Ares Vista: Is Filesharing Wrong?

Ares Vista and other filesharing software has always been the subject of intense criticism from a number of camps. Firstly, the music and move industries are quite transparently against the process, and secondly Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have long complained that filesharing eats away at their bandwidth capacity. Let’s take a look at these arguments in turn.

Ares Vista Against The Music and Movie Industry

Ares Vista and file sharing in general, they say, directly attacks their bottom line and is tantamount to direct stealing. Would the same people who partake in filesharing be willing to walk into a high street shop and steal a CD or DVD? Quite clearly this is a weak analogy, as many people will share media when they wouldn’t otherwise be interested in it. In fact, all the evidence suggests that file sharing has no effect on CD sales (and movie sales would appear to be no different). Some studies have shown that file sharing actually helps new albums gain exposure that they wouldn’t ever have achieved using traditional marketing methods; in this case file sharing actually directly improves their bottom line.

The statistics of lost revenue used by the industry are usually startling, and there is a good reason for that: the measurement by their analysts is incorrect. Usually these figures are calculated using the very simplistic formula of 1 download = 1 lost sale. Clearly this is not the case.

Ares Vista Against The ISPs

Ares Vista has angered ISPs who consider that it uses up ‘too much’ of their bandwidth. They estimate that 10% of the population uses 90% of the bandwidth, and these 10% are assumed to be file sharers. There is no real evidence to suggest that these figures are accurate.

Unfortunately the ISPs, and consequently the media who follow these stories like hawks, are under the misguided impression that ‘lots of downloading’ = ‘nasty evil file sharing’. If I stream music to my computer, I am subject to the same scrutiny as someone downloading illegal pornography? The shallow-minded and erroneous approach to the ‘problem’ is quickly clear.

Bandwidth is an incredibly cheap commodity. What the ISPs really struggle with is the fact that their communication infrastructure cannot handle the amount of bandwidth that they promised their customers. If they hadn’t over promised or – better – if they were able to improve their systems, then this wouldn’t be an issue.

Does It Make A Difference?

Ares Vista goes from strength to strength, with thousands of people taking up filesharing on a daily basis. Fights by conglomerates of music industry giants against the people have eventually dwindled and died; the movie industry is having a go, too, but their spirited rampage is doomed to failure. Filesharing has simply become ingrained in society and people will not stop. Better for businesses to follow Sony’s lead and find another way to make money from the music they create.

Posted on 9 November 2009 by Lee in General