Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Charges for stolen goods


Over here in Germany, the music industry, the movie industry, and book publishers have put a surcharge on just about everything from printers to USB sticks in order to make up for losses they say they incurred because people increasingly copy music, movies, and books. You pay several euros, for instance, for that memory card in your digital camera. (Not sure how many people use digital cameras to copy material.)

Now, a website has been put up to show you what you pay where. You can also enter the number of items you purchased over the past few years, and the site shows you how much you paid in charges for stolen goods. In my case, it is around 275 euros.

I have always found interesting the claim that copied material would've otherwise been purchased. I wonder how many people copy or download something to see whether they like it and then decide they don't.

3 comments:

  1. I haven't illegally downloaded anything, but I have read things freely on the internet and then purchased the hard copy. I have also bought a hardcopy that included a free soft copy for that reason.
    I have read free things that made me decide to buy more by that author and free things that made me grateful I read them so I wouldn't ever buy anything from that author: it's a very successful program from Baen (to bundle books I might not have tried/have a free library) and Amazon (giving books away in various genres every week).

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  2. If that will be imposed here in the Philippines, I don't think people will be in favor for that. As I noticed, fake dvd's, tapes are sold anywhere. It's definitely very hard to stop this kind of business in my country.

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  3. The idea that copyrighted material would have otherwise been purchased is a joke. I reckon that two thirds would NOT have been purchased if not available for free.

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