4 ms·
The clear implication being that there is really no loss from piracy. While this point could be argued, these numbers show nothing. First off, we don't know how
by jgeralnik 15y ago
The clear implication being that there is really no loss from piracy. While this point could be argued, these numbers show nothing.
First off, we don't know how much money would have been made had there been no piracy - that is, the music industry might have made even more money every year.
The other issue is that while the music industry's worldwide revenues have increased, recorded music revenues have actually decreased, with North American revenues falling from $13 billion in 2007 to $12.6 billion in 2010, and worldwide revenues falling from $35.4 billion in 2009 to $35.1 billion in 2010.
Of course, by that same note it can't simply be claimed that the loss is because of piracy. It may be that people are simply buying less music.
- jcampbell1 15y agoThese stats don't start until 2006, which after the Napster revolution killed the CD store. I don't think these stats are useful for making any argument about the impact of piracy.
- talmand 15y agoExactly, piracy is the boogeyman they use to excuse any hit in their revenues. Since a downloaded song does not automatically equate to a lost sale there's no way to know how much of an impact it had. Plus the industry often ignores the long tail potential of a downloaded song, i.e., the person downloading the song likes the band they just found and goes to a show or buys merchandise. Of course, in that scenario the artist directly benefits and not the corporate members of the RIAA. I would like to equate a dip in revenue to the bad PR the industry has gotten over the years by suing grandmothers for downloading songs, requiring purchasing songs multiple times because of multiple devices, making it difficult/illegal to copy purchased songs from one media to another, bribing politicians to create laws to their advantage over the consumer, so on so on. But I have no way to prove much like there's no way to prove piracy is killing their industry. I'm willing to bet a dip in revenues could be attributed to the fact that we can legally stream music all we want either free or a small subscription fee through services such as Pandora or Spotify. I for one haven't felt the need to purchase music in years and I don't obtain music illegally. Based on these kinds of reports though, the industry just seems to be doing fine to me. A dip in revenues from 13 billion to 12.6 billion is not a disaster. It's a statistical blip.
- fl3tch 15y agoThese losses started in 2008, during an economic downturn that we haven't fully recovered from. But I would have expected the losses to be much larger (than 3.1% in North American and 0.85% globally), especially for something that is entertainment / recreation.
- artsrc 15y agoCopyright exists to satisfy (is justified by) consumers greed for content. So losses from people sharing music are important if they affect the ability, and desire of content producers.
- talmand 15y agoI don't believe anyone disputes that. The debate is more likely about how you define those losses and who is actually to blame for them.