Why should piracy be encouraged, a third world perspective | Hacker News Reader

Why should piracy be encouraged, a third world perspective

rohansehgalsoasis.blogspot.in

41 pointsnos4A215 comments

In most articles about why people pirate movies, I find that two points are mentioned.

1) Getting a movie the legal way is much slower and harder than getting it in a few minutes at the comfort of your room

2) There will always be people who don't want to pay for movies.

Now to talk about India specifically, the first point breaks down. Our internet speeds aren't really high enough to promise that a movie download is faster than taking your bike and renting the DVD for ₹25-50 nearby.

Regarding 2), we find that people have no qualms buying tickets at theaters for > ₹100. Buying DVDs however is very rare, at least among the average Indian populace.

So unless we find a middle ground piracy is still going to happen. And frankly, I think we have much bigger problems than piracy to tackle.

Just my ₹2

Completely agree.. this calculation makes sense to me, the average salary of a college graduate in the US is 5000$, and a DVD costs around 50$, so by the same proportion a DVD should cost between 100 and 300 Rs. However a Game DVD costs 2300 Rs. i.e. no middle ground..

The average DVD costs around 10-15 dollars.

Game DVD.. not movies..

> average salary of a college graduate in the US is 5000$

Median personal income for a US person age 25+ with a BS degree or higher is $49303 per year. If you only consider those with a full-time job, it's $56078.

It seems he was talking in a per-month basis, even for the use of the word 'salary'. But I may be wrong.

With a BS, that is. That excludes large swathes of college educated people who have less valuable BA's.

That's still $40k for full-time, not $5k.

About 1) Yes, broadband is less prevalent in India. But, storage costs are low. It is easy to get it from a friend who has the movie.

In how many cities do you find a legal DVD renting service for INR 50 ?

2) You are spot on about the 2nd point. It is a marketing failure on the part of movie studios that DVDs are still such a niche market. Multiplexes and cafes are booming, so why not DVDs. Availability may again be a factor. Before Flipkart, buying a DVD was a chore, esp. if you don't live close to a shopping mall.

1: Indian Government must encourage piracy. 2: Internet enlightens people. 3: It is in the interest of a large organisation to keep people in the dark (like governments in third world countries)

If 2 & 3 are correct, how will 1 ever happen?

"moderates cost based on the consumer, that is based on the income of the customer the rates change" is the stupidest shit I have had the misfortune of reading today.

1 is a distant hope, that if the indian govt were ideal, it would encourage piracy, however as point 3 is valid, yes it will never encourage..

And moderating cost based on the customer's income (the difference of purchasing power of an Indian vs an American) already happens, many games are lower priced in specific regions, the point made here is that it should happen universally

I find this to be pointlessly harsh: >> .. is the stupidest shit I have had the misfortune of reading today.

If you disagree with something, please explain why. Throwing around insults really doesn't add any value. [1]

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You're right. I just found the whole article rather poorly thought out when compared to the articles that I usually find posted here and was a little irritated. Could have explained why that concept won't work rather than just abuse.

1. How will you find out people's income? The only way is to let them tell you. The people who report their correct income are the sort who would have bought your DVD at your price anyway. And the people who are the sort to lie to save money would rather get it for free right? There's also the problem of people not wanting to disclose their income to any tom, dick or harry who asks.

2. Any sort of price discrimination is generally a bad idea regardless of the basis of discrimination. A better idea is to push the price per unit down to the point where it's a no-brainer to buy it. (I think it was Lady Gaga who sold her latest album for a buck per copy and generated huge sales volume)

Besides, we don't need some newfangled solution that is so hard to implement. The problem is that the people who produce content like music/movies have gotten into a rut in the way they think. We need a Steam (the software by valve) for movies. Just buy a movie and you own it forever. Lost a hard disk and want to watch The Godfather again? Just login and re-download a h264 rip LEGALLY. Have a blue ray player and a fast internet connection? Download the blue ray disk. So many people already download content. The idea should be to make downloading content from legitimate providers a better experience than piratebay and charge a premium for it. Push down the prices and push up the volumes.

To your first question, there is a concept called PPP (purchasing power parity), which measures the cost of a basket of items across regions (a famous implementation is the Big Mac Index), so you wouldn't really go around asking people their salary, it is more in terms of a region or a country..

As to the question about price discrimination it already exists as a result of free market/supply demand.. Bread costs 50 cents in India vs 2.50$ in the US.. That is simply because people as willing to only pay 50c.. But with media, there exists no "need", people consume whatever is given to them, so there is a need to artificially regulate prices, in the long run that will benefit the media houses, they are just too short sighted to see that..

Another point is that increased legal challenges will bog down a system, slow innovation, and increase costs due to having to pay lawyers AND reduced productivity.

The reason people are so tense about sharing is because a) people aren't taken care of by default (which they should and can be), so there's fear associated with survival, b) and this causes us to not be as open to the idea of sharing, where everything belongs to everyone - where one's success is good for everyone else.

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