the ostentatious glory

Sunday, August 06, 2006
Let's define Piracy...

This time, the blog shall move away from personal life-sharing in this post. With regards to the a special report on bloggers in the Sunday Times last Sunday, 30/07/2006, the millions of bloggers we have on the net sharing their daily thoughts and experiences were being refered to as self-centered people publicising their "me-world". Well, this is true to a large extent, as what netizens usually find on blogs are the life stories of unknown people, living on the same Earth as us. In fact, it is reported that only less than 10% of bloggers based their daily posts on current affairs or society issues. So, to make this blog more diversified, it is decided that I will discuss about certain issues in our society every now and then. While not neglecting the readers who are interested in my life story, don't worry, my experiences will not ceased to appear on this blog. :)

Firstly, like the introduction paragraph in every discussion essay, let us define piracy and the implications it has on our society today. How do we define piracy? The fact that it is further divided into so many forms only made the boundary between piracy and doing it legal more unclear and uncertain. Generally, i believe that piracy means the infringement of copyright. However, even with this defination, there is still a varying amount of people who may or may not be labelled as pirates. On a stricter tone, if sharing music, video or even ten-year-series without knowledge and approval of the publisher means piracy, then i think everyone is or had been a pirate. They had infringed the copyright! And if all pirates be prosecuted, let everyone go to court then. The police can just go to any housing estate, any HDB block, any floor, any unit, and capture ANYone for piracy.

But well, we don't see that happening in real life, so the police must have adopted the more lenient tone on piracy. You won't go to jail for sharing a latest "Jay Chou" album you just brought with another friend, who copied all the files onto his own computer; you won't be charged if you share your "I not Stupid 2" DVD with a friend, who too, copied the whole video onto his hard disk; and, you definitely are considered legal even if you give a pirated VCD retailer support by buying his "super-cheap products". This is it in Singapore now. But what about the implications? Forget it dude. I need not repeat what the Media Development Authority (MDA), and other companies had said a billion times.

Insulting the artists' creativity, not recognizing his efforts, no moral ethics in you... What crap!

If you look into the reasons behind all "Anti-Piracy" movements closely, you can find only one motivation behind all these exaggerated actions. MONEY.

Well, the government wants money, music companies are profit-motivated too, and singers, of course, hope to reap as much income as possible. Who wouldn't? In Economics, we studied the problem of scarcity and the limitation of resources, thereby causing producers and consumers trying to attain as much utility as possible, i.e. buying the cheapest available product (consumers), and selling the product to earn as much money as possible (producers). Right now, consumers' hunt for CDs worth the price they are willing and able to pay for had led them to the haven of pirated products, which cost an average of $5 per disc compared to $25 for a brand new original album. That's exactly 200% cheaper! Well, this is gladdening news for people like us, but saddening news for people like Universal Music. Why? That's because they experience a lack of income!

Let us go back and use MONEY to argue why these firms work so hard to prevent piracy. Firstly, it is not as if their singers won't be showcased and supported by fans if people buy the pirated version of their albums for a cheaper price. Well, it's the same artist, same song, same way of singing, same lyrics, and SAME messages portrayed! Don't try to tell me that you receive a different message from a same song just becuase you heard it from the internet and not from an original album. That's bullshit.

HOWEVER, you do see a difference in the price between an original album and that of a pirated one. Of course babe. These firms are the ones who need to pay the artists for their songs, the government for taxes and themselves for income, of course preferably more so that they can afford to go SPA, massage, treatments etc to increase their quality of life. Being money-oriented, it is no wonder now, why consumers are being charged at such a high price---JJ Lin telling Ocean Butterfly that he wants a good pay; Ocean Butterfly, within itself, desires higher revenue every year, of course the more the merrier, and the higher the growth the better; and apparently, PAP telling Ocean Butterfly:"where are my taxes?". MONEY.

On the contrary, pirated retailers are able to bypass all these payments. Being a small-scale firm on their own, they need not pay the artist, they need not so big an income for themselves, and they need not pay the government too! I'm not supporting pirated retailers in this post, but rather i'm explaining how these players determine the market equilibrium. Being expenses-aware consumers, and seeing such a big difference in the prices for the same disc with the same songs, same artists etc, it is no wonder why consumers convert to buying the much cheaper pirated CDs and actually prefer it more. So now, we can see how close a substitute pirated product can be compared to an original one. 200% cheaper for a same thing!

Back to Earth. This fact has set producers worrying about the big hole in between which allows their revenue to fall through. Snap, with a twist in their brain, governments around the world started whacking on how unethical it is to purchase pirated products, how immoral pirates are, and how consumers insult artists' creativity by purchasing pirated products. To complement such desperate efforts to save their income against the strongly arising pirates and its supporters among consumers, laws were constantly being made stricter and more firms begin joining this global battle too. What we can see today is a fierce battle between the legal bodies and the illegal ones. Who is the winner actually? i believe we consumers can say.

Is it really an ignorance in acknowledging an artist's efforts and creativity if we buy his pirated albums? Well, i personally think that piracy made available the artist's creations to more listeners and fans. With regards to the expensive original albums, there are definitely people who can't afford to buy the original ones and thus turn to the internet or friends for the songs they want. These people, after listening to the same songs, may still love and support thier idols too, and ultimately, contribute to thier idols' earnings through concerts and other products. Well, i believe there is no such thing as a pirated concert ticket. If piracy is not allowed and these people unable to even listen to and enjoy songs apart from original albums which some may choose not to purchase because of the price, fans would decrease and revenue generated from concerts would go down as well too!

Piracy is not necessary bad in this case. However, whether it is morally wrong or unethical, i leave it to we consumers to judge. Remember, MONEY. Hmmm have you downloaded any songs from the net recently?

Sunday-James
1839hrs
06/08/2006

11:58 AM
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