Ok, so I guess I should preface this by saying, I think piracy is entirely wrong and completely unjustifiable. I'm also invested in how piracy of media affects industry, as my bonus at work is tied to the success and failures of the movies I work on. That said, I read the linked studies, lohadl provided, and feel the weight with which they were presented was maybe a bit overstated. Not to take away from lohadl (that was an epic, mic-drop worthy post). The studies are worth a read, and I'd encourage anyone interested in doing so. Just keep in mind that a lot of the data contains caveats and speculation.
So... problems I had with the papers:
The coefficient for Smith and Trelang's regression algorithm seems like guess work at best and it kind of admits that out of the gate.
Smith and Trelang's also mentions a contrasting report, but don't link to it and basically hand wave it away in the summary (no citation, or even the name of the paper). They don't account for things like the overall change in trend from digital media to streaming platforms during a time when the industry was transitioning and account for the 30% loss as the affect of piracy, without providing any more rigor. This is my own opinion, but it seems like they categorize their data incompletely. That is, a false dichotomy of limiting the option to either pirating something or buying it. But don't consider a third option: those who pirate but wouldn't have bought otherwise. Those aren't lost sales. Surely theft of IP, but not lost sales, and there isn't a good way to account for that. You'll see examples of this all over the place.
GAO's report (the government report), which covers both digital piracy and piracy of goods (cheap knock off toys from china), says this: Sectors facing threats from digital piracy include the music,
motion picture, television, publishing, and software industries. Piracy of
these products over the Internet can occur through methods including
peer-to-peer networks, streaming sites, and one-click hosting services.
There is no government agency that systematically collects or tracks data
on the extent of digital copyright piracy
The US government isn't keeping track?
and...
Based on its survey
results, the industry association estimated the U.S. piracy rate at 20
percent for business software, carrying a loss of $9 billion in 2008. This
study defined piracy as the difference between total installed software and
legitimate software sold, and its scope involved only packaged physical
software. While this study has an enviable data set on industries and
consumers located around the world from its country surveys, it uses
assumptions that have raised concerns among experts we interviewed,
including the assumption of a one-to-one rate of substitution and questions
on how the results from the surveyed countries are extrapolated to
nonsurveyed countries
9 Billion dollars worth of software, unpaid for, doesn't mean in the absence of piracy that software sales would have been 9 Billion higher. It probably means a large segment of your consumer base can't afford your software or aren't willing to pay for it (completely my opinion).
All of the studies are filled with language and exceptions like that. So take 'em with a grain of salt. While, it's clear piracy does damage the industry, I don't think we know the extent in any confidence and the data is pretty polluted with other external factors that can't really be tracked.
