Piracy In Developing Countries Driven By High Prices 235
langelgjm writes "The Social Science Research Council, an independent, non-profit organization, today released a major report on music, film and software piracy in developing economies. It's a product of three years of work, and the authors conclude that piracy is primarily driven by excessively high prices and that anti-piracy education and enforcement efforts have failed. Still, chief editor Joe Karaganis believes that businesses can survive in these high piracy environments. The report is free to readers in low-income countries, but behind a paywall for certain high-income countries, although the SSRC notes, 'For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.'"
Well no shit (Score:5, Informative)
I was visiting there last year and unsurprisingly they did have stores with pirated goods. The largest mall in Phnom Penh has full floor of tv shows, movies, games, applications, everything you can think of. Games and movies cost $1-2 while all seasons of The Simpsons cost $10, all neatly packed and everything. The other series with less dvd's cost even less of course, and this was inside a big mall and they probably added some extra to the price since I was foreigner (they didn't list prices but you had to ask). Maybe you can get them even cheaper from street vendors.
And while speaking of Cambodia, it's quite nice place to visit, not your usual holiday place. Even in the cities some of the streets are just sand and when you go out all the tuk tuk drivers come asking you where you want to go. If you want to go for a few beers and a pizza, the driver takes you there and waits for you while you do your stuff and drink beer, even if it takes long time. Then you just give them like $5 for being your driver the whole night, and they're happy since they're still getting a lot more than people usually. That's why there isn't any shortage of tuk tuk drivers either. And yeah, girl bars (or ladyboy bars if you prefer that) are open 24/7 and there's happy pizzas with special ingredient
Re:Well no shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally Unavailable (Score:4, Interesting)
The DVDs you can buy are cheap chinese rips on a disc in shrinkwrap with cardboard that advertises 24 MOVIES DVD9 BLURAY MPEG4 XVID H264. Really they're just highly compressed low resolution MPEG2 streams. There's typically 4 movies on a disk divided into 6 or so parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.
I Don't buy movies here because there's no supply chain. I do buy on iTunes which permits me because I have a US credit card.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and spend twice the cost of the disc to have it sent to MOZAMBIQUE.
Re: (Score:3)
This list [wikipedia.org] shows United States nearly at the high end of the minimum wages list, consequently its citizens have higher acquisition capacity than any other in developing countries, yet prices come not only the same but sometimes higher to those countries. A simple wii game for example (although not first need) comes at US$100 (or higher) in certain countries where minimum
Re:Well no shit [Double Standards] (Score:4, Insightful)
Having discount prices for 3rd-world countries can create a double standard when it comes to labor outsourcing. We have to compete with 3rd-world labor at their labor rates, not ours, yet they want discounts on software. You can't have it both ways, otherwise we are giving our jobs away as a charity.
If they have local adjustments for prices, then we should get local adjustments on wages because our housing and medical costs are far higher than theirs.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What the fuck are you talking about. They (the "third world") get paid by their local standards, and thus can't afford to drop 60 bucks for an xbox game worth a few hours of entertainment. Your post makes no sense at all.
Re:Well no shit (Score:5, Informative)
DVD region codes were meant to keep you from watching a movie that was unreleased in your territory (OH NOES!), not to charge poor people less.
Back in the 90s, I bought my CDs online from Amazon,CD Universe, CDNOW because it was (much) cheaper for me to pay the $6 shipping than walk to the store 5 blocks away and buy it there.
Re: (Score:2)
DVD region codes were meant to keep you from watching a movie that was unreleased in your territory (OH NOES!), not to charge poor people less.
Ahhh, no. If they reduce prices to sell into third world countries, people there would take the product and undercut the owners in other markets. Thusly, they create DVD regions to allow them to sell into other markets (regions) with price controls without being their own worst competition in other regions. It has a side benefit of also allowing to the very coarsely control distribution regions but first and foremost, its intended to allow them to control market distribution, and with it, regional prices.
Th
Re: (Score:3)
Heck, it was one of the nails in the HD-DVD coffin during the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle. Theatres in other countries were suddenly finding less customers because it was cheaper and better to just import the HD-DVD that go to the theatre, OR the movie wasn't out in theatres yet!
So yes, there was that effect. Sony came out ablazing with "We haz region codes!" and thus ende
Re: (Score:2)
DVD region codes were meant to keep you from watching a movie that was unreleased in your territory (OH NOES!), not to charge poor people less.
Hahahaha, they're making tons of money on it and you think they didn't think of that little side effect? Look up "price discrimination", segmenting your market then charging different prices is a sure-fire way to increase profits. Instead of charging everybody one price that's either very expensive or very cheap they gouge each market. And yes, I got plenty examples of that just between the US and Europe without getting into the third world thing at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think GP meant selling at a loss in First World. What he meant is that First World expensive sales provide the bulk of the profit. If you sell at the same low price everywhere, then sure, you'll get more Third World sales, but you'll get significantly less from US/Europe - enough so that you might end up in red. You probably can find a middle price such that the profit remains the same as it is now with multiple-tiered pricing model, but most profit at that price would still come from developed coun
Re: (Score:2)
The whole reason they can "afford" to sell it cheaply in the third world countries is because it is being subsidized by the high prices in the higher income locations.
So explain to me why when the Australian dollar is equal or greater than the US dollar, Australian's are still being charged more for everything? For example, a digital download of Office 2010 Home and Business is $279 for US customers and $379 for Australian customers. I could give you countless examples of this.
And, for added bonus points I can use a US proxy site to purchase it online and save $100!
Re: (Score:2)
It's true that prices have to be adjusted to the local economy. And, that does raise some problems when you're selling for cheap in third-world countries, since it creates an in
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously one doesn't for products with high margin cost of production. You can't just start selling LCD TVs for $20 because that's how much Chinese peasants could afford to spend. But for the stuff we're talking about here -- games, movies, music -- it's definitely possible, because the price of producing one more copy of a game is so low. As the pirates are demonstrating, you can go very very low here.
I think the reason that the content companies don't do that is either lazyness, unwillingness to look lik
LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
NO SHIT? Someone has been reading my posts on slashdot? THIS is what I've been saying for YEARS, good God! Just look at my rant posts, I must have said that about 5 times at least.
I'm NOT paying half my monthly salary for a PS3 or XBOX game. Same way as I'm not paying $10-$20 for a movie ticket. That's why movie tickets in my country cost $3-$5 and people go to the movies, while very few don't pirate games. Charge me something I can pay, and I gladly will. Be a jerk and try to charge me twice or 4x as much as the US price and I won't buy it (PS3/XBOX 360 cost USD 800 here. Taxes are not the reason). For me a $100 game is like expecting the average american to pay $500 for a PS3 game. Ain't gonna happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Those are Thursday-Sunday prices. Monday-Wednesday is $1,50 or so -- last time I checked. $5 even includes 3D glasses for 3D movies.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, also if you send the ticket to the INCAA (national cinema institute) you can win $10.000 every month.
Anyway, cinema is the only "cheap" thing. An xbox 360/PS3 is $800. 3mbps ADSL connection, $30 a month. Anything electronic or high tech, USA price multiplied by 3 or 4 (they blame it on taxes, while tax is "only" 50%).
A Big Mac combo is about $8 (McDonald's is not for the average folk) -- for that money I can go to a local restaurant and have a steak, on a table, with a waiter serving me.
Re: (Score:2)
Count yourself lucky - the "cheap theaters" have been ruthlessly squeezed out of my town over the years - I think the cheapest I can get into a movie now is $5, and that's if I drive out of town to the place they reno'ed from an old supermarket.
Of course, it doesn't help that the average home theater systems are more than sufficient for all but the latest special effects blockbuster.
Re: (Score:2)
The "cheap theatre" here has shows for $5, but they only get movies about the same time they appear on DVD, additionally the theatre is pretty much falling apart, you have to pick your seat carefully, and many of their screens have tears in them...
To go to a real theatre and see first run shows, the price is $12-$15...
Re: (Score:2)
Dont' feel bad, even the us prices are fucking outrageous. No video game is worth more than $20, absolute ceiling, even with inflation. Plenty of publishers have been very successful doing this because everyone buys their games. It's just old dumbass publishers who charge high and expect people to pay it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good thing that it's my comment what amuses you, and not TFA's study.
Anonymous prick.
but not Canada... (Score:2)
Wait, we're a low income country?!?
Or are they just being nice to Canada?
Yo Grark
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm curious, did you come to a conclusion? I'd download it myself, but we seem to have overrun their goodwill for the moment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on where you live in Canada, yes we are actually low-income especially when you figure that between 30-52% of your wages are gone in taxes. On the EC this is very apparent especially with the lack of any solid industry of any kind. In Ontario/Quebec it's hit or miss. Out west less so, but the cost of goods is unbelievably high(whooo $4/loaf of bread, $9-15 for a gallon of milk). You're looking at somewhere between 42k and 52k as the median wage. And 25% of our population lives at or below th
"High income countries?" (Score:2)
US$8 for non-commercial use in high-income countries—a list that for the present purposes includes the USA, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, Israel, Singapore, and several of the Persian Gulf States (Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, and Bahrain), but not Canada.
I don't understand why Canada merits special favor, when her per-capita income is higher than most of Western Europe, Japan, Israel, and Japan. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand why Canada merits special favor...
I don't know, but perhaps it is the license:
Media Piracy in Emerging Economies is distributed under a Consumer’s Dilemma license, which shifts the developing-world consumer’s dilemma onto other geographies and income brackets.
Either that or it's a tool to measure piracy: who will pay vs who will spoof being from Canada.
For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.
Re: (Score:2)
Japan, Israel, and Japan?
That's amazing!
Re: (Score:2)
Per-capita income is only one side of the coin, what about per-capita expenses?
Our dollar is worth more than the US Dollar, but when every product costs significantly more than it does in the US, it doesn't make us feel "rich"... (not to mention the significantly higher taxes we pay)
Easy choice (Score:3)
Even those who can afford it find it morally unacceptable to waste so much money on software. You can get it for free and donate the money.
Except.. (Score:2)
...nothing will ever beat the price of FREE.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not true. I have a comic book shop. My customers usually read the comic (mostly japanese manga) online and several months later, when it's finally released here, they buy it. And they're not exactly cheap either!
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. The price of free is too often beat by the prices of "I am used to this" and "I am afraid to learn new stuff". That's why people who would be perfectly served by Free software cling to Windows and MS-Office nonetheless.
Re: (Score:2)
Canada (Score:3)
I'm Shocked!! (Score:2)
I remember seeing a store selling a copy of Windows Vista for Rs. 14,000. That's like asking the average american to pay $1,400. Any takers? Didn't think so.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Valve (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Valve discovered that if they release more translations of a game on the day of release instead of delaying for a few months, piracy drops and legit purchases go up. Turns out game crackers translate the games too.
In certain countries (Thailand comes to mind) it is common for local movies to be released on DVD without English subtitles to "protect" the local studio's ability to license the movie for foreign distribution. Unfortunately the net result seems to be that a lot of interesting movies never get an english-friendly release. So some people have taken to doing the subtitles themselves (sort of like anime subbers but without all the drama).
missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to generate high piracy rates, in order to generate the PR necessary to give pet legislators an excuse to do their "friends" a favor by passing yet more draconian legislation, allowing heavier and heavier locks, they hope defeating fair-use activities such as time shifting, format shifting and unlicensed commentary.
The organizations crying over the exploding piracy figures know full well the real score.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Look! piracy! They outcompete us. Force upon them cruel laws.
Hark! we are having competition at home. Look, they over there have cruel laws and do not stress us with competition. You there, impose cruel laws here at home.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The point is to generate high piracy rates, in order to generate the PR necessary to give pet legislators an excuse to do their "friends" a favor by passing yet more draconian legislation, allowing heavier and heavier locks, they hope defeating fair-use activities such as time shifting, format shifting and unlicensed commentary.
1. We've already established that "heavier locks" don't really work when you have to give the end user the key
2. High piracy rates generate a culture of piracy that has shown itself to be nearly impossible to break
All the legislation in the Western World won't do anything to kill piracy in regions like Eastern Europe, Asian, and Africa.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't say it was a smart long-term.
That isn't "piracy". (Score:5, Interesting)
'For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.'"
Piracy doesn't get you something for free. Piracy is when someone makes unauthorized duplicates of something which they don't own the copyright for with the intention of selling it for a profit. Piracy is the guy on the street in New York who is trying to sell you a movie that is still in the theaters for $20 on DVD or is trying to sell you a copy of some software for $5.
Stop perpetuating the misuse of these words. Piracy, copyright infringement, plagiarism, and forgery are all different things. Playing a scene-ripped copy of a game or movie is not piracy. That doesn't justify it if you do it, but it's not piracy.
Re: (Score:2)
It was piracy when someone gave it to you, though, right? (By the colloquial meaning, not the seagoing-assault one)
Re: (Score:3)
That isn't piracy.
Piracy is when a syphilitic sailor plunders legitimate commerce in a region of the sea, terrorizing and looting ships, murdering their captains, and taking wenches and boys prisoner.
This stuff is white-collar IP infringement, and calling it piracy is just demonizing it to make political inroads into putting more public resources towards stopping what is, in most cases, barely a misdemeanor.
Re: (Score:2)
That's one definition of piracy. But, unsurprising to anyone with a reasonable command of the English language, some words have more than one meaning.
MS had to reduce prices of Vista (Score:2)
I remember reading about how MS had to reduce prices of Vista in developing countries like China so it would be affordable.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but they didn't reduce the price.
They came up with the stupid "Windows Starter" version, that's the only affordable version and this is shipping like cancer on OEMs.
Way to treat your consumers, MS. Of course it gets home a 'technician' installs pirated regular Windows. Of course MS is ok with this, they got the money.
As for the conclusion, color me shocked. Everybody said correctly.
Orly? (Score:2)
Wrong DVD Region Codes Are A Problem Too (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies with "perfect" DRM going under? (Score:3)
One of the truisms of the software industry I've always heard is that publishers promote and tolerate a certain baseline amount of software piracy to win mindshare and gain experienced users.
Is there any history of companies that manage to implement a very difficult to crack DRM (eg, dongles, etc) going under or fairing poorly? In other words, once the software becomes too difficult to pirate, the vendor ultimately loses legitimate sales -- hard to evaluate the product, difficult to find experienced users, etc?
I'm sure it's difficult to say "for sure, DRM made them go under" but it would be interesting to see if that kind of thing has happened.
Good Examples (Score:2)
Minimum wage: 50ish pesos a day for 8 hours, which is around 4usd.
Average income for a family: 7,000 pesos a month, which is 500usd. (Source: Inegi, in spanish)
Price for a new hollywood release for DVD: 200-300 pesos
Price for an old movie DVD: 100 - 150 pesos
Price for a new popular album: 150-250 pesos
Price for old albums: 100-150 pesos
Price for a New PC game: 600-800 pesos
Price for a New Console game: 800-1200 pesos
Funny thing: there are s
Re: (Score:2)
And yet the guy who owns their cell-phone company is one of the richest men in the world.
Nothing new (Score:3)
In the early 80s the Commie 64 was targeted for kids. After you convinced your parents to spend $300-$400 on what they considered a toy, you then had to convince them to spend another $50-$60 for a piece of software.The best way to describe the result was 'fat chance'.
Hacking/copying was the only way most kids could get ANYTHING for the 64. I admit I was heavily into this. Not so much the hacking as the copying and distributing. This was the time when hackers were seen as the Robin Hoods of the early home computer age. Of course this has changed and hackers are seen in a different light now but where they came from hasn't: corporations want way too much money for the product they produce.
In the late 90s I worked a contract for Electronic Arts. During that time I could buy software that was going for $90 in the stores for $10 from the internal EA store. I know some of the $90 price is retail markup but not all.
At least EA puts out software that works unlike the MS business model of double-gouging: pay thru the nose for crap software then do it again when the 'upgrade' (corrections & fixes) are released.
I hereby dub this thread... (Score:2)
...the "no shit, Sherlock?" thread. If it seems blatantly obvious to the variegated crowd here on slashdot, you'd think maybe the **AA would consider firing their market research personnel. If you drop the price of your goods by 80% but sales go up by 400%, you're now making the same money but with a lot higher market penetration, right? Is my math wrong? (Likely wrong -- I attended Louisiana public schools. :P)
Re: (Score:2)
If you drop the price of your goods by 80% but sales go up by 400%, you're now making the same money but with a lot higher market penetration, right? Is my math wrong? (Likely wrong -- I attended Louisiana public schools. :P)
The problem is that because of income inequality in a lot of developing countries, it is often more profitable to sell to a small but wealthy portion of the population, rather than to drop the price to a level that expands affordability and access.
It took 3 years to figure THAT out? (Score:2)
Wow. Price is generally the reason for all theft. That includes scamming the movie and music industry into funding a three year study of the obvious.
Major Findings (Score:2)
People copy what they cant afford (Score:2)
So people are copying data that they cant afford to buy. Who would have thought?
How much as spent for this 'study'?
liveblogged discussion w/ director of SSRC (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I download stuff from two countries (Score:2)
Japan: Anime/Manga Sorry, without the scanalations und community subs most of the stuff would be unavailable or useless for me anyways.
USA: Comics, Movies. Not sorry, I could not care less for the American economy and American rights. Guess why.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that information, or anything that can be entirely represented as information, has wh
Re: (Score:2)
Very well said. However, it's not just rich vs poor countries. We have richer and poorer people in the US, too. Also, information that may be worth thousands to me might be worth only dollars to you. That's why I like the fixed monthly/yearly fee concept. For example, Canadians could agree to pay an average of $50 more per year in income tax in order to fund the government to purchase all-you-can-eat rights to digital music. That would both compensate musicians more than they get now, while delivering
Re: (Score:2)
So who should pay? Obviously game developers can't live on $1 a game, so if games were $1 everywhere there would no longer be any multi-million dollar games like Starcraft II. How many billions would Microsoft lose if Windows and Office all sold for $1? Would anyone bother learning programming knowing that you can't make a living?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
More likely they lobby the government to pay some sort of compensation, and sue their way into keeping local labs or universities from making generics. They are certainly the most disgustingly greedy companies out there. Pay or die.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's particularly bad for medications which have little to know market in the developed world. Sometimes governments of poorer nations will threaten to dissolve the companies IP rights if they don't lower the cost. Sometimes it works, but often it doesn't because a lot of the time the companies don't have to be working on medications to solve those problems, there's poor profitability and they aren't under any sort of legal requirement to sell medications at a loss.
Antibiotics tend to be in a similar situat
Re: (Score:2)
That's because they got sued and/or indicted for gouging.
Re: (Score:2)
More accurately, *I* want information to be free.
So why charge for music, film, books, software, etc?
Go ahead and produce some content that others would want and tell us what you think it's worth ("free" being the lowest and "Charlie Sheen's salary" being the high end).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is it up to the consumer?
What if instead of singing and hoping you'll pay something between $0 and $infinity, the busker puts up a sign and says "choose your song for $1".
The price is no longer up to you, and he doesn't have to do any work if you don't want to pay the price.
Re: (Score:2)
Why charge for music, film, books, software ? (Score:3)
see, you take freely from public - anything - then put something on top of it, and then demand stuff from the public for your addition.
and suddenly, because you just added a small piece of crap COMPARED TO what you have built that on (start from fire and end it with electricity), you end up fulfilled your obligation to the public, and just and fair in your demands.
that is despite if, yo
Re: (Score:3)
"free market." (Score:2)
free market my ass. its about YOU. YOU are taking things freely from public, and selling to public with a price on it. the market being 'free' or not doesnt have anything to do with it. its YOU.
Re: (Score:2)
see, you take freely from public - anything - then put something on top of it, and then demand stuff from the public for your addition.
I seem to remember the public charging me for my education, books I read gaining said other knowledge from, and even a percentage of any sales of my own "crap" I added on top of the "public's" knowledge. In fact, the public seems to be charging me for a lot of people's education. The only way you can believe there was a time when public knowledge was completely free with no trade-offs of even sex or membership duties owed to a hunter-gatherer tribe is if you believe it grew on a tree in the form of an appl
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The ideal case is when everyone can freely download any digital content that's legal access (and here I just mean no kiddy-porn). Also, content creators should be rewarded based on the value of their work to consumers. Free markets fail here because digital content has different values to different people, and people have different amounts they can afford to spend.
I'm working with a few people on Ebooks.coop, which will be a co-op owned by it's members, for distributing digital content. I want to have an
Re: (Score:2)
The worst part is someone got paid for 3 years to study this.
Hmmm ... maybe I'll see if a grant is available to study how these kinds of studies get funded.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope: [associatedcontent.com] "over 50% of apprehended adults were educated professionals and financially secure. " Adjustment disorder [minddisorders.com] "is a type of mental disorder resulting from maladaptive, or unhealthy, responses to stressful or psychologically distressing life events." Most of the people that steal don't do it because they can't afford it, it's the cheap thrill and excitement of breaking the law.
I think the survey was a good idea, you can't solve a problem without
Re:Obvious much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Consider the following:
"Gee, Mr. Legislator, there's 25 studies all saying that piracy is caused by teenagers' disrespect for the law, and only three saying it's caused by stupid decisions by the publishers... You should really support that bill for tougher piracy penalties."
compared to
"Look, Mr. Lobbyist, there's thirty studies from different organizations saying it's the publishers' greed causing piracy, and only 25 studies, all done by organizations funded by the BSA, RIAA and MPAA. Copyright's a civil matter, and I'm not going to waste more money criminalizing it. Do your own dirty work."
Government corruption accusations aside, the same ideas apply to media and the public at large. More studies from independent organizations are necessary to counteract the farcical studies from the cartels' think tanks. Yeah, it's a waste of money, but it's part of the fight.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then use Ubuntu.
I can no longer think of a single reason to have Windows on any computer I build. And it's getting about time to build a new one (last one was balls-out enough that it's still a fast mover and slicker'n goose-shit over 3 years later, but cracks are starting to show in its compatibility, upgradeability, and reliability). I can't remember the last time I went to Excel instead of Google Docs.
By xmas I expect I'll have bolted up a new head, and I doubt this time I'll automatically choose Micro
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, troll, but you are quite free to COPY that Bugatti for yourself if you do not sell the copy.