If not, we can expect to see legal channels raising their prices again to cover the losses caused by piracy.
And with the last paragraph the whole article loses its legitimacy as propaganda. I mean I should have expected as much considering the source, but I still wanted to see how well researched it was.
No, this is a case where people are rebelling against a broken system, that didn’t need to be broken in it’s mostly recovered state.
No, the general paying public shouldn’t shame pirates for their actions, they should shame the companies for their actions that have driven them to this. Companies aren’t your friends, they don’t care about you, they just want your money.
Clearly they’re just looking for a scapegoat to justify yearly price hikes. If it were anything else, they might have realized that the increased revenue stream isn’t actually going to the people involved in content production…
I’ll pay for convenience or a good service. When the legal option is more work than piracy that’s a problem. The entertainment industry at this point is kind of infamous for how late they are to adapt to changes. It took ages to accept streaming as a viable option, but they finally accepted it and found a way to make it terrible, too.
It’s not convenient when I can’t find what I want to watch, it’s not convenient when the show I am watching is suddenly gone from the streaming library. It’s not convenient when only a sequel to a movie is available for viewing.
Steam is a great example of how to make a great service that is actually convenient.
I like how the article skims over the real reasons for the increase in piracy: fracturization of services means more expense for less of the content that I want, constantly raising prices (Hulu alone is $18 a month now) trying to force me onto ad supported plans, and there’s still ads all over everything anyway.
And then they follow that up with the implied threat that prices will continue to go up unless all those nasty pirates pay their fair share. As if it’s not just greed.