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More Evidence That Piracy Can Increase Sales
Socguy writes "The London School of Economics has published a new study (PDF) which shows that the claims about digital downloading killing music and movies are overblown. In fact, there is new evidence to indicate that it actually generates more income in certain cases. 'While it acknowledges that sales have stagnated in recent years, the report points out that the overall revenue of the music industry in 2011 was almost $60 billion US, and in 2012, worldwide sales of recorded music increased for the first time since 1999, with 34 per cent of revenues for that year coming from digital channels such as streaming and downloads. "The music industry may be stagnating, but the drastic decline in revenues warned of by the lobby associations of record labels is not in evidence," the report says. ... The growing use of streaming, cloud computing, so-called digital lockers that facilitate the sharing of content and sites that offer a mix of free and paid methods of getting content will, the study predicts, spur the entertainment industries to shift their focus from pursuing illegal downloading to creating more legal avenues for getting content online.'"
It is illegal because the law says so. The law could be changed if it was generally considered to have a negative instead of positive net effect. The music industry's main argument about keeping it illegal (and even strengthen the laws against it) is loss of revenue. Therefore if it is shown that the main reason against changing it doesn't hold, it is an argument for changing the law.
There are different issues: First, if something is legal or illegal, that is, permitted by current law. Second, whether something should be legal or illegal.
Rape is illegal, and I think few would argue that this should change. Moreover, most would argue that you shouldn't rape even if there was no law forbidding it (and even if there were a law requiring you to do it).
Unauthorized copying is illegal, but there is not as much consensus that it should be illegal as there is with rape. The music's industry claims it should be illegal (and the laws even be made more strict) because of the losses they face through privacy. Any study that piracy increases revenue instead of decreasing it, weakens that argument.
That doesn't automatically make it legal to copy stuff without authorization. But it does make an argument for making it legal. Which can only be done by changing the law, of course. But the point is, the law is not god-given, the law is man-made. It can be changed if it is found that in the current form it is bad. And therefore it is of utmost importance that you don't just accept the law as is ("it's the law, therefore it is right"), but rather question it. Because if you find the law is bad it should be changed, and anyone who thinks it is wrong has the moral obligation to work towards its change.
And in certain cases, it may even be the right thing to break the law (I'm not going to cite the obvious example in order not to Godwin this thread, and to avoid someone incorrectly claiming I'd equate that one with unauthorized copying, which of course I would never do).