Sharing is Caring (in Off-topic)

Why The MPAA Can't 'Win The Hearts And Minds' Of The Public: File Sharing Is Mainstream

I was reading through this article, and I came upon this graph:


Can anyone tell me why people over the age of 29 are so against sharing? I'm in this age group and I don't understand it at all, I love sharing. Whether it's file-sharing, image-sharing, money-sharing, private jet sharing (I'm still looking for someone to help with that last one). ;)

I say with the assumption that there are some people over the age of 29 on here that can maybe explain their point of view on this.

I'm in the 30-49 Age Bracket listed and I believe in sharing myself. I do however believe that the main reason people in that age bracket are so against it is because of the media fallout over such things when they were young. I remember when I was a kid that Piracy Videos were rampant on TV. Same with the D.A.R.E. Program, Fight Forest Fires with Smokey the Bear, and Save Electricity commercials with your local Power Company mascot(mine was Louie the Lightning Bug.....lol), and Recycling was booming then as well.

Again this is my belief according to time frame, any number of other factors could contribute to this mindset.

Jobs, kids, apathy, cyber police, little to share, don't need no stinkin' iPod, new music sucks beams of light these days, don't feel the need to share everything like when they were mix tape kids since it's probably the same classic rock on the radio in a never ending loop they'd share, and Youtube. ;)

Little to share, little understanding of the technology.

I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, but since the vast majority of the games I ever played, movies and TV shows I've ever seen, or music I've ever heard were not purchased, and since I think it's not quite ok to do that (for a variety of reasons to be explained later), I guess I am somewhat of a hypocrite (and in the 30-49 demographic)... but still, as strange as that sounds, I DO find it reasonable to do that.

How do I reconcile the seemingly incompatible positions ?
Now, don't get me wrong, if I could easily pay (with minimal or no fees going to anybody but the people who actually created the entertainment I consume) what *I* consider a "fair price" for that content, I would most likely do it almost always.
Problem is, the amounts I would consider fair are quite tiny (like, say, 1-2 cents for a song, about 5-10 cents for an hour-long episode of a TV show, 10-30 cents for a movie, 50 cents to 5 dollars for most non-MMO games I ever played, etc) and paying such small amounts is bound to mean most of it actually goes as transaction fees (in some cases, actually, transfers at a net loss), so all in all, the reality is, it's simply not really worth considering.

Then again, I live in a country where a package that includes cable TV (HBO and a lot of other stuff included) PLUS fixed AND mobile phone (only tiny amount of minutes included, but price per minute minimal) PLUS 50mbps broadband internet (all in a single invoice) costs merely the equivalent of roughly 20 USD (16 base + 4 VAT), and the average national weekly net salary is under 100 USD (used to be MUCH lower not that long ago).

Almost forgot, the reasons it's not quite ok to do that.
For starters, it should be fairly obvious, if the people that made the content don't get paid, they're not going to make more content. So, somebody, somehow, has to pay them.
While letting only a few people pay whatever (frankly insanely high) prices demanded and having a lot more leech for free might yield an overall similar income level, I find the thought off-putting.
Personally, if I would be a content producer, I would rather see a handful of cents coming in from hundreds of millions of people rather than 50 bucks from a few hundred thousand. Yet the current banking system won't really allow me to do that. I suppose accepting bitcoins as payment would be an option, but dang, those are inconvenient to redeem into real-life cash (at least over here).

I'm 40+ and as much as I like owning a physical piece of media, I no longer buy CDs, but I buy everything I own (if it's available). I also share with friends and family and believe that if I own something, be it an actual disk or a digital file, it's my right to loan it to someone and what they do with it is their business. But, I won't drop it onto a file sharing site for thousands of people to download, nor will I download from such a site. The creators deserve to be paid for what they create, as do the people who promote, create graphics (album covers, photos..) distribute and so on. It is what makes the economy work.

If all of the game developers, musicians, movie makers... were working on a Carnage Blender budget, what would we have? People complain that this game is stagnant and needs change, but that takes time and effort. The people who can do this need to eat, have a home, have a life. So do musicians, actors, writers, programmers and the list goes on.