New piracy survey

[mr ploppy]

http://torrentfreak.com/artists-dont...cially-110412/

This one is about content producers' own piracy habits, and what they think they gain from it themselves.

This was a bit of a surprise:

"Other categories such as E-books and games were less popular, with around 5% downloaders interested in these works."

[C. R. Hindmarsh]

Interesting survey. I've always been of the opinion that anti-piracy wars and DRM do more harm than good, especially on items like ebooks and music. All they do is frustrate legitimate consumers.

It's like when you buy a DVD and you have to sit through 5 minutes of FBI warnings and things telling you not to pirate. I bought the DVD didn't I? If I pirated it I wouldn't have to put up with all this!

/rant

I agree with most of the survey responders that thought file-sharing increases exposure of their work. Sure, it's not legal, but you can't do much about it so if you're an artist you might as well get what you can out of it.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by C. R. Hindmarsh

Interesting survey. I've always been of the opinion that anti-piracy wars and DRM do more harm than good, especially on items like ebooks and music. All they do is frustrate legitimate consumers.

It's like when you buy a DVD and you have to sit through 5 minutes of FBI warnings and things telling you not to pirate. I bought the DVD didn't I? If I pirated it I wouldn't have to put up with all this!

/rant

I agree with most of the survey responders that thought file-sharing increases exposure of their work. Sure, it's not legal, but you can't do much about it so if you're an artist you might as well get what you can out of it.

I rip all my DVD's to AVI. We have a HTPC connected to our main TV, so it is so much easier to simply navigate with the remote and pless the play button.

The problem with the semi annual industry frontpiece profit/loss announcements is the inflated losses due to piracy. They equate every download to a lost sale, but that is not really the case. It is pretty likely that a lot of those downloads were by people who would have never have purchased the movie/music track anyway.

Same would go with ebooks as well. Certainly not all downloads, but a few, as there a lot of "bundles" available with pretty much hundreds if not thousands of ebooks contained within. Even if you only wanted one ebook, you are saddled with any you will not read. Or perhaps find an author you previously had never heard of or never considered reading their books before.

Removal of restrictions such as DRM, geographic locations and more competitive pricing would reduce casual piracy, leaving only those who would still pirate regardless of any reforms made.

I have lost count at the number of times I have to try as many as possible ebook estores in an attempt to circumvent geo restrictions.

A very interesting article, thanks for sharing.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by sabredog

They equate every download to a lost sale, but that is not really the case. It is pretty likely that a lot of those downloads were by people who would have never have purchased the movie/music track anyway.

Given the recent $15trillion claim, I think they must have started counting everyone with internet access as a potential lost sale.

Which seems reasonable enough, since every one of those people with internet access would be able to download it for free instead of buying it retail.

[Worldwalker]

It's like the software folks who claim that every teenage warez d00d who has a copy of Photoshop would have bought the most expensive version at full retail price if he didn't have that pirate copy to put stupid captions on his Facebook pictures.

No, he wouldn't. Hell, even I don't pay full retail price for Photoshop and I use it professionally -- I've just been upgrading since version 4, which I bought at a retailer going out of business (and given how many versions I skip, I doubt if my collective upgrade prices add up to the full retail price of the current, and very sweet, version). He wouldn't have paid full retail price if he bought Photoshop, he wouldn't have bought Photoshop if he bought anything (PS Elements is much cheaper, for instance), and he's not doing anything more than putting stupid captions on his pictures anyway -- if he had to pay, he would have just used whatever came with his computer. So that warez d00d is not a lost sale to Adobe, and certainly not a lost $1900 sale ... but that's how they count it.

They also do things like counting the number of computers which have been sold, counting the total list price of all the programs that "should" be used with any given computer, multiplying those, subtracting that from the total sold, and claiming the difference is the result of piracy -- carefully neglecting the people running Linux, the people who just never upgrade anything, the people who only use email and drift aimlessly around the Web, etc.

It starts to make you wonder why bother trying to be honest with an industry which feels no compunctions whatsoever about knowingly lying through their collective teeth.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

It starts to make you wonder why bother trying to be honest with an industry which feels no compunctions whatsoever about knowingly lying through their collective teeth.

Unfortunately they only have to convince a few uninformed members of the media, judiciary and elected government members and the end result is no change and huge, wildly unrealistic damages claims.

These days there are specialist law firms whose sole income and reason of being is targeting alleged infringer's. Somewhat akin to firms who are "ambulance chasers"

[RainingLemur]

Interesting read. I always wondered just how the actual artists themselves felt about the big bad pirate brigade, and how they felt it affected their bottom lines.

[mr ploppy]

I asked Ferenc Collins once, years ago, when he popped up in a binary usenet group. This is what he said.

>what do you think when you see your music all over this group? does it
>bother you in any way?

Not really. I have never been able to afford all the albums I liked,
so when I was a kid I used to buy some on Vinyl and tape others.
Nowadays sometimes I'll buy CDs and sometimes I'll download mp3s of
bands I like - either of albums I have on Vinyl but want better
quality or stuff I don't have - but I would never be able to afford to
buy everything I like. But you can support bands in different ways,
like going to their gigs and buying merchandise - T shirts, and
stuff...
In fact I know that many bands will not see a penny of the money I
spend on CDs - because the record company will swallow it. But I can
be confident that they are more likely to profit from my money if I go
to their gig and buy a T-shirt or CD when I'm there.
At the very least it will be a nice contribution to their touring
expenses when they need it the most. After all, these guys work hard
for a living - I know - we've lost plenty of money on the road in the
past (and no, it's not because we drink it all away - like some!) -
and despite what you may think going on tour is not a bed of roses -
so when they're on tour I think they deserve my money the most.

I know you guys are as passionate about music as I am - you wouldn't
be trading mp3s if I wasn't, would you? And I know if you had the
money you'd invest it wisely, wouldn't you?

But if you don't like my band, you'll download the mp3s, listen to
them a couple of times and then delete them. At least you get to find
out what's good and bad without wasting your money.

And yes, the Metallica/Napster thing really pisses me off. But enough
about that... wouln't want to get controversial now, would we ;-p

Oh and there will be plenty of free music on the web site... but I'd
better stop there cos I'll let the cat out of the bag.

Take it easy...


Ferenc

[Penforhire]

Two issues with survey results. First is honesty. Some percentage of responders who pirate material will claaim they do not. Second issue, specific to e-books, is the richest source of pirated e-book material requires slightly geekier knowledge than a typical Bit Torrent-using artist has.

[oggelbe2007]

Reads like a Monty Python skit.

[Shimarenda]

I'm not surprised by any of this. The smarter artists and smarter publishers are adapting their livelihoods to the new model. It will be harder in the future to make a living from content, so they have to find another way. That other way isn't ever more draconian laws.

I'm also not surprised at the self-serving motivation of TorrentFreak drawing attention to a survey that excuses their activities under the legal doctrine of "no blood, no foul."

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Shimarenda

I'm also not surprised at the self-serving motivation of TorrentFreak drawing attention to a survey that excuses their activities under the legal doctrine of "no blood, no foul."

The survey itself was carried out by the Dutch government. I think it's a bit unfair to blame Torrentfreak just because other news outlets chose not to report its findings for some mysterious reason.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

It starts to make you wonder why bother trying to be honest with an industry which feels no compunctions whatsoever about knowingly lying through their collective teeth.

So true.

When you look at all the nonsense engaged in you start to get the impression that they are dazed and confused children.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by C. R. Hindmarsh

It's like when you buy a DVD and you have to sit through 5 minutes of FBI warnings and things telling you not to pirate. I bought the DVD didn't I? If I pirated it I wouldn't have to put up with all this!

/rant

[OtterBooks]

I enjoyed that.