Tim O'Rielly-"Piracy"

In Tim O'Rielly's "Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution", I think he is basically saying that Artists are looking at piracy in the wrong way. Instead of viewing it as stealing and a loss in revenue they should look at it more as if it were free publicity. They should be greatful that people are listening to their music. Being unknown or not hear is worse than people downloading and sharing their music on the internet. Not to mention, that it is very likely that if one were to hear a song by an artist they have never heard before and enjoyed it they would thenpurchase the artists CD in order to hear more of the work. Work that they may never otherwise have heard. O'rielly also writes about people wanting to do the right thing, as in not steal. He uses the example of the people not passing around books they've downloaded from the internet because they didn't think it was okay. Therefore the books they had hoped would get out there never really did get around because the people thought they were doing what was right. He goes on to define piracy as an organized copying of some content in order to sell for ones own profit. O'Rielly then argues that realisticall shoplifting is more of a threat to an artist than piracy. Explaining that a store may only have a single copy of an artists works. If that single copy were stolen that would be the end of it. The store would have no record of the item ever being purchased therefore would never know to purchase another one. The work would then be lost and then the artist would then be at a loss. The artist looses the sale. Looses the possible recommendation that could have come from sadi sale. And, even looses the possibility of being "discovered" by a customer that could have fallen upon this unknown artist. O'Rielly goes on to say it is not the artist who should be afraid of piracy anyway, it is the Publisher. The publishers are looking at extinction due to the internet, rather than the artists. The artists are becoming there own publishers.

O'Rielly believe that the people will pay for a higher quality service anyway. For Example, television, you can opt for the basic, free viewing (ie rabbit ears). You do pay a price though, you have to deal with static, the fustration of getting the god awful atena in the right place and eventually resorting to standing in the corner of the room because it just so happends that you get the best reseption in that possition only. Or, you could opt for cable, which can cost a pretty penny but yoou can forget about the awful headaches of the free television and instead sit back relax and enjoy the perfect picture. Just like television people will pay for the better sound quality of a CD. O'Rielly wraps up by saying that the best way to go about it is to use piracy to the artists advantage. It is just another medium to promote their work and its free! "The smart company maximizes revenue through all it's channels"