Monday, March 21, 2011
The Price of Piracy
A song costs 99 cents on iTunes; that doesn't sound very expensive. The iPod Touch 4th Generation can hold 14,000 songs. When it takes $14,000 to fill an iPod, suddenly 99 cents a song sounds a little more pricey. Many people can't afford to buy music, at least not in the quantities they would like to. Everyone can listen to their favorite songs for free with popular sites like Pandora. There are many sites that make piracy an enticing alternative as well. The cost to iTunes for each additional song download is negligible. So why don't we see 10 cents songs? They would still generate a profit. At 10 cents a song, I would be willing to buy lots my favorite songs. It's no surprise that more people pirate songs than buy them when it's infeasible to fill up an iPod at the going rate. The battle against piracy cannot be won in the courtroom. Until songs are legally available at a reasonable price, artists and companies can expect people to go to convenient, free sources for their music.
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That's interesting because eventually people try to rip you off more and more. Some songs are now $1.29 on iTunes for no apparent reason, which makes people want to pirate even more. There's got to be some way to compromise on this issue.
ReplyDeleteMake a product available at a fair price and people won't bother to go through the hassle of piracy.
ReplyDelete