But I thought piracy was killing media? music/game sales up

[philocrates]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

But if they stopped making up all those graphs about lost sales and the decline of authors ever wanting to be motivated to write ever ever again, where am I going to read my free humor fiction?

At the supermarket check out counter with the rest of us reading the Globe or the National Enquirer while waiting in line.

[jbcohen]

I have never heard of a company going bankrupt becuase of piracy. Anyone else heard of this?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I have never heard of a company going bankrupt becuase of piracy. Anyone else heard of this?

I can think of lots of companies who only exist now because of piracy. All those law firms who switched from ambulance chasing to pirate chasing, the companies who sell services to find unauthorised downloads, I bet their income (and therefore taxes) are far in excess of even the officially stated losses due to piracy.

[RainingLemur]

Doesn't come as much of a surprise to me.

[spindlegirl]

Most folks I know who admit to pirating the wazoo out of everything do it only because it is "free" and if they couldn't pirate anymore they simply would not get the product in question.

I personally don't see a 'decline in piracy'. I think that that part of the article is a made-up bunch of hooey.

People buy stuff because they buy stuff and people pirate stuff because they pirate stuff. Do they really think the increase in sales are a result of pirates who no longer pirate?

If I couldn't listen to music for free on YouTube, will that make me willing to dedicate more of my budget toward music? I doubt it.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I have never heard of a company going bankrupt becuase of piracy. Anyone else heard of this?

If you accept the media companies hyperventilating about piracy you would have to conclude that the home gaming industry and the the billions it rakes in can't exist. Piracy has stalked the home gaming industry in a big way since almost day 1.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I have never heard of a company going bankrupt becuase of piracy. Anyone else heard of this?

Righthaven, which went bankrupt-and-worse attempting to fight "piracy?" Of course, they only went bankrupt because they were trying to sue over content they didn't own; 8 different judges ruled they didn't have standing to sue. Turns out you can't assign "the right to sue for copyright infringement" to someone without actually handing over any copyrights.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

I personally don't see a 'decline in piracy'. I think that that part of the article is a made-up bunch of hooey.

I suspect the decline in piracy is directly linked to the ease & ubiquity of iTunes. Paying a buck a song is often easier than hunting down a torrent and hoping the song is correctly labeled, not corrupt, not a virus in disguise (actually very rare), and not missing the opening or closing verse.

People buy stuff because they buy stuff and people pirate stuff because they pirate stuff. Do they really think the increase in sales are a result of pirates who no longer pirate?

It's the other way around: People buy when stuff's easy to get and cheap, and then they don't pirate.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I suspect the decline in piracy is directly linked to the ease & ubiquity of iTunes. Paying a buck a song is often easier than hunting down a torrent and hoping the song is correctly labeled, not corrupt, not a virus in disguise (actually very rare), and not missing the opening or closing verse.

Who needs a torrent? YouTube has the largest song catalog out there and it's free.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Who needs a torrent? YouTube has the largest song catalog out there and it's free.

I watch more youtube than real tv (I don't have 'real tv' but that's beside the point) I get all the visual entertainment, all the music entertainment, and all the news coverage I need.

I actually did buy some albums from a local musician whom I had seen live in person a couple times and whom I subscribe to on youtube. But that was a long time ago.

[philocrates]

Actually, I like Grooveshark more than Youtube. The last time I listened to music on you tube was about a year ago. I was on Grooveshark Friday.

They aren't taking into account that I buy artists and writers and designers I would have never even looked at before with pirated copies. Say I never read X writer. But there is a copy of his or her book online. I download. I read. Like them. Go to Barnes and Nobles to pick something up and walking in there is a display of their newest book. It goes home with me when before I would have let it sit there and gone on to buy what I walked in there to buy. It's simply the ease. There is the new book for the right price.

What they aren't taking into account is their model. I can sell X copies at Y price for max profit. That's nice but with things like ebooks, you don't have to worry about production costs so you can sell all the ebooks you want at a less price and make a raging profit. Same thing for music and the like. The old model doesn't work. So they drive the demand for pirated with greed. Come on you can't even argue cost. I can convert a pdf to an epub in minutes IF my computer is really slow. No cost and it can be copied endlessly without degrading the quality. The pricing is sheer greed.

Between that, lying about actual profit loss from theft, and costing me tax dollars when they should be required to sue not send in the Feds, they won't get me on their side.