I just read
this article regarding a recent survey that 36% of software installed across the globe is [shudder]
pirated! It goes on to state that tens of billions of dollars are lost each year, which of course impacts state tax revenue, stock prices, jobs, blah... blah... blah. Well I'm sick of this litany and it's time to lay down my belief that [another shudder]
piracy is good for business.
My case is based entirely on anecdotal evidence and personal opinion, but I believe there is an aspect to this topic that has been grossly overlooked by the media. So, to start off with, let's look at this quote from the aforementioned article:
Some 36 percent of the software installed on computers worldwide in 2003 was pirated, representing a loss of about 29 billion dollars to companies, a survey showed Wednesday.
Something about that word "loss" bothers the piss out of me when I read stories like these, the same way that word bothers me when I hear the big music labels use it when they rail against downloading music, or the MPAA with movies. I think what bothers me is that they all immediately assume that I would fork over cash for every single thing I download illegally. If that were true, then yes, these industries are incurring massive losses due to piracy & P2P technologies. Of course, that turns out not to be true in what I believe to be a vast majority of cases.
For instance, let's say I'm killing time on LimeWire looking for something to download. I search for something generic like "80s", and casually download a few old school tracks like General Public's "Tenderness", Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and "One" by Metallica. I toss them into a playlist, listen to them a few times, and forget that I ever got them. Now here's what the music industry needs to understand: I would have NEVER forked out the cash for those songs! So how are they "losing" money? All that's actually happening is that they're just getting screwed out of their "cut", but they didn't go thru the trouble to rip, share, and burn those songs, I did.
The other point that seems to be lost on all the music & movie execs is that if I like an artist, even just moderately, I'll buy the album, or go see the movie in the theater the first chance I get. This is especially true with movies. Sure I was able to download "Spiderman 2" the day after it opened in theaters, but that doesn't mean I didn't go see it at my local monsterplex as soon as I could (and am gonna see it in the theater at least one more time). Why? Because it was a quality piece of cinema, worth the time and cost of a theater experience. Conversely, following a private screening of a pirated copy of "The Hulk", I chose not to waste my money on it since I was bored to tears by the pace of the film and its mediocre special effects. If Hollywood has a right to make crap films, then I have a right to save my $7 whenever possible by screening pirated copies.
And finally, we come to the issue of pirated software and the title of this diary entry. How is pirated software good for the economy? Let me tell you a story...
About eight years ago, a freshman theater major was just starting to discover something new and exciting called "The InterNet". It would consume hours upon hours of his time, night after night. On one of those nights he discovered something called "Warez". Soon he had downloaded illegal copies of Adobe Photoshop and HomeSite, and used these tools to create several useless "hey look at me!" web sites. Those web sites came in handy when this college student saw a classified ad posted by a local web shop looking for "HTML Developers". He quickly landed the position and fell into the world of graphic design. He pirated more software over the years, using them to learn new technologies and become a more valuable asset to his employers.
No surprise, that college student was me. I was on the cliched "fast track to nowhere" until I discovered pirated software. So now, instead of trying to make a living as some struggling actor, or settling for some minimum-wage retail career, I'm making a very comfortable wage as a full-time graphic designer. I'm a reckless GenX consumer whore so I don't save shit, and spend every dime I can on stupid shit like GameCubes, DVD Players, cameras, etc. And finally, the income taxes I pay on my fatty paychecks far outweigh what the state would have garnered from the sales taxes they would have received if I had purchased three copies of every piece of pirated software that I've ever used.
I'm not an isolated case, either. Nearly every technophile I know that downloads and uses pirated software does so in order to hone their particular skills and get better jobs. And, like me, once they can afford to shell out the cash for the applications they use the most, they, for the most part, do.
As for companies that pirate software, well, that can be a little more of a grey area. However, I'd rather see 20 people employed at a small web shop using pirated software than the same 20 people standing in line at the unemployment office.
Update [2004-7-8 11:56:19 by beedee]:
gregonthe28th posted:
for me personally downloading music opened a whole new world of musical interest.... and it's caused me to buy more cds in the past two years than i'd ever purchased before
This is a point that I totally forgot to bring up, and probably the most convincing. The number of amazing artists I have discovered through P2P services such as Napster, LimeWire, and KaZaa, has had an unquestionably positive impact on my life
and the economy. Here's a list of every single album I've purchased by artists I became exposed to through piracy that I wouldn't have otherwise (and this is just from my iTunes library at work, I know there's at least twice as many at home):
- A Silver Mt. Zion - He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Sometimes Grace The Corners Of Our Rooms
- Bardo Pond - Dilate
- The Beta Band - The 3 E.P.'s
- The Black Heart Procession - 1
- The Black Heart Procession - 3
- Blonde Redhead - Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons
- Bright Eyes - Every Day And Every Night
- Bright Eyes - Fevers And Mirrors
- Bright Eyes - Lamacq Session, 17-May-01
- Bright Eyes - Letting Off The Happiness
- Bright Eyes - Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
- Bright Eyes - Oh Holy Fools - The Music of Son, Ambulance and Bright Eyes
- Bright Eyes - There Is No Beginning To The Story
- Broadcast - Work And Non Work
- Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret
- Cat Power - Dear Sir
- Cat Power - Moon Pix
- Cat Power - Myra Lee
- Cat Power - The Covers Record
- Cat Power - What Would The Community Think
- Cat Power - You Are Free
- Clinic - Internal Wrangler
- The Darkness - Permission to Land
- Death Cab for Cutie - Something About Airplanes
- Dirty Three - Dirty Three
- Dirty Three - Horse Stories
- Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
- Dirty Three - She Has No Strings Apollo
- DJ Shadow - Endtroducing ....
- DJ Shadow - Preemptive Strike
- DJ Shadow - The Private Press
- Electric Six - Fire
- Elliott Smith - Either/Or
- Elliott Smith - Figure Eight
- The Faint - Blank Wave Arcade
- The Faint - Danse Macabre
- The Faint - The Faint
- Ghost Cauldron - Invent Modest Fires
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - F#A#Oo
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (Disc 2)
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - o Heaven disc 1
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - o Heaven disc 2
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada
- Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Yanqui U.X.O.
- Golden Boy & Miss Kittin - Or
- The Halifax Pier - The Halifax Pier
- Hrsta - L'eclat du ciel etait insouten
- Interpol - Turn On The Bright
- Jeremy Enigk - Return of the Frog Queen
- Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat
- JUNO - A Future Lived in Past Tense
- Juno - This Is The Way It Goes And Goes And Goes
- Juno Reactor - Shango
- Ladytron - 604
- Ladytron - Light And Magic
- Magnetic Fields - The Wayward Bus / Distant Pla
- Man Or Astro-man? - 1000x
- Man Or Astro-man? - Experiment Zero
- Man Or Astro-man? - Project Infinity
- Mike Doughty - Rockity Roll [EP]
- Mike Doughty - Skittish
- Mike Doughty - Smofe + Smang (Live In Mpls)
- Modest Mouse - Float On - Single
- Modest Mouse - Modest Mouse - EP
- Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
- Modest Mouse - This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About
- Mogwai - Come On Die Young
- Morphine - Cure for Pain
- Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
- Nick Drake - Pink Moon
- Okkervil River - Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See
- Owen (Polyvinyl) - No Good For No One Now
- Owen (Polyvinyl) - Owen
- Patti Smith - Gone Again
- Pavement - Brighten The Corners
- Pedro The Lion - Control
- Pedro The Lion - It's Hard To Find A Friend
- Pedro The Lion - The Only Reason I Feel Secure
- Pixies - Alec Eiffel
- Pixies - Bossanova
- Pixies - Come On Pilgrim
- Pixies - Doolittle
- Portishead - Dummy
- Portishead - Portishead
- Portishead - Roseland NYC [Live]
- The Postal Service - Give Up
- The Postal Service - Such Great Heights CDM
- Rachel's - Selenography
- Rachel's - The Sea And The Bells
- Shearwater - Shearwater - The Left Side
- Shearwater - Winged Life
- Sigur Ros - ( )
- Songs Ohia - Axxess & Ace
- Songs Ohia - The Lioness
- Soul Coughing - El Oso
- Soul Coughing - Irresistable Bliss
- Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom
- Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
- Sunny Day Real Estate - How it Feels to be Something On
- Tahiti 80 - Puzzle
- Tom Waits - Blood Money
- Tom Waits - Bone Machine
- Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
- Tortoise - Standards
- The White Stripes - Elephant
- The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
- Zero 7 - Simple Things