"The record company might lose money because it prevented me from hearing the album..."

While this may be true, I find this claim to be a bit disingenuous. I think it's reasonable (and fair) to start with the assumption that it is the copyright owner's prerogative to decide on what is the best strategy for maximizing their profits, and that any unilateral violation of copyright restrictions results in a distortion of that strategy, which at best causes an infinitesimal loss in profits.

With that being said, this argument is probably no more disingenuous than the claims made by the copyright industry.

Don't forget about patents and trademarks. There are lots of Plada bags and Lorex watches out there (trademark violations). Sorry if anyone finds the street slang offensive, it's so very descriptive and concise. As for patents, the Chinese patent system is still in its formative years. Very hard to prosecute, but improving as Chinese R&D takes off.

"But if you crunch the numbers per capita...."

What would be the relevance of this move? The captains of the recording industry are interested in units of sales "lost", not the size of the population of the country in which they occur.

Now that's funny. The Chinese really don't care what they copy, where they copy, how they copy. They copy *literally everything* that *can* be copied. Everything. Don't think for a second that even infant formula is spared.

They pay lip service "oh yeah, oh yeah, we'll work on the copying problem" but seriously, it's not high on their list of priorities. They know full well the problem on their hands, but they really don't care about how much their people copy from American stuff anyways. China wants their people to invest in their own country, so any pirating from a foreign country really doesn't matter. They do censor all kinds of films from America, but when the pirated(uncensored) version appears from the Chinese street vendor, they don't care. Why?

Because it's not the real thing anyways.

I blame the US for saying and doing mean things to foreign peoples. It's all our fault. We suck.

And then, of course, there's the American-on-American piracy problem.

No kidding! There was even a software company out in Redmond, WA, that for years implicitly depended on piracy as a domestic distribution strategy for its operating system.

I wonder how they're doing in China, these days.

I live in China, and I don't think I've ever seen a DVD that wasn't pirated. I also have bought many pirated DVDs that I never would have considered even renting back in the states. I guess we should believe the expert guy and his numbers, but I wonder how it could be that Britain costs the movie industry more money. Perhaps the price of a legit DVD is so much higher (especially with the strength of the pound) that smaller numbers of pirated DVDs represent more money lost?

Perhaps the price of a legit DVD is so much higher (especially with the strength of the pound) that smaller numbers of pirated DVDs represent more money lost? --mikebass14

There's part of the absurdity of it.

If "the market" for DVDs/CDs is simply allowed to do its job, the best price will obtain and everyone will be happiest. But the IP-holders are so fixated on enforcing the letter of incomprehensible legislation that they price themselves out of a market.

How many CDs do you buy a year? How many more would you buy if they sold for $5 each?

Monopolistic control has resulted in a price-fix which benefits no one. Viacom will gladly contribute more money to presidential campaigns than they are willing to give in "potential profits" being "stolen" from them by normal folks who wanna see a movie or hear a band.

I've lived in 4 different countries and 4 different DVD regions. I have about 100 legitimately bought DVDs and a DVD player in my car that won't play them because I now live in the wrong region. So, whenever my kids are watching Tom and Jerry (found pirated on every street corner in Russia) instead of the many educational DVDs we own, I feel lots of anger towards the Video industry. I hope they lose lots of money thanks to the stupid regional encoding.

Pirate DVDs are never region encoded. I know that whatever country I'm in, they'll play. My experience is that the quality is good.

And, of course, to sell American movies in China, you have to dub or subtitle them. That limits the market.

PS, anyone know how to hack the panasonic in-car DVD player that comes factory installed in a Chevy Trail blazer? I'll be forever in your debt.

Another element of this mix seems to be the problems of regional distribution in a global community. It often takes months for films open in the US to open in Europe or Asia (and vice versa). A British Coen Brothers fan has to wait until mid-January to see "No Country For Old Men," leaving two long months to avoid Internet spoilers written by Americans who've already seen the film.

Look at any demand curve. Demand is higher at a lower price. Pirate DVDs are cheaper. Hence, people who would not have bought at the retail price buy them. Those people aren't causing losses for the movie industry.

I suspect relatively few of the people who are willing to pay the retail price for a movie buy pirated movies.

And about Chinese pirates, they have to dub or subtitle the DVD to sell lots of copies. Or copy DVDs that have already been dubbed. Which is probably fewer movies than come out on DVD in North America, where my guess is that the DVDs are available in English and French. So the English and French pirates have more source material.

Copyright term: life of the owner plus 70 years (recently extended to that term, and probably to be extended further as commercial pressure increases). Patent term: effectively about 17 years.

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution says nothing about artists, only science and the useful arts. It makes no distinction between authors and inventors. The courts have given the artistes copyright protection and favored them with much longer terms for nearly 200 years, for no discernable legal reason. Probably because it is easier for lawyers and the public to love a Mickey Mouse than it is for them to appreciate the mechanism in their refrigerator.

If you think it would be easy to invent something useful, try it sometime.