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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenmarable" data-source="post: 4913963" data-attributes="member: 40359">Yep, given the nature of the problem, I'm not sure a clear scientific study could be made, and in lieu of clear facts, just how much digital piracy hurts actual sales will be debated in circles. It's common sense that in a lawsuit WotC will argue the worst case scenario and that every view and download was a potential lost sale. It's pretty safe to assume that no, not every single one is a lost sale. However, the other extreme of "all piracy is actually good because it acts like a preview for people to actually buy the books" is also pretty safe to assume is false, especially for a very well known market leader like WotC or even the "everyone who downloaded it would never have bought it anyway" is probably not 100% true - not to mention contradictory to the previous view of illegal PDFs being good previews.However, as to which end of that 3 pointed spectrum the truth lies (downloads = lost sales, downloads = increased sales, downloads = irrelevant) is utterly unknown to anyone, and probably varies a whole freakin lot between companies and even products at a single company. So, yeah, it's doubtful that the harm is as bad as WotC argues (although, again, it's sensible in a lawsuit for them to argue worst case scenario and the judge to balance the two sides) but it's also doubtful no harm occured. But all anyone has are guesses as to how harmful it really is. Which is a shame, because some actual facts would be nice in these sorts of discussions, but with so much variation and such difficulty in accurately tracking these things, we'll be stuck with anecdotal evidence and competing philosophical agendas for a very long time.</blockquote>

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