Studies Keep Showing That the Best Way To Stop Piracy Is To Offer Cheaper, Better Alternatives (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Study after study continues to show that the best approach to tackling internet piracy is to provide these would-be customers with high quality, low cost alternatives. That idea was again supported by a new study this week out of New Zealand first spotted by TorrentFreak. The study, paid for by telecom operator Vocus Group, surveyed a thousand New Zealanders last December, and found that while half of those polled say they've pirated content at some point in their lives, those numbers have dropped as legal streaming alternatives have flourished.

The study found that 11 percent of New Zealand consumers still obtain copyrighted content via illegal streams, and 10 percent download infringing content via BitTorrent or other platforms. But it also found that users are increasingly likely to obtain that same content via over the air antennas (75 percent) or legitimate streaming services like Netflix (55 percent). "In short, the reason people are moving away from piracy is that it's simply more hassle than it's worth," says Vocus Group NZ executive Taryn Hamilton said in a statement. "The research confirms something many internet pundits have long instinctively believed to be true: piracy isn't driven by law-breakers, it's driven by people who can't easily or affordably get the content they want," she said.

Comments

Sigh.

[ledow]

I want to buy Aliens:Special Edition in a way that I can play it any time I want to, as it's my favourite movie.

- If I buy online, it's literally impossible to buy legitimately. None of the stores have the special edition. Only the ordinary. I've sat and compared running times for all the big box-sets as well, in case it was hiding in one of those. Nope. I just can't buy it in the UK online, whether from Google Play, Amazon, Netflix or anyone else.
- If I buy it on Blu-Ray it comes wrapped up in a shitty menu that takes me ten minutes to navigate in order to start the movie. I can't play that on anything other than a Blu-Ray player, and it seems to want to go on the Internet. It's also "DVD-resolution" no matter what the box says (and I'm not even into HD, let alone a resolution-nerd)... it's blocky, grainy and horrible - especially in the dark scenes, which kinda ruins the movie.
No good for, say, taking on a long plane journey which is where I would be most likely to want to watch my favourite movie to pass the time. I can't copy it to the laptop, I can't even play it sometimes as the copy protection has decided to just spin that disk forever on that laptop several times.
- If I buy it on DVD, I have similar problems. It would literally be the only movie I have that I need to turn on another device for in order to watch (yes... I rebought all my movies to stream online via official services... what a horrible person I am!).

However:
- The movie is shown on TV all the time, meaning I'm one-click away from a perfect DVB recording of it, minus the adverts, stored in a standard format, that plays everywhere, for free.
- I can download it in *minutes* from a Google search from people donating their bandwidth and time and effort in order to let me watch my favourite movie.

Now... I don't pirate. I've been firmly of the opinion for the last twenty years that if I have to break the law to consume a product, then I just won't consume it. As such, the only copy of my favourite movie that I have is a VHS (and I don't own any VHS players any more), an ancient DVD someone bought me and a Blu-Ray boxset that I bought at a bootsale. Meaning that "the TV/movie industry" has seen precisely zip from me for that movie for over 20 years.

Since then, I have put way more hours into trying to GIVE SOMEONE MONEY for the damn thing legitimately than the entire series of movies would have cost me if it were available.

It was after several such instances (Aliens: Special Edition, the British TV sitcoms The Two of Us, Just Good Friends and The Good Life - the latter is available up to series 2 on Amazon, it was available on the BBC store at one point but that closed down and removed all their content. JGF is available only on DVD but is played on UK channels ALL THE TIME. The Two of Us published one series on DVD and the other series has been "coming soon" for the last ten years. It's played on UK TV all the time) that I decided that I need to stop bothering. They've had their chance and obviously don't want my money.

The BBC archives are all digital now... I understand that there are rights issues with some things but literally two of these above are BBC works, one of those is ITV (which is still broadcasting it and runs online streaming TV channels!): Honestly, just work out how much you'd have to pay people to air the show, put it online, charge that. If people want it at that price, they'll get it, if they don't, they won't. By contrast Channel 4 (the next biggest UK TV broadcaster) put every single episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway (the original UK version from the 80's/90's) online, for free on a streaming service and on YouTube.

I know for certain - because someone did it once to prove the point - that ten minutes online, on any torrent site, or on Kodi plugins that search for illegal online content will get me all the above, in a format that "just plays" forever.

I consider it extremely rude and stupid that a genuine, paying customer, who only wants to