Tim O'Reilly's Thoughts on Piracy and Online Distribution

In the article the author, Tim O'reilly, explains a lot about piracy and sales. He talks about how hundreds of thousands of books are published a year yet few hit shelves and even fewer survive after that. Many end up in a warehouse then eventually to a recycling bin. This reminded me a lot of the movie "Startup.com" because they tried so hard to make a good website and in the long run failed. Many websites are built every year and many end up dying fairly soon after creation. This is usually due to poor backing. 

The article also explains that pirated copies of different products cause for a great loss in money. The author says that what is thought to be lost is usually made back due to the newly acquired fans that may have benefited from the copy. He also explains how his daughter is a big fan of downloading from legal internet sites, and because of her he has been introduced to many new songs that he likes, and he has actually gone out to buy the CDs. 

Customers will usually try to do whats right. He tells about how some of the items for sale on his website have been illegally copied and put available online. Although the small amount of pirated copies doesnt have much of an effect, the company still contacts the people and most will take it down. The only people who dont take it down are usually from other countries and they do it because their laws dont enforce it and because it is way too expensive for others in he country. 

According to the author, shoplifting is worse than piracy. Shoplifting steals from the store unnoticed, then can be redistributed, and the potential store buyers cant get a copy because there is no more. 

Although many big companies claim to be losing money from pirates, they could be wrong. He says that losing money is all just mathematics and a numbers game. For many people to even find the music they want they need a middleman. The internet is usually that middleman. By using this, the people still find the song they want, plus possible other songs from the same place and now they are a bigger fan of the music than they were before. The author also believes that the internet could very easily take over the way we sell many things such as music. 

The author says if the quality is there, and you can get it for free or really cheap, why pay? Many good things that would normally be paid a lot for can usually be found for a lot cheaper or for free. 

Although there are pirates the products are all still out there. He says the ultimate lesson is "Give it to him in as many ways as you can find, at a fair price, and let him choose which works best for him. I agree with this. I think no matter what the law forbids and no matter what companies do, pirating will occur. I think by offering the product in many different places people will have options. If they feel the need to have the product they will pay the money for it, if they have the money, or they will get it by other means. Either way, whether its music, movies, or books, if people want the product they will get it. 

Startup.com

The film Startup.com shows the story of two men who try to start a new website in the beginning of the new internet age. The men, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman, were friends all through high school. After graduation they stayed good friends and eventually went into business together. The film shows all they went through to try and create their own business. It is all shot using the real people rather than actors, and it is all real events rather than using sets, scripts, and having directors.
In the late nineteen-nineties the two friends, Kaleil and Tom, have the idea to create their own website. Before this point in time the internet was not nearly as popular as it currently is, and it was also not as well known. At the time when the two friends starting making the business the internet was just becoming really popular and widely known. Kaleil and Tom had the idea to make a website on this ever growing internet for the public to use.
The friends had the idea to make a company that was government related. The plan was to make a company that allowed the public to deal with municipal governments. This means they could do such things as pay parking tickets online in the convenience of their homes. The company they wanted to start was originally called Public Data Systems. The name was later changed to Govworks instead which lead to the creation of the website www.govworks.com.
After initially deciding on what to make the website about the two friends had to figure out how the website would work. They would also need money and backers for the company. The first person to loan money to the two was Mrs. Herman, the mother of Tom Herman. She believed in the company and wanted to help them get started.
There were many other small backers that helped the two friends by loaning money to help them start the business but it just wasn’t enough. Kaleil had to go around and try to find money in different places. He worked hard trying to pitch his idea to rich people and companies and asked for money to help get his business underway. Eventually they had lots of different sources of money for the business, including different venture capitalists. The total amount of money raised for the business was somewhere in the tens of millions.
In all, the company only lasted a few years. Throughout the course of making this film, the two friends had lost their third partner, who had to be bought out of the company, went through many girlfriends, lost many employees as the company died down, and also had a few rough moments in their friendship. In the end the company died. Kaleil and Tom stay good friends to this day and have also started a few new companies since the death of www.govworks.com. This film showed the rise and fall of their dream. In failing with the company, the two men learned many useful things about making a company and also about themselves.

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