Study Finds Media Industries Overstate Impact Of Piracy

[Canadamus Prime]

We really needed a study for this? This is like having a study showing that there's sand at the beach.

 

[Strazdas]

funny such a overresearched thing still can shock anyone.
I mean heck somoen calculated how much money they loose by what industry claims as a lost sale, and the result is ALL media industries should emply NEGATIVE number of employees (simply put they should all be bankrupt long time ago). thier numbers are obviuosly bogus.

I really do wonder why so many people on the internet hate money and those who make a lot of it. Piracy hurts, maybe not as much as they claim; but at the same time I really doubt the other side can prove how much it doesn't hurt. People don't like having to spend money on things so they acquire it without monetary sacrifice. It may be small and insignificant (I don't know, most data is skewed), but the loss is there. If you don't like it, then try to change things; bitching about it on the internet isn't going to help.

Most people, internet or not, are jelous and dont want rich people to be rich when they are poor. duh.
Thing is, multiple studies have resulted in showing that pirates actually buy more legal stuff than non-pirates. this is simply because pirates are more clsoely invested in that industry and want to support things they like, so they buy them, whereas nonpirates got little experience and no longer wants to buy "Cat in a bag" deals.
There were plenty of movements that wanted to change things (the most famous are pirate party). And bitching on the internet DID help. remember when google shut down for a day? yeah, that repelled ACTA.

Still doesn't change the fact that piracy is illegal and should, therefore, be punishable.

inb4 "see, it's fine to pirate"

1. Piracy is not illegal everywhere. For example in switzerland it is legal to pirate for personal use.
2. If a law results in no positive effect on the community, such law should be revoken. There is a law that forbids woman to wear pants, so therefore we should punish all woman who wear pants according to you.

1. There are no industry monopolies. Having monopolies on a particular product within a particular sub set of a particular industry NEVER counts as a monopoly. If I own a large piece of land and build houses on it, my control of all that land and houses does not count as a monopoly because there are other houses and land. There are other entertainment products owned by other people, you have no reason to consume that company's products if you don't want to.

2. Those who produce a product can choose to sell or not sell it as they wish. I have every right to censor a product I produce and companies regularly pull products from market or change it in some way.

3. Artistic expression means nothing if you choose to sell it to a production company. You can make videos on youtube or sell your records independently or find a producer that gives you more power over your work. Once you agree to a contract that limits your control, that is your choice and is legitimate business. Do you see companies complain after selling shares publicly that they've lost "business expression" when major shareholders exert control? Again, they had a choice to go public for the extra funding but they were not coerced to doing that.

4. We all lobby for our own best interest. That is basic freedom of expression within a democracy. Of course publishers want a stronger copyright regime, and they aim to get it. Have you ever been a part of a political movement? It is the same thing. I think the big problem is not copyright issues, but basic political issues. How much lobbying is ok? Should corporations be able to give money to politicians? Should corporations be able to use corporate money for political purposes? These are faaaaar deeper questions that go beyond entertainment industries.

5. As entrainment industries don't cause pollution, are incredibly varied (absolutely not monolithic), can be completely avoided by artists and consumers, don't cause human rights issues, etc etc I cannot see how you can say that they are significantly bad for society. I wouldn't even say that they are bad to society, but we'll use significant as in "significant enough that we should allow individuals to pirate at will" because that would require you proving that they are basically the devil.

FIrst of all ill adress soemthing si nsnipped out - just because you cant imagine how torrents can be fair use does not mean it isnt.

1. Your analogy does not work. You would be right to compare building a house on your lot and then being granted permission to sell your houses, while noone else in the world can build and sell houses like these. then your analogy would be correct. see where the monopoly comes in?
2. Yes they can. No, they shouldnt.
3. We as society have created an enviroment where that is the only option to begin with. we are all at fault for allowing this to happen.
4. Yes, we all lobby for our interests and corporations lobby for theirs. As for your following questions, there is a reaosn USA is said to be actually run by companies and not politicians.
5. I think the argument here is not that entertainment is bad, but that limiting rights of such industries would be beneficial to society as a whole.

 

[Sarge034]

Just remember, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics." The problem with this type of thing is that you have to assume some facts to be true, or have omnipotent knowledge.

Do I think piracy has as big of an impact on the economy as the studios would like us to believe? No.

Do I think piracy hurts the economy? Yes.

Do I think piracy is wrong? In all but one scenario, yes. (No longer in distribution/no availability)

This is Cave Johnson, we're done here.

 

[romxxii]

I think what the record and film industries want to say is, "if we could only monetize all those pirated copies, we'd be sinfully rich, instead of just rich."

As Gabe Newell famously said, piracy's a service issue. Steam (and to an extent, iTunes) are prime examples of business models that don't necessarily lose out to piracy.

 

[alj]

As we have known for ages piracy is an issue of service not cost ( for the most part anyway some people will always want free stuff). As soon as the respective industries start to embrace new business models and methods of distribution piracy has reduced and there profits have increase.

I do not download things like i used to for the most part, why bother when you can wait for steam sales or watch it on netflix. If i already own a DVD rather than ripping it i will just download it, if i already own a game on one platform and want to play it on another then i will download it, i mean if only own the " licence" and not the product as they would have us believe then i can use that " licence" wherever i want.

The only exception to this is old TV series ( more than 10 years) windows or if the product is not available where i live, i am not paying 60+ quid for a box set of a series where the original actors will see nothing and it will only go to a publisher and i don't pay for windows as i don't want to have to reactivate it every time i rebuild my computer and i am not supporting a company who has a total monopoly ( and who constantly attempts to reinforce this monopoly) and you don't have a choice to go elsewhere for your gaming OS, at least at the moment.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

We really needed a study for this? This is like having a study showing that there's sand at the beach.

Well, apparently we do based on the number of people who still whine about how bad piracy is and how much it hurts, and the fact that the laws on it are so strict.

I meant did we really need a study to show that media companies exaggerate the impact of piracy? That should be fairly obvious.

 

[Blue_vision]

1. There are no industry monopolies. Having monopolies on a particular product within a particular sub set of a particular industry NEVER counts as a monopoly. If I own a large piece of land and build houses on it, my control of all that land and houses does not count as a monopoly because there are other houses and land. There are other entertainment products owned by other people, you have no reason to consume that company's products if you don't want to.

Sorry, but that's untrue. Look into some economic theory/history, and you'll find that copyright was actually created as a monopoly. In economics, there's a problem where any industry with significant upfront costs (such as in R&D for a new product) is unable to survive unless firms can behave in a strategic (read: monopolistic and inefficient) manner. When economists/politicians saw this with the more and more elaborate R&D costs that were required for new products, they decided that granting firms a temporary monopoly was the more efficient outcome. Of course, that was originally supposed to be for a decade or two at the most, and has now morphed into lifetimes. Also, that was before other business models such as crowdfunding or pay what you can.

You can actually make a good economic argument for piracy. When the cost of a product is zero (as it is in digital distribution), economics says that the efficient outcome is for the price of the product to be zero. The problem is the upfront costs. I think that if you gave people the option of giving you money in a pay what you can model, or giving them perks in a crowdfunding model, you're going to recoup your costs. And if not, maybe copyrighting is actually holding the industry back from innovation that could lower the cost of production (I'm looking at you, bloated movie and record companies). For more elaborate investment costs (such as biomedical research and the like,) perhaps government involvement would be able to enhance efficiency.
Regardless, if there's one truth, it's that copyright is no longer an economic policy. It's a policy that's been lobbied by businesses looking to increase their profits and exercise monopolistic control over culture. I think that's an inherently wrong model, and you might disagree. But I don't think you can claim that it exists because it's better for society.