Originally Posted by
barbarossa
One of the big arguments between Filesharers and the Authorities like the RIAA and the MPAA is that the Authorites claim that filesharing is cutting into profits because people are downloading for free what they would otherwise have to buy.
The Filesharers argument to this is "You don't necessarily know that I would have bought this, and sometimes I am downloading stuff in a sort of a try-before-I-buy scenario".
Which is all well and fine... however if said so-called filesharer then goes on to sell the stuff he's got for free for a profit, then the Authorities can say "Lookee here, there are people who ARE prepared to spend money buying stuff, maybe a little bit cheaper mind, but even so, because of this filesharing malarkey they are not buying it from us, so our profits are damaged".
Therefore this displays definite proof that filesharing is damaging CD and DVD sales.
This is why I believe selling stuff you have downloaded is wrong, not because of any sense of fairness, but because it takes away one of the main defences of the argument that filesharing does not have a detrimental effect on sales.
Bookmarks