Timewaster's Guide Archive

I can't say I think of high school fondly, or even as real social interaction. I went to public school, and high school was more an exercise in subduing any actual personality you had, and adopting a stereotypical personality to fit in with whatever clique it was you found yourself in. Everything that I would call real social interaction in a school setting happened at college, and outside of the school.

there are several issues being muddled here. 

The mention of musicians, artists, authors, etc. releasing their own material for download is fundamentally different from other torrent downloads.  When, say, and author releases his/her stuff online, it is with consent.  They are making it available for people to read to help influence their future sales.  They rarely release EVERYTHING they have ever done.  The Super Bowl reminded me of this last night when, before the game (and every game for that matter), they say that any rebroadcast WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE NFL is illegal.  There is no doubt that authors like Brandon, musicians like Smashing Pumpkins, Fallout Boy, and that rapper dude have benefited by having their stuff downloaded.   However, that stuff is being downloaded with the artist's consent and approval.

The underlying concept is the same, though. The freely released material was sold in stores as well. In the case of the rapper, that album - the one he released free, online - has the highest sales out of any of his. I don't think it's his best work (Though, I'm not much of a rap fan, so my judgment on that might be off), yet it has the most sales, arguably because it has the most exposure. I don't see why the underlying fact - that the album is available for free - would effect sales differently depending on if the artist put it out there, or if it had just been widespread over p2p networks. People who were fans who buy music would have bought it regardless, and people who are only out for free things wouldn't have bought it either. This means that there has to be a faction out there that learned of him because it was available for free, and then bought it later.

Let's look at radio broadcasting. There is no subscription to listen to radio, and it is legal (Or was, before the DMCA. I'm not so sure how things stand now. I believe it still is, as things like DVRs for TV are legal) for me to record things from the radio. I received this music for free, at no cost.

The point of radio is publicity. The point of music videos is publicity. The point of releasing things for free on the internet is publicity. Illegal filesharing, at the very least, does give them some publicity.

Overall music sales are up. CD sales are down, but with iTunes and other paid download services, music sales are increasing.  Quite simply, the facts are saying that illegal downloading is not hurting the music industry anywhere near as much as the RIAA would have you believe. A lot of this, I'm sure, is because iTunes and other downloading services such as Napster's paid models allow people to get their music more cheaply than before, and select what songs they do want, and what songs they don't. I am not in any way arguing that filesharing is behind increased overall music sales. I just believe that it is likely contributing to them.

That is a COMPLETELY different issue from other torrents that are being done without the consent of the original artist.  It's not just the companies that suffer, the artists do as well.  In the book industry for example, it's not like authors get a ton of money per book that is sold.  not to mention authors get double taxed.  Can you see why an author would get a little upset for each book of theirs that is downloaded rather than purchased.  For anime, where do you think a majority of their profit comes from?  Manga sell a ton, sure - and the margins are way lower.  Merchandise, i imagine, is a much smaller part of business.  DVDs are probably a huge part.  Overall sales dont mean shizz if the biggest contributor to your bottom line is f'ed by things such as downloads.  Business 101.  For an Anime company to have its DVD profit cut in half is like Microsoft having its profit from software/hardware cut in half.  It would bankrupt them.

You're missing my point. With the music industry, CD sales are down. Less people are going to the store and buying CDs than they used to. But when you factor in sales over iTunes, etc, there is more music being sold today total, combining CD sales and online sales, than there was in CD sales before the advent of illegal downloading. Concert sales are up as well - which is the big thing for the artists. Concerts are where they have the opportunity to actually make significant portions of money for themselves. The industry takes a huge portion out of actual sales for themselves.

Now, obviously, anime doesn't have concerts. But it does have online sales. How well are they doing?  DVD sales are down, but they're only part of the story. Are online sales up? I'm not saying they are - but I refuse to condemn any party, on either side, until the entire truth is known.

So, because they are young and cant afford it means its ok to download?  I old and cant afford everything I like, so according to your logic I should legally download anything I want for free too.  In fact, all those young kids downloading 17000 mp3s should be able to go into BestBuy and take any CD for free since they cant afford it.  You know, lets make all bookstores libraries with free copies to "borrow" for everyone.  Im sure all the artists would work for free.  Downloading without the artists consent = stealing.  Period.  claims to the contrary are ridiculous.

Again, you're missing the point. You cannot lose a sale you never had.

Let's take an expensive piece of software like 3DS Max and use it as an example. It's retail price is 3500 dollars. I would never, ever, for any reason, buy 3DS Max. I am not a 3D Modeler. I do not do Animation for a living. There is absolutely no reason for me to have it. Yet, I could, on a whim, download it.

But I never would have bought it. Autodesk is not out $3500 they would have otherwise received if I didn't download it.

Does that make it right? No. In this example, I have my hands on software that I did not pay for, and should not have. But ultimately, it does not hurt the company.

The comment about the show House vs Tenchi Muyo doesnt seem to be taking into account the fact that it is way more expensive for the anime to be released than House.  The translation costs alone make that price go way up, and also the quantity of released.  They sell the anime at a higher price to account for smaller release numbers and higher costs.  That is an apples vs oranges comparison and really isnt valid.

The reasons are irrelevant. My point had nothing to do about Anime being unfairly priced - it had to do with economics. Most people want entertainment. Many enjoy anime. But if they also enjoy regular TV, they get far less bang for their buck buying an anime series. The US economy has been steadily declining, unemployment is up, and the value of the dollar is falling. People are defaulting on loans, and houses are being foreclosed on. Leisure related industries losing sales is hardly surprising, and the more expensive things are the first to go.

If the amount of money I feel safe in spending on entertainment each month is only $200, and I'm only out to spend half of that DVDs, am I going to buy two different seasons of a TV series, where I get nearly 2000 minutes of entertainment, or three sets of anime DVDs, where I get barely half that? This has absolutely nothing to do with why either season is priced as it is, but entirely with me trying to stretch my budget as far as I can.

Most anime fans are (And I'm generalizing here, and I could be off - though I don't think I am) younger. The majority are of the high school/college age, and that demographic does not have a whole lot of income. For many of them, most of the income they have goes towards tuition and cost of living. Without much spending power, the budgeting problem is even greater.

The reason for the cost disparity is apples and oranges. But I'm not looking at the reason for the cost disparity. I'm looking at the basic fact that there is one.


Again, I am not saying file sharing is right. I am not defending it. I am not supporting it. It is getting something that you did not earn, and is quite obviously morally wrong, if nothing else. I am, however, saying that it is not a black and white issue. There are hundreds of factors at work, and all I am trying to do is point out that there is more to the issue, and explaining other factors that are quite likely having an impact. That is all I am doing.

Preaching that file sharing is the root of all problems means that the other problems get ignored and go unresolved. When they go unresolved, the entertainment industries hurt. And I don't want them to go out of business any more than you do - they are where I find my entertainment as well.

Quote from: dawncawley on January 20, 2008, 05:49:22 PM

If I understood Mistings correctly, they can specialize in only one metal, but it can be any metal. I am not sure if that is correct, as per Brandon's way of thinking, but that was how I read and understood them.

That's what I thought, too, but somewhere in book 2 Vin "asked Clubs to burn bronze".  Since Clubs is a smoker (copper burner) I didn't understand how that was possible.

This bothered me to, but I assumed it was simply a mistake that slipped by, rather than indicative of Clubs being a special misting/mistborn hybrid

Admittedly, I wasn't exactly scholarly in my reading of Paolini's stuff, but I don't really remember anything remotely homo-erotic. In fact, I remember being left with the impression that the protagonist was almost unhealthy in his fixation with the elf girl, going so far as to badger multiple other elves about it.

The biggest problem with illegal downloads is the culture of freedom that purveys in the Net.  Basically people expect, or even demand, all content for free thus they think they're entitled to download movies, music and books for free.  This train of thought is encouraged by the fact they don't have to walk into a store to steal something, there's no risk.

As for Bryant's question about Anime, well if it wasn't hurting them why would one of the most popular US anime companies--Genon who has Cowboy Beebob--close shop because no one is buying DVDs or digital versions?  If people were buying legal digital copies, which would offset the drop in DVD sales, this wouldn't have happened.  And as Ookla said ADV (which has a wide digital distribution reach for an anime company) havening lost of problems too?  As both the articles stated Anime in the US is becoming more and more popular yet DVD sales aren't just stagnate, aren't just low like the rest of the DVD industry they're down 50% compared to 20% for other DVDs?   

The worst thing about this discussion is you seam to be defending people stealing content, tens of thousands of dollars go into make a single episode and there are lots of jobs at stake, do you honestly want no more Anime over here in the US as well as less stuff made in Japan?  Do you honestly see nothing wrong with this (even if the numbers weren't as staggering as they were)?  You called it illegal yourself yet seam to have no problem with it.

I would appreciate it if you wouldn't jump to conclusions and put words in my mouth. I stated fairly clearly in my first post in this thread that I am neither for nor against file sharing, as there are some stories out there that point to file sharing having a positive impact.


Tech N9ne, a rapper from the midwest, is fairly well known for his decision to release his album Absolute Power on the internet. Sales for this album are by far the highest out of any of his work, even including albums which have multiple tracks featured in motion pictures, etc. Yet, quite obviously, people will aways choose to take something for free, when faced with the choice of getting it for free vs. having to pay for it. One aspect is positive, and the other is negative.

And my question wasn't about DVD sales, but rather overall sales. I realize their DVD sales are going down. The thing is, that doesn't tell the whole story. Even anime dropping a larger percentage than regular movies makes quite a bit of sense, concerning the digital medium, for several reasons. One is the audience: Anime fans are largely a geeky population my nature. The average anime fan is far more likely to be interested in computers, etc, which places them in the market that digital download services cater to. You then also have to consider the fact that anime DVDs cost significantly more than, say, an equal number of TV series episodes. I recently bought the 3rd Tenchi Muyo OAV. It cost me $35, for 7 episodes and 300 minutes of play time. Comparatively, House Season 1, 22 episodes and 970 minutes, only cost me $40. More than three times the length, and only 5 dollars more in price. Prices on the online stores are not quite as disparate, from my understanding.

Say I release a book. It is originally sold in hardcover format. Later, a trade paperback version is released. If I put out an article saying that hardcover sales have plummeted, I would probably be telling the truth. But that doesn't mean that filesharing caused it.

As for ADV's digital distribution, there are quite a few issues with it. $5 per episode is quite a price, with the average anime episode being ~20 minutes long. For an hour's worth of entertainment, that's $15! I can grab a regular TV show off of iTunes for $2. It also only works on Windows because of the DRM system, which eliminates Mac and Linux users from the equation. Again, while these are much smaller pieces of the market than windows users, due to the nature of the type of person who is a fan of anime, they are hardly market shares that you wish to ignore. By requiring Windows, they are definitely losing sales.

I also disagree with the downloading = stealing sentiment. You have to realize that a significant portion of those who download things off the internet are teenagers, etc, with no jobs, and very little disposable income. Some 15 year old who's only source of income is a weekly allowance might have downloaded 17,000 MP3s, 600 movies, and 74 anime series, but it is quite obvious he never would have been able to buy all of that. You can't lose sales that you never had. Am I saying that it's fair, or even right that this kid has these, when he didn't pay for them? Far from it - I buy my things, and so should he. But the RIAA in particular has left a bad taste in my mouth on this subject, where they make wild claims saying that a single person who has thousands of MP3s has cost the industry hundreds of thousands of dollars - quite obviously, these people would not have actually bought all of this music, even if it was not available for download.


By no means am I saying that file sharing is correct, nor defending file sharers. I would agree, even, that for products that are already popular, it is a bad thing. However, there is proof out there that it can help people gain recognition and popularity. That, coupled with the ridiculous strong arm tactics of several organizations, such as the RIAA (Who has been lobbying for the penalty limit to be increased - they're saying that every single shared MP3 file is $150,000 in damagers. More than a million dollars for a shared CD!) makes me believe that the issue is hardly black and white. There are multiple sides to every story, and to make an informed decision, you need to know all of the sides. And, at this time, I do not know all of the sides, so I can not comfortably make a judgment one way or another. This does not mean that I am for, or defending, filesharers. All it means is that I'm not ready to roast them on a spit, either.

Edit: I didn't even consider economic issues, either. With the US likely in a recession, the higher priced luxuries are going to go away faster. I don't believe this is a major contributor to lost sales, but it could be one of many minor ones. Thousands of untreated small cuts will bleed you to death just as surely as several big ones.

1 - Language - the first inconsistency - the world introduced to us  is one where knights refer to each other using the ancient Ser not even Sir. And then they swear in the modern vernacular - f-bombs and other modern swear words in a ancient setting? Utterly ruined the consistency of the world - for me

I suppose this comes down to a matter of preference. I don't really mind this at all, and I don't really see why you take issue with it. What's to say that in this world the word "Ser" just stayed in use longer, while the rest of language progressed. Knights, etc, seem very traditional, but there are also very modern aspects to the world. It's also quite apparent in the books that human civilization has existed for tens of thousands of years, so it's not unlikely at all that many things have changed, yet others, while being held more sacred, did not.

2 - Undead - the second inconsistency - the mother who died and then came back as undead - two complete books and NO MENTION of undead or anything like that and then suddenly, a character comes back from the dead. And interacts with the live characters - in something like Wheel Of Time, the dark lord from the very first book is referred to as the lord of the grave and a number of references to him being able to reach the dead and bring them back allow for the return of a couple of bad guys much later in the series without disturbing the continuity of the world.

Uh, the prologue of book 1 involves undead. The Night's Watch guardsmen are killed by the Others, and they come back from the dead to kill the one companion who had lived until the end of the chapter. Throughout the series, the Jon storyline involves dealing with the Others and their dead, converted minions. Jon saves the Lord Commander one night because he sets the wight on fire. Dany and her unborn child are also involved with necromancy (Albeit gone wrong) very shortly into the story. Beric Dondarrion is referred to as having been killed many times, though I believe Martin intended for the reader to just assume that it was a legend. However, it turned out to be the truth, and Dondarrion gives his life for Catelyn to be ressurected. If you believe that there was no mention of the undead until that point, you really misread quite a bit of the series. I would say it is the only consistently present magic in the entire series

3 - Religion - the third inconsistency - the system of beliefs presented has no mention of heaven or hell - there is no reference to an afterlife or anything like that - the belief system is based in the current living world - and yet certain characters tell others to, "Go to hell" - perhaps this ties in with the first inconsistency but I isolated this as it refers to a system of religious beliefs that is not part of the world.

There are quite a few various religions in the world. The most common is worship of The Seven, and then there are the Gods of the North, and the gods of the Dothraki, whatever god it is that Stannis Baratheon's witch lady and Thoros of Myr follow, etc. I'm not certain any of them exclude the thought of heaven or hell, but I would find it extremely unlikely that none of them do. I wouldn't say that this is out of the ordinary at all.

May I suggest Neil Gaiman?

Neil Gaiman is an excellent author. American Gods is one of my favorite novels.

File sharing is interesting. In some cases, it has pretty much MADE the artist in question famous. Dragonforce, for example, would have never gotten any real attention in the US without their stuff being available for download, and you see them now doing tours, part of Ozzfest, etc.

Naruto also got a huge head start on the US market because of file sharing. Merchandising, etc, has also taken way off for it.

But then, for every person that goes out and buys something that they liked after downloading it, there's two (or more) people who won't.

I'm not sure if there's some magic obscurity:file sharing conversion to sales ratio out there, but I would have to theorize that it at least marginally helps those who could use more publicity more than it hurts them.

I have no idea what the magic point is, though, where it starts hurting more than helping. And that's the problem - no one does. That makes it pretty difficult to really say whether file sharing is right or wrong.

I think EUOL has the right idea with Warbreaker. If there are freely available samples of that nature - An album, or book, or whatever - then I think it achieves largely the same good that filesharing does.

Edit: Just ran a search of my own, and all I got was a book on "Macromolecular Crystallography"

Whatever that is.

I wouldn't recommend Terry Brooks to anyone. I felt like every book of his that I read was actually the exact same story with the exact same characters and exact same locations, except the names were different, the fat people were skinny, the skinny people were fat, the mountains were valleys, the valleys were mountains, etc. It's like all he did was polarize every unimportant aspect, and then leave everything else the same.