"It Is Scientifically Impossible to Stop Filesharing in Music at This Point" *Mises Inside

[BarryDonegan]

It Is Scientifically Impossible to Stop Filesharing in Music at This Point (http://www.gazzmic.com/blogarchive/11-05-13/It_Is_Scientifically_Impossible_to_Stop_Filesharin g_in_Music_at_This_Point.aspx?CntPageID=1)
(full article found at above link)

"With millions blown on lawsuits and very little revenue recovered for the music industry, it is obvious that filesharing can't be stopped. The only way out is to either build a business model that takes advantage of the faster flow of media files or to produce a new way to consume music that makes trading song files obsolete. Either one is very possible, but stopping filesharing, scientifically speaking, is not. Let's stop wasting time and energy on something that has been proven time and time again to be impossible."

....further down in this one is the Mises-based argument for why the phenomenon can't be stopped.

"Understanding Human Action

A Ludwig von Mises reference is truly rare in these types of discussions, but no debate needs the wisdom of this economist more than the one over filesharing. Basically, a large number of human beings participate in filesharing because it benefits them. Paying a la carte for media is something only certain types of consumers enjoy. It is important for the music industry to realize that they can't stop the behavior of filesharers by threatening them. The only way to do it is to change the business model entirely such that revenues can be realized despite this fact.

Never has it been proven that lawsuits, laws, PSAs, or any other disruptive effort can stop filesharing. In fact, in the age of Wikileaks and other unusual phenomenon, it's safe to say few fully understand how the world is changing right now. Trying to stop filesharing is like jumping in front of a speeding bullet train. It is a suicidal effort, not a way to create a 21st century music industry."

What are your thoughts on this?

[ClayTrainor]

What are your thoughts on this?

It's dead on.

[Aldanga]

It's dead on.
+1

[nobody's_hero]

I think the article is right in its assessment of the magnitude of file sharing, but I'm not sure about the deeper implications that something that cannot be stopped is [necessarily] right.

EX:

Our government cannot be made to obey the Constitution, but we know that nearly everything it does is wrong. By the author's logic, we should just accept that this is the way it is and try to adapt.

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

when Sony was putting computer viruses on their music cds, it pretty much sealed the deal for me.

[heavenlyboy34]

It's dead on.

qft.

[BarryDonegan]

I think the article is right in its assessment of the magnitude of file sharing, but I'm not sure about the deeper implications that something that cannot be stopped is [necessarily] right.

EX:

Our government cannot be made to obey the Constitution, but we know that nearly everything it does is wrong. By the author's logic, we should just accept that this is the way it is and try to adapt.

Moral equivalency wasn't being argued in there, just the pragmatic reality that no effort will stop it, so any effort to stop it is wasted. :)

[TheBlackPeterSchiff]

I think the article is right in its assessment of the magnitude of file sharing, but I'm not sure about the deeper implications that something that cannot be stopped is [necessarily] right.

EX:

Our government cannot be made to obey the Constitution, but we know that nearly everything it does is wrong. By the author's logic, we should just accept that this is the way it is and try to adapt.

Just like the govt cant stop illegal drug trafficking. They cant stop file sharing. The movie and music industry messed up by trying to use the force of the govt to stop it, in stead of adjusting to the market and accepting the realities of the environment. They had a chance, but instead of partnering with Napster, they sued it.

[Peace&Freedom]

The entertainment industry corporations arrogantly presumed they could protect their horse-and-carriage delivery systems (and distribution monopoly) by sheer force of lawyers. They were wrong, as the era of newer technology will displace the mass demand for the old, like always.

[fj45lvr]

it is amusing that some of these execs and companies cannot make so much money off of musicians anymore. I guess they will have to find somebody/something to capitalize off of. Kinda like the printed newspaper biz.

[Ytrebil]

I think the article is right in its assessment of the magnitude of file sharing, but I'm not sure about the deeper implications that something that cannot be stopped is [necessarily] right.

EX:

Our government cannot be made to obey the Constitution, but we know that nearly everything it does is wrong. By the author's logic, we should just accept that this is the way it is and try to adapt.

No I think his answer would be that we need to change the "business model". ;)

[nobody's_hero]

No I think his answer would be that we need to change the "business model". ;)

Well, see, we're not going to get anywhere because I'm among the few people on here who believes file-sharing is theft. (here comes the IP debate, lol).

I see it (meaning, no one else has to see it this way, but this is the way I see it, in my opinion), as not really being a free-market issue, just "mob theft", if you will.

If 100 people showed up to my house and stole stuff out of my yard, and I couldn't stop them (free-for-all), what does a business model have to do with that? I am not likely to ask myself "How can I profit off of the theft of my property?"

But, again, I see it as theft of property, and others don't, so we'll probably have to agree to disagree.

[Conza88]

Daily Bell: Where do you stand on copyright? Do you believe that intellectual property doesn't exist as Kinsella has proposed?

Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe: I agree with my friend Kinsella, that the idea of intellectual property rights is not just wrong and confused but dangerous. And I have already touched upon why this is so. Ideas - recipes, formulas, statements, arguments, algorithms, theorems, melodies, patterns, rhythms, images, etc. - are certainly goods (insofar as they are good, not bad, recipes, etc.), but they are not scarce goods. Once thought and expressed, they are free, inexhaustible goods. I whistle a melody or write down a poem, you hear the melody or read the poem and reproduce or copy it. In doing so you have not taken anything away from me. I can whistle and write as before. In fact, the entire world can copy me and yet nothing is taken from me. (If I didn't want anyone to copy my ideas I only have to keep them to myself and never express them.)

Now imagine I had been granted a property right in my melody or poem such that I could prohibit you from copying it or demanding a royalty from you if you do. First: Doesn't that imply, absurdly, that I, in turn, must pay royalties to the person (or his heirs) who invented whistling and writing, and further on to those, who invented sound-making and language, and so on? Second: In preventing you from or making you pay for whistling my melody or reciting my poem, I am actually made a (partial) owner of you: of your physical body, your vocal chords, your paper, your pencil, etc. because you did not use anything but your own property when you copied me. If you can no longer copy me, then, this means that I, the intellectual property owner, have expropriated you and your "real" property. Which shows: intellectual property rights and real property rights are incompatible, and the promotion of intellectual property must be seen as a most dangerous attack on the idea of "real" property (in scarce goods).


http://www.thedailybell.com/1936/Anthony-Wile-with-Dr-Hans-Hermann-Hoppe-on-the-Impracticality-of-One-World-Government-and-Western-style-Democracy.html