Greetings Tom Tilley,

I was just listing to your Friday show about the issues involved in the online piracy debate.  There are a few points that I feel weren’t brought up and I thought I would send you a message just in case you feel they could be important in the future.  Sorry I couldn’t call in during the show, I’m usually driving home and need to concentrate on the small country road.

Firstly I’m not much of a music buyer, in fact I listen to Triple J and that’s about all the music I need.  All of my media purchases are TV or Movies.

Whilst the iTunes price may be fair according to industry people, there are a large number of people out there that can’t afford or think that it’s too expensive.  I for one am not willing to pay that price for unknown content.  I have been burnt too many times with shows or movies that just aren’t worth the plastic they are printed on and in the age of the Internet a lot of us aren’t willing to take that risk at the prices they are charging.  Back to the people can’t afford it…  Is it not better to make it cheaper, and therefore more accessible to the greater population than put it in a price range that only allows it to be affordable to those who aren’t earning around the average wage?  Surely this would give more value to the product placement they seem to be placing into films these days.  If we all purchased the content we wanted to these days then there would be a lot of people missing out on things that they should be spending their money on.  Like food, rent and other necessities.

Another issue is that I’m not a Mac or Windows user, I use Linux on my computer.  Now whilst I am aware that I am part of a very small percentage of the potential market, there is no real alternative as iTunes does not have a Linux install.  I therefore must either choose to use a commercial OS, or make do with what is available to me.  The world is moving away from expensive products and embracing the free communities out there, it’s no longer easy for big business to make an easy buck, and it seems more and more like these big businesses just don’t know how to deal with that so they are throwing their tantrums and taking their bat and ball as well as the park.  The whole concept isn’t about not paying for stuff, but it’s about having more choice about what we want to pay for.

The content industries seem to have tunnel vision, they see that there’s big money to be made in content and the best way to make everyone pay to see that content.  They fail to see that by making it cheaper  and more accessible not only will they have more sales, but their carefully placed product placements that earn them money will in fact get more views.  There are loads of content creators out there offering cheap stuff and raising the money themselves without the help of big business.  I would much rather these people got my money than big business that tries to dictate terms.

Finally, what about the issue of borrowing content from friends?  We like to know what we are paying for before we purchase it.  Even if they did bring in laws that prevent online piracy, they couldn’t stop legitimate copies being loaned amongst friends.  They don’t seem to be putting GPS trackers in DVD’s these days to track who watches what.  The whole idea that something that is designed to be shown to the public is then regulated with huge legal consequences seems ridiculous when you think about the fact that these issues have been building since the invention of the portable cassette player.  Content is meant to be shared and watched, charging for the right to listen/watch it is not the best way to make money from it.  The content is a means to creating the branding, and it’s the branding that they should be making money from, not the content itself.  The idea that trying to view that content through online means should be illegal is in fact almost offensive to some when they are giving it away for the small price of having ads incorporated.  Most people will only buy DVD of TV shows because they have seen the shows on “Free to Air” TV.   If they provided free legitimate copies on a website, even with small incorporated banner ads, they would get more support.  All these law and lawsuits are doing is disenfranchising the viewing public from the production companies and Movie/TV Execs and giving the public more of a desire to “Steal” their product.  After all, “it’s only the big companies that can afford to loose stuff” isn’t it?

I’m sure the issue arises because the Exec’s say that they are loosing sales because of Internet piracy.  The truth for me is that I will only buy stuff I really like, I won’t spend money on crap, and I won’t spend money on something I don’t think is worth the price they are asking.  A lot of the time that means I miss out on having a shiny well presented package.  It certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t buy things that I think are worth it.  TV and Movie Exec’s are greedy dicks, they prove that time and time again…  Just look at some of Joss Whedon’s work.   I’ll happily spend money on good stuff, and I’ll happily collect DVD’s and Blueray.  But the idea that I’m stealing by downloading their stuff and watching it before I buy a collection I find offensive.  If they don’t want people to watch it, then find another means of making money.

Interesting side note…  Most of the stuff I buy is not the big budget stuff, it’s the small budget stuff where you can tell the people making the production are really into it and aren’t just there to make as much money as possible.  I find the Hollywood big budget films mostly crap and even try and avoid them at the movies, waiting until they are weekly hires at the video shop.

This is no small issue and I’m sure if you wanted to you could almost devote an entire week of shows to the various aspects of the discussion.

Yours in friendly free and open discussion,
Syridian.