Illegal Downloads 150x More Profitable Than Legal Sales

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A new report from an anti-piracy outfit claims that illegal downloads are 150x more profitable than legal sales. Wait. What?!?

The German-based anti-piracy outfit DigiRights Solutions (DRS) recently published an interesting PowerPoint presentation (in German) which shows how copyright holders can make millions from pirates. The document reveals some rather shocking statistics that show how illicit downloads are more profitable than legal downloads.
Click to expand...
 
They are talking about a feeble system of monitoring file sharing, tracking down the downloaders directly, and then claiming damages and fining them.

From the headline I thought the article was going to be about much more prevalent "pay to download" businesses which are currently raking in the dough regardless of content.
 
The 150x number is dubious at best, or an outright lie at worst. How many of these pirates only downloaded a single song? Most of them download multiple full albums.

Admittedly they may only keep one song with the quality of many albums :p
 
i wonder how many here actuaqlly read the article, there basing the 150x profit figure based on speculative fines. They are saying that if they fined for every song illegally downloaded that fine would be 90euros which is 150x more than the 0.60euros they could make selling there songs on such systems as itunes.

the other interesting part in the article is this bit...

DRS states that it’s realistic to track and pursue about 5,000 filesharers per month per title. Considering that 25% of those people pay the €90, then the copyright holders would have to to make about 150,000 online sales.
Click to expand...

personnally call BS on being able to track 5000 filesharers.
 
So in order to make money rather than selling a shitty product you can sue people and make more!? BRILLIANT! :D

I was half expecting some comparison like pirates tend to spend more money on hardware, etc... but nope.... all about the insta-lawsuit with the thread of pay or be sued out of existence.
 
well you see some kid downloads a song then they sue his family blind and profit from legal robbery, courts really need to put an end to this BS, worst they should be able to do is charge em for the price of the CD and lawyer fees.
 
Also no distribution costs from pirated media, on the part of the copyright holder.

This is almost like trying to get fired on purpose so that you can collect unemployment because its easier then trying to be a better worker and get a raise.
 
Flakes said:
personnally call BS on being able to track 5000 filesharers.
Click to expand...

Thats quite easy once you have a system that can track one file sharer.
Data is collected automatically and assembled into presentable form if prosecution is to take pursued.
 
I'm waiting for the "gray area"

The one where somebody's legit copy gets caught up in this mess and Der Fuhrer comes along
demanding restitution.

The fact that it brings in more money than legit sales channels tells you that it's not about
piracy, it's all about the money.
 
jwalk6 said:
I'm waiting for the "gray area"

The one where somebody's legit copy gets caught up in this mess and Der Fuhrer comes along
demanding restitution.

The fact that it brings in more money than legit sales channels tells you that it's not about
piracy, it's all about the money.
Click to expand...

It was always about the money, make no mistake.
 
So when they request $650 send them $4.33 and tell them to f' off.
 
Hmmm, what can I say, it is a stupid article. File sharers are not going to get caught by "sharing" 1 song. The premise they set is ridiculous. The 3 dozen or so fiIe sharers I know download songs numbering in the thousands, a few have even surpassed the 10K mark. So........a $650 fine would equal $0.065 a song.
 
JUSTJOEL73 said:
Hmmm, what can I say, it is a stupid article. File sharers are not going to get caught by "sharing" 1 song. The premise they set is ridiculous. The 3 dozen or so fiIe sharers I know download songs numbering in the thousands, a few have even surpassed the 10K mark. So........a $650 fine would equal $0.065 a song.
Click to expand...

Please re read the article.
DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense.
Click to expand...

Either way, any compensation for them is in their favor. A single song obviously is not worth $650 but its 650 (or 20% of) they did not have otherwise. So even if the guy w/ 10k songs downloaded in the past gets popped for only one it is still a win for them regardless of what it works out to on a per song basis. Also, people who download obscene numbers of music files (10k+) are and will always be in the minority and thus not really worth mentioning as its an extreme example. Your argument is like saying...well that speeding ticket I got really only cost me $5 because I have sped down the road 20 times...but the 19 times you were not caught did not cost the city/county anything so they are still up $100.

If I were a betting man I would put money on the averages working out into the copyright holders benefit and for sure the companies benefit since they keep 80%. Remember, most people would not have bought all the music they 'pirated' so having a chance to get $130 per song where they would have had had nothing at all is not a business model to sneeze at. Its fucking sleazy as hell but its a money maker. I would expect to see much more of this in the future.
 
thyshallsmite said:
well you see some kid downloads a song then they sue his family blind and profit from legal robbery, courts really need to put an end to this BS, worst they should be able to do is charge em for the price of the CD and lawyer fees.
Click to expand...

this would be my argument to the judge. i would say, "if i physically stole this media at a store i would get much less penalty, even though downloading is much much less dangerous then a physical confrontation at a real place with people"...
 
People still aren't RTFA. It's not RIAA-style lawsuits, it's tracking and sending a bill for alleged downloads. They say 25% of people pay without contesting it so likely those people just say 'oh darn, I got caught.' But it's really just akin to those sleazy collection agencies who buy 'phantom debts' - ones that aren't collectible or are errors - and send out a bill. One major difference is that in the US at least there are Fair Credit laws which protect the individual while there may not be any such protection laws for something like this.
 
Madman0 said:
People still aren't RTFA. It's not RIAA-style lawsuits, it's tracking and sending a bill for alleged downloads. They say 25% of people pay without contesting it so likely those people just say 'oh darn, I got caught.' But it's really just akin to those sleazy collection agencies who buy 'phantom debts' - ones that aren't collectible or are errors - and send out a bill. One major difference is that in the US at least there are Fair Credit laws which protect the individual while there may not be any such protection laws for something like this.
Click to expand...

Where is the major difference? This is pretty much exactly what the RIAA is doing except the RIAA has better support from the US court system. They send out letters threatening a lawsuit and giving the individual an opportunity to avoid such a suit at the low low price of (insert not so low low price here). The difference between the RIAA and any sleazy collection agency is purely semantics in this case. The RIAA may have more muscle behind them if somebody refuses to pay but that is not the point. They are not making hundreds of millions of dollars off of the guys who refuse to pay, they make it off the folks who out of fear or ignorance or not wanting to stand up to the 3000lb Gorilla or whatever reason, simply pay up when they get a letter.

Furthermore, the protections offered by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are fairly basic. I am glad they are there but I do not see how they would play a major role against the scheme described in the article.
 
The major issue with a scheme like this is tracking down the person who downloaded the file. Simply snooping on traffic only gives you the IP address, along with (possibly) some rudimentary information. You need to go to the ISP to get a name.

Here in the US, ISPs have usually required court orders for that, which means that the copyright holder has to file a lawsuit.
 
I smell a company desperate for money from rights holders.

Also: lies, damn lies and statistics :p
 
sfsuphysics said:
So in order to make money rather than selling a shitty product you can sue people and make more!? BRILLIANT! :D

I was half expecting some comparison like pirates tend to spend more money on hardware, etc... but nope.... all about the insta-lawsuit with the thread of pay or be sued out of existence.
Click to expand...

Well, if it is shitty why are you downloading it?

Piracy argument fail.
 
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