One fallacy, I think, of anti piracy arguments is that a lot of them seem to assume that if I’m unable to pirate something I’m going to pay for it instead rather than going “oh! that’s a terrible shame” and then quickly forgetting about it
“If you were not pirating [media] you’d be paying for it and therefore piracy is evil 😡” actually if I were not pirating that media I would be thinking about something else. I have made the decision to not spend any money on this and even god himself could not shake it
the research on this was already done decades ago and then quickly squashed because the record labels did not like the finding that people who pirated music were spending way more money on actually buying music legally than people who did not pirate music. it turns out people who care enough to pirate media are generally big fans of that media and willing to spend money on it if they have the money to spend
article is from 2009 so we have known this for a LONG time.
The Norwegian study looked at almost 2,000 online music users, all over the age of 15. Researchers found that those who downloaded “free” music – whether from lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music. This would make music pirates the industry’s largest audience for digital sales.
Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates’ honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase.
As someone who is WAY too into movies and has a reasonable amount of disposable income… I never stopped pirating because some movies I want to watch are simply NOT AVAILABLE TO BUY OR RENT. There is nobody to exchange dollars to in order to put it in my hand, it’s just stopped being distributed. No streaming service picked it up. Piracy is the only thing keeping it alive and in circulation.
The various studies have found ONE area where piracy actually affects sales: The first few weeks that a movie is in the theaters. If it’s widely available digitally, that notably cuts into box-office sales.
…Later, it doesn’t matter.
Music piracy is strongly tied to bigger purchases.
Ebook piracy is so tiny there are no studies about its economic effects. There’s ranting about how many unauthorized downloads there are, and publishers who refuse to renew contracts based on finding pirate ebooks available - but nothing about how ebook piracy actually cuts into ebook profits in the industry as a whole.
There’s claims that the industry loses over $300 million/year due to piracy. This claim is shared everywhere - based on a 2017 report by digimarc, which includes no source data - and it assumes that every unauthorized download is a missing full-price sale instead of “if I can’t read that one, I’ll read something else.” (And that’s aside from the bundle downloads where someone was only interested in one title and will never look at the others again.)
The piracy will continue at least until publishers sort out how to allow used ebooks. Which they could do - DRM could let you transfer ownership of an ebook from your device to someone else’s - but they don’t want to; many publishers opt out of Kindle’s “two week lending, no more than twice” program, much less letting people actually give their books away.
…Nobody became an avid reader by reading full-price books of which they were the original owner. They borrowed books. They were given books other people had already read. They found abandoned books and read those.
Imagine someone saying “Oh I have these books on my shelf in case I want to re-read them, but I would never let anyone else read them.” Imagine if someone bought a book or two a week, and then threw them in the shredder when they were done reading them.
Book culture is a sharing culture. And publishers have been trying to stop that for over a century, and they want ebooks to be their perfect “one purchase = one reader” system.
If they want to reduce ebook piracy, they need to figure out how to let teens give each other the book they’re finished reading. How to let teachers buy a few copies a year to give out to students who seem interested. How to put a stack of ebooks on the office “Share Books” digital shelf for anyone to pick up.
Because right now, the story is “you can’t even leave your ebooks to your heirs in your will.” And it doesn’t matter what kind of sophistry they use to justify this claim… the end result is going to be, “well, then people are going to share books without their permission.” Just like they’ve always done.
This is why fat shaming can have tragic consequences.
If this sort of weight-based medical bias happens to any of y'all, politely tell the doctor (during your visit) that you want them to write in your file that they are refusing ordering tests for you because of your current weight. This usually causes them to order the test anyways because they do NOT want a malpractice suit. Remember: You want to make a paper trail to hold them accountable.
guy who turns into a glass of milk when he gets angry and girl who turns into a plate of cookies when she’s upset having a bitter argument with each other next to the chimney on christmas eve at 11:59 pm
If you want to write a dumb little story with a dumb little plot and ridiculously silly characters. No one’s stopping you. Genuinely, no one should be allowed to stop you. Write that dumb story with your whole heart and don’t hold back.
ok the dumb little story turned into a lot of work why does this always happen
