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Comment by jsankey | Hacker News Reader

It seems obvious that the best long term strategy for media companies is to start addressing the demand. Indeed, over the long term, any other strategy will likely result in those companies being left behind.

But if you're in charge of a media company today, and your bonus this year is tied to a cash cow you can keep alive for a few more years, would you be taking the risk and short term pain of making the transition?

I don't think it's stubbornness or stupidity we're looking at, it's a classic case of misaligned incentives.

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I will have to disagree. Not that I think that the people in charge of the MPAA and co. are altruistic, nice people. But I don't think they act the way they act because they are looking for immediate profit, or rather this is not the principal reason.

There was an excellent comment on HN a month or so ago (during the SOPA madness, I can't find it though) from a guy from the industry that explained that the main problem was "ignorance and misunderstanding". And this echos what the OP explained so well: the MPAA think they are right, and don't understand why people are downloading illegally (they most likely think it's just about money).

I think it's too easy to look at people in these positions and say they just don't get it. This is their industry, they're immersed in it every day. They may not have seen this coming, but it's been in their face for a while now, and even if a few can't see what's going on I simply can't believe that none of them do. At best I would say any "ignorance" could still be tied back to incentives: even if they know the truth, it's inconvenient and not worth acknowledging widely (or perhaps even to themselves). Better to keep on peddling the line that piracy is theft to preserve the status quo as long as possible.

I've mentioned something similarly here before (I think during the SOPA stuff): people simply do economically irrational things to take a principled stand. I've certainly done things that my friends and family thought were batshit crazy just so I could achieve perceived balance in the universe. My take is that's what we're seeing now and have been for a while. The media companies obviously want our money, but more than that, I think they just don't want you to have access to their content if you didn't pay for it, to break this overwhelming sense of entitlement many of us have. I don't condone the methods, but I don't disagree with the rationale either (providing that actually is the case).

I theory you are right. But can you say of a king that he understands his people? Or of a president that he fully understands the country he is ruling? There is a difference between knowing, and understanding/acknowledging. And sometimes, people don't get it, even though it would be in their best interest to understand things.

In this case, I think the people at the top are in an "ivory tower" of righteousness. They know what's going on (you're right on that point), but they don't understand it, that's why they can't act pragmatically on it.

This is as old as the hills. A business has an incredibly difficult time cannibalizing a line of business that is profitable. And the music, television, gaming and movie businesses are very profitable.

The music business got lucky with Apple and iTunes. But this caused the TV and movie industry to get upset about having to a) give a cut to another middleman and b) reduce prices.

So piracy will continue until either the businesses stumble into a solution, or someone comes along and disrupts them.

And despite the wailing and teeth gnashing about DRM in the tech blogosphere, I'm not convinced that the public is truly concerned about this to the extent that techies are.

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