What IP does is create the opportunity for "walk-away income" which is saying it allows someone to separate income from hours.
A popular lecturer has only so many hours in a year in which he/he can make money lecturing. And so many venues in which to do it.
Record the seminar on a video, and the money earned is
not directly linked to the lecturer's presence. And the venue becomes what is most convenient to the listener. No need to run out somewhere to hear something you want to hear. You can put in on when and where you wish - and listen to it as many times as you want. Big benefit to the listener that's not possible otherwise.
Put the same information in a book and it has the potential to reach millions and doesn't require sophisticated technology to access it. Big benefit for the less financially well off - or those in less advanced environments - yet still retains the benefits of the recorded seminar.
Publish electronically and the buyer gets all of the above plus the convenience of instant access. Benefit again.
Pirate any of the above and the lecturer gets zero for all the additional benefits provided. His/her income opportunities are reduced to what can be made by doing a live presentation. Their income once again becomes tied to physical hours. Furthermore, the pirated copies have the potential to reduce what might have otherwise been a valuable product to a commodity. Why pay for it at all when you can get it for free?
Basically, the creator of intellectual property is once again reduced to
swapping hours of lifetime for dollars on a one-to-one basis. Which serves to put an absolute cap on one's earning potential even under the most ideal set of circumstances.
But it gets worse. With the commoditization of IP something else bad happens. Piracy serves to drive out professionals. Because once you can no longer make a living, the only people that can afford to pursue an activity are the wealthy and the amateurs.
If you look at literature prior to the 20th century, writing was the playground of the wealthy and privileged. And the books reflected the interests and biases of those who wrote them. Books were written by "the establishment" and preached establishment politics and mores. It wasn't until independent publishers started making inexpensive books and pamphlets (and paying authors) that differing viewpoints got more broadly into circulation - sometimes with disruptive ideas that reshaped the societies themselves.
Pirating IP isn't liberating. It does little more than reduce people that create IP to an hourly wage since it destroys the opportunity for walk-away income. Which on turn puts a cap on creative earnings. Which eventually kills off professionalism and gives the stage to the amateurs and the idle. Because why would anybody with an ounce of brains want to go through all the trouble of being creative when they could just get a job doing something a lot easier. And likely for the same (or more) money?
Pirating is a game changer. But not in the way some people think. What it mostly does is switch the formula for
who is doing the screwing. It used to be the studios and record labels who were ripping off the talent. Now it's their fans.
Yeah...that's so much better.
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@Ren - you still didn't answer my earlier question about whether or not you felt there would be harm if I were to crack your software and start giving it away to as many people as I could. And also encourage them to do the same. Because if I read some of what you're saying correctly, by your calculus and rationale, I wouldn't be doing anything wrong or hurting you in the slightest. In fact, from an anarchist (or libertarian or whatever) viewpoint it seems I'm almost morally bound to do exactly that.
Y'know..."Power to the People - off The Man" and all that other 60s stuff dudes like this used to go on and on about?
(And mostly in coffee shops or Student Union buildings.)
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