Slashdot Mirror
Why Internet Pirates Always Win
An anonymous reader writes "Nick Bilton writes in the NY Times about how the fight against online piracy is 'like playing the world's largest game of Whac-A-Mole.' While this will come as no surprise to Slashdot readers, it's interesting to see how mainstream sources are starting to realize how pointless and ineffective the war on piracy actually is. Bilton writes, 'The copyright holders believe new laws will stop this type of piracy. But many others believe any laws will just push people to find creative new ways of getting the content they want. "There's a clearly established relationship between the legal availability of material online and copyright infringement; it's an inverse relationship," said Holmes Wilson, co-director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit technology organization that is trying to stop new piracy laws from disrupting the Internet. "The most downloaded television shows on the Pirate Bay are the ones that are not legally available online." The hit HBO show Game of Thrones is a quintessential example of this. The show is sometimes downloaded illegally more times each week than it is watched on cable television. But even if HBO put the shows online, the price it could charge would still pale in comparison to the money it makes through cable operators. Mr. Wilson believes that the big media companies don't really want to solve the piracy problem.'"
I'm conflicted on which way to moderate this: on the one hand, it's oversimplified, off-topic trolling, but on the other hand, it's fundamentally correct in saying that the neighboring Arab countries shovel more shit Israel's way than vice versa, and the Israelis just want to be left in peace.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
The problems is that those media companies are extremely greedy.
The bigger problem being that consumers are even more so. As in your example of "if it's too expensive by my arbitrary standards, that makes it ok for me to steal it".
Yes, the "war against piracy" will never be won. Just like the "war against drugs", "war against terror", "war against racism", "war against drink driving", "war against rape" or "war against murder"
The moral of the story being, if you can't eradicate a crime 100%, and enough people are committing the crime, then we should just give up fighting it and accept that it happens and you can't stop it. And hell, let's remove the laws against it while we're there, just for the fun of it.
You're right. Under president Romney, we would want to be put out of our misery. :P
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
...especially when you have to pay for the songs! What a ripoff!