Online piracy is not like shoplifting [SATN]
Pirating works online is really more like kids watching a baseball game through a hole in the outfield wall, or listening to a concert just outside the gate. There is no out-of-pocket expense for that particular copy, just a possible loss of potential revenue. If your costs are low enough and you have some sales, you can tolerate lost sales that have no expense and still actually make a profit. (It’s like some summer concerts where the patrons pay a lot to sit in seats up front while thousands of others sit on the field outside listening for free.)
More insightful comentary from Dan Bricklin. ONe of the reasons that I enjoy reading blogs is the chance to see reasoning in progress when I see so little of it elsewhere. I think what I need is a Jolly Roger flag to stick on my laptop. The RIAA and others are using the piracy meme to obscure issues rather than clarify. But with Bricklin’s perspective I conjure images of Captain Hook and Peter Pan rather than Bluebeard.
This NASA website offers a streaming quicktime movie of our moon setting on the horizon, as viewed from the International Space Station. The moon turns into a squashy, pink pancake as it sets, and this science primer explains why.