Maybe my interpretation is wrong, but the "logic" seems to be: piracy is about copyright (one kind of intellectual property) infringement, counterfeit goods are about trademark (another kind of intellectual property) infringement, therefore they should be in the same bag. That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?

No, it makes you look like you want to protect the American interests oversea while also thinking about the children.

Not really. Pirated software can be "low quality". They could contain viruses, which also could look bad for the company that made the software.

The "piracy" that Biden, et al, are speaking of here is not individuals downloading torrents, but bootleggers (largely in China) reproducing and selling works. And, in this case, the similarities are strong.

When you buy an item-- be it a Xanax, a Kevlar vest, or a Pink Floyd CD-- you want to know that it is "authentic" (i.e., made to the proper spec) which implies "authorized".

That's not such a big stretch, is it?

Yes, I do care that my Pink Floyd CD is authentic, because I would be pissed off to find out that I shelled out money for Pink Floyd studio album and got a recording of my neighbor singing in the shower or a recording of a Pink Floyd live performance. But that doesn't really have much to do with piracy. In this case we're talking about fraud, not illegal distribution.

Interestingly enough, the situation is not that much different when it comes to material goods, like Xanax or Kevlar vests. If my doctor told me to buy Nexium and I decided to do exactly what he said and buy that particular brand and a pharmacy sold me a knock-off, I would be pissed off because I paid for Nexium (as opposed to a cheaper pill with the exact same dose of esomeprazol). I would be pissed off because I was scammed. I would definitely not be pissed off that Nexium's brand was infringed by whoever made the knock-off.

I do realize that there's a cause-effect relationship there: if it was difficult for people to copy someone else's brand, I would be safer from that kind of fraud. But it's a long way from recognizing that relationship and putting the piracy and counterfeits in the same bag.

Nothing's "free" to the extent that people wouldn't care if it's crap. Actually, there's a nice analogy: that flaming bag of dog doo on your porch was likely free too, but it may cause damage. Is it a non-issue because it's free?

Downloading is asynchronous. It may cost some computer resources, but probably not any which you would not have used anyways.

You're missing the point. It's practically free, certainly much freer than the retail price. And usually finding the illegal version something (that's worth it) is just a matter of time.

People illegally downloading don't care about authenticity because it's practically free and is worth it to them. Obviously if the time it takes to acquire it illegally over legally is more than its worth to the person, he/she wouldn't do it (or shouldn't do it), but for the majority of people it isn't true.

A few random points that should be considered about media piracy: 1) Copyright exists to encourage the creation of new works - ie to benefit the public, not the creators per se. 2) Copyright is a two-edged sword. Maybe knowing that you can copyright a song encourages your creativity. But knowing that they can't reuse your song discourages someone else's. (And reuse of others' work is old - classical composers borrowed others' music or poetry frequently.) 3) Consumers should recognize that NEVER buying movies, music, etc, but ALWAYS pirating them, will mean that some media, like music, is much harder to make, and other media, like big-budget films, are impossible. So it's in fans' interest to buy at least sometimes. 4) On the other hand, media producers have not convincingly shown (to my knowledge) that piracy is really hurting them. Clearly not every download is a lost sale: demand at price 0 will always be greater than at price $15, and piracy may expose people to band which they later buy from (this has happened to me). A decline in music revenues may be partly linked to a rise in video games and other entertainment.

But it's pretty easy to conflate them without any objections from the uninformed American public.

Do you think that Biden actually understands the difference? If he does, do you think that he cares?

If they want to protect obsolete business models from technology, I would suggest the following: reduce the privacy and freedom of the entire public by spending lots of public money on big brother programs.

The article gave me the uneasy feeling that they are trying to use the first problem to justify the second solution.

It's so tiresome seeing copyright infringement conflated with the counterfeit physical goods which may cause their users physical harm due to not complying with expected specifications.

61-page draft and ask him to sum it up and he will go nuts!! He has no idea what he is speaking of..just a beau talk

Don't be fooled by the shitty site, these are Cambridge professors, they just also put the book online.

It shows lots of amazing examples throughout history where the concept of IP actually hurt business, not helped. One good example: Dickens was heavily copied and sold here in America, because British copyrights didn't apply here. In the UK, his books sold for $6 each; in America, they sold for $0.06 (or so).

He made more money here.

I wonder how much this fun fact is skewed by the fact that the pound was worth way more than the cheap American paper money during the time (not to mention that a lot of states printed their own money, so it would be quite difficult to compile a relative exchange rate).

They cited all their sources, though. I'm assuming that trivial of a mistake wouldn't be made.