PROOF: The War on Piracy Is a Complete Failure
Back in October, Napster co-creator and investor Sean Parker argued that in order to accept Spotify as a business model, you first must accept that "the war on piracy is failure." According to a new Danish study, which echoes his sentiments, 7 out 10 participants questioned – i.e. 70% – felt, to a greater or lesser degree, that piracy is socially acceptable. A minority of just over 30% of the respondents indicated that they feel piracy is completely unacceptable.
"When questioned for a 1997 study on whether it was acceptable to use pirate software, the same proportion – 3 out of 10 – said the activity was unacceptable," enigmax at TorrentFreak says. In other words, despite global anti-piracy efforts, for a decade now, people remain unmoved. They still see piracy as acceptable.
It looks like industry trade groups and labels aren't making much progress…
The study contains another interesting tidbit: “When questioned on whether it is acceptable to download something and then sell it to a friend for profit, 3 out of 4 said that would be completely unacceptable.”
That doesn’t exactly bode well for Redigi (http://www.redigi.com).
Interesting study but I wouldn’t expect any different behaviors from my generation.
It’s interesting the way things are phrased in this post.
“… despite global anti-piracy efforts, for a decade now, people remain unmoved. They still see piracy as acceptable.”
This is patently untrue. No one sees piracy as acceptable. The trouble here is that people don’t see file-sharing as piracy.
In their mind, they are doing what they’ve always done. Shared music with their friends and fellow fans. It’s just that now, instead of taking the time to make a mix tape, they use the current technology to share.
Ironically, that’s what copyright used to be about. Keeping someone from profiting from your Intellectual Property. Not keeping out of the hands of the public.
It just shows that if you push laws too far (where the general public doesn’t have a chance to weigh in) those laws will be ignored.
It’s pretty ridiculous! “File-Sharing” is CRAZY! The fact that you can get copies of books, comics, music, television shows, and movies for free is weird. This is coming from someone who grew up in a world without Internet. I think what allows people not to feel guilty about it is:
1) They are taking from people who they’ve never met. Most people would never take from someone they know or met in person, but faceless identities hold less or no meaning to the same consumers.
2) File-sharers make excuses like we all do to do what they want. It’s easy to think, “Well I wasn’t going to ever pay to see that film anyway.” or “The major labels have been ripping off fans for years, so I’m owed.”
3) There has to be a link to the increased amount of file-sharing and the economy. Less work and jobs means less money to spend on frivolous entertainment which there is just SO much of now.
Free album download at http://www.facebook.com/chancius
The only thing that comes to mind when I read articles like this, especially from such distinguished, high level blogs as Hypebot, is – Are we still on this “Piracy / File Sharing” thing?
Let it go. This subject, along with the “Death of the Music Industry” needs to be put to rest! It’s like reading decade old, re-hashed garbage day after day.
I view Hypebot as the E.F. Hutton of the music industry. When you speak, everybody listens. Unfortunately, this “will she / won’t she” crap takes away from well researched solutions for the future of the industry.
Just my humble opinion. 🙂
Is it really “crazy!”?
People aren’t getting actual copies of magazines and books. They’re getting virtual copies… and while we as content creators don’t see a difference, consumers certainly do.
After all, most people wouldn’t steal a car – but if they could walk up to a car with a magic computer mouse and click on it, almost instantly making a copy of the car without the original owner ever even knowing about it, would they? I’m betting yes. And that is what is happening now with content that used to be attached to a physical thing.
We work hard putting time, money and effort in the front end of our art hoping to earn it back with sales of copies, but the consumer doesn’t care about that. They never have. All they care about is getting what they want/need at the best price they can get it. It’s called Market Value and it’s what determines what something is worth monetarily, not the artist who created it or the company that made the car.
Agree!!!