KatsBits Community

General Category => Blog => Topic started by: kat on September 26, 2017, 04:13:27 PM

Title: Hey ho, to sea we go, a Pirates life for meeeee!
Post by: kat on September 26, 2017, 04:13:27 PM


A report recently discovered/forced to be released (https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/estimating_displacement_rates_of) publicly, "Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU" suggests European piracy rates don't appear to negatively affect the gaming industry as expected (https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/59ea4ec1-a19b-11e7-b92d-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-40971226#) (note: some media outlets (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/piracy-doesn-t-harm-game-sales-says-eu-commission-report/0187508) have made specific comment on the apparent age of the data used for this report based its being (re)published in 2017. Whilst perhaps a valid concern in some respects, the criticism however, omits(?), neglects(?) ignores(?) the reports actual 2014 publication date, as highlighted in the Copyright & Publication Notice, and the 2015 Authors Notice, all within the first few pages, and the fact that a request for access/release was sent to the European Commission, also in 2014 (https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/estimating_displacement_rates_of) - this is notwithstanding large-scale studies of this nature often being historical rather than real-time).
Quote
Main conclusions
In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content, with higher piracy rates in Poland and Spain than in the other four countries of this study. In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is the displacement of recent top films. The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally. People do not watch many recent top films a second time but if it happens, displacement is lower: two legal consumptions are displaced by every ten illegal second views. This suggests that the displacement rate for older films is lower than the 40 per cent for recent top films. All in all, the estimated loss for recent top films is 5 per cent of current sales volumes.