Yes, I've watched quite a few episodes of "Penn & Teller: Bullshit" so I felt a bit inspired to the rude title.
Downloading copyrighted material became officially illegal here in Sweden today. Yesterday it was illegal only to upload the material, but not downloading. So what does this new law is going to achieve? Nothing of course. Exactly how can this law be enforced when there are almost a million downloaders, most of them high school and college students ? The sole thought of sending a million people to jail or making each of them pay big money in fines is completely ridiculous. Just imagine how much would it cost to the state. Of course, the authorities have already said that they won't be focusing on those yougsters.
The big companies claim that they are loosing money because of file sharing. They even claim that they're cutting jobs. Despite that their movies have higher and higher budgets, and they can even afford to pay exaggerated salaries to their leading stars. Most of the time they get their investment back at the box office, if enough people think that the movie is good. Take for instance such blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Really expensive flicks, but people paid gladly because the movies were actually good. I can think of hundreds of thousands who saw the movies more than once at the movie theathre and bought the original DVD's and as much official merchandise they could put their hands on. The company got their money back and a little more, despite the fact that many decided to illegally download the movies. The bottom line is that those who REALLY like a movie are likely to spend their money watching it. That's what happens when the material has high artistic quality.
As with music, well it's pretty much the same. The music that is easier to find on the net is music from artists that are already selling good. In that sense filesharing has a similar function as the radio. The companies do not make money directly, but they get the possibility of catching the attention of potentiall customers, in other words, those who download the album and then go out and buy it (quite a LOT of people do this). On the contrary those who do not like what they hear are more likely to erase the mp3 files from their hard drives. A good album will always sell good.
When companies release shit that nobody likes (which they do quite often) that's when they'll loose money for shure. People will not pay to see a bad movie. They will not buy the DVD, and they will not even download it or watch it when it shows on TV. The same applies to records. People will not go to concerts if they do not like the music, and they won't download songs they do not like. Loosing money because of filesharing? BULLSHIT!
Do you want people buying your stuff? Sell it cheaper! Cheaper records, videos and movie tickets WILL GET YOU BIGGER AUDIENCES AND BIGGER SALES! Movies and music are culture, and culture should be really available to the public. Stop being so greedy!
As for the people who liked the stuff and downloaded it... Keep in mind that most of them are students with fragile economies, so that's a cheap way for them to taste culture. A lot of them WILL BUY the original stuff eventually, when they have the money to do it.
