Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
I do have relatives in the movie industry, and I know how big a concern piracy is to them. We all know people who have hundreds (if not thousands) of movies and cds that they have not paid for.
What would be appropriate protection for copyright holders? Right now it seems to be a free-for-all.
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First the question is do they need protection in the first place? Some people will ALWAYS steal what they want regardless, so that's not an issue of lost revenue because if the person couldn't steal the item they wouldn't have it anyway. The lost revenue argument is flawed IMO.
Second, the reason people have those things is simply ease. Companies punish their real customers, place obstacle after obstacle in their path, and set the price point higher because of "lost revenues". Path of least resistance, when it's 100x easier to pirate, that's what people will do. If I want to watch the same movie on a different device I have to purchase it again, or go through some convoluted process which gets me a file that is difficult to work with, can't be ported to non-supported devices, and has the chance of being completely unusable if a company decides to stop supporting their DRM (which has already happened).
Look at iTunes, they made it easier to buy than to pirate, and added features to make it even more compelling (automatically loading on all your iDevices, the match service etc), etc.
Look at Steam, people complain about steam sales because they buy so much that they can't possibly even play all the games they own. The music industry tries to sue people for stupid amounts due to them having something they didn't pay for, while Valve and the publishers are making money from people buying things they don't even play just because it's so easy and the perceived value is so high.