I think most of the points you bring up, especially about copyright and why it’s needed for immaterial products, have been given a different angle in this thread: http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-trends-and-predictions-for-2013-121230/#comment-753436347

Set the filter to newest first and it should be right at the top.
It’s a bit messy as this forum’s ability to reply maxes out after four layers. (Someone fix please :( )

Some of the points i.e. copyright as monopoly and the general need and purpose of copyright with some other points are split in two threads but they are right next to each other.
If you have the time to check it out I’d appreciate it.

One thing I have to reply to right here, since it’s often repeated and unfortunately false, is this:

>Yet not one single scientific study can even indicate it’s because of piracy.

I was googling around on things yesterday and stumbled upon a site where I found, among other things, this:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1932518&rec=1&srcabs=1989240&alg=1&pos=1

In it the author gives a quick summary of available research and it seems a MAJORITY of studies conclude that piracy is attributable to a drop in sales.

In the study linked above the author is actually making the case that ALL of the drop is caused by piracy.

I’d say this, combined with the fact that sales are down ALL formats included (check out the chart i linked to) is a pretty good counterargument to the points made in the articles you linked to.

As you’re pointing out an MP3 player can hold 40000 tracks. If you’re correct in assuming that people feel a burning need to fill this then it means demand for music is UP, yet sales are down. Hmmm….

The arguments you’re giving in that section does not constitute a moral justification for destroying the livelihood of creative individuals the world over.

Pricing should be based on demand, not on forced competition with free.

Another interesting study: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1989240

Since introducing HADOPI digital album sales are up 25% in France compared to the control group. The effect on other formats isn’t used for the study since the authors presume (like some in the links you gave) that piracy’s effect is largest on digital sales.
This means the total increase can be even greater.

No. The means through which society tries to achieve the goal with the conceptual copyright, the promotion of the useful arts and sciences, which is a goal it seeks to benefit the public, not the creators, is to give the authors a limited legislative monopoly for a limited time.

> “The chart shows a peak around 1999 / 2000, coinciding roughly with..”

..the time that everyone had replaced their vinyl with CD’s. Since replacing CD’s with MP3 means ripping your CD’s, instead of buying tracks, obviously the curve will go downhill from thereon. Replacing the old format no longer means having to buy something new.

> “..the introduction of Napster.”

The introduction of Napster came around the time when the public had realised that CD’s were no longer interesting, they instead wanted MP3′s.

> “Since then it has dropped by roughly 50%, globally, all formats included.”

Yet not one single scientific study can even indicate it’s because of piracy.

> “That’s a big deal for any industry.”

Many industries have died because of society’s technological advances. That’s the way it should work. No industry has any right to survive if they can’t make any sales, and the responsibility for making those sale fall on that industry alone. Not on politicians, pirates or consumers.

> “Considering that this industry is still putting out a very popular product..”

The product is that which the consumer can buy, as in goods or services, which a creative work doesn’t constitute. The creative works are not a product from the consumers, the markets or the legislations perspective.

The creative works are popular, but the products they sell, not so much, because they hold no longer hold any economical value, because anyone can manufacture a copy themselves for free.

> “I’d say this drop needs some explanation, don’t you?”

The explanation is that the recording industry has shown an historically unprecedented incompetence during the last 15 years.

First they refused to cut the prices for new CD’s in half, despite the fact that other entertainment sources took more and more money of the consumers wallets: Video games, DVD’s, Internet, cell phones.

Then they started sabotaging their products with copy protection.

Then they tried to sue the makes of MP3 players.

Then they committed slander and called their consumers thieves.

Then they allowed some of the richest stars in the music industry to cry in the open about how horrible piracy is. It was so pathetic that some of the planets most popular comedy shows ridiculed it openly.

They they refused to sell DRM free MP3-files for the first ten years of the MP3 revolution.

Then they really started acting like criminals, with extortion schemes of Internet account holders.

Then they set the insane price of one dollar per track, despite the fact that a normal MP3 player could hold 40.000 tracks, and despite the fact that a normal modern music collection is between ten and a hundred times bigger than during the vinyl/CD era, which means that track prices must correspond with that for consumers to feel that the price corresponds with the products value, which equals a price of 1-10c per track, not $1.

The recoding industry has indeed showed an historically unprecedented incompetency, so that their sales are down is natural and well deserved.

There are so many reasons, but piracy? Nothing indicates that’s one of them.

Since you can’t seem to think up these logical answers for yourself, here are some more articles that elaborates on the topic.

http://torrentfreak.com/more-music-sold-than-ever-before-despite-piracy-110110/
http://torrentfreak.com/is-piracy-really-killing-the-music-industry-no-100418/
http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-kill-the-music-industry-090227/

As a response to Fredrika above: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-music-industry-sales-2011-2.

The chart shows a peak around 1999 / 2000, coinciding roughly with the introduction of Napster.
Since then it has dropped by roughly 50%, globally, all formats included. That’s a big deal for any industry.

Considering that this industry is still putting out a very popular product, I’d say this drop needs some explanation, don’t you?

That something has been around is not an argument for why it should remain.

> “It protects some of the most successful industries in the US..”

It gives them a legislative monopoly, that bans competition. What a legislative monopoly does is self evident, it needs no clarification.

> “..industries that seem to prosper even in times as bleak as the Great Depression..”

Industries that seem to prosper despite the fact that around a billion people filehare illegally, despite the fact that filesharing has been around for 15 years and despite the fact home copying been around for 40 years.

> “Why hurt such robust industries?”

If they are robust they don’t need a legislative monopoly. And no evidence exists that supports the thesis that non-profit piracy hurts them in the first place, so obviously the non-profit parts of the copyright monopoly should go. Simple logical reasoning.

Businesses hate that because people then find out that things are dreck before buying them.

That is why they railed against Blockbuster and Hollywood Video at one time.

Let me see now – Falkvinge stated:

“drug subsidies make up an enormous windfall for the pharma industry (which gets 83% of its revenue from tax coffers, yet only spends 15% of it on R&D, and another 30% of it on manufacturing. The rest? Monopoly deadweight.)”

You are in other words arguing for the pharmaceutical industry being enabled to keep roughly 50% of the tax money it receives as a “free donation” by the taxpayers – AFTER which they get to sell the product at profit?

Stepping back and observing the bigger picture now adds “Confidence Scam” to the “Monopoly” already observed. The “benefits” you describe turn out to be – by observed fact – unilaterally for the singular pharmaceutical companies while being a substantive drain on the public purse. Are you seriously arguing for the dubious “merit” of a system which allows companies to double-dip?

And since Falkvinge already answered your question in full, repeating the same false statement does not add to your credibility.

All of whom have been shown – and in at least one court case, demonstrated – to use patent rights to set aside market conditions altogether. Your example more or less makes OUR point.

Remind me, does the anti-trust suit against Microsoft or Apples hamhanded attempt to run Samsung off the market in Germany using the patent of “rectangular communications device with rounded corners, centered screen and aluminium reinforcement” ring a bell?

SCO trying to extort money from Red Hat, Novell, Lexus and Toyota due to allegedly owning two strings of linux code?

Most damning of all, right after the Human Genome project, a lot of european laboratories having to cease cancer research due to cease-and-desist letters from a US corporation, invoking “ownership” of the BrC1 gene?