I dunno. Spreading released songs on the internet is something that is bound to happen, not something they control. Spreading a pre-release leak is something that you have to take care of within your own organisation. Not mr. Skwerl should be in jail, but the guy who gave him the tracks. All skwerl did was distribute them to a wider audience, he didn't leak them - he shouldn't have had them in the first place.

Obviously I'm presenting things in a slightly simplified manner .

If I'm not mistaken, you are a graphical artist, right? Do you make your art out of your own accord and try to sell that afterwards, or do you hire your services to those who need specific artistic content? If you do the latter (like I suspect most artists that try to make a living out of it do), you're already selling your skills as a service.

Obviously, there are areas where alternative ways of earning money with your skills aren't as obvious, or maybe even very difficult to find. There are probably lots of scenarios where people will be earning less money with what they do then before the digital age. C'est la vie. Economies change, and people need to realize that. Clinging to the present, or worse: the past, is the worst thing you can do. Many a company has gone out of business because of that, and my assumption is the RIAA and MPAA will need to realize this before the same fate presents itself to them.

In the end, if you really need to rely on volume for selling your IP, better make sure it's paired with something else, and the price impact is negligible (e.g. drop the price of CD's, to production + distribution cost for the physical good + a very small amount for the actual content. There are enough people who want a physical copy and a nice booklet).

Heh, an interesting thread at long last .

Monkeychow, with all due respect, but you should realize that what you're saying is an unsustainable situation this day and age. A thing from the past. All things considered "Intellectual Property" are getting considerably more difficult to protect and things are not going to improve. Not just music & other forms of art, but also software, algorithms and formulas.

On the surface, it might seem an very communistic thing to say, but this is a good thing. Knowledge, wisdom and art should not be patented or copyrighted. Not saying scholars, thinkers and artists shouldn't earn money off of what they are doing, but they have to stop acting like they are selling goods. They're not.

The underlying reason for this (and the ultimate proof this is not a socialist stance at all) is that it all stems from the simple capitalistic principle of "supply & demand". You can't demand remuneration for something that has infinite supply. If you can make infinite exact duplicates of something, regardless of how many people want or need it, you can't charge for it. Infinite supply equals zero cost, regardless of demand.

The same is true for movies, software, formulas, etc...

The solution (for them to still earn good money) is fairly simple. They have to realize that they are not selling goods, they are providing a service. Make money from their concerts, promotional goods, etc...

Obviously, this is more difficult for movies because of the inherent cost involved in making one, but thankfully the "magic" of going to the theatre, having a night out will more thank likely be enough of a service for people to pay for.

Obviously, this is besides the current legal discussion, more sort of my point of view and where I think we should go with this. Luckily, we as Europeans have realized this already for our patent laws. If copyright law would follow suite despite pressure from our American friends of the RIAA and MPAA, we're there.

You could put it under the thread title, provided that it isn't too long. I know for a fact that this is a pain in the ass to get working in ie and ff, but you could use an ellipsis for the longer titles.

I'm a fan of the new format.

Really looking forward to playing that once it comes out on PS3