Hollywood studios go after two piracy sites

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Ahem, that should be "SUSPECTED piracy sites":

Until they are convicted of a crime, they are only suspects, or at most, defendants.

As far as estimating losses due to piracy, that's always been an interesting question. The theft in this case in non-material in nature, as the original movie or song never leaves the possession of the owner. So the theft is a loss of an opportunity to make money.

Which leads back to the original question of, how do you estimate the value of loss of opportunity? You have several categories of people here.

1. People who will never know of the existence of the material.
2. People who aren't interested and will never view or buy the material.
3. People who are interested and will never view or buy the material.
4. People who are interested and will view, but never buy the material.
5. People who are interested and will view and buy the material.

Categories 1-3 can be ignored as they don't participate in piracy other than by complete accident, clicking on a link without thinking about it.

Category 4 can be broken into people who can afford the material, and people who cannot afford the material. Piracy of material by people who can afford it isn't necessarily a loss. For those who pirate a song or movie and then go on to purchase the CD/DVD, the industry makes their money and the original download was an advertising expense. And it should be considered an advertising expense for those who download the material, view it once, and never watch or listen to it again. In these two cases, the piracies should not be considered losses.

Piracy of material by people who can't afford it is not, and never will be, a loss.

A piracy should only be considered a loss if the person pirating the material can afford to purchase it, intends to use it for their own income purposes, or intends to use it more than the one time necessary to determine it holds value for them.

Posted by: Dr_Zinj   Posted on: 10/02/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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