Online piracy - lie beyond

So piracy is theft, no doubt about it, artists loose, labels loose, everyone looses and eventually, even those going for the freebies will loose for artists won't be able to commit seriously to publish anything.

But there's a big lie on all of this...
The lie being the true losses in this industry, which in reality are far inferior and I mean mega-far from the numbers publishing related companies want you, copyright agencies and the government to believe.

It's easy to explain why.
Let's say you have 10 dollars, and let's say a CD costs 10 dollars.

These 10 dollars are all the money you have.
Now let's say you buy the CD - congratulations, you've just fed the chain and artists can go on thinking the standard system will make them (last) rich.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say you.. er... (for the sake of argument, *ahem*)... Let's say you "copy" that CD from someone else and you pay a big ZERO for it.

Now, let's do the math, how much did the industry lost?
Well, it lost 10 dollars. Correct.

Now let's expand...
Let's say you copy THREE CD's for free, paying zilch, nada, nienti, a black hole... Now you have THREE copies and still have your ten dollars in the pocket. And now is where the real versus made up math comes in...

How much will the industry say it lost? You guessed it, they will say they lost "three" CD's, hence, 30 dollars. BUT...

The truth, and the real truth is that they ONLY lost 10 dollars, this is the one and only REAL number, the REAL loss of the industry, because ten dollars is all you had to start with and you can't "make up" money as the labels/publishing companies seem to be doing.

You now see, as everyone should, that the real loss was way inferior - believe it or not - in this case, 10 dollars. This is the truth, the real truth, the one that should be said and advertised, instead of making up fake and huge (and unreal) "loss" numbers based on just number of (free or cheap) copies around!

It's simple to explain why labels and publishers are living a fantasy: If piracy was absolutely impossible, in the example above, you'd only be able to buy one and one only CD, and they would make only 10 dollars on that CD, the other two would never be sold to you, for you would not have enough money for them. The industry will never ever make the money they say they are loosing, because that money simply does not exist.

Technically speaking they are not loosing, what they are not is "winning" a possible but far inferior real value and blasting the rest with irrational liberty and user-rights threatening DRM and government lobbies that further irritate consumers and even some artists, it's a down curve all the way to minus infinite with the only variable being time.

So, for all that matters, publishers may stick their fake "losses" numbers where the sun don't ever shine and come up with either the real numbers - thus knowing what they can count with if piracy stops - or they can keep on dreaming with totally fake numbers and investing ridiculous sums in DRM and bigbrother like total control to get money that.. er... doesn't exist... Ergo, this irrationality that is trying to get what does not exist will cause everyone to loose because, mathematically speaking, there really is nothing to be gained (not as huge anyway), physically speaking, you can't make it up.

The industry is loosing, yes, it's loosing it's mind and throwing away it's money on a witch hunt.

(Having said that, do buy my music if you can.)

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved