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Rapidshare Trying To Convert Pirates Into Customers
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"The file-hosting service Rapidshare is seeking major entertainment industry partners for an online store [to which links containing infringing material will redirect]. The plan is an attempt to bridge the gap between copyright holders and users of the site who distribute infringing material. Similar to many other companies that operate in the file-sharing business, Rapidshare often finds itself caught between two fires. On the one hand it wants to optimize the user experience, but by doing so they have to respect the rights holders to avoid being continuously dragged to court. To ease the minds of some major executives in the entertainment industry, Rapidshare's General Manager Bobby Chang has revealed an ambitious plan through which copyright holders could benefit from the file-hosting service. At the same time, Chang says that his company will target uploaders of copyrighted material — whom he refers to as criminals — more aggressively."
Baldur's Gate II was released during time when internet piracy wasn't so widespread. Another point is that publishers like to go the sure route instead of taking big changes with games like Baldur's Gate II. If piracy wasn't there, then publishers would most likely be able to take more risks too. Same goes for indie developers too, and they usually do that. Even World of Goo had piracy rate of around 90%.
I can redownload games on Steam if I have to, so I use Steam. (The DRM is also unobtrusive.) I can't redownload songs on iTunes without paying for them, so I don't use iTunes. Simple as that.
Rated as total fail for not knowing how to backup valuable data.