Ye harr me hearties...

[matgb]

Meh. Um, yeah, pirates. Talk like a seagoing criminal day? historical seagoing criminal day? Spacegoing criminal day? Humourless git day?

I like movie pirates. I like pop culture pirates. I also, (whispers) like ninjas. Like most Lib Dems, I want it both ways and am somewhere in between.

Comments

[tiredstars]

Like most Lib Dems, I want it both ways and am somewhere in between
Liberal Democrats just get kinkier and kinkier.

I disagree about piracy being the market's way round excessive regulation. The regulation (excessive or otherwise) creates the market, by guaranteeing control over things that can be copied (effectively) costlessly (ie. there is a fixed cost and no variable cost, making them a bit like a public good). Piracy circumvents this market system, not charging for what it can provide for free. As regulation is loosened, companies provide different formats and so-on, it's either the market expanding into particular areas (eg. providing music for download for people who won't buy CDs but want to download music) or lowering costs, increasing availability, etc. to the point where the costs of acquiring the stuff legally are lowering than the costs of doing it illegally (ie. fear of prosecution, morals, etc.).
It's not a case of piracy being a manifestation of the market, shaping regulation and practice, it's a case of the market reacting to stamp out a competitor system (and I don't mean to suggest that's a bad thing; those fixed costs do need to be paid for somehow).

[matgb]

Um, Tim? You just described exactly what I meant. OVerly regulated supply in an era that aloows for freeform distribution creates a market for people that want to DL stuff or share stuff easily.

The market has responded by loosening itself up and creating new, legit, methods. Legitimacy is, slowly, winning, but it took a long time to get there.

The stamping out of the competitor system? That would be a manifestation of the market at work. Can't remember if it was Tupman or Hindmoor that told me economic crime is simply the market getting around regulation, but it was one of them, and they're both dodgy lefties...

[tiredstars]

It's a question of terminology, but an important one, I think. Economic crime can be a means markets getting round regulation. If you're talking black market piracy then that's what this is. But it seems to me that most digital piracy - file sharing, peer to peer networks, etc. - is not market based, rejecting (intellectual) property rights and other market fundamentals.

So yeah, you're right that the market has responded to this challenge, but not (imo) that the mechanism that drove this loosening of regulation is internal to the market.

I feel like I'm making a rather laboured point off an interpretation of a little bit of what you said.

[matgb]

Nah, semantic points are good, undefined or unclear terms can be a bugger in debate; cf 'multiculturalism' and what it means to me compared to what it means to the Daily Mail.

I guess to me any human activity that involves an exchange is market; file sharing normally involves swapping, ergo it's a market of sort, albeit a kind of barter not cash. Not that it really matters.