If Piracy Were an Issue, Media Companies Would Change

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Actually, I was trying to be nice-its clear that studies cited do not establish Ninjalawyer's claim that the decline in music industry revenues had anything to do with any price fixing case.

I do apologise if I misunderstood you.

[plib]

Originally Posted by stonetools

NO. I'm sorry but this is dead wrong . Maybe you missed my earlier post, so let me re-post:

Golly. I didn't realise the Heartland Institute worked weekends!

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by plib

Golly. I didn't realise the Heartland Institute worked weekends!

Dunno who the Heartland Institute is, mate. But its BECAUSE i'm not working today that I can contribute to the discussion. The wife will be home shortly, so you will soon be spared reading my posts, since I'll be going on HER clock.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

Whether you're addressing Ninjalawyer or myself, why don't you simply read the linked studies and see for yourself?

I believe it was a response to me, after I pointed out that the literature review he linked to actually contained a number of studies that concluded no effect on sales or a positive effect on sales.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Faced with that evidence, my approach is to keep on open mind, but to accept the scholarly consensus going forward. ( That's my approach to all kinds of disputed factual issues , from evolution to climate change). if the scholarly consensus changes, then I'll happily go over to the pro piracy side. Hey , its the most convenient side-download stuff for

Accept, in the case of piracy, you assumed a consensus where one didn't exist, an assumption that had more to do with your own personal beliefs than any intellectual honesty. You then rejected evidence that the consensus you assumed to exist didn't, just so your pro-enforcement meme could remain un-threatened. You might be right, but to suggest that you are unbiased and have greater academic leanings is patronizing and insulting.

And, unrelated, there is no factual dispute with respect to evolution; it is the most thoroughly tested theory in science and has proven its predictive power over and over again for more than a century.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Accept, in the case of piracy, you assumed a consensus where one didn't exist, an assumption that had more to do with your own personal beliefs than any intellectual honesty. You then rejected evidence that the consensus you assumed to exist didn't, just so your pro-enforcement meme could remain un-threatened. You might be right, but to suggest that you are unbiased and have greater academic leanings is patronizing and insulting.

And, unrelated, there is no factual dispute with respect to evolution; it is the most thoroughly tested theory in science and has proven its predictive power over and over again for more than a century.

I agree with you regarding evolution, but there are a LOT of people who still argue that evolution is an open question, that there is no consensus, that there is a "controversy" that needs to be taught, etc, etc.The point is that for some people, there is ALWAYS a factual dispute, no matter what the evidence.
By " scholarly consensus", I don't mean scientific certainty but that a substantial majority of scholars have reached a particular conclusion concerning a factual issue. Here, 14 studies have concluded that piracy causes significant harm against 5 that says it doesn't and 3 that can't say one way or another.
If this was a ball game, I'd call that an ass-whupping. Since we're talking academic studies, I call it scholarly consensus.

[Jaden]

It's hard to take someone serious who says "file-sharing has caused the entire decline in sound recording sales that has occurred since the ascendance of Napster."

I don't pirate music, but I don't buy much music, either. A few years ago, I used to buy lots of CDs, but currently I just don't listen to music much and if there's a record I'm interested in, it's often something I have to buy used.

Current music just doesn't interest me that much, not enough to justify buying it. Lady Gaga is okay to listen to when she's on TV (and some of her MV are quite interesting to watch), but I don't need her records. Or Bruno Mars' or Rihanna's or whoever else's records...

And I'm one of the persons that would rather buy a single song I really like than the whole album with lots of songs I don't care for. (I was tempted to buy "Fireflies" by "Owl City", but then again I wasn't that interested after heaving listened to it about 10 times on TV).

Can't believe that I'm the only person in the world who thinks like that, so a claim like the one quoted above is simply ridiculous.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

By " scholarly consensus", I don't mean scientific certainty but that a substantial majority of scholars have reached a particular conclusion concerning a factual issue. Here, 14 studies have concluded that piracy causes significant harm against 5 that says it doesn't and 3 that can't say one way or another.

If this was a ball game, I'd call that an ass-whupping. Since we're talking academic studies, I call it scholarly consensus.

We're so close to agreeing on...something, I can feel it!

The difference is, in evolution pretty much all reputable scientists agree, and this is backed by hard experimentation; there really isn't a legitimate controversy, just a manufactured one. With piracy, it's harder because it's not based on experimentation but a review of industry statistics, which can be reported a number of different ways and what's really being looked at is correlation between music/ebook/whatever sales and piracy rates. With piracy, there's no consensus because you have a number of studies from reputable economists and scholars that do come to vastly different conclusions. And unfortunately, more studies don't necessarily mean "consensus", unless the studies of one side can be easily shown to be based on bad assumptions or bad data.

So right now, we can basically say with confidence that piracy either causes no harm or causes infinity dollars harm.

[stonetools]

It's hard to take someone serious who says "file-sharing has caused the entire decline in sound recording sales that has occurred since the ascendance of Napster."

Science is full of things that are hard to believe but have been shown to be true ( Continental drift is but one of dozens of examples). If the author has the evidence to back up his conclusions, then you should accept it. In any case, you don't have to accept his claim to believe that piracy causes significant harm . There are 13 other studies if you don't like that one.

[Belfaborac]

You keep mentioning those 14 studies as if they were the be-all and end-all in this issue, when in fact they're a minuscule part of the whole picture. Not to mention that they aren't available for us to read and critique, unless we're willing to subscribe to a number of journals in order to do so.

Have you read them yourself? Have you read any of those linked to by Ninjalawyer and myself? Have you read the one you yourself linked to, rather than just the article which directed you to it?

[stonetools]

So right now, we can basically say with confidence that piracy either causes no harm or causes infinity dollars harm.

Or we can say that piracy causes significant harm but that it is difficult to quantify with certainty the harm caused. Piracy is not alone in this. Take counterfeiting. The US government has believed from day one that counterfeiting causes significant economic harm , has made it a federal felony, and has assigned a particular federal agency the task of enforcing the laws against counterfeiting. Yet US government cannot establish with certainty just what harm is caused by counterfeiting . Its all estimates and theories.
Pain and suffering damages are calculated by subjective criteria through and through. Essentially, what the jury thinks it should be. The damage due to piracy falls into that gray area of difficult of objectively determine damage.
You should understand that juries have generally agreed with the recording industry that piracy does cause damage and have awarded some big verdicts against those found guilty of piracy in the courts .

[xg4bx]

are there any studies that asked pirates "would you buy this if you couldn't pirate it?"

theres still an awful lot of supposition that getting rid of piracy would guarantee a boost in sales. i assume most people pirate simply because the book/song/movie is there and could just as easily go without if they weren't able to pirate it.

yes piracy affects revenue. but the big question is still whether or not pirates=lost sales. are they pirating it for the hell of it or are they legitimate customers who just didn't feel like paying? if people weren't going to buy it anyway how can it be considered lost revenue.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by stonetools

You should understand that juries have generally agreed with the recording industry that piracy does cause damage and have awarded some big verdicts against those found guilty of piracy in the courts .

And there has never been a person declared quilty who wasn't guilty... Just because some jury or the other believed in what the recording industry claimed was true doesn't make it true.

Pirates often hoard files and never use them. It would be interesting if there could be any proof of how much would they have spent, what they would have bought if they couldn't have pirated the stuff...

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

are there any studies that asked pirates "would you buy this if you couldn't pirate it?"

theres still an awful lot of supposition that getting rid of piracy would guarantee a boost in sales. i assume most people pirate simply because the book/song/movie is there and could just as easily go without if they weren't able to pirate it.

yes piracy affects revenue. but the big question is still whether or not pirates=lost sales. are they pirating it for the hell of it or are they legitimate customers who just didn't feel like paying? if people weren't going to buy it anyway how can it be considered lost revenue.

THe Cynical Musician deals with a lot of the popular arguments advanced that place the blame for the decline in sales elsewhere than piracy in this article:

LINK
An excerpt:

The final point actually has some merit, but could do with a bit of background. Mr. Roland no doubt recalls that the album format did not set out to stifle single sales. In fact, the single was available throughout the whole of the history of the LP and still is available today, often in many formats, vinyl and CD. The reason it was eclipsed by the album was not a record label contrivance: people simply preferred to buy albums. I recall the single being referred to as an “obsolete musical oddity” in a music magazine, during the early 90s. What Apple has captured now is a combination of two things: the emergence of a new dominant format for recordings, handily tied to the latest trendy musical gizmo that they happen to produce, plus the availability of a huge catalog of recordings at attractive prices, with a pick and mix flexibility. It would be silly, however, to infer that people suddenly switched from buying albums to buying single tracks. That may be true for some people and some albums, but I rather doubt that it is enough to account for the declines. As for “direct correlations” between the sales drop and the introduction of new technology, it is a very dangerous argument to use when the very same technology that made iTunes possible has at the same time spawned the greatest copyright infringement ring in history.

The Cynical Musician ( who is both a musician and economist)has posted a lot on piracy and using accessible language has devastated the "piracy causes little but no harm" case and the whole "media doesn't need law enforcement but needs new business models, etc" case. Head over there and take a read.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by stonetools

THe Cynical Musician deals with a lot of the popular arguments advanced that place the blame for the decline in sales elsewhere than piracy in this article:

LINK
An excerpt:



The Cynical Musician ( who is both a musician and economist)has posted a lot on piracy and using accessible language has devastated the "piracy causes little but no harm" case and the whole "media doesn't need law enforcement but needs new business models, etc" case. Head over there and take a read.

Not a very good article. Mostly heavily-biased opinion. Didn't even have to read it (though I did!) to figure that out. "That may be true for some people and some albums, but I rather doubt that it is enough to account for the declines. As for “direct correlations” between the sales drop and the introduction of new technology, it is a very dangerous argument to use when the very same technology that made iTunes possible has at the same time spawned the greatest copyright infringement ring in history." alone in your quoted part shows that. Opinion and very heavy-handed spin. Should be dismissed from any even vaguely serious consideration of the subject at hand.