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Piracy In Developing Countries Driven By High Prices
langelgjm writes "The Social Science Research Council, an independent, non-profit organization, today released a major report on music, film and software piracy in developing economies. It's a product of three years of work, and the authors conclude that piracy is primarily driven by excessively high prices and that anti-piracy education and enforcement efforts have failed. Still, chief editor Joe Karaganis believes that businesses can survive in these high piracy environments. The report is free to readers in low-income countries, but behind a paywall for certain high-income countries, although the SSRC notes, 'For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.'"
NO SHIT? Someone has been reading my posts on slashdot? THIS is what I've been saying for YEARS, good God! Just look at my rant posts, I must have said that about 5 times at least.
I'm NOT paying half my monthly salary for a PS3 or XBOX game. Same way as I'm not paying $10-$20 for a movie ticket. That's why movie tickets in my country cost $3-$5 and people go to the movies, while very few don't pirate games. Charge me something I can pay, and I gladly will. Be a jerk and try to charge me twice or 4x as much as the US price and I won't buy it (PS3/XBOX 360 cost USD 800 here. Taxes are not the reason). For me a $100 game is like expecting the average american to pay $500 for a PS3 game. Ain't gonna happen.
So it isn't necessarily 'high prices' but prices that prices aren't adjusted to the developing country's standard of living?
Why call it a con? We need MORE studies like this to refute the baldfaced lies of the BSA, RIAA and MPAA. Those clowns pull numbers out of their ass and everyone treats it like gospel. Some actual facts are a useful counter.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The point is to generate high piracy rates, in order to generate the PR necessary to give pet legislators an excuse to do their "friends" a favor by passing yet more draconian legislation, allowing heavier and heavier locks, they hope defeating fair-use activities such as time shifting, format shifting and unlicensed commentary.
The organizations crying over the exploding piracy figures know full well the real score.
Having discount prices for 3rd-world countries can create a double standard when it comes to labor outsourcing. We have to compete with 3rd-world labor at their labor rates, not ours, yet they want discounts on software. You can't have it both ways, otherwise we are giving our jobs away as a charity.
If they have local adjustments for prices, then we should get local adjustments on wages because our housing and medical costs are far higher than theirs.
Table-ized A.I.
What the fuck are you talking about. They (the "third world") get paid by their local standards, and thus can't afford to drop 60 bucks for an xbox game worth a few hours of entertainment. Your post makes no sense at all.