

But are pirates turning to YouTube and elsewhere









The study also only surveyed those 13 and up.

Comments     Threshold


Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By Motoman on 3/24/2011 9:42:58 AM , Rating: 5
...piracy really isn't even a problem for content producers.

As has been stated before, correctly, a bajillion times, the VAST majority of stuff that is illegally downloaded on the internet would never have been paid for if it wasn't available in pirated form.

I'd not be surprised at all if the the true percentage of what amounted to "lost sales" came out at 1%...or less...of pirated content. While there most certainly are people out there who pirate stuff for the sheer desire to not pay for something they otherwise would, the vast majority of people get pirated content simply because it's there and they'll give it a shot. If it wasn't there, they wouldn't care...and they certainly wouldn't go to the store and buy it. They'd do without, or make do with something else.

This applies to all available content - music, movies, software, etc. When the morons in the content industries and/or in the government make declarations about "EIGHT HUNDRED GOOGOLZILLION DOLLARS LOST TO PIRASSY!!!!11!!one", it's utter bull$h1t. There's no basis for any such claims at all - the real "lost" revenue...the % of people who actually would have otherwise paid for the content - is actually a lot closer to zero.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By adpr02 on 3/24/11, Rating: -1
RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...


RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...

as for piracy:
- it adds cost, which my honest customers have to pay


RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
ah, forgot the obligatory self-promoting link:

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...

OMFG, that was totally worth the shameless pandering!

thanks! :)
like me on facebook if you want updates on my stuff:



It's called common sense.




RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By wordsworm on 3/24/11, Rating: -1
RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...



RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...



Let them use their stolen car analogy.



By StevoLincolnite on 3/24/2011 10:54:42 AM , Rating: 3
I'm sure that a stolen car doesn't translate into a lost sale either.

If you wish to use a car analogy, so be it.

The difference between a pirated movie and a stolen car is simple... Nothing was stolen, just copied.
It would be more attune to me stealing a copy of the cars design plans, and building the exact same vehicle for myself.

Whoever owns the car does NOT physically loose anything.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By marvdmartian on 3/24/11, Rating: -1
RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...




RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
It isn't just music.



RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By wordsworm on 3/24/2011 10:25:02 AM , Rating: 2

I think if you check your imaginary research, you will also find that while people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a stereo would rather not have anything to listen to than pay for it. People who buy thousand dollar computers don't have $50 for the game they bought it for, either.

In other news, stereos in record numbers have been stolen. The thieves declare that no one was going to pay for them anyways.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By wordsworm on 3/24/2011 10:37:05 AM , Rating: 2
sorry about the double post... don't know how that happened.

By Taft12 on 3/24/2011 11:36:04 AM , Rating: 3
Not to worry, just gives us twice the opportunity to point out the flaws with comparing illegal copying to stealing physical objects!


Piracy vs. Theft

In other news, get a freak'n dictionary.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By kmmatney on 3/24/2011 11:11:43 AM , Rating: 2
I'm really wondering how old you are. In the 80's and 90's (before downloading of music, and ripping CDs) we actually bought music. It was expensive too. I often had to decide between buying an album, or eating. And I'd usually buy the album and then have to borrow spaghetti from a room mate. It sucked to get burned on an album with only a few good songs, but you had to live with that.

Now, I don't pay for a lot of music that I probably would have. Its as simple as that. Good for me, but not good for the music industry.

Just look at music sales before and after piracy. Top selling albums routinely hit 20 million sales in the 80's and 90's. Now they never even come close to that.

I'm not a fan of the music industry, and they killed themselves but raising prices on CDs when sales started to fall. But there is no doubt Napster, and everything that came after really killed them.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
Close to 40, for the record.

I have a CD collection of a few hundred albums.













By bigboxes on 3/24/2011 8:00:12 PM , Rating: 2
In reality, we often shared our music with others. Instead of downloading off of the internet we would tape a record or copy a tape for a friend. Remember mixed tapes? Yeah, no sharing went on before Napster. :eyeroll: And it was all legal! As long as your weren't selling for profit. A friend of mine told me when he was younger that he and his buddies pooled their money to purchase an import album at their local record shop and then made copies on to tape for everyone. I don't support scum that sell others people's work. To me that is theft. But if you copy and give it away for free it should be legal.

As for the "Would you steal a car?" analogy, of course I would steal a car... if I could get away with it! Duh! But I'm not a criminal and don't like prison.

RE: Forget being a "fundamental" problem...
By Ben6821 on 3/24/2011 2:18:10 PM , Rating: 1
If it is your aim to say that content producers overestimate the amount of revenue lost, I would agree. If someone pirates 1 million songs, they would not have paid for them all (as another poster noted).

That said, you have a few major errors in your other comments. If we assume the "pirates" are rational people, then a few simple conclusions arise.

1) They do it because it yields a benefit as compared to the alternatives. In a world with Grooveshark, Rhapsody, Napster (legal version), Youtube, etc., it is possible to try out almost any song in existence without paying anything. These services are probably easier and more reliable to use as well. Why pirate then? Well, besides profound ignorance of the alternatives, it would allow one to try out the song out anywhere (car, mp3 player, etc.) before buying, for example. How many of these vaguely conscientious people do you think there are? (pirate to try, but ultimately buy)

2) If trying music out is not a legitimate or common reason, then they do it because they obtain something that has value to them. How can something so simple be so often overlooked? I am tired of this nonsense that people pirate stuff cuz its free. If it was truly worthless, they would not take it. They spend a lot of time searching out sources of content and then enjoying that content, and then complain that there is nothing of value to be found. Again, if people are rational, they will pirate because they recognize the value of it for them. (otherwise it is a waste of time)

3) So what would people actually buy? They take it cuz its free, but they wouldn't buy it otherwise argument... So clearly pirated content has some value or you wouldn't take it at all. However, some would claim the content is not worth the current selling price. When something is free, it is impossible to judge the actual value, since any value greater than zero will motivate piracy. Of course there is some lost revenue, and of course the "pirates" will tell you otherwise. How much, probably more than you think and less than RIAA says. Yes, some people would do without any of it if it wasn't there. But this type of person is more likely to not pirate in the first place since they are capable of being honest with themselves.

4) It just bits, not physical property. While this is technically true, the conclusions are naive, misleading, and ignorant. Music may be represented as bits, but someone who has music has something ultimately tangible. In other words, they can hear it. True, if taken, it is not like the loss of physical property. However, the revenue loss argument is valid. The only reason people can pirate at all is because most people do pay for music. If everyone believed this silly argument that taking bits is not wrong, there would be not be much music available at all. If you think most income is from concerts, then the small minority of concert goers would effectively subsidize everyone else. You think that is fair?

5) Once someone has obtained content freely, they have no incentive to buy it unless there is even more value to be obtained. If someone wants a CD because of the insert or the sound quality, then they might still buy one (a small percentage of pirates do this I would argue). On the other hand, if the pirated content has everything you want, you won't go buy the same thing, cuz that is just dumb.

6) When someone creates content like music, a book, a film, or even a news article, they are entitled to reap the benefits of that effort. This right is balanced with the benefit society obtains through "fair use." Money is not the only driving factor, in truth. If you pirate and share music, then you clearly should not have a problem reproducing on your website free content from another website. Lets suppose I published opinion articles on a blog. I made no effort to make money (i.e. no ads etc.). If you copy my article verbatim (as opposed to sending people to my blog), you can claim that you are not causing loss of revenue for me, which is true. However, you thought there was some value in the article, and that is why you copied it. Whatever it might be (even if it isn't money), I should have that benefit because I did the work of writing the original article. Artists and their representatives are entitled to reap the benefits of their efforts, and we are not allowed to take it from them because they have "enough benefit" already.

Sorry for the long post...

By Solandri on 3/24/2011 4:31:31 PM , Rating: 4

This is only partially right. It's not just the demand side which is driving piracy, it's also the supply side. The RIAA and MPAA by being paranoid about piracy and refusing to implement a digital distribution system, have actually contributed to piracy. The success of the iTunes store, the Amazon MP3 store, and Netflix show that if the song/movie is reasonably priced, people will still buy it even if they could pirate it. If the RIAA and MPAA had embraced digital distribution when Internet use first exploded back in the 1990s, there would be less piracy than there is today. Often times, people began pirating because it was the simplest way to rip their CD or DVD collection into a portable digital format, not because they wanted stuff for free.


This too is a problem of the RIAA and MPAA's own making. There are two conceptual models for paying for a product - a purchase, and a license.

In a purchase, you pay for something and it becomes yours. You can do whatever you want with it. You can sell it, you can loan it to friends, you can give it away if you want. A car is a purchase. So is a blender.

In a license, you pay for the rights to use something but it is not yours. There are certain things you can't do with it, like loan it out or sometimes even resell it after you're done using it. Computer software is typically a license. But since you're not buying the product itself, just the right to use it, there are a couple other logical extensions. If a new, updated version of the software comes out, most software companies let you upgrade at a discount. They recognize that you've already paid to license most of the features in the new version, and so let you pay a reduced amount to license only the new features. If the media the software is distributed on becomes damaged, lost, or destroyed, they will send you a new copy for the cost of the CD/DVD. You bought the rights to use the software, not the arrangement of bits on the physical CD/DVD itself.

But here again, the RIAA and MPAA have screwed themselves in their quest to extract more money from their customers. The software (music, movies) they sell isn't a purchase, and it isn't a license. It's some weird hybrid which has all the disadvantages of both for the customer, and all the advantages of both for the *AA. If a blu-ray version of a movie you have on DVD comes out, they won't give you a discount. They expect you to pay full price as if you're buying a completely new license as if you were buying a product. If you damage/destroy/lose the disc, they expect you to pay for a completely new license as if you were buying a product (except Disney - they will replace damaged discs). So it seems they think you're purchasing to own when you buy music/movies. But if you try to use the product as if you owned it - at a public performance or sometimes if you try to resell the product - they will tell you no, it's a license, so you're not allowed to do that.

So there's really no ambiguity between buying bits (a license) and buying a material goods (a purchase). The ambiguity in music and movies is entirely one of the RIAA and MPAA's own making.


You're assuming that price is the only factor here. It is not. There's also convenience and reliability. Downloading stuff is often inconvenient (downloads can take days), and unreliable (the source you're downloading it from can disappear before you finish). iTunes and Netflix make billions of dollars in sales despite the availability of the very same music and movies for free. They do so because their paid service is more convenient and reliable than downloading. And the price they charge for the music/movie, convenience, and reliability is worth it for most people.


This argument is ineffective in most people's minds because of the way the RIAA and MPAA have abused content creators - contracts with demonic terms, and creative "Hollywood accounting" whose only purpose is to deprive content creators of the money they rightfully deserve.

Right now, if you're a budding musician and sign a record contract with a major label, you'll be lucky to see more than a few percent of the money from each CD sale. The *AA companies have gamed the system so that they are the beneficiaries of nearly all the revenue from sales and licensing, not the artist. In fact many musicians find themselves stuck in contracts where they produce songs which make millions of dollars for the studios, but by the studios' accounting the musician still owes money to the studio for recording expenses.

So quite often, piracy actually works in the musician's favor. People who normally wouldn't hear their music listen to it, become fans, and go to their concerts. A significant amount of the revenue from merchandise sales at concerts actually does go to the musician. And so they end up making more money from piracy, than if there were no piracy and more revenue was directed towards CD/MP3 sales.

See, the overall problem is that the music studios (and to a lesser extent the movie studios) aren't the creative force behind their industry. They're merely the distributor, yet they've gamed the system so that they get the lion's share of the revenue. Along comes the Internet which is a perfectly neutral and almost free distribution medium, and suddenly there's no need for a distributor anymore. The studios are no longer necessary, but they're fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their position of power by making progress and the natural evolution of content distribution illegal.

By bill4 on 3/24/2011 11:44:58 PM , Rating: 1
Motoman, you are, quite simply, full of shit.

Because you say it, does not make it so.

The simple question is, if people can get something free, why would they pay for it?

This proves that piracy costs content companies huge sales. It's only simple, irrefutable logic.

It's true I'm sure that many people pirate stuff they wouldn't buy, after all when it's free why not get all you can? But that obviously doesnt mean people dont also pirate stuff they otherwise would have paid for!

You should go take basic logic and reasoning classes.

Also all you have to is look at the death of PC game sales, the decline of the CD market, and the decline even of DVD/Blu Ray for more proof. Digital downloads have replaced some of the gap, but not nearly all of it.


By TheEinstein on 3/29/2011 9:07:39 AM , Rating: 1
Credentials online are like monopoly money from an atm sometimes, but I shall try to validate my claims.

I am both a security expert and a statistics scientist.

In 2000 to 2001 I studied first hand piracy at levels most would not. I went about different networks and websites and the whole shabang. What I found back then is that the estimates were off significantly from what I could find.

While a modern torrent might have so many seeds, and so many downloading at a given time, the total number of different objects being 'seeded' is actually off acknowledged scales. While in no way did I track individuals to determine numbers of persons involved (useless with some basic efforts to mask an IP, especially with dialup being the majority back then), the scale of different items and their total numbers on a given day were astonishing.

I would say that any industry estimate is significantly off kilter. I would easily say there is 100 times (or much more) traffic than even the RIAA estimates account for. While this may increase the total 'offenders' to a small percentage, the total losses become much more staggering than original estimates would conclude.

And I am sad to say that I know I did not find all 'systems' in place as I do not speak Mandarin, Russian, or any of the European languages. The scope is much larger when you account for the piracy levels know for those nations being higher than what is commonly accepted for the United States.

Just a small survey of players who at one time used a private server instead of a game companies pay servers would indicate the levels that truly happen.

Oh and as one poster stated that he had ripped music as a child, then later as an adult threw it away and purchased the music.

Please account for those who do not have moral issues later in life, please also account for inflation, interest, and on-going investments. You may have stolen only $1000 (guess) in music, and later paid that $1000, but even by normal margins, compounding interest over (guessing) 10 years means you actually cost them quite a bit. Finally inflation must be accounted for as well, but I digress with this.

The point is, for the TL;DR crowd:

There is much more piracy than estimates by most groups show. Perhaps they are handicapped by needing to prove at a minimal level of what is going on, or by their own market type (music, video, tv, games, office software, etc). There is much more piracy than RIAA estimates, and the cost is staggering.

Increase in legal channels
By Lonyo on 3/24/2011 10:01:12 AM , Rating: 3
A decrease in piracy may also be due to companies finally starting to offer content online by various means and at close to reasonable prices.

If you look at what was available legally online in 2007, and then compare it to 2010, there was probably a lot more legit content made available, making it easier to buy instead of pirating if you want to source your stuff online.


RE: Increase in legal channels
By Lazarus Dark on 3/24/2011 9:22:51 PM , Rating: 2
Yep. I never bought an MP3 until Amazon started providing cheap, drm free music. And having the 30 second sample helps a bit too. Also its far more likely I can find a new song on youtube now than it was a couple years ago. And services like Pandora and such let me try tons of new music I'm likely to like and possibly buy.

And though I rarely ever torrented a show or movie, thanks to the ever increasing Netflix streaming catalog, I'm not likely to need to torrent ever again, unless it's something really rare, in which case there is likely no place to purchase it anyway.

It took ten years to get it through their thick heads, but some of them are finally learning, reasonably priced, convenient, legal methods of media consumption actually increase revenue and decrease piracy. Gee, who'da thunk it?

What a joke
By Beenthere on 3/24/11, Rating: 0
RE: What a joke





RE: What a joke


RE: What a joke






Image caption
By BernardP on 3/24/2011 10:18:30 AM , Rating: 2
Image caption "The loss of LimeWire has P2P pirates on the run".

---- Can't ----- Stop ---- ---- Laughing ----- Hic ----

In other news, rumor has it that Microsoft's next operating system will ne named "Windows XP"

By Breakfast Susej on 3/24/2011 10:51:42 AM , Rating: 2
The statistic I would like to see is how the loss of Limewire effects the amount of machines continually reinfected with ridiculous trojans on a revolving door schedule, by teenage girls, and other various imbeciles.

People still use Limewire?

By bill4 on 3/24/2011 11:36:56 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, I think most kids today probably just get their music from youtube. The idea of "downloading" an MP3 already seems almost unnecessary.

There's also sites that will easily convert any youtube vid URL you paste in, into an audio MP3. Personally I'm not huge on that because the quality may be lower than a 128k MP3, but I'm sure the masses dont care at all.

By BruceLeet on 3/25/2011 9:29:27 AM , Rating: 2

GG. RIAA should be dissolved they are the ones hurting the industry these days. The Internet evolved but their business structure didn't. It's as simple as that.

They couldn't keep up in the footrace they got left behind, they could've made deals with ISPs that charged an persons ISP account accordingly per download from a legitimate record companies library.

Of course that wouldn't halt torrents or file sharing but it would indeed have been a step in the right direction.

