5.4 Billion Dollars?
I just read an article that ended with: “Illegal downloading costs the movie industry 5.4 billion dollars a year.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sick and tired of these idiotic assessments from the movie and music industries. These overinflated numbers are based on the MPAA’s (and RIAA’s) moronic assumption that everything downloaded would be purchased if it weren’t downloaded.
If a twelve-year-old downloads $500 worth of movies, that is NOT lost revenue for the movie industry. The twelve-year-old had only $10 from his allowance money, and would not have bought the movies if he hadn’t downloaded them.
I know plenty of people who have downloaded a CD from a p2p network and then gone out and purchased that CD. That is not lost revenue either.
Other people download music and decide they don’t like it. They wouldn’t have sprung for the CD if it cost $18 at the store, just to see if they liked it. That is not lost revenue.
Basic supply and demand suggests a tension between what I want to have and what I can afford to have. If music is a free good (p2p downloads), it stands to reason that I’ll “buy” a lot more than if music is expensive. So, the idea that a consumer’s purchasing actions are identical when a good is free and when a good is expensive flies in the face of basic economic principles (not to mention common sense).
I’m sure there is some lost revenue from downloaded music and movies. But to use overinflated numbers for shock value is reprehensible. And shame on the press for reporting this so irresponsibly - the media should not regurgitate the numbers the RIAA gives them; they should check things out for themselves and report as accurately as possible.