Quote:
Originally Posted by howyoudoin
Apple makes their money off hardware. Piracy of hardware is a physical impossibility as of now.
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I guess. But doesn't patent infringement come close?
Also:
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/where-s...art-phones-go/
Quote:
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According to Consumer Reports, 3.1 million Americans were the victims of smartphone theft in 2013, up from 1.6 million in 2012. The mobile security firm Lookout believes that one in 10 smartphone users in the US have had their phones stolen; 68 percent of those victims never saw their device again.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by howyoudoin
Publishers do have a right to run the numbers and price ebooks the same as physical books. But then it seems awfully puerile of them to then complain about piracy by pretending that it isn't to some degree related to their pricing policy (yes, I am aware that not all pirates are potential purchasers).
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All else equal, if the price is higher, there will be more shrinkage. By how much, it is
easy to say in the case of well-tracked physical goods like automobiles.* In the case of eBooks, there's no way to know the relationship between price and piracy. I doubt the relationship amounts to much for reasons I've suggested on other threads**. But, yes, basic economic incentives tell me there is a relationship between price and piracy. I'm sure the same is true of paper book shoplifting. So what? Are we going to start blaming shoplifting at neighborhood bookstores on lack of discounting?
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* It is true that luxury cars aren't, as a class, in recent years, the most often stolen. This is because effective anti-theft measures are built into luxury cars years before they appear in mainstream models. But, as my link shows, more expensive luxury cars are more likely to be stolen.
** The reward to risk ratio is similarly close to infinite for downloading an eBook without paying, regardless of pricing, due to the rarity of criminal or civil sanctions.