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RE: UK faces file-sharing crackdown

Elroch 15th Oct 2009

While I don't claim that illegal copying is fair,
there is a distinction between the theft of a physical
object and the illegal copying of a copyrighted
object. The former costs the vendor directly, as they
paid wholesale for the goods (eg the peach). But in
the case of the digital medium there is not a direct
cost to the copyright holder. The financial impact on
the copyright holder is due to lost sales, which is
difficult to pin down precisely. If someone who would
not buy a digital object illegally copies it, the
copyright holder is not worse off for the copying. If
someone who would otherwise buy a digital object
illegally copies it instead, the copyright holder
loses out. Also if someone does not buy a particular
digital object as a result of illegally copying other
object the copyright owner of the first object has
lost money, but may have no legal objection if the
objects copied were not theirs. Similarly, a copyright
holder loses money if someone chooses to use
alternative free objects (in some cases free software
has impacted the sales of other sold software, for
example). So the causes and effects are very complex,
and it is wrong to simplify them too much.