Piracy staying legal in Switzerland - "Pirates still contribute"

[Levethian]

Another piracy thread.

"One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won?t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/

Rather a contrast to the USA's approach and the absurd 'Stop Online Piracy Act'.

Moral absolutes aside (stealing is wrong & developers should be supported), this seems to makes logical sense. It's tantamount to free advertising; the building of a fan-base who will spend cash on the medium when they can.

Yep, it doesn't excuse people who pirate on principle or despite having plenty of money, and it's very difficult to draw the line between 'habitual pirating jerk' and 'well-meaning pirate that gives back'. But the big picture is what's important here.

Great summation of the article:

Anti-piracy advocates claim that piracy impacts their bottom line. The Swiss government decided to test this. What they found was that about 1/3 of the sample surveyed had pirated media in the past, and they found that this 1/3, on average, contributed just as much, if not more, than the 2/3 who did not pirate (again, on average) on any given metric (Such as amount of cash spent and number of products purchased).

The conclusion was that since pirates don't appear to be spending any less money on CDs, games, movies, etc. as non-pirates, the argument that piracy saps money away from the entertainment industry doesn't hold up, and the Swiss government decided that their copyright laws do not have to be tightened in an effort to fight an unproven villain.

 

[DRes82]

...Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won?t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

...It's tantamount to free advertising; the building of a fan-base who will spend cash on the medium when they can.

Neither one of those statements make any sense at all. If someone can get something for free with absolutely no consequences, what the hell would be the incentive to go spend money on that same something?

 

[Levethian]

"since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

Umm.......that's a pretty flawed statement.

I mean come on, there's absolutely NOTHING stopping them from merely stealing music, films, games and not paying. Piracy is weird.

Perhaps it makes more sense in Swiss.
(Yes yes, mostly German & French, I know.)

I think the thing stopping people from pirating indefinitely is their conscience. I don't think pirating is addictive or anything. This does not apply to the few habitual pirates who lack any moral strength.

Neither one of those statements make any sense at all. If someone can get something for free with absolutely no consequences, what the hell would be the incentive to go spend money on that same something?

Again, bottom line, most people have scruples. It's easy to paint a picture of pirates as amoral psychopathic thieving criminals, but that's rarely true.

 

[Section Crow]

so, what they are saying is that it's ok to steal things if you can't afford it?

edit: people are pushing me further into confusion...

 

[Levethian]

so, what they are saying is that it's ok to steal things if you can't afford it?

I suspect not.

They probably understand that the developer doesn't exactly loose their data when someone steals it. It get's copied, and the developer doesn't know. What a great world it would be if I could steal a car by copy/pasting it.

I agree it's still stealing, just not in the classical sense.

 

[Duskflamer]

I saw this before, so here's my take for those who are confused:

Anti-piracy advocates claim that piracy impacts their bottom line. The Swiss government decided to test this. What they found was that about 1/3 of the sample surveyed had pirated media in the past, and they found that this 1/3, on average, contributed just as much, if not more, than the 2/3 who did not pirate (again, on average) on any given metric (Such as amount of cash spent and number of products purchased).

The conclusion was that since pirates don't appear to be spending any less money on CDs, games, movies, etc. as non-pirates, the argument that piracy saps money away from the entertainment industry doesn't hold up, and the Swiss government decided that their copyright laws do not have to be tightened in an effort to fight an unproven villain.

 

[sapphireofthesea]

I think their logic is more on the person to person sharing (similar to having the police knock on your door cause you lent your friend a game back in the 1990). They further make the connection that the majority of pirates (as has been evident in these forums) actually use piracy less for indefinite obtaining of a game and more for short term purposes, and would be more than willing to obtain a hard copy of the game as and when possible (DLC possibly fucking this model over).
Hence, their view is, while it is a poential problem, it is not significant enough, all factors considered, to warrant policing. (All factors here including effects on freedoms and difficulty in operation)

 

[seraphy]

Well this is in my opinion more sensible argument than what publishers has concluded. That every pirated product is a lost sale, which everyone should agree is retarded.

I suspect this is also only answer to this problem, you can't throw everyone who pirate stuff in jail nor punish them in anyway since it is so common. And you can't really stop pirating anyway, well unless you start applying increasingly draconian measures to internet, which I also doubt anyone wants.

 

[Epona]

so, what they are saying is that it's ok to steal things if you can't afford it?

I suspect not.

They probably understand that the developer doesn't exactly loose their data when someone steals it. It get's copied, and the developer doesn't know. What a great world it would be if I could steal a car by copy/pasting it.

I agree it's still stealing, just not in the classical sense.

When you look at it like "you can freely get a copy of something without taking that something from another", you realize digital information has no real monetary value. It's like having a replicator from Star Trek.

 

[DRes82]

Again, bottom line, most people have scruples. It's easy to paint a picture of pirates as amoral psychopathic thieving criminals, but that's rarely true.

Common human decency? Wanting to support the industry from which you extract fun and wanting good companies/games to thrive and make more of whatever they make?

That's putting an awful lot of faith in a concept that doesn't seem to hold much weight these days. Common human decency...ha

Regardless, your links made for interesting reads. Also, don't get me wrong. I don't agree with the US government's anti-piracy legislature in the least, and I don't think that any developers will go out of business because of piracy. However, I sure as hell am not naive enough to believe that 'common human decency' will prevent anyone from pirating or drive them to give the developers money for their work.

 

[Cananatra]

This seems a most interesting way to go about it.

Realistically any information available on the internet is almost costless to copy, from a physical point of view. The cost itself of moving the electrons is miniscule once the infrastructure is in place, which it is. Unlike buying a car where resources must be allocated to replicate the device and the company must be reimbursed for that allocation in creating the device, the digital media does not have the requirement for additional resources for replication. This does mean that the model upon which the industry operates, based upon traditional material, is incorrect. Tantamount to theft in some respects.

If a game sells its physical copy for x amount, how often do you see the digital copy selling for x minus the cost of the physical medium, transport ect on launch? That in itself would be justifiable. The current model is not.

Value of physical objects is related to how rare it is or how hard it is to make. Gold is worth more than granite, and a watch is worth more then an equal amount of material in its raw form. The internet, as a purely digital manifestation alters that totally. By the known method, any resource that is almost limitless and which requires little effort to make, should be almost free. Most companies now are fighting that to maintain profits in this area of the market because the rest of our technology has yet to bring the other resources to this level. It is, for now, greed. Lusting for the old ways, despite the old ways no longer applying. I very much like the swiss governments approach, adapt to changes in your environment or fail. The environment wont be artificially modeled to allow you to survive.

 

[viranimus]

Question, is it that switzerland is advocating piracy, or is it that they refuse to trample on the rights of their public by attempting to control the internet all at the demand of oversaturated media conglomerates.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Another piracy thread.

"One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won?t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."


Moral absolutes aside (stealing is wrong & developers should be supported), this seems to makes logical sense. It's tantamount to free advertising; the building of a fan-base who will spend cash on the medium when they can.

The problem is that the figures just don't match up with this interpretation. Most people who pirate will not go on to buy the game legitmately, otherwise that figure the Witcher 2 released last week of 1 in 5 copies being pirated would have ended 'but then we sold another 4 million anyway.' Did it? No, because most people who had pirated the game then didn't go on to buy it.

 

[Xanthious]

"since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

Umm.......that's a pretty flawed statement.

I mean come on, there's absolutely NOTHING stopping them from merely stealing music, films, games and not paying. Piracy is weird.

It's not flawed at all. Your assumption that if people pirate one thing they will pirate everything is however. I think if we are being honest (which will never happen on these forums) the vast majority of people pirate something or another in some way shape or form. There have been studies that show that people that pirate the most are the same people that spend the most on the given medium. People don't fit tidily into either pirates and legitimate customers. The bulk fall somewhere in the middle.

Also you have to consider most people have a finite amount of money they can spend on entertainment. I know that have ummmm let's say "friends" that spend around 100 bucks on a game or two a month on a very regular basis. These same "friends" also play fast and loose with Usenet and torrents. Last month my "friend" paid for Skyrim on PC and Saints Row 3 for the 360. Of course my "friend" also went and downloaded the single player campaign for Battlefield 3 and Culdcept Saga for the 360. It's not as if piracy weren't an option he would have paid for the games as he refuses to give EA money out of principal and he simply didn't have the money for the other. Either way though his 100 dollars (120 actually) for that month was spent on games.

The bottom line is if you show me someone who claims to never pirate anything, ever, I will more times than not be able to show you a self righteous liar. As I said before most people if they are being honest both pirate and pay for content. It only makes sense that if someone pirates a particular item then that will indeed mean that they will just spend the money they would have spent on that on something else instead. Piracy is not a black and white issue the people that both pirate and buy content are grossly more common that those that pirate everything or nothing at all.

 

[scw55]

My stance of piracy is: If you're a fan of a band/film series/game series, buy the game. For a start you don't really have any high ground to criticize the quality of the product if you haven't even invested money in it. The money defence is bullshit in my opinion. Budget properly or save-up. Remember when you were 10 and you would save up over a long time for one game? You can still do that. If you're afraid that you'll have wasted money acquiring the form of media you wanted, research people's opinions about it better or buy it cheaply.

Given pirating media makes you at risk of viruses and dodgey copies. I see no reason why you should get the mostly bug free official source of it.

Hard to acquire media would be the only exception. We're human beings. Not friccing Harry Potter.

 

[Aris Khandr]

"since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

Well, isn't that lovely. I mean, I'm sure it's good for someone. But not the people who make movies, games, and music. The people who make TVs and home entertainment systems that can't be pirated (it is called "theft" when they do it there) are fine. But if you make something that is "only data", well, sucks to be you I guess.

What a stupid, stupid position to take.

 

[Levethian]

When you look at it like "you can freely get a copy of something without taking that something from another", you realize digital information has no real monetary value. It's like having a replicator from Star Trek.

People know that this data is not created freely - that developers work, and need paid. That reality should dissuade people from deciding that 'data is free'.

Common human decency...ha

It's pretty common, honest! The jerks are louder, though.

Most people who pirate will not go on to buy the game legitmately

This could well be true. I'd wager that CDprojektRed now have 4.5 million people more likely to buy their next game, though. Not that I believe the figure of 4.5 million in the first place...

Question, is it that switzerland is advocating piracy, or is it that they refuse to trample on the rights of their public by attempting to control the internet all at the demand of oversaturated media conglomerates.

The latter, as it should be

What a stupid, stupid position to take.

Not really the big picture. The Swiss wouldn't take this position if they thought it would be bad for data-manufacturers.