[Clipart] Piracy Impact Estimates Debunked

[chovynz]

Thanks Greg. Interesting read. Bit of a long blurb below. If you want to 
get to the crutch of what I'm saying then skip the my2cents section.

<my2cents>
The figures are too ridiculus, and it's a hyped up fear-mongered 
"brainwashing" money generating scheme, started from an early age, 
treating consumers as if they were doing something wrong from the outset 
(which in the end only encourages the behaviour), fueled by "we need 
more precioussssssss profitssssssssss" and greed (on both sides of the 
supply and demand.) It's kinda funny, but I think most people actually 
know this somewhere inside of them. That's why there such resistance to 
"anti-piracy" measures, because in some situations, the "piracy" is 
actually a good thing. Many good things have been hit by the flying poo 
"piracy hype", and so became tainted with the "piracy" hype. P2P for 
example has a "bad reputation" because of the fallout from "piracy" 
using that protocol. But in fact, it's like money. P2P is not "evil" nor 
is using it wrong!!! It's just a way of transport, a tool. It's a 
fantastic way of moving large files! It's what you do with it that 
counts, it's what your motivation is for using tool that counts.

See we are playing with morals and ethics, and unless there is a 
plumbline for people to measure up to, those morals and ethics change 
according to each person. Society is made up of lots of people, many 
with a wishy-washy moral code, so society becomes who those people are. 
It's just teh way it works. Get enough people on a particular moral 
side, soon a forbidden practise becomes common (or vice versa), then 
changing society's morals becomes an easy task.

How do you do that? Easy. Hype-up, use peoples greed against them, 
create demand, make them want something they "cannot have - unless you 
do this".

We know this :
"You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't 
steal a computer. Downloading pirated software is stealing. Don't do it!"
This makes many assumptions and false presumptions. Actually, many 
people DO do those things. It's also incorrect to say downloading is 
stealing.

I mean: think about the following statement. Actually LOOK at and READ 
it critically.
" lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit etc"
How can you lose something you never had?

This ladies and gentlemen is the hype. You can't lose a sale that you 
never had. You can lose many customers by assuming everyone who walks in 
the door is a "pirate" and treating them with suspicion and hostility, 
however the decision at the end of teh day, comes down to the consumer 
answering "Do I want to buy this or not?" The thing is that many "sales" 
come from a consumer habit, or coerced decision, or unthinking materialism.

We society have become very good at letting other people make our 
decisions for us.
</my2cents>

One of teh reasons why I like OCAL is that it's a society based on 
trust. Obviously it's foolish to absolutly trust any one person 
completly, however, there is something very precious about the potential 
that OCAL has. THAT is why I do librarian work. THAT is why I strive to 
get copyrighted things out. Not because of fear of DMCA or sue-age or 
"dislike of piracy" , but because this OCAL is a model for the way 
forward, with MANY things, not just clipart.

Imagine what society would be like if we shared our food with each 
other, the same way we share these arts?

Cheers
Chovynz


On 15/04/2010 3:05 a.m., Greg Bulmash wrote:
> While few, if any, people on this list advocate piracy, I'm sure we've
> all grumbled about the questionable numbers put out by associations
> like the BSA that then get quoted as gospel by lazy members of the
> press. Well, as an unintended consequence of PRO-IP, the GAO looked
> into the methodologies and underlying data of the more quoted surveys
> that generate those numbers and found them to be mostly smoke and
> mirrors.
>
> Ars Technica did an interesting summary of the GAO report...
>
> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars
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