Piracy

[maerim]

Mr. Elton John, the artist formerly know as Reg, anti piracy campaigner and pauper who has just signed a deal to go Las Vegas for 3 or 30 million dollars but when you have his sort of money what's the odd naught amongst friends?

This gentleman managed to spend £6,000 a week (yes a week) last year on flowers so we have a queen spending more on "dok mai" than the real Queen and as an aside with his money wouldn't you think he would be able to buy a decent syrup?

Mr and Mrs Posh and Becks whom I understand are having to scrape by on £58,000 a day and let us be grateful they don't work weekends or they might demand overtime rates.Mrs Posh let us remind ourselves has contributed with her mates to the world of art "what you really really want, what you really really want"

Quite.

These world class artists (along with others) whose work I am sure will be echoing round the concert halls of the world in a few hundred tears from now are spearheading an anti piracy campaign.

One of the main planks of this campaign is that piracy starves the original artist of funds. This statement is obviously true in her case as I have seen more fat on a chip.

As I walk through shops here selling pirated C.D.s depriving these deserving people of their well earned money I wonder what others think of this burning issue?

[kwiz117]

This is an issue happening throughout a long period of time but non-of the governments were able to sort this matter.

As we know, piracy is not only related with the CD's though it is the most common visible happening around us in Thailand. [Mobile phones comes next]

For the Artist, it is a very unfair situation and no argument for that. But during this period of time, what I can not understand is, if another person can produce and sell an illegal copy of a CD for 100 Bht, why the original Artist could not price it at 125 Bht making at around 25% high than the pirated version?

For example, I brought the "Lord of the Rings-part 2" originals from Mangpong for 400 Bht few months back. But I know, I could have duplicated the same at 200 Bht from Pantip for the two CD's.

Now that 200 Bht also comes with a very handy profit attached to it. Now are we trying to say that 100% Margin or sometimes 200% Margin above the pirated copy price is simply for the "Original Artist" coz it covers from the Intellectual Property Rights and it is his own creation.

Now, where is the free market economy that is the foundation for Capitalism comes in to play here.

No one can avoid this, until the producers re-think about the pricing formulas.

If the Price is a factor works as a constraint or a limiting factor against the Demand, then the Market forces will push the vacuum toward an Alternative Product.

When it comes to the products covered under "Intellectual Property rights", it is hard to find any alternative product to substitute a unique creation by a human.

The result is my friend, a Duplicate.

No Government or no one will be able to stop this other than the producers themselves.

[maerim]

Two Elton John's? Please no, one is enough for any planet

[monty]

Everything to do with pricing indeed...just came back from a trip to Panthip and couldn't fail to notice the retail prices of both WinXP pro and Office XP at around 30000 Baht for both

This is more then the price of most average PC's and around 1000 times the price of the pirated version!!!!

You can get semi official OEM versions at a few thousand baht, but legally you're only supposed to use them with the hardware they came with and not buy them seperately...

Please note there are smart software companies as well, mainly in gaming who adjust both price and packaging (Thai language manual etc.) for the Thai market. They sell between 199 and 499 Baht, they sell good and hardly pirated versions around! These are the companies buyers should support buy buying the legal stuff...they put work and effort in their products and if they ask a fair price, let's pay it!!!!

Just my opinion...Microsoft won't make much $$$ from me

[monty]

Oops, should read 100 times

Mr Gates makes me see to many zero's in dollar numbers