What should be paid for and what should be free on the Internet?

[dizietsma]

As Clint Eastwood once said " A mans got to know his limitations".

Or in regards to the Internet what are your limitations on getting out your flexible friend or not?

I was thinking about this tonight. I always pay for my PC games, no matter how large or small. If I have to have some non-games software I will try for free but if not then will pay for it. No way Jose!

Now if this makes me sound like this

then great, but sadly I have a confession to make on movies. I don't really care for them and so willy nilly download them off the Bitztorrentz with the excuse " Well I wouldn't buy them anyway, so they are not losing out".

I did that the other day for Toy Story 3, for my daughter, just because I was holding the fort that night and wanted an easy life. But that is getting quite close to the bone on right or wrong, rather than me downloading the 1980's Private School with Phoebe Cates.

mmm

which is an excellent download that never hurt anyone, but I digress.

What are your limits on playing the system thanks to modern technology?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Depends. You have content and you have services. I pay for Netflix, my internet connection. Really, I'm willing to pay for any content or services with value.

It would be interesting if you could pay for something like Google or Facebook, a small fee, to completely remove data mining and ads. It would be interesting to see how many people would prefer to pay for privacy.

As services and content becomes more complex and expensive to maintain/produce, I think we'll see more and more subscriptions, fees on the internet. It's inescapable. Everything has to be monetized in some way, to support it. Servers aren't free, and bandwidth isn't free. To expect services that were once free to remain that way is somewhat naive.

What people will and won't pay for varies, and I think we'll find that remains rocky territory for a long time. We're really still very early in the growth of the Internet.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If you don't care for the movies and wouldn't buy them, why would you download them? I don't think you're close, you've pretty much crossed the line. If you don't want to buy there's a ton of vod systems where you can 'rent', or sub based avenues like netflix. While I agree piracy isn't theft in the truest sense of the word, if you are deriving value from the piracy, you are stealing.

I don't pirate anything anymore (at least when I can find what I want for sale), but I have more than enough money to support that habit now. /shrug

 

[Mize]

Capitalism would say that you should pay for anything that has enough value to you that you are willing to pay for it without the seller using any monopoly tactics.

Just because you can steal something doesn't mean it shouldn't be paid for.

I, and many others, don't hesitate to buy media online so long as it's DRM-free. As a result online sales have done great. DRM-laden stuff sells less and will die as a result.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Piracy is bad, you should pay for everything.

 

[Grall]

I pay for games (haven't pirated anyhting in upwards of 15 years), and I've got a Spotify subscription because it's good value.

I don't pay for website access, "premium" memberships and the like though. This includes shit like xbox live, PSN and so on. There's a limit to how much I can actually afford to spend on a monthly basis, and I draw the line there. If a site wants me to pay, then it can go to hell.

That said, I don't run any adblock software at all, as I want ad-supported sites to be able to sustain themselves. Well, I activate my popup blocker, of course. But popups are the spawn of the devil, and should all be destroyed anyway.

 

[MfA]

Capitalism would say that you should pay for anything that has enough value to you that you are willing to pay for it without the seller using any monopoly tactics.

Copyright is a monopoly.

 

[Grall]

It's not a monopoly in the sense of the word, as a copyright holder doesn't control all media of that type. Just that media which they own the copyright to.

 

[MfA]

Gibberish, it's a monopoly pure and simple. It's not really relevant to the moral issue, but then neither is capitalism and the economy (hell from an economic POV piracy has been an absolutely HUGE boon in the last decade).

 

[green.pixel]

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/

 

[Mize]

Copyright is a monopoly.

Copyright is a dated notion in the age of software. Copyright should expire like patents because some protection must be afforded to inventors, innovators and investors. The right horizon for expiration is debatable.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Copyright is a monopoly.

It's a monopoly in as much as Ferrari has a monopoly on Ferrari vehicles, or Nintendo has a monopoly on Wii consoles. There's no reason a person shouldn't get paid for their artistic, literary, technology, or whatever works as someone who spends the same amount of time to create a new toaster or pen or whatever.

Anyway, on topic, my limit is that I won't pirate anything available for sale in my country. That mostly comes down to foreign movies and TV shows which are fansubbed and not available for puchase here. As well foreign music tracks sometimes. If I travel to those countries I'll buy them there. Otherwise I'll sometimes download, listen, and delete.

With Zune, there's almost no reason to have to buy or pirate music anymore.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

I pay for my pc games and netflix and some other things .

I will say this . I rip all my blurays to a format that can be used on all my devices.

 

[Mize]

SB: what I think MfA is saying is that copyright on a song or movie is a monopoly on that specific content and therefore worthy of ignoring. The argument is flawed however because there are many other songs and movies - nobody forces you to watch or listen to a specific movie or song.

The counter argument is that an individual artistic work or program defines a category (sort of like saying Nintendo being the only supplier of Wiis is a monopoly on Wiis, failing to recognize that there are other consoles) and so copyrights are monopolies on those works.

Anyway, it's a flawed argument that is really just and excuse to pirate.

 

[corduroygt]

Online p2p gaming should be free and that's why I will never buy an Xbox unless they make that free.

 

[Squilliam]

Well im all for downloading stuff which is showing on TV anyway. Im also for an expiry date of 15 years from production for non profit reproduction and transmission. Otherwise I pay for everything, though I buy very little. When I transitioned to actually paying for stuff I didn't transition into actually buying much more stuff.

 

[MfA]

SB: what I think MfA is saying is that copyright on a song or movie is a monopoly on that specific content and therefore worthy of ignoring.

No I'm saying bringing theories of capitalism into the argument is silly because first and foremost copyrights are a state granted monopoly and secondly because copyrights are not necessarily economically beneficial (the lax enforcement over the last decade was because probably exactly because it made a hell of a lot more money for the hardware/internet companies than it lost the software companies, a balance which is now shifting ... it's always about the money).

 

[Mize]

No I'm saying bringing theories of capitalism into the argument is silly because first and foremost copyrights are a state granted monopoly and secondly because copyrights are not necessarily economically beneficial (the lax enforcement over the last decade was because probably exactly because it made a hell of a lot more money for the hardware/internet companies than it lost the software companies, a balance which is now shifting ... it's always about the money).

Of course it is, but without something like copyrights how do you justify expensive developments for movies, games, etc.? What investor is going to pony up funds in a world where you sell a few copies and that's it?

Copyright is an outdated notion, but something is needed.

 

[Grall]

Gibberish, it's a monopoly pure and simple.

It isn't one just because you say it is.

It's an exclusivity awarded to you to your own works. That doesn't make it into a "monopoly". That's distorting the meaning of the word.

The existence of copyright is fully justified, morally, or any other way you want to look at it. As a creator of something you have the right to decide how it's supposed to be used. You, as a random person on the planet, certainly don't have the right to help yourself to whatever you feel like of other people's work and creations just because of the bizarre and erroneous notion you have that copyrights are monopolies.

 

[Mize]

MfA: if copyright is a monopoly what is it a monopoly of?

Are you claiming that a single consumer item can be monopolized even when there are other options competing with it in the same market?

That argument fails any sniff test. The closest you can get to a real example is something like Windows or MS-Office which have become defacto standards where the options are not generally considered by many companies. Unfortunately, there are options so it is not a monopoly.

Individual movies, games or music? Puh-leaze! You have many options.

Please go read the definition of monopoly and give us an example of why copyright is a monopoly.