Digital Piracy

DIGITAL PIRACY 

Digital piracy is bad, because it is taking and copying intellectual property without consent from the owner. People have begun to employ this method to obtain as much intellectual data as they can for free. That's what people said. Here are some data on this "terrible" phenomenon:

• A whopping $59 billion dollars’ worth of software was stolen worldwide in 2010 according to the Business Software Allianceⁱ. In the US alone, 20% of all software installations in 2010 were pirated copies that cost the software industry $9.5 billion dollars.
• A survey by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry claims illegal downloads account for 95% of all music downloaded worldwide in 2010

Well, despite all of these "accurate claims" with almost zero evidence to support, the fact that digital piracy harming the entertainment industries is a total farce, in my opinion. The researchers at the London School of Economics seems to agree with me. 

Why? Here's why:

 1. The revenues of box offices is doing pretty well: of course the sale of CDs and rentals have decline, about 10% from 2010 to 2012. However, the total revenue was still worth $93.7 billion in 2012. Pretty healthy isn't it? are you starting to doubt these claims of anti-piracy advocators

2. the music industry's revenue is not in trouble: "Revenues from digital sales, subscription services, streaming and live performances compensate for the decline in revenues from the sale of CDs or records." the revenue was almost $60 billion in revenue, a 34% increase since 1994. 

3.exclusive ownership is over exaggerated: Musicians are voluntarily sharing their musics and data to fans through websites such as SoundCloud.

The only that could be potentially annoying is the possibility of contracting malwares and viruses on these piracy websites. Would it be better if the creators of these websites can spend time preventing this instead of hiding from the law? 

Since people want to obtain something for free rather than paying for it, it is futile and impractical to contain this enormous amount of "illegal activities". Why not accept and even embrace human nature?