You seem so anxious to justify any stealing of copywritten material, be it music, film or whatever. I think you should ask yourself why? What stake do you have in it? What prejudice are you protecting? Are you just trying to seem young and hip and with the current practice of swiping material for free? I wonder, do you shoplift? Some do and can get away with it? Do you? My feeling is the moral code we live by defines who we are, at least partially. And these codes make civilization more beneficent, I think. I think we asll should occasionally challenge our own beliefs from time to time, to make sure we really are open to changing our minds, when we deeply explore our inner thoughts. Try it. You might find some of your own words do not really express what you truly believe.

Hmm. I’ve gone over this before, but I’ll try again, since this was apparently missed. I take offense to the idea I’m advocating any kind of stealing. I’m not. I never have.

(1) My “prejudice” is simple: my focus is on business and looking at the trends that are going to impact businesses going forward.

(2) One of those major trends is the digitization of content — including for distribution. It’s a trend that the industry seems to ignore, but there would be huge potential should they embrace. It’s a situation where I’m trying to help them see an opportunity rather than a threat.

(3) I don’t condone copyright infringement. I never have, and I never will. I don’t know why you think I do. I’ve never used a file sharing program. I don’t download music or movies or anything like that.

(4) I do believe that copyright infringement is very much illegal, even though it’s not the same thing as theft (the Supreme Court agrees with me on this one). I don’t condone any kind of copyright infringement — in fact, I think the people who are engaged in it are taking a stupid risk, since it’s illegal. However, comparing it to “shoplifting” is simply a bad analogy whose only purpose is to distort the debate.

(5) However, I think content businesses are missing a huge opportunity to embrace the more open use of content by ignoring copyright infringement. That’s my “prejudice.” I’m not “young” I’m not “hip.” I don’t download any music or movies or whatever. I just see it as a business opportunity for incumbent players.

(6) Even if I don’t do these things, it’s pretty clear that millions of people do. Trying to stop it is clearly holding back the tide. It’s simply not working. At that point isn’t better to look and see if there’s a better solution? Historically, every new innovation has scared the daylights out of the content industry. Piano rolls. Radio. The VCR. Each one of these was fought vehemently — and when finally embraced turned into huge money makers for the industry.

(7) The same can be true with file sharing. The trick is simply to recognize what the customers are telling them: they want free and unencumbered access to content. Since the content has no marginal cost to duplicate or distribute, your basic economics lessons should let you know that this trend is pretty much unstoppable.

(8) Once you recognize that, you can look for alternative business models. The content itself becomes *free promotional materials* for something else — and the “something else” has a tremendous amount of potential to be a much bigger market than the “content” market of today (concerts, travel, sponsorships, access, there’s a ton here if you think through it). In the case of movies, downloading movies is not impacting theater going. Movie going is a *social* experience. What’s impacting theater going is that the experience is getting worse (worse content, expensive prices, bad/uncomfortable environment).

(9) In this specific case, can you show me where I advocate any kind of “stealing” of content? I don’t, at all. I never advocate that at all. I’m just wondering how much it cost the studios to make this effort — which had no real impact. Is that really such a difficult concept to understand? Is it really such a bad thing to look at the ROI on an effort and point out that it’s negative? I don’t think that’s advocating stealing of anything. I think that’s giving smart business advice. If you’re a shop owner, and you spend more on an alarm system than you’re likely to lose due to theft, shouldn’t someone question your business acumen?

So, is that a good enough “examination” of my “prjeudice?” I’ve challenged my beliefs and this is what I’ve come up with. I’ll stand up proudly and state that as many times as I can. I have no moral problems with my stance. Should I?