Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
If all the people currently pirating were all of a sudden shut out, the potential market would increase, competition would increase, and pricing models would probably become more attractive.
It's one thing if someone goes to the theater occasionally, has a big fat cable bill, buys and rents some Blu rays, and supplements that with some illegal downloads. They are still sending Hollywood plenty of dough that ends up in the same place anyway.
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Wrong. If these companies were so adamant about ending piracy (which is impossible) you'd see competetive pricing models right now. You're also assuming (wrongly) that all the people who are illegally downloading media would pay money for what they're downloading if they were cut off.
The problem is that most people are downloading these shows / movies / music because they are expensive (relatively speaking) and something they probably wouldn't have bought anyway. So if you make it illegal to download a movie, rather than pay to watch it they'll simply skip over it. At least when someone downloads something there is the potential that they'll enjoy it and want to go out and buy it.
I'll take a real world example of how to combat piracy in the digital space. Steam. Steam is a digital distributor of video games. A new video game generally retails at around $50-$60. Steam (and a variety of other distributors now) routinely have sales that range from 25%-75% off games in their catalogues. You can pick up a new game 3 months after release for $25-$30. 6 months to a year, you can pay $5-$15 for that game. I wouldn't even consider pirating a video game because Steam's business model is so damn good. Not only that but I am way more likely to take a risk buying something I am only moderately interested in when the price is so low. I still pay $60 for certain games that I want right away and if the sales charts are anything to go by, so do many others.
I can get 40+ hours of entertainment from a video game for as low as $5. Now compare that to buying a movie. You can pay full price, $30+ for a bluray, for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Yes you can get a movie on sale but there never seems to be any method as to what goes on sale and when. For instance, if I walk into a Futureshop today looking to buy the Back to the Future collection on Bluray I would bet that it is still $50 and it was released in 2010. Why are they not trying to compete for my entertainment dollars?
Full disclosure, I love movies. I have hundreds of DVDs and Blurays and I probably see a movie in the theatre once a week. The only thing I really download are episodes of TV shows and I pay for cable anyway.