[log in to unmask]"
type="cite">
[Well argued piece by Tim O'Reily on the economic aspects]
In
the entire discussion, I've seen no discussion of credible
evidence of this economic harm. There's no question in my mind
that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying
creative content without paying for it, and even that some
criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there
actual economic harm?
In
my experience at O'Reilly, the losses due to piracy are far
outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information,
which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for
legitimate content. Most of the people who are downloading
unauthorized copies of O'Reilly books would never have paid us
for them anyway; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of others
are buying content from us, many of them in countries that we
were never able to do business with when our products were not
available in digital form.
History
shows us, again and again, that frontiers are lawless places,
but that as they get richer and more settled, they join in the
rule of law. American publishing, now the largest publishing
industry in the world, began with piracy. (I have a post
coming on that subject on Monday.)
--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
-