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Ars Examines Outlandish "Lost To Piracy" Claims and Figures
Nom du Keyboard writes "For years the figures of $200 billion and 750,000 jobs lost to intellectual property piracy have been bandied about, usually as a cudgel to demand ever more overbearing copyright laws with the intent of diminishing of both Fair Use and the Public Domain. Now ARS Technica takes a look into origin and validity these figures and finds far less than the proponents of them might wish."
Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture goes into detail about this subject and comes to the conclusion that it's a load of bullshit made up by the media companies.
Authorized, paid downloads are rising:
"IFPI, an international music-industry association, found that 1.7 billion music tracks were downloaded worldwide in 2007, up 53 percent from the previous year. That number includes tracks from full-album downloads but excludes full-track downloads over the cellular airwaves directly to MP3-playing cellphones."
Name another business that grew 53% between 2006 and 2007.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Are they really claiming that 7% of the unemployed are from their industries?
It's actually more like 10% of the "unemployed", since the unemployment rate only counts people actively searching for a full-time job.
Actually, the product of recording companies *IS* the CD and distribution since they did not produce the music, the musician did. Musicians are still making money off their performance, merchandise and numerous other venues including the internet through direct sales and/or straight out giving the tracks away that is not affected by piracy at all. You can't exactly pirate a live performance. Oh sure, you can record it, but that just isn't the same as being there. You can't pirate the experience.
Their business model is antiquated and they either have to adapt and reinvent themselves or die. I no longer support any artist using a major label. There are too many great indie artists as well as a few major bands that are embracing the new model. These numbers will only increase and the recording industry is scared....with good reason.
Your comparison does not take into account transportation impact. (Factory -> Store, Store -> Home) Nor of the discs themselves, which are eventually discarded and end up in a landfill. Also, the computer in your comparison often would have been running anyway, if that is the case, you cannot count the cost of electricity used against the cost of the CD production.
You've completely forgotten about the cost to actually produce the content.
Studio time, recording equipment, instruments, etc. are not free.
Point being that you don't just pay for the plastic, you pay for the content and the cost to create that content.
See the battles of DeBeers vs. the artificial diamond makers
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