Hi

I am reposting part of a post I made In July 2014 in response

to the Claim of poser Merchants having Lost "Millions"to piracy.

This is not a personal Attack on anyone just an Observation 

of the Objective,Observable reality

As a merchant selling Digital products here at Renderosity

I have long since accepted the reality that

This is not a viable way(IMHO) to make a primary living which is why I still rely on custom character animation,3D motion graphics and good old fashioned 2D graphic design for print.

I recently read a very interesting book

on my Kindle called "The second Machine Age"

This book was very blunt in clarifying the reality of selling "Data sets" (ie digital products) as a business model.

In Short our business model CANNOT be compared to a craftsman selling, Maintaining an inventory of, and shipping&delivering even the most generic physical product that he created/manufactured.

This because our only real cost is the purchase price of whatever development software we used and our own subjective opinion of what our expert labor costs to produce ONE original copy.

After that, the "shelf life" & dollar value of your product is severely limited by several factors

,not the least of which, is the ability by you, ( and others),to instantly "manufacture" store and distribute unlimited copies at a cost of ZERO dollars.

As Merchants of digital poser content Our "loss" thus is not literal as in the case of the real life open sea "pirate" stealing a physical shipping container of Apple Ipads at gun point,that Apple Paid to develope &manufacture, and  thereafter can NEVER be sold (By Apple) for a profit.

 

As they have been "Pirated"or physically removed from apple's inventory in a Zero Sum Fashion.

Our "loss"can only be a theoretical estimate of what all those unlimited copies would have sold for ,at our retail price.

Alas IMHO our scenario then becomes a sort of "Schrödinger's cat" paradox wrapped in endlessly debatable semantics.

whereby I am enjoying the benefit of being able to "manufacture" one million copies of my $10 dollar python script at a cost of Zero.....

while simultaneously asserting I have suffered a $10 Million Dollar "loss" when  disparate users worldwide collectively create one million copies of this same script via unauthorized digital downloads on torrent.

" Most network providers hide behind the DMCA and pull the content, but they do not unplug accounts or pull the blogs that are used entirely for piracy (many Ive found our stuff on, there are also links to cracks of Adobe products, etc)".

On the matter of ISP unplugging accounts or inserting themselves into disputes over ownership of content being

hosted or transferred on their networks.

I personally know several individuals who partake in the Cottage industry of selling "bootlegged" DVD's& music in low income urban areas to the non tech savvy populations there.

One Such person has Verizon as his ISP.

He recently received a notice,from verizon, that Paramount studios(IIRC)

Accused him of Downloading one of their movies or TV shows

Via Torrent.

Verizon inc Made this Man "sign " a digital Statement

Promising to "desist" from this activity

and he Did so.

Shortly thereafter he was Accused of Downloading more

Bootlegged movies .etc.

This time Verizon sent him a policy Statement indicating

that in the( frankly unlikely) Event of a Lawsuit by Paramount etc

they ( Verizon), would share his personal information with

the Claimants if the claimants lawyer requested it.

No Threat of shutting off his service was ever Made by Verizon

This shows us that ISP's are in the Primary business of COLLECTING MONTHLY Service fees from their subscribers.

Not Deleting Consumer accounts (in this highly competitive market) over DVD/Bluray  rips of "Star Trek" or  last seasons TV episodes of "the Good Wife" or "Two broke Girls".

Paramount is a Multi-billion Dollar Corporation 

they Could Afford the cost of legally pursuing those who

distribute their movies & TV shows.

But they almost Never Go after individuals

and even  in the case of State sponsored "piracy"

( such as China,North Korea etc,) they defer to the Buffoons in

 Washington  DC to Decide if it is in their Political interest to

take any action.

So what real options does a pose/Daz merchant have over

stopping distribution of his

purpose built $$ small market$$ digital goods???...not many IMHO.

  

My website

YouTube Channel