Web "piracy" Is Good For The Major Studios - Study Result!

[threegee]

When you are suffering those annoying legal threats that you can't skip over, on content you've already paid-for, recall this:-

Study Shows MegaUpload Had Positive Effect

"Our counterintuitive finding may suggest support for the theoretical perspective of (social) network effects where file-sharing acts as a mechanism to spread information about a good from consumers with zero or low willingness to pay to users with high willingness to pay,” reads the report.

The pair also writes that the information-sharing aspect of piracy (or word-of-mouth nature of it) is actually a good thing for those smaller movies who may not have such a large advertising budget

So surprise surprise, all the nonsense about depriving the rightful owners of essential revenue is total BS. The only people to benefit from dragging casual downloading "pirates" through the courts are lawyers!

The full report can be downloaded from here.

[Malcolm Robinson]

Well box office records cannot be broken time after time if everyone is downloading illegally????????????

[keith lockey]

I don't download films or music but I can understand the point of view of someone who has bought the vinyl record in the 60's or 70's and goes on Limewire or something and downloads it from a file sharing site to put on his hard drive. Why not? He has already bought the record so why should he go out and buy the CD. Why not take your vinyl to a shop and do a swap, record for CD, otherwise you are buying something you already bought years before.

[Malcolm Robinson]

That would be one of the main points of the exercise wouldn't it Keef? Buy what they have already sold you again and again every-time a new format comes out.

[keith lockey]

That would be one of the main points of the exercise wouldn't it Keef? Buy what they have already sold you again and again every-time a new format comes out.

They get away with it on CD's by adding additional tracks - not previously heard. The reason there have not been heard is because they are rubbish and were rejected from the album when it first came out. I bought Justin Hayward's first solo LP (vinyl) then bought the CD because of additional tracks. I felt cheated because the added tracks were below standard, in fact they were banal. You could have the same argument about VHS & DVD. Why should I buy a DVD when I already bought the video years before. But then they tease you with the director's cut, followed by extended version followed by blu ray. It's a con, that's all, and they are raking money in. So I can understand the reason for piracy and file sharing, right or wrong.

Edited January 14, 2013 by keith lockey

[threegee]

Well box office records cannot be broken time after time if everyone is downloading illegally????????????

They will say that's because of anti-piracy measures - which is a total nonsense! There will always be people who will strongly resist paying, many because they simply can't feed their habit through legal means (notice any parallels here?), but the vast majority of people acknowledge that production costs need to be paid and they need to tip in something, even if it's only by way of a TV licence.

The solution is to embrace the technology and make it far easier for people to contribute something, not to attempt to criminalise a huge section of the population. Instead of wasting my time being forced to view legal threats (and putting me in a bloody-minded mood) on something I already shelled out for at the supermarket, why don't they set up a website to collect a small sum post-viewing for people who watched something that they didn't acquire through normal channels? Some sort of tiny reward - like discount codes off legal purchases - could be attached, as an acknowledgement of you doing the right thing. It would be an interesting experiment.

Anything which can be viewed or listened to can be recorded - with technology that gets better every year. And sooner or later the material will be released free-to-air anyway for people who refuse to, or can't, pay for it directly. An acknowledgement from the studios that the vast majority of people are honest and will do the right thing (if they make it very easy and aren't too greedy) would be a refreshing development. Maybe in the coming world of micropayments???

[mercuryg]

Interesting subject. A few years ago Radiohead opted to release one of their albums as a digital download. The price was, as they put it, what the buyer was willing to pay. They were surprised at how much peopel paid when they could have opted for a few pennies.

[keith lockey]

Somebody actually paid money to listen to Radiohead!!!! They should pay the public money for the displeasure.

[mercuryg]

Somebody actually paid money to listen to Radiohead!!!! They should pay the public money for the displeasure.

There is nothing wrong with Radiohead; one of the most innovative bands of the last couple of decades. of course, you're an old-timer, still tripping out to Hawkwind, I bet!

[keith lockey]

There is nothing wrong with Radiohead; one of the most innovative bands of the last couple of decades. of course, you're an old-timer, still tripping out to Hawkwind, I bet!

You'd be surprised at what I like, Merc'. Linkin Park, some of Muse (not all!). I basically like what I like and unfortunately radiohead isn't one that inspires me. But for the record, my all time favourite songs are Is your love strong enough - Bryan Ferry & Goodnight travel well - The Killers. (It is the only Killers song I like - the rest of their stuff is rubbish.) But I do tend to listen to a lot of 70's & 80s stuff.

[Brett]

The problem here is the same problem with Blockbuster and HMV. The industry and the aforementioned companies are partly responsible for their own demise. The entire industry is living in the past and the request for physical media has declined drastically since the introduction of online digital formats.

Then the release of streaming services such as Last.fm, netflix and spotify have seen the demise of people actually having to leave the house to pay over the odds to rent a DVD, which may or may not work depending on the scratches on the disc, for two

The RIAA/MPAA have wasted billions of pounds chasing people in an inevitable losing battle. What is also inevitable is that the real pirates are the least likely people to be caught as they are taking the necessary precautions to avoid it. You're more likely to catch the average Joe Bloggs for downloading the latest Now album from The Pirate Bay than a real pirate. (They're all off in Somalia robbing boats)

And to support the fact that the lawyers are the only people getting rich from the whole affair.....anyone remember a certain Andrew Crossley?

Andrew Crossley, the sole solicitor of the now defunct ACS Law, was banned from practising law for two years and charged costs at a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in London today.

Crossley's firm infamously sent letters to alleged illegal file-sharers on behalf of a pornography rights firm, demanding recipients pay hundreds of pounds to avoid going to court, as part of what has since come to be called "speculative invoicing".

http://www.pcpro.co....citor-suspended

On 21 September 2010, the website of ACS:Law was subjected to a DDoS attack suspected to be coordinated by online group Anonymous as part of Operation Payback. When asked about the attacks, Crossley said: "It was only down for a few hours. I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish."^[19][20]

When the site came back online, a 350MB file which was a backup of the site was visible to anyone for a short period of time. The backup, which included copies of emails sent by the firm, was downloaded and made available as a torrent.^[21][22] Some of the emails contained unencrypted Excel spreadsheets, listing the names and addresses of people that ACS:Law had accused of illegally sharing media. One contained over 5,300 Sky broadband customers whom they had accused of illegally sharing pornography,^[23][24] while another contained the details of 8,000 Sky customers and 400 Plusnet customers accused of infringing the copyright on music by sharing it on peer-to-peer networks.^[25] This alleged breach of the Data Protection Act became part of an investigation into ACS:Law by the Information Commissioner's Office.^[26]

In May 2011, ACS:Law was fined £1000 for the privacy breach, with the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham commenting: "Were it not for the fact that ACS:Law has ceased trading so that Mr Crossley now has limited means, a monetary penalty of £200,000 would have been imposed, given the severity of the breach." Graham criticised ACS:Law for having computer security measures that "were barely fit for purpose in a person's home environment, let alone a business handling such sensitive details." The consumer group Which? described the £1000 fine as "paltry".^[27]

[keith lockey]

You're right, Brett, but a key factor in Internet shopping, file sharing, etc is ready availability. I can travel all the way to HMV in Newcastle to try to get a CD or DVD and find they haven't got it. I can sit at the computer and go on Amazon and order it straight away and get it cheaper and it can be through my letterbox within days. But, again, my main point regarding file-sharing is that I don't see why I have to pay for a remixed CD when I have already bought the vinyl many years before. I mean can you imagine some has-been rocker from the sixtes who is down and out when suddenly CDs come along and everyone starts back-ordering his/her old stuff and they find they are raking it in. Well sorry, but can I have a refund on the vinyl LP I bought all those years ago!! I replaced over 60 LPs in my record collection and that's a lot of money. Then you get David Bowie coming along with a new album and single - which he has kept miraculously from the media - and he is laughing all the way to the bank. That guy has one shrewd business head on him. I can readily understand how and why people download file-sharing stuff off the Internet, especially those who are skint and can't afford the remixed CD of the Vinyl they already have.

Edited January 17, 2013 by keith lockey

[Brett]

You're right, Brett, but a key factor in Internet shopping, file sharing, etc is ready availability. I can travel all the way to HMV in Newcastle to try to get a CD or DVD and find they haven't got it. I can sit at the computer and go on Amazon and order it straight away and get it cheaper and it can be through my letterbox within days. But, again, my main point regarding file-sharing is that I don't see why I have to pay for a remixed CD when I have already bought the vinyl many years before. I mean can you imagine some has-been rocker from the sixtes who is down and out when suddenly CDs come along and everyone starts back-ordering his/her old stuff and they find they are raking it in. Well sorry, but can I have a refund on the vinyl LP I bought all those years ago!! I replaced over 60 LPs in my record collection and that's a lot of money. Then you get David Bowie coming along with a new album and single - which he has kept miraculously from the media - and he is laughing all the way to the bank. That guy has one shrewd business head on him. I can readily understand how and why people download file-sharing stuff off the Internet, especially those who are skint and can't afford the remixed CD of the Vinyl they already have.

At the end of the day, if you are happy with your vinyl then that is up to you.

You don't have to buy the newer formats if you are happy with your gramophone.......the same people complaining that artists are releasing their back catalogue on newer formats and costing them a fortune are the ones complaining that the youth of today don't know what real music is!

You can't have it both ways unfortunately. If artists want their music to appeal to the younger generations and hold some kind of legacy then it would be self inflicted suicide if they didn't do this. It also allows them to continue making money which is essentially what professional musicians and artists need to do to continue making money.

I recently bought an album from Bandcamp which had a minimum price of £5 but I offered £20 as I felt it was well worth the money. This was the same facility which Radiohead used to release their In Rainbows album.

You walk a fine line between commercialism and elitism which the artists don't have any control over as all of the power is in the hands of the buyer.

Coincide this with Panasonic's decision to discontinue the worlds most popular Technics turntable and you have an older generation in turmoil about the internet and modern pop culture being the downfall of music as we know it.

All in all, the decisions lie with the people spending the money and vinyl is just too damn expensive for the modern day music listener.

[Maggie/915]

There are towns where people are encouraged to be the disc jockey and play seven seven inch records.

Old records are still relevant,skateboarding has many videos or DVD that are set to an older play list, music spans the generations in any format. Web piracy is just a detail.ENJOY

[threegee]

And yet another report, this time from no less a body than the European Commission.

...digital music piracy does not displace legal music purchases in digital format. This means that although there is trespassing of private property rights (copyrights), there is unlikely to be much harm done on digital music revenues.

In fact this report also says that there is a small but measurable boost in revenues. The "anti-piracy" people of course will have none of this because if it's shown that their criminalising kiddies is to no purpose, then there's no justification for their organisations or their jobs.