7 ms·

This google search[0] will provide a list of interesting papers about piracy. They seem generally to support what I think is something like the majority consen

This google search[0] will provide a list of interesting papers about piracy. They seem generally to support what I think is something like the majority consensus here: - piracy does some harm to sales, especially of new books, but can increase consumer knowledge and therefor increase diversity of sales and sales of older works: "effect of piracy is heterogeneous: piracy decreased the legitimate sales of ongoing comics, whereas increased the legitimate sales of completed comics. The latter result is interpreted as follows: piracy reminds consumers of past comics and stimulates sales in that market." [1] - piracy does considerable harm to large institutes (but largely seen as a good thing) - for sales, a lot of the lost revenue seems to be made up for "increases the demand for complements to protected works, raising, for instance, the demand for concerts and concert prices" - that DRM creates fake scarcity where none should exist-- distribution costs are now zero, we shouldn't pretend that we still need to pay so much for books and music - how to make sure artists still have a revenue stream needed to exist is definitely still a problem, but it is not one that is solved by crushing pirate libraries Also further discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33460970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33460970 (517 comments, recent) And, to the person down below who wants to help out, check out the further discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=annas-blog.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=annas-blog.org (>1000 comments over six submissions) [0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:gwern.net+piracy https://www.google.com/search?q=site:gwern.net+piracy [1]: https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/copyright/2019-tanaka.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/copyright/2019-tanaka.p... [2]: https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/copyright/2010-oberholzergee.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/copyright/2010-oberholz... EDIT: formatting

zozbot234 4y ago
This seems to imply that you could get most of the socially-desirable effects of piracy simply by instituting compulsory royalties for previously-published works that have since fallen out of print. As of today, most out of print works will simply never get republished and users who want to access them legally have to resort to substandard solutions such as the used market, or merely borrowing a legitimate copy of the work. (Until the work falls out of copyright protection altogether, and then it's fair game for free reproduction by anyone.) Fix this in a comprehensive way and you would create a lot of value. Note that this was essentially Google Books' proposal, before they got forced into only showing tiny snippets of works to avoid copyright issues; it's not a new idea at all.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  i will try to explain my stand. 2005-12. a small "user" from india HAD 0 means to purchase online content. local content in the stores was the same expensive "imported" stuff and TV was the only main means of consuming content. then with internet, i could suddenly go to piratebay and watch any movie or read any book or download any game. talking about "buying using paypal and stuff", INDIANS STILL CANNOT EASILY BUY FROM INTERNATIONAL SELLERS, you need a "credit card, then you need to call your bank to allow international transaction and then it fails most of the time". this problem exists in 2022, forget about 10 years ago. to put that into perspective, https://nextbigwhat.com/indias-credit-card-industry-key-stats-and-opportunities-thethreadmill/ https://nextbigwhat.com/indias-credit-card-industry-key-stat... says "A thread While at 925mn debit cards are highly penetrated, credit cards is still a nascent industry ~ 50mn card base (3.5% per capita, unique cards ~60% of this" so only 2.1 mil card holders in india who can potentially buy from foreign markets online. that said, if i consume content here in india, "HOW AM I CAUSING SALES LOSS TO POOR RIAA and americaan authors and all the content creators?". this is same for 15 years ago and today. a lot of stuff doesnt exist in india in the official market so yeah. this goes for MOST OF THE WORLD, pricing has helped because for a long time, amazon prime is being sold in india for inr 1500/year or US $17. while in the US the same costs $14.99/month (plus tax). same for netflix and stuff. they made india specific pricing and people are adopting them but it is basically impossible for me at least to pay $14.99/month (plus tax) if amazon prime did not exist in india and i had to pay for american prime. this is the same problem with scientific journals for example. $35 is normally put as a price but that amount is A LOT in indian rupees and the same for rest of the world who are not on american living standard and cannot pay american prices. i get it, the moral argument of "you dont pay, you dont get access to our content for which i own the copyright for" but also "doesnt matter if you own the rights or not, i was never going to pay or even if i was, i couldnt pay legally so it doesnt matter because i havent cost you anything financially". there is a case against DRM, if you pay, you get more restrictions than if you dont so whats the point?
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    This is broadly correct of course. Modern IPR's have been explicitly pushed since the 1990s or so as a neo-colonialist racket; force dirt-poor people in other parts of the world to pay for the West's tech and content, and rake in the billions. Needless to say it doesn't work like that and can never work like that.
comfypotato 4y ago
For those who enjoyed this thorough summation of the state of the art, you may find the following forum interesting: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1597/is-it-immoral-to-download-music-illegally https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1597/is-it-im... It’s a well organized discussion of the philosophical viewpoints surrounding piracy. I felt a compulsion to share based on the parent’s use of “where none should exist” (which borders on opinion).
sampo 4y ago
> piracy does considerable harm to large institutes What do you mean by the word "institutes" here? First thing that comes to mind is academic and research institutes, but surely piracy doesn't harm them. So you must mean something else?
- RupertEisenhart 4y ago
  Elsevier basically. They are always everyones bogieman. Predatory publishing houses. But yeah academics love piracy;)

zozbot234 4y ago

This seems to imply that you could get most of the socially-desirable effects of piracy simply by instituting compulsory royalties for previously-published works that have since fallen out of print. As of today, most out of print works will simply never get republished and users who want to access them legally have to resort to substandard solutions such as the used market, or merely borrowing a legitimate copy of the work. (Until the work falls out of copyright protection altogether, and then it's fair game for free reproduction by anyone.) Fix this in a comprehensive way and you would create a lot of value. Note that this was essentially Google Books' proposal, before they got forced into only showing tiny snippets of works to avoid copyright issues; it's not a new idea at all.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
i will try to explain my stand. 2005-12. a small "user" from india HAD 0 means to purchase online content. local content in the stores was the same expensive "imported" stuff and TV was the only main means of consuming content. then with internet, i could suddenly go to piratebay and watch any movie or read any book or download any game. talking about "buying using paypal and stuff", INDIANS STILL CANNOT EASILY BUY FROM INTERNATIONAL SELLERS, you need a "credit card, then you need to call your bank to allow international transaction and then it fails most of the time". this problem exists in 2022, forget about 10 years ago. to put that into perspective, https://nextbigwhat.com/indias-credit-card-industry-key-stats-and-opportunities-thethreadmill/ https://nextbigwhat.com/indias-credit-card-industry-key-stat... says "A thread While at 925mn debit cards are highly penetrated, credit cards is still a nascent industry ~ 50mn card base (3.5% per capita, unique cards ~60% of this" so only 2.1 mil card holders in india who can potentially buy from foreign markets online. that said, if i consume content here in india, "HOW AM I CAUSING SALES LOSS TO POOR RIAA and americaan authors and all the content creators?". this is same for 15 years ago and today. a lot of stuff doesnt exist in india in the official market so yeah. this goes for MOST OF THE WORLD, pricing has helped because for a long time, amazon prime is being sold in india for inr 1500/year or US $17. while in the US the same costs $14.99/month (plus tax). same for netflix and stuff. they made india specific pricing and people are adopting them but it is basically impossible for me at least to pay $14.99/month (plus tax) if amazon prime did not exist in india and i had to pay for american prime. this is the same problem with scientific journals for example. $35 is normally put as a price but that amount is A LOT in indian rupees and the same for rest of the world who are not on american living standard and cannot pay american prices. i get it, the moral argument of "you dont pay, you dont get access to our content for which i own the copyright for" but also "doesnt matter if you own the rights or not, i was never going to pay or even if i was, i couldnt pay legally so it doesnt matter because i havent cost you anything financially". there is a case against DRM, if you pay, you get more restrictions than if you dont so whats the point?
- zozbot234 4y ago
  This is broadly correct of course. Modern IPR's have been explicitly pushed since the 1990s or so as a neo-colonialist racket; force dirt-poor people in other parts of the world to pay for the West's tech and content, and rake in the billions. Needless to say it doesn't work like that and can never work like that.

comfypotato 4y ago

For those who enjoyed this thorough summation of the state of the art, you may find the following forum interesting: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1597/is-it-immoral-to-download-music-illegally https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1597/is-it-im... It’s a well organized discussion of the philosophical viewpoints surrounding piracy. I felt a compulsion to share based on the parent’s use of “where none should exist” (which borders on opinion).

sampo 4y ago

> piracy does considerable harm to large institutes What do you mean by the word "institutes" here? First thing that comes to mind is academic and research institutes, but surely piracy doesn't harm them. So you must mean something else?

RupertEisenhart 4y ago
Elsevier basically. They are always everyones bogieman. Predatory publishing houses. But yeah academics love piracy;)