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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".
ARRRRRRR!
Also selling well: eyepatches, wooden legs and stuffed parrots. Arrrrr!
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Stricter legislation! Harsher punishments! Bigger fines! Public whippings!
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.
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.
In the Netherlands downloading music and movies is not illegal (yet). Uploading is another story...
... studies found that people not interested in listening, playing or watching any media are not buying it, nor downloading it illegally.
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)
After all, what's a dutchman (or woman) to do when they have the economy blues but hoist the Jolly Roger and go out for a good old pillage on the high seas.
The pride of our national history, the VOC made much of its early profits through piracy. It brought us our Golden Age. It makes sens to go back to those pragmatic mercantile principles, right?
Even our prime minister lauded the VOC mentality a few month ago. (And got criticised for it because that includes slave trade and colonialism, but nobody mentioned piracy at the time.)
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.
What is this article trying to say? That copyright infringement is good because the people doing it are actually also buying a lot of games?
No, it's saying that the industry is fighting the wrong fight. They're attacking their own customers.
That's bullshit. There is no correlation here, unless you studied the purchasing habits of a set group of people who couldn't pirate stuff for a year and they could the next year.
What the hell does that mean? If the study shows that people who buy more also download more, and people who download less also purchase less, than that's correlation. It doesn't necessarily say anything about causation, but the correlation is quite obvious.
Hardcore gamers buy a lot of games. If hardcore gamers also pirate a lot, then this is a disaster for people making hardcore games.
No. People buying lots of games are not a disaster for people who make those games. Those people finding a different hobby would be a disaster, though.
Put yourself in the position of someone making a game. If the guy who doesn't pay for your game buys a lot of CD's, that doesn't help pay your mortgage or buy your groceries.
People who don't buy your stuff don't pay your mortgage no matter what other stuff they do buy and whether or not they download your stuff illegally. Pirates don't matter. Customers do.
Everyone I know making games is moving to flash games that are ad-supported, console gaming, or doing MMO games.
Then you need to get acquainted with Brad Wardell from Stardock. He's the one who said "pirates don't matter", he's applied this to his single player PC games which don't have any copy protection, and sell very well. His strategy works because he focuses on pleasing his customers instead of chasing them away.
If people want the option to ever be playing single-player games, they need to stop assuming they can get them for free, and free-ride off the honest people who still open their wallet for decent entertainment.
And if companies want people to pay for their games, they need to stop assuming that they can hurt the play experience of honest, paying customers without chasing them towards cracked versions of the game that offer a superior experience.
It's a two-way street. Companies are trying to control their customers, but a free market simply doesn't work like that.
Don't worry, I'm one of the other 55% Dutch people, the ninjas. We will beat those pesky pirates.
Amazing what a test drive can do for consumer confidence.
It was previously covered here:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/19/1440254
downloading (only downloading, not uploading) is legal in The Netherlands.
Blah blah blah, etc.
So by your logic if all a groups copyrighted work was suddenly available for download for free they'd have a massive dropoff in sales?
Sounds logical, I mean these guys went bankrupt as soon as they tried it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MontyPython
Even our prime minister lauded the VOC mentality a few month ago. (And got criticised for it because that includes slave trade and colonialism, but nobody mentioned piracy at the time.)
Oh, I don't follow current RIAA slang.
I'm lost with colonialism, but slave trade is surely "mailing pictures of people", right?
94% of Dutch drivers who usually obey the speed limit admit exceeding it at least once per month. Obviously, the Dutch are a nation of scofflaws. The good part of that being of course that the scofflaws do obey the rules... most of the time.
In other words, the average speeder uses the road legally far more than the driver who only brings the car out of the garage to go to church on Sunday.
We should all be surprised by this, because the media tells us so. Please, everyone raise their eyebrows for the photograph.
Hardcore gamers buy a lot of games. If hardcore gamers also pirate a lot, then this is a disaster for people making hardcore games.
Unless you have the kind of data to back up your assumption that hardcore gamers would otherwise have bought *more* games, you just made one of them unfounded correlations yourself.
If people want the option to ever be playing single-player games, they need to stop assuming they can get them for free
Yep. Games like The Sims has clearly proven there's no room for commercially successful single player games. Or Bioshock. Or Sins of a Solar Empire. Or (insert list of umpteen non-MMO games that has topped the sales charts the pasts few years).
*Lots* of people, millions of them, buy games. Your points aren't invalid, but neither are they gospel.
I'll tell you what makes me buy games. Them being good. And the price/availability equation. Steam was good, until they switched to Euro at a 1:1 ratio with USD and jacked up their prices some 40% effectively. Now they've priced themselves out of my interest. There's only Impulse left. That's the only DRM I accept. If your game isn't on there, you generally won't get a sale from me unless you're offering independent DRM-free distribution of your own.
Well, in your case you won't either way. I tried hard to find one of your games to buy to support you when you announced dropping DRM. I just couldn't find one that even remotely interested me enough to part with money for it. That's not meant as a slam. You just haven't made anything to my taste yet.
The sad fact is, there's no getting away from piracy. All one can do is try to mitigate it. By offering quality, by not overloading it with ineffective and annoying DRM, by pricing it right, and by catering extra to the people that are able to prove they purchased the product.
If there still aren't enough sales to make it worthwhile, then that's it really. We'll be back to indie one-man-with-a-passion made games and will have noone to blame but ourselves. Though those games will undoubtedly top any AAA game in originality, so the culture of gaming will endure regardless.
Indeed that research justifies claims of the movie and music industry. Those downloading a copyrighted material illegally are prospective customers, and easier they can be able to get things free, less they would buy them. Not more.
There are always excuses for illegally downloading these stuff. Overpriced materials, willing to preview before buy, outdated media etc. But those are not valid excuses at least these days. You can *live* without listening to every single tune. You can *live* without watching every single movie. If you enjoy watching a movie, and if you enjoy listening to a tune, go buy it. Just like you enjoy eating snacks and need to buy them.
For sure you can be ideologically against policies of movie studios, or labels. Then boycot them by making their products less popular, not by illegally download their content. If you do you're one way or another both infringe laws and making those you're against good.
There're more liberal licenses for distributing copyrighted materials like Creative Commons. Instead support artists releasing content in such a way. But if you don't do that, nothing can be an excuse of infringing copyright of others.
Most responsible party in this long going problem is those distributing content. I blame those download illegal content less than those sharing this stuff. Distributing does not serve any purpose. As I said it does not serve your mission of protesting policies of the movie studios or music labels in case that's what you want in first place. It even helps their domination.
Harm of this illegal sharing of copyrighted material is very huge in developing countries. Their government and public don't understand importance of intellectual property. If developed countries did not have good protection of intellectual properties they would not be able to produce quality music, movies or even software. Developing countries don't give importance to this and at the end of day they don't/can't produce rival products with their own resources, they instead stay addicted to copyrighted products of others.
In my country, Turkey, illegal copying is rampant. And I'll give example not from soft copies, but hard copies, like books. Over here there're lots of universities giving education in English. But you hardly find original books written by professors of local universities. Almost all universities use textbooks from US and/or UK. I'm not talking about grad level courses, but basic physics, mathematics, biology etc. Since most of these books are photocopied by students, professors don't *waste* their time to produce more suitable materials to be used by the local universites and probably rest of the World. They can write better books for their own students. They can give more local examples and students would understand topics better. But students buy illegal copies and somehow manage to pass courses. If they instead complain about expensive books or authority enforce them not to use illegal copies and make them complain anyways, some local professor would produce cheaper and even better materials. Inevitably this not only harm education also make those educated people lazy.
Illegal copying is like using drugs. You don't foresee any problem eary times and even feel good about it. But eventually it harms your body and future.
Piet Hein.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I'd have never thought that many Dutch went out on the sea and forcibly seized ships and stole their cargo. Seems rather high, are you sure you got your numbers right? Or perhaps you are using the wrong word?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy
According to the Dutch "Authors Law" of 1912, copying of books, music and movies for your own personal use and study is legal. It was decided that it also applies to downloads.
The most interesting conclusion of this report has been left out of the summary.
The cost of downloading to society as a whole is estimated at 100 milion euros in 2008.
The profit (in cultural en social well-being) is estimated at 200 million euros.
Even though some suffer (e.g. the music industry), society as a whole makes a profit.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Example, There is NO reason why we shouldn't be able to buy prebuilt little multimedia servers designed to let us rip our CDs and movies and make them available anywhere in our homes. No more dealing with discs, the kids can watch what they want while the adults watch their own movies, etc. It would be very nice. But we can't have anything like that because the IP "holders" say you only have rights to play the plastic. So if the little bit of plastic isn't there than you can't watch it.
Well the situation is different in Europe :
You bought the little plastic thingie, you own the little platic thingie and you might do whatever you see fit with it, as long as you don't distribute the content without obtaining a license for it (or without the distribution case being one of the exceptions).
If you want to put it on a server (for you own use that's it - not for the whole 'net), you are free to do it.
Certain more recent laws like in Switzerland, even explicitely state that format shifting is allowed when needed for technical reason (Your iPod doesn't have a slot for plastic thingies. You're authorized by law to re-encode the music into a iPod-friendly format) and states that DRM and other access-restriction systems can legally be circumvented in order to achieve such format shifting (or making other copies authorized among the exception to copyright law).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
actually , a file only contains bytes.
A program can convert those bytes to content , like text , audio ,video , which you can expierence with the hardware.
Slipping shoelaces ?
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!