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Originally Posted by little_dancer
How exactly would a sharware program work in terms of income? I know that the clients must pay a user fee for this type of program, but are the artists getting payed by the download (in a peer to peer situation), or is it the shareware owner who benefits? (please excuse me if I am using the wrong terms, here)
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As I posted earlier, shareware is not the correct term for p2p-filesharing software. That being said: with most filesharing-software like Kazaa, limewire, Napster (seems to be coming back in a legal form), soulseek, or pick your brand, no-one is required to pay for using them. There are some programs where you can buy 'benefits' (faster downloads, no waiting queue (sp?)).
Since there is no money be transfered, no one will get any money from it. How the companies/organisations who exploit these services make their money, I don't know, and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. [/bogart]
There are some legal posibilities to aquire digital audio files, like Rhapsody, Pressplay, eMusic, etc. Here you have to pay for what you download. In one way or the other, that money ends up where it should be.
To summarize:
Filesharing = illegal = no one pay = no one gets money
Legal download services = legal (duh!) = you pay for what you download = whoever is entitled to money from downloads gets it
William
(for everyone who can read Dutch, research papers on copyright, software licences (including shareware) and legal audio downloads are available at my website, under projects > research)