Piracy - Crime or Last Resort?

The entertainment industry, it seems, is very interested in preventing piracy. So interested, in fact, that the RIAA/MPAA recently filed suit against an 83 year old grandmother. Who’d been dead for 6 months. Not to be left behind, their Indian parallels are busy getting raids on video rental stores organized, carrying out rallies, and (not just the Indian lot, this one) creating copy protections of greater and greater complexity, all in the name of “protecting their IP rights”.

According to them, the losses that piracy is causing them are too large to be accurately calculated, and could have apocalyptic effects on their (already questionable) abilities to produce quality content. So, apparently, the only way to stop this is by treating the consumer (who, incidentally, is the guy paying their bills) as a necessary evil – to be given stuff under strict contracts he can’t usually understand, and suing him for a million dollars every time he uses stuff HE paid for as he sees fit.

It is, as far as I’m concerned, an exercise in both absurdity and futility. Barring the fact that virtually no one will buy the crap the entertainment industry is coming out with at the prices they’re charging, where’ll they be left if they sue every customer who “misuses” their stuff? Knowingly or not, thanks to their crazy “contracts”, that’s just about every customer they have.

Obviously, I’m not exactly a huge fan of the entertainment industry, but I try to buy originals whenever possible. If I really like a game/movie/song I’ve bootlegged, I often buy it. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll buy everything, only to regret it later because it sucked/broke and I can’t get a refund/replacement.

Back to the prices. Six years ago, an English movie cost about Rs.600. A good empty CD costed about Rs.80 back then. Today, the same empty disc costs around Rs.10, while the movie still costs around Rs.600. If they’re so interested in preventing piracy, why not pay forward the cuts to the consumers? I mean, why not reduce the price of the finished product as the cost of the factors of production go down?

Six years ago, the costs of a good CD burner and some blank CDs were prohibitive in the extreme. Today, however, it’s almost the exact opposite. Not only are computer peripherals cheaper than ever, but it’s even possible to download large movies in a few hours. With all this going for them, why would said movie still cost as much as it did six years ago? I say it’s because they’re greedy b*stards, but you’re free to make up your own mind.

They (the entertainment industry) say that they’re losing money because of piracy. I say they’re losing money because they come out with crappy content, overcharge, and treat their customers like dirt. They say that they’re losing customers to the appeal of free content. Apparently, every customer who picks up bootleg content is another customer lost.

But what if said “customer” wasn’t going to buy the stuff anyway? These days, who will? You’re not allowed to make backups, you don’t get refunds or replacements if the CD/DVD breaks/gets scratched, heck, you can’t even (legally) lend it to a friend! Nope, you’re expected to just plop it into your player/pc and listen to/watch/play it. The makers aren’t even responsible if it messes up your player/pc.

If the film industry says they’re going to make less money by charging less, they can give their actors a pay cut for all I care. They won’t really lose much, and it’d be better than laying off a couple dozen other employees. Employees who haven’t got another studio to work for, or advertising/promotion gigs to fall back on, or even a second home in Switzerland where they can mope about their sorrows with kindred spirits.

What they don’t understand, as Wit put it, is that unlike the retail business, these boys don’t have a brand name to hardsell. People might say that they “love Reebok”, but to the best of my knowledge,
has anyone ever said “I love 20^th Century Fox”? Does anyone buy only Paramount movies like they do Colgate(toothpaste, not movies, wiseguy), or do they swear by Universal as they do Logitech? It just ain’t gonna happen.

As far as I’m concerned, piracy is just customers sticking up for their rights, and getting what they want the best way they can get it. In many cases, it’s the customer’s last resort, due to the unjustifiable prices of content. After all, if the service is good, the content worth the price, and the end user allowed to use stuff he’s paid for the way he wants to, why would anyone bother with piracy? Sure, it’d be free, but then you wouldn’t get the kind of support you’d get if you actually bought the stuff. That, in my opinion is what the entertainment industry should focus on – improving quality and boosting their image, not suing the people who’re paying for their summer houses.

The sooner these people realize that their audience isn’t made of a bunch of idiots who’re willing to get fleeced, the sooner “piracy” will stop.

- Edit -

While this article was originally posted on blogchaat, I thought I may as well repost it here, since I'm a little short on content and time right now. However, I do recognize that "reasonable pricing" is relative, and that movie/music studios do deserve compensation for their work, which does cost a lot, and that entertainment isn't a basic necessity of life. It's more the arrogant and uppity attitudes these boys have towards their customers that pisses me off. After all, why should the consumer be prevented from making a backup of a game/movie because he/she has kids who would damage the original? If they don't like that idea, then they should be prepared to issue replacements for broken products. Pretty impractical, maybe, but if they don't like it, let the consumers make their copies. Also, I dislike the way they stop people from editing their stuff - I fully support the open-source initiative, and think that letting people tailor the software to their desires is the best way to improve quality. When you get down to it, I side with IPac. That's about it for now, you may return to your regularly scheduled programs.