I’ve always been very suspicious of the piracy statistics put out by what you might call the “IP industry” – big software, music, and movie companies and lobby groups. So it’s gratifying to see Ben Goldacre demolishing the latest claim that piracy is “costing £billions”. Summary: they guessed the figures, then “accidentally” multiplied them by 10 before telling the press.
But it led me into some other discussions about piracy, such as Greg Pyes’ defence of the “piracy = stealing” argument, and got me thinking about the complexity of when “piracy” is actually immoral (as opposed to illegal) .