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Studies Keep Showing That the Best Way To Stop Piracy Is To Offer Cheaper, Better Alternatives (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Study after study continues to show that the best approach to tackling internet piracy is to provide these would-be customers with high quality, low cost alternatives. That idea was again supported by a new study this week out of New Zealand first spotted by TorrentFreak. The study, paid for by telecom operator Vocus Group, surveyed a thousand New Zealanders last December, and found that while half of those polled say they've pirated content at some point in their lives, those numbers have dropped as legal streaming alternatives have flourished.
The study found that 11 percent of New Zealand consumers still obtain copyrighted content via illegal streams, and 10 percent download infringing content via BitTorrent or other platforms. But it also found that users are increasingly likely to obtain that same content via over the air antennas (75 percent) or legitimate streaming services like Netflix (55 percent). "In short, the reason people are moving away from piracy is that it's simply more hassle than it's worth," says Vocus Group NZ executive Taryn Hamilton said in a statement. "The research confirms something many internet pundits have long instinctively believed to be true: piracy isn't driven by law-breakers, it's driven by people who can't easily or affordably get the content they want," she said.
The study found that 11 percent of New Zealand consumers still obtain copyrighted content via illegal streams, and 10 percent download infringing content via BitTorrent or other platforms. But it also found that users are increasingly likely to obtain that same content via over the air antennas (75 percent) or legitimate streaming services like Netflix (55 percent). "In short, the reason people are moving away from piracy is that it's simply more hassle than it's worth," says Vocus Group NZ executive Taryn Hamilton said in a statement. "The research confirms something many internet pundits have long instinctively believed to be true: piracy isn't driven by law-breakers, it's driven by people who can't easily or affordably get the content they want," she said.
I mean, I'm one of the unfortunate people who ran a BBS back in the late 80's and early 90's who got raided by Federal agents over copyright violation accusations. (Ultimately, they just wound up sitting on all my equipment for over a year, keeping it in a storage locker someplace, until deciding to drop the case and return all of it to me. But as we all know with computer gear, a lot of it had already depreciated considerably by then -- so I was left with a lot of stuff I couldn't resell for much of anything.)
But way back THEN, we kept trying to tell everyone who would listen that software piracy was a big waste of time for anyone to chase after and try to prosecute. The SAME people guilty of pirating were the BEST CUSTOMERS or ADVOCATES for buying stuff made by the companies trying to squash it!
For example? One of the "big issues" they had with my BBS was that someone had uploaded a cracked copy of a version of AutoCAD to the "New Uploads" folder. While it's true that's a really expensive piece of software? It's also true that the users on my BBS were mostly kids who could never afford to buy AutoCAD, nor would they ever have a real cost justification to buy it, if they DID have the money. By them pirating it around though, it encouraged some of them to buy a book on how to use it, and they spent some time learning the application. That, in turn, means there's a whole self-taught generation of people who could grow up to work for companies who DO legitimately buy the software, the maintenance agreements, and all of the upgrades and add-ons for it. That's a big win for AutoDesk, whether they admit it or not! Those people aren't going to be happy if the company buys a competitor's CAD product. They want the one they're comfortable with!
When you challenge most software firms with this kind of logic, they typically turn around and give a lecture on there being a "right and a wrong way" to go about learning their products -- perhaps throwing in the fact that they sell "student versions" much cheaper for students. And you know? That's all true, technically. If you're purely a "letter of the law" and "show no mercy" type, I guess there's your answer? But I bet the "pirates" on BBS's like mine, back then, OFTEN got a career in I.T. or in using one or more of these business apps thanks to having a way to download it for free, on their own terms, to use on their own PC, on their own schedule. And it just wouldn't have ever happened if you expected them to opt to pursue it in college (when they're already cramming their brains full of other course content they need to get through to graduate).