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Comment by jampekka | Hacker News Reader

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient.

Intellectual property isn't ethically justifiable, but it is convenient for some.

> Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth.

In many (most?) jurisdictions downloading material is not illegal. Have these been subtracted from this figure, or is this yet another lie? Given the history of this propaganda, I'm quite sure it's the latter.

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> Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth.

Completely impossible. Think of how much bandwidth is used for HD streaming of twitch, netflix, ABC-XYZ +, and social media. Piracy making up even 5% of global bandwidth usage is being overly generous.

Might be able to get to 24% if "illegal downloading of copyrighted material" includes porn.

It'd probably stay the same if you excluded everything other than porn from your calculations.

But in many jurisdictions that would still be completely legal as long as you didn't share the downloaded content with others.

Porn was excluded from the study.

"What we're looking at is any type of infringing content. Film content, television, books, software, games, music. The only thing we're not looking at is pornography."

https://web.archive.org/web/20131005143240/http://www.netnam...

are you sure downloading of cop material is illegal? In a lot of countries it is permitted as long as you do not distribute that content further

And even in the US merely downloading is usually only a civil and not a criminal offense

How ethical is it to not report how much you(dataprot) got paid for this schilling?

> Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth.

This seems shockingly high. I wonder how different this is geographically. I would think streaming via Netflix and others, YouTube, Twitch, etc would have shrunk illegal streaming to a much smaller percentage of the total.

I'm sure it varies a lot geographically. In the US, I expect the bulk is streaming services as you say. While I'm sure there are many outliers on a forum like this, most people subscribe to a few services and watch what's available. I know I do. I'll rarely look for something elsewhere if I can't easily get it via streaming (whether subscription or a la carte).

I have no particular insight into the global situation but certainly availability is patchier and incomes are often lower.

So let’s say it varies geographically and the majority is in developing nations where finances don’t allow for relative luxuries like streaming services so people disproportionately turn to torrents. I suspect this is accurate. In this instance, what’s the point of trying to lock down illegal streaming? There isn’t an opportunity cost being missed, and the people can’t afford to pay fines, so it seems like a no win situation. Let them be and maybe as those countries develop and people become wealthier they follow the same path as developed nations where most people pay for the ease of streaming.

Seems incredibly high. Literally incredibly.

The lack of links to sources in that article is disturbing. Requiring users find each of their sources is evil, and I suspect intentional.

I believe this might be their source:

https://www.creativefuture.org/new-study-the-size-and-scope-...

Which links to a Los Angeles Times article [1] from 2013, but not the study. The Los Angeles Times article also lacks a link to the study quoted. According to Creative Future, the study came from NetNames [2].

I did find some other interesting [3] articles [4] published on the Creative Future site.

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetNames

[3]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Acreativefuture.org%2F+bandw...

[4]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Acreativefuture.org%2F+pirac...

The NetNames site is no longer active however it was archived [5], the full report is missing. This is infuriating. If the study cannot be read, it might as well not exist.

I found a Torrent Freak article from 2013 [6] with more details.

[5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20131005143240/http://www.netnam...

[6]: https://torrentfreak.com/432-million-pirates-share-9567-peta...

Probably better wording is “downloading of illegally obtained content”? Even if in a specific jurisdiction it is not illegal - someone in a jurisdiction where it is illegal bought or rented and _ripped_ that DVD (figuratively speaking).

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