Re: [tlug] Pretending to be outside Japan?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > Yes, "piracy" (armed robbery of a ship at sea?)

It's the legal term for stealing from a business explicitly sanctioned
from the sovereign.  As far as I know it's never been applied
consistently to other IP by the content managers the way it is to
digital media, but "pirating ideas" and "pirate copies" are common
idioms used quite broadly.

 > Every torrent download represents an opportunity for profit, IMO.

The problem is the law of one price.  If they lower the price to you,
they have to lower it to the other paying customers.  Finding ways to
charge different prices to different customers is one of the
fundamental challenges for information businesses and for policy makers.

 > There are a lot of people like us out there who have disposable
 > income that we can spend on media, and actually prefer to do it all
 > legally.

Sure, but the problem is that there probably aren't as many as you
think there.  Christensen's "disruptive innovation" analysis applies
here.  The big content owners need to grow, which means huge amounts
of revenue are needed.  You might be right, there's enough they could
earn from people like you.  But I have to wonder given this math:

 > And I would also pay for access to interesting new release movies
 > earlier than they make it to Netflix, if iTunes or Amazon had a
 > price point of around 35 SEK / 350 JPY / 3 USD / 3 EUR / 3 GBP for
 > unlimited streaming of that title. But 50 SEK / 500 JPY / ... to
 > "rent" and 80 SEK / 800 JPY / ... to buy is absurd,

Hardly "absurd"; if it were, demand would be zero and they'd surely
lower their prices.  

But let's see: A "big" Hollywood movie grosses about 250 oku-en.
Let's suppose that 10% of that comes from renters, 25 oku-en.  30%
(the price cut you demand) leaves 17.5 oku-en.  Divide by 350 yen,
gives 500 man, or 5 million additional views *per flick* just to make
up for the price cut.  Do you really think so?  The math for the 55%
price cut you suggest for unlimited streaming works out to require
*more* additional purchases.

 > which means that the content resellers miss out on around 200 SEK /
 > 2000 JPY of my money every month

Which is nothing.  The big voters in AKB elections buy DVDs in round
lots at what, 5000 a pop?  That's 500,000 yen.  That would keep you
happy for more than 20 years.

 > (much like books, I like the tactile experience of putting a DVD in
 > the player and sitting back on the couch with a bowl of popcorn).

This sounds like a business opportunity.  Somebody should sell blank
disks with titles on the labels, then you can put them in your DVD
player for the tactile experience, while firing up the actual content
from your hard disk. :-)

 > I don't see how this makes me and / or Benjamin a moron. I'd rather
 > say it makes the executives of content owning companies morons for
 > not making it possible for us to give them money.

Oh, you can always write a check.