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."

Comments

Re:bad analogy

[Microlith]

In most countries outside the US it has never been illegal to copy cultural expressions for personal use

Do you believe that hopping on a torrent with ten thousand people qualifies as "personal use" or "mass redistribution?" I consider personal use to be usage dealing with myself and people I know directly, not piping stuff out to twenty or more leeches whom I have no familiarity with.

Re:"Lost" to piracy

[bonch]

How is this concept so very very very hard for certain people to understand.

The concept is hard to understand because it makes no sense. If something was crappy, you wouldn't have any interest in it.

Hell I have no problem paying a subscription- I pay for a rapidshare account. It's convenience that matters to me and TPB is very very convenient for people.

That's the reason piracy is so rampant. It's not due to rebellion against business models--only the type of people to post on Slashdot care about things like that. It's more about the convenience and ease of getting something without having to pay money for it. It's an example of human selfishness and greed, really. Some people, in an attempt to feel less guilty, intellectualize it into some cultural movement in which they're fighting bad guys (the RIAA, the MPAA, Electronic Arts, etc.). If they're fighting bad guys, that makes them the good guys, see? It's an interesting psychological case.