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We have all had our share of pirated 'stuff', from books, to music, to movies or to software. We are all guilty. Nevertheless, this small act of piracy that each of us does (excluding me as I do HUGE acts of piracy) is shaping the way we deal with creative media.
This post is my take on Piracy.
Starting with the most common type and that would be MUSIC.
You remember the old days when we were forced to buy albums composed of 1 or 2 good songs while the rest of the album sucked? Well those days are gone now with the MP3 revolution. So now we can pick our songs and pay for each individual song without having to own an album. 2 side-effects though are noticed and these are in my opinion considered benefits.
First is the marginalization of the production companies that used to push on us Album sales. this is a kind of a 'middle-man' concept that we can do without.
Second, the creativity of the artist. To get enough songs sold (to make the price of an album) every artist is forced to generate 12 excellent songs to sell. As compared to the previous scam where 2-3 songs are included on a shitty album of 12 songs (Hence the 12 good songs are distributed over 3-4 albums, released one after the other and 1 year apart). So creativity gets a boost while mediocre music gets the garbage treatment.
So in the end, even though music piracy is bad, the side effect of it is a tremendous benefit to music lovers and artists alike.
How does that affect me: Well it doesn't!! I download my MP3s for free since 1999 and till now I have a huge selection of around 7500 hand-picked song that I am truly proud of.
The next very interesting type of piracy is GAMING.
Now that is a case study by itself. As part of the software initiative to fight piracy the developer companies came up with an idea to assign a KEY to every game copy sold. We all know that this never worked and every single key got cracked as soon as the game is shipped. Now that led to an ingenuous solution.
You remember the way we used to buy games, spend days playing them and once we get to the end of it we start regretting the 70 or so dollars spent on it. Not because the game sucked, but because now this game will be have to be shelved till it becomes obsolete in a couple of years. A replay was out of the question no matter how creative the game developers tried make it. This Led to piracy and the gaming industry's answer was Online Gaming. This offered a replay value to the game for years to come.
So now we ended up with a 70 Dollar game that you can finish in an average of 15 hours, but offers an online mode to keep you happy and entertained whenever you feel like it. And this online mode will only work with your UNIQUE key. So no more key sharing (unless you are not interested in online gaming).
How does that affect me: I'll still be buying the games that offer a creative online mode and will still indulge myself in pirated copies of the rest.
This brings us to the media that got the worse out of the Piracy phenomenon. This would be the MOVIES.
Now unlike Music and Gaming, there is no benefit whatsoever that could be derived from Movie piracy unfortunately. The movie industry is hit hard by piracy and no creativity can be obtained without the studio money. Some faint trials were made to self produce a movie either by selling shares or by starting small and growing or by sharing profits with the audience. All that came to a blunt reality that movies require the huge studio machine to get made.
How does that affect me: Well in this chunk of piracy I do not see how I can make a difference. So my movies will still get downloaded for free so that I get to enjoy them in the comfort of my home.
I don't know what to make out of this post. I am easily categorized as a 'hardcore pirate' that would easily receive a life sentence if I were in the USA for example. Nevertheless, I can not but admire the efforts performed by the gaming industry to reach a solution to bypass piracy. The other medias should also follow the Gaming industry by adapting to the new digital age and be creative enough to achieve their own piracy bypass (which is not visible for the time being).
As a final thought, keep in mind that the most profitable industry since the start of the Financial Crisis is in fact the gaming industry. No piracy crisis nor financial crisis could shake it's foundations.
Let that be a warning to all the remaining industries.
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2 comments:
you forgot intellectual property like books ... when dad wrote his 3rd book about civil law it was sold for 15$ but hizbollah in LU took the book made copies and sold it at the university door for 500LL ... now this is not global warning, this is forced global shit by power of arm!
True, but I did not forget. It is just that I simply don't read books much. Anything more than 10 pages has a sleeping pill effect on me.
As for the Hizbullah thing, well, don't get me started on that. They're the untouchables for the time being. We just need to wait for the wheel to turn (as is the case with all the untouchables throughout our 2000 year history. THEY ALL GOT THEIR TIME TO GET FUCKED!!).
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