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Piracy Stats Don't Add Up
arenam writes to tell us Australian IT is reporting that a recent briefing for the Attorney-General's Department prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology draws certain piracy statistics into question. From the article: "The draft of the institute's intellectual property crime report, sighted by The Australian shows that copyright owners 'failed to explain' how they reached financial loss statistics used in lobbying activities and court cases. Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are 'unverified and epistemologically unreliable,' the report says."
Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are 'unverified and epistemologically unreliable,' the report says.
In other news, the sky outside appears to be a "blue" color, and when dropped, most objects behave in a "falling" manner.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I chuckled at the quote in the article:
"Some industry groups were reluctant to work with researchers, because of concern about data leaking to competitors."
All I could think of was..."Ha..ha...we have more pirates then YOU DO!"
Seriously what kind of "data" could piracy statistics be used by the competition?
It's how much they pay politician to pass laws in their favor and losy tech firms to invent crappy DRMs, maybe that's where the 361M$ comes from.
Of course they dont want to share how they come up with their data. They know that simply equating downloads to lost sales is not an accurate prediction.
I can't see these stats making any difference. The recording industry is highly unlikely to start making apologies for using bad data, and are going to use the best numbers they can come up with, accurate or not.
What difference does it make ? You know you are going bankrupt anyway because people aren't interested in CD's anymore.
Who cares about CD's when you only listen to music on your computer, portable MP3 player, or cellphone ? You can blame it on piracy all you want, but it's not going to change a thing; if you don't adapt to the market you have no chance to survive.
It happened to other markets before, think about photo labs & photo films vendors, they are extincting as well because people are only interested into digicams now. The same is happening with music, CD is an outdated format and thinking you could still make a living out of selling CDs in 10+ years is just foolish - even if piracy were to stop.
That comment seems reasonable to me. Assuming the 2000 PCs sold was a fairly random sample (as opposed to, say, some guy selling them in the lobby of some Linux conference or something), and that none of them came with Windows (old or new) installed, only having 100 licenses purchases for that bundle almost certainly does point to piracy. An OS with around 90% desktop market share that only sells enough licenses to account for 5% of computers would be a colossal statistical anomaly without some explanation, and in this case piracy seems a reasonable one. It becomes less reasonable if they claimed that there were 1900 copies pirated because it fails to account for other OS choices that may have be used.
The real problem is with things like, "1700 copies of XP were pirated -- at $200 a copy, we've lost $340,000!!!" Because that's just bunk. Most of the people who pirated XP would never have paid for it, so it is not a lost sale.
That is what the music industry is doing. In fact they are worse, because I'm fairly certain they're going "1700 songs were pirated -- at $12 a CD..." despite the fact that there may be multiple songs on a CD downloaded, etc.
Uh, no. They are saying that they've seen the report, not that they're referencing it in an academic sense, which wouldn't make sense as they're not.
I don't buy the general arguments that a pirated application worth $100 is a $100 loss. Many of those who pirate software are usually not in so much need of it, that they are willing to pay for it if pirating is no alternative.
Additionally, one must consider the fact that if an application is popular among pirates, it is also likely to sell more copies of its software, simply because more people spread the word about this particular software.
Last but not least, some people do buy software only after using it for some time. A perfect example is Photoshop. It's a typical application that requires a lot of time to learn and costs too much to just "check out" (and I'm aware of the trial version). Some of the graphics artists who find out that this really is a useful and valuable tool, may also purchase the application. So for starters, they help spread the word of Photoshop and they also become potential buyers.
Full Tilt
That's not even taking into account site licences. Any computer I have ever bought on behalf of the university I worked for was purchased without an operating system. The university has an academic site licence for Windows, and students can get a legit copy for free as well. Why then would I shell out $200 for the convenience of having Windows preinstalled?
But man does that have the potential to screw up the piracy stats!
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Rest assured that if the RIAA or MPAA were to catch fire today, I would not waste any bodily fluids trying to extinguish the flames.
However, please do not consider yourself as some kind of "Robin Hood" type figure purely because you "fight the establishment" and copy CDs. Morons like you give morons like the **AA the justification they feel they need to restrict what I, an honest discerning music lover, can and cannot do with the music I buy.
If you *REALLY* care about the law, crime and your rights, you don't copy *AND* don't buy the products. You take the time, like me, to research what you plan to buy and decide for yourself if it is worth the money or not. Then you go find the cheapest retailer and buy the stuff you know will be worth the money.
No, you're not a criminal in the same way a murderer or rapist would be, but you are still just a common thief. So stop with the "Jolly Roger Bottle Of Rum Pirate" glamourising and get used to it.
Kindest Regards
An Honest Person
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Nice try, but I doubt the pro-piracy blowhards on this site will catch the irony. They'll just keep stealing and stealing other people's IP until there's nothing left to take. Thieves aren't the brightest of folk, after all.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
Windows has always been competing with older versions of windows. I have a legitimate copy of Windows XP. If I buy a new machine, I'm not going to pay the extra for Vista. I'll just install XP on the new one and if I feel like being legitimate, I'll wipe the old one and install Linux on it.
No piracy. No lost sales.
I've never spent anywhere near $1000 for a piece of software but, if I was going to, I'd probably insist on a demonstration and something to evaluate first; and if I didn't get those things, then I just wouldn't buy it and tell the producer why I wasn't buying it.
Ultimately, it's the consumer who should dictate the way things should be, not the producer. Blame the lilly-livered, weak-minded consumers who have allowed software companies to get away with acting in this fashion up until now - and the thieves who have given them the justification to act that way.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Did they check their ass? That's usually where these statistics are pulled out of.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Calling those theft are just helping ruin the English language.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Your busines shouldn't be selling music CDs
Your busines should be making people entertained by music
Concentrate on the client, not the product!
Parent should be modded funny, people.
Anyone who thinks the article's author really meant the word 'sighted', is as clueless as he is. 'Sighted' in this context makes no sense; especially when it's a homonym for a word very commonly used in that context.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
Bush used this word three days ago. Granted he was trying to discuss the beliefs of Episcopalians, but technically he did use this word.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
- The article is in Australian IT, connected to The Australian newspaper.
- The report in question is a draft of a confidential briefing. So it hasn't been published, and so can't be "cited" in the conventional sense, by The Australian or anyone else.
- It's quite common for newspapers to mention that they've seen unpublished material that they're writing about, usually with the phrase "seen by"
- However, in Australia/NZ the phrase "sighted by" seems to be more common in this context.
I'd say there's a very good case for "sighted" being the word that was intended...Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
At least, not in the limited context of this article. Sure, in the wider scope of the whole debate - whether the RIAA should be fighting this war on piracy or not - demands at least some consideration of where along the moral line downloading copyrighted materials lies.
/. hivemind.
In reference to this specific article, however, the salient points would appear to be:
1) The RIAA are using deceit and subterfuge as weapons.
2) A body that has influence on policy decisions noticed.
This naturally hurts the RIAA, but to what degree, and for how long, remains to be seen, and might be a more fruitful use of the
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / xenogamous.com / transference.org / quantam sufficit ]
yeah exactly! Which is why I've been downloading this same Pantera album over and over for 12 years. I figure if I can get all the copies downloaded before the pirates do then people wont be able to steal it anymore.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Informative? Hrm...
Ok, first off: "pro-piracy blowhards"; what does that mean? Do you mean someone like myself who feels that copyright law is no longer serving its purpose as intended by the constitution, and that its abuse is harming the value of copyrights as a tool for regulation? Or, are you simply arm-waving at the teens who haven't yet considered the implications of their actions, and are just downloading whatever they want because it's the path of least resistance?
Personally, I think the two are connected. I think the average teens that download music or movies or whatever, in violation of copyright, are doing so because the copyright system has never seemed like something that matters to anyone they know. It's not equitable, so there's no sense that you are "stealing" or depriving anyone of anything. Artists tell us that they're not being compensated for their work (in fact many of them go into debt when producing music specifically), and we constantly hear of large studios (for film, television and music) abusing their power in order to manipulate markets and deprive artists of the fruits of their work.
Under that sort of system, how is it shocking that most people would rather "steal" than pay to support the system? Now, if we had a system of automatic licensing, and zero penalties for revenueless electronic duplication, THEN I think you would see an increase in the number of people who wanted to support the system. After all, if you know an artist or two who really benefit from the system, you're going to feel that it's worth it. If you know an artist for two who get screwed by the system....
As for theft vs. infringement: there are three offenses. The first is a violation of federal law, such as the DMCA. That's a federal crime, but it's not theft. There is copyright infringement. That's a sort of logical theft, but under the law, the two are very distinct. Be clear about which you are talking about: the law or the common expression. Then there is license violation. That's a strictly civil matter between two parties over an agreement which is broken, and which is theft in exactly no ways. Theft under the law has nothing to do with copyright infringement. That's just the way it is.
It's important to point out that words like "theft" simply muddy the watrer, and combine concepts which should not be combined.
The copyright advocates lose a lot of respect, in my eyes, when they pushed to have copyrights extended to a ridiculous 75 (+20) years. Somehow they feel they should have a lock on culture for generations. Disney of course pushed for this just around the time they're copyrights were going to end. Nothing sleazy about that! Everything created has a piece of something someone did before them in it. Nothing is 100% original yet companies like Disney feel they can use the ideas of others and then deny use of their result in turn. Too bad the Brothers Grimm couldn't copyright their work for a few hundred years, Disney would never have gotten started.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning