Independent File Sharing studies

[sabredog]

Teleread has linked several studies undertaken by independent researchers (ie, those not affiliated with or funded by the MPAA and RIAA).

The results are very interesting and do paint a very different picture to what the MPAA/RIAA et al would have us believe.

http://www.teleread.com/copy-right/g...rom-zero-paid/

[Sil_liS]

The public doesn't like fact, they like fiction.

[kennyc]

Interesting. I personally object to using the term "file sharing" for what I consider criminal activity but whatever. I also have no doubt that the conclusions of the studies are likely more correct than the information pushed by the corporations and corporate funded groups like MPAA and RIAA.

My belief is that there is a "happy medium" somewhere in the middle that allows consumers to purchase products at a fair price and to own and use them in the way they see fit. The idea of the corporations controlling what I can and cannot do with a product I purchase is way past time for it to be history, like old fish, it's beginning to stink.

[plib]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The idea of the corporations controlling what I can and cannot do with a product I purchase is way past time for it to be history, like old fish, it's beginning to stink.

That particular fish stank the minute it came off the boat.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The public doesn't like fact, they like fiction.

You mean like the fiction that illegally downloading a file is "sharing", which makes it sound all "warm and cozy"?

[Belfaborac]

More likely the fiction that pirates don't buy anything, ever, and that every download is a lost sale at full price.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

More likely the fiction that pirates don't buy anything, ever, and that every download is a lost sale at full price.

Not every illegal download is a lost sale, but plainly some proportion of them do indeed represent lost sales. The problem is that it's impossible to say what that percentage is. It's almost certainly not 0%, and neither is it 100%; it lies somewhere in between ("the most obvious statement of the week", I know!).

[JSWolf]

But, just because someone downloads something they would never have paid for doesn't mean that otherwise they would not have paid for something else. So while the copy of Photoshop of not a lost sale, maybe a copy of Paint Shop Pro is a lost sale.

[Fbone]

These studies still rely on the honesty of the survey participants. Therefore, also flawed.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You mean like the fiction that illegally downloading a file is "sharing", which makes it sound all "warm and cozy"?

Downloading copyrighted material is not illegal everywhere. Uploading is sharing, and does as much damage as giving a newspaper that you bought and read to someone else.

[stonetools]

Well, I'm glad we have moved to independent academic studies about whether piracy causes harm . ( File sharing is a euphemism, similar to "ehnic cleansing" as a euphemism for "genocide") . But there are a lot of academic independent studies now. Whats the consensus?

The academic consensus is that online piracy has had a significant negative effect on music sales. I listed a number of major studies on the issue in a previous post here. Olberholzer-Gee and Strumpf provide a similar table of major academic studies on the effect of online piracy in their paper File-sharing and Copyright (Table 5). Studies since then reveal similar findings; for example, Choi and Kim found that piracy has a negative effect on online music sales in Korea in a 2010 study.3 While 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 — these studies are in the minority.

The effect of online piracy on music sales around the world is easy to see. Countries which have improved legal responses to online piracy in the past few years, like South Korea and Sweden, have seen music sales rise. In contrast, countries like Spain and Brazil, where copyright laws are lax or ineffective against digital infringement, have seen music sales fall at a rate above the global average

link

Teleread and the MPIAA can cherry pick the studies that they like . But overall, a large majority of independent studies now conclude that onlinne piracy causes harm.

What do the courts say?

Courts, which are in the business of judging evidentiary claims, recognize the harms of online piracy. For example, the court in A&M Records v. Napster was convinced that “Napster use is likely to reduce CD purchases by college students.” Napster’s expert did not “provide credible evidence that music file-sharing on Napster stimulates more CD sales than it displaces.” Napster also tried to argue that the “sampling” of music its service provided (try-before-you-buy) stimulates retail music sales. The court was still not persuaded, calling the evidence used to support this argument “unreliable” and accepting “that the activity defendant calls sampling actually decreases retail sales of their music.”6

The courts since then have uniformly held that piracy causes harm and juries have returned substantial damage verdicts.

What does the US government say?;

The broader takeaway of the GAO report reflects the consensus: piracy has significant negative effects, but it’s difficult to nail down a specific number or dollar figure on the harm caused.

Seems that the weight of evidence shows that piracy causes harm.
Well, does piracy has possible beneficial effects?

Is it possible that piracy has positive benefits? The GAO report considered this question, as have several other studies. Maybe network effects increase the value of copyrighted works. Maybe the “sampling” of digital files that file-sharing allows lead to more purchases.

Again, the consensus among researchers is that any possible positive benefits of piracy are far outweighed by the negative effects

Looks like game, set and match : piracy causes substantial harm. This appears to be the consensus conclusion, although it can't be ( and can never be) proved beyond all doubt. (Neither can most things). I expect most here will resist this conclusion. But they should understand that the evidence is now strongly against the "pricay causes no harm" argument.

[plib]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, I'm glad we have moved to independent academic studies about whether piracy causes harm . ( File sharing is a euphemism, similar to "ehnic cleansing" as a euphemism for "genocide") . But there are a lot of academic independent studies now. Whats the consensus?

link

Nice try, but that's not an independent academic study.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Downloading copyrighted material is not illegal everywhere. Uploading is sharing, and does as much damage as giving a newspaper that you bought and read to someone else.

You're not giving "a newspaper"; you're making an unlimited number of copies of your newspaper and giving them ALL away.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by plib

Nice try, but that's not an independent academic study.

Actually, my point is that the academic consensus is that piracy causes harm, although there are studies holding either way on the issue.

The review, The Economics of Music File Sharing – A Literature Overview, by Peter Tschmuck (Microsoft Word version here), examines 22 studies which look at the effects of filesharing on the music industry. Because some are skeptical of industry generated studies, it should be pointed out that all the studies here are independent, academic studies — working papers, academic journal articles, and dissertations. Of these 22 studies, 14 — roughly two-thirds — conclude that unauthorized downloads have a “negative or even highly negative impact” on recorded music sales.2
Studies since Tschmuck’s only confirm these findings. One notable contribution is economist Stan Liebowitz’s study The Metric is the Message: How Much of the Decline in Sound Recording Sales is Due to File-Sharing? released in November 2011. In it, Liebowitz translates the conclusions of existing studies on the effects of unauthorized downloads on recorded music sales into a common metric to answer the question posed in his title.

His conclusion is stunning: “file-sharing has caused the entire decline in sound recording sales that has occurred since the ascendance of Napster.”

LINK

[Ninjalawyer]

Sidebar

Oh good, I can see this thread is already on the verge of descending into the usual "copyright infringement is not stealing", "yes it is", "no it's not..." argument.

Perhaps a modest proposal is in order to avoid that messiness: Given Stonetools' comments above, instead of using the terms "stealing", "file sharing" or "copyright infringement", can we simply use "genocide" to describe the practice of downloading a file without colour of right?