13 Dec
2002
13 Dec
'02
11:30 p.m.
On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 10:22:05PM -0800, Wayne M.
Smith wrote:
> > As seen on Slashdot; an decent read. I'll have to admit that I agree
> > with much of what O'Reilly has to say here:
> > <http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html?page=1>
> >
> I became dubious as soon as he trotted out the "sample-then-buy" myth.
While
> this argument might not have been laughable 4-5
years ago before CD burners
were
cheap and
widespread, it's preposterous today.
It isn't. I've bought quite a stack of CDs after copying the MP3-files
from friends who encoded their collections. Without freely swapped
MP3-encoded music, I would never have heard about most of those bands
(because they aren't plugged by million dollar ads from some big record
company). In my experience, swapping music is basically (almost) free
advertising. Yes, there will always be a load of freeriders who'll just
burn a CD instead of buying it - but most of them wouldn't have bought
the CD anyway, so thats not much of a loss.