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> These prevention tactics tell me, the consumer, that this company believes it cannot compete on any level with the ease and availability of pirating content

> These prevention tactics tell me, the consumer, that this company believes it cannot compete on any level with the ease and availability of pirating content of course they can't! Piracy has one major value to people that engage in piracy: it allows people to acquire content without abiding by the acquisition policy set out by the content distributors. It's "competition" in the same way that it's "competition" when 1 athlete in an Olympic running event is taking steroids and has jet boots on. You can't treat piracy as fair competition. Most people don't pirate out of a "It's too difficult for me to buy this song via itunes", they pirate because they don't want to spend money. Content distributors can't compete with that, even with services like Netflix and Hulu people still pirate because they don't like adverts. If they are unwilling to pay and unwilling to view adverts what other options are there besides just giving away content for free? People that pirate (in general) want content without compromising on the way they want it, while piracy exists these people will continue to pirate.

guard-of-terra 14y ago
"Most people don't pirate out of a "It's too difficult for me to buy this song via itunes", they pirate because they don't want to spend money" Therefore, ad-supported streaming services exist. The only reason why ad-supported streaming services aren't the king is because they can't stream every content. That lands us back on availability problem. Copyright holders can not figure it out.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  That's a nice cutesy view, but it's wrong. Lots of people refuse to use advert supported streaming services because they don't want to stream and they hate adverts. Content owners can't win. Just check reddit sometime, it's depressing how demanding people are.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    Nobody is saying that there is one true model and all the others are wrong. That's kind of the point actually -- people turn to piracy for all different reasons. Some because they don't want to pay (so offer ad supported streaming), some because they don't like unskippable ads (so offer pay-to-download services with no ads), some because of availability (so make sure everything is available on both the ad supported streaming and pay-to-download services), etc. Complaining that customers are demanding is just sour grapes. Customers are always demanding; welcome to capitalism. You either provide what the market wants, or somebody else does.
    - citricsquid 14y ago
      > Complaining that customers are demanding is just sour grapes. Customers are always demanding; welcome to capitalism. You either provide what the market wants, or somebody else does. That's the entire damn problem with piracy. Nobody else is providing them with "what the market wants", someone else is TAKING another businesses product and then distributing it themselves. I mean sure, if people wanted to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones but couldn't because it wasn't available to them (or they were unhappy with the terms) and someone else then said "I have a series like Game of Thrones and it's free!" THAT would be "somebody else" providing what the market want, but it isn't. comparing physical and digital products is never 100% accurate, so forgive me for this, but if a Ferrari dealership charges $100,000 for a car and someone steals one and offers it for free, that isn't "someone else providing what the market wants", it isn't capitalism... it's someone stealing.
      - guard-of-terra 14y ago
        But what if someone buys a Ferrari for 80,000$ in another country, drives it thru the border and sells it to you for 90,000$? You know, they (official distributor of Ferrari) consider it piracy too, and they sue that guy for trademark infringement. Therefore, we are not going to buy your argument. What if you want some product from USA, and you live on one of countries USA chooses to BULLY for no apparent reason (think Cuba), and you buy the product somewhere and smuggle it home? Is it morally wrong? I will say it isn't. Therefore, we are not going to buy your argument.
        citricsquid 14y ago
        You're missing the entire point of the Ferrari argument. If you bought a Ferrari and the agreement with your purchase said "You must not resell this car" then morally you would be wrong re-selling it, because you were told not to. If you don't agree with the clause that says you can't resell it then you shouldn't buy it.
        guard-of-terra 14y ago
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    If they hate adverts they would not use common bittorrent sites because they are ridden with terrible, annoying ads. Pirates are ad supported too! Streaming is what people actually want half of the time. It's convenient. But the whole talk is baseless as long as streaming services can't make the same offering pirates do.
  - FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
    Content owners may not be able to 'win' against piracy, as there's no way it can be feasibly eradicated, but it's not at all impossible to at least try and lessen the impact of it on the business. Such ingenuity is incompatible with the entrenched industry's old-school way of thinking, though. They want it their way, how it's always been. The consumer is moving at a much faster pace, willing to consume content in different and often more convenient ways. They use the internet, which is global, and want to consume content that is still arbitrarily restricted to national boundaries. This is a demand that has yet to be legitimately satisfied, and thus naturally, the consumer becomes demanding. Unfortunately, the industry is determined to defend itself from a changing world, instead of embracing it. DRM, unskippable piracy warnings, local content restrictions, etc. are all manifestations of such a practice, and all of which actively punish the legitimate customer. The internet, and everything it has enabled, is still pretty new. In some ways, this resistance to change isn't surprising, and it's easy to be a commentator on the sidelines. It'd be better to reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight.
hxa7241 14y ago
'Fair'? That seems an invalid concept here. What is 'fairness', assuming a strict copyright system? -- it is a race with the qualifying runner, but where no others are allowed to run! That is a strange notion of fairness. But 'fairness' is just a diversion: these copyright trade monopolies are supposed to prevent competition (of distribution), that is their point. That is how they increase one kind of revenue and so supposedly increase production. When non rights-holders are copying/distributing it is competition de facto -- according only to the basic rules of physics. And it can therefore be an important signal: because what is basically physically possible is what the economy should really be aiming for. If people can distribute informational goods themselves better than the authorised channels, those channels are clearly underachieving according to the real baseline measure.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  Fair is when the people that own content control that content. It's not a difficult concept.
  - slowpoke 14y ago
    How so? I would see it as a lot fairer if we'd all follow a liberal approach: I can't force you to give me things. But neither can you stop me from sharing them. I completely reject the illogical, nonsensical crazy idea that you can own virtual, abstract things. It's impossible by their very definition. Die Gedanken sind frei.
  - vibrunazo 14y ago
    "Your right ends where another's right begins." It's 'fair' for you to have control over your content, as much as it's 'fair' for me to have control over how I can share, remix and improve and the content I bought. When your right conflicts with my right, then I don't it's fair for you to make it illegal for me to improve and share the content created by your grandparent 90 years ago. Short version, the world is not as simply black or white as you'd like to believe.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

"Most people don't pirate out of a "It's too difficult for me to buy this song via itunes", they pirate because they don't want to spend money" Therefore, ad-supported streaming services exist. The only reason why ad-supported streaming services aren't the king is because they can't stream every content. That lands us back on availability problem. Copyright holders can not figure it out.

citricsquid 14y ago
That's a nice cutesy view, but it's wrong. Lots of people refuse to use advert supported streaming services because they don't want to stream and they hate adverts. Content owners can't win. Just check reddit sometime, it's depressing how demanding people are.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  Nobody is saying that there is one true model and all the others are wrong. That's kind of the point actually -- people turn to piracy for all different reasons. Some because they don't want to pay (so offer ad supported streaming), some because they don't like unskippable ads (so offer pay-to-download services with no ads), some because of availability (so make sure everything is available on both the ad supported streaming and pay-to-download services), etc. Complaining that customers are demanding is just sour grapes. Customers are always demanding; welcome to capitalism. You either provide what the market wants, or somebody else does.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    > Complaining that customers are demanding is just sour grapes. Customers are always demanding; welcome to capitalism. You either provide what the market wants, or somebody else does. That's the entire damn problem with piracy. Nobody else is providing them with "what the market wants", someone else is TAKING another businesses product and then distributing it themselves. I mean sure, if people wanted to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones but couldn't because it wasn't available to them (or they were unhappy with the terms) and someone else then said "I have a series like Game of Thrones and it's free!" THAT would be "somebody else" providing what the market want, but it isn't. comparing physical and digital products is never 100% accurate, so forgive me for this, but if a Ferrari dealership charges $100,000 for a car and someone steals one and offers it for free, that isn't "someone else providing what the market wants", it isn't capitalism... it's someone stealing.
    - guard-of-terra 14y ago
      But what if someone buys a Ferrari for 80,000$ in another country, drives it thru the border and sells it to you for 90,000$? You know, they (official distributor of Ferrari) consider it piracy too, and they sue that guy for trademark infringement. Therefore, we are not going to buy your argument. What if you want some product from USA, and you live on one of countries USA chooses to BULLY for no apparent reason (think Cuba), and you buy the product somewhere and smuggle it home? Is it morally wrong? I will say it isn't. Therefore, we are not going to buy your argument.
      - citricsquid 14y ago
        You're missing the entire point of the Ferrari argument. If you bought a Ferrari and the agreement with your purchase said "You must not resell this car" then morally you would be wrong re-selling it, because you were told not to. If you don't agree with the clause that says you can't resell it then you shouldn't buy it.
        guard-of-terra 14y ago
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  If they hate adverts they would not use common bittorrent sites because they are ridden with terrible, annoying ads. Pirates are ad supported too! Streaming is what people actually want half of the time. It's convenient. But the whole talk is baseless as long as streaming services can't make the same offering pirates do.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
  Content owners may not be able to 'win' against piracy, as there's no way it can be feasibly eradicated, but it's not at all impossible to at least try and lessen the impact of it on the business. Such ingenuity is incompatible with the entrenched industry's old-school way of thinking, though. They want it their way, how it's always been. The consumer is moving at a much faster pace, willing to consume content in different and often more convenient ways. They use the internet, which is global, and want to consume content that is still arbitrarily restricted to national boundaries. This is a demand that has yet to be legitimately satisfied, and thus naturally, the consumer becomes demanding. Unfortunately, the industry is determined to defend itself from a changing world, instead of embracing it. DRM, unskippable piracy warnings, local content restrictions, etc. are all manifestations of such a practice, and all of which actively punish the legitimate customer. The internet, and everything it has enabled, is still pretty new. In some ways, this resistance to change isn't surprising, and it's easy to be a commentator on the sidelines. It'd be better to reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight.

hxa7241 14y ago

'Fair'? That seems an invalid concept here. What is 'fairness', assuming a strict copyright system? -- it is a race with the qualifying runner, but where no others are allowed to run! That is a strange notion of fairness. But 'fairness' is just a diversion: these copyright trade monopolies are supposed to prevent competition (of distribution), that is their point. That is how they increase one kind of revenue and so supposedly increase production. When non rights-holders are copying/distributing it is competition de facto -- according only to the basic rules of physics. And it can therefore be an important signal: because what is basically physically possible is what the economy should really be aiming for. If people can distribute informational goods themselves better than the authorised channels, those channels are clearly underachieving according to the real baseline measure.

citricsquid 14y ago
Fair is when the people that own content control that content. It's not a difficult concept.
- slowpoke 14y ago
  How so? I would see it as a lot fairer if we'd all follow a liberal approach: I can't force you to give me things. But neither can you stop me from sharing them. I completely reject the illogical, nonsensical crazy idea that you can own virtual, abstract things. It's impossible by their very definition. Die Gedanken sind frei.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  "Your right ends where another's right begins." It's 'fair' for you to have control over your content, as much as it's 'fair' for me to have control over how I can share, remix and improve and the content I bought. When your right conflicts with my right, then I don't it's fair for you to make it illegal for me to improve and share the content created by your grandparent 90 years ago. Short version, the world is not as simply black or white as you'd like to believe.