The $8 billion iPod | Rob Reid
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it in piracy and copyright-lawsuit threads as a funny short demonstration of how inflated industry damage figures are.
What it is
A five-minute TED talk by Rob Reid, who introduces Copyright Math, applying entertainment-industry piracy loss claims to produce absurd totals such as an $8 billion iPod.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2012 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends DavidNielsen · 2018-03 · on “Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition”
Rob Reid did a funny 5min TED Talk on this called the 8 Billion dollar iPod: [this video] He used the same premise when he wrote the comedy sci-fi book Year Zero, the story of naive aliens accidentally pirating all of Earths music and the legal consequences thereof, i.e. owning the citizens of Earth literally all the money in the universe leading to the ruination of their delightfully hedonistic utopia. A quick and hilarious read.
Recommends omoikane · 2023-02 · on “Getty Images Is Suing Stable Diffusion for a Staggering $1.8T”
Related: "The 8 billion iPod" by Rob Reid - [this video] It's a funny TED talk on "copyright math".
Cites Selfcommit · 2012-06 · on “Mega-victory: Kim Dotcom search warrants “invalid,” mansion raid “illegal””
The affiliate program was for people pushing content, not specifically copyrighted content. Mega made money on site visits and account premiums This is no different then Apple making a fortune off the ipod. The original iPod did not have a great store attached to it, it was simply a device for playing MP3s. Wonder where all those MP3s came from? Holding Mega accountable for the users actions is like saying Apple should pay the record companies for songs that were pirated on the ipods they sold, and continue to sell. [this video]
Cites turquoisevar · 2024-02 · on “Gary Bowser and gaming's most infamous piracy case”
Always reminds me of this TED talk[1] that goes into the fantasy accounting in cases such as this. 1: [this video]
Cites ShroudedNight · 2026-01 · on “Lennart Poettering, Christian Brauner founded a new company”
Also worth remembering that around 2010, the music and film industry associations of America were claiming entitlement to $50 billion dollars annually in piracy-related losses beyond what could be accounted for in direct lost revenue (which _might_ have been as much as 10 billion, or 1/6th of their claim): [this video] These guys pathologically have had a chip on their shoulder since Napster.