Megaupload closed down by the Feds.

Mise said:

The thing is, I'm quite in favour of IP rights over innovative products and technologies, and protecting IP generators from companies ripping off their ideas. I want to ensure that intellectual property rights are well protected, so that innovative firms and individuals can continue to generate new ideas and profit from them. The profit motive is a powerful one, and protecting IP in technology is important. The world needs more innovative products like iPads or cancer drugs. If piracy killed innovative firms like Apple or GSK, that would be a disaster.

However, I really don't give a rat's ass about the Film or Music industry. Does the world really need another Justin Beiber? If piracy killed Universal or Warner, that would be a minor inconvenience.

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At times I wonder how much issue would be solved if they made a law saying you could not sue for more than what you would have actually lost. For example if someone downloads an MP3 that is not available as a single or something, sue them the cost of to purchase the album. If someone takes music for an advertisement (or makes a suspiciously similar song that's clearly a ripoff), sue them for the default cost it would be to license the song. I think this would cut down on a lot of silly lawsuits where a record label sues some kid for a couple million because he downloaded 5 tracks.

The world needs more innovative products like iPads or cancer drugs.

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Except Ipad is crap and cancer drugs developed by companies are closely guarded secrets. Only a few labs have recently started sharing their work with everyone and they are not privately held. (saw it on a TED talk)

Piracy is not incorrect as a whole, and combating crony capitalism is well worth proliferating media. I wish I could pirate material things, like gasoline and food...

Mise said:

The thing is, I'm quite in favour of IP rights over innovative products and technologies, and protecting IP generators from companies ripping off their ideas. I want to ensure that intellectual property rights are well protected, so that innovative firms and individuals can continue to generate new ideas and profit from them. The profit motive is a powerful one, and protecting IP in technology is important. The world needs more innovative products like iPads or cancer drugs. If piracy killed innovative firms like Apple or GSK, that would be a disaster.

However, I really don't give a rat's ass about the Film or Music industry. Does the world really need another Justin Beiber? If piracy killed Universal or Warner, that would be a minor inconvenience, and I don't see why so much money and legislation is dedicated to preserving their business models.

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That all sounds well and good, but there is no hard data supporting the argument that piracy has had any significant impact on inovation in any industry whatsoever. In fact there isn't even any data that piracy has hindered inovation at all. Decreased revenue is not supporting data either since despite decreased revenue the entertainment industry is still plugging along just fine.

Piracy has never, and will never impact an industry so much that the industry ceases to function. Basically, digital piracy is a non-issue that has been blown ridiculously out of proportion.

I'm not so sure. If a lot of software are copied, meaning the industry make a lot less legal sales, they need to keep relatively high prices.
Let say for each legal copy of a software there are 9 illegal copies, and the software is sold 100 $. The company is doing OK, the sales are enough to pay the employees and invest.
But if our of the 9 illegal copies, 2 guys decided to buy legal copies, then the company would increase the revenue by 200%, and we could hope the price would drop by 75% (since most of the development cost are already covered by the first copy, any extra copy is almost just pure benefits).
So you'd get the software at 25 $.
On the opposite, perhaps the illegal copies are made because customers find 100 $ is too expensive, but if the cost was 25 $ then they would buy it legally.

So I think piracy doesn't really hurt the industry, since they would adjust the prices to compensate, but it hurts legal customers who pay more than they should.

Solving the issue should be done differently, by reducing the cost of software significantly so legal copies are much more affordable, people won't feel compelled as much to use pirated copies, more copies are sold, it compensate for the reduced cost.

But starting this virtuous cycle is difficult.

Steph said:

I'm not so sure. If a lot of software are copied, meaning the industry make a lot less legal sales, they need to keep relatively high prices.
Let say for each legal copy of a software there are 9 illegal copies, and the software is sold 100 $. The company is doing OK, the sales are enough to pay the employees and invest.
But if our of the 9 illegal copies, 2 guys decided to buy legal copies, then the company would increase the revenue by 200%, and we could hope the price would drop by 75% (since most of the development cost are already covered by the first copy, any extra copy is almost just pure benefits).
So you'd get the software at 25 $.
On the opposite, perhaps the illegal copies are made because customers find 100 $ is too expensive, but if the cost was 25 $ then they would buy it legally.

So I think piracy doesn't really hurt the industry, since they would adjust the prices to compensate, but it hurts legal customers who pay more than they should.

Solving the issue should be done differently, by reducing the cost of software significantly so legal copies are much more affordable, people won't feel compelled as much to use pirated copies, more copies are sold, it compensate for the reduced cost.

But starting this virtuous cycle is difficult.

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That is a logical argument and it would make sense to any reasonable person, but corporations have shown time and time again that they are anything but reasonable. They blame piracy for the high price of their products, but how do they explain the fact that products have always been overpriced even without piracy?

The point you raised about people pirating because they can't afford it is exactly why people pirate. For example: Someone may need a lot of software for their classes that they're starting up and the school makes students purchase it themselves. A lot of that software costs several hundred dollars each and financial aid may not cover that expense. So what's that person's solution? They would pirate every last one of them. Now if the companies that produced them wouldn't be so damn greedy and priced their product reasonably, people would have no problem reaching into their pockets to pay for them.

People might also pirate if they bought a piece of software and lost the disk and didn't have it installed on their computer. Instead of repurchasing it (which they shouldn't have to do since they already bought the rights to use it) they will just get a pirated version of it.

The bottom line is that software pirates are nowhere near being the shady profiteer theives the RIAA makes them out to be. They are just normal people trying to experience a culture that has become a little too expensive for the common man to enjoy.

Yes, Steph, but that only applies in Europe and other developed countries.

Here, in the '90s the peso was pegged to the dollar on a 1-to-1 basis. A single Adobe Photoshop license can cost $600 or even more. At the time, that was higher than many people's salaries. Salaries and prices have risen since, and the peso's been devalued to an official rate of 4.33 to 1 or an unofficial rate of nearly 5 to 1. There you go, 2600 pesos for a piece of software. No student can afford it so you either pirate it (most teachers' recommendation) or make do with another program that you can get for free such as free ware, free software or getting limited shareware versions and renewing them every couple of weeks after wiping all traces of your current one.

Guess which they choose? It's either that or not work. What'll a small startup do? It can be a month of rent to pay for a single program which they may have to renew after some time and/or when a newer version comes along.

My point exactly. Instead of selling it 2600 pesos to virtually no one (let say 1,000 people) if it is always pirated, what if they made iit 260 ? Would it be bought by 100,000 people?
I have the impression they have high prices because they know it will be bought by very few people and count on small number of sales to keep afloat. And as its expensive, few buy it. And so they have to sell it for a high price, and....

Steph said:

My point exactly. Instead of selling it 2600 pesos to virtually no one (let say 1,000 people) if it is always pirated, what if they made iit 260 ? Would it be bought by 100,000 people?
I have the impression they have high prices because they know it will be bought by very few people and count on small number of sales to keep afloat. And as its expensive, few buy it. And so they have to sell it for a high price, and....

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In theory, but there will always be people who want something for nothing.

The way I see it, if you pirate a software, decide you don't like it, then uninstall and get rid of it, no gain or loss by anyone, you just wanted to try it first.

If you try it, like it, but cannot afford it, that happens. Buying a legit copy when you can is just basically a lien with no interest.

If you grab a copy, can afford it, but refuse to buy it, you've not only hindered the company (albeit slightly), you've also hindered yourself and all other owners (pirated and bought). If the sales of an application suck, then the company has less incentive to create new products or improve on existing ones.

Steph said:

My point exactly. Instead of selling it 2600 pesos to virtually no one (let say 1,000 people) if it is always pirated, what if they made iit 260 ? Would it be bought by 100,000 people?
I have the impression they have high prices because they know it will be bought by very few people and count on small number of sales to keep afloat. And as its expensive, few buy it. And so they have to sell it for a high price, and....

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Recently, I've seen a lot of Russia-only (for example) versions of their products that are sold way cheaper than in the US.

contre said:

Recently, I've seen a lot of Russia-only (for example) versions of their products that are sold way cheaper than in the US.

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I'm thinking these are actually pirated copies being sold due to remembering a certain Russian mp3 site that sold mp3s for as little as 5c apiece. Turns out they were just selling illegit copies.

cardgame said:

I'm thinking these are actually pirated copies being sold due to remembering a certain Russian mp3 site that sold mp3s for as little as 5c apiece. Turns out they were just selling illegit copies.

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No, I mean like Starcraft 2 having a cheaper version in Russia, but only being validated by battle.net from within Russia. Steam sells stuff cheaper in Russia as well, though it's limited to Russia.

aimeeandbeatles said:

At times I wonder how much issue would be solved if they made a law saying you could not sue for more than what you would have actually lost. For example if someone downloads an MP3 that is not available as a single or something, sue them the cost of to purchase the album. If someone takes music for an advertisement (or makes a suspiciously similar song that's clearly a ripoff), sue them for the default cost it would be to license the song. I think this would cut down on a lot of silly lawsuits where a record label sues some kid for a couple million because he downloaded 5 tracks.

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Has anyone a comment on mine? I was wondering if it turned invisible this post.

aimeeandbeatles said:

Has anyone a comment on mine? I was wondering if it turned invisible this post.

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There needs to be a penalty fine attached. Else, there's absolutely no reason to ever buy anything. If you're caught pirating, the worst that can happen is you only pay retail?

So cost + penalty + legal fees seems reasonable.

Well not such a ridiculous penalty like a few million. Maybe more like $50-100 which is annoying. Legal fees also make sense as long as the place does not choose the most expensive lawyer.

Don't sell the software, sell the service and support and convenience and security to the paying users. Simple solution.

Some software might not get made that way? Tough luck. Far better outcome than putting up with draconian legislation which will grant scary discretionary powers to some appointed enforcers of IP. And still fail at preventing the "pirating". Thus making those discretionary powers even more valuable, because they can be selectively used against any chosen enemy of the people wielding those powers...

Far better outcome also because software gets more used this way, thus avoiding waste caused by the artificial scarcity which copyright still manages to cause. (actually, this is the same reasoning as that of the argument against tolls in highways...)

This quote comes from a very intelligent but not-very-technically-inclined person:

The record companies are having this problem with people stealing music off the computers because music costs too much..

I think $18, $20 for a CD is more than the average person's got to lay out. I know they discount them in the stores more and more. I think it's a great thing if they can bring the price down.

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Steph said:

My point exactly. Instead of selling it 2600 pesos to virtually no one (let say 1,000 people) if it is always pirated, what if they made iit 260 ? Would it be bought by 100,000 people?
I have the impression they have high prices because they know it will be bought by very few people and count on small number of sales to keep afloat. And as its expensive, few buy it. And so they have to sell it for a high price, and....

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260 pesos is still a lot of money, how much would $60 be for the Yanks? You need an even lower price to lure people back into legality, because a whole black market has sprung up, some people take the time to crack a program pro bono publico.