Aussie Study: Infringers Spend More On Content Than Non-Infringers
from the try-and-buy dept
We’ve argued for quite a long time that treating “pirates” like criminals instead of potential customers is a massive mistake for a whole host of reasons. There’s the futility of the legal game, for instance, as well as the possible public relations nightmare that going after the public, even the infringing public, can create. But the best reason to not treat infringers like criminals is because they’re often the best actual customers of content out there as well. In study after study, it’s shown that a person who engages in some infringement spends more total money on movies, music, and video games than someone who gets everything legit. Pirates, scurvy-laden bastards as they may be, happen to be the creative industries’ best customers.
And it turns out it’s no different in Australia, where a recent government study bore out the same conclusion: infringers spend more money on content than content-saints.
Consumers who flirt with the morally ambiguous line of content consumption spend more money, according to a survey released by the Australian Department of Communications. Over a three-month period among respondents aged 12 and over, the survey found that those who consumed a mixture of copyright-infringing and non-infringing content spent on average AU$200 on music, AU$118 on video games, AU$92 on movies, and AU$33 on TV content. Consumers who only consumed non-infringing content spent only AU$126 on music, AU$110 on video games, AU$67 on movies, and AU$22 on TV; whereas pure copyright-infringing content consumers spent a mere AU$88 on music, AU$24 on video games, AU$53 on movies, and AU$8 on TV content.
In every market, the sometimes-infringer spends more. In the case of music and movies, the delta between the occasional infringer and the all-legal consumer is huge, much larger than the delta between the all-legal and all-infringement consumers. Video games and television don’t show the same delta, but even in those arenas the occasional infringers spent more than the saint. Why? How?
Well, because the occasional infringer infringes because they’re a fan, a fan perfectly happy to spend money on scarce goods where spending that money makes complete sense.
However, the survey also found that the majority of spending on music and movies was not on the content items themselves.
“For both music and movies, the majority of the average spend was not from purchases of either digital or physical copies. In the case of music, this primarily consisted of concerts and gigs, and in the case of movies, this primarily consisted of going to the cinema,” it said.
And since the advents of the VHS and cassette tapes, that’s always been the case. Theaters are about experience and live music for great acts will always be in demand, even if bootleg tapes and pirated DVDs are in hefty supply, which they are. For the content itself, the survey respondents essentially indicated that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
A majority of survey respondents said that they would pay for a music subscription service that charged AU$5 per month, and AU$10 per month for a movie subscription service. Only 5 percent of respondents said that nothing would make them stop consuming copyright-infringing content.
In other words, the “everyone just wants everything for free” line the entertainment industries have been pimping for decades is bunk. Instead, the overwhelming majority of customers and potential customers want content on-demand at prices that make sense, in which case they’re perfectly willing to fork over the money. And even when they feel the price doesn’t make sense, they’re still willing to fork over money for things they do value as fans — even though they may have become fans through pirated content. Either way, the industries win. It’s just a matter of how much they want to win. Hint: crying over infringers who spend the most money isn’t the optimal response.
Frustratingly, this government study was released roughly a month after Australia passed its version of SOPA, largely at the behest of industry lobbyists armed to the teeth with industry numbers showing industry losses at the hands of these same dastardly pirates who are spending so much money on their products. It sure would have been nice if the government had managed to have access to their own data before passing such draconian legislation, rather than relying on the historically unreliable data from the entertainment industry.
Filed Under: australia, copyright, infringement, research, sopa, spending
Comments on “Aussie Study: Infringers Spend More On Content Than Non-Infringers”
Yes and no
Frustratingly, this government study was released roughly a month after Australia passed its version of SOPA, largely at the behest of industry lobbyists armed to the teeth with industry numbers showing industry losses at the hands of these same dastardly pirates who are spending so much money on their products. It sure would have been nice if the government had managed to have access to their own data before passing such draconian legislation, rather than relying on the historically unreliable data from the entertainment industry.
While it would have been nice if they’d had some actual data to base their decision on, odds are good that even with this data they still would have passed the law regardless, because the absurd numbers the ‘entertainment’ industry likes to throw out make for much better sound-bites than the real numbers from studies like this.
Much better PR from being able to trumpet how ‘Piracy is costing creators billions every day, but I, and others passed a bill to stop piracy for good!’, than to admit that pirates actually tend to be hefty spenders, at which point those pushing the *AA numbers will immediately jump on you for ‘defending piracy’.
Re: Yes and no
They’d have ignored it alright. They are deaf under the piles of money being shoved in their ears. (That was a rather polite way of expressing it!)
Re: Re: Yes and no
“That was a rather polite way of expressing it!”
Right. You could have gone with:
“They’d have ignored it alright. Their thinking is constipated by the piles of money being shoved in their…”
Well, you could have gone that route, but you kept it civil.
Re: Re: Yes and no
With the size of Tony Abbott’s ears, that must have been a lot of money. Still, lots of small change equals lots of dollars when all is said and done.
And the study will be summarily ignored by the cartels because money and control.
That is somewhat mixed news, as the studios get money from cinema performances, but the labels do not get much money from concerts and gigs, just their cut of any public performance licenses.
Re: Re:
Bad news for the labels, not the artists – which has kind of been the whole point of this debate from the beginning.
Re: Re: Re:
Look up “360 deal”
Re: Re:
No, but they do get money from resulting sales from the gigs advertising the works. If you go to a concert and enjoy what you get, you’re going to want to support their efforts to encourage them to do more, by buying the labels’ stuff. Yes, many will just torrent free copies, but real fans don’t want to screw their favourite artists. That doesn’t encourage them to produce more.
Carrot or stick? I think that stick is the way more expensive way for them to go, and it works abysmally for everybody except for the Righthaven and Prenda leech industry types.
Well, I was in that legal+infringing part for a good while till the MAFIAA pissed me off enough so I’d simply go without. Netflix sort of brought me back in the middle and I occasionally spend money on games (specially when Humble Bundle lets me buy games I want but I despise the company, such as Warner or EA, and lets me give all money to charity or to the HB team). Many of the people I know are in that middle class too.
One particularly nice thing is that the older people (ie: my parents) usually buy into the arguments of the MAFIAA. But once I started showing them this middle field they became more ‘piratey’ and were able to see that the MAFIAA isn’t the saint they thought they were. You know, preaching with facts. I’ve proudly converted quite a few people 😉
Re: Re:
You go without? You filthy pirate. 100% of lost sales are from piracy.
Correlation and causation
Maybe that’s just because people engaging in copyright infringement are bothered less by getting treated like criminals by default. In addition, they might be more certain when buying media that they’ll manage to get actual use out of them.
I’m neither interested in becoming a target of criminal investigations, nor in wasting money on media I might not be able to use for legitimate purposes because of legal or technical restraints.
So I’m neither a customer of the recording industry, nor a bootlegger.
A good place for this industry to start would be to clarify the ownership issue.
Re: Re:
Oh it’s very simple. They own everything, you own nothing. You ‘buy’ only very limited rights to use, not own, and they are allowed to change those ‘rights’ after the fact, whenever they want.
That clear it up for you?
I think you will find that the reality is a little different.
Those that pirate and buy are looking to get everything they can – they are fans. You know, like Grateful Dead fans
Those that only by sanitised monopoly price stuff are more likely to be older or not that interest in music
When infringers stop infringing it will be worse.
Curious why it never seems to be mentioned that rights holders focus enforcement on persons who distribute works to others. I do not recall an enforcement action against anyone, including “fans”, who was not also making a large library of works available to others for downloading copies.
Re: Re:
That was at one point the RIAA’s approach. But that hasn’t been the approach for a long time. I guess you’ve never heard of copyright trolls? Rightshaven? Prenda? Malibu Media? All target end consumers. 6 Strikes? Targets End consumers. There are other efforts out there. Techdirt loves to highlight them.
Re: Re:
Curious why it never seems to be mentioned that rights holders focus enforcement on persons who distribute works to others.
Because it’s not true. We’ve covered many stories of rightsholders going after individual downloaders.
Also, this is unrelated to the topic at hand. I wonder why you feel the need to try to change the subject…
Re: Re: Re:
Cites, please, since the only major cases I recall where persons were actually sued were also engaged in distribution. There are a few outliers, of course, like those associated with The Hurt Locker, but they are nowhere near the size you try and make them out to be.
As for being charged with changing subject, seems to me quite fair to note that the takeaway of articles such as this consistently fail to mention that the major rights holders are not targeting “fans” indiscriminately, but rather place their emphasis on persons who are doing more than consumption…they are concurrently also associated with distribution.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“There are a few outliers, of course, like those associated with The Hurt Locker, but they are nowhere near the size you try and make them out to be.”
“…The major rights holders are not targeting fans indiscriminately, but rather place their emphasis on persons who are doing more than consumption…they are concurrently also associated with distribution.”
Cites, please!
Re: Re:
Oh, look. It’s Mr. “I don’t like you complaining about a law that will never be enforced against people it was designed to go after” Slonecker! Sorry, antidirt isn’t in this thread. You’ll have to go pander your troll defense services elsewhere.
Lets see, I avoid infringement but also avoid buying anything. Years back when Napster was around I used to download music and buy it, specifically to support the artists, but once the RIAA went after Napster I decided I would avoid buying anymore.
Makes sense to me.
I used to pirate and in turned bought a lot of content. I stopped pirating and in turn stopped buying that amount of content I used to.
Pirating was getting to expensive.
LOL
Not in the linked article
except that the CNET story does not mention anywhere that the report says (as Techdirt notes)’For each content type, those who consumed a mix of legal and illegal content
spent more money over a 3 month period than those who consumed 100% of their content legally, but those who consumed 100% of their content illegally
spent the least money.’
Re: Not in the linked article
“And it turns out it’s no different in Australia, where a recent government study bore out the same conclusion: infringers spend more money on content than content-saints.”
given that the table is also not included in the article, that statement suggests he is quoting the study, not the article.
there have been a lot of ‘Independent Studies’ that have arrived at the same conclusions over the last few years, so why do the entertainment industries still insist that they are becoming destitute because of the number of non-paid downloads? we all know it’s complete bullshit put out by the industries as a valid excuse to be used by governments to bring in more restrictive and invasive surveillance laws on the people! there hasn’t been a single study, apart from their own industry paid-for ones that have drawn different conclusions which obviously then means the whole object is not what the industries say concerning a massive loss of revenue but more of an excuse and reason to be able to spy on ordinary, innocent of ‘most wrong-doings’ people!!
100% illegal
How do the 100% illegal consumers spend ANYTHING on content?
Are they paying for illegal content?
Re: 100% illegal
In Australia, that could mean they use a VPN to consume US Netflix. They have big problems with that sort of thing down under.
Re: 100% illegal
Read the article! They go to concerts and cinemas. I’m forced to pay for my assumed pirating every time I buy blank media (Canada). There’s lots of ways to support artists without supporting their label as well.
Re: Re: 100% illegal
“I’m forced to pay for my assumed pirating every time I buy blank media (Canada).”
If there were such levies in my country I think I would feel compelled to Download and burn a CDs worth of music. Even though I no longer have a means to play one outside of a computer.
Re: Re: 100% illegal
Which could, could it not, be taken as evidence that this particular group simply has less disposable income available to spend on things they actually want and are willing to pay for?
I believe this study 100%. I won’t mention Illegal, but I PAY for Games I play!!! You should see my DVD, HD DVD, and Blue Ray collection, close to 1000 discs, start doing the math on that!!! I even go out to the movies around 8 times a month. Well I pay $35 a month for a MoviePass subscription. I was paying for SiriusXM radio, but i also pay for Amazon Prime which includes Music.
You can only squeeze so much from a person. If I have to pay here, I’ll cut there.
Abuse of the word illegal
Interesting read about this report:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/07/the-governments-copyright-infringement-report-has-some-problems-with-the-word-illegal/
As that article points out, a lot of activities are described in the report as “illegal” or implied to be illegal, when they’re simply not. Things like using VPN’s to access US Netflix from other countries (terms of dervice breach), downloading infringing content (a civil matter, not criminal), or simply using uTorrent and Bit-Torrent for anything (perfectly legal). It’s another case of repeating an incorrect or inaccurate claim often enough to trick the simple-minded policy makers into over-reacting.
Wait
Wait, if they are “100% infringers”, then how do they spend any money at all? Shouldn’t it be $0?
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