Experts: Losses Due to Piracy Are Exaggerated

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zak_mckraken

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Captain Obvious is on the loose!

Is there anyone, anywhere, doubting that the music/movie industry is inflating the numbers to their own purpose? I'd really like to see a realistic independant study on the matter though.
 

dextermat

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Indeed they are my friend:

People who pirate,Most of the time, don't have the money ot buy overpriced software.

Usualy downloaded for personal purpose..

Only a few pirate and sale pirated software
 

Technobilly

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figgus quote
Great, then there is even LESS incentive to produce anything decent. After all, they are getting paid either way from taxes, right?


Actually if you put it on a Bell curve (like most major corp put their employee performance evaluations) and they get paid out of general fund based on that curve they would be highly motivated to make a product better than the others.
 

williehmmm

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[citation][nom]figgus[/nom]Great, then there is even LESS incentive to produce anything decent. After all, they are getting paid either way from taxes, right?[/citation]

If you have a read again my friend, you'd see that I talked about a basic tracking system which will them give a percentage due. If they produce crap and no one wants it, then they get 0%, if they produce must have, must see content, then that lucky creative person gets that high percentage. The incentive is still there to produce high quality, highly sought after content.

My argument is that it's happening now, cut out the middle man, cut out the distributor, let the artist be rewarded and let the consumers handle their own distribution. Digital delivery is the present and the future, I'd quite like their to be content to distribute in the future and that means the creative guys need to get paid, but I'm quite happy for the middle man to go bust, he's just a pimp for the real talented folk and creaming the profits from them.

Workers control over the means of production.
 

Fokissed

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[citation][nom]williehmmm[/nom]If you have a read again my friend, you'd see that I talked about a basic tracking system which will them give a percentage due. If they produce crap and no one wants it, then they get 0%, if they produce must have, must see content, then that lucky creative person gets that high percentage. The incentive is still there to produce high quality, highly sought after content.My argument is that it's happening now, cut out the middle man, cut out the distributor, let the artist be rewarded and let the consumers handle their own distribution. Digital delivery is the present and the future, I'd quite like their to be content to distribute in the future and that means the creative guys need to get paid, but I'm quite happy for the middle man to go bust, he's just a pimp for the real talented folk and creaming the profits from them.Workers control over the means of production.[/citation]
I swear that I have heard that before...
*cough*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto*cough*
 
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williehmmm, yeah that sounds great in theory. In reality, it's very complicated. How do you track all of these downloads ? How does the system get updated when new systems come into place or old ones are retired ? What if some artists feel that their numbers aren't adequately reflected ? All of this costs time and money. Also, when it comes down to it, this system is ALREADY in place. The artists that get more downloads already get paid more. Of course, I'm referring to legitimate downloads like iTunes and Amazon.
 

formin

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movies are breaking sales records all the time.
piracy isnt at fault its crappy movies not bring in income.
its the movie being crappy bit!
 

Jerky_san

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The thing I don't get is this.. I love anime.. I buy basically every series that I like.. So if I own the series and I download lets say a higher quality copy then dvd.. Say a 720p tv rip.. Then did I technically break the law? Or another way.. If you download a movie you already own and then get sued by the MPAA? If you can prove you owned the movie before you downloaded it would they still be able to take you to court? The reason I say this is that it seems like the RIAA and MPAA blindly sue without finding out if the people who downloaded actually own the CD's or movies they are downloading.. What if someone has a movie but its to scratched to play so they download a copy off a torrent.. Did they technically do anything illegal for acquiring a copy of something they already own?
 

Conner Macleod

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[citation][nom]BX001[/nom]Piracy my a$$. They should make worthy products and they will have sales. Sins of a Solar Empire had no copy-protection / DRM and was top seller.If the products su*k of course people will download them instead of wasting $ on nothing.[/citation]

No offense but that's BS, it's the old rationalization of stealing games. There are tons of people who download excellent games, hacked versions, because they don't want to pay the $50 for it, aka the 5-finger discount. It has NOTHING to do with games being crap, if this was the case then these games wouldn't get hacked, downloaded and played, think about it.

On the other hand, games that do have horrible DRM which ruins consumers' PCs, they more or less deserve getting hacked because the publishers are treating the legitimate buyers as hackers and are impeding on their civil rights, so piracy in that regard does serve a rational and fair purpose.

Also, piracy serves as a great equalizer to much of the rampant price gouging, people would be more inclined to buy games and software if it didn't cost an arm and a leg. If many of these games were $10 or $20 cheaper, you'd be guaranteed that more people would be buying them, but not everyone can afford a $60 or $70 game, or application software for several hundred dollars, the greed has been out of control for a long time.
 

joebob2000

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[citation][nom]Jerky_san[/nom]The thing I don't get is this.. I love anime.. I buy basically every series that I like.. So if I own the series and I download lets say a higher quality copy then dvd.. Say a 720p tv rip.. Then did I technically break the law? Or another way.. If you download a movie you already own and then get sued by the MPAA? If you can prove you owned the movie before you downloaded it would they still be able to take you to court? The reason I say this is that it seems like the RIAA and MPAA blindly sue without finding out if the people who downloaded actually own the CD's or movies they are downloading.. What if someone has a movie but its to scratched to play so they download a copy off a torrent.. Did they technically do anything illegal for acquiring a copy of something they already own?[/citation]

You bet your ass you can/will get sued. Under the current law you have no legal right to make a backup or obtain a substitute by any means other than purchasing it again from the original content owner. Add to this the fact that if you torrent it you are uploading as you are downloading, which is another no-no. In fact you would probably get a harsher punishment with the "but I bought a copy of it" defense because they will jump on *you* as the source of a distribution, instead of just a recipient/peer.

Isn't the legal system awesome?
 

fyasko

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if i had the money to buy music i would. CD's and legit dl's offer virus free guaranteed high quality music and i don't have to waste time trying to find the good stuff. pirates aren't taking away from the market because those people were never in the market to spend money on those products any way.
 
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Piracy lead to the popularity of many works that are unattainable otherwise in some area's, look at say: the animes called Bleach and Naruto; very popular in the US, selling thousands of items, which never would have been sold if it wasn't for the free fansubs subbing these series!
 

bearracuda

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[citation][nom]xnonsuchx[/nom]There's a HUGE difference between value of pirated material and what the owners of the material actually lost. They tend to assume that everyone who pirated something WOULD actually buy a legal copy if they couldn't pirate it...when it's actually a fairly small fraction who would. Yeah, most got something for free they shouldn't have, but those didn't cause a loss to the owner.[/citation]

Actually, just about every one of my friends pirates movies, and half of them pirate the movie just to see if they like it. For free. (instead of paying 10 bucks to see it at a theater, or 5 bucks to rent it) Then if they do like it, they go buy it. And the other half pirate movies just to have an extra copy on the computer. It's (sadly) much easier to download a pirated copy than to rip one off of a dvd, and with the transition to digital media and portable electronics going on, it's not an outrageous speculation to assume that most people want their movies on DVD -and- on their portable device. Technically, it's not even illegal to own a copy of the film on your computer if you've paid for a copy in some other way, even if said copy includes anti-piracy measures. What's illegal is distributing either copy. So it's quite possible half the pirated movie downloads are just people getting a copy for their computer, in which case the distributor, not the downloader, is the ONLY one breaking the law. And THEN you have the people who pirate it to have it early, but then purchase the movie when it comes down from 30 bucks in blu-ray to 10. Movie companies just see the downloads happening, but realistically I could see them still getting revenue out of at least 60% of the downloaders.
 

techguy911

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The real problem is not piracy its greedy publishers that rip off developers, this seems to be the norm, this causes less and less pc games on the market and now its happening to consoles if publishers don't pay royalties due they usually leave x company and start a new one this is a disturbing trend that needs to stop.
Also drm is to blame for the drop in sales as owner of a computer store i get many people checking on drm if it has bad drm they pass and look for an alternative game from another company.
There was this one drm a customer had on a game that kept frying his dvd burner must have replaced it 10 times , each time with a different brand, then i told him to find a crack that removes the drm after that no more burned out dvd burner.
I checked on a class action website the company that made the drm got sued and lost after testing they found it was damaging the tracking on dvd devices.

 

eyemaster

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Message to entertainment industry:

I freakout when I put a real DVD / Blueray in and have to check the previews, legal statements, logos, introductions etc etc... I click Forward, Skip, Top Menu, Menu, and it won't go there because it's not an 'authorized action'...

FU! I have the product, let me go where I want when I want from the product I bought / rented. If not, you upset me and I don't like being upset, so I'll find a way to get what I want.

Turns out, the pirates KNOW what I want. I want the movie I "paid" for with the controls I want.
 
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