Yeah, actually there are. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 09/02/2012 01:54:36 AM
By Pirate Bays own lawyers estimates, site costs in 2009 were a little over $112,500 and ad revenue was a hair over $102,000. On the other hand, a police investigation conducted the same year put their revenue at just under $169,000, and prosecutors at the trial put it close to $1.5 million. They indisputably make money; the only question is whether they make a PROFIT, and unless you believe putting ads on each page and flashing more at people during downloads only pulls in $102,000 per year, even that is not really in question.
Wikipedia also cites this quote from a Pirate Bay co-founder:
"It's not free to operate a Web Site on this scale.... If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn't be working late at the office tonight, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan."
THAT is the crux of the matter: Swapping around copyrighted material between your friends at no cost is no threat to the media industry, because with no profit to be made no one can sit around doing it on a large enough scale to significantly eat into their margins; most people so inclined are too busy putting food on the table. Going after advertisers supporting pirate sites would be another excellent way to attack the problem at its SOURCE (the only place it can be effectively attacked.) No advertising firm, manufacturer or retailer making millions, or billions, of legal dollars will spend hundreds of thousands sponsoring piracy that costs them millions in fines, all in the faint hope people illegally downloading free media will buy their products.
Wikipedia also cites this quote from a Pirate Bay co-founder:
"It's not free to operate a Web Site on this scale.... If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn't be working late at the office tonight, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan."
THAT is the crux of the matter: Swapping around copyrighted material between your friends at no cost is no threat to the media industry, because with no profit to be made no one can sit around doing it on a large enough scale to significantly eat into their margins; most people so inclined are too busy putting food on the table. Going after advertisers supporting pirate sites would be another excellent way to attack the problem at its SOURCE (the only place it can be effectively attacked.) No advertising firm, manufacturer or retailer making millions, or billions, of legal dollars will spend hundreds of thousands sponsoring piracy that costs them millions in fines, all in the faint hope people illegally downloading free media will buy their products.
consider that megaupload was not only selling access to the copyrighted files, they were also in the process of launching a competing music repository to itunes and amazon. there is a HUGE difference between what pirate bay does to make money and what megaupload did. it's one thing to try to cover the costs of having one of the top visited sites on the internet, and quite another to make it your business model to use other people's works so that you can have a $200 million home in the mountains. how pirate bay operates is no different than the illegal NFL streams you enjoy every sunday. someone puts up the stream for free, pirate bay just shows people how to get to it. any money they make comes from people clicking on the random ads on the website, it does not go for access to the streams.
Yeah, I get that: They make their profit off ads which they can sell because of "having one of the top visited sites on the internet," which is true solely due to disseminating stolen intellectual property to people not forced to pay for it. They are still making a profit distributing stolen property, just not from the people receiving it.
ACTUAL PAYING CUSTOMERS are not the problem. And we are still back to speculating what people illegally downloading media for free now WOULD do if given a way to legally download it for a price, which is still the same hypothetical data you so roundly condemned when Big Media used it to estimate revenue they WOULD get if law enforcement reduced piracy. I also still dislike double standards intensely so, no.
research the issue. read DomA's post in reply to yours below. time after time people admit that they would "go legit" if given the opportunity to do so, especially if it means getting what they want instead of what the industry will give them. well over 50% of illegal downloads ultimately result in a sale. people who engage in illegal downloading *ARE* paying customers no matter how you try to deny it. case in point: how much NFL gear have you bought over the years? are you telling me you're not a paying customer, despite the fact you are pirating the NFL broadcasts? if you dislike double standards so much, you will put up the $100+ to watch the NFL legally instead of stealing their broadcast.
Time after time people breaking the law admit they would not break the law if they could get what they want without breaking the law? I already knew that. Paying for one product does not make stealing another any less theft, but I am not alleging theft against people downloading stolen intellectual property, rather, against the people uploading and hosting it. I believe if you review my posts on the subject you will find those are the people I contend should be targeted, exclusively.
No, they are going after people not simply "begging for other format," but patronizing illegal ones. Huge difference, though I still do not feel anyone not paying or being paid for illegal media is a significant problem, nor that they can be demonstrated to cause any harm, since the only thing Big Media is "losing" is those peoples money, which was not being paid for the product in the first place, and probably never would be.
now who's speculating? prove that those people would not have bought the product being offered in the first place if they are being given the format they want at a reasonable price. $25 for a DVD when you really wanted a cheap downloadable file is not really an option right now.
Yes, when I say, "probably," I am speculating, just as Big Media is when projecting profits they would have made if people were not pirating, or others when they project how much Big Media accommodation would reduce piracy. The difference is I admitted I was speculating rather than claiming what would happen in a hypothetical situation to be fact. No, I cannot prove a hypothetical negative, but the burden of proof for other peoples hypothetical situations is not mine.
They do not berate paying customers, they berate non-paying users. Many also pay them for media, but no one is complaining about that (except maybe Pirate Bay,) only the illegal activity. To employ another analogy, that argument is the equivalent of saying, "speeders is not theft, robbery, murder or rape, so laws against speeding unfairly malign and abuse law abiding citizens." "MOSTLY law abiding" is not "law abiding," and "MOSTLY paying customers" are not "paying customers."
check out the way netflix was fucked over for how paying customers are treated. netflix altered their business model and the mpaa decided they weren't getting enough money from netflix anymore. this caused netflix to raise their rates, which in turn caused 800k people to stop using netflix and caused the company irreparable damage to their corporate image. i highly doubt netflix will be the major powerhouse in the movie rental business they used to be all because the mpaa wants bigger and bigger revenue streams, customers be damned.
the mpaa had very little problem when netflix was a DVD rental agency, but the second netflix went to a streaming video model, suddenly the mpaa had a problem with them and forced them to either pay higher prices or stop receiving big name movies and tv shows. it's an extortion racket, pure and simple. the mpaa decides that only pirates want to watch movies on the internet, therefore all companies which make money broadcasting movies over the internet are the enemy.
Yeah, see, it is only extortion when you have a way to coerce compliance; people who do not like Big Medias terms are free to tell them to go to Hell without suffering anything. Unless one considers "loss of access to Big Medias intellectual property" a loss, in which case expecting they be paid for that access is entirely reasonable. We are not talking about food, shelter, medical care, education or some vital sustenance. We are talking about feature films, something I have never had any difficulty waiting to come to network television. In the case of streams vs. DVDs, my guess (and, yes, that is all it is) is that Big Media decided renting DVDs they can copy protect was one thing, but sending out streams they cannot copy protect quite another.
Despite being far more knowledgeable of the details, you keep pretending not to know things that are either self evident, common knowledge or both, and it is most unconvincing. Again I can only say, good luck selling it to Congress.