2011: Piracy Wars and Internet Censorship

torrentfreak.com

12 pointsllambda2 comments

In the spirit of reflecting on the year in piracy, let's take a moment to recognize the Scene and it's resilience in light of law enforcement. They've been going strong for almost 30 years now with hardly any arrests of any real scale.

While governments are devoting all their time and effort to catch DDOS spammers and Lulzsec, the official release scene puts out games (with cracks!) and movies weeks before theyre released. TV shows are even more impressive; you can download most any primetime show before its even aired on the west coast. All of this for free, and released in true commercial quality, yet they get nothing but the satisfaction of beating their fellow release groups for their hours invested and risks taken.

Yes, they are pirates. No, they should not be idealized or rationalized. But they are resilient and a force that, seemingly cannot, be reconned with.

What rings true about the scene is that the distribution model is quite simply better. It's been said time and time again, but really, this fact is crucial. If I go out and buy a DVD I'll likely end up with a product that is inferior in quality as compared to whatever is listed on your favorite tracker; e.g. I can expect an annoying series of ads, anti-piracy warnings, and a poorly constructed menu. What the industry should do is recognize they're distribution is being outdone by laypeople and then find a way to emulate this kind of model. In other words, distribute over the Internet in a frictionless way. We already know if done properly, people are even willing to pay! It's clear: people want a quality product, they want to own it (i.e. no DRM), and they're even willing to pay for it.

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