
EU suppressed results of a study that found piracy doesn’t harm sales - ABS
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537
======
Toboe
Quality headline...

European Comission tries to hide study that piracy doesn't harm sales, is
foiled by member of European Parliament.

* And technically it seems the study found it harms for Blockbuster movies, helps for games, does negligible harm for books and has no effect on music.

(Going by a German report on it[1])

[1] [https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Auswirkungen-von-
Rau...](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Auswirkungen-von-Raubkopien-
EU-Kommission-unterdrueckt-Piraterie-Studie-3837330.html)

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andy_ppp
I’ve been thinking for a while what would happen and how much money Hollywood
could make if they charged $1 for a 1080p film and $2 for 4k, no DRM, just a
file download.

I think I’d probably spend a hundred dollars or more straight away if all
films were there I loved. I think a lot of people would pay a small amount for
each film too. Blurays at $20 is too much and I’ve no interest in physical
copies.

~~~
rhino369
Do you really think there are 15X as many people who would buy a move for a
dollar than would pay 15 bucks?

~~~
_justpassingby_
Yes. I would assume- based on the exponential nature of wealth distribution-
that you would get exponentially more people willing to spend as the amount
lowers.

~~~
rhino369
But 15 dollars is in the reach of relatively modest income people already.

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supernumerary
EU had to suppress the report. Because from their absolute point of view
piracy harms sales. While the report argues that in fact it is now
incorporated with a vanilla sales funnel - people who 'don't pirate' talk to
people who 'pirate', and this 'boosts sales' ...

Ultimately, it seems pirated materials are 'free as in beer' ... and as the
report concludes - in many cases, pirated films boost sales. To say nothing of
the various personalities and corporate interests behind films for example
that prosper from bare exposure, product placement, propaganda etc...

Incidentally, the same applies to software. I imagine by this time Adobe has a
shadowy but no-less locked down funnel that teens enter when they first
torrent and crack Photoshop...

Furthermore, it seems that the concept of piracy is fraught with mixed
metaphors and improper comparisons, epitomized by the 'You wouldn't download a
bear.' meme. These seem to be spawned by authority trying to leverage some
moral sentiment without understanding the inter-relatedness of the cultural
scene and the internet generally. Nevertheless this has created a general
class of 'law-abiders' or 'normies' who might account for the people who
ultimately purchase a product after being referred to it by a pirate.

~~~
tannhaeuser
Appreciate a well-expressed comment, but I don't see what "the EU" as such has
to gain by suppressing the report. The EU _Commission_ is accused (in [1]) of
withholding information in TFA, and I think the evidence is pretty thin here.
As the linked post says itself

> _But the EU never shared the report possibly because it determined that
> there is no evidence that piracy is a major problem_

Now there might very well be lobbying for changing EU "copyright law"; I don't
know, and TFA doesn't tell either.

(Actually, there's no such concept as "copyright" in France/Germany and other
European jurisdictions with Code Civil heritage. Is "copyright" a Common Law
or US-only concept? I guess with Brexit the only Common Law jurisdiction left
in the EU would be Ireland but IANAL).

[1]: [https://edri.org/did-the-eu-commission-hide-a-
study/](https://edri.org/did-the-eu-commission-hide-a-study/) _Did the EU
Commission hide a study that did not suit their agenda?_

~~~
That-one-thing
I will quote here from Julia Reda who got the report.

"At first I was willing to give the Commission the benefit of the doubt that
the study had simply fallen through the cracks, since the responsible
department underwent significant restructuring in 2014, after the study was
commissioned.

However, now all available evidence suggests that the Commission actively
chose to ignore the study except for the part that suited their agenda: In an
academic article published in 2016, two European Commission officials reported
a link between lost sales for blockbusters and illegal downloads of those
films. They failed to disclose, however, that the study this was based on also
looked at music, ebooks and games, where it found no such connection. On the
contrary, in the case of video games, the study found the opposite link,
indicating a positive influence of illegal game downloads on legal sales.

That demonstrates that the study wasn’t forgotten by the Commission
altogether.

They also failed twice to meet the deadline for responding to my freedom of
information request.

One cannot avoid the suspicion that the Commission intentionally suppressed
the publication of publicly-funded research because the facts discovered were
inconvenient to their political agenda."

Tl:dr Hidden on purpose to further their agenda.

EDIT: Sorry source. [http://www.journalismonline.gr/eu-paid-for-a-report-that-
con...](http://www.journalismonline.gr/eu-paid-for-a-report-that-concluded-
piracy-isnt-harmful-tried-to-hide-the-findings/)

~~~
tannhaeuser
I guess I still fail to see the political agenda thing of the EU Commission in
this matter. The results were published in the context of movie downloads
because that's the only area calling to action according to the study. It's
also not clear to me _why_ the EU Commission should suppress discussing a
study they themselves ordered, or what their stance in this matter is alleged
to be, when there is no material conflict of interest here that I can see.
That just doesn't make sense.

------
devmunchies
See other recent HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476)

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Divver
I’m wondering if the study differentiated between analyzing the effect of
piracy on large companies with big profit margins versus small companies with
thin profit margins.

My conjecture is that piracy would have a stronger negative impact on the
latter.

My guess is Piracy doesn’t hurt big blockbuster entertainment and software
corporations much because of their corporate deals and large profit margins.

But if you limit the study to smaller mom-and-pop
musicians/entertainers/actors/performers, small video game development
studios, and other small software companies which have thin profit margins,

I think we’d see a noticeable negative impact caused by piracy.

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shihab_shahriar
I am from a 3rd world country, have been using all things pirated since my
birth without ever blinking an eye. But still, I do realize this is morally
wrong, and should be discouraged even if it doesn't directly harm sales.

