More Research Again Shows: Good, Authorized Services Compete With Piracy

from the well-duh! dept

Fri, Oct 5th 2012 10:02am — Mike Masnick

We've been arguing this for years, but the best and so far only way that's been shown to effectively deal with the "challenge" of piracy is to figure out ways to compete against it. We've highlighted this point for quite some time, but people still try to argue against it. However, the evidence keeps coming in. We just posted about some data on unauthorized file sharing in the US and attitudes towards it. Those showed that it was a mainstream activity, especially between friends and family. Furthermore, it showed that "enforcement" campaigns targeted at trying to make people think that "piracy is theft" were almost certainly going to fail for not taking context into account.

Instead, focusing on new and useful legitimate services has to be the way forward... and the data from that same Musicmetric study seems to confirm that. It showed that there was a notable dip in BitTorrent usage in countries that had good authorized offerings:

Musicmetric found that music file downloads using BitTorrent tend to increase in countries that don't have legal music streaming services such as Spotify. Among the top 10 countries with the fastest growing BitTorrent market share in the first half of 2012, only one, France, had Spotify.

Conversely, in the top 10 countries where BitTorrent activity has decreased fastest, five have access to Spotify.

Of course, it also seems worth noting that the one country that has Spotify and shows increasing BitTorrent market share is France... which has Hadopi, one of the strictest "enforcement and education" plans out there. I'm sure it's just a total coincidence...

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: authorized services, competing with free, competition
Companies: spotify

19 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2012 @ 10:07am

absolute rubbish! just ask Chris Dodd and his ilk. they'll tell you the true way to 'compete with piracy' is to sue, fine and imprison as many people in as many countries as possible!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 10:29am

You're missing some MPAA logic here
Yes, authorized services compete with piracy.

Bu, bu, but . . . Piracy!

Piracy is bad.

Therefore piracy's competition, authorized services, is also bad because it does the same thing -- deliver content to users in a 21st century way.

Therefore, we should go back to the old ways.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 10:35am

Re: You're missing some MPAA logic here
Authorized services compete with the old way of doing things.

The old way of doing things is profitable, and can be kept profitable forever as long as the correct laws and levies are enacted.

Competing with what is profitable "devalues" it. (Actually it causes prices to reflect greater efficiency.)

Therefore, authorized services are bad.

Authorized Services == Piracy. Both are streaming. Both compete with the old way of doing things.

And the most powerful argument that you cannot refute is: sticking to the old ways doesn't require any action on the part of the dinosaurs. Besides, the dinosaurs have invested substantially to buy a significant part of the government. That's a large capital investment that would go to waste if they were to embrace authorized services which compete with piracy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael, 5 Oct 2012 @ 10:40am

Re: Re: You're missing some MPAA logic here
AND THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
T, 5 Oct 2012 @ 10:53am

Avengers
A month after the Avengers was released in theaters a...friend found a copy online to download and watch at home. I was also with him the day he bought the Avengers BD/DVD comboat Target. Getting unauthorized copies does not preclude people from buying it as well.my...friend just wanted to watch it sooner. ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rikuo (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:10am

On my PC, I've got over 600 gigabytes worth of games installed (please note, this is installed, it doesn't count the isos and other formats of disc images I also have). Of that 600+ gigabytes, over 550+ gigabytes are legitimately purchased games (a few though are free to play, but still count).
Yes, there are some I infringed copyright on, but the vast amount of games I have installed I have legitimate licences for and have paid for in one way or another.

So Average_Joe and other trolls...still want to call me a pirate?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chosen Reject (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:11am

Convenience and Sharing with Family
It's insightful to combine the previous article and this one. People like to share the stuff they watch, listen to, read, etc with their friends and family and other people considered in their social circle. Normally, the most convenient way to do that is to lend them what you have. In ye olden days, that was to lend them a book, a record, or a VHS cassette. When things went digital, rather than lending, it became giving them copies. But now the most convenient way is to point them to a service they already have. For example, rather than copying a DVD, tell them it's on Netflix or Amazon Prime Instant Video if they already have those services. For songs, send them to Pandora or Spotify. For books, there's the library which may have an ebook, or even better, Amazon's Kindle Lending Library or Barne's a Noble's Lend Me program.

If the studios, labels and publishers would only realize this, they'd be making it that much easier for new services to exist. Rather than copying, everyone would most likely be connected to some service or other and the studios, labels and publishers could get paid for every view which is their wet dream. The problem though, is they want the $15 they were getting for a DVD purchase to translate into $15 for every view. There might be an "analog dollars to digital dimes" transition, but we're talking making analog dollars once versus digital dimes over and over and over again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Casey, 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:31am

I think the growth of piracy in countries without spotify has more to do with the fact that internet access is growing in those countries, not the lack of spotify. France probably has more to do with people finding ways around the 3 strikes law.

The countries with a decrease in piracy could be related to spotify. But probably just services in general.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Zakida Paul (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 1:04pm

Spotify, Last FM, Amazon, Itunes, 7Digital, Grooveshark, Jamendo.

All legitimate downloading or streaming sites that compete with 'piracy' and every one of them are doing bloody well for themselves despite ridiculous restrictions place on them by record labels/RIAA/BPI etc.

Those are just a few of the music services, there are also TV and movie services like Netflix, Love Film, Hulu etc who also compete with 'piracy' and who also do bloody well despite even more ridiculous restrictions.

So, trolls, please don't feed me your bollocks that "it is impossible to compete with free" because we all know it is a crock. You just don't want to compete with free and that will be your ultimate undoing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ethical (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 5:16pm

More fantasy from the piracy industry
Piracy damages people lives. Period. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that musicians wages have decline 45% since 2002. What happened in 2002? Peer-to-peer was in its third year of massive growth. The US recording industry has been cut in half since then. A very small percentage of that loss has affected "fat cats." The great majority of that loss has been job loss and underemployment for tens of thousands of music professionals. That is why "filesharing" without the creator/owner's permission is against US Federal law. CNET has been sued and lost for its part in inducing people to commit copyright infringement. Keep misleading people that "filesharing" is a good and legal activity.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:19pm

Re: More fantasy from the piracy industry
would you care to comment on what the salaries of those running the companies getting rich from the hard work of musicians have gone up during that period of time?

Would you care to discuss that the copyright cartel has done everything that can to follow a business model that relies on selling plastic discs when they sell digital music that does not require the same manufacturing lead time?

Would you care to comment on the copyright cartel leaving digital sales out of their earnings so they can bemoan the death of the music CD market? Did you notice that sales of CD players have plunged as well in the same timeframe?

Would you care to comment on the copyright cartel using the definition of sale or license when it comes to digital sales based on which definition lets them keep more money?

Would you care to comment on the collection societies collecting money on behalf of artists but then funneling all of the money to the "important" acts cutting other acts out of money collected in their name?

Would you care to comment on the hysterical notion that Justin Beiber is a cash cow for an industry he was "ripping off" by performing and uploading infringing works on YouTube?

Would you care to comment on the millions spend on the **AA's that did not come from profits but could explain the salary cuts visited upon those hard working underemployed drones?

Would you care to comment on how much a musical professional gets from every track sold? Oh wait they get paid a flat fee and only the talent and management team get money from each sale.

Would you care to run away now before I make more fun of you?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Oct 2012 @ 11:46pm

Re: More fantasy from the piracy industry
Keep misleading people that "filesharing" is a good and legal activity.

Who said either of those things?

It must get really tiresome standing out there in the fields yelling at all those strawmen, while the rest of us are over here talking about ways in which artists can make more money.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The eejit (profile), 6 Oct 2012 @ 2:29am

Re: More fantasy from the piracy industry
If you were truly willing to stand by your principles, you would be willing to post there under your actual name. After all, you have the luck of being abloe to attack Mike so much.

I'm merely pointing out the flaws in your own logic here: that you keep parroting statistics for which the conclusions may be grey at best.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 6 Oct 2012 @ 3:27am

Re: Re: More fantasy from the piracy industry
Hosts with Go Daddy, shows a certain lack of understanding of reality.
Smart enough to hide behind domains by proxy, and has been ethical since April when it was registered.

But then if I was going to hit a tech blog and babble, I'd hide my trail to.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2012 @ 6:32am

An amusing story, but the study is not very conclusive, and assumes no other outside influences.

An example: megaupload was very popular in certain European countries. Shutting it down may have driven pirates away from file lockers and back onto bit torrent.

Also, short term growth is a misleading thing to look at. There is no indication if the growth or declines in these markets are after equally impressive changes the periods before that.

As an example, with Hadopi around, did bit torrent traffic drop in France, and then get reversed when the government changed?

My feeling is that this "study" is another case of trying to assign wishful thinking to something. It's almost like trying to justify piracy, by blaming the victims.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sandysennin, 6 Oct 2012 @ 7:13am

YEAH, i'm a frakking pirate.
If not for the possibility of a free download i'd not listen to 99% of the bands i do. And i'd not want to buy merchandise or CDS/DVDs when i do have a few extra money.
I'd not watch most of the movies and tv shows.

Maybe if labels would not ask for so much money for themselves, robbing artists so much, maybe piracy wouldn't seem so bad.

YEAH, i do not have enough money to access culture. YEAH, i'm a pirate. Better than being an ignorant fool! Arrest me!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2012 @ 9:34am

Re: Re: More fantasy from the piracy industry
He's like a hurricane head that could be arsed to get an account, but for the sake of hawking his own site skewed against the consumer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2012 @ 8:13pm

Re:
Yes, and now we will teach you to think past your nose:

What would you listen to if you didn't pirate? Radio? Sat? Would you spend your time differently?

Your money wouldn't be lost in the economy, you would spend it on merch for bands you know, or buying movie tickets, or perhaps on other things.

Your attempt to paint piracy as somehow noble just doesn't work out. It's not like you would turn yourself off for 99% of the time because you don't have pirated stuff to enjoy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sandysennin, 7 Oct 2012 @ 1:40pm

Re: Re:
Taught me nothing...

Why would i listen to radio if 99% of what it plays doesn't please me?
Oh, i could just be like others and eat just what others tell me to. Ok.

Yes, i'd spend my time differently. I could do many things as i do now, but with out music.
I like to read with music. I like to run with music. I work with music. I shit listening to music. I'd just do evething without it.

I'm not painting piracy as noble, but as a way for many to access culture in a free way.

No, i'd not turn myself off. I'd just not give much into culture because i don't have enough money for it. I'd just be a ignorant fool.
[ link to this | view in thread ]