torjones wrote:I'm sorry but your view still doesn't take reality and history into account.
Allow me to point out how effective the record labels, Book Publishers, and Movie industries are at squashing file sharing through torrent today. Sure, they smack down on one or two groups a year, but that doesn't stop millions of people world wide from downloading the latest songs, movies and books, some of which are out being shared for free days before the official release.
Allow me to point out that in a world of exceedingly limited government you're not ever going to see simple lawsuits over stuff like this. This is particularly true when most "governments" are limited to the geographical area in which they specifically reside. Also consider that what government there is stands a good chance of being
afraid of magic and doesn't want people teaching others.
Government Representative wrote:This happened OUTSIDE of the city limits? Gosh, that's too bad! Oh...it was TEN FEET outside of the city limits? Did ya notice that word, 'outside'? I have a new word for you son! That word is 'jurisdiction', and that means we don't give a crap what happens outside here unless it's causing something bad in here. In this case, I see the 'something bad' happening out there as being your friend spreading around secrets we weren't meant to know!
Personally, I think it's a fine thing that one of our citizens took care of that clear threat to our safety!
On top of that, add in that if they are NOT hostile to or afraid of magic, they are likely to
protect the local mage guild and their interests.
Government Representative wrote:Let me see if I understand this. Your complaint is that one of our city fathers took issue with a friend of yours not following local guild protocol and took action to address it. When confronted your friend became violent. In response to this violence, our city father...a pillar of the community, a man whose integrity is beyond question, who has done more for the poor and needy than any ten others I know...rightly defended himself, and in so doing ended a threat to the city. This somehow upsets you? Son, I'll be glad to tell you all about this...we have no problem whatsoever with our local guilds monitoring their own business, and when they are attacked for doing so, we certainly don't oppose them defending themselves!
The proposal is just simply unrealistic.
Those selling the Free Magic tutorials, likely to be the black market aren't going to put up with a bunch of uppity guild mages trying to raid their markets just so that they can crush a bunch of Free Magic hippies. (Don't forget that there really isn't any internet outside of the mega-cities, so the distribution media isn't free) (Still, all they'd be paying for is the distribution media itself. I figure usually 5 credits. That's what it used to cost for a CD-R of whatever you wanted burned to disk and mailed to you.)
This is incredibly unlikely. The black market is out for profit, and sickeningly high profit at that. You're not describing something that's likely to result in sickeningly high profit, because most people are too poor to give them money in high enough quantities to make it worthwhile and there's no repeat business on the sale of a spell disk; in fact, following your logic, the person would copy the disk and give it to others freely! I mean, weapons need maintenance and replacement. Armor gets shot up. Spells? If you have it, you have it, and you don't have to recharge e-clips or anything! There's no long term profit margin in selling for five credits a pop.
Also, it's not like magic is something you can learn with a correspondence course. There are a few that are inborn, some that are learned through meditation (e.g. Mystics), and others that are learned through focused apprenticeship, but I seriously doubt one could learn magic by simply sitting and watching a video.
I also don't think it's as simple as learning it from a video if you're talking about existing mages learning new spells. Let's assume that it is and they can though. The Black Market would not ever sell them for 5 credits each. They'd sell it for whatever the market would bear and do so at a sickeningly high markup if they did it at all. It'd be closer to 50,000 per spell than it would be 5. What motivation would they have to sell them for 5 credits when their market (mages) would be fully able to pay thousands AND would only need to learn it once to use it as often as they like for the rest of their lives?
Sorry, but the black market would OPPOSE this movement. They'd certainly not participate in it. Right now you CAN get magic spells through the Black Market. Let's assume they cost only 5,000 credits per spell (something I see as unlikely, but let's assume they are). They'd need to find 1,000 new clients to match every SINGLE client they have right now. Each and every one of those single clients would never again be a client for that spell.
...or they can sell them as one-off sales without having a storefront that has people in an out all day, putting you at greater risk with each transaction while at the same time greatly limiting your market.
Sorry, but this model doesn't work.
/Sub
There's a reason...and a very good one...that I have certain people in this forum blocked both here and on Facebook.
I can see an illustration of that nearly every time I come here.