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Ars Examines Outlandish "Lost To Piracy" Claims and Figures

Posted by timothy on from the there-were-more-doubloons-here-I-swear-to-you dept.

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."

2 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Free Culture by LingNoi · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:bad analogy by knight24k · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm surprised anyone considers this insightful. It's actually quite ridiculous since it should be clear that the product of recording companies is the music, not the method of distribution. Demand for music certainly is not vanishing.

    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.