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Monday, April 23, 2007

Miscalculating Sales Losses in Copyright Debates

This is a stupid calculation, but you’ll be seeing it pop up again and again in copyright discussions: Wired’s Adario Strange says that Google hosts the full movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”, and because it has been viewed 350,000 times, and because the DVD costs $14.49 at Amazon, the movie distributor lost about $5 million (350,000 * 14.49). Let’s ignore for a second those theories saying online video services are like free promotion for the “real thing” (with the potential to increase sales), and let’s ignore the discussion of whether or not Google has an agreement to distribute the movie (for the sake of argument let’s say they don’t). But... no one lost $5 million in sales because not everyone viewing the video for free would have bought it if it wasn’t available for free.

[Thanks Pd!]

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