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> There's no evidence that piracy causes any type of harm to these multi-trillion dollar American entertainment conglomerates. I think there is business "harm"

> There's no evidence that piracy causes any type of harm to these multi-trillion dollar American entertainment conglomerates. I think there is business "harm" to piracy, but it's (mostly) vastly overstated. If I illegally download a song/movie I wouldn't have otherwise bought, did anybody lose out? There was a reason Napster was popular in colleges, because many of those people were cash poor. Music industry revenue peaked in 2000 at $21B and went down to ~$7B in 2015 before steadily growing again. Also, the entertainment industry are not multi-trillion dollar conglomerates. Not even close. Disney is worth $160B and Netflix is $260B. That being said, if it were up to the music industry we'd still be paying the inflation adjusted equivalent of $20 for an album we only like one song on and we wouldn't be able to create out own playlists. You can only fight the consumer for so long (and they fought long and hard). That's to say nothing about the morality of repeatedly increasing copyright from 14 years to life plus 70 (which is BS). The Beatles' great great grandchildren (or whoever owns the rights later on) shouldn't still be benefiting from intellectual property. > Moving heaven and earth to extract a citizen from another country using the power of the state, and drag him before their feet is tyrannical. This is what rule of law is. KDC knew he was breaking the law and not only didn't do anything about it, but invested in an encouraged it to benefit himself financially. Even after being charged and having megaupload shut down, he then tried again. Do you really feel sorry for him?

xp84 2y ago
> > no evidence that piracy causes any type of harm > there is business "harm" to piracy, but it's (mostly) vastly overstated I'm not sure how relevant the harm is. It seems like copyright law doesn't have exceptions for "harmlessness"* -- and even if that were a carve-out, it would be a stupid one for the kind of offenses we're discussing, since it hinges on hundreds of millions of individual 'butterfly effect' decisions and how they hypothetically would have unfolded in a fictional world without piracy vs. the real world. No one can prove or even know what the impact of piracy is on a given work's short-term or long-term revenue. Maybe "Firefly" was boosted massively in its long-term commercial success by piracy, but some $400 physics textbook had materially less sales. I think there's a reason courts never debate this question, though. *I'm aware there are specific exceptions for things like fair use and timeshifting -- I just don't believe all 'harmless' acts are protected or that that was ever even intended.
- realusername 2y ago
  > No one can prove or even know what the impact of piracy is on a given work's short-term or long-term revenue Just that is an indication on how little piracy affects revenue, the effect is at best so small that it's effectively invisible. > I think there's a reason courts never debate this question, though. Because discussing about the real financial impact of piracy is a sure way to throw a lot of pretty extreme copyright laws out of the window. They really don't want to start this debate. Piracy is just a boogeyman at this point to pass ever stronger IP laws and the large IP conglomerates are pretty aware of that.
realusername 2y ago
> Music industry revenue peaked in 2000 at $21B and went down to ~$7B in 2015 before steadily growing again. That's because the music industry was incredibly slow to adapt to the internet. They basically took a full decade to react and lost revenue in the process.
ruthmarx 2y ago
> I think there is business "harm" to piracy, but it's (mostly) vastly overstated. If I illegally download a song/movie I wouldn't have otherwise bought, did anybody lose out? More than two decades of studies show there is no harm to these companies and that pirates spend the most on content. Piracy is flat out a net good for humanity and society. No convincing counter-arguments can be made. The only example where harm could be said to happen is with very small content-creators who would be relying on income to get started, but even then I don't think that matters. If you're the source of a creation and people want to see more, they will fund it. It need not be funded by everybody that will or has viewed or enjoyed it.
- hylaride 2y ago
  Oh, I 100% agree that IP laws are too strong and last too long, which allows media companies to charge too much and stifle competition. It actually also hurts the content creators themselves. The music industry spent too much time fighting "internet distributed" music and the only alternatives they pieced together were too restrictive to the way people actually consumed music. "Want to listen on more than one device? Pay multiple times!" was their attempt back in the day.

xp84 2y ago

> > no evidence that piracy causes any type of harm > there is business "harm" to piracy, but it's (mostly) vastly overstated I'm not sure how relevant the harm is. It seems like copyright law doesn't have exceptions for "harmlessness"* -- and even if that were a carve-out, it would be a stupid one for the kind of offenses we're discussing, since it hinges on hundreds of millions of individual 'butterfly effect' decisions and how they hypothetically would have unfolded in a fictional world without piracy vs. the real world. No one can prove or even know what the impact of piracy is on a given work's short-term or long-term revenue. Maybe "Firefly" was boosted massively in its long-term commercial success by piracy, but some $400 physics textbook had materially less sales. I think there's a reason courts never debate this question, though. *I'm aware there are specific exceptions for things like fair use and timeshifting -- I just don't believe all 'harmless' acts are protected or that that was ever even intended.

realusername 2y ago
> No one can prove or even know what the impact of piracy is on a given work's short-term or long-term revenue Just that is an indication on how little piracy affects revenue, the effect is at best so small that it's effectively invisible. > I think there's a reason courts never debate this question, though. Because discussing about the real financial impact of piracy is a sure way to throw a lot of pretty extreme copyright laws out of the window. They really don't want to start this debate. Piracy is just a boogeyman at this point to pass ever stronger IP laws and the large IP conglomerates are pretty aware of that.

realusername 2y ago

> Music industry revenue peaked in 2000 at $21B and went down to ~$7B in 2015 before steadily growing again. That's because the music industry was incredibly slow to adapt to the internet. They basically took a full decade to react and lost revenue in the process.

ruthmarx 2y ago

> I think there is business "harm" to piracy, but it's (mostly) vastly overstated. If I illegally download a song/movie I wouldn't have otherwise bought, did anybody lose out? More than two decades of studies show there is no harm to these companies and that pirates spend the most on content. Piracy is flat out a net good for humanity and society. No convincing counter-arguments can be made. The only example where harm could be said to happen is with very small content-creators who would be relying on income to get started, but even then I don't think that matters. If you're the source of a creation and people want to see more, they will fund it. It need not be funded by everybody that will or has viewed or enjoyed it.

hylaride 2y ago
Oh, I 100% agree that IP laws are too strong and last too long, which allows media companies to charge too much and stifle competition. It actually also hurts the content creators themselves. The music industry spent too much time fighting "internet distributed" music and the only alternatives they pieced together were too restrictive to the way people actually consumed music. "Want to listen on more than one device? Pay multiple times!" was their attempt back in the day.