In other words, where is the "piracy killer" service that is so awesome, I give someone my money and stop pirating? Hulu? Load of crap. Netflix? It's okay, I guess. Steam? Ok, so there's one.
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.
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.
I can't force you to give me things.
But neither can you stop me from sharing them.
Die Gedanken sind frei.
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.
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.
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.
Here's what I'm saying: If HBO is offering Game of Thrones on HBO.com to anyone willing to pay $10 (or whatever) for it, and The Pirate Bay is offering it for $0, probably some people are still going to go to The Pirate Bay and get it for $0 instead of paying $10 for it. And that sucks; it would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and make it stop without impacting millions of innocent people, but we can't.
However, if you go to HBO.com and there is no reasonable way for you to insert cash and watch video, far more people are going to end up at The Pirate Bay than would if the show was available on the official website. And that is something we can easily do something about. So isn't it better to adopt the solutions that actually reduce the problem than to sit around complaining how unfair it is while unnecessarily losing a bunch of would-be customers?
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.
The law is not a moral authority, and attempting to presenting it as such is one of the most disingenuous fallacies in existence.
Something is never wrong because it's against the law. Ideally, something is against the law because it is wrong, but that's not always the case.
When I buy a physical good, such as a Ferrari, there's nobody who can tell me what the fuck I can do with it. For all the seller cares I could drive it repeatedly against the nearest wall, then set it on fire. Same goes for selling it. I do not see myself obliged to answer to any authority on what I can do with my property.
The problem is, copyright law says I have no rights and copyright holders have any rights they want to impose over me. Sorry guys, it's not a good offer.
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.
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.
Region locking your content, pumping it with unskippable ads and legal threats, releasing it arbitrarily in certain countries... are all practices which serve to alienate the consumer. These are pervasive in the content industry, and you couldn't honestly say they're even trying to compete with piracy with such stubbornness.
If you defend a site like the pirate bay's right to enable the distribution of pirate content, then you are also defending their right to upgrade their service and make it just as good as Steam or Netflix or whatever... all things being equal, you can't compete with free.(the content industry understands this which is why they fight for measures that make piracy less convenient and constantly reminds you that piracy is "wrong".).
For instance:
> but at the end of the day content is content, and must be paid for by consumers or advertisers or you would see a _drastic_ drop in the quantity and quality of content produced.
Why do you assume providing a better service to your customers means handing out content for free? If pirates can provide a better service for free, why are you providing a worse service at all? If anything, you should be giving people their money's worth or better. This is my point: they are doing _nothing_ to drive customers away from piracy. I'm not even talking about lowering costs.
In light of this, I found it hilarious for you to say:
> (the content industry understands this which is why they fight for measures that make piracy less convenient and constantly reminds you that piracy is "wrong".).
It is interesting that in your list of content industry "responses" you forgot to mention the things they do to make legitimately purchasing/enjoying their content less convenient. On the contrary, they have done little to make piracy less convenient. We're talking about stuff that has no effect on their profit margins or business model, that they do anyway.
In that sense and context is where we state "compete", so no, it is not born out of cognitive dissonance. Replace that with desperation and you might be closer. In the end, competing with piracy as a service is only part of the battle. Alternative models for subsidizing content production will have to be embraced eventually, but I'll leave those discussions for a rainy day.
The big content industry maximizes profit, not consumer surplus. When the profit equation changes, you better believe their practices will change. Is it ethical to maximize profit? Probably not, but that doesn't make piracy OK either. The vast majority of the things they do are mildly annoying at best.
Truthfully it's not the piracy that bothers me, just the hypocrisy/cognitive dissonance that I see all the time when piracy is discussed online. You want to pirate photoshop? Go ahead, nobody cares, don't pretend that adobe has greatly wronged you so it's only fair that you use photoshop for free though.
I don't think I've ever heard it said before Gabe Newell either, and he stands to lose a lot from piracy and not much to gain pandering to entitled brats.
Assuming $50k, that would put it at a cost of approx $1.10 per 'stopped' transfer. With the caveat that they've no idea if the 'stopped' transfers just resumed later on. That seems like wasted money.
Now, it'd be interesting to see what they could do to get nearly fifty thousand extra sales at a similar or proportionate expense.