Okay Geek Farm
"Pirating is a-okay, contributes to music sales," says the Swiss government
Ricardo Trejo
So there’s this thing called piracy, and it’s sorta all the rage with folks looking to save some cash. While Jack Black may think that piracy selfishly robs funds from out of the pockets of rock gods, the Swiss government however has officially (meaning on paper) found that there’s no evidence to support that claim. On the contrary, from their studies they ran into a pretty interesting fact; that those who pirate entertainment are more likely to spend that extra wad of cash toward either attending concerts or buying other sorts of merchandise. In other words, the people in charge of Switzerland rejected legislation for new laws that fight against digital file-sharing when none were necessary to begin with.
In Switzerland, it’s reported that about 1/3rd of those over the age of 15 download either movies, music, or games without spending a single franc.
The odd thing about that statistic is that despite efforts to make people aware of what’s legal and what isn’t, more than half of those individuals still don’t know the difference. But even with piracy on the rise, it would appear that the amount of money spent on entertainment still remains the same when compared to pre-pirating times. And not only that, but it seems that downloader’s are using their money on other related merchandise related to their pirated content.
Metallica hates SwitzerlandAll this information coming from a report by the Swiss Federal Council who was repeatedly bugged by industry professionals insisting that digital file-sharing was hurting them, and so were demanding for new copyright laws to make it harder for people to download. After receiving the report however, the council went ahead and denied further legislation toward file-sharing, and allowed the current law to stay in place — which allows individuals to file-share for their own personal use.
I remember about 10 years ago getting ready for school and watching one of the morning shows going out on the streets and interviewing people about whether or not they knew and / or used Napster.
The interesting thing was that most people interviewed honestly said that they were more likely to buy CD’s after downloading tracks from Napster.
