The cost of piracy

[stratman]

A new study published on Wednesday gives sobering numbers regarding content piracy in the U.S. The study conducted by The Institute for Policy Innovation, a pro business think tank, showed the damage done by pirating to authors, employees, the economy and the government.

1. The US economy loses 58 billion dollars annually.

2. U.S. workers lose 373,375 jobs.

3. U.S. workers lose 16.3 billion in earnings annually, including 7.2 billion in earnings from workers in the copyright industry or "downstream" retail industries and 9.1 billion by workers in other related U.S. industries.

4. The U.S. government loses at least 2.6 billion in tax revenues annually, including 1.8 billion in personal income tax and another 800 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.

No matter what your opinion is on copyrights, it does make a huge impact.

 

[patnshan]

Thanks for the post. I did some looking into the IPI. They are one of the most conservative organizations around.

There is no doubt piracy costs money, but studies from a partisan organization saying they are non-partisan are suspect in my book. For me, the question is who's money does it cost? Mostly the folks who support the IPI according to their "study".

Pat

 

[stratman]

I got the information from Content Agenda, an information source for all things electronic including market trends and business practices. As for the political bent of the study, it wasn't mentioned, as CA is politically neutral. As for the numbers they are bothersome nonetheless.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I got the information from Content Agenda, an information source for all things electronic including market trends and business practices. As for the political bent of the study, it wasn't mentioned, as CA is politically neutral. As for the numbers they are bothersome nonetheless.

Yes, it is bothersome. Is this piracy in the US only, or includes piracy of US material world wide?

 

[davidtwotrees]

Is this referring to downloading and sharing, or selling bootlegged dvds and cd's that look original but aren't?

 

[stratman]

Yes, it is bothersome. Is this piracy in the US only, or includes piracy of US material world wide?

According to the article it's U.S. based statistics only, not external.

 

[stratman]

Is this referring to downloading and sharing, or selling bootlegged dvds and cd's that look original but aren't?

All of the above.

 

[jinjuku]

I can speak personally to the effects of piracy. After 4 1/2 years our current build of management software that we write was cracked and distributed recently.

For the past 9 years we experienced 15-20% year on year growth. A great manageable growth rate. After that we stagnated. We spent literally 100's of hours rewriting the security wrapper, regression testing and then getting all our clients updated to the new protected build. We are even writing a management app for a totally unrelated industry to get some of the missing revenue flowing again.

Now that the exposed binary is no longer available for d/l from our website we are hoping that we will only be affected by this for about another year. Eventually the old binary will become hard to find in the wild.

I am sure most of the a-holes on slashdot will be foaming at the mouth about this report and moaning about how information is supposed to be free and intellectual property laws are so 1900's

I think copyright is too far in favor of the content holders personally.

 

[Audioholics]

Lies, damn lies... and statistics. It seems like they would have had to have taken all the estimated Chinese/Asian losses and lumped them into a US-based figure. No way 1 in every 1000 people loses a job due to piracy.

 

[Adam]

No way 1 in every 1000 people loses a job due to piracy.

Ahhh, it's the old economic cascade. Jimmy loses his job to piracy, so he can't spend money around town. So, the places where he used to buy stuff lose business. Get enough people like Jimmy, and now other people are losing jobs. Butterfly flaps its wings, and all.

Yeah, it's late. I'm babbling.

 

[wire]

Lies, damn lies... and statistics. It seems like they would have had to have taken all the estimated Chinese/Asian losses and lumped them into a US-based figure. No way 1 in every 1000 people loses a job due to piracy.

I agree
Seems like Propagnda to me . Anyhow , how are you gonna stop the Blackmarket , its everywhere in every industy in every country of the world , its just part of Humanity and always been there .

 

[jinjuku]

Lies, damn lies... and statistics. It seems like they would have had to have taken all the estimated Chinese/Asian losses and lumped them into a US-based figure. No way 1 in every 1000 people loses a job due to piracy.

Clint, if this keeps up with us, some one is going to be out of a job...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Lies, damn lies... and statistics. It seems like they would have had to have taken all the estimated Chinese/Asian losses and lumped them into a US-based figure. No way 1 in every 1000 people loses a job due to piracy.

Let's do a survey here. Don't we have at least 1000 people? Let's see if anyone here on Audioholics has lost his job due to "Piracy".

 

[GlocksRock]

I haven't... and I think those numbers are overinflated. I think that some people wouldn't even buy the things they pirate if they couldn't pirate them, so the way I see it, that really isn't lost revenue, since it wouldn't have ever been a sale to begin with. Some people pirate music, movies, software, etc... just because they can get it for free, but wouldn't be willing to pay for it.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Some people pirate music, movies, software, etc... just because they can get it for free, but wouldn't be willing to pay for it.

Good point. Most people who collect movies want the BEST quality, not some pirated copies. Those pirated copies are watch-and-throw-away copies. If those movies were great, people would have bought the original Collector's, Ultimate, or Unrated Editions.

 

[GlocksRock]

I think another reason for these outrageous numbers is so that they can go to gov. officials and make piracy look like it's out of control and ask them to pass more laws... of course we all know that passing more laws wont' do any good, as law breakers don't care about the law anyway.

 

[stratman]

Apparently the study will be presented to the government and it's making waves in the entertainment industry, check this link on NBC's CEO take on it, it actually is pretty eye opening and a little scary. Big Brother is likely to start really paying attention now.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-nbcus-ceo-piracy-is-the-new-face-of-economic-crime-and-we-are-losing.html

If there's aproblem with the link hit their home page and look for NBCU's CEO for the story.

 

[jinjuku]

I agree, the laws on the books currently help infringed companies and individuals with people that do pirate. We are in a suit currently with someone that pirated our software. There are piracy, theft by conversion, and copyright infringement statutes that serve their purpose.

You guys wanted to survey 1000 people. So I am letting you know that it is out there. We are part of the stats in the O.P.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Butterfly flaps its wings, and all.
.

Yes, you can measure it in the lab, most likely. Out in nature, it gets gobbled up and masked, like good many parts of music is masked

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

Jimmy loses his job to piracy, so he can't spend money around town. So, the places where he used to buy stuff lose business. Get enough people like Jimmy, and now other people are losing jobs. Butterfly flaps its wings, and all.

Hey.... I know that dewd!! He lost his job at All American Burger on Sunset Blvd!!

....but I thought he got fired because he told a customer that he wuz gunna kick 100% of his @ss.

His name was Jimmy Crack Corn....or was it Brad Hamilton?