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Let me get this structure right, so that I can be sure that I understand you, before you go on. (I'm a little perplexed because if the first copies weren't produced, that would obviate the willingness of people to buy copies in the first place.)

I assume you're pretending to be perplexed for effect here as it's standard economics to recognize that people will not produce goods if they don't anticipate making a profit.

Kickstarter is an interesting counterexample - basically get sufficient people to pay up front before production begins. Of course that may not work for everything, but then nor does any system.

The BBC? You mean impose a mandatory annual license fee on computer users and then give it to a state owned software company to produce digital goods for us?



(1) I don't have "effects" really; I don't have some delusion that someone other than you is reading this. I am perplexed because you defined a problem as, "if the unwillingness of people to buy copies because they can easily avoid paying, results in these first copies not being produced". That phrasing perplexes me quite legitimately because you have literally said that the problem is "if you won't buy something which does not exist because you can easily avoid paying for it." So I was very cautious to reread the problem in words much closer to what you're now saying -- "that people will not produce goods if they don't anticipate making a profit" -- in an effort to parse the sentence.

(3) No, I mean the British Broadcasting Corporation. You know, those guys who make Doctor Who. They are not funded by a mandatory annual license fee on computer users, and I would not describe them as a state owned software company. Nonetheless, when they produce a new episode of Doctor Who, it rapidly appears on BitTorrent networks.


What point were you trying to make by mentioning the BBC? I though you were suggesting it as a model for overcoming the free rider problem.




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