The Elephant In The Room

... is, of course, that actual financial loss to the industry from file sharing is negligible. Groups such as the RIAA and MPAA count each and every download as a 'loss', which is as utterly disingenuous as it is possible to be.

Truth is there's no real way of measuring actual loss to copyright holders, but it's obviously a small percentage of the value they tote around the courts when suing the ass off all and sundry.

This is why. Financial loss is when a download is made instead of a sale. This is key; the proportion of downloaders who actually would have bought a given product were it NOT available for download is small. Most downloads are made by people who couldn't have afforded to make the purchase, or who weren't sufficiently interested in shelling out at the retail price.

The fallacy in the studios' arguments is that they compare such downloads to theft; they would counter my argument by pointing out that shoplifters also often can't afford the things they steal, so how can downloading be any different? Well, the difference is obvious; a shiplifter physically reduces the shop's assets, denies the sale that could have taken place. This is fundamentally different from a download, UNLESS the downloader would actually have paid hard cash for the item in a shop if it had not been available for download. And as I have said, this is a minority of downloaders.

True cinefiles and audiophiles, I would argue, would normally wish to buy the actual product. Though of course, if they can't afford to pay the ridiculously high fees, then they will turn to P2P. But the key point is that in MOST cases, there is no actual loss to the industry as THE SALE WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED even if there were no such thing as P2P.

But the industry cannot ever acknowledge this argument, even if they know it is right. To admit that there exists even one download where the person wouldn't have bought the product had P2P never existed weakens their case and muddies the waters, and so it is forever the elephant in the room that cannot be mentioned.
DeathKnell Reviewed by DeathKnell on . The Elephant In The Room The Elephant In The Room ... is, of course, that actual financial loss to the industry from file sharing is negligible. Groups such as the RIAA and MPAA count each and every download as a 'loss', which is as utterly disingenuous as it is possible to be. Truth is there's no real way of measuring actual loss to copyright holders, but it's obviously a small percentage of the value they tote around the courts when suing the ass off all and sundry. This is why. Financial loss is when a Rating: 5