Comments on: How to Stop Piracy http://madisonian.net/2009/04/17/how-to-stop-piracy/ a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:59:42 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: C.E. Petit http://madisonian.net/2009/04/17/how-to-stop-piracy/comment-page-1/#comment-276408 C.E. Petit Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:49:18 +0000 http://madisonian.net/?p=2237#comment-276408 There's actually quite a bit of historical evidence, drawn from trademarks and in particular from fashion and from agricultural products, on how to defeat piracy of IP. The method that has positive correlation has three elements: (1) A price for the authorized good/service that does not greatly exceed the price for the pirated good/service; (2) A discernable -- not necessarily huge -- difference in ancillary value provided with the authorized good/service; and (3) A customer-perceived system of reliable quality control. So far as I'm aware, direct suppression campaigns have a 0% success rate in the long run; those who remember the casual-outerwear market in the 1980s probably have an inkling of that already! There’s actually quite a bit of historical evidence, drawn from trademarks and in particular from fashion and from agricultural products, on how to defeat piracy of IP. The method that has positive correlation has three elements:
(1) A price for the authorized good/service that does not greatly exceed the price for the pirated good/service;
(2) A discernable — not necessarily huge — difference in ancillary value provided with the authorized good/service; and
(3) A customer-perceived system of reliable quality control.

So far as I’m aware, direct suppression campaigns have a 0% success rate in the long run; those who remember the casual-outerwear market in the 1980s probably have an inkling of that already!

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