6 ms·

First study of piracy in emerging economies

25 points by gee_totes 15y ago

eof 15y ago
Traveling through latin america the last 4 months or so, DVDs selling for the equivalent of .50 - 2.00 USD are ubiquitous. Less so software than movies (sometimes with 4 movies to a dvd); but everything is available. It's completely open in the midst of working-class markets. In lots of these places $10/usd a day give or take a few dollars is a normal wage; which makes legal media purchases basically impossible; let alone something like a Windows or Photoshop license.
alaaibrahim 15y ago
Also, one major issue is the lack of legal resources even if you don't want pirated media. For example, If I want to buy a song, I would go to most of the sites that sell that song (itunes, amazon, ... etc.), and it just tells me that I cannot buy it because I don't live in the US (or one of their supported countries). Thus I cannot buy it, but if I look to any piracy site, I would find it easily and download it right away. Also the same applies for books, movies, software ... etc.
- MetallicCloud 15y ago
  I had the same experience the other day. I wanted to legally buy 1984 on amazon as an ebook, but it says I wasn't allowed due to not living in the US. They make it too hard to give them money
rollypolly 15y ago
"Prices are too high" -- How do you fix this one? It's a lot easier to adapt prices of physical goods. It's not trivial to make a profit by buying a physical good in a low-price market and reselling it in a higher price market. There's no such difficulty with digital goods.
- gee_totes 15y ago
  Maybe you could fix it by cutting into studio's profit margins?
  - msrpotus 15y ago
    Or even earn back the difference in volume.
  - cageface 15y ago
    These are already a lot tighter than you might think. Films are getting more and more expensive to make and the hits have to make up for the duds.
    - rickmb 15y ago
      Bullshit. Films are expensive to make because the costs are driven up to insane levels (who decided actors, producers and studio-execs should make millions on just one movie?), and because the huge profit margins encourage gambling rather than investing. Most of the "duds" are movies that shouldn't have been made in the first place. Hollywood has been in a continuous bubble state for decades.
      - rollypolly 15y ago
        It's very difficult to judge what will be a hit or a dud. I don't know much about movies, but I know many games which were terrible until the last few months of development, who then went on to become a success. It's possible that some movies are made or broken at the editing stage.
      - noarchy 15y ago
        "who decided actors, producers and studio-execs should make millions on just one movie?" The movie industry did. This is no different than athletes making astronomical sums. At some point, people are agreeing to pay them. If there were universal opposition to the practice, it wouldn't happen. Why is it so expensive to attend a professional sports event? Because the ticket prices keep going up, and people keep buying them.
- anonymous 15y ago
  These are not the clients you're looking for. I'm serious, these people are not your clients. If you stop piracy, they won't buy and their piracy (which you can't realistically stop) isn't hurting you. You should acknowledge the fact that they aren't going to be your clients for now and let them live. Or, if you are dead-set on actually getting that market, you could get a local localisation firm to localise your product for the target market, using local resources, so the cost would be lower, then sell the localised version for much less than the US version. This still has the high potential of not working out, since people can just pirate the US version and get community-provided subtitles. In short - if you can't think of something really ingenious, don't bother. When they reach a better level of economic development, you can start thinking (if you're still alive then, that is).
tmh88j 15y ago
Have any companies played around with the idea of re-selling or trading digital licenses? For example, say a website has a bunch of music to download. If you get sick of one song, you can trade that license to another user for a song that they're willing to give up. This is probably the closest thing you'll have to "owning" it. You can sell a DVD to someone else, but as far as I know you can't do that with digital copies. I know licensing is an extremely complex field, I'm just curious if anything like this exists.
- gee_totes 15y ago
  Not to my knowledge, and that sounds like an interesting concept. The first slide of your pitch deck can be "Stubhub for DRM" :)
- rickmb 15y ago
  Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. No registration, no licensing, no DRM, no intermediate, just you and the person that has a copy of the other song. The very essence of P2P. Yes, it's "illegal", but that's the whole point: it's only illegal because people thought that a model based on making copying illegal would work. It doesn't, at least not in the 21st century. No business model is going to fix that, "illegal" copying is here to stay. All we can do now is remove the "illegal" part and start finding entirely new business models that don't depend on such restrictions.
  - tmh88j 15y ago
    >Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work so I don't see any reason why this couldn't. I'm not claiming it's pure gold (I agree that there are absurdly large barriers to cross), just arguing your reasoning as to why it won't work.
    - marquis 15y ago
      Itunes and Amazon work as long as you are the kind of person who deals with restrictions ok. How many times have I had non-technical friends come to me with their iPod and ask me how they can share music with another friend and be frustrated that it's not possible, I've lost count.
suhastech 15y ago
Here in India, if I buy legal software, I'm usually ridiculed by my supposedly "well-off" peers. This is when I buy a $2 iPhone app. :/
AnthonyMouse 15y ago
The report is actually from more than a year ago and is more than four hundred pages long. One of my favorite parts is the section on industry research, which begins as follows: "At the risk of over generalizing, we see a serious and increasingly sophisticated industry research enterprise embedded in a lobbying effort with a historically very loose relationship to evidence."

25 points by gee_totes 15y ago

eof 15y ago

Traveling through latin america the last 4 months or so, DVDs selling for the equivalent of .50 - 2.00 USD are ubiquitous. Less so software than movies (sometimes with 4 movies to a dvd); but everything is available. It's completely open in the midst of working-class markets. In lots of these places $10/usd a day give or take a few dollars is a normal wage; which makes legal media purchases basically impossible; let alone something like a Windows or Photoshop license.

alaaibrahim 15y ago

Also, one major issue is the lack of legal resources even if you don't want pirated media. For example, If I want to buy a song, I would go to most of the sites that sell that song (itunes, amazon, ... etc.), and it just tells me that I cannot buy it because I don't live in the US (or one of their supported countries). Thus I cannot buy it, but if I look to any piracy site, I would find it easily and download it right away. Also the same applies for books, movies, software ... etc.

MetallicCloud 15y ago
I had the same experience the other day. I wanted to legally buy 1984 on amazon as an ebook, but it says I wasn't allowed due to not living in the US. They make it too hard to give them money

rollypolly 15y ago

"Prices are too high" -- How do you fix this one? It's a lot easier to adapt prices of physical goods. It's not trivial to make a profit by buying a physical good in a low-price market and reselling it in a higher price market. There's no such difficulty with digital goods.

gee_totes 15y ago
Maybe you could fix it by cutting into studio's profit margins?
- msrpotus 15y ago
  Or even earn back the difference in volume.
- cageface 15y ago
  These are already a lot tighter than you might think. Films are getting more and more expensive to make and the hits have to make up for the duds.
  - rickmb 15y ago
    Bullshit. Films are expensive to make because the costs are driven up to insane levels (who decided actors, producers and studio-execs should make millions on just one movie?), and because the huge profit margins encourage gambling rather than investing. Most of the "duds" are movies that shouldn't have been made in the first place. Hollywood has been in a continuous bubble state for decades.
    - rollypolly 15y ago
      It's very difficult to judge what will be a hit or a dud. I don't know much about movies, but I know many games which were terrible until the last few months of development, who then went on to become a success. It's possible that some movies are made or broken at the editing stage.
    - noarchy 15y ago
      "who decided actors, producers and studio-execs should make millions on just one movie?" The movie industry did. This is no different than athletes making astronomical sums. At some point, people are agreeing to pay them. If there were universal opposition to the practice, it wouldn't happen. Why is it so expensive to attend a professional sports event? Because the ticket prices keep going up, and people keep buying them.
anonymous 15y ago
These are not the clients you're looking for. I'm serious, these people are not your clients. If you stop piracy, they won't buy and their piracy (which you can't realistically stop) isn't hurting you. You should acknowledge the fact that they aren't going to be your clients for now and let them live. Or, if you are dead-set on actually getting that market, you could get a local localisation firm to localise your product for the target market, using local resources, so the cost would be lower, then sell the localised version for much less than the US version. This still has the high potential of not working out, since people can just pirate the US version and get community-provided subtitles. In short - if you can't think of something really ingenious, don't bother. When they reach a better level of economic development, you can start thinking (if you're still alive then, that is).

tmh88j 15y ago

Have any companies played around with the idea of re-selling or trading digital licenses? For example, say a website has a bunch of music to download. If you get sick of one song, you can trade that license to another user for a song that they're willing to give up. This is probably the closest thing you'll have to "owning" it. You can sell a DVD to someone else, but as far as I know you can't do that with digital copies. I know licensing is an extremely complex field, I'm just curious if anything like this exists.

gee_totes 15y ago
Not to my knowledge, and that sounds like an interesting concept. The first slide of your pitch deck can be "Stubhub for DRM" :)
rickmb 15y ago
Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. No registration, no licensing, no DRM, no intermediate, just you and the person that has a copy of the other song. The very essence of P2P. Yes, it's "illegal", but that's the whole point: it's only illegal because people thought that a model based on making copying illegal would work. It doesn't, at least not in the 21st century. No business model is going to fix that, "illegal" copying is here to stay. All we can do now is remove the "illegal" part and start finding entirely new business models that don't depend on such restrictions.
- tmh88j 15y ago
  >Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work so I don't see any reason why this couldn't. I'm not claiming it's pure gold (I agree that there are absurdly large barriers to cross), just arguing your reasoning as to why it won't work.
  - marquis 15y ago
    Itunes and Amazon work as long as you are the kind of person who deals with restrictions ok. How many times have I had non-technical friends come to me with their iPod and ask me how they can share music with another friend and be frustrated that it's not possible, I've lost count.

suhastech 15y ago

Here in India, if I buy legal software, I'm usually ridiculed by my supposedly "well-off" peers. This is when I buy a $2 iPhone app. :/

AnthonyMouse 15y ago

The report is actually from more than a year ago and is more than four hundred pages long. One of my favorite parts is the section on industry research, which begins as follows: "At the risk of over generalizing, we see a serious and increasingly sophisticated industry research enterprise embedded in a lobbying effort with a historically very loose relationship to evidence."