ok, lets say i make movies. i put time and money into making them. i make my living from them. i need to sell them to make money. oh wait, there's people that actually have paid for them but feel the need to share them with others for free. should i have a prob with this? NO!
people like you just dont get it. you haven't lost a sale cuz you never had the sale to begin with. most people willing to download a file for free rather than pay weren't gonna pay anyway. so you lose nothing but possibly gain good word of mouth. possibly gain someone buying related merchandise. possibly gain someone buying a concert ticket. the number of people sharing vs. buying may be exponential but I personally wouldn't have a prob with it.
you need to realize the times we live in. passing a videotape or cassette around and making countless copies and sharing back in the day wasn't an issue cuz it was physical media. now we have digital media and sharing is as simple as a mouse click. but it's no different except that you can share with the world rather than your friends, fam, n neighbors.
do i have a prob with people sharing vids that i have available for sale? nope. if not for file sharing, those people may not have even heard of me or my product and if they look at my stuff and like it, and even not like it, they still know about it now. as opposed to them not knowing at all. so they can either bad mouth it or spread the word. either way, it's free marketing, hopefully positive provided i have a quality product.
and with that, you get site traffic, impressions, and clicks, sign ups, referral fees...if your site is set up right, you can make your money in different ways.
people burning to dvd and sharing or even selling, i got no prob with that. i would understand the price that people are willing to pay for a product and adjust prices accordingly. i charge $20 (like adam), guy down the street sells it for $10. even though he's not supposed to, this is the real world. i shut him down, 10 more will replace him. you see it all the time with torrent and p2p sites. it can't be stopped.
since i realize this, to answer your question, plainly and simply, no, i wouldn't have a prob with people sharing my work.
Bernard 23:08:10 12/16/2008