Billions Stolen?

A headline in the newspaper about the tens of billions of dollars that are lost to piracy pointed me to the Institute for Public Innovation. The IPI is dedicated to "advocating lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a smaller, less-intrusive government." It appears that one of their methods of promoting a smaller government and lower taxes is tightening copyright laws, so I thought I would link to it here in the interest of providing another viewpoint on copyright.

They make it difficult to deep link to articles on their site, so you have to just go to their homepage and look for their articles, but the following is a synopsis from their site. While I was there, I also found an article about different types of fair use that I thought was interesting, and I've included that synopsis as well.


IPI Policy Report - # 189
The True Cost of Copyright Industry Piracy to the U.S. Economy
by Stephen E. Siwek on 10/03/2007
22 Pages

Synopsis:
Using a well-established U.S. government model and the latest copyright piracy figures, this study concludes that, each year, copyright piracy from motion pictures, sound recordings, business and entertainment software and video games costs the U.S. economy $58.0 billion in total output, costs American workers 373,375 jobs and $16.3 billion in earnings, and costs federal, state, and local governments $2.6 billion in tax revenue.


IPI Issue Brief
What's "Fair"? Why Those Concerned About Copyright Fair Use Need to Say What They Mean
by Lee Hollaar, Ph.D on 04/11/2007
8 Pages

Synopsis:
While many people in the copyright debate talk about "fair use," they seldom say which uses are of concern. But without specifics, it is hard to provide balanced exceptions to copyright protection. Congress should codify "fair use of necessity" and many instances of "economic fair use" so that people will know what is allowed, while reserving fair use primarily for the "transformative" or "productive" uses that reflect the goal of copyright.