By Pirate Bays own lawyers estimates, site costs in 2009 were a little over $112,500 and ad revenue was a hair over $102,000. On the other hand, a police investigation conducted the same year put their revenue at just under $169,000, and prosecutors at the trial put it close to $1.5 million. They indisputably make money; the only question is whether they make a PROFIT, and unless you believe putting ads on each page and flashing more at people during downloads only pulls in $102,000 per year, even that is not really in question.
Wikipedia also cites this quote from a Pirate Bay co-founder:
"It's not free to operate a Web Site on this scale.... If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn't be working late at the office tonight, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan."
THAT is the crux of the matter: Swapping around copyrighted material between your friends at no cost is no threat to the media industry, because with no profit to be made no one can sit around doing it on a large enough scale to significantly eat into their margins; most people so inclined are too busy putting food on the table. Going after advertisers supporting pirate sites would be another excellent way to attack the problem at its SOURCE (the only place it can be effectively attacked.) No advertising firm, manufacturer or retailer making millions, or billions, of legal dollars will spend hundreds of thousands sponsoring piracy that costs them millions in fines, all in the faint hope people illegally downloading free media will buy their products.
Wikipedia also cites this quote from a Pirate Bay co-founder:
"It's not free to operate a Web Site on this scale.... If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn't be working late at the office tonight, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan."
THAT is the crux of the matter: Swapping around copyrighted material between your friends at no cost is no threat to the media industry, because with no profit to be made no one can sit around doing it on a large enough scale to significantly eat into their margins; most people so inclined are too busy putting food on the table. Going after advertisers supporting pirate sites would be another excellent way to attack the problem at its SOURCE (the only place it can be effectively attacked.) No advertising firm, manufacturer or retailer making millions, or billions, of legal dollars will spend hundreds of thousands sponsoring piracy that costs them millions in fines, all in the faint hope people illegally downloading free media will buy their products.
consider that megaupload was not only selling access to the copyrighted files, they were also in the process of launching a competing music repository to itunes and amazon. there is a HUGE difference between what pirate bay does to make money and what megaupload did. it's one thing to try to cover the costs of having one of the top visited sites on the internet, and quite another to make it your business model to use other people's works so that you can have a $200 million home in the mountains. how pirate bay operates is no different than the illegal NFL streams you enjoy every sunday. someone puts up the stream for free, pirate bay just shows people how to get to it. any money they make comes from people clicking on the random ads on the website, it does not go for access to the streams.
Yeah, I get that: They make their profit off ads which they can sell because of "having one of the top visited sites on the internet," which is true solely due to disseminating stolen intellectual property to people not forced to pay for it. They are still making a profit distributing stolen property, just not from the people receiving it.
This is false. Pirate Bay does not disseminate or distribute stolen property at all. The only things distributed by Pirate Bay are .torrent files, very small data files that provide links and hash information that allow you to download the actual file from another user or group of users. No copyrighted information is ever transferred directly from Pirate Bay.
That is an important distinction. Making bombs and killing people is illegal, but you can still get books that explain how to do so. Pirating copyrighted material is generally believed to be illegal, but if you're ok with that, the Pirate Bay website will direct you in where to get them.
ACTUAL PAYING CUSTOMERS are not the problem. And we are still back to speculating what people illegally downloading media for free now WOULD do if given a way to legally download it for a price, which is still the same hypothetical data you so roundly condemned when Big Media used it to estimate revenue they WOULD get if law enforcement reduced piracy. I also still dislike double standards intensely so, no.
research the issue. read DomA's post in reply to yours below. time after time people admit that they would "go legit" if given the opportunity to do so, especially if it means getting what they want instead of what the industry will give them. well over 50% of illegal downloads ultimately result in a sale. people who engage in illegal downloading *ARE* paying customers no matter how you try to deny it. case in point: how much NFL gear have you bought over the years? are you telling me you're not a paying customer, despite the fact you are pirating the NFL broadcasts? if you dislike double standards so much, you will put up the $100+ to watch the NFL legally instead of stealing their broadcast.
Time after time people breaking the law admit they would not break the law if they could get what they want without breaking the law? I already knew that. Paying for one product does not make stealing another any less theft, but I am not alleging theft against people downloading stolen intellectual property, rather, against the people uploading and hosting it. I believe if you review my posts on the subject you will find those are the people I contend should be targeted, exclusively.
Because torrents are the most popular method of online piracy, those two groups of people are virtually identical. Someone has a file and offers a torrent of it, others begin to download it. While downloading, those new users begin supplying the data to still others, and so on. Unless they deactivate uploading entirely (which usually carries downloading penalties as well), anyone "downloading stolen intellectual property" is also "uploading and hosting it". Dedicated hosting sites like Megaupload are few and far between, relics of an earlier era.
No, they are going after people not simply "begging for other format," but patronizing illegal ones. Huge difference, though I still do not feel anyone not paying or being paid for illegal media is a significant problem, nor that they can be demonstrated to cause any harm, since the only thing Big Media is "losing" is those peoples money, which was not being paid for the product in the first place, and probably never would be.
now who's speculating? prove that those people would not have bought the product being offered in the first place if they are being given the format they want at a reasonable price. $25 for a DVD when you really wanted a cheap downloadable file is not really an option right now.
Yes, when I say, "probably," I am speculating, just as Big Media is when projecting profits they would have made if people were not pirating, or others when they project how much Big Media accommodation would reduce piracy. The difference is I admitted I was speculating rather than claiming what would happen in a hypothetical situation to be fact. No, I cannot prove a hypothetical negative, but the burden of proof for other peoples hypothetical situations is not mine.
Yes, anyone can speculate. Personally, I believe that not only do media companies not lose money from piracy, they actually gain from it. More people having access to a product means more chance to get more people more interested about it, and some of those people may turn out to be paying customers. It's counter-intuitive, but there is evidence to support it. The most heavily pirated movies and games are also the most profitable. Always.
They do not berate paying customers, they berate non-paying users. Many also pay them for media, but no one is complaining about that (except maybe Pirate Bay,) only the illegal activity. To employ another analogy, that argument is the equivalent of saying, "speeders is not theft, robbery, murder or rape, so laws against speeding unfairly malign and abuse law abiding citizens." "MOSTLY law abiding" is not "law abiding," and "MOSTLY paying customers" are not "paying customers."
check out the way netflix was fucked over for how paying customers are treated. netflix altered their business model and the mpaa decided they weren't getting enough money from netflix anymore. this caused netflix to raise their rates, which in turn caused 800k people to stop using netflix and caused the company irreparable damage to their corporate image. i highly doubt netflix will be the major powerhouse in the movie rental business they used to be all because the mpaa wants bigger and bigger revenue streams, customers be damned.
the mpaa had very little problem when netflix was a DVD rental agency, but the second netflix went to a streaming video model, suddenly the mpaa had a problem with them and forced them to either pay higher prices or stop receiving big name movies and tv shows. it's an extortion racket, pure and simple. the mpaa decides that only pirates want to watch movies on the internet, therefore all companies which make money broadcasting movies over the internet are the enemy.
Yeah, see, it is only extortion when you have a way to coerce compliance; people who do not like Big Medias terms are free to tell them to go to Hell without suffering anything. Unless one considers "loss of access to Big Medias intellectual property" a loss, in which case expecting they be paid for that access is entirely reasonable. We are not talking about food, shelter, medical care, education or some vital sustenance. We are talking about feature films, something I have never had any difficulty waiting to come to network television. In the case of streams vs. DVDs, my guess (and, yes, that is all it is) is that Big Media decided renting DVDs they can copy protect was one thing, but sending out streams they cannot copy protect quite another.
Well sure, if people don't like the current business model, they could decide not to partake in any of the media offerings. That's usually what I do, in fact. It's not the only option though. People can also decide that they'd rather just get the stuff for free, and many do. SOPA/PIPA wouldn't change that. In fact, despite your constant claim that we need new legislation on the topic, no law could change it. It simply can't be done without blocking access to the entire internet, and not even our government is stupid enough to do that.
You will never kill piracy, and piracy will never kill you
- 05/02/2012 06:56:57 PM
1105 Views
The article both raises good points and is full of shit
- 05/02/2012 11:36:25 PM
593 Views
Re: The article both raises good points and is full of shit
- 06/02/2012 02:11:38 AM
520 Views
Then it really seems to differ between our countries
- 06/02/2012 10:52:39 AM
463 Views
What are your ticket prices? *NM*
- 06/02/2012 12:53:04 PM
203 Views
Between 5 (students or special offers) and 10 - 11 Euro for 3D films. *NM*
- 06/02/2012 01:12:08 PM
208 Views
With the exchange rate, that sounds fairly comparable to my local area.
- 06/02/2012 04:20:18 PM
373 Views
are those theaters all hollywood movies or from european studios?
- 06/02/2012 03:01:37 PM
517 Views
I just want to comment on a couple things. I feel like you're a little bit behind the times. 
- 06/02/2012 05:23:40 AM
588 Views
- 06/02/2012 05:23:40 AM
588 Views
Well, call me old-fashioned but I think that'll be my preference for a while now.
- 06/02/2012 10:36:41 AM
454 Views
It's not just a matter of taste when one technology is demonstrably superior.
- 06/02/2012 04:04:27 PM
471 Views
Re: It's not just a matter of taste when one technology is demonstrably superior.
- 06/02/2012 04:27:09 PM
355 Views
My age is gonna show even more in the next reply, but here we go
- 06/02/2012 06:25:09 PM
457 Views
- 06/02/2012 06:25:09 PM
457 Views
Re: My age is gonna show even more in the next reply, but here we go
- 06/02/2012 08:13:48 PM
491 Views
- 06/02/2012 08:13:48 PM
491 Views
Re: My age is gonna show even more in the next reply, but here we go
- 06/02/2012 11:04:21 PM
394 Views
- 06/02/2012 11:04:21 PM
394 Views
I did not ask for alternative LAWS, Obama did; I merely quoted him, and this article mentions no law
- 07/02/2012 04:50:14 AM
525 Views
you're confusing the issue
- 07/02/2012 06:22:30 AM
392 Views
No, I am clarifying the issue.
- 07/02/2012 06:54:40 AM
511 Views
again, you are taking the wrong approach
- 07/02/2012 03:57:03 PM
490 Views
I disagree, and there are factual errors in your statements.
- 07/02/2012 07:36:16 PM
467 Views
actually, there are not
- 08/02/2012 04:15:09 AM
376 Views
Yeah, actually there are.
- 09/02/2012 01:53:02 AM
484 Views
Re: Yeah, actually there are.
- 10/02/2012 04:11:10 AM
418 Views
Technically, the first point is true, but I disagree the distinction is important in terms of piracy
- 12/02/2012 01:09:01 AM
414 Views
Without realizing Joel, you're getting closer and closer to some of our views...
- 12/02/2012 09:24:22 AM
436 Views
To a large extent my issue is with means rather than ends.
- 13/02/2012 09:45:39 AM
510 Views
Re: No, I am clarifying the issue.
- 07/02/2012 07:52:42 PM
438 Views
It is not the same as taping an album for a friend.
- 09/02/2012 01:18:42 AM
484 Views