4 ms·

Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, there is a cost associated with it. Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on; now whatever it

by omeid2 3y ago

Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, there is a cost associated with it. Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on; now whatever it hurts the artists revenue is a different question, with interesting arguments for how or why modern copyright might not provide the intended outcomes.

tpoacher 3y ago
It's not even as straightforward as that. Most serious studies on the topic have demonstrated that piracy not only does not lead to lost sales, but in fact it leads to increased sales instead.
- bad_user 3y ago
  ... for Big Tech. It's how companies like Microsoft or Adobe could grow and gain uncontested monopolies. Because, due to piracy, price was no longer a good enough differentiator. And it's why "Linux on the desktop" never happened. There aren't many studies on this topic and the available ones are bullshit, as they don't take into account second order effects of piracy, one of which being the rise of streaming with DRM, which also concentrates power in the hands of a few Big Tech companies. Piracy is one of the biggest reasons for why we have monopolies. The phenomenon is now repeated with ad blockers. And the irony of the situation is that people point at monopolies to justify piracy or the use of ad blockers.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    Analogy: doing business in high-crime or corruption areas. Only "big mean nasty" type companies can survive the onslaught. "this is why we can't have nice things"
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - omeid2 3y ago
    Indeed, just because some big corps can handle the lost revenue in return for pricing competitors out and exposure, doesn't mean piracy doesn't impact revenue. Going from "big corp can handle lost revenue in return for market dominance and exposure" to "it doesn't hurt revenue" is absurd.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  I would assume, that this is partly because one can get familiar with the pirated product and then many people decide it is worth buying or supporting the creator. Or spread the word about the existence of the product.
brnt 3y ago
Every study done on the matter shows piracy correlates with sales. If we are to stop pretending, we should start with ending the myth that piracy hurts sales. There is no evidence whatsoever of that.
- toyg 3y ago
  Piracy is, in fact, free advertising. And, as we all know, advertising is the soul of commerce.
  - ozim 3y ago
    Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. You pirate photoshop because you know it is good. You pirate movie because you know it is going to be good and everyone is waiting to watch it.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. I've done it. I'd bet that most people who have pirated anything have. If you were around for the Napster days you'd know that people would often download things they'd never heard of before and had no idea if they'd like it or not (and that was when it could take many hours, even days, for a single album to download!). Piracy is a great way to try out new things. Napster led to an increase in CD sales as people were discovering new artists and music they'd never heard on the radio or MTV (https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/) The objection to P2P file sharing was never about money. It was about power and control. It was about gatekeeping. The RIAA wants to decide what you can and can't listen to and what is popular. They don't want their new artists/albums to have to compete with everything ever released. They know piracy would increase sales. They don't want to give up the control over our culture and they don't want the internet to cut them out as useless middlemen. With computers and the internet we don't need them for distribution or advertising. We can do it all without them.
      - 3y ago
amelius 3y ago
Life isn't fair. If I didn't like a movie, I can't unsee it and get my money and time back. That's just a fact of life. In the same way, people can share content since physics doesn't prevent it. We should just accept these limitations of how we can control each other.
rewmie 3y ago
> Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, but there is a cost associated with it. There is zero cost associated with piracy. Zero. At best, there's an expectation of profit that's not met. To argue that, you need to show how copying a file translates to a potential sale being converted to a no-sale, and there are plenty of evidence that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted work drives demand up. > Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. You're trying to pass off your personal assertions as axioms, but it's on you to prove that copying a file without the consent of someone hurts anyone. Go ahead. > now whatever it hurts the artists revenue is a different question If anything, artists are the least impacted counterpart as they literally get paid a small fraction of the whole income. >
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. Wait until the grandparent learns about public libraries. Just havens of content larceny! People "stealing" content left and right!
  - tzs 3y ago
    At all the public libraries I've used they only let me checkout something if the total number of copies already checked out is less than the number of copies the library has licenses for. If the number checked out is not under the number of licenses they make me wait until one of the checked out copies is returned.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      That's still no different from the content creator's point of view than a non-sale or pirate. The practical limitations of libraries is immaterial to the fact I can view content without paying the creator anything. Carving out some logical exception for content pirates is ludicrous. They're functionally no different than non-customers or library patrons.
  - omeid2 3y ago
ekianjo 3y ago
Artists can make money during live concerts instead. As it has always been. The artist that writes stuff once and reaps benefits forever is a horrible heresy.
- tzs 3y ago
  What about artists who are not performing artists? Not many people are going to pay to watch someone with just basic guitar or piano skills and an ordinary singing voice write a song, no matter how great the song turns out to be. They might later pay to watch and listen to excellent instrumentalists and singers perform that song, so concerts might work for them. Presumably the composer can charge those performers...but how much? You usually can't figure out the worth of a song beforehand, so if it is going to be a one-time upfront payment from the performers to the composer it is hard to figure out the right price. You can wait until after the song has been released and see much the concert tour makes and how many people buy copies of the song or listen to it on streaming services and that gives you a good idea of the worth of the song. Upfront you'd have to agree on how the worth is calculated and how the price is calculated from that. But this is then going to depend on how much revenue the song brings and so sounds an awful lot like a royalty arrangement, just with a lump payment at the end of the license instead of more frequent smaller payments along the way.
Fricken 3y ago
Weird Al recently made a video to point out 300k streams of his songs on Spotify earned him a lousy 12 bucks. It seems there are costs either way.
- antiterra 3y ago
  He made hundreds of thousands of dollars from those streams, “twelve dollars” was ironic understatement about his dissatisfaction with the compensation Spotify pays artists.
Ekaros 3y ago
I think this is reasonable stand. Piracy does affect revenue, but probably quite a bit less than anyone makes it out to. I believe most that pirate would not have paid in first place, either because they don't value it high enough or they do not have enough money to pay for it. Not that actions of those selling does not likely contribute much more to loss of revenue, mainly by making content unavailable. Availability or pricing compared to product is often sub-optimal.

by omeid2 3y ago

tpoacher 3y ago

It's not even as straightforward as that. Most serious studies on the topic have demonstrated that piracy not only does not lead to lost sales, but in fact it leads to increased sales instead.

bad_user 3y ago
... for Big Tech. It's how companies like Microsoft or Adobe could grow and gain uncontested monopolies. Because, due to piracy, price was no longer a good enough differentiator. And it's why "Linux on the desktop" never happened. There aren't many studies on this topic and the available ones are bullshit, as they don't take into account second order effects of piracy, one of which being the rise of streaming with DRM, which also concentrates power in the hands of a few Big Tech companies. Piracy is one of the biggest reasons for why we have monopolies. The phenomenon is now repeated with ad blockers. And the irony of the situation is that people point at monopolies to justify piracy or the use of ad blockers.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Analogy: doing business in high-crime or corruption areas. Only "big mean nasty" type companies can survive the onslaught. "this is why we can't have nice things"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- omeid2 3y ago
  Indeed, just because some big corps can handle the lost revenue in return for pricing competitors out and exposure, doesn't mean piracy doesn't impact revenue. Going from "big corp can handle lost revenue in return for market dominance and exposure" to "it doesn't hurt revenue" is absurd.
zelphirkalt 3y ago
I would assume, that this is partly because one can get familiar with the pirated product and then many people decide it is worth buying or supporting the creator. Or spread the word about the existence of the product.

brnt 3y ago

Every study done on the matter shows piracy correlates with sales. If we are to stop pretending, we should start with ending the myth that piracy hurts sales. There is no evidence whatsoever of that.

toyg 3y ago
Piracy is, in fact, free advertising. And, as we all know, advertising is the soul of commerce.
- ozim 3y ago
  Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. You pirate photoshop because you know it is good. You pirate movie because you know it is going to be good and everyone is waiting to watch it.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. I've done it. I'd bet that most people who have pirated anything have. If you were around for the Napster days you'd know that people would often download things they'd never heard of before and had no idea if they'd like it or not (and that was when it could take many hours, even days, for a single album to download!). Piracy is a great way to try out new things. Napster led to an increase in CD sales as people were discovering new artists and music they'd never heard on the radio or MTV (https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/) The objection to P2P file sharing was never about money. It was about power and control. It was about gatekeeping. The RIAA wants to decide what you can and can't listen to and what is popular. They don't want their new artists/albums to have to compete with everything ever released. They know piracy would increase sales. They don't want to give up the control over our culture and they don't want the internet to cut them out as useless middlemen. With computers and the internet we don't need them for distribution or advertising. We can do it all without them.
    - 3y ago

amelius 3y ago

Life isn't fair. If I didn't like a movie, I can't unsee it and get my money and time back. That's just a fact of life. In the same way, people can share content since physics doesn't prevent it. We should just accept these limitations of how we can control each other.

rewmie 3y ago

> Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, but there is a cost associated with it. There is zero cost associated with piracy. Zero. At best, there's an expectation of profit that's not met. To argue that, you need to show how copying a file translates to a potential sale being converted to a no-sale, and there are plenty of evidence that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted work drives demand up. > Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. You're trying to pass off your personal assertions as axioms, but it's on you to prove that copying a file without the consent of someone hurts anyone. Go ahead. > now whatever it hurts the artists revenue is a different question If anything, artists are the least impacted counterpart as they literally get paid a small fraction of the whole income. >

giantrobot 3y ago
> Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. Wait until the grandparent learns about public libraries. Just havens of content larceny! People "stealing" content left and right!
- tzs 3y ago
  At all the public libraries I've used they only let me checkout something if the total number of copies already checked out is less than the number of copies the library has licenses for. If the number checked out is not under the number of licenses they make me wait until one of the checked out copies is returned.
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    That's still no different from the content creator's point of view than a non-sale or pirate. The practical limitations of libraries is immaterial to the fact I can view content without paying the creator anything. Carving out some logical exception for content pirates is ludicrous. They're functionally no different than non-customers or library patrons.
- omeid2 3y ago

ekianjo 3y ago

Artists can make money during live concerts instead. As it has always been. The artist that writes stuff once and reaps benefits forever is a horrible heresy.

tzs 3y ago
What about artists who are not performing artists? Not many people are going to pay to watch someone with just basic guitar or piano skills and an ordinary singing voice write a song, no matter how great the song turns out to be. They might later pay to watch and listen to excellent instrumentalists and singers perform that song, so concerts might work for them. Presumably the composer can charge those performers...but how much? You usually can't figure out the worth of a song beforehand, so if it is going to be a one-time upfront payment from the performers to the composer it is hard to figure out the right price. You can wait until after the song has been released and see much the concert tour makes and how many people buy copies of the song or listen to it on streaming services and that gives you a good idea of the worth of the song. Upfront you'd have to agree on how the worth is calculated and how the price is calculated from that. But this is then going to depend on how much revenue the song brings and so sounds an awful lot like a royalty arrangement, just with a lump payment at the end of the license instead of more frequent smaller payments along the way.

Fricken 3y ago

Weird Al recently made a video to point out 300k streams of his songs on Spotify earned him a lousy 12 bucks. It seems there are costs either way.

antiterra 3y ago
He made hundreds of thousands of dollars from those streams, “twelve dollars” was ironic understatement about his dissatisfaction with the compensation Spotify pays artists.

Ekaros 3y ago

I think this is reasonable stand. Piracy does affect revenue, but probably quite a bit less than anyone makes it out to. I believe most that pirate would not have paid in first place, either because they don't value it high enough or they do not have enough money to pay for it. Not that actions of those selling does not likely contribute much more to loss of revenue, mainly by making content unavailable. Availability or pricing compared to product is often sub-optimal.