Simply upping the frame rate or resolution in non-pirated goods will not add that value. As long as you are adding value, it will be easier. The object here is to get creative in how you part fans from their money. This is a scarce commodity that has value to fans. Martin or the writers or Director of the show. In Marcus’ example, it is a limited seating to a Q&A with George R. So what do you do? Throw in some goodies that only people who pay can access. So a person is a big enough fan of Game of Thrones to watch the show, but not enough to pay for a subscription to HBO. Let’s look at Marcus Carab’s example above. If the goal it to get someone to give you money, then the means to that end is to offer them something they actually value. So I will attempt to throw a few things against the wall to see if they stick. It’s nice to see this bit of research adding deeply to this debate, both with real world examples of this happening today and a detailed economic model that explains the behavior.Īnd yet… our policy makers continue to think that the best answer is simply to keep on ratcheting up enforcement.įiled Under: competition, content, copyright, infringement, piracy, policy, quality We’ve argued from the beginning that there are tons of ways to “compete” with unauthorized access, and providing quality is definitely one such way. Of course, when you think about much of this, it makes sense.
In fact, one part of the study models whether or not there are “ethical” consumers who don’t infringe for ethical reasons - and finds that in such a world, there tends to be even fewer reasons for increasing enforcement. That is, they do find some conditions under which the traditional “common sense” view holds, but it seems relatively rare. Most of the paper focuses on creating and testing an economic model that explains this behavior, and highlights when such factors apply and when they don’t, for the purpose of trying to optimize policy as well as an individual copyright holder’s response to piracy. In fact, they find that content creators (or distributors) are likely to increase profits by focusing on product quality, rather than enforcement. The conclusion: less enforcement of copyright laws will likely lead to greater quality in output in many cases, and conversely that greater enforcement likely leads to less social benefit as the quality decreases, in markets facing the same conditions.
It digs in on some evidence as well, showing how investments in R&D from software companies continues to increase, almost directly in line with claims that “piracy” rates for those companies has increased. The study doesn’t just look at such anecdotal cases. This strategy has encouraged enthusiastic gamers, who have a strong preference for the latest version, to switch to legal downloads. Its game Team Fortress 2 in 2007, it has made frequent quality enhancements, including addition Valve, a video game manufacturer, has also adopted a similar strategy. HBO?s innovative offerings have reduced piracy and brought in new
New contents are available through both HBO?s cable TV channels as wellĪs its new IPTV channels. Responded to this high piracy rate by churning out new high quality contents in different European The piracy rate faced by HBO is estimated to be between 30% to 50%.
For example:Ī case in point is the European unit of the cable TV channel HBO, which is fightingĪgainst unauthorized distribution of its content by illegal torrent websites by raising the quality of And one way to do that is to increase the quality. The key explanatory factor here: the best way to compete with piracy is to offer a better product yourself. Of course, this counters the “common sense” argument that such infringement inevitably lowers the quality of content, since the creators and distributors of said content can no longer invest as much in the content. Mon, Jul 25th 2011 11:01am - Mike MasnickĮric Goldman points us to a very, very interesting new research paper by Atanu Lahiri and Debabrata Day, showing all sorts of real examples about how “piracy” appears to increase the quality of the related goods that are being infringed upon.