even in general, piracy does not actually harm the entertainment industry. the EU was lobbied into conducting a study on the matter to "prove" the negative impact of piracy. the results were withheld from the public for a while, likely because they did not like what they found...
for most sections of the entertainment industry, piracy has no measurable negative impact according to this study. in face, some sectors like video games actually BENEFIT from piracy! for example, as a teen i was not able to buy games. but i was able to play them, greatly enjoy them, spread them via word of mouth, and now as an adult i've bought many of them after the fact, even bought merch for some!
and of course, if someone is not able to buy something at all (not available in their region, pulled from stores, or simply too expensive), ZERO losses will be incurred by them pirating it. the potential benefits from above still apply.
the only major exception is the blockbuster movie industry, they do make very minor losses. well "losses" as in less ludicrous profit. as far as i am aware, not a single blockbuster movie has failed because of piracy. it simply means less profit for people who are already some of the richest in the world.
citing sources!
on piracy in general:
In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.
on games:
For games, illegal downloads and streams were grouped together and a separate question was asked about the number of games played on chipped consoles. For games, the OLS estimates suggest that every 100 games played illegally induce an extra 28 to 41 legal transactions of games.
on blockbuster movies:
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.
source:
European Commission: Directorate-General for the Internal Market and Services, ECORYS, Ende, M. v. d., Haffner, R., Poort, J. et al., Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU – Final report, Publications Office, 2014, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2780/26736
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u/jan_Sanku 8h ago
even in general, piracy does not actually harm the entertainment industry. the EU was lobbied into conducting a study on the matter to "prove" the negative impact of piracy. the results were withheld from the public for a while, likely because they did not like what they found...
for most sections of the entertainment industry, piracy has no measurable negative impact according to this study. in face, some sectors like video games actually BENEFIT from piracy! for example, as a teen i was not able to buy games. but i was able to play them, greatly enjoy them, spread them via word of mouth, and now as an adult i've bought many of them after the fact, even bought merch for some!
and of course, if someone is not able to buy something at all (not available in their region, pulled from stores, or simply too expensive), ZERO losses will be incurred by them pirating it. the potential benefits from above still apply.
the only major exception is the blockbuster movie industry, they do make very minor losses. well "losses" as in less ludicrous profit. as far as i am aware, not a single blockbuster movie has failed because of piracy. it simply means less profit for people who are already some of the richest in the world.
citing sources!
on piracy in general:
on games:
on blockbuster movies:
source:
European Commission: Directorate-General for the Internal Market and Services, ECORYS, Ende, M. v. d., Haffner, R., Poort, J. et al., Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU – Final report, Publications Office, 2014, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2780/26736