Feds say 7 from Megaupload.com ran massive worldwide piracy website
McLEAN, Va. – Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws -- a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular websites such as Wikipedia drew national attention to the issue.
The indictment is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States, according to the FBI.
It accuses seven individuals and two corporations -- Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited -- of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, says that at one point Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world.
Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.
The individuals in the criminal enterprise -- a worldwide ring led by Australians Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, and Kim Tim Jim Vestor -- each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on racketeering charges, five years for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years on money laundering charges and five years on related charges.
The indictment comes the day after a 24-hour "blackout" of Wikipedia, a protest doodle on the homepage of Google, and numerous other protests across the Internet against proposed anti-piracy legislation that many leading websites -- including Reddit, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others -- contend will make it challenging if not impossible for them to operate.
The Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House are bills backed by the motion picture and recording industries intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. S. 968 and H.R. 3261 would require ISPs to block access to foreign websites that infringe on copyrights.
Online piracy from China and elsewhere is a massive problem for the media industry, one that costs as much as $250 billion per year and costs the industry 750,000 jobs, according to a 2008 statement by Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
But how exactly the bills would counter piracy has many up in arms.
Megaupload probably deserved it. I don't think there was any content on there that wasn't pirated. Megaupload honestly is also a pretty popular place for pirating music (and you pay them for it!)
EDIT: On the other hand I'd debate if any money has actually been "lost" in a certain sense. Most people who pirate videos and movies wouldn't pay for them anyway.
Megaupload actually had a lot of non-pirated content. A lot of popular artists occasionally release a megaupload exclusive single or what have you. Plus a metric ton of open source software and random bits of project code or whatever.
Rented Tritium wrote:Megaupload actually had a lot of non-pirated content. A lot of popular artists occasionally release a megaupload exclusive single or what have you. Plus a metric ton of open source software and random bits of project code or whatever.
There was non-pirated software on Megaupload?
Why? Why not use a website without a subscription service and limited downloads?
Love the $250 billion lost to piracy cited in the article.
Fox news is owned by the largest media company in the world, of course. Rupert Murdoch is probably the source behind these American bills.
Agree. While I agree piracy is bad, I think certain industries have taken to it to excuse their own failings on the assumption that people just want their product for free. The possibility that people might be interested but do not want to pay and wouldn't buy it anyway is lost on them *glares at the music and movie industry*
Personally, I'm somewhat surprised at how the entertainment industry, particularly the movie industry, has been slow to embrace subscription services with the option to buy. Sort of like Netflix, but confined to a particular company's products.
I'm also surprised that no one, except iTunes (Which I loathe for a number of reasons.) has come up with an integrated media distribution client.
Dumbasses don't understand.... 1 download DOES NOT equal 1 lost sale.
If I couldn't download movies, I simply wouldn't watch movies. Preventing me from "pirating" will not increase their sales in any way. I would be willing to bet most people like me have a similar attitude.
Manga. If I couldn't read manga off MangaReader.net, I just wouldn't read manga. While I have pirated the occasional film I do actually buy movies. I'm just unwilling to spend any money on another piece of hollywood gak without screening it first to see if its any good. I pirated most of the movies I own before I paid for them.
Joey wrote:Oh damn.
Now I have no idea whatsoever where I can get pirated material.
This sucks :(
Private torrent sites.
I downloaded 50GB of porn today while at work!
It was sarcasm, I use torrents extensively.
Reminds me I need to d/l the latest Family Guy episode.
Or you could watch it for free on Adult Swim.com. (Yes they do have that)
Its funny that they try to pass stuff. What I think the Government should do is help to make a faster and more dependable way than getting stuff off of websites. Make it free but you have to pay a certain amount and you could get alot of free stuff in one month! HELL ZUNE DOES THAT!
Just because I download something isn't because I want it. Its just where i am going to hear it? Youtube?
A day after the SOPA protest on the web, the hacker group Anonymous has taken the blackout theme to a whole new level: in retaliation for the closure of the Megaupload file-sharing site, and for its own SOPA protest, the group has started to systematically take down a number of websites for groups connected to the Megaupload case, including government bodies.
Using distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the hackers have gone after the Department of Justice’s site, the RIAA, the MPAA and the major record labels—so far Universal, BMI and Warner Music Group have been affected.
SEE ALSO: Updated: Day After Piracy Bill Collapses, Feds Shut Down Megaupload
At the moment, the hackers are updating a Twitter feed with news of developments of the attack, which it is code-naming #OpMegaupload. It also appears that it is also going after related sites outside of the U.S. as well.
A series of messages posted on Anonymous’ Twitter feed, have detailed the group’s trail of destruction across the internet.
They are covering not just U.S. sites but also extending their work to similar organizations in Europe, such as Hadopi.fr, which is now also down.
Hadopi is the French law that was introduced in 2009 and is used to regulate internet access and copyright violations in France. This controversial bill basically outlines a three-strikes procedure for suspending internet access for those who download illegal content. There are legislators now considering how to apply this to streamed services as well, which are currently not covered.
Taking down government sites like the DOJ’s and potentially the FBI’s—the Anonymous Twitter feed has mentioned it is working on the latter, although at the time of writing the FBI’s site is still up—could mean the group would be subject not just to felony charges but also potentially terrorist violations.
Cases involving the prosecution of Anonymous hackers are still being played out, so it’s not clear what route authorities may take over this current spate of attacks: hackers that were identified as part of Anonymous are currently being prosecuted in California for allegedly hacking PayPal when the Ebay-owned payments provider halted payments to Wikileaks. Defendants in that case pleaded not guilty in November 2011.
This case could be considerably more difficult to track for authorities: Anonymous says that there are 5,635 people confirmed to be working towards taking down sites.
A DDoS attack can mean several things, but one of the most common is when a person or network of people “attack” a site or server with a flood of communications requests, so that the target cannot respond to normal requests.
Adrian Chen at Gawker further describes how those DDoS attacks are getting amplified using viral techniques: hackers are at the moment spamming out links that effectively rope innocent users into also taking part in the attacks, by clicking on the links to automatically start pinging one of the sites on the target list.
Many of the sites listed above are simply leading to blank pages now, or “down for maintenance” pages, but one site, for the Utah police association, which might have less administrators than those of the DOJ, has been hacked with a message from the hackers about Megaupload:
The MPAA, meanwhile, has taken to posting Twitpics of its statements—for the moment, it has not website to use to post them, and a Twitpic can’t get hacked. “Our website and many others…were attacked today,” begins the 150-word statement. It also says it is working with law enforcement agencies to identify those responsible, and that “Protecting copyrights and protecting free speech go hand in hand.”
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Updated: Day After Piracy Bill Collapses, Feds Shut Down Megaupload
Lame, but I understand completely. File sharing sites that aren't directly linked to topics (like source forge and CNET) are mostly trash anyway, and are just cesspools.
Rock on internet police, just don't touch my Piratebay!
Samus_aran115 wrote:Lame, but I understand completely. File sharing sites that aren't directly linked to topics (like source forge and CNET) are mostly trash anyway, and are just cesspools.
Rock on internet police, just don't touch my Piratebay!
I downloaded a torrent called "Ghost in the Shell 2" on emule back when it came out. One was a French porn, one was a German Snow White and the Seven Dwarves porn, and one was a copy of the first movie. best haul ever!
Anonymous has fallen so low, to the point of even being shunned by their maker for being idiots all the time and making themselves so apparent. Anonymous is just a worthless group of disgruntled young white men with computers.
Samus_aran115 wrote:Anonymous... just the name makes my skin crawl.
Anonymous has fallen so low, to the point of even being shunned by their maker for being idiots all the time and making themselves so apparent. Anonymous is just a worthless group of disgruntled young white men with computers.
You may think your safe but your not. Anonymous will attack people who say that. But then the FBI will break into their houses.... again.
Megaupload probably deserved it. I don't think there was any content on there that wasn't pirated. Megaupload honestly is also a pretty popular place for pirating music (and you pay them for it!)
Actually you pay them for a premium membership to get faster downloads. You're not paying for copyrighted material. I've seen DMCA agents claiming that Megaupload was actually very quick to respond to notices that they had copyrighted material on their servers and took it down promptly. Of any large file sharing site on the internet they were probably one of the best about trying to abide by the law. I've downloaded probably north of 50 gigs worth of material off of MU, none of it pirated. There were plenty of non-copyright infringing uses for MU.
They're both pretty dubious.
How does one accurately determine what sales would have occurred if not for piracy?
As someone who has pirated music, movies, and games in the past I can say that for me at least I almost never pirated anything I'd have actually paid for. I usually pirated music that I was only interested in a single song or two from an artist and wouldn't pay for an entire CD, movies that were not even worth the $3 to rent them, and games that had meh reviews that I'd never have paid full price for but might play for a couple days. A few times I did actually wind up paying for a game after pirating it just because it was actually fun, or buy a CD from a band that surprised me. On the whole though, my piracy cost the entertainment industry nothing because I'd have never bought 99% of the stuff I pirated legitametly and the 1% I would have paid for, I did wind up paying for.
Why did I stop? Amazon MP3 and Netflix/Redbox. Once I could just buy a high quality MP3 of a single song for a buck there was no longer any reason to pirate music. Once I could pay $10 and rent all the movies I could stomach in a month, or $1 to watch one for a night there stopped being any reason to pirate. And games, well I've got four kids so I don't have the time for a bunch of them anymore anyways. If the movie studios would start to offer Blu-Ray quality downloads of their movies for $5 or even $10 I'd buy a hell of a lot more movies.
I don't suggest that every pirate is like me, but I do suspect that "lost revenue" due to piracy is probably over estimated by an order of magnitude or even two. Lost jobs? feth off. How many movies released in theatres last year failed to make a profit?
Its possible that's the only reason, but I suspect there's more to it. People running major corporations aren't generally out-and-out stupid.
No, but you can get set in your ways. The entertainment industry is stuck, or appears to be stuck, in their 1950's business model where they are borderline monopolies. They've gotten used to the way things have gone for the last 20+ years. Make a movie, release it in theatres and double or triple their money on it. Six months later release it on VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray and rake in another mountain of cash. That's the way it's worked for decades. Now their business model is being assailed on all sides. The theatres are becoming less attractive now that people have small movie theatres in the living rooms with 40"+ TVs and 5.1 surround sound. Heck, people are realizing that comdies are just as funny on their 20" TV at home as they are in the theatre so why pay $50 for two people to go see it in the theatre when you can just watch it at home in a few months? Netflix and others are hammering DVD and Blu-Ray sales by offering cheap rentals as much as they want. Streaming? Heart attack. So, just like the music industry spent a decade screaming and nashing it's teeth before finally admitting defeat and starting to alter their business model we're going to have to listen to the death throes of the movie industry's business model until enough people vote with their wallets.
Yeah, the music industry screamed bloody murder at the introduction of the MP3 player, too, for example. And the cassette player. And the music CD. And the vinyl disk. And the autopiano before all of these. The industry is lazy.
Melissia wrote:Yeah, the music industry screamed bloody murder at the introduction of the MP3 player, too, for example. And the cassette player. And the music CD. And the vinyl disk. And the autopiano before all of these. The industry is lazy.
And the film industry with the laser disc/Video tape.
There was attempted legislation to ban cassette technology for make it read only.
Same to same for Video tape IIRC.
I don't know how they calculate the amount lost to the industry. Obviously people download to avoid paying for something, or maybe because they resent paying a particular amount for something. I don't think music albums are all that cheap to be honest. But because downloading is free many people do so on a whim. The suggestion that downloads = sales lost is obviously false. If they had to pay for it, they either wouldn't get the album in the first place or at least give it second thoughts and be very selective. Putting your hand in your pocket for £10-15 isn't like clicking "download" on the screen. No point in pretending that it is.
It may seem odd that some artists actually show some support for things like Megaupload, but the reason is that they probably don't make much money from record sales. They make money from live performances so the song release is advertising, the record company get all that profit. To the artist, the more people hearing their music the better, how they hear it may not be all that important. This has been seen among some authors, who make very little money out of book sales. Some release them online and make all their money through online sales and personal appearances.
Simple fact is that music sales are not what they were 20-30 years ago especially among teenagers. There's a lot of things competing for their time and money now even though kids seem to have more disposable income than ever. And that's before you get around to the discussion over whether modern music is crap. Maybe people just don't place much value on modern music meaning it would have to be a lot cheaper to make them want to buy legally and support the companies.
The music industry seems to be flailing around like a wounded elephant at the moment and attacking the internet isn't the solution just as attacking home cassette recording wasn't the solution in the 80s. Companies like Apple have them over a barrel because that's where sales are to be made and they didn't believe it at first. What I don't believe are the doom-mongers claiming that music companies will be destroyed, than films will no longer be made, etc. The entertainment industry will find a way.
I'm not sure it's accurate to say that simply because you wouldn't have bought the movie otherwise that it doesn't count as a "loss" for the company.
If the company expects that 10 million people are interested in seeing a movie that costs $20 million they will price each copy of that movie based on those figures ($2/each). But if 20% of those people pirate the movie rather than paying for it the company loses 20% of its revenue.
Obviously they could price the movie based on "likely purchasers" but then the price would go up, incentivizing more people to pirate...
I applaud the takedown of Megavideo/upload. It was clearly a site that revolved around pirated material. And, the government actually went through the courts rather than what SOPA is proposing.
While I will miss Megaupload, I know that they really did deserve to get shut down.
biccat wrote:If the company expects that 10 million people are interested in seeing a movie that costs $20 million they will price each copy of that movie based on those figures ($2/each).
Haha wow.
Wait, you honestly believe this don't you.
The answer is no. They won't price it like that. They'll price it far higher than that.
Yeah pretty sure that's not how supply and demand works. Typically most companies will price to market standards on the expectation that people will pay $20 for movie A because they paid $20 for movie B while completely disregarding that Movie A is complete crap and no one wants to pay $5 for it let alone $20.
Same problem happens in the video game industry. Companies have adopted the position that people can and will pay for a piss of gak (and the sad part is that its sometimes true). EDIT: And then in the music industry, musicians release an album of 20 songs, 15 of which suck, 3-4 of which are okay, and only 1 or 2 are of actual interest to anyone.
Part of it is that (before the internet) if you wanted a song you had to buy the album, so the music industry began a steady switch to a business model where they produced a "theme" song for an album and then they played that song to death on the radio. Gradually, albums just became an excuse to charge $# and there's really only 1 maybe 2 songs on the album that anyone wants and the rest of the songs are just crap. It worked until people realized they could just get the song they wanted and leave the rest of the collection in the trash where it belonged.
And so the music industry blames piracy for its own stupidity. They aren't losing money because people want their product for free. They're losing money because their product isn't worth the silicon its stored on.
With downloads in digital the laws of supply and demand break down as you can effectively distribute a copy to as many people as you like so long as the bandwidth is available.
Sonophos wrote:With downloads in digital the laws of supply and demand break down as you can effectively distribute a copy to as many people as you like so long as the bandwidth is available.
I totally disagree with this statement. Increasing supply is just as expensive as ever. It's not the cost of distributing the media that has been the burden, it's producing and marketing the material itself that is the cost driver.
Sonophos wrote:With downloads in digital the laws of supply and demand break down as you can effectively distribute a copy to as many people as you like so long as the bandwidth is available.
I totally disagree with this statement. Increasing supply is just as expensive as ever. It's not the cost of distributing the media that has been the burden, it's producing and marketing the material itself that is the cost driver.
That's true. It turns out too that digital distribution isn't free.
Business costs are lower than traditional media such as discs but not by nearly the margin people think.
At the same time, users place a lower premium on digital content and will not pay as much for it. (Another source of motivation to copying.)
Grakmar wrote: Increasing supply is just as expensive as ever.
Especially in regards to digital downloads, this statement is patently false. The cost to produce a song, and create an .MP3, FLAC or whatever format you prefer is the same, true, but once you charge someone to simply download the .MP3 instead of charging them for a physical CD you have to burn, your supply costs have gone down considerably, especially as more and more people buy the song that you no longer have to print on individual media.
Sonophos wrote:The relative cost of marketing has stayed the same if not fallen as advertising costs have fallen.
Are you honestly telling me that running 5-10GB on a data centre is as costly as a DVD/Blu Ray production line?
Digital selling is not just a matter of having a data centre (which aren't free). The back office functions such as account validation and transaction charges add up too.
I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.
Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.
Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.
Sonophos wrote:I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.
Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.
Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.
Lower cost, yes, but it's not to the point where "the laws of supply and demand break down".
Sonophos wrote:With downloads in digital the laws of supply and demand break down as you can effectively distribute a copy to as many people as you like so long as the bandwidth is available.
Actually this jsut means that the laws of supply and demand are more accurate to economic theory than before.
A large number of producers provides a better distribution of supply and demand than a small number of producers because the small number of producers reduces competition, which increases the individual producer's power over the market. And now artists can be their own producer with relative ease, thus reducing the big producers' power over the market.
That's what they're really upset about-- losing control.
It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the previous rules do not apply. Price can no longer be inflated by limiting supply unless you have exclusive access passes for streaming sites I suppose.
I concede the point but it does not take much thought to build a model where control is regained it just cuts out the distributors and a whole load of infrastructure.
LordofHats wrote:Part of it is that (before the internet) if you wanted a song you had to buy the album, so the music industry began a steady switch to a business model where they produced a "theme" song for an album and then they played that song to death on the radio. Gradually, albums just became an excuse to charge $# and there's really only 1 maybe 2 songs on the album that anyone wants and the rest of the songs are just crap. It worked until people realized they could just get the song they wanted and leave the rest of the collection in the trash where it belonged.
And so the music industry blames piracy for its own stupidity. They aren't losing money because people want their product for free. They're losing money because their product isn't worth the silicon its stored on.
You don't need to blame piracy for this, it is observed with legal downloads too. It used to be that you had to buy the whole album to get a few tracks that you wanted. With Apple, and other online music retailers you can buy the album piecemeal. And people are doing just that, buying a few tracks for a few quid and leaving the rest. Instead of spending a lot more and getting a lod of other tracks bundled in they don't want. Ultimately the record company get less for the album, because people spend less to get what they want from it. Furthermore, such is the power of the online retailers that they can take a massive cut and pass even less on to the record company.
The record companies could simply refuse to deal with Apple and others, but they just can't afford it because they'll get no advertising. As is the case with the book industry; they are mercy to the aggressive demands of Amazon and supermarkets, but they just can't afford to exclude these retailers such is the state of the market today.
Really they need to change their approach completely and adapt to the modern marketplace, because the threat comes from legal distributors as well as piracy.
In fact , it's probably greater from legal distributors as most people when given the option will likely choose the legal method if they know one method is legal and another is illegal.
Predictably, the ESA methodology is extremely vague.
While it is widely known that statistics that can be manipulated, what isn't widely known is that there entire companies dedicated to the production of what I call "rhetorical statistics". In essence, statistics that are meant to direct opinion, rather than describe actual conditions.
Sonophos wrote:I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.
Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.
Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.
I work in the European HQ of the lead division of a very large international corporation which has deep involvement in media such as film, music and video games.
I can't give you precise figures due to commercial confidentiality but the raw cost of putting a physical disc on a shelf is not much more than the raw cost of putting a disc worth of data on someone's hard drive.
In either case, the cost of creating and promoting the product vastly outweighs the distribution costs.
Digital distribution avoids some of the cost of running a shop, but the digital merchandise is perceived by users as being less valuable and therefore commands a lower price than physical media.
In the case of pirate media, the pirate and distributor pay nothing for creation or marketing, and nothing for account management, royalties, taxes, etc. Their only cost is data storage and bandwidth, which is subsidised by advertising on pirate distribution friendly sites.
An honest, realistic business does not work like that.
Sonophos wrote:I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.
Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.
Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.
I work in the European HQ of the lead division of a very large international corporation which has deep involvement in media such as film, music and video games.
I can't give you precise figures due to commercial confidentiality but the raw cost of putting a physical disc on a shelf is not much more than the raw cost of putting a disc worth of data on someone's hard drive.
In either case, the cost of creating and promoting the product vastly outweighs the distribution costs.
While I agree with you, I would add that it's a matter of scale - for an act like us, without a large record company (with a commensurate distribution/manufacturing network) behind us, the costs of physical production and distribution far outweigh the costs of producing the content. This makes digital distribution the only viable option. It's also meant that we were able to reach far more people than would otherwise have been the case - we would have found it very difficult to sell physical CDs in the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia and China etc. for example.
Basically for small independent bands, digital distribution is the way to go.
The music industry does not like having many small independent bands. It likes one or two big bands per genre. Less competition = more profit for he big companies.
For free music I listen to the radio and a lot of the sites that anonymous "hacked" are back up. Personally I'm in support of lulzec in the world of internet wars.
halonachos wrote:For free music I listen to the radio
I remember a survey a while ago where they asked people who had MP3 players how much they would pay or the songs they had stored. Most people said they would not pay for their song collection, or would pay £5-10 for 1000's of songs.
To me music isn't worth buying - there are so many radio stations (both on the air and online) that you can get pretty much any band or genre direct to your ear without having to pirate or pay. The only music I have ever really bought is a couple of CD's for my wife to play in the car.
Melissia wrote:Basically for small independent bands, digital distribution is the way to go.
The music industry does not like having many small independent bands. It likes one or two big bands per genre. Less competition = more profit for he big companies.
That's not strictly true, or rather, it isn't true at all. In fact, now more than ever, the opposite is true. The usual rough estimate for the cost of launching a new act on a major label is around $1m. An environment in which large recording companies (and especially smaller ones, whose financial situations are usually far more precarious) are increasingly risk-averse means that, in order to find new talent, a large pool of independent acts is a necessity. Rather than the traditional method of scouting acts after receiving demo tapes and offering them deals on the back of viewing several live performances, many large labels now expect artists to take the initiative and set themselves up as a small business, releasing records and proving that there is an audience for their music by selling it. Only THEN will a label think about signing an artist and spending money which, in a climate of declining record sales, they are unlikely to recoup from a standing start.
Basically, a combination of laziness and risk aversion means that artists have to do themselves a lot of what traditionally would have been the remit of a label - launching an act into the public consciousness and building a profile via means of several early single releases. If a band can do that, they become competition and a larger, more wealthy entity simply buys them out. That's the model these days.
Sonophos wrote:I still can't see how digital distribution costs can come anywhere close to physical media.
Back office functions exist in both models; Labour costs are lower as you don't need as many staff; transaction costs exist in all commerce by nature.
Data centres aren't free but the unit cost of running them is far lower than running production lines, warehouses, distribution networks and shops; all with their attendant staffing costs.
I work in the European HQ of the lead division of a very large international corporation which has deep involvement in media such as film, music and video games.
I can't give you precise figures due to commercial confidentiality but the raw cost of putting a physical disc on a shelf is not much more than the raw cost of putting a disc worth of data on someone's hard drive.
In either case, the cost of creating and promoting the product vastly outweighs the distribution costs.
While I agree with you, I would add that it's a matter of scale - for an act like us, without a large record company (with a commensurate distribution/manufacturing network) behind us, the costs of physical production and distribution far outweigh the costs of producing the content. This makes digital distribution the only viable option. It's also meant that we were able to reach far more people than would otherwise have been the case - we would have found it very difficult to sell physical CDs in the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia and China etc. for example.
Yes, it is definitely a matter of scale. It is the economies of scale that make it possible to put discs into shops all over Europe.
Economies of scale make it possible for a large corporation to do stuff that small companies and individuals can't.
For instance, we can print and ship millions of discs a month from our own plants. Once your production reaches that volume the capital equipment cost of printing machinery is spread across so many units that it drops to a small fraction of the retail price per disc.
It's the same principle as GW making models in plastic rather than metal or resin.
juraigamer wrote:This move just helps to bring the two bills, SOPA and PIPA, into their proper, abusive light.
1) SOPA & PIPA never passed into law.
2) Taking down a pirating website shows that the bills are abusive?
1 Never said they were, or should, be passed into law
2 megaupload a pirating website? Last I checked they were a file hosting service. What people upload is the issue.
The same thing happens here on dakka, other forums, and whole of the internet. I could upload my codexes to dakka dakka and make it a pirating website, should that cause dakka to be taken down too? What happens if I email a codex to a friend, should my e-mail provider be shut down? Should we close down army builder programs since they reduce the need for a codex? What about re-casters on ebay, should we just shut down ebay to fix that problem?
There is no way to win against pirates anyway. All this nonsense does is inconvenience normal people. If there were actual shady dealings going on, then investigate it. megaupload removed files all the time, in fact when the "leaked" rules for 6th edition 40k showed up, those got removed from megaupload pretty quickly. There was no need to shut down such a massive file host.
Economies of scale make it possible for a large corporation to do stuff that small companies and individuals can't.
For instance, we can print and ship millions of discs a month from our own plants. Once your production reaches that volume the capital equipment cost of printing machinery is spread across so many units that it drops to a small fraction of the retail price per disc.
I know, yeah. I just couldn't gauge your tone and you have a weird sense of humour. Sorry for the confusion.
but the digital merchandise is perceived by users as being less valuable and therefore commands a lower price than physical media.
I disagree. The average CD price hovered around $15 for quite some time. On average most CD's contained 10 to 15 songs giving an average price of $1 to $1.50 per song. Now I can buy songs individually over the internet. Well guess what, I'm still willing to pay you what I paid per song before. $1 to a $1.50, the problem that record companies have is they can no longer hold the good songs hostage with a dozen bad ones and make me pay for all of it. I'm only willing to pay for the good content which severly reduces the money they're going to make off me, because I am no longer forced to buy crap music just to get the good stuff.
Again, the problem isn't the market, it's a business model that no longer works.
juraigamer wrote:1 Never said they were, or should, be passed into law
So how does this case make SOPA and/or PIPA "abusive"? Assuming, arguendo, that this case shows abuse of the law, how do you lump SOPA & PIPA into the mix? Shouldn't the comment be that the law is already abusive?
juraigamer wrote:2 megaupload a pirating website? Last I checked they were a file hosting service. What people upload is the issue.
Yes, they're a pirating website.
juraigamer wrote:The same thing happens here on dakka, other forums, and whole of the internet. I could upload my codexes to dakka dakka and make it a pirating website, should that cause dakka to be taken down too? What happens if I email a codex to a friend, should my e-mail provider be shut down? Should we close down army builder programs since they reduce the need for a codex? What about re-casters on ebay, should we just shut down ebay to fix that problem?
No you couldn't; no it wouldn't; that's up to GW; no, ebay polices itself pretty well.
If you're going to just open a website for everyone to use you need to exercise some level of control.
