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Comment by njs12345 | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference? In both cases the pirate is deriving an economic benefit without directly causing an economic cost.

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If the pirate derives benefit from it but less benefit than the price and thus does not consume, then there is a deadweight loss. In this case, piracy provides a net benefit to society.

(Studies have shown that the sales-displacing effect of piracy in music ranges from 42% to no effect at all[1]. If all piracy could be prevented, that's an awfully large deadweight loss)

[1] http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~rtelang/SmithTelang.pdf

If the pirate is enjoying the music, then clearly the pirate would be willing to pay something more than nothing to hear the music, if piracy were not easily avaliable.

> be willing to pay something more than nothing to hear the music.

In this case $0 or even a negative value amount is what you can plug into something. Why? Think about artists that tried pay-what-you-want model. A lot of people pay $0. Some pay $0.10. But a lot pay $0.

However, what they pay with is with their time and attention.

I used to know someone who managed a movie theater. He would sneak us into movies quite often. Good and bad. And quite often after coming out of the movie I felt like wanting "my free back".

Let's say an artist is unknown and I am a customer that has quite a few connection ( a blog with a large following perhaps ). Then what would make sense is for me to pay a negative amount ( the artist would pay me to spend my time listening to his new cool record in the hopes that I might spread the news about it ).

> Think about artists that tried pay-what-you-want model. A lot of people pay $0. Some pay $0.10. But a lot pay $0.

FWIW, the only album I've paid for in years was a pay-what-you-want deal. I paid something like $3. Which was all that was left in my bank account after I paid my rent and bought groceries for that month - I'm a college student.

Of course, but that implies that it is possible to pay for it. The copyright holders must adapt business models so potential customers can pay for a product they want, not some inferior DRM that hurts the customer. As long as piracy gives potential customers the best product, the incentive to pay is lost.

There is an economic cost. If even one person pirates a digital work who WOULD have paid for it had pirating not been an option, it causes a cost to the producer of the media. So there is a real cost.

And if one person buys a digital work due to piracy who otherwise would not have even known the artist existed, there is a benefit.

Do you have any evidence that the costs outweigh the benefits?

Who is pirating works from artists they've never heard of? Everyone I know who pirates stuff is actively looking for something.

Everybody I know... They download in bulk and sift through it looking for things they like.

And without exception, all of those "pirates" that I know have much larger legal bluray and record collections than I do.

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