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Yet it has been difficult to quantify the damage supposedly wreaked by downloading. In mid-2007, economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee, from Harvard, and Koleman Strumpf, from the University of Kansas, published the results of their study analyzing the effect of file sharing on retail music sales in the U.S. They found no correlation between the two. "While downloads occur on a vast scale," they wrote, "most users are likely individuals who in the absence of file sharing would not have bought the music they downloaded." Another study published around the same time, however, found there was, in fact, a positive impact on retail sales, at least in Canada: University of London researchers Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz reported that the more people downloaded songs from P2P networks, the more CDs they bought. "Roughly half of all P2P tracks were downloaded because individuals wanted to hear songs before buying them or because they wanted to avoid purchasing the whole bundle of songs on the associated CDs, and roughly one-quarter were downloaded because they were not available for purchase."
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Perhaps, though, the entertainment business has it wrong. Downloaders aren't thieves; they're just rabid fans. But for the industry's perspective to change, it would have to trample long-held business practices. Hollywood would have to toss out its ability to stagger the opening of films across different media. It would also have to abandon technologies like the encryption used on HD-DVDs to prevent them from being copied or even played on certain machines. (A hacker cracked the encryption in January 2007.) And record labels would have to stop suing downloaders and continue to find other sources for revenue, like ringtones. But for the most part, the Weinsteins of the world see fighting as the only way forward.
"What should a police department do when it turns out there's been a burglary?" asks Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal and the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy. "Should the police department give up, close its doors, and say this is an impossible task? No. That's silly.
Still, a few months after the MediaDefender-Defenders played their prank, there was a sign that some in Hollywood might be shifting their thinking. A new independent movie called Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth showed up on one of the file-sharing sites in November. The film's producers had no idea it had even been pirated; all they knew was that suddenly its popularity was skyrocketing. Their websites received 23,000 hits in less than two weeks, and the film's ranking among the most-searched-for movies on the internet movie-tracking site IMDB went from 11,235 to 15. Eric Wilkinson, the film's co-producer, wrote a fan letter to the site responsible for driving traffic to the pirated film: "Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download.... People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the Net!" He requested that fans buy the DVD as well and added, "In the future, I will not complain about file sharing. you have helped put this little movie on the map!!!! When I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the Net myself!"
When I try reaching Wilkinson, though, I'm told that the producer is not available. Instead, the movie's director, Richard Schenkman, returns the call. "Eric was clearly being sarcastic," Schenkman says about the offer to upload the film. "That's why he put in the exclamation points." I tell him his partner certainly sounded enthusiastic about file sharing. "Look, I have mixed feelings about this," Schenkman replies. "As a filmmaker, I love that people love the movie and have seen the movie. But as a person who literally has a hunk of his own life savings in the movie, I don't want to be ripped off by people illegally downloading the movie. Some of these downloaders want to believe they're fighting the man. But we're all just people who work for a living." He acknowledges, however, that DVD sales of the film increased after the leak, and that people have even been pledging money on a site the filmmaker set up to accept donations in markets where the DVD isn't for sale. "I'm not saying I have the answers," Schenkman says.
Meanwhile, Ethan has moved on to other companies. He and his friends have a few targets in mind that don't happen to be in the entertainment industry. He told me he'd also like to quit the business altogether but hasn't been able to give up the rush it brings. No doubt, other kids are hunkering down over their keyboards to see if they can't replicate the MediaDefender-Defenders' work. And some pirate is finding new ways to disseminate the material. Eventually, Hollywood will no longer be able to continue fighting its enemies at the expense of its customers. If they can't beat them, they'll finally have to join them. That is, if they want to keep having customers.
Piracy isn't just stealing it's also a good way to advertise.