I think that our pricing models for media are vestigial remnants of an era that suffered from a distribution problem.
When I buy a $15 kindle ebook that is from a publishing house vs a $2 kindle ebook that is self published, I have a sense that the artist in both instances gets a similar amount of money - that is to say, the publishing house is what is making that book expensive.
Same with music. The cost of production and distribution is close to zero, with a hobbyist grade audio set up and a laptop one could produce an album the same as anyone else and with decades old P2P software distribute it for free to the globe.
So when artists sell their art for a fair price - $2/3 for an ebook, $4/5 for an album, I'll buy it. When prices go beyond that its usually because a big distributor is involved and I don't mind just pirating the content.
Same with TV. I pay for Netflix and Hulu and I go to theaters. If you withhold your content from those services, or it doesn't warrant a $40 theatre experience, I just pirate it. Also, sometimes I want to watch some TV shows on the go, so I'll pirate something available via Hulu and store it on a device for later consumption.
So really it has nothing to do with copyright, just that I feel that their pricing is out of control and piracy has been made mainstream and easy enough that I don't mind piracy to fill in the gaps to the services I subscribe to.
It is disingenuous to say it has nothing to do with copyright. Copyright is the law your are ignoring when you decide to pirate it because the price is too high.
I presume that if you feel able to opt-out of that law that you wouldn't mind if I opted out of laws designed to protect your interests if I find them inconvenient.
When I buy a $15 kindle ebook that is from a publishing house vs a $2 kindle ebook that is self published, I have a sense that the artist in both instances gets a similar amount of money - that is to say, the publishing house is what is making that book expensive.
Same with music. The cost of production and distribution is close to zero, with a hobbyist grade audio set up and a laptop one could produce an album the same as anyone else and with decades old P2P software distribute it for free to the globe.
So when artists sell their art for a fair price - $2/3 for an ebook, $4/5 for an album, I'll buy it. When prices go beyond that its usually because a big distributor is involved and I don't mind just pirating the content.
Same with TV. I pay for Netflix and Hulu and I go to theaters. If you withhold your content from those services, or it doesn't warrant a $40 theatre experience, I just pirate it. Also, sometimes I want to watch some TV shows on the go, so I'll pirate something available via Hulu and store it on a device for later consumption.
So really it has nothing to do with copyright, just that I feel that their pricing is out of control and piracy has been made mainstream and easy enough that I don't mind piracy to fill in the gaps to the services I subscribe to.