The reason we download crap for free

Features | May 30th, 2008 by Staggs

Enjoy Reading!

If you liked this story please show your support by subscribing to the What's Leet? RSS Feed.

I’m really tired of seeing companies wasting time explain why downloading music or movies is wrong and that we shouldn’t do it at all. Of course it makes sense, everybody knows that crap! I wouldn’t want people to take my stuff for free because then it would mean that I’m not getting the business a profit that it should be receiving. The thing that record companies and movie studios are missing is that the majority of people don’t really download stuff for malicious purposes!

The main reason, I feel, is that people are downloading things that they simply just wouldn’t pay for anyway. I don’t understand how it’s lost business, and it’s lost profit, or anything, when the majority of people wouldn’t normally buy a company’s product anyway. From the way I see it, it’s a good thing that people download free content because the music and movies are still put out in the open. Much like the saying, “Any news is good news.” Downloading music creates a bigger audience then the companies would have if people didn’t download their content. The person would have listened to a good song, and tell someone else, “Hey, download this song,” and, of course that person would. But, then that person might be inclined to say, “I have $20 to spend on a new CD for my collection.” The end result is that the people that will buy a CD will continue to buy CDs, and the people that won’t, wouldn’t spend their money on them anyway – they probably never have either. I have bought maybe 5 CDs on my own, in my past, even before Napster’s time-period and the age of downloading.

Why aren’t people buying CDs anymore, though? Is it because there is no reason to, due to people downloading content for free? No, its because the majority of people don’t see the media as anything worthy to spend money on. CDs in a way, are becoming obsolete, like the VHS or vinyl. Its not because its free, its because the downloaded music and movies are in formats that people prefer: simple and ready to be played on their computer at home or on their laptop on the road.

Here’s another reason why people won’t buy their CDs anymore: they are too busy on their computers reading pointless crap (and by that we mean everything thats not found on whatsleet?). No one wants to go out and spend time looking at CDs anymore. Going to buy a CD has become a rather impulsive act, you buy while you are at a store that sells them. In the past, CDs were common, and people went out of their way for music. Not anymore, because we have other things to worry about such as video games, and blogging.

The real money-maker for artists are their concerts. They need to spend the time and money to get fans to listen to their music live, and have the concert-goers share the experience with others that go. I’m for the artists that try to innovate on their own. Radiohead saw a perfect opportunity to experiment on their own, by offering their music to be downloaded at whatever someone was willing to pay for it. They had a great success, check out the findings on NYTimes.com.

Granted CDs and movie DVDs are two different medias, the results of downloading are equally similar. With movies, people aren’t willing to pay the $20 for two tickets to get into a theatre. Then it’s another $5 for a small popcorn that you’ll probably spill half of on the floor. No, no, no. People would rather rent something on Pay-Per-View or watch something they downloaded on their own 52-inch plasma screen and surround sound in privacy. DVDs are still doing good, however, probably because they don’t have a demand or a reason to be as portable. You can’t really view a downloaded movie from a computer on your projector without some trickery and messy wiring. A downloaded movie isn’t as accessible as a downloaded mp3 is. It is reasonable to say that movie downloading is not really going to shoot up so much as downloading music has, regardless of how many movies have become downloadable.

There is something for the music and movie industry to learn. They are going to have a problem with the new generation of kids where it comes first nature to download music. They are wasting time going after “bad” people, and kids for downloading content, suing customers when they should be focused on innovating with downloading technology. A company fails as soon as it stops innovating. I can hear the record companies coming to a screeching, fiery halt.