How much does piracy really cost companies?

Jan

Jan

Who's the Boss?
Staff member
Joined
May 24, 2010
Messages
14,887
Reaction score
13,573
Location
The Rabbit Hole
What does piracy really cost?

Is piracy really costing companies billions of dollars per year, or is it simply sour grapes from the big software and entertainments companies because they can’t control information flow?

What should companies be doing to protect their property?
 
link to discussion broken on article..

[edit] fixed.
 
I pirated for most of my teens and my early 20's, now I use 90% legit software so the "piracy" was a great advertising campaign. I use MS Office, Windows 7 and XP as well as some other software suites all legit.
 
I also pirated on varsity and all my software is legal now or freeware...
 
Firstly, they may not have the control they did two decades ago over content, but also their ease of exposure through the internet has grown exponentially. People who download content illegally would probably never even heard of said album if it weren't for the very medium they are using to download with. I don't think companies are losing much money, just not making as much as they used to. If they want to change that a totally different approach is needed from the ground up.

I know locally companies need to play catch up. For example iTunes is the largest retailer of music in the US, yet there is nothing available here. After being in the UK I'm used to watching movies, buying new abums and catching my favourite series on the iTunes store, I'm do not even own a CD player or Hi-Fi, so theres no way I'm about to trapse down to the store and buy a disk, never mind petrol, traffic, time. It really is Archaic. I download all of my music, movies and tv shows using torrents and will continue permanently until a change is made. Also the model of 'I have this, now pay me' no longer applies. Money needs to be made in less digital means. Concerts, Merchandise, auxiliary things to the main content. I don't believe companies can ever charge what they were before and will always make less money in the future, that chapter is closed and it's time to move on.
 
Piracy costs nothing, since it is duplicated not stolen.
 
When I was younger I had only a handful of legit games. Now I have a small library and that does not include the games in my Steam library.

I do not pirate games because I can afford to buy them and I am also so busy that I barely have time to play so I am very selective over which games I buy.
 
DreamKing said:
lower their selling prices ..... :p
Click to expand...

Heh. Would that really cause pirates to stop pirating, though? Recently the guys from Wolfire games had a thing going they called the "Humble Indie Bundle" where they sold 5 games and contributed to two charities and you could pay what you wanted. Even $0.01. A relatively conservative estimate puts piracy statistics of that at 25%.

They (and the people in the comments) give four basic scenarios for the statistic:

1. People want to share the bundle with their friends so they make one large donation and share the download link.
2. The payment gateways offered (PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon) might not be available to some people, whether due to country restrictions or not having a credit card or an account at a bank that PayPal supports. They might feel they have no choice but to download the games without paying.
3. There are people that are too lazy to go through the payment process.
4. Some people feel they need to be chronically rebellious.

So the question is... How much of that 25% fall in scenario 3 and 4?
 
Well written article, I like it. Most important part:

Basically this means that while conventional wisdom would state that every download equals a sale lost, the GAO questions that assumption. The logic behind that is if pirates couldn't download the content freely, they would simply do without.

Produce good stuff, we will buy it, produce meager stuff, we wouldn't buy it anyway, but would check it out for free. How does that hurt you? You don't make the profit either way, yet our free word of mouth marketing helps you in long run?
Media consumtion has changed, now the media companies have to accept and embrace that, and soon they will realise they can make profit again. Not like they not making any profit at all. They still release records music and movies sales stats every year. Avatar made more money than any movie ever. wow you guys are soooo hurting.
 
I believe that Series piracy in America should be very low, they can watch the latest episodes as soon as they come out (Or TiVo) them, it only appears on the internet after the broadcast. And in countries like South Africa we have to wait 6 months+ to see that series on TV, wouldn't it be obvious for other countries to then rather pirate series? Why read about everything that happens in a series and only be able to watch it much much later? This is ofcourse only with series...
 
I used to pirate a lot as student, but these days I buy the things that I pirated. Had it not been for a Napster download spree back in 2000 I would probably not have spent R1000s on Depeche Mode DVDs and CDs when I started to earn money.

Another thing that the record companies need to understand VERY quickly is distribution to the client. I have no problem paying R70~R130 for a DVD from Take2, but its such a schlep to wait 4 days and go into the post office to get it. Of that R70~R130 I pay R45 for shipping, Take2 makes a small profit, the company that delivered the DVD to them took a small cut, the warehouse that stored it took a small cut as did the delivery company that took it from the docks to the warehouse. The packaging cost money at various stages too. In the end I doubt that more than R10 of what I paid goes to the original artists. So I just search for the torrent and download it and its there. It is also a crap load less CO2 emissions if I download so I am doing everyone a favour.

Distribution of music and movies needs to change and become not only more green, but less greedy and more instant.
 
Freakboy said:
This comes to mind every time I read that piracy is theft :D
Click to expand...

Yep. I've often pirated stuff, then once i've tried gone out to buy the original. I don't want to buy music and then listen to it and find out I don't like it.
 
Also, many TV companies in the states put up the episode on their own website for streaming the next day. (e.g. Chuck)

Edit: Oops, forgot to quote the msg I was replying to - it was the guy earlier who said Americans wouldn't pirate series cos they get to see them when they come out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X