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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".
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
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.
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
And pot is legal too - that settles it, I'm moving out there...