Another issue that comes to light is DRM. Copy-protection is an absolute joke and insult to all customers. DRM has two purposes: fight piracy and kill the secondhand market. BOTH of these purposes absolutely destroy any chance of paying customers having a positive experience. First off, DRM does absolutely nothing to stop piracy. None. It never has. DRM becomes more complex every year (often costing the company lots of money in R&D), and every time, pirates break it in a matter of days. So, while the pirates are enjoying the content hassle-free (and cost-free), the ones who actually PAID MONEY to these companies have to deal with authentication, passwords, licenses, etc. From there, you have the issue of content creators feeling they have a right to secondhand sales. WHAT??? This is a blatant violation of the First Sale Doctrine. This would be like the previous owner of your house claiming a percentage of the sale of your house to someone else (even though they no longer own it).

Piracy brings to light many important issues. First off, content creators are running around like their pants are on fire. It is extremely convenient for content creators to cite piracy as the reason for reduced sales, but new research indicates that piracy has minimal impact for reasons already cited. Pirates generally obtain content that they would not have paid for in the first place; that doesn’t make it right, but it is funny how companies are quick to blame piracy so as to bury what often amounts to be the truth: the content is actually not very good.

This brings me to my second point: piracy often serves as free advertising. Again, I’m not saying this makes it right, but businesses are so quick to prosecute pirates that they don’t know that many of their paying customers actually listened to a pirated copy before deciding to pay for the real deal. In response to this, many businesses state, “Well, sorry, you’re not allowed to try-before-you-buy.” This should raise a red flag with all consumers. This is extremely common in the computer game market where games have somehow climbed to an unjustified $60. Thankfully, Valve taught the industry a lesson by showing that reducing its price by 75%, they made MORE money than when the price as at its highest.

And yes, at one point I did steal another guy’s woman. Am I a pirate now?

Anyway, I agree. It costs the companies nothing to let us share music with one another. After all, sharing is the better way ;)

I’m sure it’s a very low percentage. (I’d hazzard a guess at .01% possibly lower). The RIAA has come out recently stating they’re going to stop suing the pirates and just get their internet disconnected. :\ Mind you this only applies for Americans, and only some ISPs are working with the RIAA too. Mind you, it’s very likely it’s the all the big guys (none have outright said if they were or weren’t). But if you get disconnected by one, you can just take your business elsewhere.

Anyways, did you guys change lighting fixtures or position? I never really noticed Brett’s shadow before this episode… kinda distracting… for me… at least…

Illegal is illegal, doesn’t really matter if there’s cost involved or not…if you don’t like the law…change it (or those people who make the laws)

And, for the most part, it’s not the band that’s loosing out with piracy , it’s the label. I realize that labels were/are important, but they feel entitled to far too much considering they aren’t the talented ones. They really aren’t nearly as necessary in this digital age where cheap prosumer level stuff is easy to use and it’s very possible to self-release something. Look at what we’re watching now. I imagine there’s likely $5000- $10000 worth of tech, and 2 people needed to make it. And with the internet we can all see it. Back in the day for this type of show to exist it’d be a lot more expensive to make, and need a lot more people to do it. Same goes for music. Before bands needed the label to record and press and distribute their music. But now they can do it at home on their own and it’ll sound about as good to the average listener. You can sell the music digitally, or on CD. Both are rather easy to do compared to having to get your music pressed on vinyl and getting major retailers to stock it. Now you can burn it onto a disc, and sell it your self.

Sure, you won’t get all the promotion that a major label band would, but you get the artistic freedoms to do as you’d like with your music. You don’t have make it radio friendly if you don’t want. Or make a hit single etc.

Before a major label was pretty much necessary for people to hear your music outside of a live performance. Now, not so much. And as these labels are loosing “power” and bands can still make money from live shows and merch the labels aren’t happy.

sorry for tl;dr

I have to wonder though, after watching all these shows, how did you really start out with WYOTK? I mean, what talents did you have that set you up to be so good at this, what led you the style in which you portray vast amounts of useful information in the way you do? Did you just wake up one day and say, “Hey, let’s start our own company and make a useful show that will help people!” ?