Why Piracy Will Not Stop Until Publishers Change

I recently finished an exceptional book, I live in the Future and Here's How it Works by Nick Bilton. The book discusses how everyone, from companies to individuals, has to adapt to the influence that the internet holds in our lives. Unfortunately for the profits of many industries, ranging from films to videogames to music to newspapers, this process is destroying many traditional ways to generate revenue.

Unfortunately, rather than adapting to change, most of these companies are trying to fight it wholesale. Using laws such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the Recording Industry Association of America attempted to scare people out of piracy by suing 261 random downloaders for $150,000 a song. Most of these individuals settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. The Pirate Bay, a notorious piracy site hosting torrents downloaded by millions, recently lost a lawsuit to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The case will of course be appealed and probably go on for years while the website is still up and available for users to download whatever they want.


The Digital Millennium Copyright Act also misuses the national symbol for freedom

However, even if these websites are taken down through legal action and a few hundred people have to pay fines to the RIAA, nothing will change. Increasing laws and stiffer penalties against pirates and websites hosting torrents haven't affected piracy rates in the slightest. Given that millions of people are downloading things all the time around the globe, what are the chances that you will actually be sued for it? Slim to none. Filing lawsuits is an extremely ineffective piracy deterrent. Although I'm certain these statistics are highly inflated, the RIAA claims that music piracy causes losses of $12.5 billion dollars a year. Guess all those lawsuits really paid off for preserving profits eh?


However, the lawsuits did give the RIAA great relations with the public

This problem spawned the other defense publishers have attempted against piracy, securing their files with various forms of copy protection. This protection makes the product's root code harder to hack and then post online for download. Unfortunately, it has proven completely ineffective in preventing theft as a challenge only makes hackers more determined to break into the code.


This man lives for a challenge

Additionally, many of the efforts have been damaging to customers using the products legally. Sony BMG, a former music label, tried to block piracy of their music by including a secret software program that installed a rootkit on user's computers when they used their CDs. This program, which users had no idea was being installed, also created a gigantic vulnerability in the user's computers to malware. After this was exposed, Sony tried to fight it for a while but ended up with a huge recall and the ire of most of its former consumer base.

Videogame publishers have attempted to use software copy prevention for years as well. The earliest efforts of this included CD-keys or codes that had to be entered to install or use the software, which were included in the box the game came with. As these efforts proved largely unsuccessful, third party developers were used to provide copy protection software that was installed along with the game. One of the most infamous of these was StarForce, which, in addition to being ineffective in halting piracy, was suspected to cause damage to user's computers.

All that lawsuits and copy protection accomplish is to piss off the consumer base of companies. If the legit version of a product is worse than the pirated version, is it any wonder that people will choose to pirate it? You can't treat your customers as if they are criminals and then expect them to hand over their money for an inferior product.

What is the actual route to fighting piracy? Releasing a quality product without forcing the customer to deal with a lot of bullshit in purchasing and using it. If you make a product easy to purchase legally, you'll find that your customer base rises dramatically. Look at Itunes-it has sold billions of song downloads in the piracy friendly music world simply because it is extremely easy to purchase from.

Stardock is a company that has ceased to use copy protection for any of its products, and has not suffered any financial woes from this decision. Additionally, they released a bill of rights to explain their policy in depth:

* Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
* Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
* Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
* Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
* Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
* Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

If every company followed rules such as these, I imagine that companies would find a lot more consumers for their products.