Hey, all! Expect yet another podcast interview after this one, but in the meantime, I make another trip to DumpsterTech to converse with them about Piracy (and Star Trek)!
As far as piracy, where on the scale would you place people like me? I use torrents as a kind of mega-library - at the moment I'm out of work and don't have money for luxuries. Obviously the knee-jerk answer is "well, go without" but isn't life much poorer without the little joys and entertainments?
That aside, even WITH money for extras, the price of entertainment is shooting up so high that it's difficult to try new products - notably new comics that are trying to get off the ground. While a kind of "iTunes for comics" would solve that problem with digital content being sold for a lower price than paper, the technology isn't quite there yet...
...I take that back. The technology is there, but companies haven't agreed on a distribution method yet.
Regardless, I use torrents to try out things - comics, games, movies - that I can't afford yet but am absolutely going to buy if I like them. Because of torrents, I've bought a ton of TPB's like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN and FABLES, Y: THE LAST MAN and BLUE BEETLE. I've purchased video games that I already downloaded. Hell, I just downloaded Rock Band Unplugged and loved it so much that it's going to be one of my first purchases once I get a job.
Besides, downloading is all well and good, but it will take up a ton of space on your hard drives. (Don't ask me how many gigs I'm using right now.) Purchasing physical copies will always be something consumers will want because there's a distinct tactile pleasure in owning something physical rather than digital.
Whaddya think? (FYI, we went over this after Scans Daily exploded in episode 13 of Made Of Fail...LEWIS. XD)
Great listen! You guys are spot on about digital distribution and companies not been able to catch up with the new technology (monkey's out of the bottle!). You're also correct about downloading illegally in the case when there is no other way of getting it. Here in Russia (not in Siberia or anything - in f%cking Moscow) I can't get sh!t of what I'm interested in - it's either translated (usually very poorly) or (much more often) just nonexistent. And Amazon just hates us (or doesn't care, I'm not really sure) - so downloading illegally is hands down the most convenient and the most reliable way.
Btw, is it just me, or does your brother sounds an awful lot like you (especially whenever he's starting to talk after a pause)
As a member of the furry fandom, the paranoia over art theft for the millions of artists in the community is hugely prevalent, and several artists have fallen off the 'net, because of it, so I know all too well the alleged threat of piracy. The amount of artists who believe in the alleged evils of digital distribution and are against it is staggering, despite the fact that the furry fandom was essentially born from the internet and digital distribution, and most of the content being distributed aren't being sold, altered, or claimed to be created by anyone but the real artist themselves.
However, I agree with what you and your friends said about piracy on this interview, and I know of several examples of people in the fandom taking advantage of this kind of distribution to gain more fans; for example, paid membership-based websites are growing, and there's been a big jump in artists doing live video streams of themselves making their artwork. Yes, there are a few idiots like the infamous SibeHusky (a really bad douche who has a long history of litigation against him for both digital furry art piracy and harassment against the various conventions the community has), but those are few and far between. So yeah, if you ever want to see the full implications of the macrocosm of digital piracy and the debate over it, just look at the furry fandom and laugh your head off.
As far as Star Trek is concerned, I think I'm going to take your concerns as a warning to not see the new movie. From what I've heard of it from you and other sources, I throw this into the same pile as the Bayformer movies; what could've been an epic return to an awesome series gutted and raped into a generic action flick with little to no resemblance to the original source. I pray to god this isn't what the Short Circuit remake is going to turn into, but with the original writers being passed over for the guy who did Greg the Bunny and Robot Chicken, and the phrase "Subversive edge" thrown in, I have my doubts.
And don't worry about Sony burning down your house, the real evil is from Acer; I know from experience their hard drives are volatile enough to potentially set fire to your local Best Buy.
As far as piracy, where on the scale would you place people like me? I use torrents as a kind of mega-library - at the moment I'm out of work and don't have money for luxuries. Obviously the knee-jerk answer is "well, go without" but isn't life much poorer without the little joys and entertainments?
ReplyDeleteThat aside, even WITH money for extras, the price of entertainment is shooting up so high that it's difficult to try new products - notably new comics that are trying to get off the ground. While a kind of "iTunes for comics" would solve that problem with digital content being sold for a lower price than paper, the technology isn't quite there yet...
...I take that back. The technology is there, but companies haven't agreed on a distribution method yet.
Regardless, I use torrents to try out things - comics, games, movies - that I can't afford yet but am absolutely going to buy if I like them. Because of torrents, I've bought a ton of TPB's like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN and FABLES, Y: THE LAST MAN and BLUE BEETLE. I've purchased video games that I already downloaded. Hell, I just downloaded Rock Band Unplugged and loved it so much that it's going to be one of my first purchases once I get a job.
Besides, downloading is all well and good, but it will take up a ton of space on your hard drives. (Don't ask me how many gigs I'm using right now.) Purchasing physical copies will always be something consumers will want because there's a distinct tactile pleasure in owning something physical rather than digital.
Whaddya think? (FYI, we went over this after Scans Daily exploded in episode 13 of Made Of Fail...LEWIS. XD)
Great listen! You guys are spot on about digital distribution and companies not been able to catch up with the new technology (monkey's out of the bottle!). You're also correct about downloading illegally in the case when there is no other way of getting it. Here in Russia (not in Siberia or anything - in f%cking Moscow) I can't get sh!t of what I'm interested in - it's either translated (usually very poorly) or (much more often) just nonexistent. And Amazon just hates us (or doesn't care, I'm not really sure) - so downloading illegally is hands down the most convenient and the most reliable way.
ReplyDeleteBtw, is it just me, or does your brother sounds an awful lot like you (especially whenever he's starting to talk after a pause)
As a member of the furry fandom, the paranoia over art theft for the millions of artists in the community is hugely prevalent, and several artists have fallen off the 'net, because of it, so I know all too well the alleged threat of piracy. The amount of artists who believe in the alleged evils of digital distribution and are against it is staggering, despite the fact that the furry fandom was essentially born from the internet and digital distribution, and most of the content being distributed aren't being sold, altered, or claimed to be created by anyone but the real artist themselves.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I agree with what you and your friends said about piracy on this interview, and I know of several examples of people in the fandom taking advantage of this kind of distribution to gain more fans; for example, paid membership-based websites are growing, and there's been a big jump in artists doing live video streams of themselves making their artwork. Yes, there are a few idiots like the infamous SibeHusky (a really bad douche who has a long history of litigation against him for both digital furry art piracy and harassment against the various conventions the community has), but those are few and far between. So yeah, if you ever want to see the full implications of the macrocosm of digital piracy and the debate over it, just look at the furry fandom and laugh your head off.
As far as Star Trek is concerned, I think I'm going to take your concerns as a warning to not see the new movie. From what I've heard of it from you and other sources, I throw this into the same pile as the Bayformer movies; what could've been an epic return to an awesome series gutted and raped into a generic action flick with little to no resemblance to the original source. I pray to god this isn't what the Short Circuit remake is going to turn into, but with the original writers being passed over for the guy who did Greg the Bunny and Robot Chicken, and the phrase "Subversive edge" thrown in, I have my doubts.
And don't worry about Sony burning down your house, the real evil is from Acer; I know from experience their hard drives are volatile enough to potentially set fire to your local Best Buy.