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Piracy Economics

Posted by kdawson on from the lawsuits-make-a-poor-marketing-strategy dept.

Reader Anonymous Coward the younger sends in a link to an article up at Mises.org on the market functions of piracy. The argument is that turning a blind eye to piracy can be a cheap way for a company to give away samples — one of the most time-proven tactics in marketing. The article also suggests that pirates creating knock-offs might just be offering companies market feedback that they ought to attend to. (Microsoft, are you listening?)

2 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Free samples? by d_jedi · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Like, you know, "trials".
    Gee, wouldn't it be a good idea if Microsoft/other software companies offered some of these "trials" so that people would be able to try out their product before buying it.

    If ONLY there were some way to try out software before you bought it.. then there would be no need to pirate it, right?

    Too bad software companies haven't thought of that..

    Oh, wait..

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  2. It's from a right wing nut group. by Animats · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is one of those wierd "economics papers" from a far right "faith tank", where the solution to everything is an unregulated market. Notice that the paper is mostly vaguely relevant analogies. This is punditry, not research. It's from the Ludwig von Mises people, who are usually busy attacking the GPL as being "anti property rights".

    For only $24, you can read the cited paper, "Software Piracy: Estimation of Lost Sales and the Impact on Software Diffusion", which might actually contain some useful info on the subject.