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Citaat:
The USITC (US International Trade Commission) was told at a hearing several days ago that most of the estimates of piracy losses provided by the industries were exaggerated or misleading. Other experts said that current enforcement techniques are not working and asked the government to try something different.
The USITC is considered an independent, quasi judicial Federal agency, having wide investigative responsibilities in the field of trade. The Finance Committee of US Senate recently asked it to investigate the impact China’s weak copyright protection has on the US economy. During the topic hearing, many of those present find themselves very skeptical on the issue of the claims and assumptions the affected industries make, such as the reports sponsored by the MPAA and RIAA.
Professor Fritz Foley from Harvard Business School placed the basic claims behind the entertainment industry loss estimates into doubt. One of the reasons to do so is that he considers it crazy to expect someone who would pay some small amount of money for an illegal product to surely pay 6 or 10 times more for the original one. Not all the companies (EA, for example) follow this principle of equaling the copy to lost sale, but the majority undoubtedly does so.
Foley cautioned the government, asking it to be careful about data the industry provides. He expresses concerns in its trustworthy, because the industry has a clear incentive to make the losses seem huge. Actually, Professor Foley said the same as the Government Accountability Office pointed out to Congress several months ago: there’s no real evidence for the claimed losses. Moreover, the industry has never considered the fact that infringements may benefit it, not only hurt.
As Drake University’s Intellectual Property law professor points out, there’s another perspective of these figures. The economics should be viewed from all sides. For example, if the companies pirating products somewhere in China employ American workers and consume raw materials from the U.S., that wouldn’t be a straight loss!
Daniel Chow, Ohio State University law professor, suggested the government to push the entertainment industries for more information, presumably that backing up their claims. He also notes that the present enforcement methods are just not working, so it’s time for the companies to start thinking about the other ones.
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