[plib]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Both of those writers nevertheless agree that piracy causes harm. That's the issue.
How to proceed is a seperate question. Note that apart from vaguely referring to "new business models" ( Just what ARE these new business models? Are they like unicorns?) Tschmuck doesn't offer anything substantial on how to proceed.

Actually both of them don't. The only studies that Tschmuck seems to consider reliable are those of Olberholzer-Gee and Strumpf of Harvard, in reference to which I quote your original post:

a handful of studies have argued that online piracy has no effect, or even a positive effect, on music sales — most notably an earlier study by Olberholzer-Gee and Strumpf

Without perusing all their academic research I tend not to have a problem with that as I place a bit more credence in a couple of Harvard profs than Liebowitz in his sagebrush tower of academe somewhere in Texas. Tschmuck doesn't actually say that piracy causes harm, indeed if he is in agreement with Olberholzer-Gee and Strumpf then he believes the opposite. He acknowledges the existence of a substitution effect of file-sharing and record sales, but considers it balanced by a “network effect” in the form of new music discovered via file-sharing. That corresponds to anecdotal evidence I hear.

Which leaves Liebowitz. Nuff said.

You appear to be correct that he doesn't recommend specifics of a new business model but he does talk about "flat rates" and new forms of copyright, sounds a bit like the (successful so far) Netflix/Spotify model to me. He does seem confident that the current oligopolistic business structure and pursuing file sharing networks is on a hiding to nothing, which seems fairly self-evident.

Whether the suits are going to make as much as they're used to under those models is debatable, but that's what happens when an industry changes. One of the specific points he makes in his blog is that there is a shift in the balance of power from the intermediaries to the artists. That in turn is likely to mean more recompense for the artist and less for the intermediaries, a shift I would have thought you would favour. I certainly do.

I do admire your persistence in your cause, but I doubt it's going to succeed. I still recommend a better source than a blog written by a newly hatched media lawyer hoping to make a few bucks working for the media companies.