Infinite Goods? No. Very Finite Stupidity

While I get where you are coming from I believe you may have missed the point of the post entirely.

It’s a criticism of an industries need to dig in and protect their old business models and not an endorsement of theft. Quite clearly it is stated that..

Even if every single song, book, and movie was distributed digitally for free, there would still be a need for the music, publishing, and movie industries. There would still be demand for editors, producers, marketers, and all sorts of other services that these industries have always provided.

That is not an endorsement of theft, rather than a realization that the ecosystem that revolves around publishing music, films etc.. would still exist and would still be needed. It may have to change how it operates but it would still exist and would actually have to start providing value rather than leeching.

Your analogy of digitally money is wrong. Money, whether paper or digital is still a form of barter, except in this case the value of the money has a set value. Just because the value of single product decreases doesn’t mean that the value of money decreases.

Again, the article, which Mike is quoting and endorses states that this is about a single product scenario, in this case tomatoes (or in more real life terms, digital media). The cost of replicating digital media is infinitesimally small and as with any form of mass production it becomes cheaper as it is mass produced, to the point that you could say the over all cost of replicating a single music file is essentially nil.

Which brings us back to stressing the single product replication scenario.

Making something free does not mean that money cannot be made from it or that it has no value. In the face of digital media which can be replicated at almost non existent cost, then the value is to be found by promoting and separating the wheat from the chaff.

And that is the area that gets neglected in so many of these conversations.

The value is in providing quality and that is what consumers will pay for.

However, the music industry (just picking on them at the minute) have organized themselves around tell us what we want, rather than providing the mechanism for people to discover artists and pay for the content they want then.

If them music (film etc..) industry was to organize itself as an enabler or artists and enable people to discover those artists, without telling us what we are to listen to, or telling artists how to produce/what to produce in terms of their own content (yes it does happen) then we would have a much broader range of choice and people would be more willing to part with their money as it would be their choice.

Again, I’m not endorsing piracy in anyway. I just think that you got the wrong end of the stick with regards to the post.

Paul

You don’t seem to see that Masnick is talking economic rubbish:

You quote:
“Even if every single song, book, and movie was distributed digitally for free, there would still be a need for the music, publishing, and movie industries. There would still be demand for editors, producers, marketers, and all sorts of other services that these industries have always provided.”

Yes there would. But actually there would be no revenue to support those activities, because that revenue is born of an economic ecosystem which was destroyed. You could make the same comments about giving cars away, or houses or money. It’s unsupportable.

If you think money has a set value, it’s because you’re not thinking. Economics 101 says that money has no set value. Economics 101 also tells you that money is a medium of exchange – which makes it equivalent to goods in respect of barter. No difference at all. Makes it equivalent to digital music too, in the same way. Makes it equivalent to anything which is perceived as having value.

The cost of replicating digital media is not infinitesimally small. It’s just low. You have to have computers, networks storage media etc. Actually, it’s the same as the cost of replicating software. Have you noticed how a lot of software isn’t free? That’s because it has an antitheft mechanism. Have you noticed how even “free” software requires an economic ecosystem. That’s because it would die without it. Have you noticed how few free software products have created a viable economic ecosystem. That’s because it’s not a simple thing to do.

The point of my post was that referring to something as infinite goods is utterly misleading. You can no more have infinite goods than you can have a war on terror.

Once you start wielding such misleading concepts you make mischief. “Hey, they are not terrorists, they are freedom fighters, etc.”

Masnick’s infinite goods concept implies “no cost.” When you align with such flawed thinking, you may not mean to be condoning theft, but you are supporting it.

I think you’ve come up with a super interesting analogy, the money one. I don’t agree with the idea though. I think there’s a difference between money and the content conveyed by digital media.

For the most part, people don’t simply want money. They want money IN ORDER to get something else. They want money to use to buy some kind of good, service, or perhaps some sort of long term peace-of-mind (like saving for a child’s eventual university education). On the other hand, people do want the different sorts of things conveyed by digital media, generally as ends in themselves, and not simply as a way to get something else. I’m not sure I understand why something that is exchangeable for money, would itself be money, which is what I understand you’re suggesting.

Also, your post says “When the theft of goods is rampant and stolen goods are available at very low prices the supplier tends to go out of business.” but I think that statement is problematic because assuming there is a “theft of goods” or “stolen goods” sort of puts the horse before the cart in my opinion. I think the point in dealing with digital media is that we’re dealing with something of a nature that cannot be stolen in the traditional sense of goods, precisely because it is (potentially) infinitely replicable at, at least by your admission, a very low cost.

Thx for your comments.

Something that’s exchangeable for money (or fungible) can become a medium of exchange or be used as one. For example stolen credit card data is used as money in hacker circles. Cigarettes and coffee were used as money at the end of WWII in Germany. Anything that has a recognized value and is tradable can be used as money and sometimes is.

Don’t understand what you’re saying about digital music. Digital music is stolen on a regular basis by being copied. The copying mechanism is the way theft occurs – in the same way that copyright theft is achieved – by copying.

First of all, let’s get the terminology right. Under discussion isn’t theft, it’s copyright infringement. They are totally different legal concepts.

You are correct that digital reproduction isn’t truly free. However it is very cheap. So are internet searches. And Google has made a ton of money by giving them away for free. That part of their business is subsidized by other parts. In the long term, the price of music is likely to go down, perhaps to free. Not because it “should” be free. It’s simply a function of the economics. The costs to record, mix, and distribute have gone way down. The number of people with the tools to make their own recordings has gone way up.

I believe in the law, and I do not download copyrighted music without paying for it. But there are many people who do. I don’t condone it, but I don’t expect it will change.

So what’s an artist (or a studio) to do? Legally, you’re within your rights to sue anyone you catch infringing. I think this is a losing strategy. Only time will tell.