Also I don't really see the distinction between watching football, and watching whatever movie one has pirated via sites such as TPB.
Canistream.it is a good example of all of the services you need to watch movies, and that's just movies not music.
Piracy will still be a large problem because it's either to expensive to access or you need lots of services to access all of the content, of course there are people who never pay for anything and will continue to do so even if easier to access and cheaper but I think they will be a small majority.
Disclaimer: I am a proud pirate.
Generalizing, rightholders don't care. They regard intellectual property as pretty much analogous to physical property. They don't have to sell you something if they don't want to, and they don't have to sell something they're selling at a price point amenable to you. They regard the idea that somehow people are "owed" media content at a price reasonable to them to be an example of a sense of supreme, titanic, piratical entitlement. Can't afford it? Don't watch|listen|use it, then.
Well, it is. Just like any form of protest. When copyright is 14 years again, and when content will be available on a buy-once-for-ever, lend-to-friends, inheritable, anywhere-in-the-world basis, I'll start paying for movies and music again. In the meantime, I'll just buy stuff from the independent artists I like to support them.
In the U.S., all but the first thing is true today for the vast majority of media. Some is encumbered in objectionable ways. And you have the option of buying almost any media in a way that makes it not really yours. But nobody is making you do any of these things.
If you want to buy a movie or album, you can go buy it on a disk. Problem solved.
(I see that you also say "anywhere in the world" but I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you were happy with copyright law in your country, why would objectionable copyright laws abroad justify disregarding fair laws at home?)
Not always - for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Apartheid_Movement#A_cons...
I'm pretty pissed off that I have to pay this tax despite storing only legitimate material, but not enough to do something directly. I cheer if someone else is fighting against the way the copyright industry works right now.
That's not what the blank media levy is for. It is a compensation for the right copyright law gives you to copy works you bought in one format to a different format. Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car.
Not that the real justification makes sense, but please stop associating it with piracy: it is wrong and serves to perpetuate this levy.
and i wonder if companies continue to receive that free lunch even after they inflict DRM on their customers.
How is it a "right" if I have to pay extra for it?
i do try to pay back my youth of buccaneering shame by always trying to send a patch with any big report to open source projects