Why Hasn't The Report Debunking Entire US Foreign IP Policy Received The Attention It Deserves?

from the questions-to-ponder dept

We've written a few times now about the really astoundingly detailed and impressive research report from the Social Science Research Council. It effectively debunks the entire premise behind the US governments foreign IP policy, which focuses almost exclusively on ratcheting up enforcement. The report -- all 440 pages of it -- systematically details why such ratcheting up of enforcement does not, can not and will not help, but shows how alternative business models and pricing models seem to work much better.

We've questioned why the US government seems to be ignoring the research, and Reuters blogger Felix Salmon has picked up on this, calling it "the best report ever on media piracy," and bemoaning the fact that it's been almost entirely ignored.

The most depressing aspect of this report is the fact that it doesn’t seem to have caused anything like the splash that it deserves. It’s an astonishing work of cooperative international scholarship, and really ought to fundamentally change the debate about intellectual-property enforcement in arenas with names like WIPO and USTR. But I fear that it’s too sensible and empirical for that. If the Obama Administration isn’t welcoming this report with open arms, then I fear no one will.

Indeed. It's really quite depressing. Perhaps it's because the report is so long? I've noticed that those who disagree with it in our comments haven't even bothered trying to take on any of the detailed and thorough analysis in the report itself, preferring instead to mock those of us who are talking about the report. I find this troubling. As someone who believes very strongly in taking in all research and data to better understand something, it seems troubling that when so much effort and research has gone into such a report, critics are writing it off completely without even a cursory analysis of it.

But even more troubling is the fact that the press and our elected officials have mostly been ignoring this as well. I think it's a shame that this report hasn't received much more attention, and I'm going to start sending copies to various elected officials to see if I can get comments on it. Hopefully, many of you will do the same.

Filed Under: business models, intellectual property, piracy
Companies: ssrc

Study Shows That Piracy Has Not Resulted In A Decrease Of Quality New Music

from the ain't-what-the-data-shows dept

One of the key tenets of those who support stronger copyright law and stronger copyright enforcement is the idea that it is a necessary incentive for a great deal of creative output. We regularly hear claims of how creative output would drop without such strong copyright protections. However, the actual evidence has simply not supported this theory at all, with multiple studies showing that even as there was a massive increase in infringement, thanks to the internet, there has actually been a very large increase in creative output as well. But, of course, some will shoot back that just the creation of new works alone may not be indicative of what's really going on. After all, what if all of that new music is terrible because the "good stuff" can't make money. Thankfully, it looks like new research is tackling this question.

Hypebot points us to some new research, by economist Joel Waldfogelm, in which he attempts to determine if the rise of file sharing has had any significant impact on the creation of quality new music and artists, and his answer is no, it has not. In other words, the very theory underlying an awful lot of the copyright industry's claims simply is not borne out by the evidence. This study does not just take a superficial look at how much new content was produced, but really tries to dig deeper and focus on quality. I won't go into all the details of the methodology, but suffice it to say that it's a creative way of trying to separate out quality, by running a statistical analysis on multiple critics' "best" lists and indices. From there, it looks at how many new albums each year pass specific "quality" thresholds, and finds that contrary to the theory, there is really no difference in output of quality works pre- and post-Napster.

Even more interesting, this study also appears to debunk the other claim by the recording industry that the rise of file sharing means that new acts are no longer developed and able to grow and release quality albums. In fact, the study finds no support for that claim:

The evidence thus far indicates no decline in the volume of new recorded music products forthcoming since Napster. It is possible, however, that the new music is coming from artists who were established prior to Napster. While products still come to market, it is possible that new artists are not establishing careers.

To explore this we examined the albums on three analogous best-of lists, for the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s, from Pitchfork Media. For each of the 300 albums, we determined the year the artist released his, her, or their first recording (whether an album, a single, or an "EP"). These data allow us to calculate the career age of an artist at the time he has an album on a best-of list. The question is whether artists have continued to establish careers since 1999. To explore this, we calculate the share of best albums since 1999 whose artists’ first recordings appeared after 1999. Since 1999, 49 percent of artists on the best of the 2000s list debuted following Napster. Figure 9 shows this year-by-year pattern: there is a systematic, although not a monotonic, rise from 10 percent of albums in 2000 to 100 percent at the end of the decade. On average, about half of the best-of albums since Napster are from artists whose recording debut occurred since Napster.

Although this is clearly a substantial share, determining whether the launching of new artists has changed requires a comparison with earlier periods. To this end, we calculate analogous annual shares for the two previous decades, the annual share of 1980s best-of albums from artists debuting after 1979, and the share of 1990s best-of albums from artists debuting after 1989. All three patterns are very similar, rising fairly steadily to 100 percent by the end of each decade. A regression of a dummy for whether an artist debuted since the decade of his appearance on dummies for years since the beginning of the decade and a dummy for the post- Napster decade confirms the lack a statistically meaningful difference in the tendency for new artists to appear on the list since Napster.

In other words, there's no evidence that new artists are no longer being developed or are creating high quality, successful music. So, contrary to the theoretical claims, the evidence shows that more content is being created, despite greater infringement, and that there has been no noticeable decline in quality output or in the development of new artists. So why is it that the industry still makes such claims, and the press and politicians believe them?

Oh, there is one other interesting tidbit in the research: The only real noticeable difference that the research turned up between pre- and post-Napster music production... was that more of the successful new musicians are coming from independent labels, rather than the major labels. For the two decades prior to Napster, the percentage of successful indie artists remained constant, but it jumped post-Napster. That makes sense. The independent labels, for the most part, have been more willing to experiment and embrace new models, while the majors have fought them more. On top of that, artists no longer need to feel as obligated to go through one of the gatekeeper "major labels."

That certainly helps explain why the major labels like to perpetuate these kinds of myths... but not why anyone believes them.

Filed Under: joel walfogelm, music, napster, new music, piracy, quality

But... But... Piracy...

from the just-having-some-fun dept

You've probably seen those XtraNormal videos going around these days, where you type out a script and some text-to-speech software and animation software create a short video. I thought it might be fun to experiment with this to see what came of it. Here's my first attempt at a short video that I call "But... But... Piracy." Yes, some of the dialog is silly, but all of it is based on claims that I've seen people actually use in these discussions.

Filed Under: piracy, time waster

Microsoft Wants To Make It Illegal To Buy From An Overseas Company That Uses Unauthorized Software

from the overreach-much dept

Microsoft's latest strategy against overseas infringement (something the company used to admit helped its bottom line in the long run) is to run around lobbying various state governments to pass ridiculous and likely unconstitutional laws that put liability on the buyers of any products from an overseas company that uses unauthorized software.

The laws allow Microsoft to block the US company from selling the finished product in the state and compel them to pay damages for what the overseas supplier did.

You heard me right. If a company overseas uses a pirated version of Excel, let's say, keeping track of how many parts it has shipped or whatever, and then sends some parts to General Motors or any large company to incorporate into the finished product, Microsoft can sue *not the overseas supplier* but General Motors, for unfair competition. So can the state's Attorney General. I kid you not. For piracy that was done by someone else, overseas. The product could be T shirts. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it's manufactured with contributions from an overseas supplier, like in China, who didn't pay Microsoft for software that it uses somewhere in the business. It's the US company that has to pay damages, not the overseas supplier.

That seems like a pretty serious case of misplaced liability. However as Groklaw notes, Louisiana has already passed such a law, and it looks like Microsoft's home state (of course) of Washington is passing a similar law.

Thankfully, many businesses are realizing the incredible liability this could put on them, and are speaking out against the bill:

Regardless, piracy is Microsoft’s problem to solve as it has been trying to do for several years. It is a problem akin to what retailers call "shrink," or the loss of income from merchandise stolen either by outsiders or employees. Unfortunately, shrink is a painful cost of doing business. But retailers no more would seek Microsoft’s help with this problem than Microsoft should be asking retailers to help pay for solving its challenges with software piracy....

The bills under consideration are so sweeping in their scope they represent an invitation to a legal challenge on their constitutionality in light of federal copyright and trade authority. Even if this never became a U.S. constitutional debate, retailers are hardly capable of finding the means to assist Microsoft in becoming a worldwide police force to protect against software piracy.

This seems like a massive overreach by Microsoft, going even further than the entertainment industry's attempts to get ISPs to act as their copyright cops. In this case, Microsoft is trying to get any US company to be required to act as copyright cops for overseas suppliers, or face huge fines.

Filed Under: copyright, piracy, secondary liability, state laws
Companies: microsoft

Some In The Press Realizing That Copyright Industry Claims Of 'Losses' From 'Piracy' Are Bunk

from the moving-on dept

We've pointed to a couple of laughable new reports that were released by copyright industry interests in the past couple months, pushing claims of ridiculously high "losses" due to copyright infringement. The reports have been debunked, but part of the concern was that mainstream press, such as The Australian, were spreading these reports as fact. Thankfully, not everyone in the press falls for such questionable studies. The Sydney Morning Herald recently published a rather comprehensive look at all of these reports and studies, entitled: Piracy: are we being conned? It does a really nice job pushing back on all this industry-backed research, to point out that the story is more complex and nuanced that those fear-mongering claims make it out to be:

The Australian Institute of Criminology for one has been reluctant to take the industry at its word when it comes to piracy losses.

"Although these estimates provide a general indication of the scale of the problem, the validity of the data is open to some debate," the AIC wrote in its latest report on intellectual property crime in Australia.

The AIC has previously debunked claims that piracy was linked to organised crime and in a draft report leaked in 2006 said industry-provided piracy statistics were "self-serving hyperbole".

"The AIC's frustration was largely based on the fact that none of these groups will expose their reports to genuine peer review or analysis," said Kimberlee Weatherall, a senior law lecturer at the University of Queensland, who specialises in copyright law and is highly critical of the industry's piracy reports.

"When the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked into it at the request of US Congress, it expressed doubt about most of the industry-produced figures."

Piracy figures derived by the entertainment industry have also been heavily criticised in the US and Europe. In some instances, the industry has admitted to grossly inflating its numbers.

The article includes a lot more debunking of industry FUD. Nice to see that the press is finally realizing that claims that come from an industry looking for government protectionist laws to be adjusted in their favor can't necessarily be trusted.

Filed Under: journalism, losses, piracy

If This Is 'Piracy' Then I Support Piracy

from the cut-and-paste? dept

One of the common refrains in the comments from some of Techdirt's biggest critics is that I'm a "piracy supporter." I'm not sure what to make of such claims, because I don't actually support or endorse copyright infringement. I don't partake of it (willingly). I don't use any file sharing programs for downloading or sharing content. I don't download unauthorized music or movies. My position is solely from the point of view of the content creator and how they might be able to better engage their audiences and put in place smarter business models. Yet, for some reason, people keep trying to paint me, falsely, as a supporter of "piracy."

Of course, what I do support is the creation of new and engaging content. What troubles me, is when people try to imply wonderful creative works are somehow not creative because they build on the works of people before them. Of course, that's silly. All kinds of wonderful creative works you enjoy almost certainly come from near direct copies of things that came before. A lovely demonstration of this is seen in this short clip from the documentary RIP: A Remix Manifesto: But I still feel that one of the best examples of creative works building on the works of others comes from Kutiman, the Israeli artist who burst on the scene two years ago with his absolutely amazing album Thru You, in which he assembled random clips from around YouTube -- without permission -- into an entire album that sounds absolutely nothing like its component pieces. Kutiman is the modern conductor, putting together an amazing, involuntary orchestra of players who don't even know what's happening. While he's been somewhat quiet (though, apparently touring the world), Kutiman has just released a brand new track, once again combining various YouTube videos into quite the jazz song, entitled My Favorite Color: Seeing people's reactions when they first see the videos really is priceless. They're amazed as they realize what's happening. The one that seems to get the most attention (for plenty of good reasons) is the first track off the Thru You album, The Mother of All Funk Chords. However, when trying to show the power of remixing and building on creativity, I actually think the second song from Thru You can be more instructive. That's because if you break down a number of the component parts, you realize that some of them just aren't all that impressive by themselves. Take, for example, trombone part that's used in the song. When viewed by itself... it's really nothing special: Now, put it into the middle of a larger song, with the very accurate (for this discussion) title of This Is What It Became, and you get an incredibly powerful, haunting and moving trombone solo, which comes in at about 43 seconds: And, if you look at some of the other component videos, including a family vacation video, a simple demo of a bass synth, a fire engine siren and even crappy toy piano, and pull it all together to become the song above... it's really quite amazing.

And yet, to hear some people talk about these things, none of this is "creative." It's all just "copying." In some cases it's outright "piracy." After all, Kutiman is using the works of others, and doing so entirely without permission. And yet, I have trouble seeing how anyone can legitimately claim that these songs are "piracy" in any real sense of the word. Kutiman is clearly a musician. That he uses a note played by someone else on a YouTube video, and then "plays" it himself, strikes me as no different than playing a keyboard that plays a recorded sounded, or even strumming a guitar. A musician is putting different sounds together to create music. Does it really make a huge difference if that music involves someone making a note from an instrument directly themselves... or by taking the note originally played by someone else and doing something creative and amazing with it?

Is this really the kind of thing that our politicians and copyright defenders mean to outlaw?

I'm not a supporter of copyright infringement or "piracy." But if this is piracy, then I am a supporter of it. Because this is truly creative works, whether or not it's built on the works of others.

Filed Under: copyright, creativity, culture, kutiman, music, piracy, remix

Author Of Ridiculous 'Piracy' Report Defends Conclusions, Ignores Questions About Methodology

from the well-that's-convincing dept

We recently looked at the mysterious report coming out of Australia that suggested unauthorized file sharing was costing the economy $900 million per year. But after digging into the details, it became clear that this number was a complete fabrication, as it applied the same totally debunked methodology that was used in last year's TERA report in Europe.

However, reader Ivan lets us know that the author of the Australian report, Emilio Ferrer is now defending the report and its results. Except, his defense seems to suggest he doesn't realize what everyone is complaining about. He focuses on the $900 million number, and notes that of course that's not the actual loss number, but says that it's okay, because he also offered other "ballpark" figures and the actual number must be somewhere in there:

"I've applied the methodology to countries that yield the highest and lowest level of impact," Ferrer said.

"There are variables that are difficult to measure but whether you apply to the lowest country or the highest country the impact is between $500 million and $2 billion."

But Ferrer said such "technical" analysis was indicative only of a "ballpark" figure.

"When you apply business modeling and the average and end up concluding the impact was $900 million, of course the answer is not $900 million but we try to deal with that by looking at the range.

"The conclusion is there is a significant loss to economic activity and therefore jobs as a consequence of internet piracy."

But all of this ignores the main point: that the basic methodology he used for any of those calculations wasn't sound. People aren't complaining about the results. They're complaining about the methodology itself. And he doesn't seem to get that at all because he doesn't defend it at all.

I mean, look, I could use some bizarre fantasy methodology to claim that every time someone falsely claims that file sharing is theft, it means that a puppy gets kicked. And then, if people challenge me on that methodology, I could just say I didn't mean a puppy got kicked every time, but the methodology suggests that somewhere between 0.5 and 2 times it happens, a puppy gets kicked. But, of course, that's stupid. If the underlying methodology makes no sense, then the results make no sense. Just because they give you a range, doesn't make it any more justified that you used a bogus and debunked methodology.

Filed Under: australia, emilio ferrer, piracy, studies

No Info Can Be Found About Mysterious Report Claiming Australia As A 'Nation Of Pirates'

from the into-the-ether dept

A few weeks back, there was a lot of buzz about a highly questionable report, commissioned by an anti-piracy group, that claimed Australia was a "nation of unrepentant pirates," that had cost the entertainment industry $900 million. We didn't write about it at the time, because the article announcing it was pretty vague, and the details were lacking. We figured eventually the actual report would come out and we could discuss it at that point. Except... no one seems to want to provide the report. In fact, TorrentFreak has been trying to not only track down the report but also the organization that wrote it and is having trouble coming up with any info. No one wants to provide the report, and there seems to be no significant evidence that the company that wrote the report is a real company. There are vague connections to a real estate company, which also doesn't seem to have much to prove that it's a real company.

What's really troubling here is that apparently many in the Australian government are relying on the information in this "report" to make decisions on changes in copyright law. Based on a phantom report put together in complete secrecy by a company that can barely be found? Even the reporter (a freelancer) who first put up the original story at The Age, Neil McMahon, never even saw the report, but apparently reported on it based on what someone -- he won't admit who -- told him about it. The whole thing seems amazingly sketchy. In an era when so many such reports have been debunked, it's scary that the government seems willing to rely on one that clearly hasn't been even remotely vetted by those who understand these things.

Filed Under: australia, piracy, studies

Next Generation 'Piracy': Piracy Goes 3D

from the but-does-it-matter? dept

Just as growing segments of the population are expressing that they're sick of too many movies being offered in 3D for no good reason other than to get people to pay more for it, it appears that the "pirate" community is jumping on the 3D bandwagon as well. They're getting better and better at offering unauthorized versions in 3D, either via applying a tool to make a 2D rip appear 3D, or through some new methods to fully rip a 3D Blu-ray. I'm sure we'll hear the usual fretting and complaining from the "content protection" staff at the MPAA, and yet there will be little understanding of or reflection about what this actually means. Hollywood correctly realized a few years ago that one way to "compete" with unauthorized copies was to add more value to the experience. That was a key driver in the 3D experience. The basic thinking was correct -- it's just that once they had a bit of success with it, they simply thought "3D is the answer!" without thinking much more deeply about it. 3D is one way to improve the experience, but simply adding 3D to movies with no thought as to whether or not it really is needed or makes the product better is silly.

So rather than complaining about unauthorized 3D versions of movies (and you can just hear the MPAA complaints about how the pirated 3D movies are even "more damaging"), why isn't Hollywood focused on actually thinking beyond just 3D towards actually making the overall experience better in ways that can't be pirated? I guess that's just too much "work," and it's a lot easier to hire another crop of lawyers who want to sue everyone, rather than take the time to successfully expand a business by offering more value.

Filed Under: 3d, piracy

Massive Research Report On 'Piracy' In Emerging Economies Released; Debunks Entire Foundation Of US Foreign IP Policy

from the nicely-done dept

Joe Karaganis, from the Social Science Research Council was kind enough to reach out to me last week and send me an advance copy of the (somewhat epic) report that SSRC just released this week, exploring "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies." It's a rather massive 440 pages of research into a variety of issues having to do with infringement, specifically focused on emerging markets. While it was nice of Karaganis to send it to me, I was a bit disappointed to find out that they're not releasing the report for free (for most). Instead, it's released under a "Consumer's Dilemma" license, where they want people in developed countries to pay $8 for the report, but will offer it for free to those in less developed countries (though, it looks like Canadians can get it for free). Though, to their credit, at the end of the license info, they do note:

For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.

Unfortunately, that's right under the warning that "non-compliance" with the license in the US could subject you to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. That's an unfortunate exaggeration, as most non-compliance wouldn't result in criminal copyright infringement. For a report on the subject that seems so insightful in many points, it's disappointing that this report chose to reinforce this type of thinking. Update: Clearly, I missed that this is pure satire by the report's authors. Such is life when I'm so used to seeing such things that are real.

That said, much in the report is extremely forward-looking and thinking. It goes into great detail how fascinating and innovative new business models are appearing around the globe where "piracy" is rampant, and suggests that we really need to rethink the idea of "piracy" in those markets. It highlights how almost all of the policy discussions in the west concerning infringement focuses on "enforcement," but that may be the wrong way to go about it. The research, instead, points out that a better focus may be on setting up the structures for successful business models to emerge -- which include local firms who can compete on price:

Invariably, industry groups invoke similar arguments on behalf of stronger enforcement: lower piracy will lead to greater investment in legal markets, and greater investment will lead to economic growth, jobs, innovation, and expanded access. This is the logic that has made intellectual property a central subject of trade negotiations since the 1980s. But while we see this mechanism operating in some contexts in emerging markets, we think that other forces play a far larger role.

The factor common to successful low-cost models, our work suggests, is neither strong enforcement against pirates nor the creative use of digital distribution, but rather the presence of firms that actively compete on price and services for local customers. Such competition is endemic in some media sectors in the United States and Europe, where digital distribution is reshaping media access around lower price points. It is widespread in India, where large domestic film and music industries dominate the national market, set prices to attract mass audiences, and in some cases compete directly with pirate distribution. And it is a small but persistent factor in the business software sector, where open-source software alternatives (and increasingly, Google and other free online services) limit the market power of commercial vendors.

It also points out that focusing just on enforcement is a key mistake by western nations, when they might be much better served in enabling these markets to emerge to "compete" with infringement:

The centrality of pricing problems to this dynamic is obvious, yet strikingly absent from policy discussions. When it comes to piracy, the boundaries of domestic and international policy conversation are exceedingly narrow. The structure of the licit media economy is almost never discussed. Instead, policy conversations focus on enforcement--on strengthening police powers, streamlining judicial procedures, increasing criminal penalties, and extending surveillance and punitive measures to the Internet. Although new thinking is visible in many corners of the media sector, as companies adapt to the realities of the digital media environment, it is hard to see much impact of these developments on IP policy--and most particularly on US trade policy, which has been the main channel for the international dialogue on enforcement.

In our view, this narrowness is increasingly counterproductive for all parties, from developing-country governments, to consumers, to the copyright interests that drive the global enforcement debate. The failure to ask broader questions about the structural determinants of piracy and the larger purposes of enforcement imposes intellectual, policy, and ultimately social costs. These are particularly high, we would argue, in the context of ambitious new proposals for national and international enforcement--notably ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement recently finalized by the United States, the European Commission, and a handful of other countries.

To be more concrete about these limitations, we have seen little evidence--and indeed few claims--that enforcement efforts to date have had any impact whatsoever on the overall supply of pirated goods. Our work suggests, rather, that piracy has grown dramatically by most measures in the past decade, driven by the exogenous factors described above--high media prices, low local incomes, technological diffusion, and fast-changing consumer and cultural practices.

That last paragraph is a key point that our current policy makers seem to miss entirely. On top of that, the report notes that nowhere in the discussions about enforcement is any discussion found of connecting enforcement to figuring out "how to foster rich, accessible, legal cultural markets in developing countries." Of course, that's because most policy makers don't care about that.

The report kicks off with a piece by Karaganis on the importance of "rethinking piracy." It notes that the industry claims on "piracy" are not exactly credible or trustworthy -- and not very productive towards coming up with solutions, since all they've done is "undermined confidence in the industry research enterprise." In fact, it goes through a rather complete debunking of the overall industry claims, suggesting that they're somewhat meaningless -- and then points out that all of these reports that count "ripple effects" seem to ignore the ripple effects in the other direction: the kind that benefit consumers, especially in developed nations:

But in extrapolating losses beyond the affected industries, these studies also introduce new problems. Fundamentally, they all misrepresent the relationship between piracy, national economies, and international trade. Consistently, none of them model the other side of the transaction--the consumer surplus--in describing overall economic impact. Two basic accounting problems have become emblematic of this approach.

First, domestic piracy may well impose losses on specific industrial sectors, but these are not losses to the larger national economy. Within a given country, the piracy of domestic goods is a transfer of income, not a loss. Money saved by consumers or businesses on CDs, DVDs, or software will not disappear but rather be spent on other things--housing, food, other entertainment, other business expenses, and so on. These expenditures, in turn, will generate tax revenue, new jobs, infrastructural investments, and the range of other goods that are typically cited in the loss column of industry analyses.

The report is chock full of other insightful points, such as noting that, "Predictably, raids scale more easily than due process." Later it goes through the various "education campaigns" that industry and governments have invested in, noting that they appear to have done "very little" to actually slow down the rate of piracy:

Our inquiries (mixing survey, focus group, and interview methods) found a remarkably consistent cluster of attitudes on piracy: (1) that it is often regarded with ambivalence by consumers, (2) that pragmatic issues of price and availability nearly always win out over moral considerations, and (3) that consumers know what they are buying. The classic scene of developing-world piracy--the kiosk or street vendor selling DVDs--produces very little misunderstanding on the part of consumers about the nature of the transaction. Consumers weigh tradeoffs between price and expectations of quality, but within a context of explicit black-market negotiation in which notions of fraud or deception—often borrowed from anti-counterfeiting discourse—generally don’t apply. The price gap between licit and pirated media provides a clear signal of the origins of goods.

On top of that, the report responds to the regular claims by the IFPI and others that piracy is linked to organized crime and terrorism, by noting that they could find "no evidence" of any such connection. Similarly, it mocks policy makers who conflate counterfeiting with media piracy.

And that's all just in the first chapter! From there it first looks at the ongoing effort -- mainly driven by the US and the USTR -- to "harmonize" enforcement efforts, followed by a country-by-country look at the state of "piracy" in various developing nations, highlighting many of these issues in a more localized fashion. The whole report is really fascinating, and an incredibly useful read for policy makers who are so focused on things like ACTA, enforcement and industry claims of "losses." It really is a huge contribution to the research on these topics -- and something that I hope gets delivered to policy makers. I'd send copies to various politicians myself... if it weren't for that license that tells me I could face five years in jail for doing so. So, as a final note, I'll just suggest that Karaganis and the others behind this really excellent research report reconsider their license choice on the document (see update above), and instead encourage sharing of the document -- and maybe take a page from what they're seeing themselves in setting up creative new business models to cover any costs.

Filed Under: emerging countries, enforcement, markets, piracy, research, studies