Does capitalism lead to a bootleg economy?

As companies establish themselves with brand names, it becomes harder for small companies to break in to a market.  When companies control supply through high production volume and price through cost cutting equipment and manufacturing, then there is a considerable barrier to entry that few small companies will be able to break into.  The only reasonable way to make money in a free market is to work outside the system and hope no one cares.  Look at music, games, anime- the expensive, official versions have a high price and less demand than a cheap bootleg of high quality (or even a free download).  Look on Ebay and you'll see how few sales are actually legit.  Full series boxsets are available on VCD or DVDR, and customers buy because they're much more cost effective than buying each season at full price. 

Look at China and just how widespread their bootlegging is.  Not only do they have more professional packaging and disc making, but they export all over the world.  Even if a company could legitimately afford to license movies,  get a pressing factory, print packaging, and distribute throughout the country, they would have tremendous difficulty making a profit.  Copying someone else's work without permission becomes the only real way to profit.  Is the US headed towards this path as well?  

Because companies only care about the bottom line at the end of this month, and not 10 years from now. Kind of suicidal, it's as if they don't think they'll remain in business that long.
As more and more musicians fall out of the woodwork and indie movies become easier and less expensive to make they should lower their prices so the consumer can get two or three times as much for the same amount of money, as they have that much more to choose from. But no, everything is still the same price, people making min or a little above can't follow all their favorite bands without going into debt (thereby choosing between food & rent for the next month and enjoyment) and less crap gets sold. If they would change their business model with the times you wouldn't see this bullshit happening in such massive quantities. Same thing happened when casette tapes came out, only the people copying stuff didn't get the music at as high a quality, and had to snailmail it back and forth.

MediaPlay charges so much that several stores have closed down for being not profitable.   

>>3
Hilariously stupid business.
They ran an intensive campaign where I live for Thanksgiving and Christmas deals.
But...BEFORE that advertising even ran, they closed the stores all down.
What kind of twit doesn't even wait until after Christmas? I mean, fuck. That's stupidity unheard of. Just cut staff and turn down the lights if you're so worried then about money from that store, pop up the clearance signs on the 21st or so, and open the doors, possibly grabbing a temp or two if you get swamped.
And there seems to be no communication going on at that company if their ad division is running all these flyers in areas they've already vacated a week before or more. Jesus. Urrrgh, corporate insanity makes my blood boil, how can these suits claim to be capitalist with such wasteful business practices?
Unfortunate though, they had a really good book selection. Anyone else have theirs with nothing but books on the top floor, and places to sit and read them, see if you like that series? I've heard that some stores aren't set up the way the ones in my area were, but I don't know whether it's my friends' whose stores were different than the norm or mine. I would check out a scifi or fantasy series like that, then buy an unrelated book just to make'em feel happy, then use my book club to grab what I was reading all at once for about the same price as one of their books. Better'n a library that was. Especially since our library is a puny rural-style library. You got yer classics, then you got yer history, then a few random conservative authors, and then a few random 'political adventure' books like Pendleton's or Clancy's. And that was it.

Bootleging is a product of capitalism. Not only is it a fact, but it is an expected commodity.

>>5
Bootlegging will occur anywhere anyone has to pay for something that is otherwise copiable...  Has nothing to do with capitalism.

when you add new laws, people will be willing to violate them for profit.  copyright law just happens to be very profitable to violate.  eliminate copyright law, and bootlegging will be gone.  period.

Um... no.

>>6
Correct.

>>1
Stupid.

End of thread.

Bootlegging is more of a product of communism.

Say again what country have the most bootlegging activity? China? People's republic of China?

Because they all be po'.

>>10
What China bootlegs are the products of Capitalism, not Communism. You've made his point, you just misinterpreted it. Bootlegging is widespread in all of Asia for a number of other reasons.

You can't sell your product for an absurdly high price, complain that no one is buying it, and then sue people when they bootleg it for lower. Only retards do that, retards that shouldn't have gotten into the market. If you want to compete with the bootleggers, then compete with their strengths (i.e.: price, availability, ease of purchase) instead of crying to Uncle Samchu.

It's common in Asia for there to be no availability of the real merchandise, but only bootlegged versions. Whose fault is this?

>>12
The communists for lagging behind technologically and committing outright plagiarism.

Socialism and Communism are all about leeching off of the productive and successful; eventually dragging everyone down to the same lowest common denominator.

>>14
I love how the lowest common denominator champions their nation's economy, when they had absolutely no part in it. What are you proud of? Rich, white protestant men in the 70s investing millions of dollars into engineering? That's the American spirit, all right. Have pride!

Take a gander at the last 30 good big movies in the US. How many of them were Asian clones? 15? Haha, Americans. Also, you do understand that the most pirated media are games and software, right? And so you do realize those are both created in every way by all Asian countries, right?

On top of all that, our "superiority" comes exclusively from being eight thousand miles from Japan and entering a war when everyone was dead. Don't forget that American. Your house's infrastructure has dead Jew babies to thank.

>>12
It's not a product of capitalism... are you fucking stupid?  The reason why bootlegging is occuring in china to such a large extent is because they simply don't care about our copyright laws.  A capitalist country that didn't respect another's laws would have the exact same phenomenon.

Why the hell do you feel the need to connect the concepts of piracy and capitalism anyway?

>> Why the hell do you feel the need to connect the concepts of piracy and capitalism anyway?

LOL MY RIBS I CONCEDE I CONCEDE

Actually, I was trying to sell legitimate software and movies on eBay when I realized it would be far more effective to copy mercilessly and sell it, relisting whenever an auction gets taken down.  I just this conscience that gets in the way of me doing it.

>>15
Roosevelt was a liberal pacifist. It is liberals who are the source of all america's probelms. We pro-capitalists are conservatives, you're quarrel is elsewhere.

YOUR YOUR YOUR...

HUMILIATION

>>19
I don't understand how that's a response to what I said? I never mentioned liberals or conservatives, and I didn't attack Capitalism, I attacked those who believe they had a hand in Capitalism, when Capitalism is the anti-underdog, anti-small man, anti-communal creation. What does Roosevelt or pacifism have to do with this?

"On top of all that, our "superiority" comes exclusively from being eight thousand miles from Japan and entering a war when everyone was dead. Don't forget that American. Your house's infrastructure has dead Jew babies to thank."

Liberals were responsible for allowing auschwitz to happen and inviting the Japanese to bom pearl harbour. They just love to capitulate and see dictators as the underdog who deserves something, for being the underdog, whether the despot in question is a completely fucking crazy mass murderring war mongerring psychopath or not. Just like you would rather see your family impaled on spikes than put a bootlegger in prison.

Roosevelt, a democrat, even wanted to surrender Hawaii to the Japanese, abandon Britain to the nazis and pay war reparations for the fuel ammunition the Japanese had to use to convince the US to let them control the pacific. There is also evidence to suggest he wanted to be flown over to Tokyo so Mister Hirohito could fuck him in the ass.

>>22
There are so many flaws in your reply that I refuse to even acknowledge it exists. Much like how our current government operates, except instead of flaws its facts that they ignore.

You're a funny guy, though, I commend that. You're the Lewis Black of history.

Hello, >>23, you've undeniably acknowledged it exists by posting about it.

So how about you list the flaws in >>22's post instead of some inane reply?

>>23
He was clearly using hyperbole, why focus on the constructive elements of the argument and say something like "haha, very funny, but we liberals don't capitulate, we..." instead. I think he was referring to how liberals want to free all the terrorists from guantanamo bay and give more aid to the middle east as a result of terrorism, which seems very much like capitulation.

If we gave everyone in the middle east welfare so they wouldn't feel like bombing the US, then we'd have to deal with mexican terrorists and chinese terrorists and romanian terrorists aswell trying to get us to give them welfare and the muslim terrorists would just ask for more. Roosevelt also did refuse to enter the war until 2 years after it started due to pacifist sentiments.

He's ranting like a paranoid schizophrenic. You two see reason to disarm his points? You're not supposed to ration with crazy people, you're supposed to get them help. He didn't even make any points, he just made random shit up and put "Democrat sucks" after it. You guys are fucking retards if you really expect me to respond to that.

His entire reply screams: I'm proud of being a republican because I don't give into the demands of terrorists. He's a product of propaganda and one-liners. On top of that, he didn't specify even a single identifiable fact. I can't believe I even visit this board. In fact, I won't anymore.

You people revel in bickering, blame, and hatred because you recognized long ago you can do absolutely nothing about anything. Indulge yourselves.

You need more 4-ch.

>>26
? They did do something about something, the republicans are in power aren't they?