[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Wow, now if there was just some independent study to support your supposition. But the independent studies show otherwise.

There are in fact independent studies that support my position, a fact that is obvious from the literature review you quote if you'd bothered to go through it. In the literature review, 22 studies were looked at, 14 of which concluded that piracy had a negative impact on sales, 3 of the studies found no significant impact while the remaining five found a positive impact on sales.

Of course, that's all a bit irrelevant. I've never actually said there's no impact on piracy. I've always maintained that piracy is mainly the result of under-served customers by entertainment industries that are having trouble keeping pace with technology change. Piracy is a problem (the extent of which is highly debatable as show by the study you quote), but I don't necessarily think intrusive laws are the right answer; legislation in general is a heavy hammer, and shouldn't be the go-to response for every problem.

In addition, there's a report here that shows that people are spending more money then ever on the entertainment industry. I add this only to put this debate in the proper context - i.e. that for all the entertainment industry's whining about piracy, they're actually making more money than ever.

And since studies are fun and quoting them is even more fun, a very recent, very comprehensive Canadian study (found here) stated the following with respect to the effectiveness of tougher laws in developing countries (the focus of the study):

[U]Invariably, industry groups invoke similar arguments on behalf of stronger enforcement: lower piracy will lead to greater investment in legal markets, and greater investment will lead to economic growth, jobs, innovation, and expanded access. This is the logic that has made intellectual property a central subject of trade negotiations since the 1980s. But while we see this mechanism operating in some contexts in emerging markets, we think that other forces play a far larger role.

The factor common to successful low-cost models, our work suggests, is neither strong enforcement against pirates nor the creative use of digital distribution, but rather the presence of firms that actively compete on price and services for local customers.

The report is over 400 pages, but it's actually not too much of a slog; I'd recommend it everyone give at least some of it a read.

And finally, this scathing commentary:

Originally Posted by stonetools

I must say that I find it astonishing that someone who styles himself Ninjalawyer should be so friendly to massive violation of the laws or should be so dismissive of the idea that IP rights should be protected. I understand that most posters are simply consumers. They don't understand that without secure IP property rights, content creators won't create , and that arts and science will not flourish . The founding fathers understood that, and thought it so important that they put it in the Constitution. You should understand that too.

Being a lawyer doesn't make you supportive of all laws, even bad ones. In fact, being well-acquainted with the legal system generally provides a good understanding of the costs and benefits of new laws and enforcement initiatives. I'm not going to address the rest of the above comment since it's mainly fluff (assuming a conclusion while giving a quick shout-out to your founding fathers).