> It is estimated that the amount of financial damages suffered annually from the illegal service is a massive €10 billion ($10.5B).<p>I suspect that the actual damages would be (much) lower, as some of the people using this service would not or could not have paid for the official source. This is the same fallacy or intentional misrepresentation that the music industry used in the Napster days.<p>As we know, if the pricing is reasonable for the market, and more importantly the content is actually _available!_ in that market, people will pay to stream it.<p>A lot of the time, the content is unavailable in many markets; so users will have to choose between illegal or nothing. If the content is available to stream legally, and its price is too high for the region, then people wouldn't have paid for it no matter what. Thus, the revenue was not lost; the market was simply never captured.
This goes to show people are sick of having to buy 5-10 services just to see all their things, they'd rather get a single pirate stream with them all. Just if you watch US football, you have to subscribe to no less than 5 services to get them all, and international sports are even worse for their football or whatever. Even one of the Seattle Seahawks players got caught watching his own games on a pirate source because even the rich ballers are sick of the all services.<p>It's just far too easy for me to go download whatever I want to even pay for services, pirate or the real media cartels.
No way, I don’t believe it. That’s $3.16b yearly - Netflix makes $33b. With no IP holders to pay out to, that would mean they’re making massive profits - they would have to be a household name, and I don’t know anyone who could name many services of this size.
Seemed a bit odd to me the postal police took the lead on this, but apparently on top of regular interfering with the regular mail, the postal police in Italy also have a mandate that covers: "Cyber fraud and scams, Online copyright infringement, Unauthorized access to computer systems, Digital piracy"
More HN discussion four days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42260231">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42260231</a>
I pay for almost all
Streaming services via promo offers and visit pirate websites too. Yet I rarely use either rather just watch things on YouTube, TikTok or instagram reels. All offer short form content and they know what I like to watch and keep feeding me such. Long form content at times I found hard to sit through now.
Another win for the copyright mafia.<p>> It is estimated that the amount of financial damages suffered annually from the illegal service is a massive €10 billion ($10.5B).<p>Oh boo hoo, some billionaires are getting a couple billions less than they could have. How sad. And what a disingenuous framing to call it “financial damage” as if it somehow affected any ordinary people.
> Catania Prosecutor's Office and the Italian Postal Police<p>I was always wondering what are the competences of all these Italian police forces: Guardia di Finanza, Polizia Municipale, Polizia di Stato, Polizia Stradale, Carabinieri. They are all over the place, driving around, while Italian mafia bosses are oftentimes "hiding" their whole lifetime in their home villages nearby. Then here it is, yet another one! Polizia Postale!