So PeterCH this is a social protest? I'm a web application programmer who has worked at most of the largest IT companies in Southern Africa. I have seen countless downloads and swaps and quite frankly incredible greed in terms of the amount that gets downloaded. Very few people actually give a **** about the music producers, cost of music and any other bull**** excuse for pirating pandered on here. They download because they can and they will continue to download because they can. The simple point which nobody wants to address is that if I create something digital, IT BELONGS TO ME. I decide who can or cannot use it and if you break the rules for usage as laid out by me I can seek redress.
so what exactly is your point?
If you don't want it pirated then make it widely available for a cheap price direct to the public with no restrictions. Otherwise, yes, it is going to be pirated.. just because it is there. If you don't want it pirated then don't put it on the internet. Even then, someone else is going to upload it and distribute it. That is a fact of life. Is it wrong or not? yes, no, maybe? Who cares? not me. Not the pirates. The only way to fight piracy is through price and distribution.
We don't give a **** about the content distributors, the middle men, the fat cats, the industry execs. They can rot in hell. They are worse pirates than us and far more greedy.... but pirates do care about the content creators. The movie producers, actors, singers and bands. We want them to be rewarded and we would rather reward them directly. With money if we can, with our money, and if that is not possible then with popularity.
Find a way to get the movies and music DIRECTLY to the public at a cheap price and the large part of the piracy will go away. It will never go away completely, but a lot of it will go away. People will always download, yes... that is a fact of life. They will always share and distribute. It has been happening for millions of years since Thug the first caveman invented a shovel (the next day he woke up and Brug next door had already copied his shovel and told ten other people how to make one).
I would guess that 90% of piracy exists because people want the stuff easily and directly at a cheap rate (or free). So the only way to provide them and make a profit is to give it to them how they want it at the cheapest rate or supported by advertising. Fortunately the Internet lends itself to that easy distribution model.
It is not a social protest, but a social revolution, a social phenomena... and the cat is out of the bag and will not go back. The internet has created a global network of consumers. The smart content producers will harness that demand and make a truckload of money out of it. The stupid content distributors will continue to fight their very consumers, and will eventually shrivel up and die. Simple economics.
I know a lot of pirates, including myself. But very few I know are not purchasers. We all have extensive DVD and music collections and continue to add to that all the time. We are not the enemy - we are the cash cow... just ask my credit card company.
The trick will be to turn the up and coming generation into online purchasers as well. I have said this before... but the company that comes up with a model where a user/downloader can buy a certain number of credits and then download as much as he wants and gets a lifetime license to that content at the same time. That man will be a billionaire.
