Internet Piracy

[Doppleganger]

Nightmarish byproduct of the free flow of information in the digital age, or the romantic prelude to a world where all knowledge is available fast and free?

[Vran]

Over-romanticized and over-dramatized both.

[deoxys]

If the RIAA and the MPAA didn't fuck with everybody all the time, and if, for example, record companies didn't take approx. 80% of their artists earnings and jack up CD prices between fifteen and eighteen USD when they should really be more like five or six bucks with all or almost all of the money going to the artist(s) (I'm looking at you, UMG/Interscope, and to a degree Sony and WBM), then piracy probably wouldn't be as
much of a problem.

The idea here is that most people are willing to put down a few bucks for their favorite artists new stuff, but not a good amount, especially with most of that money to the corporate guys that did jack shit.


tl;dr

1. Get rid of the RIAA/MPAA
2. Give artist money, not the record labels.
3. Piracy loses much of it's support
4. ????
5. PROFIT!

Just my two cents.

[Doppleganger]

1. Get rid of the RIAA/MPAA


There's a lot of similarity between bacterial ecology and human economy.

One of those similarities is there will always be a bacteria (entrepreneur) for every kind of niche (profit opportunity) to get energy (money) from. In this case, the cost of middlemen is spread out among a huge number of people, but the middleman gains a whole lot.

Example. Let's say you have 100 people, each with 100 cookies. Man #101 comes and has no cookies. So, he manages to swindle 1 cookie from each of the other 100 people. Middleman #1 now has 100 cookies, everyone else 99. It's almost a minuscule change given how distributed the loss was over all the people.

Getting rid of the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to happen legally. There are laws in place to prevent governments from stopping people from exploiting profit opportunities, and this is one of them. It's not going to happen from the consumer side because consumers are geocentric and the cost is distributed across them.

The solutions to the RIAA/MPAA problem are -

1. More people buy music. At worst this leads to no change in prices, at best a decrease.
2. Piracy, to kill the RIAA/MPAA through forgone opportunity costs.


2. Give artist money, not the record labels.


That doesn't really do anything.


3. Piracy loses much of it's support


There will always be people who hate the "haves" that would pirate in spite of the danger as a slight.



5. PROFIT!

Just my two cents.

How appropriate. :O

[Raptor Jesus]

ARRRRR! Teh booty be ours! Take what ye want and give nothing back!

[deoxys]

There's a lot of similarity between bacterial ecology and human economy.

One of those similarities is there will always be a bacteria (entrepreneur) for every kind of niche (profit opportunity) to get energy (money) from. In this case, the cost of middlemen is spread out among a huge number of people, but the middleman gains a whole lot.

Example. Let's say you have 100 people, each with 100 cookies. Man #101 comes and has no cookies. So, he manages to swindle 1 cookie from each of the other 100 people. Middleman #1 now has 100 cookies, everyone else 99. It's almost a minuscule change given how distributed the loss was over all the people.

Getting rid of the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to happen legally. There are laws in place to prevent governments from stopping people from exploiting profit opportunities, and this is one of them. It's not going to happen from the consumer side because consumers are geocentric and the cost is distributed across them.

The solutions to the RIAA/MPAA problem are -

1. More people buy music. At worst this leads to no change in prices, at best a decrease.
2. Piracy, to kill the RIAA/MPAA through forgone opportunity costs.

Point taken.



That doesn't really do anything.

Actually, it does. When you take away the record label and the outrageous prices, and you give selling rights to the artist themselves, it really does make a difference. Reason being a. Many people support the artist themselves, and if most artists agreed to sell albums for between five and ten bucks, a good majority of people would be happy to buy the album for the cheaper prices.

Lets use a few examples: I'm sure everyone's heard the radiohead story. They released "In Rainbows" online as a download with a donation method to support the band. You were given the option to input your credit card and make your own price for the album. Of course, a good majority did it for free, but some of the more diehard fans slapped down up to a thousand bucks or more for it. In the end, the band was happy with the final result and with the support they recieved.

Another, Saul Williams. You probably haven't heard of him. He's a rapper who released his album "The Rise abd Fall of Niggy Tardust" online for free to download, but also gave fans the option to buy it for five bucks in a higher quality and with some extra downloaded features (I might be wrong on that part).

My final example is Nine Inch Nails, who released a full blown 36 song instrumental album, "Ghosts I-IV" for download for only 5 bucks. The download included 36 landscae photographs, one to match each song in a digital booklet. The first 9 tracks of the album were made available as a sample download.

If many artist continued to break away from record companies and started to follow suit and do similiar thinfs, then this could take thw music industry and piracy inti an entirely different direction dir the better. I have to say, I don't have much to say to argue against the MPAA, but if this pattern continued it could possibly be the final nail in the coffin for the RIAA.



There will always be people who hate the "haves" that would pirate in spite of the danger as a slight.


Well, it'll always be around, but it can be reduced, and at least that helps.


>>How appropriate. :O

Heh.

[Doppleganger]

Actually, it does. When you take away the record label and the outrageous prices, and you give selling rights to the artist themselves, it really does make a difference. Reason being a. Many people support the artist themselves, and if most artists agreed to sell albums for between five and ten bucks, a good majority of people would be happy to buy the album for the cheaper prices.


I don't really think most people take into consideration how their money is "benefiting" the artist they are buying a single from. That's self-justification nonsense I've only seen online to explain why people aren't pirating everything, when the real reason is they're afraid of the consequences.

This fear is irrational. It's either pretending law enforcement is on the level of Big Brother, or believing God or some supernatural entity will frown on such selfish consumption like pirating a single. Even if the people know law can't do anything, even if they're not religious, they're conditioned to "obey the rules" anyway.

It's the complete opposite of The Creation.

"I know there will be consequences, but I'll go ahead and eat this fruit anyway".
"I know there won't be consequences, but I'll play it safe and not torrent this single."


If many artist continued to break away from record companies and started to follow suit and do similiar thinfs, then this could take thw music industry and piracy inti an entirely different direction dir the better. I have to say, I don't have much to say to argue against the MPAA, but if this pattern continued it could possibly be the final nail in the coffin for the RIAA.


There are artists right now doing just that and aren't making any money. I don't believe in this, "no RIAA = artists will make tons of cash they're otherwise losing to the music executives!"

The middleman have a purpose. They distribute the music and enforce their control over that distribution. They get the largest cut, but without them the artists wouldn't get anything.

IMV

The only way to make money online is to treat one's product like a giant commercial and sell official, tough to replicate memorabilia on one's website.

EVERYONE should do that!

[Muyotwo]

>Internet Piracy

I'm for it.

[Weebos]

Yohoho and my copy of Age of Empires 2: Gold.

[Jerichi]

I'm playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 again without a disk.

THANKS PIRATES! ;D

[Treepandaone]

I see it this way, if you have ever gone over to a friends house, seen a video game you liked and borrowed it for a week or two, completed it and given it back, then its no different from piracy.

I'm all for piracy, its way overhyped.

[Doppleganger]

Sweden’s Pirate Party has won 7.1% of Swedish votes in the Europe-wide ballot, comfortably over the 4% threshold and enough to give it two seats in the European Parliament.

Roughly 200,000 citizens voted for the party, making it the fifth most popular party in Sweden and the largest party representing under 30s, as well as beating more established parties like the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party.

With over 700 seats in the European Parliament, the Pirate Party won't be holding anyone to ransom just yet - but its popularity is ominous for the rapidly failing business model of the entertainment industry's multinationals.

The party was formed before the last elections in 2006 when it received only 34,918 votes, on a platform of reforming copyright law and protecting citizen privacy. The Pirate Party hopes to reduce the abuses of power and copyright at the hands of the entertainment industries, and to legalize file-sharing for personal use.

It is not affiliated with torrent sharing site The Pirate Bay in any way, but seems to have benefited enormously from the massive media coverage surrounding The Pirate Bay’s recent notorious court case.

The four Pirate Bay leaders were found guilty of copyright infringement in April, with each sentenced to 12 months prison and ordered to pay $NZ6.4m to copyright holders including EMI, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Music, Sony Pictures and Time Warner.

The trial was thrown into chaos when it was the discovered that not one, but two judges had conflicts of interest that have jeopardized the legitimacy of the ruling, reports Mashable.

Since the convictions Pirate Party membership has more than tripled to over 48,000 registered members, more than its total voters in the last election.

The party was also on the ballot in Germany where it only managed 0.9% of the vote; nevertheless enough to put it over the 0.5% threshold needed to qualify for government funding for a political party for the next elections.

"We have just written political history," Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge said to Ars Technica. "Tonight, politicians have learned that doing what the lobby asks will cost them their jobs. We're the largest party in the segment below 30 years of age. That's building the future of liberties."


...

Source (http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/pirate-party-wins-seats-eu-table-103443).

[Holy Emperor]

Wait what happened with the Judge? I didn't hear about that. >_>

[Vran]

The Pirate Party? Seriously? O.o

[Doppleganger]

There are three pirate organizations in Sweden:

1. The Pirate Bureau, a think tank.
2. The Pirate Bay, a bittorrent tracker.
3. The Pirate Party, a political party.

All three organizations are separate, but The Pirate Bureau and The Pirate Bay were once affiliated and many The Pirate Bay administrators are members of the The Pirate Bureau and are registered in the Pirate Party.

All three basically advocate the same ideas, but in different ways. It's quite interesting to read about. :o

[Muyotwo]

Wait what happened with the Judge? I didn't hear about that. >_>

My guess: They torrented.

[Raptor Jesus]

Why are pirates awesome?

Because they ARRRRRRR!

/bad joke

[Mr. XXXXXXXX]

Argh, matey. I've come to sell pok@Mon emulators and boot leg DVD's. Blu Ray if you're picky.

[Tyranidos]

I am currently enjoying the benefits of internet piracy, though I am a bit regretful after being humiliated while playing OoT :(

[Lonely Cubone]

I pay for music.

Not that I feel any particular moral obligation to, or dislike of those that don't. It's just that I never have downloaded from the internet, I kinda like the CDs (I appreciate I could rip downloaded tracks to a CD, but this involves effort)

[Raptor Jesus]

I think you got some words wrong. You 'rip' data from a CD/DVD to a computer. You 'burn' data from a computer to a CD/DVD.

[Lonely Cubone]

This shows my lack of Piratehood. I be a joyless landlubber.

[Tyranidos]

Well, I buy music as well, so I guess I'm half pirate.

[Mewsic Box!]

Limewire. :D

[Doppleganger]

Bumping this with a retooling of the discussion (points armed and ready), although let's specify it a bit to ease people back into the discussion.

Is manga a commercial or a commodity? Are "region 1" manga companies running on a fundamentally flawed business model in that they're treating manga itself as a commodity?

A bit of flavour text - for the past 2 years massive online manga portals (OneManga, MangaFox, MangaToshokan) came about that dramatically increased the audience of manga readers online. The portals were descended from the obscure websites that hosted manga scans online, like MSN Groups for early One Piece releases. These websites allowed multiple translators to upload releases for any series, and statistics were provided to show what were the most popular reads. These websites had paid advertisement deals, but given the massive amount of traffic it's generally assumed all the income was funneled directly into maintainece. About half a year ago, another portal called "MangaStream" appeared that had access to Japanese RAWs before even the online Japanese community got a hold of them. As a result, fully cleaned, translated scans would appear for all the popular manga on MangaStream 1-2 days before 2ch or Futaba, and four days before a legitimate magazine release.

About 3-4 months ago online MangaStream started doing a lot of moronic things, like allowing its users to post on Kubo Tite (author of Bleach)'s twitter about events in a chapter that wouldn't be released in a week, spoiling anyone who browsed it. MangaStream also created an iPhone app to allow people to read MangaStream releases remotely. These events caught the ears of the Japanese publishing giants, leading to a "Japan's Digital Comic Association" to legally attack manga portals. As a result, OneManga has fallen, MangaFox and MangaToshokan have removed a majority of their series (and will likely close soon) while (ironically).

While a 'major' victory for the Japanese publishers, since international manga portals help proliferate RAW releases, their American counterparts are supposedly less than thrilled. While officially part of the coalition, these companies are well aware of the online proliferation and not only ignore it but seem to allow it. Key employees for said companies also members of the forum communities dedicated to manga, so one has to question if they were really being financially harmed why action was not taken sooner. In spite of the economic woes, manga sales for popular titles are still very high, for some titles higher than ever.

The core of this debate, then, is if online manga piracy actually acts as a 'free' promotional vehicle for manga, or if it actually infringes on legitimate profits from the companies. Given that something illegal or at least extra-legal expands the profit for legitimate profit oriented entities, is it really sound to oppose them because of their legality?

[Raptor Jesus]

Hypothetically speaking- I haven't bought Manga in years in part due to sites like OneManga. :x

[Holy Emperor]

What's the point of buying manga when it comes out like years later? In japan they have no fucking excuse but over here it's the only way to read unlicensed shit. Also the mangastream guys are kind of gay.

[Talon87]

Is manga a commercial or a commodity?
A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. Commodities are substances that come out of the earth and maintain roughly a universal price. It is fungible, i.e. equivalent no matter who produces it. Examples are petroleum, notebook paper, milk or copper.
We already knew they were commercial products. But Wiki's definition of a commodity pretty much rules out the possibility for manga being classified as a commodity.

Are "region 1" manga companies running on a fundamentally flawed business model in that they're treating manga itself as a commodity?How are they treating it as a commodity? We've just shown that manga can't be classified as a commodity. Maybe you should explain what your take on the Region 1 business model is, rather than just assuming that we know and then asking us an (according to Wiki) nonsensical question about it.

About 3-4 months ago online MangaStream started doing a lot of moronic things
Like.......?
like allowing its users to post on Kubo Tite (author of Bleach)'s twitter about events in a chapter that wouldn't be released in a week, spoiling anyone who browsed it.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh..................... Doppel? :| It's not like they could have stopped douchebags from being douchebags. You're holding them accountable for something that was completely beyond their control but for one solution: cease and desist all scanlation operations. Is that, in fact, what you are referencing when you say that they started to do moronic things? I don't think so: because you say the moronic behavior began only a few months ago. So ....... care to give an example where they're acting like morons and it really is their fault? :?

The core of this debate, then, is if online manga piracy actually acts as a 'free' promotional vehicle for manga, or if it actually infringes on legitimate profits from the companies. Given that something illegal or at least extra-legal expands the profit for legitimate profit oriented entities, is it really sound to oppose them because of their legality?
Will reply to your REAL question later. I think it'd get lost in this mess of nested quotes otherwise, and I don't want that.

[Talon87]

The core of this debate, then, is if online manga piracy actually acts as a 'free' promotional vehicle for manga, or if it actually infringes on legitimate profits from the companies. Given that something illegal or at least extra-legal expands the profit for legitimate profit oriented entities, is it really sound to oppose them because of their legality?
First, a few questions we must each answer. (My answers are in parentheses.)

1. Is downloading a manga without paying for it the same thing as reading a manga without paying for it? (Yes.)

2. Is reading a manga without paying for it legal? (USA: Yes.)

3. Should reading a manga without paying for it be legal? (I don't know, but I think the answer is key.)

If people should be allowed to read manga without paying for it, then I would say that manga is a failed business model -- or at the very best is a haphazard commercial enterprise. If paying for manga is optional, then the only people who will do so will be (a) those who feel charitous and (b) those who fear that their preferred work will be discontinued if not for the provision of financial incentives to the writer.

If people should not be allowed to read manga without paying for it, then the Americans (at the very least) will need to recalibrate their perception of how the world works. Many American fans currently feel that they are entitled to, at the very least, a free sample. They will say, "I don't mind it if you want to take away my right to read all eight books of Chobits in the bookstore, but you have to at least let me read the first three." Or two. Or one. But don't say zero. Oh no, not zero. They won't stand for that. They won't tolerate it. "How dare you deny me the option of seeing what this story is like without dropping $10 on it first?" People are allowed to test drive cars, aren't they? People are allowed to tour homes, aren't they? We (as Americans, at the very least) don't accept a society in which purchases must be made blindly. And yet that would be requisite if we were to decide that manga should not be legible without purchase.

Treep made a good point about playing games at a friend's house; but there's a difference (to the industry) between partial penetration of the market and zero penetration of the market. Their fear is that piracy enables (which it does) and has led to (which is debated) zero penetration of the market for their wares. They say, "We have no problem with 9 in 10 prospective buyers going to the 1 in 10 prospective buyers who actually did buy the game 's houses to check the game out. What we have a problem with is when all 10 in 10 prospective buyers go to their friend the Internet's house to play our games for free."

But Treep's point hints at the answer to Question #3 I wrote up top. It suggests that manga should be legible for free, if only because it would require an Orwellian state to prevent people from loaning books and other media amongst themselves. And so since we're thinking now that manga should be legible for free, the question we have to ask ourselves is, "Should it be fully legible for free? Or only partially?" Should we subscribe to the American capitalist mentality of "free samples, paid full product"? Or should we subscribe to the European piracy community mentality of "anything which can be pirated is a failed business model and should not be sought after if one wishes to make profit"?

In other words, should we only open up businesses which render services that aren't pirateable? (Like the provision of healthcare at a hospital or the repair of a car at the auto mechanic's.) Or should we continue to open up pirateable business enterprises and to insist, via the heavy hand of the law, that piracy beyond a certain point is unacceptable?

[Doppleganger]

We already knew they were commercial products. But Wiki's definition of a commodity pretty much rules out the possibility for manga being classified as a commodity.

How are they treating it as a commodity? We've just shown that manga can't be classified as a commodity. Maybe you should explain what your take on the Region 1 business model is, rather than just assuming that we know and then asking us an (according to Wiki) nonsensical question about it.


I admit to not using commodity with that definition, "good" would better fit my idea of it. I tend to compare commercial and commodity because of their euphony. :V


Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh..................... Doppel? :| It's not like they could have stopped douchebags from being douchebags. You're holding them accountable for something that was completely beyond their control but for one solution: cease and desist all scanlation operations. Is that, in fact, what you are referencing when you say that they started to do moronic things? I don't think so: because you say the moronic behavior began only a few months ago. So ....... care to give an example where they're acting like morons and it really is their fault? :?


Anime forums are primarily concerned with self-preservation, and a good moderation staff usually prevents forum-killing events from happening by punishing the users or stifling discussion that leads to such incidents. Many a time in the past, AP has averted nightmare scenarios like people sending murder/death threats to Cartoon Network executive private emails, website invasions (4Kids) and piracy of totally illegal content (FUNimation, when we have FUNimation employees registered at the site) or defusing Google Bomb incidents. Generally, if there's liability, large targets like AP will always try to shift blame, since if AP gets caught breaking the law the forum has to close down.

MangaStream's moderation staff failed because its userbase, which consisted of complete idiots, claim they didn't know they were getting scans before Japan. People were encouraged on the forums to tweet Kubo Tite, which was how the Gene Simmons Bleach plagiarism earlier this year caught Kubo's attention.

I speak with (bitter?) bias, but MangaStream's fans are mostly newbies who flocked to the website because it was updated faster than other portals. Idiots and newbies are on every large forum, but it's the responsibility of the staff to keep them in-line, which didn't happen with MangaStream. Their overexposure as the fastest manga portal and lack of common sense (iPhone app? REALLY?) allowed way too many users to waltz in and cause chaos. Consider, it's taken AP seven years to accumulate 13,000+ users, while it only took MangaStream a matter of months to get 10,000+. And before June, most of those users were active.

The general opinion on MS's actions by other forums is their lack of discipline was because the staff had a bloated sense of privilege and entitlement due to their advantages and rapid popularity, which was passed on to the user-base. MangaStream staff members, after the iPhone app was discovered by R2, actually registered on AP to publicly defend themselves from criticism and assert why Japan was morally wrong to deny its users new ways to enjoy MS releases. -_-

[Doppleganger]

If people should be allowed to read manga without paying for it, then I would say that manga is a failed business model -- or at the very best is a haphazard commercial enterprise. If paying for manga is optional, then the only people who will do so will be (a) those who feel charitous and (b) those who fear that their preferred work will be discontinued if not for the provision of financial incentives to the writer.


In other words, should we only open up businesses which render services that aren't pirateable? (Like the provision of healthcare at a hospital or the repair of a car at the auto mechanic's.) Or should we continue to open up pirateable business enterprises and to insist, via the heavy hand of the law, that piracy beyond a certain point is unacceptable?

My own idea is there's a third type of person, (c) a person enamored enough with a preferred work to purchase accessories or merchandise related to it.

I've long held the view that manga, and to a far greater (and more easily debatable) extent anime, are commercials. For anime, and television shows in general, the original business model was for the show to attract people, and while they're sticking around for the show to bookend it with commercials. While the viewers might not want to see the commercials, the advertisers structure them in such a way that it requires considerable effort to avoid watching them, or it'll inconvenience the viewer to look away. For example, a series of short commercial breaks risks missing part of the much desired show, allowing the advertisers to bait the viewer into watching a longer stretch because he/she is unwilling to miss the program. The show staff sells the show to a network, who sells the commercial rights to advertisers. The advertisers in turn get a sweet market demand increase, which massively increases total surplus and their profit potential.

There must be partial penetration going on, since all corporations are assumed to be rational and it wouldn't be rational to stay in business if they weren't making profit.

The merchandise model turned the show into a commercial too, by allowing the creators to subcontract merchandising rights for aspects of the show itself. This was most common in the 1980's, and applies directly to our beloved Pokemon anime and sister 4Kids productions.

Published manga, IMV, has always been in the "merchandise" hemisphere of a related network anime. DVDs are also similar, as both products in the United States cannot usually support their own costs in licensing and distribution without a loud promotional vehicle to hawk at potential consumers about their worth. It used to be the exception that a manga like Love Hina could be so massively popular it eclipsed its anime equivalent in sales, but even then I don't think the LH anime ever aired on television.

R1 is destined to fail because the companies are specialty corporations that focus on published manga volume sales and DVD sales. They're trying to peddle merchandise nobody's heard about, and as you mentioned later in your post no-one is going to spend hard-earned money on a blind buy. It costs a LOT to promote these shows without the aid of television, and the promotion to expand the market is what I see as essential for these corporations to stay alive. Geneon's death was due to "asphyxiation" - they licensed more anime than they could push out, and what they did manage to produce didn't bring in much revenue. Bandai doesn't seem to be doing very well itself in spite of having some TV deals, and FUNimation is only doing well because it maintains a Google-like reputation.

The internet, I think, is a prime source for the free promotion these corporations desperately need. But on the one hand, there's not a whole lot of difference between an officially sanctioned anime DVD and a HD torrent. In fact, often the pirated copy is superior to the official release and in my case I am outright against most DVD buys because Japan tends to increase the fanservice in DVD releases, which I usually dislike. So rather than try to license more anime, to try and diversify their wares (a sound strategy in any other market environment) they should focus on importing highly sought but nigh-impossible to obtain products for their Japanese franchises.

An example, let's say Akagi was licensed. The company who licensed it could make a huge killing at anime conventions selling the Washizu Mahjong sets, even though the sets aren't that great (by reputation). The sets can't be found at any convention I know of, and if they were they'd be heavily marked up and be in limited supply. Someone working out a way to get by Japan's "no international sale!!" mantra and import those things at lower cost and sell them at an affordable price would be basically turning plastic into gold.

I might be overestimating the potential of this particular example, but this is the kind of mentality that R1 is trying to avoid, the "high risk/high reward" gamble one sees in real estate, furniture and car dealerships. You might also question, "Why license the anime at all? :\ One could just as easily import all these Washizu Mahjong sets with the Akagi's online popularity alone" and that just revisits my point - anime is fundamentally a commercial, to attempt to make a serious living off of DVD sales is foolish entrepreneurship. Anime is a subset of animation, and so it already has to play second fiddle to live action TV shows and movies, but on top of that it has a lot of negative stigma attached to it. Overcoming that stigma, IMV, requires more investment in promotion than the revenue an average anime can reel in.

Importing isn't the only option, making HQ American release, Japanese sanctioned products would be fine as well. It's just, most American releases tend to not be of very high quality. I recently obtained an American redesign of the Japanese Megazord for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and while it's a decent toy, and very superior to other toys out now, it's very much a shadow of my original toy from the 1990's.

Oh boy, and that was just anime (which I reeeeally wanted to talk about). My short version of manga -

It's like anime, but is tougher to spin purely as a commercial because published manga volumes are a very different experience from non-tangible manga scans. Anime rips and DVDs are close to perfect substitutes, not the case with manga. Manga is, however, treated like webcomics (de facto free), and the ease of obtaining manga ahead of official publication (not just US, but Japan) can potentially infringe on the Japanese market. A stupid 14 year old kid made something like $5,000 a month by posting manga scans on YouTube and taking advantage of the revenue from the paid-partnership program.

Thus, the R1 publishers face a more troublesome dilemma - while they're making more money than ever through the online vehicles, which leads people to "collect" the manga volumes at record levels, the presence of online manga threatens the Japanese publishing giants themselves, so form them to try and wipe out online manga might end up killing off R1 even with merchandising, because the severity of negatively impacting 'free' promotion online can vary.

[Cyprus]

Just a quick "my two cents" post for now since there are quite a few good points made here, and I do not unfortunately have the time to read all of them right now.

I'll admit that I used to pirate things quite frequently, but as I've gotten older and acquired better and better jobs, not so much. I think that if the platform of digital distribution had been set up earlier in my lifetime, with reasonable rates, I would probably have pirated a -lot- less when I was younger.

Take Steam for instance. Just this past week (on "Talk Like a Pirate Day," no less) Adventures of Monkey Island 2 went on sale for just $5. That is -pocket change-... my lunch at a Burger King costs more than that! I will enjoy every little bit of dialogue and music in that game for at least 10 hours! This kind of stuff just wasn't possible growing up. I remember giving up convincing my parents to buy me a Game Boy Color just so I could play Pokemon Gold, and then hopping on my computer and subsequently downloading a GBC emulator and Gold version ROM.

If something like that had cost 5 or even 10 bucks to download onto my computer, I would have saved my pennies as a child to have it, or it would have been easy to barter my labor to my parents to obtain it!

The same goes for music. I'm a picky person when it comes to the music I listen to, so when I find a band or song I like, I am immediately thankful for the band's existence. However, I usually like maybe one or two songs off each CD. In the past, I would have sighed, torrented what I liked, and left the rest behind without being able to pay tribute to a band that made me happy. With the advent of iTunes, I can finally do what I've always wanted: pay for what I want, and essentially "tip" the band for making music that I enjoy. Both parties are happy. I have music I want to listen to, and the band has a little change in their pocket, not to mention a little data on what songs are working and what aren't.

I am aware that there are downsides to digital distribution that I've made absolutely no mention toward, but I'm pretty happy on my end and I pirate a lot less because of its introduction.

[Rangeetsuper]

My two cents on this.

Recently I discovered torrents. I haven't looked back since. Why?

I live in India. Quite frankly, they rip us off here, a Wii here costs Rs.18000 about 397 USD as of exchange rates currently. Same goes for games, I don't even look at the price because I am certain my parents won't buy them. Now I want to play these damn games. They don't care about India? Fine, I'll 'borrow' it from someone overseas. That is essentially pirating.