just immoral.
She had enough money to buy 15 CDs!
I'll correct you in that I wasn't replying to her initial essay, and that there are plenty of alternatives to piracy. The problem that "they're downloading music" is exactly what I was detailing!
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I'm not sure what that article is suppose to be supporting. That the music industry needs to get with the times?
Again, I have to ask, how are her music consumption needs not being met with the exception of shit not being free? She said in her blog post that she wants a Spotify like catalog so she obviously doesn't care about DRM or being able to transfer files between devices.
"Sh - no - brick"
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