Music Piracy Triggers Significant Losses

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When I saw the headline I thought to myself "uh-oh." But then, after reading the article, the losses in the UK are roughly only 5%. That is waaay lower than I thought it would be. The MPAA - RIAA spend more than that on lawyers and unsuccessfully trying to track down and sue pirates.

New research published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office shows that piracy hurts both digital and physical music sales. In EU countries the total losses are roughly 5% of yearly revenues, which equals €170 million. In addition, piracy also triggers secondary losses for governments and the public sector.
 
sounds like a very reasonable number, while you can't say every pirate = a lost sale a certain percentage of them certainly are. I see it a lot on private tracker sites with games like just cause 3 and doom that use denuvo and a fair bit of people saying that they gave up on waiting for a crack to play their pirate version and that they just gave in and purchased it for a good deal off one of those discount sites that offer games with 20%+ savings.
 
It generally comes down to availability or price.

If they would provide the product in the format people want, and provide it so cheap it's not worth pirating it, then most piracy would go away.

When Apple started offering songs for 99 cents, it not only shook up the retail market, but also resulted in a large drop in piracy.
 
I really can't fathom how you translate piracy numbers to actual sales lost though. Not a pirate apologist here by any means... more like I question the assumptions involved to arrive at any specific percentages.

Say 100,000 people download the latest Beyonce album: how do we know if any of them would have actually purchased if pirating was off the table? I don't necessarily trust the accuracy of polls on that either, as you'd have to ask a LOT of people and put great faith in their honesty (which I question in these situations based on behavior of friends and family).

Surely piracy hurts sales of all sorts of media - I just question our ability to get any sort of accurate numbers for it.
 
We can't prove that it hurts the industry at all. Many people who use P2P or otherwise acquire copyrighted works through an unauthorized channel go on to purchase the material afterwards so that would have to be taken into account as well. Still others wouldn't have bought it anyway.

There are basically five levels of people when it comes to this kind of thing:

-People who will buy it new
-People who will buy it second hand
-People who will get it via P2P or some other unauthorized source
-People who don't care about it enough to do the above
-People who have never heard of it

The industry sees everything below the first level as lost sales. This is apparent from the fuss that they've made over used sales. If they had it their way, they'd want everyone to pay every time they played a song, watched a movie, or played a game. The only people who can be converted are the people on the last level. The industry has probably lost more money by branding their customers and fans as thieves and pirates than they could even lose via P2P.
 
Who can still be bothered to screw around with downloading, organizing and storing MP3's? Talk about minutiae.

If you're not on Spotify & friends by now you're wasting your time.
 
I would bet there is more of a correlation to users that subscribe things like spotify and a drop in conventional sales. These are the people willing to spend the money and a service like that is preferably to many of those users.
 
From the report:

Data for the report was purchased from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Revenues from music distributors and retailers are not included here.
The lost sales estimated in this report represent hypothetical additional revenue that the recorded music sector would have earned, had infringement not taken place.
They are estimating jobs lost in the music industry as a result of piracy based solely on employment-to-sales ratios.
Where Sweden & Denmark's physical sales data didn't fit the results they 'excluded' them.
The figures are based on the % of people considering it acceptable to download content for personal use.
 
I've probably spent $300 on albums in the last year because of things I discovered "illegally". These guys are not embracing the new face of marketing.

I actually buy more music now that I am actively downloading stuff then I did before when I only listened to the radio. I have also discovered a lot of new music.
 
DPI said:
Who can still be bothered to screw around with downloading, organizing and storing MP3's? Talk about minutiae.
Click to expand...

Not sure what your definition of "work" is.. but to me.. saving a file on my hard drive is hardly difficult! and the other things you list... are the same! Download. Done. Never bother about it again. Don't have to worry about not being connected to the net to play a song... and many other benefits that require zero effort to reek. :\
 
Those losses are only realized if every one of the pirated songs and movies would of actually been purchased by said individual if it wasn't pirated. Since that is unlikely the case then the actual loses from people who would of actually purchased the music has to be a very very small fraction of that 5%.
 
Vader1975 said:
Those losses are only realized if every one of the pirated songs and movies would of actually been purchased by said individual if it wasn't pirated. Since that is unlikely the case then the actual loses from people who would of actually purchased the music has to be a very very small fraction of that 5%.
Click to expand...

I think this is why the entertainment bodies are keen on having a flat tax on everybody. Pirating, not buying records or DVDs - it's all just stealing profit from hard working Hollywood fat-cats.
 
I don't think I've downloaded one single song since I found Spotify Pro. Maybe I'm just getting old and don't feel like putting in the legwork for it anymore. Man do I miss the days of Napster though, how I could fill those 40Gb hard drives.
 
You know what would raise music industry profits significantly more than 5%? Ditch those music labels, they're now totally unnecessary dinosaurs that don't help artists at all, they just soak up money.
 
DPI said:
Who can still be bothered to screw around with downloading, organizing and storing MP3's? Talk about minutiae.

If you're not on Spotify & friends by now you're wasting your time.
Click to expand...
I actually think spotify and pandora suck bad, they play the same 50 songs per station and the ads are horrible (at least on mobile) and i dont really feel like spending money per month to listen to music. Also i dont like being limited on the amount of skips i can have. I just put my 50GB music library on my phone and hit shuffle, way better version of spotify/pandora and i dont have to pay for it.
 
DPI said:
Who can still be bothered to screw around with downloading, organizing and storing MP3's? Talk about minutiae.

If you're not on Spotify & friends by now you're wasting your time.
Click to expand...

This is pretty accurate. I have over 40K songs on my computer yet I just use spotify. My friend is a DJ and gives me all of his music but I can't be bothered to organize it. However, I will say that if spotify continues to add more adverts, I'll find another service.

With all that said. If I didn't have a way to play music for free, I still wouldn't buy it. I would rather not have it at all than pay for it.
 
Carouselambra said:
With all that said. If I didn't have a way to play music for free, I still wouldn't buy it. I would rather not have it at all than pay for it.
Click to expand...

Premium for Family

Find 4 people to split the bill with and you are paying $3/month. You could even set it up through the forums I bet like some of us share Newegg Premier. 5 people, $36 for a year each.
 
Ragenrok said:
does anyone really consider youtube free anymore? Either you pay $10/month or you're raped by add's
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ublock origin. Zero ads, and if you wanted to you can white list people that you subscribe to so you can still support their channel if you care to.
 
Rustynuts said:
I only listen to music on YouTube for free
Click to expand...

Ragenrok said:
does anyone really consider youtube free anymore? Either you pay $10/month or you're raped by add's
Click to expand...

If you are paying for YT Red, you don't need YT for music, because it includes Google Play Music.

Truth be told I didn't even know I had YT Red until I noticed the logo change, as I used uBlock and never saw ads. But the music streaming service is worth it to me, so I guess it's an added feature.
 
BlueFireIce said:
If you are paying for YT Red, you don't need YT for music, because it includes Google Play Music.

Truth be told I didn't even know I had YT Red until I noticed the logo change, as I used uBlock and never saw ads. But the music streaming service is worth it to me, so I guess it's an added feature.
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I'm far to cheap, i just go make a drink when ad's start lol
 
Ragenrok said:
I'm far to cheap, i just go make a drink when ad's start lol
Click to expand...

For me I have a long drive to and from work (3hrs total a day), so being able to open the Google Play Music app, and play anything I like without ads is wonderful, not for everyone, sure, but totally worth it for me, YTRed is just an extra.
 
BlueFireIce said:
For me I have a long drive to and from work (3hrs total a day), so being able to open the Google Play Music app, and play anything I like without ads is wonderful, not for everyone, sure, but totally worth it for me, YTRed is just an extra.
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I have been using Pandora but I didn't realize that Google music was included with YouTube red. Going to look into it now as it just went from "wow what a rip" to "sounds like it could be worth it" for me lol
 
I just use Pandora. All MP3s I have were ripped from my own CDs so I can upload them to onedrive so I can stream them to my phone.
 
Ragenrok said:
I have been using Pandora but I didn't realize that Google music was included with YouTube red. Going to look into it now as it just went from "wow what a rip" to "sounds like it could be worth it" for me lol
Click to expand...

I have used pandora premium, Apple music, Spotify, and Play Music, Play music has been my fav so far, good features, same song count as Apple Music, search, play etc as much as you want, you can also upload your own personal music to the server and stream it where ever and I think you can stream from up to 3 devices at once on the normal plan, the family allows you to stream from 6? I think devices.
 
BlueFireIce said:
I have used pandora premium, Apple music, Spotify, and Play Music, Play music has been my fav so far, good features, same song count as Apple Music, search, play etc as much as you want, you can also upload your own personal music to the server and stream it where ever and I think you can stream from up to 3 devices at once on the normal plan, the family allows you to stream from 6? I think devices.
Click to expand...
Turns out because I'm a dirty Canadian I can't get youtube red or google music, teaches me for considering spending money on them lol.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Really? Why is that?
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Only available in Australia, New Zealand and the United States because of..... Reasons! lol, another instance of content being locked out to us because some group of jackasses in suits say so, same reason we get a different Netflix than you guys
 
Vader1975 said:
Those losses are only realized if every one of the pirated songs and movies would of actually been purchased by said individual if it wasn't pirated. Since that is unlikely the case then the actual loses from people who would of actually purchased the music has to be a very very small fraction of that 5%.
Click to expand...
Beyond the commercial pirates who rip movies and then sell them on the streets for $5, they're also annoyed at folks like me: We've spent so much of our life being ripped off by the music and movie industry, spending tens of thousands of dollars for stuff that was basically crap or just a marketing maneuvered rip off (filler songs on albums & CD's, movies that sucked, not to mention all the movies sold in America for $20+ when they sold the very same items in other places for a fraction of that, region encrypting, etc.). So now many people pirate stuff because we feel 'entitled' to get some of our money back. And of course, they don't like the idea that they can't sell us any more of their crap products, when we only wanted one (the old days of album versions on songs and CD's). The industry simply wants to keep the same marketing model they used to have: You watch/buy it our way, or not at all, and we'll feed you as much crap as we want (today, that means overpriced DVD's/blurays with all the 'value added' crap that nobody wants/or all the FBI/interpol piracy warnings, before you get to watch your movie). And so, when we find a way to avoid eating all that crap, we do it.

Like everyone else, sure, we'd probably be inclined to buy a decent product if it was offered at a reasonable price. But what has happened, is that the entertainment industry is now getting screwed, for the screwing they did to their customers in the past. What goes around, comes around, and it's coming around.
 
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The only music I pirate are those that are not available to buy here. But with on-line orders I can pretty much get anything now so I don't even remember the last time I pirated music. Unless you call listening to youtube piracy. It's not my responsibility to check if it was legally uploaded or not.
 
Ragenrok said:
Only available in Australia, New Zealand and the United States because of..... Reasons! lol, another instance of content being locked out to us because some group of jackasses in suits say so, same reason we get a different Netflix than you guys
Click to expand...

List of available countries from Googles website for Play Music:

"Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela"
 
BlueFireIce said:
List of available countries from Googles website for Play Music:

"Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela"
Click to expand...
the three I listed were for youtube red, I already get free music streaming with other services but figured if they were going to couple youtube red and google music premium for $10/month I was willing to look at it. YouTube Red available locations - YouTube Help
 
nightfly said:
Beyond the commercial pirates who rip movies and then sell them on the streets for $5, they're also annoyed at folks like me: We've spent so much of our life being ripped off by the music and movie industry, spending tens of thousands of dollars for stuff that was basically crap or just a marketing maneuvered rip off (filler songs on albums & CD's, movies that sucked, not to mention all the movies sold in America for $20+ when they sold the very same items in other places for a fraction of that, region encrypting, etc.). So now many people pirate stuff because we feel 'entitled' to get some of our money back. And of course, they don't like the idea that they can't sell us any more of their crap products, when we only wanted one (the old days of album versions on songs and CD's). The industry simply wants to keep the same marketing model they used to have: You watch/buy it our way, or not at all, and we'll feed you as much crap as we want (today, that means overpriced DVD's/blurays with all the 'value added' crap that nobody wants/or all the FBI/interpol piracy warnings, before you get to watch your movie). And so, when we find a way to avoid eating all that crap, we do it.

Like everyone else, sure, we'd probably be inclined to buy a decent product if it was offered at a reasonable price. But what has happened, is that the entertainment industry is now getting screwed, for the screwing they did to their customers in the past. What goes around, comes around, and it's coming around.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. Nashville's rehashed Country music was unbelievably guilty of this. However there are a number of investigations into the RIAA's allegations in the past that showed that people who pirated actually bought more music then people who didn't and bought more then they did when they were not pirating. The ability to sift through the crap and locate great music or movies and then just buy what you actually want caused a increase in sales. Their idea that they loose sales keeps being upended. Whenever they really crack down on piracy and start actually having an effect music sales go down. I actually started looking into my own habits and found that they were actually right. When I started pirating music I was able to just delete the garbage and not worry about it. If i really found something of value I went and bought it. If it was crap it's gone.
 
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