A Better World without Piracy?

Why are movies the main topic in the anti-piracy world? It's as if piracy never touch anything else other than movies, whereas the piracy world would take on everything with a price tag. I guess this is because the most influential inhabitants -in terms of money-in the anti-piracy world were movie producers.

In any case, the anti-piracy act was based on good cause. They don't want the Internet to be polluted by any kind of illegal materials. Isn't it good to have everything legal? Legal movies, legal mp3s, legal games, legal software, legal e-books, you name it. However, cleaning up was not exactly the issue here.

It was more likely about profit. Money talks, everything else walks. The reason for the big wave of anti-piracy was a huge amount of money rolled-out to take on as many piracy in hopes of recovering lost profit taken by the pirates. Anti-piracy costs a lot and I don't think any inhabitants of the anti-piracy world would take the risk of loosing more money if they didn't expect higher return rate.

Plenty of actions were taken on the anti-piracy side. Torrent sites were taken down, alliances were formed with ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to ban users from accessing illegal materials, and individuals distributing illegal materials were put behind bars. Does if have any effect on the piracy world? Maybe. It's just that the effects were insignificant. New torrent sites might easily go live. How many ISPs are willing to join the alliance? How many individuals are they willing to take on trial? The work of anti-piracy is exhausting. Moreover, I seriously think it's futile.

I'm not shutting my door to anti-piracy. As I mention above, it would be better to consume legal stuff. It's just that staying legal is expensive. Some people might not be able to keep it up. When this happens, these people might turn into something cheaper but legal or straight to illegal. Actually, the risk to go for something illegal was higher because I believe there exist a common mindset that cheaper means less functional.

Nevertheless, the battle continues. Will anti-pirates outsmart piracy? I don't really know. One thing for sure, no matter how much effort the anti-piracy world has put to date, the world of piracy has been able to remain intact.

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* Image grabbed from http://www.homepagedaily.com/