Internet Piracy In Europe Hitting Millions Of Jobs By 2015

[engine]

Internet Piracy In Europe Hitting Millions Of Jobs By 2015 [reuters.com]

Plenty of people download music from the Internet every day, but illegal downloading has a huge economic impact and could put more than one million people out of work by 2015, experts say.
A study into Internet piracy by a Paris-based consultancy published on Wednesday showed that 1.2 million jobs in the European Union could be lost over the next five years if more is not done to clamp down on illegal downloading.

[wheel]

I question the validity of their speculation.

This has been going on since cassettes. People could copy songs from the radio onto a cassette, and did. And the music industry was incensed. Then we had CD's. And now the internet and solid state drives.

And the music industry is still not in any danger of going broke as far as I can see.

In fact, it would seem to be bigger business than ever. One might speculate (I'm not suggesting this is 'right', just that it's possibly true) that all this downloading helps sales. Even if they don't like the idea, perhaps it's contributing to sales.

[engine]

It's tough to know if it's going to be accurate, after all, it's an estimate based upon current trends. Supposedly, it's a study undertaken by those 'in-the-know' on these matters, and it includes video, audio and software.

I have to agree that it is a problem, and it must have an effect on the system as we know it. However, the music industry has not been very good at adapting to modern technology. I think they missed the whole idea when creative companies, such as Apple, opened online shops to make it easy, and relatively cost-effective to get legal music. It's relatively low cost to get a music track, compared to the old methods of buying singles from a record retailer.

I don't believe heavy-handed methods will solve the problem, such as these huge fines being handed out to sacrifcial copyright infringers. It's more about adapting, and about meeting the needs of today's market, cost-effectively.

These businesses founded on old-style ways need to change, and they need to be smarter, imho.

[wheel]

Well, I buy more music now than I ever did previously. i.e. I'll buy some tracks for my answering machine on hold, or for my walkman (that's an ipod for you generation X-ers). Before that I never got around to browsing in music stores and would probably squeal at paying $20 for a CD when I want one song.

[StoutFiles]

The only people losing jobs right now are the small record stores. That can only be partially blamed on illegal downloading, and more so on legal downloading.

However, yes, it's a problem. I believe one day we will see a crackdown on the internet but with all the laws for different countries it's going to take some time.

[claus]

This so-called "expert study" is nothing but hype aiming to make life easier for certain lobbyists working for stricter laws.

The timing is also of interest, as right now there is much controversy about US-European secret negotiations about future interent regulation and copyright.

With just as high certainty/probability one may suggest that if anything, internet piracy will create more jobs.

[graeme_p]

This is based on a fallacy, and another may be implicit in it.

The first fallacy is that just because there is a loss of jobs in one industry, there will be a net loss of jobs. What will people do with the money they save on not buying music?

1) They can either spend it (creating jobs somewhere else)
2) They can save it: if they put it in the bank it can be borrowed and either spent, or invested (which means spending).

The second fallacy, which is almost certainly necessary to get estimates this high, is that people will have otherwise bought what they get for free. Wrong. For example, I have a complete set of Beethoven Symphonies that was a (legitimate) free download. I am unlikely to have bought more than my favourite one or two. I might well have bought none (I do not buy many CDs).

A third fallacy in the article, is that they claim that without copyright enforcement, there will be no new content. Wrong again. Those Beethoven symphonies of mine were composed before there was such a thing as copyright.

I do favour copyright law, but with sensible terms, and definitely not with draconian enforcement such as legal backing for DRM, cut-off of internet access, etc.

[hugh]

Holywood's was just reported as having posted record profits so business can't be that bad...

[voices.washingtonpost.com ]

[Old_Honky]

There was a documentary on this topic on Monday on the BBC.
An interesting fact is that while the record companies are bleating away about their "losses" people who file share illegally on average buy about 3 times more legal music in value than those paragons of virtue who don't. So the illegal down-loaders should be cherished and cared for by the record companies much more than those cheapskate holier than thou types who have never downloaded a file. But no, they are too stupid to realise that, so instead they spend a fortune persuading inept politicians to force ISPs into draconian measures against their own customers.

File sharing is by far the superior way to distribute music, just ask anyone who ever used Audio Galaxy how favourably it compares with the likes of I Tunes, Amazon and all the other download sites. If you forget the hysteria about copyright for a moment there is no doubt that file sharing is easier, more user friendly and far more comprehensive than the current commercial alternatives (which are so restrictive that they are a joke). File sharing is what the market wants so it is obviously the duty of the record and movie companies to work out ways of monetising this delivery system to reimburse the copyright owners. If this means that some of the fat middleman profit disappears then tough. They should have thought about that when they priced cheap to produce CDs and DVDs higher than expensive to produce cassette tapes and video tapes. Then of course the legal down load tracks are also way overpriced when compared with buying a CD. They are only slightly cheaper when they should be half the cost - no packaging, no physical distribution cost, no retail premises no retail stock holding. It is rip off city and the consumers let them get away with it.

This over-pricing is the real reason their sales are declining, that and the proliferation of "music" produced by talentless wannabes from the reality TV loving "I just want to be famous" generation. The people who download a few tracks illegally are not affecting the record companies profits because these sales are not lost, they were never going to be made in the first place.

[StoutFiles]

The people who download a few tracks illegally are not affecting the record companies profits because these sales are not lost, they were never going to be made in the first place.

I've bought one song in my life, and it was because I could NOT find it on a file sharing network. There are tons of people who have their whole library of music from file sharing...are you saying those people would have just gone without music?

[Old_Honky]

According to the figures I saw you are an exception, but perhaps I should have said "most of these sales".

[graeme_p]

There are tons of people who have their whole library of music from file sharing...are you saying those people would have just gone without music?

No, but:

1) They would not have bought copies of every song they downloaded: only some of them. I could spend the next week downloading a thousand mp3s. On the other hand buying a thousand CDs would not be affordable. People download a lot of stuff that they would never pay for because its free.

2) The remaining lost sales are offset by more people hearing the music and buying a CD.

[jecasc]

The music and film industries are so stupid my head hurts.

Last week I wanted to watch "Inglourious Basterds". So I went to a german website to watch it legally. But they only had the dubbed german version. So I went to another website for the original version but could not watch it because of geographic blocking. So I went back to the german website, paid four euros and then watched the original version on an illegal streaming site.