The first thing that come to my mind when we are speaking about piracy is: how easy it is today, just to downloads files, musics, movies, everywhere on the web.
Although, some website had to close (like napster, limewire, etc.), other websites are coming on the web every day. I think that it is just because the demand for those… Read more
The first thing that come to my mind when we are speaking about piracy is: how easy it is today, just to downloads files, musics, movies, everywhere on the web.
Although, some website had to close (like napster, limewire, etc.), other websites are coming on the web every day. I think that it is just because the demand for those types of informations is so big, that the incentive (which is very big) to create a “piracy” web, regarding to the punishment that the Justice might impose to you, is to small.
Yes, sometimes we can read in a newspaper that a guy had to pay a fine of x EUR to the Justice because he downloaded too many files on the web. But it just happen 2 or 3 days a year.
The Justice first have to coordinate the worldwide partnership-cooperation between the countries. Because some countries have others rules than others, and it is always difficult to find a final result of an exactly “web guidance”.
It seems more flagrant with what happened the last days! Lot of “American Secret Informations” were just put on the web, and nobody exactly know what to do, because the origin of the website is from the Country X, the license to put information on the web from the country Y, and finally, the owner of the website is from country Z…!
On the one hand I totally agree with the facts that if some artists are in favor to share their creation online they are free to do that. However, it is rarely the case. What's happening is that authors’ creations are put online against their will.
On the other hand I think that their legal methods certainly will not provide profits… Read more
On the one hand I totally agree with the facts that if some artists are in favor to share their creation online they are free to do that. However, it is rarely the case. What’s happening is that authors’ creations are put online against their will.
On the other hand I think that their legal methods certainly will not provide profits for them, as has been amply proven over the last few years. Nor will it revive the music community. The monopolies have the governments in their fatly bankrolled pockets and under their thrall, and their desired outcome will simply create more disaffected ex-consumers. Instead it simply represents a bankruptcy of imagination and a severe entitlement to having things be the way they were, for which it is far too late to go back to.
i think that online piracy concerning movie, music and other software is due to the fact that it's sometimes difficult to find the object of our desire in the market or we don't have a credit card and it reduces the ability to buy online. but the real problem is the fact that people always want to have a good… Read more
i think that online piracy concerning movie, music and other software is due to the fact that it’s sometimes difficult to find the object of our desire in the market or we don’t have a credit card and it reduces the ability to buy online. but the real problem is the fact that people always want to have a good at the cheapest price; so how could we buy something that we can get for free even when we know it’s a sort of steal. in real life we are scared of stealing because there are people looking at us while we are alone in front of our computer. internet is always seen as a free space so it’s seems normal to get a movie for free. instead of looking for closing the site of file sharing may be the concerned industry could adapt themselves on those new market to be efficient. people are using computer as tv why not applying the similar rules ? working on demand, rating and so on
Internet has increased piracy and copyright violations to a great extent with the ease of sharing. It surely is very difficult to eliminate such a thing especially with the vast amounts of data and millions of websites available. Currently, it is impossible to screen all the information. The victims of piracy therefore now find a need to develop new technologies… Read more
Internet has increased piracy and copyright violations to a great extent with the ease of sharing. It surely is very difficult to eliminate such a thing especially with the vast amounts of data and millions of websites available. Currently, it is impossible to screen all the information. The victims of piracy therefore now find a need to develop new technologies or methods of encrypting the files to prevent piracy. While research efforts are needed and it surely would be expensive to deal with it, the companies would weigh the losses incurred from piracy against the cost of technology to prevent piracy.
I think that online piracy is very costly for companies in one hand, and the price of CD's and DVD's are too high in another hand. Companies should find an alternative like for example propose a rental for customers to download music and films for a certain period because i don't think that people will stop downloading because it… Read more
I think that online piracy is very costly for companies in one hand, and the price of CD’s and DVD’s are too high in another hand. Companies should find an alternative like for example propose a rental for customers to download music and films for a certain period because i don’t think that people will stop downloading because it appears that most of customers are addicted in some way because it is an easy way to get what they want to listen or watch.
I think that the big problem with the online piracy is the problem of free rider. There are a lot of people who make illegally download: but none have the impression that this action has an impact but if everyone thinks that, the total action has a big impact for the authors.
As the advertising against films piracy (1),… Read more
I think that the big problem with the online piracy is the problem of free rider. There are a lot of people who make illegally download: but none have the impression that this action has an impact but if everyone thinks that, the total action has a big impact for the authors.
As the advertising against films piracy (1), we have already seen, download is theft. But a lot of people don’t think they make theft, they just don’t see the total implication for the copyright.
I have heard on the radio (but I don’t remember when, on which radio and which singer said that) that for him, it was a good think that people download his music: it means that they like the music. But he adds that he was happy that on his time it was not like that, , that people don’t download all his songs.
More than focusing on the rightness of online piracy, I’d like to concentrate on how to deal with it, given as a fact that is really hard to fight it. That is because, on one hand, it is really costly to track down every “pirate”, and also the growing sharing programs/website as e-mule or bit torrent, and it… Read more
More than focusing on the rightness of online piracy, I’d like to concentrate on how to deal with it, given as a fact that is really hard to fight it. That is because, on one hand, it is really costly to track down every “pirate”, and also the growing sharing programs/website as e-mule or bit torrent, and it would be even more costly to sue them before a court. On the other hand, not in every country it is easy, for the entertaining companies, to have a favorable legislation: recently in France the highest jurisdictional court declared the web access as a human right, and consequently declared unconstitutional a law that created an agency for tracking down and, eventually, cutting off users who would still continue infringing copyright. ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6478542.ece )
Here I’d like to make a distinction between entertaining companies( e.g. such as Walt Disney or Warner Bros) and the publishing companies (above all the ones that specialized in academics books, e.g. for University): while I think that for the first group fighting the online piracy is a “lost battle” for the already mentioned reasons( high cost in enforcing any legislation, difficulties while lobbying towards a more favorable legislation), in the latter case there are still some incentives( actually I would define them more as no disincentives).
In the former case, I believe that it’s a lost battle as Entertaining Companies, that makes products as DVD or music in general, already foresaw the problem( as soon as a movie, or a song, is converted in computer format they can be shared through internet) and found a solution avoiding the high cost of pursuing by law terms any infringer: I think that these companies are betting on extra content, such as interviews and extra scenes for DVDs or concerts videos for CDs, while, in the case of music, on concerts, and gadgets. In Italy, while there were a loss of 19% in the sales of CDs last year, there was an increase of 12,2% in the concert revenue that now amount roughly at 768 millions € ( http://www.corriere.it/economia/08_dicembre_12/musica_rapporto_iulm_70c87638-c85c-11dd-a869-00144f02aabc.shtml , I’m sorry that it’s in Italian but I wasn’t able to find an English version).
In other words, I think that it has already been a shift towards a different type of clients, from the general public, that now mostly download, to a more fonder quota that is willing to acquire different kind and type of gadgets for their “beloved” artist(I guess that it’s possible to think it of a price differentiation, where the general public is offered the “low quality” and the affectionate one is offered the “high quality”).
For what regard publishing companies, instead, I think that the situation is quite different: since they aren’t able to offer anything “more” than the single product, the book, and then they’re not able to differentiate their consumers, there is nothing such as “too high cost” in tracking down the infringers, as these companies are affected by downloads in their core economic activity.
Also, I think that publishing industry has a more general welfare role since it’s through its research, editing and publishing that “knowledge” is updated and shared to the general public, and more specifically to students and other researchers: I think that an agreement can be arranged between publishing editors and governments (as EU, USA) to lower the prices of books, and on the other side to give subsidies to cover some expenses. Even though it seems a bit intricate, as the number of public agencies or governments involved is high enough, I think it can be a solution, as it would make “free – riders” and “pirates” share through taxes some costs.
The word 'online' essentially signifies an alternative platform for distribution to the physical medium. It is basically the nature of this platform that makes it so much more susceptible to piracy. Some of my colleagues in their comments have taken a holier than thou stance, taking a presumably morally correct (read: ideal) position on the conduct of the buyers of… Read more
The word ‘online’ essentially signifies an alternative platform for distribution to the physical medium. It is basically the nature of this platform that makes it so much more susceptible to piracy. Some of my colleagues in their comments have taken a holier than thou stance, taking a presumably morally correct (read: ideal) position on the conduct of the buyers of online content. In a market, irrespective of the platform, the seller will always want a price for its wares which gives it at least a minimum acceptable
profit margin. However, if we were to look through the buyer’s eyes, especially in a B2C context, the customer more often than not looks for the best possible(read: lowest) price, and wouldn’t the buyer love it if the price is as low as ‘free’.
The physical medium makes it very difficult and risky for a buyer, unless of course with the seller’s consent, to take a product for free as it requires a much greater effort and a buyer doing this can be individually identified or may be feel embarrassed doing so in the presence of others. However, in the case of online medium the buyer is faceless and the medium is much more difficult to monitor. This situation can be substantiated by the fact that even national governments cannot carry out online censorship effectively with some workaround always coming up to any sort of restriction. So it would be safe to assume that a blanket ban or control of online trading of goods, whatever kind they may be, is a distant dream.
However what could be tried to be created is a sort of differentiation between the kind of product that is available for a cost and that is available for free. The truth that best quality movies, music, documents etc. are available on the websites indulging in piracy means that there is no compelling incentive for the consumers to go through the official distribution network except for probably a cry to their conscience.
So in my opinion the panacea lies in the buyer seeing or believing that it is missing out on something about the product if it were to get it through the online piracy route. As the nebulous nature of the online medium makes it a very onerous task to go after every person selling or buying through the online piracy market.
Just repeating what was mentioned at the beginning of the article that ‘Pirate Bay thrives despite the convictions and other attempts to shut it down’.
I think Limewire was one of the first programs available to download files at a large scale. Something surprising is that despite the size of such an infringement and the enormous danger it represents for the music and cinema industry, authorities have reacted half-heartedly. The consequence was that people have not seen illegal downloading as a bad activity or at… Read more
I think Limewire was one of the first programs available to download files at a large scale. Something surprising is that despite the size of such an infringement and the enormous danger it represents for the music and cinema industry, authorities have reacted half-heartedly. The consequence was that people have not seen illegal downloading as a bad activity or at least as an activity with serious risks. The reason is that consumers think that they have no responsibility in this story; the only guilty party is the webmaster. In reality, few people have been punished for illegal downloading while the Limewire creator is pursued and will maybe go in jail.
But I think that we cannot blame people to profit of such an opportunity. On the other hand, I am sure that there is a demand for a better quality charged program like Itunes even if Itunes is too expensive according to me. But there are big advantages of this kind of quality programs. For example, you have the possibility to listen or to see a little part of what you want to download. In this way, you avoid downloading shocking or undesirable files on your computer. In any case, I think that internet is the future of music or even cinema industry and even if there are associated problems to deal with and a lot at stake, consumer has everything to win with this technology if well balanced.
Piracy robs the industry of its valid remuneration and thus no justification can be provided for it. Entertainment industry faces huge losses due to piracy each year and according to media piracy statistics the number of those who steal and then illegally copy pirated material is growing steadily over the years. Targeting and closing down individual sharing sites would not… Read more
Piracy robs the industry of its valid remuneration and thus no justification can be provided for it. Entertainment industry faces huge losses due to piracy each year and according to media piracy statistics the number of those who steal and then illegally copy pirated material is growing steadily over the years. Targeting and closing down individual sharing sites would not prevent piracy altogether as safe heavens can always be accessed.
One way to combat this can be to to include revenue generating mechanisms in file sharing sites themselves like inserting advertisements amongst the files or on the site(which can provide revenue on a per hit basis) or promoting already existing and popular mechanisms like i-tunes.
In my opinion, digital piracy can not be defended on a moral test. No individual has a right to steal somebody's property, in this case music or computer games. But rather than looking at this from a moral point of view, I believe that the economic argument hold too much weight in this regard. People know that it is… Read more
In my opinion, digital piracy can not be defended on a moral test. No individual has a right to steal somebody’s property, in this case music or computer games. But rather than looking at this from a moral point of view, I believe that the economic argument hold too much weight in this regard. People know that it is wrong to illegally download music, but still go ahead and do it since we know its free. Nobody wants to spend money if they can something for free.
And finding a technological solution to this problem is much harder. Shutting down of a few file-sharing sites will spawn thousands others. Solution to the issues has to be found from an economic point of view. This includes making it relatively cheaper for people to buy music on the internet and developing a stronger legal system to deal with any wrongdoing. Currently people know that they wont be caught or punished for downloading something from the net and hence there is no incentive/pressure to stop such behaviour.
And finally i would like to point out some positive aspects of proliferation through the internet. For people involved in the entertainment industry, internet can be a positive externality making their talent reach many more people than they can otherwise manage. Such popularity can be a source of revenues for their later work.
There is a strong network effect coming into play when it comes to software firms. I am sure it would easy for microsoft to detect whether a particular version of windows is pirated or authentic, but such widespread usage helps it to maintain its global market share and earn revenues from other sources.
And finally, from a society’s point of view, the benefit of increased knowledge, information and spread of culture needs to be taken into account when weighing against its costs.
Some friends of mine say : "I download songs (illegally) in order to know if I like them or not, if I like them, I buy the album." Why not. Indeed online piracy is a problem but times are changing : the Beatles have sold 450 000 albums and 2 000 000 songs via iTunes only 1 week after they… Read more
Some friends of mine say : “I download songs (illegally) in order to know if I like them or not, if I like them, I buy the album.” Why not. Indeed online piracy is a problem but times are changing : the Beatles have sold 450 000 albums and 2 000 000 songs via iTunes only 1 week after they arrived on iTunes. There are also other solutions to listen to music for free : some platform (like Spotify, Deezer, …) propose to listen to music for free, it is not illegal because they pay the royalties with ads on their website or between 2 songs
In addition, I think that new laws to stop piracy are a good initiative but are they effective ? Jammie Thomas, this american has been condemned because she has downloaded 24 songs via Kazaa. In Sweden, the men behind PirateBay are punished. We have to know that these way to download are very old. Peer2peer is old-fashioned. There are many other ways to share/download files now (actually, there have always been many ways, but now it is accessible for everybody) which new laws like Hadopi in France can’t stop because these laws only concern old methods. Actually I think that when government creates laws to punish illegal downloads, people will always find other ways to circumvent these laws. This problem is not only present in online piracy. Maybe we have to understand first why people don’t feel guilty when they download, why they don’t consider that they are stealing.
Some answers to your last question are given in Section 2.3 of ‘Digital Piracy: Theory’ (working paper I have written with Martin Peitz and which is required reading for the course).
Gergely Ferenc Horváth
Piracy is a problem of each technological period. Lets take a look at the "history" of audio-video piracy:
In the beginning, when the first casette players were on the market people recorded Music that was played in the radio. This was actually allowed, but the young generations traded the recorded songs, made copies of the copies and so on. That was… Read more
Piracy is a problem of each technological period. Lets take a look at the “history” of audio-video piracy:
In the beginning, when the first casette players were on the market people recorded Music that was played in the radio. This was actually allowed, but the young generations traded the recorded songs, made copies of the copies and so on. That was piracy as well, since you could by the songs in the shops.
After this, when the VHS became standard, people recorded films from the televison and the same thing as mentioned before happened.
The next level of the piracy evolution is the ripping of DVD-s. Everybody is allowed to do that, one safety copy for private owners is allowed. There are some countries where it is forbidden, but in the countries where it is allowed, it makes it problematic for the DVD producers to put anti-copy measures on the DVDs, since it is in conflict with the rights of the people buying the product.
Todays internet piracy is indeed bigger than in the other mentioned periodes, but the market and the sold volume of originals is much bigger as well. Yes the big firms make losses, but they are still on the market, still surviving, still making profits. Since the numebr of “pirates” is multiplying rapidly, this maybe the first real threat for them in the long term. They realised that and looking for countermeasures but until now it was impossible for them to do so in a really effective way.
This raises another interesting quesion: What would happen if (like they say) because of piracy all big labels go bankrupt? What would follow? What would take their place? It certainly would not mean the end of audio-video. It would only create a new type of structure in the industry.
Before commenting on whether piracy is right or wrong, I would like to point out that piracy can be helpful for the company if there is a positive network externality associated with it. For example, a software whose cost is beyond what millions can afford, is normally the victim of piracy. Now, because of piracy, the company sees the benefits… Read more
Before commenting on whether piracy is right or wrong, I would like to point out that piracy can be helpful for the company if there is a positive network externality associated with it. For example, a software whose cost is beyond what millions can afford, is normally the victim of piracy. Now, because of piracy, the company sees the benefits of bringing out newer versions of the same software. This gives it an opportunity to extract profits with each version (take the example of windows). There is no doubt that the strong network effect helps it along the way. In the process, it should be noted that innovation has been given a boost because of piracy. The company is forced to innovate in order to extract profits.
Unfortunately, this kind of an advantage is not widespread and almost all piracy ends up hurting the innovator. Other industries do not have this positive externality. So many new music artists earn a lot less than their potential because of piracy and this limits their future creations.
If only there was a way to segregate people who truly cannot afford to buy the innovation from the ones who could, perhaps a solution could be found, albeit an unfair one. Maybe, a delayed release of the innovation to those who could not afford free of cost would work. But that is a hypothetical situation.
I believe, the recent crackdowns on sites is a positive step towards compensating the rightful owners, the innovators.
As online piracy regards illegal copyright of copyrighted materials from the internet I think that it is quite important topic since internet era started and keep on going until nowadays.
I do not agree with a fact that it is a good thing because it brings losses to producers of music, movie, computer games and even some computer programs. Though… Read more
As online piracy regards illegal copyright of copyrighted materials from the internet I think that it is quite important topic since internet era started and keep on going until nowadays.
I do not agree with a fact that it is a good thing because it brings losses to producers of music, movie, computer games and even some computer programs. Though from the other side, every time you hear lets say a song which you indeed like and keep on thinking should I buy a CD or not and after all why should I because it is possible to get it all for free via internet! So it definitely brings advantages for consumers.
From legal point of view there are really a lot of sites which offers music, movies and etc. but the question is why? If it is decided to be illegal and unfair type of “business” why it is still too much of it? This is the exact situation why it is so attractive for consumer to download it for free because the supply is really big because you may get everything you want. Though dealing with online piracy is costly and hard because it depends on many factors let’s say countries position, different organizations and even culture of the country.
Of course, illegal music downloads cost the industry every year a great amount of money. But from my point of view, closing every site that is related to illegal downloads will not solve the problem in the long-term. As it is reported in the second article of the New York Times, the ICE has seized the Web addresses of a… Read more
Of course, illegal music downloads cost the industry every year a great amount of money. But from my point of view, closing every site that is related to illegal downloads will not solve the problem in the long-term. As it is reported in the second article of the New York Times, the ICE has seized the Web addresses of a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing. Which means that one cannot use these sites for illegal downloads anymore. However, the operators of such sites are not stupid and can therefore simply install a new server in a country which pays not so much attention to IP rights. Or one the extreme they could buy their own island to be an own nation.
The interesting question in my opinion is, what can be done that people do not use those illegal downloads so excessively. For finding a solution in the long-term we have to answer this question. Maybe indeed, people think that the price for a music CD is too high compared to its cost. Or they are following the attitude “I am only downloading one song” and abstract away that the bulk is crucial.
A solution to reduce illegal downloads could be e.g. allowing customers to download free and legal a certain amount of maybe 2 songs a month from the site of a music company. Or one can try how it works if the costumers themselves can decide which price they are willing to pay for a song.
But in the end one should not forget to think on its own if it is fair to consume something for free, where people put in a lot of work, time and energy.
I think digital goods piracy is mainly due to the phenomena of free riding. « Free riders » are those who consume more than their fair share of a public resource e.g. Someone using public transportation without paying the fare.
Free riding is considered to be an economic problem for firms because they don't get money on the products that are consumed.… Read more
I think digital goods piracy is mainly due to the phenomena of free riding. « Free riders » are those who consume more than their fair share of a public resource e.g. Someone using public transportation without paying the fare.
Free riding is considered to be an economic problem for firms because they don’t get money on the products that are consumed. The issue is then “How to limit free riding?”.
We usually don’t steal in a shop because we measure the risk to be caught and the problems it can bring to you. Delinquency is punished, if you steal something and you are caught, you get a punishment in order to assure you don’t try again. These are penalties to free riding.
But with regard to digital piracy, there are no or really few punishments to illegal download and added to the fact that you can download completely anonymously and that there’s no way to discover you did it, everyone can measure that there’s no risk and that the game is worth the candle…
Considering that it is difficult to combat piracy in this field, it should be interesting to find other ways of bypassing this problem. For example, to offer digital goods at price floor or to offer a customer service in order to make pirated products less interesting.
In my opinion the current widespread online piracy problem has two causes. Firstly, the fact that CD’s, DVD’s and video games are quite expensive and therefore it is cheaper to just download them from the internet, in spite of the illegal nature of this activity. Secondly, like Charles Marsily mentioned earlier, I also believe that there is a habit problem.… Read more
In my opinion the current widespread online piracy problem has two causes. Firstly, the fact that CD’s, DVD’s and video games are quite expensive and therefore it is cheaper to just download them from the internet, in spite of the illegal nature of this activity. Secondly, like Charles Marsily mentioned earlier, I also believe that there is a habit problem. Nowadays it is just too easy to illegally download digital goods from the internet.
As online piracy is, without a doubt a destructive phenomenon, I believe there are two ways to fight it. On the one hand, the entertainment industry has to provide less expensive alternatives for CD’s, DVD’s and video games and provide them in a digital format. As we can see, such initiatives are already been taken and are successful, e.g. iTunes from Apple. On the other hand, governments and internet service providers must start or continue to collaborate in order to identify online pirates and penalize them. Only by undertaking these two measures, people will get the incentive to opt for the legal alternative.
Online Piracy is definitely a hot subject, affecting millions (maybe billions) of people and very difficult to deal with.
Probably none of us can say to be totally untouched by this issue, because most of the people still downloads illegaly any kind of material (from movies to videogames).
The costs associated with Piracy are extremely high and hit the entire economy. For… Read more
Online Piracy is definitely a hot subject, affecting millions (maybe billions) of people and very difficult to deal with.
Probably none of us can say to be totally untouched by this issue, because most of the people still downloads illegaly any kind of material (from movies to videogames).
The costs associated with Piracy are extremely high and hit the entire economy. For example, BBC sources estimate that in 2008 web piracy meant losses for more than 1.4 billions euros in the United Kingdom only.
Moreover BBC statets that during the same year, in Europe, the Entertainment Industry had to face losses for 10 billions euros and roughly 186.000 workplaces vanished.
These huge numbers are definitely impressive, but so far no one has been able to find a way to deal and solve the problem.
A possible solution, for the large Entertainment corporations, would be a full exploitment of the internet. Selling movies, games and music via web is less costly if compared to hard copies, indeed.
I tunes is showing that the system can actually work fairly well, and the model might be expanded to other businesses.
I feel that piracy is actually a way to promote competition and excellence amongst artists. Let us look at the situation this way- if a song/movie is really good, fewer people tend to download pirated copies, rather they watch it in the cinema hall or buy the original CD. The underlying logic is- it is worth the money. The problem… Read more
I feel that piracy is actually a way to promote competition and excellence amongst artists. Let us look at the situation this way- if a song/movie is really good, fewer people tend to download pirated copies, rather they watch it in the cinema hall or buy the original CD. The underlying logic is- it is worth the money. The problem arises with music/movies that are not deemed to be ‘worth the money’. Here consumers think it’s ok to be watched or listened to to know about it, but not good enough to spend 5-10 euros on. Thus, online sharing for free prevents artists from being assured of returns on sub-standard performances.
A solution might be to enable online sharing while earning revenue from hits and advertisements. This would give consumers their music and the producers their revenue.
Recently in Spain many demonstrations have been carried out in front of the Sociedad General de Autores Españoles (SGAE) headquarters, the Spanish institution which defends and manages intellectual property rights. The principal aim of these demonstrations is to show society that sharing files through the Internet means promoting cultural freedom, which never should be subjected to copyright laws.
If we understand… Read more
Recently in Spain many demonstrations have been carried out in front of the Sociedad General de Autores Españoles (SGAE) headquarters, the Spanish institution which defends and manages intellectual property rights. The principal aim of these demonstrations is to show society that sharing files through the Internet means promoting cultural freedom, which never should be subjected to copyright laws.
If we understand downloading music, movies and computer games on the Internet as a way to promote cultural transfer, copyright laws that forbid these downloads would be acting as a limit to social welfare. Notwithstanding, if free data transfer was not to be controlled, future cultural development would not be encouraged.
How to deal with the downloading problem, which might be prejudicial for the artists?
The general framework of this debate is the access to culture, which isn’t a product or a market like the others.
The debate on illegal downloading has raised a lot of clichés, for example:
- It is because illegal downloading is growing that the record companies have increased the… Read more
How to deal with the downloading problem, which might be prejudicial for the artists?
The general framework of this debate is the access to culture, which isn’t a product or a market like the others.
The debate on illegal downloading has raised a lot of clichés, for example:
– It is because illegal downloading is growing that the record companies have increased the CD’s prices,
– The culture is a right, so I can “consume” free movies on the net…
These two points of view perfectly illustrate the issues and complexity of this debate: artists must have fair remuneration and culture should be accessible to all.
Let’s take the first cliché: record companies have increased their prices to face the illegal downloading’s problem. Those companies haven’t waited for the generalization of the piracy to increase the prices. When they were in a position of monopoly, making huge profits, and when illegal downloading was marginal, did they reward their performers better?
According to the second cliché, my right to culture gives me all the rights! Even those to buy for free what is clearly pirated, regardless the artists…
We all have the right to eat, the right to have an access to food is fundamental, but when I go to the supermarket and arrive at the cash register, I can’t say “I won’t pay because it’s a fundamental right!”
This debat is difficult, but it’s worth it!
It’s important, on the one hand, to encourage legal donwloading (thanks to the creation of legal platforms like iTunes, which is user friendly, available 24/24, rich in content and quite cheap (only 0,99 cent/track)) and on the othe hand, to educate people so they understand what piracy means and make them understand they risk to kill creation.
Almost every person does or did online piracy in his live, so the producers are fighting a battle they cannot win by only upholding their copyright. So what are possible short term solutions? First they could try to change the way in which the consumers thing about online piracy, because for most people downloading illegal content is not seen as… Read more
Almost every person does or did online piracy in his live, so the producers are fighting a battle they cannot win by only upholding their copyright. So what are possible short term solutions? First they could try to change the way in which the consumers thing about online piracy, because for most people downloading illegal content is not seen as a criminal or bad act. But I think the possibility to achieve that is very slim. A second possibility is to sell the content on the internet which as we can see it with itunes is a possibility. A third solution is to lure the consumer with special offers to watch the movies in the cinema or to buy the dvd’s etc. One example here is the growing availability of 3D Movies and the development of 3D TV’s. But all these solutions are only short term and give the industry time to breath, but maybe they will give them time to find a solution which is not based on legal battles against their own customers.
Many things have already been reported…
I do agree with Charles Marsily’s suggestion who putted the emphasis on the issue of the distribution and timing of different multimedia which are not adapted to current uses and mentalities. I quote: “I also believe that the issue arises as well due to a distribution problem. As we live in a world where any… Read more
Many things have already been reported…
I do agree with Charles Marsily’s suggestion who putted the emphasis on the issue of the distribution and timing of different multimedia which are not adapted to current uses and mentalities. I quote: “I also believe that the issue arises as well due to a distribution problem. As we live in a world where any multimedia content can be available right away, a proper distribution system should be put in place to take into account our new way to consume media content”.
Globalization and current ways of communication have “dismantled” the worldwide countries’ borders leading the individuals (despite them or not) to broaden their knowledge and cultural horizons. As Information is constantly updated and available through the Internet (e.g., I come to know in real-time my favorite group has just produced a new song, well I just would like to directly enjoy it) it necessarily accelerates the timing according to which individuals desire to have access to novelties within multimedia or whatever. Hence if the contents are available on the Internet, and we may expect that I is and will always be the case as piracy is not up to be wiped out, the consumer will just download it… And certainly won’t he believe that he is a thief or won’t he realize that he is contributing to a decrease of society’s welfare if still we consider that online copyright infringement leads to a fall of incentives to create more music, films or any records. Indeed we should not forget that people today are individualistic and that in many cases, general interest rarely compete with private interest. For instance I feel strongly that people prefer enoying high quality materials at low price on the internet (which minimises the transaction costs on the top) than fitting to the law.
Thus I believe that this new way to consume multimedia contents should inspire the dynamism and creativity within the research area. Indeed if uses and mentalities have changed through the time, society and low systems should adapt accordingly. Actually that’s how human societies have progressed across the time: through adaptation rather than through repression.
However, from another hand, artists have the right to be paid for their creations as they just earn their life like this!
So how can we cope with this issue which has both sides: from one hand being dynamic and adapt to a modern society and from another hand, keeping the artists with incentive to create new things?
Well, I obviously do not have a complete answer.
I would firstly suggest to find a way trough which artists could joint their efforts and create online platforms enabling consumers to download plenty of materials as they pay a global subscription fee (kind of royalty) to get the access. Secondly, why can’t we imagine taking benefit from the piracy? Indeed online piracy has already been a source of innovation for industry as their systems are often cleverly developed to counter the law and the copyright protection. In other words might we imagine to, in certain extend, working with instead or working against the pirates to energize and boost artistic innovation… Entrepreneurs would then deal with and take advantages of piracy.
In my opinion, I think first that downloading of music totally free should be entirely allowed to anybody having an Internet connection. Indeed, nowadays, Internet is the major way for music bands and singers to be known.
Nothing prevents people to buy a music album even if they have already the album on their computer. Moreover, in opposition to movies… Read more
In my opinion, I think first that downloading of music totally free should be entirely allowed to anybody having an Internet connection. Indeed, nowadays, Internet is the major way for music bands and singers to be known.
Nothing prevents people to buy a music album even if they have already the album on their computer. Moreover, in opposition to movies and computer games, singers and music bands can also make money from their music in playing concerts and festivals.
On the other hand, I agree that illegally downloading computer games should be prohibited: the cost of implementing such games is too significant.
Finally, concerning downloading of movies, I think also that people would stop it if the prices of DVD’s weren’t so high…
In the debate over electronic piracy, we observe two main standpoints : users and producers. The former desire a free, available electronic content while the latter remain on their position of a monopoly over their production.
If we consider that consumers love variety in their consumption, we are now able to understand why people download music or films : they… Read more
In the debate over electronic piracy, we observe two main standpoints : users and producers. The former desire a free, available electronic content while the latter remain on their position of a monopoly over their production.
If we consider that consumers love variety in their consumption, we are now able to understand why people download music or films : they like pop or rock music, thrillers or dramas. They do not only love THIS song or THAT movie.
In addition to this, there are also positive aspects of music downloading. Indeed, internet has allowed groups to gain some fame, although they wouldn’t have earned it otherwise. To back-up my point, please refer to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjlrMkuGgDM. I strongly believe that the music industry is similar to a network, a mesh where every group has a positive externality on the other. As I said before, consumers will listen to, say group A, which is of the same kind as group B. Therefore, these consumers will listen to group B, and so on and so forth.
I also think we should not be fooled by the saying “Illegal downloading kills the artist.” The share of the author is just of around 2% of the total market price. Of course, indirectly, producers cannot afford promoting as much artists as before. There is then another effect : producers must choose artists that are worth it. We dare believing this has a good impact on the quality of creations.
In my opinion piracy is outright theft. Most people that download justify it by saying "everyone" does it. Many also add that the prices for CDs and DVDs are too high. I don't believe either argument is good enough to justify the downloading of pirated material.
First, the argument that "everyone" does it is scary. Generally, most people would agree… Read more
In my opinion piracy is outright theft. Most people that download justify it by saying “everyone” does it. Many also add that the prices for CDs and DVDs are too high. I don’t believe either argument is good enough to justify the downloading of pirated material.
First, the argument that “everyone” does it is scary. Generally, most people would agree that stealing in a store is not ok. However, for some reason, it has become socially acceptable to steal by downloading data. Maybe since you don’t have to sneak out of the store with something hidden under your jacket, you merely push some buttons on your computer. How bad could that be, right? I say it’s still stealing. It’s still illegal.
Second, too high prices shouldn’t justify piracy either. In an earlier comment, someone argued that everyone has the right to enjoy entertainment. This is not true. You don’t have the right to watch movies or listen to music; you need to buy that right. Another thing to think about is what may cause the high price? Some of the suggestions made to solve the problem of piracy calls for lowering the price of DVDs and CDs. I then assume that these suggestions imply that current prices are at an artificial high level. But why? Take insurance companies. If they expect high payouts due to insurance fraud, then they will raise premiums. In other words, every client has to pay for the misbehavior of the fraudulent clients. This may be one reason why prices are so high for DVDs and CDs. If producers expect that many will download their material, then they might seek to recoup their losses elsewhere i.e. from the honest customer. Finally, I don’t think the effects of lowering prices will solve the problem. I do believe this would cause an increased demand for DVDs and CDs (or legal downloads for that matter). However, I think that people that already download and don’t see any moral issues with it, would still prefer to pay nothing compared to something. After all, you could always use the money you save on something undownloadable.
It is probably a difficult battle, but I still think movie/music producers should fight piracy. At the same time they should explore the possibility to provide customers with different ways to buy music and films. Legal downloads are interesting and if it is easy enough to use, it might be able to compete with piracy. Moreover, other interesting possibilities are also emerging. Available in some countries you find Spotify and Voddler. I have never used these services, so I don’t know much about them, but Spotify offers both free music (where you from time to time will hear advertisements) and music by pay-services (without ads) (http://www.spotify.com/int/new-user/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify). Voddler is the equivalent within movies (http://www.voddler.com/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voddler ). WIth these options, you get a lot of material for free and all you have to do is to endure som ads.
We will spend some time during the lecture of December 9 exploring theoretical frameworks that should allow us to discuss rigorously some of the issues that you raise.
Charles Marsily
I guess I let myself go on this one... I apologize in advance for the length of this post !
I think that digital piracy is an answer to a system that customers do not believe in anymore. And in my opinion, the issue appears as a consequence of three different problems: a pricing problem, a distribution problem, and then due… Read more
I guess I let myself go on this one… I apologize in advance for the length of this post !
I think that digital piracy is an answer to a system that customers do not believe in anymore. And in my opinion, the issue appears as a consequence of three different problems: a pricing problem, a distribution problem, and then due to a habit problem.
– Digital piracy due to a pricing problem
On one hand I do not agree that a digital content should be cheaper than its physical alternative… After all if we buy the content, it is not for its support, but for the content itself. On the other hand I do agree that sometimes the content itself can be overpriced. But it is obviously understandable to pay to consume any sort of content.
But in a lot of cases we have to pay more than once to enjoy the same content. Digital piracy could be the customer’s answer to try diminish his total price for a specific content.
Here are a few examples of content that we buy more than once:
A movie: we buy a ticket to see the movie at the theater, then we rent the movie, and finally we buy the movie to enjoy it indefinitely (well, at least till the technology dies). And I am not even talking about Blu-Ray, or buying again the movie on DVD just to have the extended cut, the extras, or the 10th anniversary edition with the director’ comments soundtrack.
Music: we buy music on CDs or from iTunes, and then we have to pay a fee to listen the music on a radio (among other things). But I believe that music piracy is high because the songs’ price was set too high for something that we consume while doing something else (we don’t exclusively listen music anymore, but we do it while working, walking, driving, etc.). But know I think that a price tag of 1€ is correct for one song (and maybe music piracy will decrease over time).
TV series: we pay a fee to watch series on TV, and then we have to pay again to possess them at home.
Books: we pay for the paperback version of the book, then for the electronic version of the book (which is incredibly useful to make keyword searches for e.g.).
Why not find ways to make the customer pay only once for the same content ? Such as offer a digital copy of the book with the physical book itself ? Pay a one shot price on iTunes to buy a movie, including the extras or the extended cut even if they come after the initial release ? Maybe people will be more disposed to pay for the content with such pricing systems…
– Digital piracy due to a distribution problem
I also believe that the issue arises as well due to a distribution problem. As we live in a world where any multimedia content can be available right away, a proper distribution system should be put in place to take into account our new way to consume media content.
In Belgium we have to wait half a year to a couple of years to have a TV show running on our channels after having been run in the US. This is insane ! Why should we wait months to watch an episode on TV if it is available right away somewhere on Internet in HD, with quality sound, and eventually with subtitles ?
Same thinking for movies… Sometimes the DVD is released in the US and made available on Internet in good quality even before having a shot to be released in theaters in Belgium. And on a general basis we have to wait months to buy a private copy after the movie was projected in theaters. Again, why should we wait ? Personally I think that rented copies and private copies should be available in the same time, and rushed digitally soon after the theater release, letting us actually the option to buy the content instead of downloading it (because we don’t want to wait…).
I know worldwide market distribution is more complicated than it looks, but a system such as the one have to endure now will not help to stop digital piracy.
– Digital piracy due to a habit problem
I truly believe that online stores are one good solution to digital piracy. The content is available right away in one click, in good quality, and at a fair price. And even if lower prices are applied, the mass effect can generate higher revenues for content’ editors and distributors.
And if piracy is still highly maintained, I think it is also due to a habit problem. It is so easy to download that we don’t even think how hard the the content could have been created. Today we have the routine to download everything freely on Internet because no reliable alternatives were offered before. And now there is a lot of work to advertise that alternatives are actually available to buy and enjoy multimedia content.
PS: I read before that digital distribution is cheap… Actually this is not entirely the case: server farms and bandwidth can be quite expensive.
Your comment is a bit long indeed but worth reading up to the end. Thanks.
Aude Lemmens
I think the two viewpoints are understandable and defendable, at least socially.
Indeed, it is perfectly normal that firms complain about the infringement of their rights and that we pursue people who don't respect the law.
However, if the price of one DVD or CD wasn't so high, more people would buy them. Not everyone is able to pay 15-20 euros… Read more
I think the two viewpoints are understandable and defendable, at least socially.
Indeed, it is perfectly normal that firms complain about the infringement of their rights and that we pursue people who don’t respect the law.
However, if the price of one DVD or CD wasn’t so high, more people would buy them. Not everyone is able to pay 15-20 euros for each film they would like to see. And these people have nevertheless the right to enjoy entertainment as well. So, indeed, the companies should maybe lower their price. The margin would be perhaps lower but the demand will grow and their costs would be spread over more products. The illegal donwloading wouldn’t be suppressed but maybe decreased at least.
Finally, I disagree with the statement of Ms. Wadsted. I think this type of piracy will not be over in two years from now. People are really imaginative to pass through the interdictions and to find new ways to get what they want. Furthermore, sometimes, people have access through these sites to films or musics they wouldn’t have otherwise. Eventually, the means are not optimal or totally efficient and they will shut down sites that have nothing to do with this, as the site of Mr GadElKareem.
The incoming bill “Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Acts” has been established as an action dedicated to the prevention of online pirating. Yet, in my opinion, it is near impossible to prevent the establishment of websites providing torrents. As the article said “On Friday, torrent users were already discussing new sites that had popped up to serve them.”
To reduce the… Read more
The incoming bill “Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Acts” has been established as an action dedicated to the prevention of online pirating. Yet, in my opinion, it is near impossible to prevent the establishment of websites providing torrents. As the article said “On Friday, torrent users were already discussing new sites that had popped up to serve them.”
To reduce the effects of online piracy one must reduce the demand. I believe the most effective way to do this is to a) reduce the prices of DVDs, CDS etc (as stated by other students in LLSMS2041) and b) make the consumer of pirated products accountable. A decrease in demand for pirated goods is possible if laws were established (and frequently enforced) regarding the possession of illegally downloaded products.
The Internet has allowed very easy access to a much greater amount of potential users than did the flourishing tape, LP, CD or DVD market in their day. The one realisation that needs to be made, however, is that it is unrealistic to expect to continue selling such products to so many more people at the same price as before.… Read more
The Internet has allowed very easy access to a much greater amount of potential users than did the flourishing tape, LP, CD or DVD market in their day. The one realisation that needs to be made, however, is that it is unrealistic to expect to continue selling such products to so many more people at the same price as before. First and foremost this is because the download cost is much lower than packaging and transport, and free Peer2Peer is essentially boiling the industry down to a state of perfect competition.
Furthermore, many products end up being less valued but, if available at a low price, interesting enough to view. A good example of this is students watching television series that they would not be able to watch on prime time (if they even have a TV at all), and which would be much too expensive to buy on DVDs (in such large variety).
A good solution would therefore be to accept the lower margins in exchange for the greater demand. Since transport is ‘free’ and immediate, and since it is extremely difficult to enforce a ‘quota’ on such a free market (i.e. sell a limited amount of DVDs uncopiable), there must be arbitrage between the following:
[A] Continued high prices which induce low legal demand and a great underground (& free) market
[B] Lower prices which meet the greater demand and reduce the incentive for an illegal market.
The current situation is reminiscent of the Prohibition: How can you keep the whisky from the people?
I can understand, that for the music and film industry the losses caused by internet piracy are immense. And that they want to shut down the responsible web sites as soon as possible. But in my opinion, that does not solve the problem for long. For each shut down web site there appears another one and if the punishments are… Read more
I can understand, that for the music and film industry the losses caused by internet piracy are immense. And that they want to shut down the responsible web sites as soon as possible. But in my opinion, that does not solve the problem for long. For each shut down web site there appears another one and if the punishments are getting harder the providers can operate from other countries where they cannot be prosecuted.
I think the music and film industry should think about offering their products to more affordable prices in the internet and by this reduce the costumers demand on illegal downloading in the internet.
Comments for Legal responses to online piracy
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The first thing that come to my mind when we are speaking about piracy is: how easy it is today, just to downloads files, musics, movies, everywhere on the web.
Although, some website had to close (like napster, limewire, etc.), other websites are coming on the web every day. I think that it is just because the demand for those types of informations is so big, that the incentive (which is very big) to create a “piracy” web, regarding to the punishment that the Justice might impose to you, is to small.
Yes, sometimes we can read in a newspaper that a guy had to pay a fine of x EUR to the Justice because he downloaded too many files on the web. But it just happen 2 or 3 days a year.
The Justice first have to coordinate the worldwide partnership-cooperation between the countries. Because some countries have others rules than others, and it is always difficult to find a final result of an exactly “web guidance”.
It seems more flagrant with what happened the last days! Lot of “American Secret Informations” were just put on the web, and nobody exactly know what to do, because the origin of the website is from the Country X, the license to put information on the web from the country Y, and finally, the owner of the website is from country Z…!
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On the one hand I totally agree with the facts that if some artists are in favor to share their creation online they are free to do that. However, it is rarely the case. What’s happening is that authors’ creations are put online against their will.
On the other hand I think that their legal methods certainly will not provide profits for them, as has been amply proven over the last few years. Nor will it revive the music community. The monopolies have the governments in their fatly bankrolled pockets and under their thrall, and their desired outcome will simply create more disaffected ex-consumers. Instead it simply represents a bankruptcy of imagination and a severe entitlement to having things be the way they were, for which it is far too late to go back to.
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i think that online piracy concerning movie, music and other software is due to the fact that it’s sometimes difficult to find the object of our desire in the market or we don’t have a credit card and it reduces the ability to buy online. but the real problem is the fact that people always want to have a good at the cheapest price; so how could we buy something that we can get for free even when we know it’s a sort of steal. in real life we are scared of stealing because there are people looking at us while we are alone in front of our computer. internet is always seen as a free space so it’s seems normal to get a movie for free. instead of looking for closing the site of file sharing may be the concerned industry could adapt themselves on those new market to be efficient. people are using computer as tv why not applying the similar rules ? working on demand, rating and so on
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Internet has increased piracy and copyright violations to a great extent with the ease of sharing. It surely is very difficult to eliminate such a thing especially with the vast amounts of data and millions of websites available. Currently, it is impossible to screen all the information. The victims of piracy therefore now find a need to develop new technologies or methods of encrypting the files to prevent piracy. While research efforts are needed and it surely would be expensive to deal with it, the companies would weigh the losses incurred from piracy against the cost of technology to prevent piracy.
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I think that online piracy is very costly for companies in one hand, and the price of CD’s and DVD’s are too high in another hand. Companies should find an alternative like for example propose a rental for customers to download music and films for a certain period because i don’t think that people will stop downloading because it appears that most of customers are addicted in some way because it is an easy way to get what they want to listen or watch.
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I think that the big problem with the online piracy is the problem of free rider. There are a lot of people who make illegally download: but none have the impression that this action has an impact but if everyone thinks that, the total action has a big impact for the authors.
As the advertising against films piracy (1), we have already seen, download is theft. But a lot of people don’t think they make theft, they just don’t see the total implication for the copyright.
I have heard on the radio (but I don’t remember when, on which radio and which singer said that) that for him, it was a good think that people download his music: it means that they like the music. But he adds that he was happy that on his time it was not like that, , that people don’t download all his songs.
(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sODZLSHJm6Q
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More than focusing on the rightness of online piracy, I’d like to concentrate on how to deal with it, given as a fact that is really hard to fight it. That is because, on one hand, it is really costly to track down every “pirate”, and also the growing sharing programs/website as e-mule or bit torrent, and it would be even more costly to sue them before a court. On the other hand, not in every country it is easy, for the entertaining companies, to have a favorable legislation: recently in France the highest jurisdictional court declared the web access as a human right, and consequently declared unconstitutional a law that created an agency for tracking down and, eventually, cutting off users who would still continue infringing copyright. ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6478542.ece )
Show lessHere I’d like to make a distinction between entertaining companies( e.g. such as Walt Disney or Warner Bros) and the publishing companies (above all the ones that specialized in academics books, e.g. for University): while I think that for the first group fighting the online piracy is a “lost battle” for the already mentioned reasons( high cost in enforcing any legislation, difficulties while lobbying towards a more favorable legislation), in the latter case there are still some incentives( actually I would define them more as no disincentives).
In the former case, I believe that it’s a lost battle as Entertaining Companies, that makes products as DVD or music in general, already foresaw the problem( as soon as a movie, or a song, is converted in computer format they can be shared through internet) and found a solution avoiding the high cost of pursuing by law terms any infringer: I think that these companies are betting on extra content, such as interviews and extra scenes for DVDs or concerts videos for CDs, while, in the case of music, on concerts, and gadgets. In Italy, while there were a loss of 19% in the sales of CDs last year, there was an increase of 12,2% in the concert revenue that now amount roughly at 768 millions € ( http://www.corriere.it/economia/08_dicembre_12/musica_rapporto_iulm_70c87638-c85c-11dd-a869-00144f02aabc.shtml , I’m sorry that it’s in Italian but I wasn’t able to find an English version).
In other words, I think that it has already been a shift towards a different type of clients, from the general public, that now mostly download, to a more fonder quota that is willing to acquire different kind and type of gadgets for their “beloved” artist(I guess that it’s possible to think it of a price differentiation, where the general public is offered the “low quality” and the affectionate one is offered the “high quality”).
For what regard publishing companies, instead, I think that the situation is quite different: since they aren’t able to offer anything “more” than the single product, the book, and then they’re not able to differentiate their consumers, there is nothing such as “too high cost” in tracking down the infringers, as these companies are affected by downloads in their core economic activity.
Also, I think that publishing industry has a more general welfare role since it’s through its research, editing and publishing that “knowledge” is updated and shared to the general public, and more specifically to students and other researchers: I think that an agreement can be arranged between publishing editors and governments (as EU, USA) to lower the prices of books, and on the other side to give subsidies to cover some expenses. Even though it seems a bit intricate, as the number of public agencies or governments involved is high enough, I think it can be a solution, as it would make “free – riders” and “pirates” share through taxes some costs.
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The word ‘online’ essentially signifies an alternative platform for distribution to the physical medium. It is basically the nature of this platform that makes it so much more susceptible to piracy. Some of my colleagues in their comments have taken a holier than thou stance, taking a presumably morally correct (read: ideal) position on the conduct of the buyers of online content. In a market, irrespective of the platform, the seller will always want a price for its wares which gives it at least a minimum acceptable
Show lessprofit margin. However, if we were to look through the buyer’s eyes, especially in a B2C context, the customer more often than not looks for the best possible(read: lowest) price, and wouldn’t the buyer love it if the price is as low as ‘free’.
The physical medium makes it very difficult and risky for a buyer, unless of course with the seller’s consent, to take a product for free as it requires a much greater effort and a buyer doing this can be individually identified or may be feel embarrassed doing so in the presence of others. However, in the case of online medium the buyer is faceless and the medium is much more difficult to monitor. This situation can be substantiated by the fact that even national governments cannot carry out online censorship effectively with some workaround always coming up to any sort of restriction. So it would be safe to assume that a blanket ban or control of online trading of goods, whatever kind they may be, is a distant dream.
However what could be tried to be created is a sort of differentiation between the kind of product that is available for a cost and that is available for free. The truth that best quality movies, music, documents etc. are available on the websites indulging in piracy means that there is no compelling incentive for the consumers to go through the official distribution network except for probably a cry to their conscience.
So in my opinion the panacea lies in the buyer seeing or believing that it is missing out on something about the product if it were to get it through the online piracy route. As the nebulous nature of the online medium makes it a very onerous task to go after every person selling or buying through the online piracy market.
Just repeating what was mentioned at the beginning of the article that ‘Pirate Bay thrives despite the convictions and other attempts to shut it down’.
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I think Limewire was one of the first programs available to download files at a large scale. Something surprising is that despite the size of such an infringement and the enormous danger it represents for the music and cinema industry, authorities have reacted half-heartedly. The consequence was that people have not seen illegal downloading as a bad activity or at least as an activity with serious risks. The reason is that consumers think that they have no responsibility in this story; the only guilty party is the webmaster. In reality, few people have been punished for illegal downloading while the Limewire creator is pursued and will maybe go in jail.
But I think that we cannot blame people to profit of such an opportunity. On the other hand, I am sure that there is a demand for a better quality charged program like Itunes even if Itunes is too expensive according to me. But there are big advantages of this kind of quality programs. For example, you have the possibility to listen or to see a little part of what you want to download. In this way, you avoid downloading shocking or undesirable files on your computer. In any case, I think that internet is the future of music or even cinema industry and even if there are associated problems to deal with and a lot at stake, consumer has everything to win with this technology if well balanced.
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Piracy robs the industry of its valid remuneration and thus no justification can be provided for it. Entertainment industry faces huge losses due to piracy each year and according to media piracy statistics the number of those who steal and then illegally copy pirated material is growing steadily over the years. Targeting and closing down individual sharing sites would not prevent piracy altogether as safe heavens can always be accessed.
Show lessOne way to combat this can be to to include revenue generating mechanisms in file sharing sites themselves like inserting advertisements amongst the files or on the site(which can provide revenue on a per hit basis) or promoting already existing and popular mechanisms like i-tunes.
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In my opinion, digital piracy can not be defended on a moral test. No individual has a right to steal somebody’s property, in this case music or computer games. But rather than looking at this from a moral point of view, I believe that the economic argument hold too much weight in this regard. People know that it is wrong to illegally download music, but still go ahead and do it since we know its free. Nobody wants to spend money if they can something for free.
Show lessAnd finding a technological solution to this problem is much harder. Shutting down of a few file-sharing sites will spawn thousands others. Solution to the issues has to be found from an economic point of view. This includes making it relatively cheaper for people to buy music on the internet and developing a stronger legal system to deal with any wrongdoing. Currently people know that they wont be caught or punished for downloading something from the net and hence there is no incentive/pressure to stop such behaviour.
And finally i would like to point out some positive aspects of proliferation through the internet. For people involved in the entertainment industry, internet can be a positive externality making their talent reach many more people than they can otherwise manage. Such popularity can be a source of revenues for their later work.
There is a strong network effect coming into play when it comes to software firms. I am sure it would easy for microsoft to detect whether a particular version of windows is pirated or authentic, but such widespread usage helps it to maintain its global market share and earn revenues from other sources.
And finally, from a society’s point of view, the benefit of increased knowledge, information and spread of culture needs to be taken into account when weighing against its costs.
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Some friends of mine say : “I download songs (illegally) in order to know if I like them or not, if I like them, I buy the album.” Why not. Indeed online piracy is a problem but times are changing : the Beatles have sold 450 000 albums and 2 000 000 songs via iTunes only 1 week after they arrived on iTunes. There are also other solutions to listen to music for free : some platform (like Spotify, Deezer, …) propose to listen to music for free, it is not illegal because they pay the royalties with ads on their website or between 2 songs
In addition, I think that new laws to stop piracy are a good initiative but are they effective ? Jammie Thomas, this american has been condemned because she has downloaded 24 songs via Kazaa. In Sweden, the men behind PirateBay are punished. We have to know that these way to download are very old. Peer2peer is old-fashioned. There are many other ways to share/download files now (actually, there have always been many ways, but now it is accessible for everybody) which new laws like Hadopi in France can’t stop because these laws only concern old methods. Actually I think that when government creates laws to punish illegal downloads, people will always find other ways to circumvent these laws. This problem is not only present in online piracy. Maybe we have to understand first why people don’t feel guilty when they download, why they don’t consider that they are stealing.
Show lessSome answers to your last question are given in Section 2.3 of ‘Digital Piracy: Theory’ (working paper I have written with Martin Peitz and which is required reading for the course).
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Piracy is a problem of each technological period. Lets take a look at the “history” of audio-video piracy:
In the beginning, when the first casette players were on the market people recorded Music that was played in the radio. This was actually allowed, but the young generations traded the recorded songs, made copies of the copies and so on. That was piracy as well, since you could by the songs in the shops.
After this, when the VHS became standard, people recorded films from the televison and the same thing as mentioned before happened.
The next level of the piracy evolution is the ripping of DVD-s. Everybody is allowed to do that, one safety copy for private owners is allowed. There are some countries where it is forbidden, but in the countries where it is allowed, it makes it problematic for the DVD producers to put anti-copy measures on the DVDs, since it is in conflict with the rights of the people buying the product.
Todays internet piracy is indeed bigger than in the other mentioned periodes, but the market and the sold volume of originals is much bigger as well. Yes the big firms make losses, but they are still on the market, still surviving, still making profits. Since the numebr of “pirates” is multiplying rapidly, this maybe the first real threat for them in the long term. They realised that and looking for countermeasures but until now it was impossible for them to do so in a really effective way.
This raises another interesting quesion: What would happen if (like they say) because of piracy all big labels go bankrupt? What would follow? What would take their place? It certainly would not mean the end of audio-video. It would only create a new type of structure in the industry.
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Before commenting on whether piracy is right or wrong, I would like to point out that piracy can be helpful for the company if there is a positive network externality associated with it. For example, a software whose cost is beyond what millions can afford, is normally the victim of piracy. Now, because of piracy, the company sees the benefits of bringing out newer versions of the same software. This gives it an opportunity to extract profits with each version (take the example of windows). There is no doubt that the strong network effect helps it along the way. In the process, it should be noted that innovation has been given a boost because of piracy. The company is forced to innovate in order to extract profits.
Show lessUnfortunately, this kind of an advantage is not widespread and almost all piracy ends up hurting the innovator. Other industries do not have this positive externality. So many new music artists earn a lot less than their potential because of piracy and this limits their future creations.
If only there was a way to segregate people who truly cannot afford to buy the innovation from the ones who could, perhaps a solution could be found, albeit an unfair one. Maybe, a delayed release of the innovation to those who could not afford free of cost would work. But that is a hypothetical situation.
I believe, the recent crackdowns on sites is a positive step towards compensating the rightful owners, the innovators.
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As online piracy regards illegal copyright of copyrighted materials from the internet I think that it is quite important topic since internet era started and keep on going until nowadays.
Show lessI do not agree with a fact that it is a good thing because it brings losses to producers of music, movie, computer games and even some computer programs. Though from the other side, every time you hear lets say a song which you indeed like and keep on thinking should I buy a CD or not and after all why should I because it is possible to get it all for free via internet! So it definitely brings advantages for consumers.
From legal point of view there are really a lot of sites which offers music, movies and etc. but the question is why? If it is decided to be illegal and unfair type of “business” why it is still too much of it? This is the exact situation why it is so attractive for consumer to download it for free because the supply is really big because you may get everything you want. Though dealing with online piracy is costly and hard because it depends on many factors let’s say countries position, different organizations and even culture of the country.
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Of course, illegal music downloads cost the industry every year a great amount of money. But from my point of view, closing every site that is related to illegal downloads will not solve the problem in the long-term. As it is reported in the second article of the New York Times, the ICE has seized the Web addresses of a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing. Which means that one cannot use these sites for illegal downloads anymore. However, the operators of such sites are not stupid and can therefore simply install a new server in a country which pays not so much attention to IP rights. Or one the extreme they could buy their own island to be an own nation.
Show lessThe interesting question in my opinion is, what can be done that people do not use those illegal downloads so excessively. For finding a solution in the long-term we have to answer this question. Maybe indeed, people think that the price for a music CD is too high compared to its cost. Or they are following the attitude “I am only downloading one song” and abstract away that the bulk is crucial.
A solution to reduce illegal downloads could be e.g. allowing customers to download free and legal a certain amount of maybe 2 songs a month from the site of a music company. Or one can try how it works if the costumers themselves can decide which price they are willing to pay for a song.
But in the end one should not forget to think on its own if it is fair to consume something for free, where people put in a lot of work, time and energy.
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I think digital goods piracy is mainly due to the phenomena of free riding. « Free riders » are those who consume more than their fair share of a public resource e.g. Someone using public transportation without paying the fare.
Free riding is considered to be an economic problem for firms because they don’t get money on the products that are consumed. The issue is then “How to limit free riding?”.
We usually don’t steal in a shop because we measure the risk to be caught and the problems it can bring to you. Delinquency is punished, if you steal something and you are caught, you get a punishment in order to assure you don’t try again. These are penalties to free riding.
But with regard to digital piracy, there are no or really few punishments to illegal download and added to the fact that you can download completely anonymously and that there’s no way to discover you did it, everyone can measure that there’s no risk and that the game is worth the candle…
Considering that it is difficult to combat piracy in this field, it should be interesting to find other ways of bypassing this problem. For example, to offer digital goods at price floor or to offer a customer service in order to make pirated products less interesting.
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In my opinion the current widespread online piracy problem has two causes. Firstly, the fact that CD’s, DVD’s and video games are quite expensive and therefore it is cheaper to just download them from the internet, in spite of the illegal nature of this activity. Secondly, like Charles Marsily mentioned earlier, I also believe that there is a habit problem. Nowadays it is just too easy to illegally download digital goods from the internet.
Show lessAs online piracy is, without a doubt a destructive phenomenon, I believe there are two ways to fight it. On the one hand, the entertainment industry has to provide less expensive alternatives for CD’s, DVD’s and video games and provide them in a digital format. As we can see, such initiatives are already been taken and are successful, e.g. iTunes from Apple. On the other hand, governments and internet service providers must start or continue to collaborate in order to identify online pirates and penalize them. Only by undertaking these two measures, people will get the incentive to opt for the legal alternative.
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Online Piracy is definitely a hot subject, affecting millions (maybe billions) of people and very difficult to deal with.
Probably none of us can say to be totally untouched by this issue, because most of the people still downloads illegaly any kind of material (from movies to videogames).
The costs associated with Piracy are extremely high and hit the entire economy. For example, BBC sources estimate that in 2008 web piracy meant losses for more than 1.4 billions euros in the United Kingdom only.
Moreover BBC statets that during the same year, in Europe, the Entertainment Industry had to face losses for 10 billions euros and roughly 186.000 workplaces vanished.
These huge numbers are definitely impressive, but so far no one has been able to find a way to deal and solve the problem.
A possible solution, for the large Entertainment corporations, would be a full exploitment of the internet. Selling movies, games and music via web is less costly if compared to hard copies, indeed.
Show lessI tunes is showing that the system can actually work fairly well, and the model might be expanded to other businesses.
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I feel that piracy is actually a way to promote competition and excellence amongst artists. Let us look at the situation this way- if a song/movie is really good, fewer people tend to download pirated copies, rather they watch it in the cinema hall or buy the original CD. The underlying logic is- it is worth the money. The problem arises with music/movies that are not deemed to be ‘worth the money’. Here consumers think it’s ok to be watched or listened to to know about it, but not good enough to spend 5-10 euros on. Thus, online sharing for free prevents artists from being assured of returns on sub-standard performances.
A solution might be to enable online sharing while earning revenue from hits and advertisements. This would give consumers their music and the producers their revenue.
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Recently in Spain many demonstrations have been carried out in front of the Sociedad General de Autores Españoles (SGAE) headquarters, the Spanish institution which defends and manages intellectual property rights. The principal aim of these demonstrations is to show society that sharing files through the Internet means promoting cultural freedom, which never should be subjected to copyright laws.
If we understand downloading music, movies and computer games on the Internet as a way to promote cultural transfer, copyright laws that forbid these downloads would be acting as a limit to social welfare. Notwithstanding, if free data transfer was not to be controlled, future cultural development would not be encouraged.
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How to deal with the downloading problem, which might be prejudicial for the artists?
The general framework of this debate is the access to culture, which isn’t a product or a market like the others.
The debate on illegal downloading has raised a lot of clichés, for example:
– It is because illegal downloading is growing that the record companies have increased the CD’s prices,
– The culture is a right, so I can “consume” free movies on the net…
These two points of view perfectly illustrate the issues and complexity of this debate: artists must have fair remuneration and culture should be accessible to all.
Let’s take the first cliché: record companies have increased their prices to face the illegal downloading’s problem. Those companies haven’t waited for the generalization of the piracy to increase the prices. When they were in a position of monopoly, making huge profits, and when illegal downloading was marginal, did they reward their performers better?
According to the second cliché, my right to culture gives me all the rights! Even those to buy for free what is clearly pirated, regardless the artists…
We all have the right to eat, the right to have an access to food is fundamental, but when I go to the supermarket and arrive at the cash register, I can’t say “I won’t pay because it’s a fundamental right!”
This debat is difficult, but it’s worth it!
Show lessIt’s important, on the one hand, to encourage legal donwloading (thanks to the creation of legal platforms like iTunes, which is user friendly, available 24/24, rich in content and quite cheap (only 0,99 cent/track)) and on the othe hand, to educate people so they understand what piracy means and make them understand they risk to kill creation.
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Almost every person does or did online piracy in his live, so the producers are fighting a battle they cannot win by only upholding their copyright. So what are possible short term solutions? First they could try to change the way in which the consumers thing about online piracy, because for most people downloading illegal content is not seen as a criminal or bad act. But I think the possibility to achieve that is very slim. A second possibility is to sell the content on the internet which as we can see it with itunes is a possibility. A third solution is to lure the consumer with special offers to watch the movies in the cinema or to buy the dvd’s etc. One example here is the growing availability of 3D Movies and the development of 3D TV’s. But all these solutions are only short term and give the industry time to breath, but maybe they will give them time to find a solution which is not based on legal battles against their own customers.
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Many things have already been reported…
I do agree with Charles Marsily’s suggestion who putted the emphasis on the issue of the distribution and timing of different multimedia which are not adapted to current uses and mentalities. I quote: “I also believe that the issue arises as well due to a distribution problem. As we live in a world where any multimedia content can be available right away, a proper distribution system should be put in place to take into account our new way to consume media content”.
Globalization and current ways of communication have “dismantled” the worldwide countries’ borders leading the individuals (despite them or not) to broaden their knowledge and cultural horizons. As Information is constantly updated and available through the Internet (e.g., I come to know in real-time my favorite group has just produced a new song, well I just would like to directly enjoy it) it necessarily accelerates the timing according to which individuals desire to have access to novelties within multimedia or whatever. Hence if the contents are available on the Internet, and we may expect that I is and will always be the case as piracy is not up to be wiped out, the consumer will just download it… And certainly won’t he believe that he is a thief or won’t he realize that he is contributing to a decrease of society’s welfare if still we consider that online copyright infringement leads to a fall of incentives to create more music, films or any records. Indeed we should not forget that people today are individualistic and that in many cases, general interest rarely compete with private interest. For instance I feel strongly that people prefer enoying high quality materials at low price on the internet (which minimises the transaction costs on the top) than fitting to the law.
Thus I believe that this new way to consume multimedia contents should inspire the dynamism and creativity within the research area. Indeed if uses and mentalities have changed through the time, society and low systems should adapt accordingly. Actually that’s how human societies have progressed across the time: through adaptation rather than through repression.
However, from another hand, artists have the right to be paid for their creations as they just earn their life like this!
So how can we cope with this issue which has both sides: from one hand being dynamic and adapt to a modern society and from another hand, keeping the artists with incentive to create new things?
Well, I obviously do not have a complete answer.
I would firstly suggest to find a way trough which artists could joint their efforts and create online platforms enabling consumers to download plenty of materials as they pay a global subscription fee (kind of royalty) to get the access. Secondly, why can’t we imagine taking benefit from the piracy? Indeed online piracy has already been a source of innovation for industry as their systems are often cleverly developed to counter the law and the copyright protection. In other words might we imagine to, in certain extend, working with instead or working against the pirates to energize and boost artistic innovation… Entrepreneurs would then deal with and take advantages of piracy.
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In my opinion, I think first that downloading of music totally free should be entirely allowed to anybody having an Internet connection. Indeed, nowadays, Internet is the major way for music bands and singers to be known.
Nothing prevents people to buy a music album even if they have already the album on their computer. Moreover, in opposition to movies and computer games, singers and music bands can also make money from their music in playing concerts and festivals.
On the other hand, I agree that illegally downloading computer games should be prohibited: the cost of implementing such games is too significant.
Finally, concerning downloading of movies, I think also that people would stop it if the prices of DVD’s weren’t so high…
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In the debate over electronic piracy, we observe two main standpoints : users and producers. The former desire a free, available electronic content while the latter remain on their position of a monopoly over their production.
If we consider that consumers love variety in their consumption, we are now able to understand why people download music or films : they like pop or rock music, thrillers or dramas. They do not only love THIS song or THAT movie.
In addition to this, there are also positive aspects of music downloading. Indeed, internet has allowed groups to gain some fame, although they wouldn’t have earned it otherwise. To back-up my point, please refer to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjlrMkuGgDM. I strongly believe that the music industry is similar to a network, a mesh where every group has a positive externality on the other. As I said before, consumers will listen to, say group A, which is of the same kind as group B. Therefore, these consumers will listen to group B, and so on and so forth.
I also think we should not be fooled by the saying “Illegal downloading kills the artist.” The share of the author is just of around 2% of the total market price. Of course, indirectly, producers cannot afford promoting as much artists as before. There is then another effect : producers must choose artists that are worth it. We dare believing this has a good impact on the quality of creations.
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In my opinion piracy is outright theft. Most people that download justify it by saying “everyone” does it. Many also add that the prices for CDs and DVDs are too high. I don’t believe either argument is good enough to justify the downloading of pirated material.
First, the argument that “everyone” does it is scary. Generally, most people would agree that stealing in a store is not ok. However, for some reason, it has become socially acceptable to steal by downloading data. Maybe since you don’t have to sneak out of the store with something hidden under your jacket, you merely push some buttons on your computer. How bad could that be, right? I say it’s still stealing. It’s still illegal.
Second, too high prices shouldn’t justify piracy either. In an earlier comment, someone argued that everyone has the right to enjoy entertainment. This is not true. You don’t have the right to watch movies or listen to music; you need to buy that right. Another thing to think about is what may cause the high price? Some of the suggestions made to solve the problem of piracy calls for lowering the price of DVDs and CDs. I then assume that these suggestions imply that current prices are at an artificial high level. But why? Take insurance companies. If they expect high payouts due to insurance fraud, then they will raise premiums. In other words, every client has to pay for the misbehavior of the fraudulent clients. This may be one reason why prices are so high for DVDs and CDs. If producers expect that many will download their material, then they might seek to recoup their losses elsewhere i.e. from the honest customer. Finally, I don’t think the effects of lowering prices will solve the problem. I do believe this would cause an increased demand for DVDs and CDs (or legal downloads for that matter). However, I think that people that already download and don’t see any moral issues with it, would still prefer to pay nothing compared to something. After all, you could always use the money you save on something undownloadable.
It is probably a difficult battle, but I still think movie/music producers should fight piracy. At the same time they should explore the possibility to provide customers with different ways to buy music and films. Legal downloads are interesting and if it is easy enough to use, it might be able to compete with piracy. Moreover, other interesting possibilities are also emerging. Available in some countries you find Spotify and Voddler. I have never used these services, so I don’t know much about them, but Spotify offers both free music (where you from time to time will hear advertisements) and music by pay-services (without ads) (http://www.spotify.com/int/new-user/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify). Voddler is the equivalent within movies (http://www.voddler.com/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voddler ). WIth these options, you get a lot of material for free and all you have to do is to endure som ads.
Show lessWe will spend some time during the lecture of December 9 exploring theoretical frameworks that should allow us to discuss rigorously some of the issues that you raise.
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I guess I let myself go on this one… I apologize in advance for the length of this post !
I think that digital piracy is an answer to a system that customers do not believe in anymore. And in my opinion, the issue appears as a consequence of three different problems: a pricing problem, a distribution problem, and then due to a habit problem.
– Digital piracy due to a pricing problem
On one hand I do not agree that a digital content should be cheaper than its physical alternative… After all if we buy the content, it is not for its support, but for the content itself. On the other hand I do agree that sometimes the content itself can be overpriced. But it is obviously understandable to pay to consume any sort of content.
But in a lot of cases we have to pay more than once to enjoy the same content. Digital piracy could be the customer’s answer to try diminish his total price for a specific content.
Here are a few examples of content that we buy more than once:
A movie: we buy a ticket to see the movie at the theater, then we rent the movie, and finally we buy the movie to enjoy it indefinitely (well, at least till the technology dies). And I am not even talking about Blu-Ray, or buying again the movie on DVD just to have the extended cut, the extras, or the 10th anniversary edition with the director’ comments soundtrack.
Music: we buy music on CDs or from iTunes, and then we have to pay a fee to listen the music on a radio (among other things). But I believe that music piracy is high because the songs’ price was set too high for something that we consume while doing something else (we don’t exclusively listen music anymore, but we do it while working, walking, driving, etc.). But know I think that a price tag of 1€ is correct for one song (and maybe music piracy will decrease over time).
TV series: we pay a fee to watch series on TV, and then we have to pay again to possess them at home.
Books: we pay for the paperback version of the book, then for the electronic version of the book (which is incredibly useful to make keyword searches for e.g.).
Why not find ways to make the customer pay only once for the same content ? Such as offer a digital copy of the book with the physical book itself ? Pay a one shot price on iTunes to buy a movie, including the extras or the extended cut even if they come after the initial release ? Maybe people will be more disposed to pay for the content with such pricing systems…
– Digital piracy due to a distribution problem
I also believe that the issue arises as well due to a distribution problem. As we live in a world where any multimedia content can be available right away, a proper distribution system should be put in place to take into account our new way to consume media content.
In Belgium we have to wait half a year to a couple of years to have a TV show running on our channels after having been run in the US. This is insane ! Why should we wait months to watch an episode on TV if it is available right away somewhere on Internet in HD, with quality sound, and eventually with subtitles ?
Same thinking for movies… Sometimes the DVD is released in the US and made available on Internet in good quality even before having a shot to be released in theaters in Belgium. And on a general basis we have to wait months to buy a private copy after the movie was projected in theaters. Again, why should we wait ? Personally I think that rented copies and private copies should be available in the same time, and rushed digitally soon after the theater release, letting us actually the option to buy the content instead of downloading it (because we don’t want to wait…).
I know worldwide market distribution is more complicated than it looks, but a system such as the one have to endure now will not help to stop digital piracy.
– Digital piracy due to a habit problem
I truly believe that online stores are one good solution to digital piracy. The content is available right away in one click, in good quality, and at a fair price. And even if lower prices are applied, the mass effect can generate higher revenues for content’ editors and distributors.
And if piracy is still highly maintained, I think it is also due to a habit problem. It is so easy to download that we don’t even think how hard the the content could have been created. Today we have the routine to download everything freely on Internet because no reliable alternatives were offered before. And now there is a lot of work to advertise that alternatives are actually available to buy and enjoy multimedia content.
PS: I read before that digital distribution is cheap… Actually this is not entirely the case: server farms and bandwidth can be quite expensive.
Show lessYour comment is a bit long indeed but worth reading up to the end. Thanks.
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I think the two viewpoints are understandable and defendable, at least socially.
Indeed, it is perfectly normal that firms complain about the infringement of their rights and that we pursue people who don’t respect the law.
However, if the price of one DVD or CD wasn’t so high, more people would buy them. Not everyone is able to pay 15-20 euros for each film they would like to see. And these people have nevertheless the right to enjoy entertainment as well. So, indeed, the companies should maybe lower their price. The margin would be perhaps lower but the demand will grow and their costs would be spread over more products. The illegal donwloading wouldn’t be suppressed but maybe decreased at least.
Finally, I disagree with the statement of Ms. Wadsted. I think this type of piracy will not be over in two years from now. People are really imaginative to pass through the interdictions and to find new ways to get what they want. Furthermore, sometimes, people have access through these sites to films or musics they wouldn’t have otherwise. Eventually, the means are not optimal or totally efficient and they will shut down sites that have nothing to do with this, as the site of Mr GadElKareem.
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The incoming bill “Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Acts” has been established as an action dedicated to the prevention of online pirating. Yet, in my opinion, it is near impossible to prevent the establishment of websites providing torrents. As the article said “On Friday, torrent users were already discussing new sites that had popped up to serve them.”
To reduce the effects of online piracy one must reduce the demand. I believe the most effective way to do this is to a) reduce the prices of DVDs, CDS etc (as stated by other students in LLSMS2041) and b) make the consumer of pirated products accountable. A decrease in demand for pirated goods is possible if laws were established (and frequently enforced) regarding the possession of illegally downloaded products.
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The Internet has allowed very easy access to a much greater amount of potential users than did the flourishing tape, LP, CD or DVD market in their day. The one realisation that needs to be made, however, is that it is unrealistic to expect to continue selling such products to so many more people at the same price as before. First and foremost this is because the download cost is much lower than packaging and transport, and free Peer2Peer is essentially boiling the industry down to a state of perfect competition.
Furthermore, many products end up being less valued but, if available at a low price, interesting enough to view. A good example of this is students watching television series that they would not be able to watch on prime time (if they even have a TV at all), and which would be much too expensive to buy on DVDs (in such large variety).
A good solution would therefore be to accept the lower margins in exchange for the greater demand. Since transport is ‘free’ and immediate, and since it is extremely difficult to enforce a ‘quota’ on such a free market (i.e. sell a limited amount of DVDs uncopiable), there must be arbitrage between the following:
[A] Continued high prices which induce low legal demand and a great underground (& free) market
[B] Lower prices which meet the greater demand and reduce the incentive for an illegal market.
The current situation is reminiscent of the Prohibition: How can you keep the whisky from the people?
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I can understand, that for the music and film industry the losses caused by internet piracy are immense. And that they want to shut down the responsible web sites as soon as possible. But in my opinion, that does not solve the problem for long. For each shut down web site there appears another one and if the punishments are getting harder the providers can operate from other countries where they cannot be prosecuted.
Show lessI think the music and film industry should think about offering their products to more affordable prices in the internet and by this reduce the costumers demand on illegal downloading in the internet.
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