Look for the silver lining

Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage

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Random Commentator

Piracy might benefit the economy overall. Anyway, economy likes free market and prices based on supply and demand. Intellectual property law distorts it.Internationally, EU pumps billions of euros to USA for every B-movie and bug-infested program. Where is the benefit? Within USA, Windows generated billions in taxes. But other companies lost billions in money and thousands of man-hours from Windows breakdowns and security gaps. Is monopoly of Microsoft software really beneficial for U.S. economy?Within company. Research shows that pirated copies actually benefit sales, acting as advertisement. Perhaps that's why BBC makes avialable lots of clips and whole programs on Youtube.


The current trend towards (i) calling all non-strict uses of artwork as "pirate" (ii) extending copyrights and patents ad-eternun and (iii) registering pretty much anything made on earth as "IP" is very dangerous. Human evolution as always been based in a mix of innovation and learning from others work.If it was not for the internet/http (itself a standard given to public domain and the Open Source movement, we would be in a much poorer, worse world.


Copyright and Patents have hit the poor hard. Millions face death because big drug companies do not allow poor countries to produce their drugs. A drug that can cost pennies to make means affordable medicine for all.As far rich countries, such as Japan, there should be no excuse for piracy. Yes, piracy can help develop the taste for certain type of music and turn pirates into genuine customers. A line must be drawn otherwise companies may not earn enough to invest more in research and development/creativity.

Carlito Brigante

Yes, when it comes to "a new singer," those "statistics aboutthe traffic on file-sharing networks can be useful." Indeed.But they can also unveil some other thing. The pirates, on the Web, do their jobs not least because they find it worthless to shell out for some (many) tunes. They are, sure, good marketers.The music companies, therefore, could ditch (worn-out) singers who boast worthless music, and hence are loved by a bunch of net pirates.The Economist loves to reiterate the plight of net piracy in China--amazingly in the same tone: that "Somehow China manages to do an excellent job of blocking internet content that might cause political problems, but is unable to stem the flow of pirated foreign films and music ('Mind games,' Nov 10th '07)"; and that: "Even though China's censors do an excellent job of restricting access to content that might cause political problems, they are strangely unable to stem the flow of pirated foreign media ('Alternative reality,' Feb 2nd '08)."(Beautiful rephrasing. Just love them, but reported by the samecorrespondent?)Is that so, "...users stick with Microsoft’s products when they go legit."The matter is, yes, when they'll go legit. Or will they really go the way,given the way they have stuck with.Indeed it must have been a grueling but philanthropic job for Bill Gates. No wonder he real became one.(Me? I AM a regular customer at Jobs'. BUY not only tunes, but gadgets.)


Mr. Gates is right. Microsoft Windows could certainly never compete on quality, but usually in convenience and compatibility as long as it is free.


¨Most of the time, companies will decide to combat piracy of their products by sending in the lawyers with all guns blazing. And most of the time that is the right thing to do.¨WHY is that so? Patents and copyrights GENERALLY don´t benefit society, instead benefiting only the patent/copyright holder. Note the stress on GENERALLY, please. ;)In software, especially, the copyrights tend to suppress innovation. If Micro$oft hadn´t been busy raping the world of billions of dollars, they might have cooperated more with opensource and other developers, and they may have actually developed a genuinely SECURE operating system by now.The music industry? More rapine of the masses. Artists who have been dead for decades are still singing money into the coffers of corporate moguls. Phht. Let the moguls find a real job - re-re-re-releasing ancient music is not productive, and in fact, suppresses new talent.Movies? I won´t say much about that. There is precious little coming from Hollywood that is fit to watch. Entertainment geared for the masses, the famous ¨Lowest Common Denominator¨. If people want to steal that trash, they haven´t stolen much......My comments are mostly directed at software, but they apply to all the rest of the piracy scene:Hackers, crackers, private developers, and open source have given more to computing than Microsoft has ever even attempted to give. As Bill Gates points out, without piracy, Microsoft would only have a very small share of the WORLD MARKET. Few enough people in the United States can afford to pay the exorbitant prices asked by Microsoft for their faulty software. I certainly can´t afford to purchase a legitimate license for all my computers, if I chose to run Microsoft!!Outside the US? Ask the villager who hasn´t seen more than $100 dollars cash money, in his lifetime. He MIGHT own an ancient hand-me-down computer, but he IS NOT going to purchase a legitimate license for any M$ operating system.Screw the lawyers, screw the corporate moguls. Fair Use rules have been smothered, along with most other common sense rules, laws, and regulations concerning copyrighting.BTW - I don´t do much piracy, anymore. I´m sitting in front of a Debian computer. It´s actually secure, not to mention that it is considerably more reliable than Microsoft. Open Source rules!!!

Carlito Brigante

Mike,Thank you very much for telling me that.So The Economist, officially and willingly, succumbed to the power of China.It is understandable not least because it once said many of its stories onthe country were doomed to be confiscated by...you know who they are. The newspaper is, after all, a medium that wants to disseminate its ideas,and so on, in every nook and cranny. Good for people in China as well.And, yeah, it is walking the talk. A canny medium, which tries to have the upper hand over...you know who they are.

Random Commentator

Intellectual property produced just one wave of patents in every branch. Everything possible was patented - and then innovation stops, because patent owners keep others from more innovation.When patent operates, improvements and inventions based on patented things are impossible. It was not noticed when progress was slow and any patent was rare and far between, but now becomes stifling. Example is Microsoft, which trapped world for a decade in one malfunctioning version of Windows after another. New, flawless operating systems didn't develop.

Paul of Burke

What a ludicrous article.People should pirate the economist and undermine their business model, because it leads to innovation for the firm.That is one way to keep wages down in the publication world.

Mike Martin

Carlito,It is worth noting, as The Economist does in an audio report on this topic, that it is being extensively pirated in China by enthusiasts who translate much of the content each week into Chinese and post it on the web.The newspaper has decided that it is happy for this practice to continue and that there is no benefit to anyone from sending in the lawyers.You could say that it is walking the talk, in regard to this editorial.


As a former film student now living in China, I've never understood how film studios planned on making money here by fighting piracy. Even if they were successful, they can't fight censorship. They legitimate and the illegitimate market are one and the same.

Random Commentator

@PaulF76I may enlighten you, that cost of creating and selling a copy of Windows is less than a dollar. Like free CDs attached to magazines.


Of course, since most of the costs involved in creating and selling a copy of Windows are fixed, if half the copies out there are pirated, it's no wonder it seems like I have to pay twice what I should if I want to get a legitimate copy.

Dids Macdonald

As an ex designer/manufacturer/innovator I am fascinated by a statement that piracy can also be a source of innovation, “If someone takes a product and then modifies it in a popular way….. remixes can boost sales of the original work”. It certainly is an odd alternative theory but one which I, and many thousands of designers and other IP owners, would disagree. Automatically by “modifying in a popular way” will, whatever the industry sector, most likely infringe intellectual property rights whether it is music, software, film, software or product design.

12 years ago I had a small, but highly successful niche business designing decorative accessories – top end, expensive, hand crafted. Every time we brought out a new product it was ripped off, mostly by so called respectable UK high street retailers, sent out to China or wherever for cheap manufacturer and brought back into this country "modified". My business was totally eroded, my livelihood threatened by ‘design pirates’ i.e free riding on the back of others intellectual property equity. As a result of my own many experiences of unauthorised copying, 10 years ago I started ACID (Anti Copying In Design) which represents over 1000 design led organisations, many are household names. ACID is also an active member of the Alliance Against IP theft representing many other major IP stakeholders. Approx 10 billion pounds is lost to legitimate rights holders in the UK every year, very few have the time nor inclination to discover ‘if there is a way for them to turn piracy to their advantage’ – tell that to the designer who has spent thousands of pounds in creative time, investment, R & D, to bring a product to market, to the performing artist who creates the next hit song or to the director that produces the next blockbuster!

As a journalist who relies on his moral rights and copyright to make a living, it seems an anomaly that the author of this piece should seemingly suggest that the rights of others are less valuable.


another note for the consumers (@ paul), piracy should drive prices down in the market in the long run. maybe if microsoft took a page out of it's own creator's book and realized prices are too high and sold legit copies at half the price, they would be able to effectively sell copies and prevent piracy without annoying security hack-ups and updates that turn people off of windows.


Microsoft are in a predicament - crack down on piracy in which case Windows would not stand a chance against Linux or allow piracy to carry on and have their reputation for security dented even further as most of Windows zombie PCs are indeed unpatched pirated copies.


A very tangible silver lining are links and new ad revenue streams that found through re-use of (ad-supported) content. Instead of bottling up content, publishers are indeed starting to unleash their content. In addition to the meaningful analytics mentioned in the article, you gain new links which = higher search engine ranking and traffic plus new leads for licensing or ad revenue sharing.


allowing piracy creates two markets which simultaneously compete among consumers. piracy shouldn't be viewed as a bad thing, considering most of the demand for the legit market is fueled and marketed by the pirated market. as proven by the obvious microsoft dilemma, convenience, ease, and availability to piracy can actually boost sales, or more importantly SLOW sales of the competitor.

like billy was saying, it seems pretty obvious that in a technological date such as our own, with the easy and availability made to piracy someone having a bootleg of your product at this moment is better then someone having a product of your competitor. case end. closed.


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