I understand the reflexive rejection of Doug Merrill's claims by most of the people who have posted in this thread, but suppose for a moment that he has actual data to back up that claim?
If your opposition to piracy is founded on the notion that people who obtain content from pirated sources never purchase the same sort of content, or do so only in insignificant numbers, then I can see why you don't like Merrill's point, one bit.
IMO, however, even If Merrill is right, that
doesn't mean that piracy isn't a problem, and it
doesn't mean that Limewire should not have been held liable in the cases they lost.
I'm trying to find out, definitively, what Merrill's assertion is based on. I'm inclined to withhold judgment on what he said until I have a better sense of his methodology and sources.
I think it's also important to remember that just because any given person who illegally obtains content is also a frequent purchaser of that same manner of content, that fact doesn't magically make them less liable for copyright infringement, if and when they engage in actual copyright infringement. As such, it's very much possible to acknowledge that Merrill's assertion might be true and still think it's right and proper to hold people accountable for copyright infringement.
In other words, conceding the fact that some pirates are also paying customers doesn't mean that one thinks piracy is "OK."
