<story><title>EU suppressed results of a study that found piracy doesn’t harm sales</title><url>https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Toboe</author><text>Quality headline...&lt;p&gt;European Comission tries to hide study that piracy doesn&amp;#x27;t harm sales, is foiled by member of European Parliament.&lt;p&gt;*
And technically it seems the study found it harms for Blockbuster movies, helps for games, does negligible harm for books and has no effect on music.&lt;p&gt;(Going by a German report on it[1])&lt;p&gt;[1]
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heise.de&amp;#x2F;newsticker&amp;#x2F;meldung&amp;#x2F;Auswirkungen-von-Raubkopien-EU-Kommission-unterdrueckt-Piraterie-Studie-3837330.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heise.de&amp;#x2F;newsticker&amp;#x2F;meldung&amp;#x2F;Auswirkungen-von-Rau...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>EU suppressed results of a study that found piracy doesn’t harm sales</title><url>https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>supernumerary</author><text>EU had to suppress the report. Because from their absolute point of view piracy harms sales. While the report argues that in fact it is now incorporated with a vanilla sales funnel - people who &amp;#x27;don&amp;#x27;t pirate&amp;#x27; talk to people who &amp;#x27;pirate&amp;#x27;, and this &amp;#x27;boosts sales&amp;#x27; ...&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, it seems pirated materials are &amp;#x27;free as in beer&amp;#x27; ... and as the report concludes - in many cases, pirated films boost sales. To say nothing of the various personalities and corporate interests behind films for example that prosper from bare exposure, product placement, propaganda etc...&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, the same applies to software. I imagine by this time Adobe has a shadowy but no-less locked down funnel that teens enter when they first torrent and crack Photoshop...&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, it seems that the concept of piracy is fraught with mixed metaphors and improper comparisons, epitomized by the &amp;#x27;You wouldn&amp;#x27;t download a bear.&amp;#x27; meme. These seem to be spawned by authority trying to leverage some moral sentiment without understanding the inter-relatedness of the cultural scene and the internet generally. Nevertheless this has created a general class of &amp;#x27;law-abiders&amp;#x27; or &amp;#x27;normies&amp;#x27; who might account for the people who ultimately purchase a product after being referred to it by a pirate.</text></comment>