May 5, 2004
Gotta Sue Em All
There’s another bit of interesting info in the Strumpf and Olberhozer study that hasn’t gotten a lot of play, but that I find absolutely fascinating. Please turn to pages 10-12, particularly this line from page 12: “While the left panel indicates that U.S. users downloaded almost half of their files from other U.S. users, the remainder comes from a diverse range of countries including Germany, Italy, and Brazil.” Germany ranks at 16.5%, and no other country hits above 6.9%.
It’s obvious that the percentage would be less than 100% US to US, but less than half? Moreover, who would expect that .7% of US downloads come from Polish users?
This really points out that, if you believe lawsuits are part of The Solution, the new lawsuits overseas are critically important. At the same time, it demonstrates some serious difficulties. The RIAA needs to sue in numerous jurisdictions, possibly with slightly different, complicating laws (see Canada). In the end, how far can you chase people around the world? If you end up with no US uploaders but still US downloaders, you haven’t done anything.
Filed by Derek Slater at 3:16 pm under General news
Comments Off on Gotta Sue Em All
