Granted, movies and CDs are different beasts, but this at least suggests that piracy does not really impact profits to the degree companies think. In my estimation, people will spend so much per year on CDs and movies regardless of how much they pirate. So they steal some free shit. Big deal. The shit they steal is not really stuff they would have spent money on had they not been able to pirate it.
I do think that pirating is a form of theft. However, the impact of this theft is blown way out of proportion. In fact, with the music industry, there are also some benefits to many artists whose material is pirated (gain wider exposure, sell concert tickets, opportunity to sample before buying, etc.). The bigger an artist gets, the more the company can earn with them down the road.
Just some thoughts.
--Previous Message--
: With LimeWire officially shutting down following its (totally
: expected) legal loss earlier this year, you might have though
: the case was totally over. However, the record labels quickly
: claimed that with the loss, LimeWire should have to pay a
: billion dollars, which seemed a bit extreme. In typical RIAA
: fashion, the labels didn't feel like they should have to prove
: any damages at all, but that the judge should just order
: statutory rates. However, LimeWire asked the judge to have the
: record labels actually prove their losses - and, somewhat
: stunningly - it appears the judge has agreed, despite the record
: labels' claim that trying to prove damages would represent a
: "crushing burden":
:
: "On Tuesday, Judge Freeman said tough noogies, with some
: interesting language written in the margins of a court-endorsed
: memo to the parties. She scribbled - barely legible - that
: LimeWire should enjoy enough discovery to mount a defense on the
: damages issue. Both LimeWire and the labels must pick 100 works
: - 80 songs and 20 albums - that each believes to be
: representative of the damage (real or not) that file-sharing has
: on the record companies. In addition, 100 more works - another
: 80 songs and 20 albums - will be selected at random."
:
: It's not entirely clear, from there, how each side will go about
: showing damages, but it is interesting that the plan seems to be
: to look for empirical evidence to determine actual damages. I'm
: really surprised by this - since my understanding was that with
: statutory rates, the whole idea was that the copyright holder
: never had to bother proving any actual damage (something I
: disagree with - but it's what I thought the law said...). Either
: way, it certainly would be nice if there were some reasonable
: data to work with, so this should be worth following.
:
:
Message Thread
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