At today’s Internet Caucus event on Capitol Hill, TechDirt’s Mike Masnick addressed congressional staff and tech representatives contending that the problem of online piracy is solely the responsibility of the content creators. His message was, if someone is stealing your content online, it’s your fault. Piracy is actually good for the marketplace, he claims, and if you can’t make money with people stealing your works then clearly you have a bad business model.
This is the argument made by those who claim content owners should expect their products to be stolen because they’re too expensive. Funny that you don’t see the theft of many luxury cars using this “explanation.” People who advocate on behalf of online piracy like to portray the victims of this theft as corporate monoliths undeserving of any sympathy.
We have a different view. ACT is the app developer trade association representing small business software developers. Small businesses account for more than 80 percent of the top apps. And our members are experiencing a piracy rate approaching 30%. We are constantly innovating and our industry has grown from nothing to a $7 billion in 4 short years. Clearly we have a successful marketplace. So how do we match up to Masnick’s bad business model assertion? We charge 99 cents for an app.
99 cents!
Where is the room to find innovative new pricing structures to disincentivize theft when our starting point is so low? More troubling is that we’re seeing the emergence of pirate app stores that have the look and feel of an authentic marketplace. A Russian gangster makes the money off app sales while our small business app developers get nothing.
Through all of our discussion after today’s debate one thing remains clear. There is an urgent need to fight online piracy. It is a problem that costs American jobs and businesses for which we need common sense solutions. Blaming innovators for online theft is not a serious attempt to address this problem.