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Suppressed Report Shows Pirates Are Good Customers

Posted by samzenpus on from the biting-the-hand-that-steals-from-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The movie and music industry think pirates are criminals and parasites who cost both industries billions of dollars in lost sales. In order to prove this fact a number of studies have been commissioned to help demonstrate the effect a pirate has on sales of entertainment. GfK Group is one of the largest market research companies in the world and is often used by the movie industry to carry out research and studies into piracy. Talking to a source within GfK who wished to remain anonymous, Telepolis found that a recent study looking at pirates and their purchasing activities found them to be almost the complete opposite of the criminal parasites the entertainment industry want them to be. The study states that it is much more typical for a pirate to download an illegal copy of a movie to try it before purchasing. They are also found to purchase more DVDs than the average consumer, and they visit the movie theater more, especially for opening weekend releases which typically cost more to attend."

27 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. First to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The MPAA/RIAA lying about stats to justify unjust laws? Never.

    1. Re:First to say by kj_kabaje · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I believe that's called a lie of omission... still perjury in a court of law.

    2. Re:First to say by erroneus · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a lie. "Not publishing a report" is still a lie. When you testify before congress that you are presenting facts revealed by studies and you omit anything that you want to conceal, it's perjury. "... to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..." I'd say that's a violation of the oath they take prior to giving testimony to not at least make available ALL information collected as that fits within the "...the whole truth..." part of the swearing in.

      I'd like to see a congressional investigation into the matter -- not that I expect one to happen -- just that I'd like to see one. And who knows, perhaps if some government scandal comes up, they will need "some distraction" to draw the public's attention away from themselves. This might be a good one though it might result in lower campaign contributions.

    3. Re:First to say by jc42 · · Score: 4, Informative

      To play devil's advocate, they didn't exactly lie here. This "GfK" just didn't publish a report that came to the opposite conclusions they were paid to reach.

      This has been widely discussed in scientific circles, too, including here on /.. Organizations that fund research often let the researchers know what results are expected, and if the science shows otherwise, the reports are very often suppressed. This is considered a major problem in a number of scientific fields.

      It's especially problematic that "no significance" reports are often suppressed. It can be useful to know that X and Y have no relation. But, for example, drug manufacturers don't usually like to hear that their profitable "miracle drug" actually has no effect on the conditions that they claim it will cure. Admitting this publicly means they'll no longer get income from the suckers who have been buying the "drug" to cure their condition.

      In general, it may be true that not telling everything you know isn't exactly a lie. But that's not exactly what's going on here. Continuing to say something is true when you've done studies showing that it's false is definitely a lie. This is what companies do when they suppress "no significant effect of X on Y" results, and it's what the **AAs do when they claim something they don't like is hurting sales when their study shows that it doesn't. It's a lie regardless of whether the claimed "piracy" actually helps or has no effect on sales.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    4. Re:First to say by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How are the laws unjust? The piracy is still happening, the fact that the pirates also buy stuff shouldn't be a mitigating factor.

      Its up to the rights holder to decide if the piracy is something they can live with or not, not you or I - although its great fun watching people try to justify it on Slashdot...

      Also, the entire basis for this story is "an anonymous person says..." - thats great, a fantastic headline with no way to corroborate it at all.

  2. And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They also lie on surveys about pirating and purchasing.

    1. Re:And... by Tyr07 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I 'played' mass effect before I purchased it, and it also garunteed me to buy the second one when it came out and I'm buying the third one. In my opinion, so far if someone can afford it and they actually enjoyed the game, they'll buy it. For the extra features, priestige of supporting the developer and online play. I'll admit when I was a child I had played a lot of games that I didn't purchase, because I had no money to do so with. Now a days I buy so many it's crazy, and even old ones I won't really play just for the nostalgia of it. I've SEEN all three original star wars, and I still bought a boxed set. You get the picture. I'd say it's safe to say a lot of pirates care more about content and quality, and refuse to crap money down the toliet on cheap gimmicks of no fun. I don't want to buy a game that takes 30 hours to complete and I get bored of it in the first hour.

    2. Re:And... by icebraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lying is irrelevant if the study is decent and asks for proof of purchase, like this did.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    3. Re:And... by billcopc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know one person doesn't make a majority, but I would not be running a label and partering with two others if not for all the a.b.mp3 floods and multi-gigabyte "best of $genre" torrents. There is simply no way the mainstream media could have turned me onto 99% of what I listen to. Fifteen years ago I got all my music news from radio and TV, so you can imagine how awful my selection was. My only reprieve back then was the university radio stations that prided themselves on playing the weirdest niches of electronic and experimental music. Then one day, I downloaded a Slayer album. I didn't really know who they were, but the dumb thing grew on me. Now I'm a huge metalhead, I even have Slayer on vinyl, plus about 550 other artists of all genres, including a big chunk of Scandinavian metal. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe they play any Katatonia, Pagan's Mind or even Ayreon on MTV.

      Had it not been for some altruistic soul on Usenet, posting his personal toplist for everyone to sample, I would never have heard of any of those acts, and if it weren't for online music stores, I would never have found copies to buy. Perhaps most importantly, I would never have attended any of those bands' concerts, and I sure as shit would not have nurtured the passion to launch a not-really-profitable business promoting indie bands beyond the local scene. Having access to that variety of music is what turned an idle hobby into an obsession.

      My music spending before piracy: $10/month for one odd techno CD.
      My music spending after piracy: $500/month for an artist's back catalogue, a concert ticket + travel, and a dozen open mic nights at the local bars. I'm not even counting all the hours I invest into my protégés.

      The problem is the RIAA probably doesn't see much of that $500, because it's often going to indie bands, small online stores, or foreign dealers for the hard-to-find stuff. The RIAA simply does not sell a product I wish to buy, not even consume for free. I swear, if I hear that stupid J.Lo Lambada rip-off one more time !@^&#!@

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
  3. No big deal by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you can't deny the information any longer, you switch to discrediting it. Fighting truth is just a cost of business for the entertainment industry.

    1. Re:No big deal by commisaro · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Forgive me, but I don't really understand the business model, though. If it's true that their own studies have shown that pirates are better customers, this would presumably indicate that allowing piracy would increase revenue. So if their goal is to maximize profit, why wouldn't they want to take this on board?

    2. Re:No big deal by another_twilight · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Control.

      While I think a lot of the anti-piracy stance of the media groups is still driven by the assumption that piracy hurts sales, demonising pirates has turned into a great way to justify a kind of balkanisation of the market.

      Regional restrictions allow them to sell the same product at the price that the local market will bear without diluting the higher markets with product sold in the lower.

      Encryption and laws against circumventing it that are supposed to stop piracy also act to stop you buying one copy of something and then transcoding it to the form most useful to you.

      Ultimately, the cost of distribution for purely digital material is drastically smaller than for physical items, but media companies are still claiming costs for breakages associated with LPs in the CD age. If they can blame 'pirates' then they don't have to let competition drive the price of a digital copy down to reflect the reduced cost of distribution.

      It's oddly long-sighted of them. They have a monopoly and are fighting to keep it that way. This isn't about short term profit. It's about keeping control of the entire profit-making industry.

    3. Re:No big deal by next_ghost · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because if they can't keep their tight grip on our culture, they're done for. This group of middlemen stopped being useful over a decade ago. It's not piracy they're fighting, it's the market which is trying to get rid of unnecessary transaction costs. Piracy is just a ruse.

  4. Let me be a customer by ccguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I often download the first season of TV shows, and then buy the blu-ray of the rest - which I have to ship from a different continent because they won't sell them in my country. Well, they often don't air the TV shows here (in any channel), and of course web access is country restricted.

    So I go out of my way to pay. If you still think I'm a pirate, fuck off.

    1. Re:Let me be a customer by Master+Moose · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Likewise, many times when I have missed an episode of a TV show, I will download it.
      I always forego the tv companies online "Catch Up" service as the quality of the streams are crap. Yet this is seen as me being an evil pirate by those in the industry.

      --
      . . .gone when the morning comes
    2. Re:Let me be a customer by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They didn't have the WB when Buffy was on and frankly hearing the description (a comedy horror based on a bad movie with a soap star and the Taster's Choice guy?) I would have NEVER bough so much as a single DVD but there was enough good word of mouth I said WTF and downloaded the first two episodes. I ended up hooked and now have the entire Joss Whedon collection, Angel, Buffy and Firefly with a couple of BtVS collectibles my late sister got me for bookends.

      I probably spent a good $500 on that and I wouldn't have spent a dime if it weren't for piracy. Also after getting burned by several games where the damned things wouldn't run even when I was waaaay over the specs and finding the demo is usually the ONLY level they do real serious QA on (I'm looking at you Max Payne) I will always download the game first to make sure it will actually play before plunking the cash. If it doesn't? Bye bye. I want all the features like MP so I buy the ones that run that aren't shit (and I don't play shit so they don't even last as long as the demo on my drive).

      So these figures really don't surprise me. It really doesn't take getting burned too many times before you want to try before you buy. No way to have a real trial? No sale for me. Sadly though I would argue that no matter what you do they'll claim piracy as their little PPTs say if they made X last year then they should make X*Y simply because they are just wonderful and geniuses.

      Mark my words as piracy goes down thanks to plenty of online choices like Netflix when they see their sales don't suddenly spike and give them ever increasing profits? First they'll blame the darknets, it is a scary sounding word and they don't have to prove shit and it will let them ram more draconian BS laws through, then if they keep slipping they'll just have themselves declared "too big to fail" and take the money directly out of your pockets though bribery of congress critters.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  5. Correction by igreaterthanu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Did they correct for the amount of media consumed for each person? Of course someone who pirates 50% of all media they consume, yet consumes a large amount of media is going to purchase more than someone who consumes far less.

    --
    I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
  6. Hardly Surprising by Sinthet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People who torrent lots of media tend to enjoy being consumers of media. Many want to support artists but love the convenience P2P gives them, so they utilize it to try products and then support the artists they think deserve funds by purchasing DVDs/CDs/Games, or they simply want a physical copy as a result of wanting to collect things.

    I'm not discounting that some pirates are purely leeches however. There's no reason to believe that all pirates are so generous, just that it makes pretty good sense that a majority are willing to pay for quality entertainment. Hell, I've purchased each volume of MegaTokyo religiously since picking up the first one randomly in a bookstore, regardless of the fact that the comics are all available for free online (And not illegally either).

    1. Re:Hardly Surprising by Ironhandx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I consume shitloads of media.

      If things were more reasonably priced, I'd probably buy everything I wanted. As it is I need to guarantee its not crap before I buy it.

      At $10 per DVD, I'd buy everything. At the $25+ per DVD that I have to pay for most things I end up downloading the stuff then buying copies when they go down into my price range.

      I have probably in excess of 1,000 movies and maybe 20 full tv series downloaded. Of those I own about 600 movies and 18 of the 20 tv series.

      So yes, I pirate, a lot. However at the same time I'm one of the best customers the media industry has.

  7. Some Notes by brit74 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We know from other data that music sales (http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2) and DVD/BlueRay sales (*see below) are down. When adjusted for inflation and population growth, Box office revenues are down around 15% compared to 10 years ago.

    It's also worth pointing out that saying, "pirates buy more than the average consumer" is not actually an argument for piracy, since pirates tend to be disproportionately from a class of people who were originally big fans. Thus, it's possible that "big fans" who start using piracy end up buying 1/2 as much as they used to, but still out-buy the "average consumer" who was never all that interested. (For example, I don't pirate and I own zero DVDs or BluRay disks, which makes it easy for pirates to buy more than me.)

    * "Total revenue from DVD, Blu-ray and digital sales and rentals of movies and television shows in the U.S. declined 3% to $18.8 billion in 2010, according to new data from industry trade organization Digital Entertainment Group. Although the drops, particularly of DVD sales, are worrisome for the entertainment industry, studio executives can at least take some comfort in the fact that the picture isn't worsening as quickly as it did in 2009, when total home entertainment revenue plunged 7.6%."
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/01/home-entertainment-market-shrinking-slower-as-blu-ray-and-digital-make-up-for-more-of-dvd-decline.html

    1. Re:Some Notes by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe the economy has more to do with that then piracy. Also legal methods of watching movies as well. I don't buy movies now that I have netflix unless I really love them. In the past I did not buy many movies, certainly less than I spend on netflix. This means while I might be spending less on DVDs I am spending more on entertainment.

  8. This is nothing new by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A while back I came across a copy of Modern Recording magazine (this was a trade magazine aimed at people who worked in recording studios) from 1981 and there was an article about "piracy" of music. In those days there were no personal computers or internet. The villain, according to the record companies, was the cassette tape recorder. People were borrowing albums from their friends and making a copy on cassette tape. So the RIAA commissioned a study that they hoped to take to the government and get some sort of law passed to halt this terrible crime (much like the MPAA tried to stop the VCR).

    According ot the article, the RIAA study was shelved and never widely distributed because it revealed -- surprise -- that people who owned cassette tape decks bought an average of 75% more albums that people who didn't own any recording equipment.

  9. Re:half agree by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can't blame them really. They're experts at their job, and I'm sure their shareholders would agree, they're doing quite well at their job.

    They hell I can't! If they were robotic automatons that were preprogrammed with the single goal of generating a metric fuckton of profit for their shareholders and that were lacking the free will to reevaluate their values, then you would be correct, I couldn't blame them.

    However, the record companies are not run by robotic automatons. They are run by humans and, quite frankly, as human beings, they should have the cognitive capacity to understand complex mental abstractions such as morality, healthy social balance, empathy, and temperance. Trying to earn a profit is not a morally corrupt quest. Trying to earn a profit at the expense and livlihood of your fellow human beings, and at the disruption of the society that you, yourself, are part of is downright stupid, if not flagrantly evil.

    So you bet your ass I can and will blame these lying, piss-poor pieces of shit that were raised with such a moral apathy that they hardly even resemble a shell of what a thinking, intelligent, contributing member of this species is.

    You may think it is okay to be an apologist for sociopaths, but I, personally, hold my fellow human beings to higher standards than that if they are going to continue calling themselves human.

    --
    Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
  10. Re:Try before you buy by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, but you may get modded down for excessive use of hyperbole in a public place. Who is this Slashdot you speak of?

    Piracy does affect artists, but then so do the dubious actions of record companies. It's difficult to appreciate an impact though on artists when their slice of music sales is typically so low that record deals become more about trying to build enough popularity to earn enough from merchandise and touring. Piracy hurts artists, but it hurts everyone else in the chain far more. Unlike this curious Mr. Slashdot I don't think that all piracy is good. I instead opt to buy far fewer discs than I did in the past. DRM fucks up my ability to enjoy the content I buy, and money given is being used against me in the belief that I am by default a criminal. I'd rather buy from indies and go gigging. If I buy a DVD I cant rip then it's returned as faulty to the store.

    You're flamebait, and also a dick for playing the martyr to the mods card. Despite appearances to the contrary, it's dicks that are not welcome here.

    --
    -- Using the preview button since 2005
  11. Re:Try before you buy by Cederic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Conveniently, the artists who aren't getting paid are left out of that equation, because they're a reminder that piracy has a negative effect, which dismantles the ideology that pirates are the good guys.

    Which part of "people that pirate spend more on media" leads you to believe that piracy has a negative effect?

    Are you suggesting that the extra revenue generated from pirates isn't reaching the artists? I'm not sure that would be attributable to the pirates, in their role of consumers.

    Shit, you'll get modded down because you're spouting illogical bullshit, and that's something the Slashdot community picks up on, not because you're anti-piracy. Many people on Slashdot dislike freeloaders; it just happens that many more recognise the reality that there isn't a binary situation here, and that (as recognised in the survey) people that consume more media will pay more for it, even if they don't pay for all of it.

  12. I live these studies by slash-doubter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I never went to concerts or bought records until I started pirating music. I never bought textbooks for pleasure reading until I pirated textbooks. I never bought art creation programs, before pirating them all and finding the ones that suited me. I also never went sailing before I started pirating, but I don't think there is a correlation there. I wouldn't have to pirate if there was some sane trial and advertising didn't lie. As is, pirating is the only thing that allows me to make an informed use of my very limited financial resources. A disproportionate amount of which goes to the people I "stole" from.

  13. Pirates by Trogre · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can we please stop calling people who engage in copyright infringement pirates?

    Real pirates are scum who need to be wiped off the planet.
    Copyright infringers are breaking one or more laws in certain jurisdictions, and their moral status is more of a gray area.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife