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Comment by thasmin | Hacker News Reader

People are willing to pay for creative work. The copyright holder should realize that rampant "theft" would indicate that their price is too high, and they should lower the price or create higher value work that people value at their desired price.

Copyright law may be outdated in that copyright holders are able to shout "piracy" instead of obeying the laws of economics, but I don't believe it is the main problem.

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>"The copyright holder should realize that rampant "theft" would indicate that their price is too high, and they should lower the price or create higher value work that people value at their desired price."

No, I think you're wrong. I think most pirates would continue to pirate media, even if the author increased the value of the media. They just take the extra consumer surplus and enjoy it.

Those pirates perceive the work to have no value. Possible reasons include that the pirate has no money, doesn't expect to use the work for long, or doesn't think they'll enjoy the work very much. The copyright holder loses no money when these people pirate their work and should not complain when they do so.

It's difficult to recognize why a person is pirating. For all I know, copyright holders have priced their works correctly and are complaining about people like this.

> The copyright holder should realize that rampant "theft" would indicate that their price is too high, and they should lower the price or create higher value work that people value at their desired price.

And if the copyright holder doesn't realize or doesn't lower her price, then what?

Then the copyright holder's work get pirated and they don't get compensated.

I don't see how this differs from a physical good in this way, say I don't like your price so I'm just going to take it can be applied to anything. I think if piracy was completely stamped out people may be willing to pay a price point that they previously wouldn't have.

Physical goods have a higher perceived value because you can touch and resell it. PC games are on their way to essentially ending piracy with services like Steam. Some people may be willing to pay a higher price point, but games at discounted prices are still tremendously popular.

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