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45% of Dutch Media-Buying Population Are "Pirates"
Anonymous writes "A non-government study in the Netherlands found that 4.7 million Dutch Internet users 15 years and older downloaded hacked and pirated DVDs, games, and music in the last 12 months — or, about 25 percent of the Dutch population. But there may be an upside to this unauthorized sharing/distribution: 'The average [Dutch] downloader buys more DVDs, music, and games than people who never download,' with illegal downloaders representing 45 percent of consumers who purchase content legally, according to the Institute For Information Law, which administered the study."
I can't stand this one. Just describe what it is you are talking about. If it's a video, just say "Video", not "Video Content". Nothing is being "contained".
25% are "pirates".
So 25% of the population are criminals and should be in jail?
Sounds like the law needs changing to me..
(Anonymous Dutchman)
An unscientific look at my friends seems to suggest that the people who buy the most also pirate the most. There actually seems to be a fairly consistent ration between amount downloaded and amount purchased.
It's been common knowledge for quite some time now. Only the industry insists on ignoring it.
On the face of it, it's illogical for them to buy anything but clearly there's some good reason for them to do so.
A lot of downloaders have surprisingly high ethical standards. Some purchase a legal copy, don't install it (because of DRM) and download the cracked version instead.
OK. I'll bite.
The article says that a lot of pirates are people that enjoy the content.
Sometimes, they even enjoy the content so much, they buy the official copy, just to inform the publisher that this formula works.
I'm one of them, I have piles of illegal movies and games and even bigger piles of CD's, DVD's and BD-ROMS of stuff I actually like)
Also, not all piracy is done because 'they want it for free'. If you want English subtitles in the Netherlands, you either have to import (illegal, won't play on DVD player) or download your movies, so I but the movie with dutch subs and download the one with English subs.
Oh, and yes, /sometimes/ it is worth the money to import (Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion), even if it costs >$75 to buy.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You didn't get it right.
Why should people who like owning DVDs, Blurays and Games just buy stuff blindly ?
A lot of people I know download a movie first, and when they like it they buy a Bluray later on. I see this as a win-win for both sides.
Download statistics don't mean anything really.
Amazing what a test drive can do for consumer confidence.
I don't think 50+% of the people are actually opposed to copyright. They're just opposed to it being used as an excuse for harmful DRM and other complications. They want to see their movies and play their games, and don't mind paying for them if they're any good, but paying lots of money for crap that doesn't work gets tired really fast.
I have noticed this too. The people who consume the most, well... consume the most. They are just content whores :) Some they will pirate, things they can easily get and like they will buy as much of as they can. They just want the content, whatever is the easiest way for them to get it most of the time. At least this is what I have seen.
So smart producers will make sure that paying for it is the easiest way to get the content. That means paid downloads without crippling DRM. That means your HD DVD or BluRay should simply work at full resolution no matter what. That means CD you buy should be rippable so you can put them on your mp3-player.
It's been common knowledge for quite some time now. Only the industry insists on ignoring it.
Yes, its common knowledge that there is a correlation, but are they in anyway meaningfully linked. I mean, the pro-infringement camp like to point to this and say, look infringement is actually increasing sales... the more people download the more they buy.
But is that true?
Here, for example, is a simple hypothesis that explains the correlation:
People who aren't particularly interested in music aren't buying or downloading much.
People who are interested in music buy and download more.
Thus the real question is:
Does downloading music actually increase the amount you buy, or is it simply the case that the people who are most interested in music download and buy the most.
A lot of downloaders have surprisingly high ethical standards. Some purchase a legal copy, don't install it (because of DRM) and download the cracked version instead.
Don't kid yourself; for every one of those, there is an entire legion of people who downloaded the cracked version and never bought the legal version, or at best buy it years later in some discount bin if they had fond enough memories of it.
The only question is what percentage of those that chose to infringe it would have bought it if that was the only way to get it. Obviously, a huge swathe of them would simply have done without.
Yes, its common knowledge that there is a correlation, but are they in anyway meaningfully linked. I mean, the pro-infringement camp like to point to this and say, look infringement is actually increasing sales... the more people download the more they buy.
Pro-infringement camp? Your choice of words exposes your biased world view. Few people are pro-infringement. Sure, they exist, but most people are simply pro-being able to use stuff. How much they insist on paying money for that varies, but it's all about the content, not the infringement. That's just a by-product of getting at the content.
Does downloading music actually increase the amount you buy, or is it simply the case that the people who are most interested in music download and buy the most.
...
The only question is what percentage of those that chose to infringe it would have bought it if that was the only way to get it. Obviously, a huge swathe of them would simply have done without.
You seem to live in a fairy tale land where there's a magical dial to regulate the number of downloads. Illegal downloads don't cause stuff, they are caused by stuff. If you don't like illegal downloads, you need to look at the real causes.
Even more so, illegal downloads aren't even an interesting statistic to producers. They should only care about the number of sales. If sales and downloads both go up, they're still doing something right. If sales and downloads both go down, they're still doing something wrong. The downloads don't matter, the sales do.
A situation where downloads are impossible is simply not going to happen outside magical fairyland. All that matters is: how do you get people to buy your stuff. Stop seeing downloads as missed sales. Many of them are sales, many others would never have been sales.
Actually Moser Baer has done something similar in India. They crashed the CD/DVD prices from ~Rs.1000 to ~Rs.100 (USD 20 to USD 2)
People now obviously prefer DVD prints over the pirated cam print. This should be and is THE only way to kill piracy.
Eclipse PDE and Me
You forgot to mention terrorists. Selling pirate DVDs is one of the main income sources for terrorists. If you pirate DVDs you might as well be killing your own family, or raping children or whatever it is that terrorists do on the weekend.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
And pot is legal too - that settles it, I'm moving out there...
I thought that many artists earn the real money these days by live shows, anyway? So they're quite content to have their - erm - content downloaded because it gets them known and so people come to the concerts?
What if the original poster has an high definition display which doesn't have HDMI inputs (many such "HD ready" TV sets were sold before HDMI was standardised a couple of years go)? The fact that he/she checked the capabilities of the analogue component output with the manufacturer and the seller before purchasing suggests this might well be the case ...
I could indeed rip my original disks to DIVX, but this merely serves to highlight the stupidity of forcing entire classes of consumer electronics devices to disable basic elements of their functionality in an effort prevent illegal mass content distribution that's already happening on a vast scale because CSS is such an ineffective protection mechanism that it might as well not be there.
Even more idiotic is the fact that they're doing this with home systems that no pirate of any sort would even consider using for piracy purposes. Professional counterfeiters need high-volume, high reliability systems, and amateurs use the Internet, so the only possible explanation for crippling domestic equipment with no Internet capabilities that's only designed to make a few copies a month is sheer bloody-mindedness.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Just because the RIAA is able to buy its way into congress doesn't mean that the laws it writes are not subject to jurisprudence.
...there are people that are very angry. And they should be.
I believe in the rule of law and do not give 'god-like' status to the government in my mind, or in my obedience to it.
Truth is not a democracy.
The content industry has spread lies and fears based on dubious hypotheticals. Now that it turns out that either they were totally talking out their ass, or had an ulterior motive. This should challenge the system to change, as it is an obligation of politicians and people of a republic.
But given that these multi-billion dollar companies likely didn't get where they are by being stupid, looking at the "real" threat of of a healthy commons, and recognizing the roots of the constitution where it says, "Congress shall have the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", and compare it to what is going on in our legal system today...
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!