The best way to reduce piracy of copyrighted works is to cut the copyright period by 75% relative to current standards. To be fair to individual living authors who hold their own copyrights, this would mean copyrights persisted 18 years past the author's death, or for 24 years after date of publication for for-hire contract jobs.
This is comparable to the lifetime of technical patents, and so would allow for a reasonable period to collect revenue from the work that can be used to finance new works and so on.
Otherwise, you just have consolidated interests squatting on material and collecting rents for no justifiable reason. It's entirely ridiculous, for example, that a 1957 film like the Seventh Seal isn't yet in the public domain.
This kind of reasonable change to copyright law would go a long ways towards justifying legal crackdowns on piracy of more recent works, I think.
> It's entirely ridiculous, for example, that a 1957 film like the Seventh Seal isn't yet in the public domain.
That's way too generous. It's ridiculous that films made before 2010 aren't in the public domain. We're all going to be long dead before this stuff enters the public domain. Our culture should belong to us, not a bunch of corporations. If they want to keep making money, they should have to make new stuff instead of endless remakes of past successful IPs.
The other 'best way' to reduce piracy would be to sell all electronic works through the same online interface without the need for any other apps or DRM.
Otherwise, the pirated product is actually better than the paid one.
> The best way to reduce piracy of copyrighted works is to cut the copyright period by 75% relative to current standards.
Personally, I believe this would have a negligible effect on piracy or even online arguments around copyright. I believe that, because I think the most piracy concerns recent works, e.g., computer games and movies of the last few years.
I completely agree with you, but I think the issue with something like this is the sheer volume of lobbying power that companies like Nintendo and Disney have to stop it.
Abolish copyright. It’ll be like open-source software. The works created will be less in quality and quantity, but they’ll be works of passion, and I can watch everything. Worth the tradeoff.
Of course this comment is nothing other than an internet rant because humans has no control over humanity’s large scale activities. They’re almost deterministically emergent.
The best way I have found to prevent the piracy of my book (https://kerkour.com/black-hat-rust) is to inundate pirate platforms with only the first chapter and with a discount code inside for those who can't afford the original price.
My hypothesis is that if they enjoyed the first chapter, most people would want to support my work instead of being freeriders.
So far it worked really well.
Thinking that you can prevent bits flowing from internet is delusional, it's better to think about how to align incentives.
I’ve worked to prevent piracy of a SaaS software for a niche industry.
When we put the first anti piracy solution in place during the winter of 2020 they tripled the number of subscribers within a week.
Some might argue this was due to Covid lockdowns but this was months after most businesses had already been locked down and the timing directly coincided with the implementation. Support was inundated with requests to disable the new feature that had prevented piracy.
Subscriptions have kept growing nicely.
On the other hand, I got started in software development as a kid by learning about how to use hex editors to implement hacks in games. The warez scene was big in those days.
Not sure what the right answer is to addressing piracy. I’m sure it helps kids and those in developing countries get into the industry but if people don’t pay for something it’ll no longer be offered.
An argument is that those who would pirate aren't going to pay regardless. I think a software for a niche industry has a lot less flexibility for the customer to do that than a piece of entertainment like game or movie.
Piracy definitely has a negative effect on sale. But whether that effect is worth the effort to implement DRM solutions or not is a different issue.
I would guess that a lot of the folks who suddenly needed licenses might not have ever used your software if they hadn’t pirated it first. In other words the piracy acted as marketing that eventually converted to sales. Hard to know for sure.
How was the SaaS product pirated? I've always used that to refer to a delivery model where the software is centrally hosted. Was it that people were sharing their logins?
Niche industry I'm not surprised. The cost per seat is generally quite high and thus a strong incentive for businesses to use more seats than they have licenses for.
> The report found that illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games, according to the report.
> The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films: “The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”
> The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.
Remember that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. The study seems to point at the first one. I don't care enough to be bothered with reading a 300 page report but if you consider taking it as truth, I would recommend you to read and analyse the method before drawing conclusions based on the headline.
Although, it is easy to misinterpret your quote because of the removed context.
> The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films:“The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”
This is only true for a subset of films, “major blockbusters.” (Of courses, this is where the “top” in your quote comes from, but it seems easy to miss).
Can't put CD into your phone; but you can put MP3 on it. As Gaben said, "piracy is a service problem".
Look at years; that's when portable music players; then smartphones; started to become popular
Pirating is easier than buying CD then ripping MP3 just to listen.
If we had the ease of use of today's music streaming the dip would probably be much lower; but between the tech at the time and RIAA cockblocking anyone that tried.
The article you're citing literally blames streaming, which incidentally has also been largely responsible for a decline in music piracy - it's too cheap and convenient for most consumers to bother pirating instead.
It makes absolute sense. There's tons of music/movies/books that I never would have been exposed to if it weren't for piracy. As a result, I've bought a ton of legal media from those artists that I wouldn't have otherwise.
I have a Netflix account and I still torrent the content because unless I use edge I don’t get greater than 720p.
I torrent a lot of games because 2 hours (steam refund) is a very narrow window for a lot of games. The reality is 90% of them I don’t end up meshing with. The ones that I do, I buy.
Before Poland joined the EU, one of leftovers from communism was that IP laws resembled these in China - in reality there were none in effect.
Imagine farmers' market but with bootleg VHS and audio cassettes, CDs, brand clothes etc. In every major city. On a weekly basis.
Great majority of Poles were poor as shit and buying original copy of music or video cassette was a very distant thought. Piracy was "normal". I was introduced to The Prodigy by my math teacher, who lent me a copy-copy of their Music for the Jilted Generation. I learned English from pirated movies. Got to know a lot of great music and TV shows.
I now own all of Prodigy's CDs as well as hundreds of other legal music CDs and BluRay sets/boxes. Not a chance in hell I'd buy all this without a taste of a product beforehand.
Looking at this from 2023, I believe that our access to affordable (pirated) creations of western culture allowed up to leave Soviet (or communist as we were not a part of CCCP) mentality behind more quickly.
but the idea of EU suppressing a commissioned report that "goes south" is absolutely diabolical to its reputation. That does not sound very progressive.
Not publishing is not suppressing. The EU's reputation is that of the greatest regulator on the planet. It acts in the collective interest of EU citizens not the libertarian (or progressive) fantasies of American capitalists.
Let's say IP such and such is protected by copyright, which is bound to restrict piracy, which can be defined as enjoyment and/or distribution of copyrighted IP without retribution to rightful ownership. This is all fine when you have some control over distribution, which is not the case anymore, mainly because torrent protocole.
IP rightful owners went the easy way, weaponizing willfully abiding legal systems and what not (paid with our taxes), while dealing directly with large IP distribution platforms, before launching their own distribution platforms. This is where we're at. Big deal. Torrents are still a thing, as much as sharing on other protocoles, through territories outside the rule of law, but not only.
How about trying something else? How about putting up a realistic price on IP, so anyone willing to pay (and get a receipt for it) could enjoy and distribute IP legally, no matter how and from where they got said IP in the first place? How about a price per head per event (phe fare?), a price that is affordable enough for anyone to compete any big corporations? Even with some temporal and/or geographical restrictions, I'd gladly pay, if that means I can legally enjoy and share stuff outside platform limitations. How about I open my own repertoire theater and show any movie I want, or start my own niche platform? Suits, please, think about it. If it's simple and affordable enough, people will gladly use it.
Most of the comments were about either piracy is harmful or not. Another point here is that, for me, it's natural that the EU rejects or neglects a comprehensive report because it contradicts previous findings, especially in cases like piracy that have innate harmful characteristics.
Well... To be fair "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", the study concluded that they couldn't prove there was a relation, but didn't proved there no such relation. In that regard, the study is inconclusive and the EU is right in not publishing it, lest the media take it to mean that piracy had no effect on sales.
But it does harm free and freemium copyrighted content, because now they don’t just compete with their costlier (but likely better produced) alternatives, but also their pirated copies as well.
It basically kill competition and helps big players.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|2 years ago|reply
This is comparable to the lifetime of technical patents, and so would allow for a reasonable period to collect revenue from the work that can be used to finance new works and so on.
Otherwise, you just have consolidated interests squatting on material and collecting rents for no justifiable reason. It's entirely ridiculous, for example, that a 1957 film like the Seventh Seal isn't yet in the public domain.
This kind of reasonable change to copyright law would go a long ways towards justifying legal crackdowns on piracy of more recent works, I think.
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|2 years ago|reply
That's way too generous. It's ridiculous that films made before 2010 aren't in the public domain. We're all going to be long dead before this stuff enters the public domain. Our culture should belong to us, not a bunch of corporations. If they want to keep making money, they should have to make new stuff instead of endless remakes of past successful IPs.
[+] [-] OscarCunningham|2 years ago|reply
Otherwise, the pirated product is actually better than the paid one.
[+] [-] ketzu|2 years ago|reply
Personally, I believe this would have a negligible effect on piracy or even online arguments around copyright. I believe that, because I think the most piracy concerns recent works, e.g., computer games and movies of the last few years.
[+] [-] j5155|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aerbil313|2 years ago|reply
Of course this comment is nothing other than an internet rant because humans has no control over humanity’s large scale activities. They’re almost deterministically emergent.
[+] [-] nathias|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sylvain_kerkour|2 years ago|reply
My hypothesis is that if they enjoyed the first chapter, most people would want to support my work instead of being freeriders.
So far it worked really well.
Thinking that you can prevent bits flowing from internet is delusional, it's better to think about how to align incentives.
[+] [-] ecnahc515|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quazar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endisneigh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godzillabrennus|2 years ago|reply
When we put the first anti piracy solution in place during the winter of 2020 they tripled the number of subscribers within a week.
Some might argue this was due to Covid lockdowns but this was months after most businesses had already been locked down and the timing directly coincided with the implementation. Support was inundated with requests to disable the new feature that had prevented piracy.
Subscriptions have kept growing nicely.
On the other hand, I got started in software development as a kid by learning about how to use hex editors to implement hacks in games. The warez scene was big in those days.
Not sure what the right answer is to addressing piracy. I’m sure it helps kids and those in developing countries get into the industry but if people don’t pay for something it’ll no longer be offered.
[+] [-] galaxytachyon|2 years ago|reply
Piracy definitely has a negative effect on sale. But whether that effect is worth the effort to implement DRM solutions or not is a different issue.
[+] [-] amanaplanacanal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LorenPechtel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] causality0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smugglerFlynn|2 years ago|reply
> The report found that illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games, according to the report.
> The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films: “The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”
[+] [-] bee_rider|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ABeeSea|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suddenclarity|2 years ago|reply
> The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.
Remember that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. The study seems to point at the first one. I don't care enough to be bothered with reading a 300 page report but if you consider taking it as truth, I would recommend you to read and analyse the method before drawing conclusions based on the headline.
[+] [-] bee_rider|2 years ago|reply
> The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films:“The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”
This is only true for a subset of films, “major blockbusters.” (Of courses, this is where the “top” in your quote comes from, but it seems easy to miss).
[+] [-] ketzu|2 years ago|reply
> [it means that] the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect
[+] [-] _fizz_buzz_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilyt|2 years ago|reply
Look at years; that's when portable music players; then smartphones; started to become popular
Pirating is easier than buying CD then ripping MP3 just to listen.
If we had the ease of use of today's music streaming the dip would probably be much lower; but between the tech at the time and RIAA cockblocking anyone that tried.
[+] [-] bb611|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jobs_throwaway|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellotomyrars|2 years ago|reply
I torrent a lot of games because 2 hours (steam refund) is a very narrow window for a lot of games. The reality is 90% of them I don’t end up meshing with. The ones that I do, I buy.
[+] [-] dcow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
EU suppressed results of a study that found piracy doesn’t harm sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15319476 - Sept 2017 (38 comments)
[+] [-] voytec|2 years ago|reply
Imagine farmers' market but with bootleg VHS and audio cassettes, CDs, brand clothes etc. In every major city. On a weekly basis.
Great majority of Poles were poor as shit and buying original copy of music or video cassette was a very distant thought. Piracy was "normal". I was introduced to The Prodigy by my math teacher, who lent me a copy-copy of their Music for the Jilted Generation. I learned English from pirated movies. Got to know a lot of great music and TV shows.
I now own all of Prodigy's CDs as well as hundreds of other legal music CDs and BluRay sets/boxes. Not a chance in hell I'd buy all this without a taste of a product beforehand.
Looking at this from 2023, I believe that our access to affordable (pirated) creations of western culture allowed up to leave Soviet (or communist as we were not a part of CCCP) mentality behind more quickly.
[+] [-] cassianoleal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hatsune|2 years ago|reply
but the idea of EU suppressing a commissioned report that "goes south" is absolutely diabolical to its reputation. That does not sound very progressive.
[+] [-] melesian|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8jef|2 years ago|reply
IP rightful owners went the easy way, weaponizing willfully abiding legal systems and what not (paid with our taxes), while dealing directly with large IP distribution platforms, before launching their own distribution platforms. This is where we're at. Big deal. Torrents are still a thing, as much as sharing on other protocoles, through territories outside the rule of law, but not only.
How about trying something else? How about putting up a realistic price on IP, so anyone willing to pay (and get a receipt for it) could enjoy and distribute IP legally, no matter how and from where they got said IP in the first place? How about a price per head per event (phe fare?), a price that is affordable enough for anyone to compete any big corporations? Even with some temporal and/or geographical restrictions, I'd gladly pay, if that means I can legally enjoy and share stuff outside platform limitations. How about I open my own repertoire theater and show any movie I want, or start my own niche platform? Suits, please, think about it. If it's simple and affordable enough, people will gladly use it.
[+] [-] tric|2 years ago|reply
Piracy is an acceptable loss enabled by the tech that allows global distribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting)
[+] [-] arjmandi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HeavyStorm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miragecraft|2 years ago|reply
It basically kill competition and helps big players.
[+] [-] amiga1200|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _royadar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eecc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply