this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee... (www.pandasecurity.com)
submitted 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology
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The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee...::We analyze a new study where the EUIPO suggests online piracy is on the increase within the European Union.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There are two main problems with digital piracy. First, it robs the creator of their income. It’s not just big companies who suffer – the people working behind the scenes lose out too.

No, robbery is theft under the threat of violence. Theft requires an intent to deprive the owner of their possession. Copyright infringement is not theft.

Businesses do not have a right to peoples' money.

Second, piracy is illegal. Penalties for stealing digital content vary from country to country, but they can be quite harsh. In the UK, digital pirates face up to five years in prison and a £5000 GBP fine (~$6000)

Criminal copyright infringement might attract prison time, but that has a fairly high bar, and is typically focused on profiting from piracy. Most copyright infringement is not a crime, but a civil offense - and it's only because of extensive lobbying by greedy businesses that crimes have been established on the books.

Outside of the US, copyright infringement can only attract actual damages, ie the proveable loss in income. Given that you can't easily prove that someone would've paid for the things they pirate, outside of the US there never really have been big cases of people downloading things being charged and facing significant fines.

What has changed?

The EUIPO speculates that financial pressures, like inflation, means that people have less money to spend on entertainment. This can be seen in the way that fewer people are signing up for Netflix or Amazon Prime – and some are even cancelling their subscriptions altogether.

The EUIPO suggests that rather than stop watching digital content online, these people are now turning to illegal sources to access the TV shows they watch. And that is why piracy rates are on the up.

Of course, it has nothing to do with the quality of these services going down as their prices go up...

[–] makyo 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It was simple for me, two things:

  1. My subscription going up with no increase in quality
  2. Show after show they cancel on cliffhangers after two seasons
[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Not to mention services like Netflix cracking down on account sharing. I will keep it if I can share it with my parents and they can buy a streaming service and share it with me. But if it's just for me, it's not worth spending the money on. I'd rather just pirate the one or two shows I want to watch on Netflix, or sign up for a month, watch something that looks interesting then unsubscribe.

[–] makyo 5 points 8 months ago

This actually mattered to me too. Plus, my parents were still using and enjoying the recently-cancelled DVD program so that was just another nail in the coffin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Not even that, I remember 15 years ago universities saying that people had 3 devices on average, yet today Netflix only allows you 2 on their basic package. Now, people almost certainly use more than that. If I can't move from one device to another conveniently, then what's the point of paying?

By all means, limit simultaneous access between devices, but locking me to so few is just punitive. Who wants to pay for punishment?