Posts made in December, 2008
A Note on Piracy
I recently shipped two cartons of books into the office to seed a new venture selling books. A colleague got interested and I asked if he’d buy them from me. “Let me see if I can get them online,” he replied and another colleague followed “Shoop, almost all books are online now.”
I’m really shocked – I thought people only download music, movies and tv shows. Not books!
Friends who know me cannot figure out why I always buy original. A friend gasped at my collection when he visited for a X’mas party, “Shoop, I’m amazed at your collection, how much did you spent?” Come to think of it, was he amazed why I spent so much on a collection that would have easily cost anyone else a-tenth to nothing?
Amongst my circle of acquaintainces, piracy is already socially accepted. Tips on how to different the better copies are freely exchanged. When you visited, bring along an external hard-disk in case you see sometime you want.
Now, I understand where everyone is coming from – copies are a lot cheaper (or free), they’re digitally identical, eveyone’s doing it and times are bad so I have to save. Those are very valid reasons.
I think the problem is that we, as consumers, no longer create anything anymore. If there’s two bakers, would one take another’s recipe and starts selling the same cakes? No he won’t. Because he knows the value of creating the recipe as a baker himself. There is the matter of pride involved, too.
But as consumers, everything to us is valued at its price. It’s the only sensible way to live a good life, stretch the dollar, so to speak. The offer with the best price always wins.
So, the ball is out of bounds now. Creators cannot create for nothing. And consumers cannot become creators. The way I see it, less of us will want to be creators. Hence, more bad movies, crap tv shows and shallow books. It’s inevitable.
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