New Study: Piracy Increases The Quality Of Content
from the well-that's-not-going-to-play-well... dept
Eric Goldman points us to a very, very interesting new research paper by Atanu Lahiri and Debabrata Day, showing all sorts of real examples about how "piracy" appears to increase the quality of the related goods that are being infringed upon. Of course, this counters the "common sense" argument that such infringement inevitably lowers the quality of content, since the creators and distributors of said content can no longer invest as much in the content.The key explanatory factor here: the best way to compete with piracy is to offer a better product yourself. And one way to do that is to increase the quality. For example:
A case in point is the European unit of the cable TV channel HBO, which is fighting against unauthorized distribution of its content by illegal torrent websites by raising the quality of its offerings. The piracy rate faced by HBO is estimated to be between 30% to 50%. HBO has responded to this high piracy rate by churning out new high quality contents in different European languages (Briel 2010). New contents are available through both HBO’s cable TV channels as well as its new IPTV channels. HBO’s innovative offerings have reduced piracy and brought in new subscribers. Valve, a video game manufacturer, has also adopted a similar strategy. Since releasing its game Team Fortress 2 in 2007, it has made frequent quality enhancements, including addition of new weapons and avatars. This strategy has encouraged enthusiastic gamers, who have a strong preference for the latest version, to switch to legal downloads.The study doesn't just look at such anecdotal cases. It digs in on some evidence as well, showing how investments in R&D from software companies continues to increase, almost directly in line with claims that "piracy" rates for those companies has increased. The conclusion: less enforcement of copyright laws will likely lead to greater quality in output in many cases, and conversely that greater enforcement likely leads to less social benefit as the quality decreases, in markets facing the same conditions. In fact, they find that content creators (or distributors) are likely to increase profits by focusing on product quality, rather than enforcement.
Most of the paper focuses on creating and testing an economic model that explains this behavior, and highlights when such factors apply and when they don't, for the purpose of trying to optimize policy as well as an individual copyright holder's response to piracy. That is, they do find some conditions under which the traditional "common sense" view holds, but it seems relatively rare. In fact, one part of the study models whether or not there are "ethical" consumers who don't infringe for ethical reasons -- and finds that in such a world, there tends to be even fewer reasons for increasing enforcement.
Of course, when you think about much of this, it makes sense. We've argued from the beginning that there are tons of ways to "compete" with unauthorized access, and providing quality is definitely one such way. It's nice to see this bit of research adding deeply to this debate, both with real world examples of this happening today and a detailed economic model that explains the behavior.
And yet... our policy makers continue to think that the best answer is simply to keep on ratcheting up enforcement.
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Filed Under: competition, content, copyright, infringement, piracy, policy, quality
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As I've iterated a dozen times, the fact that you can see the episode 1 week early if you're a true fan is amazing. But I would think using George R. R. Martin a little more would benefit greatly by having someone able to contact him and discuss the growing success of his series. (Now he just needs to finish it!)
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/popcorn
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HBO should be thinking of the children by debunking ... Masnick is an idiot and the freetards want everything for free... and the....errrr... I should probably read the post first... naa... never stopped me before.. lets see ... anyone insulted Mike yet?... crap.....A.C. already insulted him.... I should make sure he actually wrote this, before Dark hands me my ass.... bah.......no one will notice I'm drunk...
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I love how this site has just gone completely off the rails. Masnick must be fishing for some of the torrentfreak crowd now. Eyeballs are his source of income, after all...
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Re: Re: "are you enjoying paying for mike's new car?"
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All I can see is a futile attempt to discredit Mike's opinions.
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"New Study: Sharing Increases the Quality of Content."
"The key explanatory factor here: the best way to compete with sharing is to offer a better product yourself."
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FTFY
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Would poor subscriptions numbers have done the same? Would moving into a new market have done the same? Would HBO increase the "quality" of their programming in relationship to any of these?
Also, how does increasing the content lower piracy? Wouldn't there just be more to pirate?
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Would poor subscriptions numbers have done the same?
Yes. By making more quality content, you would get more subscribers.
Would moving into a new market have done the same?
Not sure. It would depend on if the new market is not interested in the current content. If so then the answer above applies.
Would HBO increase the "quality" of their programming in relationship to any of these?
Already answered.
Also, how does increasing the content lower piracy?
If the quality offered is not available through piracy/infringement then yes.
Wouldn't there just be more to pirate?
See answer directly above.
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What makes you think the person "infringing" would assign a monetary value to the media? Perhaps they wouldn't buy it even if it wasn't available to download! Maybe the reason they are "infringing" in the first place is because they don't think the product has value above the cost of the bandwidth to acquire it.
If a specific part of the customer base assigns a zero monetary value to your product, why make them criminals? Why not try to find another way to monetize the interest?
Example:
If you won't pay me for my lemonade, then buy a piece of pie, and I'll give you the lemonade for free. Or I can call the lemonade police and have your sorry freeloadin ass hauled off to prison...
One of these ways may yield a good customer, the other will get you someone who won't mind building a culture around kicking your ass...
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If the goal it to get someone to give you money, then the means to that end is to offer them something they actually value.
Let's look at Marcus Carab's example above. So a person is a big enough fan of Game of Thrones to watch the show, but not enough to pay for a subscription to HBO. So what do you do? Throw in some goodies that only people who pay can access. In Marcus' example, it is a limited seating to a Q&A with George R. R. Martin or the writers or Director of the show. This is a scarce commodity that has value to fans.
The object here is to get creative in how you part fans from their money. As long as you are adding value, it will be easier.
Simply upping the frame rate or resolution in non-pirated goods will not add that value. Contrary to what many people in *AA's and other similar organizations think, the content itself is not the most valuable part of their arsenal.
Using Turntable.fm as an example, the value is not in the content(music) it is in the social experience the application provides.
Same with Cinema. Sure people can download a shaky cam recording of the film, but the experience of actually going to the theatre is lost and thus the cam recording lacks value.
Even though your lemonade stand example is pretty terrible, I will attempt to use it. In your example, you are changing your business completely. Nobody wants music producers to stop producing music or only produce music for film and advertising. People still want music, just like people still want lemonade. If you are having trouble getting people to buy your lemonade, perhaps you can find something they will value more than just lemonade. For example, the drive in restaurant Sonic has a good idea. They let the customer customize their drinks with added flavors. So there is an idea to add value to lemonade. I am sure you can find others.
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> I am sure you can find others.
My, optimistic, aren't we today?
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Using the techdirt standard operating rules, once it is broadcast, it is then shared everywhere. What are they adding that cannot be pirated?
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Re: Re: Re: Gryffindor?
In the future:
Read, comprehend, think--then question. In that order.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gryffindor?
Piracy trumps almost all of it, except something that is truly time sensitive, like a live sporting event. Even that can (and often is) pirated online.
I am only going by the Techdirt standards here. Infinite distribution means that anything that is broadcast can be given to everyone for free quickly and easily. The miracle of the internet means that anything that is live can also be streamed. So what exactly are they offering as a movie / tv channel that cannot be duplicated?
Live chat? That isn't much of a feature to hang your network on, is it?
I am sorry, but in reading the underlying report and looking at the author's other works, I would say that this is more wishful thinking and making the effect match the desired cause than any real "study".
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Why da frak are so many artists gaining more money today than a decade before?
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Only if that quality is easily pirated. If you however offer something scarce that has value, then there is more incentive for pirates to become paying customers.
See Marcus Carab's example at the top of the comments thread.
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When you increase quality, then the end consumer feels the value is worth giving up real money for.
For example, If you make a terrible movie, and I torrent it, I will be glad i didn't waste my time/money going to the theater.
On other hand if you make a really good movie, and i torrent it, then I am much more likely to go to the theater AND recommend it to friends. And since we know that word of mouth is much more valuable then any advertising. We decrease piracy.
Look at the gross income for Star Trek(2009)
World Wide Gross $385,680,446 (38,568,044 Movie tickets, assuming $10 ticket)
with well over 10 million downloads.
Or 4 to 1 box office sales per torrent.
If i had downloaded it, I would have paid to see it in the theater, with my wife. Alas, I did not, so I waited till netflix.
Avatar has an even higher Box office sales to torrent ratio
(278,227,517 movie tickets to 16,580,000)
16 to 1. Both of these were quality movies.
But just because a lot of people dl it, a bad movie is still a bad movie.
http://torrentfreak.com/avatar-crowned-the-most-pirated-movie-of-2010-101220/
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Re: Disguise & Bluff
I think I'll throw that into my present campaign.
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Re: Re: Disguise & Bluff
"I'mma fire-breathing dragon that's going to rip you apart!"
Player: "No you aren't . . . you're a giant maggot wearing a badly stitched costume" *attacks*
Of course, the fire-breathing dragon who failed his bluff check and succeeded, barely, his disguise check proceeded to have a happy lunch.
Bonus points if you know what I'm making reference to, btw.
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Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
On a slightly different point: HOW can creators "offer a better product ... increase the quality", when by definition they'd be competing AGAINST themselves? Problems is that those creators aren't getting rewarded for the competition, that's the definition of piracy.
This alleged study cherry picks questionable cases:
"Valve, a video game manufacturer, has also adopted a similar strategy. Since releasing its game Team Fortress 2 in 2007, it has made frequent quality enhancements, including addition of new weapons and avatars. This strategy has encouraged enthusiastic gamers, who have a strong preference for the latest version, to switch to legal downloads."
SO? That's not in the absence of DRM! Authors of this study are simply ignoring that OTHER METHODS ARE AT WORK TOO.
At best, you seem to miss that Valve users "switch to legal"! That means they obey copyright and DRM -- because they have to probably, but for whatever reason, comes out LEGAL.
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Re: Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
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Re: Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
actually if you do a simple google search you will find that that is not even close to the definition of piracy
pi·ra·cy/ˈpīrəsē/Noun
1. The practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea.
WHAT NOW BLUE?!?!?
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Re: Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
No they are not competing with themselves. They are competing against a website that offers the same product for free. The goal of the provider is to offer something the other entity does not have or offer.
Example of win: Infringement site offers a shaky cam recording of the latest hit movie. Theatre owners offer 50 foot screens and 27.1 surround sound and uninterrupted video.
Example of loss: Infringement site offers HD rip of latest television show. If they show's producers even make the latest shows available for streaming, it is often in lower quality, late, and loaded with ads or a paywall.
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Re: Re: Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
I like the show Mentalist from CBS. It is a fun show. I try to watch it whenever it is on. However, I do not have a DVR and when I miss an episode, there is no legal way for me to catch up on it. Warner, the shows producers, have for some reason deemed streaming of the show something they don't want to provide. So I end up having to pirate the show to watch missed episodes. However, if the show were offered on Hulu or even the CBS website, I would have watched it there rather than spend a few hours trying to find a site that has episodes up for download. Had it been on Hulu or CBS, they would have gotten ad revenue from me that they lost because they do not make the show available legally at all.
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Re: Re: Re: Yes! Wolves increase the "quality" of sheep herds!
Yes it is. Look ...you have to operate under the assumption that casual "pirate" really wants to be your customer, and react to his "pirating" accordingly, sounds crazy... but stick with me on this...
I have a computer at home running Twonky (Streaming Software). I have an extensive music, dvd, blue ray collection. I have purchased all this and all the copies are sitting on my shelf. What I want is to be able to load all this legally purchased media onto my media server, but in order to do so, I have to become a pirate. Now what do you have? You have a customer that has become a pirate because he had to do so to get the value out of your product. Who is at fault here? Is this what you wanted?
How about this.. I buy the dvd and it comes with a flash drive with the movie on it, pictures, interviews, gizmo's and gadgets galore, and not only can I load it on my media server, but I get all this extra stuff..! Hell yeah!
Now instead of pirating to get a half assed ripped POS recording from someones cell phone so i can load it on my home network, I've got a fully paid for fully sanctioned full use collection of my favorite DVD"s and CD's at my immediate viewing disposal..total and complete win for all involved...
But stepping back into reality, I am now a pirate with a price on my head, and all I did was download the software to strip the DRM crap off my legally purchase disks.... if only 1/4 of the pirates think this way, think of the market share gain by changing your business model....start incorporating real ideas and/or services to recapture the customers you call pirates?
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more "reason to buy" but less quality
The problem is that while these sorts of additions do work to exploit the customers' "gotta catch them all" mentality to get them to buy rather than pirate, these additions tend to do very little to improve the actual quality of gameplay, and they take away from developer time that could have been used for more substantive improvements to the next major expansion or new game.
There have been several posts on this site about how in the music industry, providing fans with a "reason to buy" needn't be the huge inefficient waste of time it might at first seem, but video games are a different industry. So far it certainly seems like the vast majority of the "downloadable content" and other such "reasons to buy" the industry has been creating are just loads of very shiny crap.
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Re: more "reason to buy" but less quality
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Re: Re: more "reason to buy" but less quality
I'm not disputing the claim these new business models allow companies to profit more from video games or that competing with piracy may have helped them find these new markets.
I'm disputing the claim that these changes represent an improvement to the "quality" of the content, in the case of video games.
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Re: Re: Re: more "reason to buy" but less quality
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In a world where there are always more ways to spend time than there is time available, finding out the quick way if something is worth my time investment seems very worthwhile. This means relying on things like word of mouth and reviews - those tend to be far quicker in terms of time invested than actually experiencing it.
I'm quite willing to spend money on things I enjoy (or need, but that's a different topic). I'm frugal, but I will still pay for things that are worth it. This means that things I consider worth my time that happen to also be free (or, say, ad-supported) are good, but something that is not worth my time will not get any attention just because it's free. (If something is overpriced by my judgement it will usually still not get my attention.)
I'm happy to pay the people who made the products I enjoy a fair price. This makes it more likely I'll get more of them, after all - and I like returning value for value.
If it's NOT worth the price being asked, why am I spending my valuable time on it? There's always something else that is.
I've never even looked into other methods of obtaining things, because I can't see myself using them which makes it not worth the time to consider it.
So ... am I lazy, or am I an "ethical" consumer?
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hmm....
However, that doesn't justify the infringement. It's shit to say, "I don't pay for movies/music/software/books because research has shown that will improve the quality of them."
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Time to market
Make content available in accessible ways for a reasonable fee in a timely fashion and watch people flock.
Quality doesn't hurt either.
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Going viral is a good thing.
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That right there automatically excludes Hollywood.
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It does explain one thing
Suit 1- "We seem to have two options - we can compete on quality or try suing"
Suit 2 - "I'll call the lawyers, then"
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Re: It does explain one thing
We aren't talking two different products here, we are talking the same. Anything that happens on A happens on B.
Your slam on the mpaa is somewhat amusing, but your logic is fractured beyond repair.
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Re: Re: It does explain one thing
Can't they made an actual product that has more to it then just the bare content in it?
Are pirates now going to create beautiful box sets, printed material, merch and experiences?
Yah right.
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Re: Re: Re: It does explain one thing
If you are buying music as an example not because of the music but because of the silly box it comes in, then overall it's a huge failure. They might as well just be in the box business and stop wasting their time with music.
The reality is what you really value is the music, not the box. When a whole generation wakes up and realizes this, the music business will return back to what it was, people paying for what they value, not the brightly colored, cheap box it comes in.
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If I have a choice, and I do..
I have not had a mainstream content delivery system for over 8 years now, and have not seen a commercial in the entire time. This is value to me, not DVR'in the show I want to watch, or organizing my schedule around the time of showing. I even got Captain America from the internet the day it debuted, and what I got was a slapped together, mumbo jumbo of lackadaisical organized stream of 'pros', nothing more but an expensive setup for 'the next movie'. So try before you buy is an essential element in my content consumption. After watching the horrible TS, I am utterly convinced that actually paying to see this content would be a waste of money. It was not even in the league of other comic book genre that the MAFIAA vomit out periodically.
So, call me a free-tard if you want, because I am actually proud of the fact that I can get content at my whim, and not the other way around, THAT is value. If, ever, the MAFIAA understand this, perhaps they can have a piece of the 194usd/mo I pay, otherwise, well, this PATRIOT IP Act will be as successful as the other two decades of stupidity they have enacted. Nor will it hinder my ability to consume content at my leisure, and not theirs.
So, what happens when Anonymous starts sending bogus DMCA notices to the likes of www.sony.com? What's good for the goose..
The internet considers censorship as roadblocks, and just routes around it. I already use OpenDNS instead of ISP provided malware. For every PROTECT IP law they enact, there will be a way to circumvent it, so good luck with that.
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Re: If I have a choice, and I do..
Your convenience does not trump the rights of those who create content to be able to determine how their work is seen and consumed by others. I don't care how much you pay for your internet access, because having access to the internet does not mean "I can get whatever I want, when I want it, free". Not only is that an absurdly entitled position to take, but it completely diminishes the rights of hard working individuals who create the things you take such blatant advantage of.
I made a short film last year. It was an incredible amount of hard work for EVERYONE involved, and a lot of time and energy was put into making it. It also cost a lot of money. It has been made available for people to see who pay for a movie ticket at a film festival, or who pay for a digital copy. As the creator of this film, I have determined that to be an acceptable, and entirely reasonable arrangement for someone who wants to see the movie, and it is within my rights to make that determination. Now tell me, what gives YOU the right to decide that you should be able to see it for free, if you so wanted? What gave you this that your own personal convenience is SO important, that the the only thing that matters is how easily and freely you can access whatever you choose? Who the fuck do you think you are?
I'm not going to argue about "Try before you buy". Hell, in some cases that could be a good idea for someone who wants to get their work seen. But it is in no way up to YOU to make that decision or impose that ethos onto whatever you want. It's up to the people who made the goddamn thing. I don't care if you think a movie is shitty, you still watched it, and the viewing is worth something, regardless of your final opinion.
You're a shining example of the worst byproduct of the internet. You want everything instantaneously, whenever you want, for nothing. You try to justify it by alluding to your stressful life, or your work, or a million other things that are SOOOOO much more important than silly movies, or music, or TV shows, cause you simply can't be bothered to pay money to watch a movie, or sit through a commercial. But that's bullshit. By doing so you completely de-value art and culture. Sure, commercials are annoying, and sure, some movies are shitty. But that's beside the point. These things have value, and by refusing to acknowledge that you're implicitly dismissing the value of art and the people who create it.
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Valve / Team Fortress is actually free now
How did they do this?
By selling in game content for (in most cases) less than a dollar a pop.
People around here throw around the tshirts argument? Well I have news, Valve is selling freaking ingame digital HATS (and such) and making more money off those sales than they ever did on selling the game itself.
You can buy a freaking can of paint to paint your (whatever) whatever color you want and people are going nuts for it.
I saw the business model expressed as;
1) give away entire game
2) sell non-corporeal entirely digital hats weapons and accessories
3) ??? nope, Profit.
4) No, Really, HUGE Profit.
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In Denial Over Common Sense
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