Music, Software, and Video Piracy - Page 2

At present, the music industry likely suffers more from casual piracy than the film industry or software developers. The most common reasons given to explain why music is pirated are because CDs are overpriced and music files are relatively small and easy to share compared to video or software. However, a possible reason that is constantly ignored is the fact that music CDs represent very little advantage over pirated files when it comes to the user experience.

The recording industry today might want to take a hint from my experience. Rather than waste their time tracking down and suing people who copy music, they might want to consider investing their money in hiring creative teams to come up with ideas to make owning physical media full of music superior to a digital copy of the music files.

I’m no longer in the target demographic for music consumption nor am I a marketing specialist, but somewhere out there in the multitude of options one can give a consumer, there has to be something (or a combination of a variety of things) appealing enough to push people to belly up to the music store counter and buy a disc.

DVD makers have already gotten this (at least) partially right. Additional content is part of what drives people to run out and buy their favorite T.V. shows on DVD rather than record them or wait for them to be shown in syndication. Of course, there is also the fact that most DVDs are priced reasonably for the quantity of content they offer.

Content creators are never going to beat piracy because it is human nature to cater to one’s self-interest above and beyond serving higher moral urges. People know it’s wrong to steal but they do it anyway. This is pervasive across all cultures and a variety of situations. It’s illogical and ultimately fruitless to focus on punishment as a means of combating this problem. All it will serve to do is drive the technology that assists piracy further ahead. The more the RIAA sues sites which facilitate file sharing, those who write software for it, and those who share the files, the more file sharing software will get better at hiding its users.

Rather than engage in pointless prosecution that ultimately alienates present and future customers, content creators should focus on a more positive and hopefully lucrative path. They need to offer the customers something more enticing than getting music for free.

Article Author: Shari

Shari has been disrupting the placid waters of Japanese life with her western ideas for the last 17 years. She's written textbooks and been a teacher and remains ever vigilant for her own tendency to view the world through the eyes of ethnocentrism.

Visit Shari's author page — Shari's Blog