Someday one of these overpaid monkeys in a suit will figure out that the only way to compete with something that is free and convenient is to make something that is free, convenient, AND somehow more valuable. It probably wouldn't hurt to fire all of the lawyers and start thinking like someone that has to earn their paychecks.
Well done. I'd like to see the whining trolls like the one above try to use their intellect long enough to actually read your paper and attempt a response. It is well-referenced and logically solid. It is nice to see someone actually use research in this debate rather than sentiment and propaganda.
It is infuriating that haters will degenerate into sarcastic 8-year-old brats every time you put forth a reasonable argument. I get the feeling they have no logical basis for their biases; it would explain why they flee from logic like cockroaches from light. That's not fair though; even cockroaches serve a useful purpose to SOME people on the planet.
You won't be saying they look dorky once they come equipped with frickin' LASER BEAMS!! Woz and the Segway Polo League will be feared rather than ridiculed once production starts.
"But the video's only popular because of the music they used. EVERYONE loves that song, you can tell by the iTunes sales numbers. Anyways, they'd look pretty silly dancing in silence. All the value is in Chris "I Beat up Girls" Brown's fame and talent."
Maybe you've been under a rock for the last little while, but Chris Brown had been in exile since the Rihanna incident. People hated him. This video brought him back. The video made him a star again.
It would be cool to test, though. They should shut down the video, post a link to their site, take out the Chris Brown song and add in another song at the same bpm, and see if people go to the site to watch it anyway. I know I would still be showing it to people if it had been any decent dance song.
"... for once TechDirt has an article which is condescending at best and shows an ignorance of market mechanics at worst."
You know, the thing I always liked about TechDirt is that they don't tell you how it SHOULD be, they tell you how it is. The iPhone--regardless of its price or niche--is the most popular, best-selling phone in the US. It surpassed the Motorola RAZR late last year and hasn't looked back since. Call it a niche if you will, but that's a damned big niche. They are currently selling around 5 million per quarter. And that doesn't even count the iPod Touch, which is revolutionizing the mobile media market in the same way the iPhone is revolutionizing the phone market (and merging the two markets together).
To say that the iPhone is just another step in the ladder or an overhyped niche toy is the real show of ignorance in this case. It's like preferring vinyl records to mp3s. You may have your reasons, but that doesn't change the mp3's game-changing nature. You definitely cannot say mp3's are irrelevant because they aren't as high quality as vinyl, or they don't have features that everyone likes, or they don't have a physical surface you can touch.
The iPhone has a massive monopoly on mind share, which is proof enough it is a game changer. Name a single phone or media player that has even a fifth the articles written on it. Google iPhone and you get 360 million hits. Google Palm Pre and you get around 30 million. Android has 40 million if you don't add "phone." The word "phone" by itself only has 927 million hits. This is huge, regardless of the flaws in the iPhone.
It's funny that ethics always gets dragged into it as if deciding something is unethical will somehow prevent that thing's inevitability. The truth is that it doesn't matter whether it is ethical, in this case or in any other. What matters is that it happened and it will continue to happen.
The psychological testing community needs to face this moment as a sign of the new era. Rorschach was the first mainstream example of what is already occurring with several tests. Denial of reality will not improve the current system, so they must adapt and find a better way to create good tests that can't be ruined by some foreknowledge of their contents.
It's no secret that a somewhat small sampling of tests make up the bulk of all psych personality testing. Other tests exist, but get ignored simply because they haven't been around and testers go with what they know. Maybe this will be the moment that wakes up the testing world and creates a boom in the industry. Let's hope they respond so well.
The test was originally rather pointless and misguided. However, it was turned into a somewhat decent test a few decades after its conception. This was not a result of the inkblots themselves, however, but as a result of the scoring system built around it. Because there was such a massive amount of data available from decades of scoring, the test researchers were able to see patterns and reach conclusions that they consider accurate and reliable.
The problem the psychologists have with this situation is not that simply that their precious inkblots are tainted, but that they will be required to start over gathering data and figuring out how it can show a personality. And this time they won't have the benefit of decades of naivety to keep an illegitimate test in use. Which means it will cost a lot of money.
The even bigger problem I have with this situation is that it is just now gaining attention. I gave a presentation on the test as an undergraduate about five years ago. I used mock inkblots I found on the Internet as examples, but was told by my professor afterwords that half of the examples were real inkblots from the Rorschach test. I dug a little deeper and found the entire test and its common interpretations without much trouble. That was 5 YEARS ago!
I say thank heavens this has finally received mass publicity. The longer psychologists were in denial about the effectiveness of their test, the more diagnoses were compromised by questionable results.
"Saying a game doesn't alter brain chemicals is also a very dangerous road."
Technomage is right; anything that causes endorphins to be released technically alters brain chemistry and can therefore be addicting. Case in point: masturbation/porn. While it isn't directly tweaking brain chemistry like drugs, it definitely makes you feel good, and it definitely would be a hard habit to kick for a LOT of people.
The real issue isn't whether a situation deserves a label. It is whether that situation needs to be treated. If you or the people close to you feel your habits are interfering with other, more important aspects of your life, than you should take a serious look at how to change things. This may require getting outside help, regardless of the label.
That being said, treating WoW addicts inside the game is ridiculous and bound to fail. All it does is reinforce to "addicts" that they can assimilate reality into the game, thus giving them even less motivation to ever leave it. And good luck getting insurance to cover that treatment, chump.
I say the harder it is to get a trademark, patent, copyright, etc., the better off the whole system is. There has been far too much of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to IP in the last several years. The IP offices seem content to allow just about anything and require other companies to fight the battle to invalidate patents, trademarks, etc. (e.g. Blackboard). It's hard to see this causing the hotels.com people any serious distress, other than that they won't be able to sue half the internet now.
I don't see how this can be seen as troubling. How could another company use "hotels.com" to profit wrongly from hotels.com's image? As Mike said, anyone mentioning it would only help send traffic to hotels.com. Show me how this causes problems.
"Since the announcement of the GGF plan, lots of others have stepped up to try to take the place of The Pirate Bay as a key source for torrent searches."
The bittorrent world may never stop singing the praises of that ridiculous court case that The Pirate Bay lost. It seems like every time the P2P community gets a little bit too centralized, the geniuses at the RIAA and MPAA step in and help to redistribute everything perfectly. How else would the system innovate and improve?
What I like best about the latest efforts to replace the Pirate Bay is that they realize it is in everyone's best interest to have redundancy and multiple destinations for data and info. They are all but collaborating to ensure that no one site gets too much of the traffic. There is even a new tracker that hides behind Tor routers! Add that to the VPN trend and soon copyright police are going to have a bloody difficult time bullying people around.
"'If any of you quote more than 10 words of this post than I will take you to court for violating my copyright. Consider yourself warned. It is vital to me that I get the protection I so badly need from comment pirates that are destroying the comment industry.'
Come get me."
I'd write you a legal nastygram, but I couldn't do the funny little things justice. I just don't have that level of evil and delusion inside of me. Why don't you just send me $100, I'll gloat about what a victory this was for creative types all across the universe, and we'll call it a day.
On a similar note, if any other commentors need legal and licensing representation, Tristin (TM) is accepting applications. All licensing fees go directly to the commentors, of course, after a 50% fee. Allow 6-8 years for delivery of funds. All comments not licensed elsewhere will be assumed to be represented by Tristin (TM).
If any of you quote more than 10 words of this post than I will take you to court for violating my copyright. Consider yourself warned. It is vital to me that I get the protection I so badly need from comment pirates that are destroying the comment industry.
I am open to the possibility of providing you a license to use my intellectual property, however. Should you desire to obtain a license, I accept PayPal, Google Payments, and cash. Serious offers only, please. Nothing less than $5,000 will be considered. If you have received a notice of infringement, a settlement payment of $15,000 may prevent further legal action.
Thank you for using my comment services. Have a nice day.
I'm really enjoying this series. If it takes too much concentration for you, feel free to skip these articles. No one is making you read them.
Anyway, I find it extremely ironic that countries with so many have-nots would be so eager to adopt a system that is one of the greatest tools of the haves at maintaining an unfair advantage over the have-nots. Don't they see that foreign companies are going to swoop in and lock up the patent market before most locals have even figured out that it even exists?
It seems as if China and India want to emulate the characteristics of foreign markets that provide the high standard of living they want for their own people. But in their zeal they are simply copying anything they can without examining the costs and benefits of individual systems. They may not realize that our standard of living may be in spite of some of these characteristics rather than because of them. Sadly, the people that will be most affected by such mistakes have neither the knowledge nor the voice to prevent it.
Wish there was something that could be done from this end to help it. Anyway, really enjoying this series and hope to see more like it in the future.
"It's as if no one wants to actually follow what the Constitution says..."
Dammit, don't say that! It's too sad...I'd rather just have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind than have it put right in front of me. Too real.
As for royalty rates, Mr. Coward above Is a fool if he thinks webcasters will be paying less than radio stations of comparable size). Radio stations pay songwriters, but not performance rights (if I have the terms right), webcasters must pay both. Don't be a hypocrite, Mr. Coward; find out what is actually being claimed before making assumptions about it. Or if you actually have some data to back up your position, please show it to us so we can be corrected.
Good to see that Mike and Jon Healy seem to have been able to kiss and make up.
Is it really so hard to see the benefit in using "infringers" to your advantage? The very idea that they are willing to use their valuable time to build something around your product (or upload it to the internet, etc.) shows that they are fans with means to influence others and therefore valuable.
Maybe the real issue isn't about promoting the products, but about control. I can imagine that certain groups, when given the choice between maintaining control or making a lot more money, would actually choose control. The belief that monopolies are the ultimate source of power and success has distracted these groups from the real goal of making money.
Or maybe the problem is that lawyers are in control instead of entrepreneurs and businessmen. Common sense business is replaced with cutthroat litigation. After all, the lawyers make money regardless of the outcomes of lawsuits. They have nothing to lose by suing people all day long.
Once again, the system is the root cause of the problem and the breeding ground for despicable attorneys. Damn government interference!
I don't always read the comments, but this is the most extreme case I can remember where the readers disagree with Mike, almost vehemently.
I take a bit of a middle-road attitude in this. I don't have a lot of hope for this to succeed much beyond the netbook sector, but it would be nice to get some competition injected into the stale two-horse race between Apple and Microsoft (sorry Linux, you just aren't enough). If Chrome OS gets any kind of traction we are all winners. If not, I don't really care. Windows could be better, but it's good enough.
In the US at least, this could end up being good for Pandora. They are one of the few sites that have enough revenue to pay the ridiculous licensing fees. Even with the lower tier of 7%, there are not many independent companies that can drop $25,000 up front and make any money. I have a hard time believing margins are high enough in a competitive market to sustain a company with that kind of cost.
My guess is this deal kills off the majority of streaming sites and leaves a few big boys like Pandora and last.fm, as stated above. These few sites will receive the influx of listeners that have nowhere else to go and revenues will increase enough to support a 25% raping. They may even make money off the deal if the entire industry isn't killed off.
I, for one, am all the more grateful for torrents, as they may soon be the only cost-effective way of discovering new music.
The point is well demonstrated that offering media for free does not automatically mean you will not make money, or even that you won't be able to sell media. It is interesting to speculate on why someone would buy media that is available for free elsewhere.
Perhaps, as Dr. Strange suggests, the free track was placed in such an obscure location that the majority of people coming across the iTunes track didn't know there was a free version available. This implies that people only paid for the iTunes track because they didn't know there was a free alternative, and people will always choose free over not-free. If so, this is a reality that the media industries need to face. There will always be a free alternative in a world of infinite goods, and no amount of threatening, pleading, or lobbying will change that. Morals be damned, if that's what you base your position on.
I think in the Moby case convenience has a lot to do with the iTunes success. Many people feel like $1 is worth getting the track instantly and directly into iTunes, rather than some of the circuitous methods of file-sharing.
Lastly, maybe people perceive paid copies as being of a higher quality than copies from the Pirate Palace. They just feel shiny and new, not like they've been passed around by everyone from Sweden to China. In reality that sort of thinking is ridiculous and clearly not based in fact. But many people don't know as much about technology as readers of Techdirt, and their decisions are prone to be sentiment-based rather than fact-based.
Anyway, just some thoughts on the topic. Dr. Strange is very abrasive and confrontational, but at least he helps point out alternative explanations for events. I think they are wrong, but I'm glad I was able to figure out why.
That reminds me of the slogan of the Communist Party back in the days of the USSR. It went something like, "Truth through debate."
I don't know what that has to do with the topic, I just always liked the saying and thought I would blurt out my thoughts about it here. It's just a damn shame the Communists defiled the idea by completely undermining the public voice and manipulating public information. Not entirely unlike many of the dying industries of today. I'm just saying.
I hope the burgeoning era of public discourse maintains independence from the chains of powerful minorities.
Ahhh....where would these comments be without an Anonymous Coward ignoramus to provide us with target practice? It's too easy though, so on to another thought.
Reading between the lines of Taylor's statement that he regrets the music industry's reluctance to embrace Napster, I think what he meant was, "We should have bought Napster out immediately and turned it into an online storefront with the same prices we charge in brick and mortar stores." His regret isn't that they took down Napster, but that they turned themselves into the enemy while doing so. They should have played like they were excited about Napster and slowly inoculated it to preserve their margins.
The industry's dumbest move was making the internet a weapon of the people rather than a tool for maintaining the status quo. As soon as the issue was framed as the internet vs. the RIAA, the game was over for them.
This is why people pirate
And the P2P parade marches on...
Someday one of these overpaid monkeys in a suit will figure out that the only way to compete with something that is free and convenient is to make something that is free, convenient, AND somehow more valuable. It probably wouldn't hurt to fire all of the lawyers and start thinking like someone that has to earn their paychecks.
Well done. I'd like to see the whining trolls like the one above try to use their intellect long enough to actually read your paper and attempt a response. It is well-referenced and logically solid. It is nice to see someone actually use research in this debate rather than sentiment and propaganda.
It is infuriating that haters will degenerate into sarcastic 8-year-old brats every time you put forth a reasonable argument. I get the feeling they have no logical basis for their biases; it would explain why they flee from logic like cockroaches from light. That's not fair though; even cockroaches serve a useful purpose to SOME people on the planet.
dorky, eh?
You won't be saying they look dorky once they come equipped with frickin' LASER BEAMS!! Woz and the Segway Polo League will be feared rather than ridiculed once production starts.
Re: The song made the video
"But the video's only popular because of the music they used. EVERYONE loves that song, you can tell by the iTunes sales numbers. Anyways, they'd look pretty silly dancing in silence. All the value is in Chris "I Beat up Girls" Brown's fame and talent."
Maybe you've been under a rock for the last little while, but Chris Brown had been in exile since the Rihanna incident. People hated him. This video brought him back. The video made him a star again.
It would be cool to test, though. They should shut down the video, post a link to their site, take out the Chris Brown song and add in another song at the same bpm, and see if people go to the site to watch it anyway. I know I would still be showing it to people if it had been any decent dance song.
Re: Gotta Say
"... for once TechDirt has an article which is condescending at best and shows an ignorance of market mechanics at worst."
You know, the thing I always liked about TechDirt is that they don't tell you how it SHOULD be, they tell you how it is. The iPhone--regardless of its price or niche--is the most popular, best-selling phone in the US. It surpassed the Motorola RAZR late last year and hasn't looked back since. Call it a niche if you will, but that's a damned big niche. They are currently selling around 5 million per quarter. And that doesn't even count the iPod Touch, which is revolutionizing the mobile media market in the same way the iPhone is revolutionizing the phone market (and merging the two markets together).
To say that the iPhone is just another step in the ladder or an overhyped niche toy is the real show of ignorance in this case. It's like preferring vinyl records to mp3s. You may have your reasons, but that doesn't change the mp3's game-changing nature. You definitely cannot say mp3's are irrelevant because they aren't as high quality as vinyl, or they don't have features that everyone likes, or they don't have a physical surface you can touch.
The iPhone has a massive monopoly on mind share, which is proof enough it is a game changer. Name a single phone or media player that has even a fifth the articles written on it. Google iPhone and you get 360 million hits. Google Palm Pre and you get around 30 million. Android has 40 million if you don't add "phone." The word "phone" by itself only has 927 million hits. This is huge, regardless of the flaws in the iPhone.
TechDirt isn't out of touch on this one. You are.
Ethics...
It's funny that ethics always gets dragged into it as if deciding something is unethical will somehow prevent that thing's inevitability. The truth is that it doesn't matter whether it is ethical, in this case or in any other. What matters is that it happened and it will continue to happen.
The psychological testing community needs to face this moment as a sign of the new era. Rorschach was the first mainstream example of what is already occurring with several tests. Denial of reality will not improve the current system, so they must adapt and find a better way to create good tests that can't be ruined by some foreknowledge of their contents.
It's no secret that a somewhat small sampling of tests make up the bulk of all psych personality testing. Other tests exist, but get ignored simply because they haven't been around and testers go with what they know. Maybe this will be the moment that wakes up the testing world and creates a boom in the industry. Let's hope they respond so well.
Rorschachiavellian
The test was originally rather pointless and misguided. However, it was turned into a somewhat decent test a few decades after its conception. This was not a result of the inkblots themselves, however, but as a result of the scoring system built around it. Because there was such a massive amount of data available from decades of scoring, the test researchers were able to see patterns and reach conclusions that they consider accurate and reliable.
The problem the psychologists have with this situation is not that simply that their precious inkblots are tainted, but that they will be required to start over gathering data and figuring out how it can show a personality. And this time they won't have the benefit of decades of naivety to keep an illegitimate test in use. Which means it will cost a lot of money.
The even bigger problem I have with this situation is that it is just now gaining attention. I gave a presentation on the test as an undergraduate about five years ago. I used mock inkblots I found on the Internet as examples, but was told by my professor afterwords that half of the examples were real inkblots from the Rorschach test. I dug a little deeper and found the entire test and its common interpretations without much trouble. That was 5 YEARS ago!
I say thank heavens this has finally received mass publicity. The longer psychologists were in denial about the effectiveness of their test, the more diagnoses were compromised by questionable results.
Re: Addiction??
"Saying a game doesn't alter brain chemicals is also a very dangerous road."
Technomage is right; anything that causes endorphins to be released technically alters brain chemistry and can therefore be addicting. Case in point: masturbation/porn. While it isn't directly tweaking brain chemistry like drugs, it definitely makes you feel good, and it definitely would be a hard habit to kick for a LOT of people.
The real issue isn't whether a situation deserves a label. It is whether that situation needs to be treated. If you or the people close to you feel your habits are interfering with other, more important aspects of your life, than you should take a serious look at how to change things. This may require getting outside help, regardless of the label.
That being said, treating WoW addicts inside the game is ridiculous and bound to fail. All it does is reinforce to "addicts" that they can assimilate reality into the game, thus giving them even less motivation to ever leave it. And good luck getting insurance to cover that treatment, chump.
Bravo
I say the harder it is to get a trademark, patent, copyright, etc., the better off the whole system is. There has been far too much of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to IP in the last several years. The IP offices seem content to allow just about anything and require other companies to fight the battle to invalidate patents, trademarks, etc. (e.g. Blackboard). It's hard to see this causing the hotels.com people any serious distress, other than that they won't be able to sue half the internet now.
I don't see how this can be seen as troubling. How could another company use "hotels.com" to profit wrongly from hotels.com's image? As Mike said, anyone mentioning it would only help send traffic to hotels.com. Show me how this causes problems.
Added benefits
"Since the announcement of the GGF plan, lots of others have stepped up to try to take the place of The Pirate Bay as a key source for torrent searches."
The bittorrent world may never stop singing the praises of that ridiculous court case that The Pirate Bay lost. It seems like every time the P2P community gets a little bit too centralized, the geniuses at the RIAA and MPAA step in and help to redistribute everything perfectly. How else would the system innovate and improve?
What I like best about the latest efforts to replace the Pirate Bay is that they realize it is in everyone's best interest to have redundancy and multiple destinations for data and info. They are all but collaborating to ensure that no one site gets too much of the traffic. There is even a new tracker that hides behind Tor routers! Add that to the VPN trend and soon copyright police are going to have a bloody difficult time bullying people around.
Re: Re: This post is copyright (c) property of Tristin (TM)
"'If any of you quote more than 10 words of this post than I will take you to court for violating my copyright. Consider yourself warned. It is vital to me that I get the protection I so badly need from comment pirates that are destroying the comment industry.'
Come get me."
I'd write you a legal nastygram, but I couldn't do the funny little things justice. I just don't have that level of evil and delusion inside of me. Why don't you just send me $100, I'll gloat about what a victory this was for creative types all across the universe, and we'll call it a day.
On a similar note, if any other commentors need legal and licensing representation, Tristin (TM) is accepting applications. All licensing fees go directly to the commentors, of course, after a 50% fee. Allow 6-8 years for delivery of funds. All comments not licensed elsewhere will be assumed to be represented by Tristin (TM).
This post is copyright (c) property of Tristin (TM)
If any of you quote more than 10 words of this post than I will take you to court for violating my copyright. Consider yourself warned. It is vital to me that I get the protection I so badly need from comment pirates that are destroying the comment industry.
I am open to the possibility of providing you a license to use my intellectual property, however. Should you desire to obtain a license, I accept PayPal, Google Payments, and cash. Serious offers only, please. Nothing less than $5,000 will be considered. If you have received a notice of infringement, a settlement payment of $15,000 may prevent further legal action.
Thank you for using my comment services. Have a nice day.
Emulation or imitation
I'm really enjoying this series. If it takes too much concentration for you, feel free to skip these articles. No one is making you read them.
Anyway, I find it extremely ironic that countries with so many have-nots would be so eager to adopt a system that is one of the greatest tools of the haves at maintaining an unfair advantage over the have-nots. Don't they see that foreign companies are going to swoop in and lock up the patent market before most locals have even figured out that it even exists?
It seems as if China and India want to emulate the characteristics of foreign markets that provide the high standard of living they want for their own people. But in their zeal they are simply copying anything they can without examining the costs and benefits of individual systems. They may not realize that our standard of living may be in spite of some of these characteristics rather than because of them. Sadly, the people that will be most affected by such mistakes have neither the knowledge nor the voice to prevent it.
Wish there was something that could be done from this end to help it. Anyway, really enjoying this series and hope to see more like it in the future.
Re: Constitution?
"It's as if no one wants to actually follow what the Constitution says..."
Dammit, don't say that! It's too sad...I'd rather just have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind than have it put right in front of me. Too real.
As for royalty rates, Mr. Coward above Is a fool if he thinks webcasters will be paying less than radio stations of comparable size). Radio stations pay songwriters, but not performance rights (if I have the terms right), webcasters must pay both. Don't be a hypocrite, Mr. Coward; find out what is actually being claimed before making assumptions about it. Or if you actually have some data to back up your position, please show it to us so we can be corrected.
Finally
Good to see that Mike and Jon Healy seem to have been able to kiss and make up.
Is it really so hard to see the benefit in using "infringers" to your advantage? The very idea that they are willing to use their valuable time to build something around your product (or upload it to the internet, etc.) shows that they are fans with means to influence others and therefore valuable.
Maybe the real issue isn't about promoting the products, but about control. I can imagine that certain groups, when given the choice between maintaining control or making a lot more money, would actually choose control. The belief that monopolies are the ultimate source of power and success has distracted these groups from the real goal of making money.
Or maybe the problem is that lawyers are in control instead of entrepreneurs and businessmen. Common sense business is replaced with cutthroat litigation. After all, the lawyers make money regardless of the outcomes of lawsuits. They have nothing to lose by suing people all day long.
Once again, the system is the root cause of the problem and the breeding ground for despicable attorneys. Damn government interference!
The masses turn on their leader
I don't always read the comments, but this is the most extreme case I can remember where the readers disagree with Mike, almost vehemently.
I take a bit of a middle-road attitude in this. I don't have a lot of hope for this to succeed much beyond the netbook sector, but it would be nice to get some competition injected into the stale two-horse race between Apple and Microsoft (sorry Linux, you just aren't enough). If Chrome OS gets any kind of traction we are all winners. If not, I don't really care. Windows could be better, but it's good enough.
Maybe good for Pandora
In the US at least, this could end up being good for Pandora. They are one of the few sites that have enough revenue to pay the ridiculous licensing fees. Even with the lower tier of 7%, there are not many independent companies that can drop $25,000 up front and make any money. I have a hard time believing margins are high enough in a competitive market to sustain a company with that kind of cost.
My guess is this deal kills off the majority of streaming sites and leaves a few big boys like Pandora and last.fm, as stated above. These few sites will receive the influx of listeners that have nowhere else to go and revenues will increase enough to support a 25% raping. They may even make money off the deal if the entire industry isn't killed off.
I, for one, am all the more grateful for torrents, as they may soon be the only cost-effective way of discovering new music.
Added value
The point is well demonstrated that offering media for free does not automatically mean you will not make money, or even that you won't be able to sell media. It is interesting to speculate on why someone would buy media that is available for free elsewhere.
Perhaps, as Dr. Strange suggests, the free track was placed in such an obscure location that the majority of people coming across the iTunes track didn't know there was a free version available. This implies that people only paid for the iTunes track because they didn't know there was a free alternative, and people will always choose free over not-free. If so, this is a reality that the media industries need to face. There will always be a free alternative in a world of infinite goods, and no amount of threatening, pleading, or lobbying will change that. Morals be damned, if that's what you base your position on.
I think in the Moby case convenience has a lot to do with the iTunes success. Many people feel like $1 is worth getting the track instantly and directly into iTunes, rather than some of the circuitous methods of file-sharing.
Lastly, maybe people perceive paid copies as being of a higher quality than copies from the Pirate Palace. They just feel shiny and new, not like they've been passed around by everyone from Sweden to China. In reality that sort of thinking is ridiculous and clearly not based in fact. But many people don't know as much about technology as readers of Techdirt, and their decisions are prone to be sentiment-based rather than fact-based.
Anyway, just some thoughts on the topic. Dr. Strange is very abrasive and confrontational, but at least he helps point out alternative explanations for events. I think they are wrong, but I'm glad I was able to figure out why.
Re: Tu quoque
That reminds me of the slogan of the Communist Party back in the days of the USSR. It went something like, "Truth through debate."
I don't know what that has to do with the topic, I just always liked the saying and thought I would blurt out my thoughts about it here. It's just a damn shame the Communists defiled the idea by completely undermining the public voice and manipulating public information. Not entirely unlike many of the dying industries of today. I'm just saying.
I hope the burgeoning era of public discourse maintains independence from the chains of powerful minorities.
Between the Lines
Ahhh....where would these comments be without an Anonymous Coward ignoramus to provide us with target practice? It's too easy though, so on to another thought.
Reading between the lines of Taylor's statement that he regrets the music industry's reluctance to embrace Napster, I think what he meant was, "We should have bought Napster out immediately and turned it into an online storefront with the same prices we charge in brick and mortar stores." His regret isn't that they took down Napster, but that they turned themselves into the enemy while doing so. They should have played like they were excited about Napster and slowly inoculated it to preserve their margins.
The industry's dumbest move was making the internet a weapon of the people rather than a tool for maintaining the status quo. As soon as the issue was framed as the internet vs. the RIAA, the game was over for them.