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The entitled generation....Are they right?

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Lashiec:
Should music/movies be free or are the content creators well within their right to charge? It seems that society today has produced a group of people who feel everything should be free and that they are entitled to the hard work of others without any sort of compensation. What are your thoughts?
-Josh (April 12, 2009, 01:49 PM)
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I assume that group of people will also do their work for free, then ;D

Slowly, content creators are 'getting it', so things will turn for the better. How long it will take? That's another question. I'm also worried about the high probability of the big media companies doing something similar to what music labels did with the tape to CD transition. Cheaper medium, but higher quality. Let's double the asking price! Probably this won't happen with digital distribution, but I see them keeping the prices the same as if you were getting a physical copy.

In the end, that group of the people won't pay creators for their work, though. I mean, if something it's available for free, why pay for it? Perhaps I'm being a bit pessimistic about it, but when you see people pirating games even if they're available for maybe 5 or 10 € in any store (the cost of a mere beer in certain bars), and telling you not to pay for movies, music, even books, because they're up on the interwebz, you don't expect them to change.

40hz:
Are they right?
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In a word: No.

- Just because somebody wants something does not mean they also have the right to take it.
 
- Just because something is relatively easy to steal does not give someone the right to steal it.

- And the unlikelihood of being caught does not change the fact that theft is wrong and ultimately hurts everybody.

Just my 2¢

wraith808:
^ this.

CWuestefeld:
A few thoughts:

I believe that anyone has the right to attempt to sell the legitimate fruit of their labors for whatever people are willing to pay for it. If people want to buy the music or movies, then who are we to say they can't? And on the other hand, who has the right to declare the fruit of another person's labor to be free for the taking?

That said, the entertainment industry is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It's trying to tell us that we can't have a license to the music without buying the media. But the converse must be considered as well: once I've bought the media/license, they've got no right to demand full price to upgrade the media. I've bought some records three, four, even five times (e.g., Boston, Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Master of Puppets) as media has worn out or I need to upgrade format. Once I've paid for the right to hold a copy of Boston, how can they charge me again for the same right I already own, when I want to upgrade from cassette to CD? And it seems like a large part of their business model is based on selling media upgrades (or, slightly less sleazy, upgrades to the "director's cut", etc., of a movie). When I upgrade from cassette to CD, or DVD to Blu-Ray, I should be able to do so for the cost of the media plus a nominal handling charge since I've already purchased a license to the content.

It seems like it's the entertainment industry that is demonstrating more of an attitude of entitlement. The way they run their business -- not just DRM, but more fundamentally their means of building up a relatively small number of global stars -- is what leads to the problems they're experiencing.

I believe that if the industry was more fractured, with a zillion performers, then (a) any one performer/producer/etc. would be able to better satisfy a smaller segment of market -- a genre. The effects of piracy would necessarily be more localized so any "leak" would cause less damage, and I believe that because there would be a shorter distance, and closer link, between the fan and the performer, there would be less temptation to steal (I think that as relationships become more personal, people behave better). The only downside that I can see to this is that Hollywood would no longer be able to underwrite special effects thrillers with 9-digit budgets, but I don't think this is a big loss. Certainly the studio have no "entitlement" to produce such movies. And I don't see how the music industry would be harmed at all by such a shift.

Eóin:
My thinking seems to follow what CWuestefeld just said. If all the content industries collapsed tonight we'd still wake up tomorrow with an endless supply of creative content being produced. Open source proves that would be the case, money is not the only motivation behind creativity.

Sure the entitled generation is a bad thing. And I agree yes that priacy is stealing. But if we get realistic for a moment it's naive to let those pesky moral issues come into play when the 'industries' were talking about really are just capitalist greed machines.

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