Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson gave a short, provocative talk at the Independent Games Summit in which he made the argument that there’s no such thing as piracy or a lost sale. Countless barrels of ink, not to mention pixels, have been spent pushing the opposite viewpoint so it’s worth considering Persson’s argument.
The idea that each pirated copy of some work represents a lost sale is silly and has never made sense. Most people who pirate something do so because they aren’t willing to pay the price asked for it and if they can’t find a pirated copy they simply do without. Persson says that such people are an opportunity. They can help the product gain traction and may well become customers tomorrow.
Persson explicitly rejects the notion that piracy is theft. If you steal a car, he says, the original is lost to its owner but if you pirate a game, say, there are simply more of them in the world and costs the publisher nothing because the pirated copy doesn’t really represent a lost sale.
I don’t expect that Persson’s argument will prevail or even that most people will agree with it but it’s an interesting point of view from someone who you would expect to hold the opposite opinion.