Pro-piracy politician proffers his worldview

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Here's the story

Look, some extreme viewpoints hold that all content should be available free for the taking with nobody being able to exclusively profit from that work. I believe that a content creator has the right to profit from his work and not have it stolen.

However, what has fueled this piracy debate, other than improving technology, is unreasonableness of content providers.

How many of us have purchased CDs over and over again and only find 2 or 3 tracks we really like and the rest come across as filler? After this happens over and over, people begin feeling they are being ripped off having to pay $15 to $20 for only a couple of songs. The result is the lowering of people's resistance to "stealing" the few songs they like because $20 is too much to pay for 2 or 3 songs. So, high price for low perceived value is what has exploded the number of people that are willing to download rather than purchase.

Secondly, draconian control over the content has further alienated content purchasers. Many people have CD players in their cars. I live in AZ where it gets blistering hot inside the car no matter what part of the car you are in. Many people find their CDs melted because of the high heat. I had a friend that had a CD melt INSIDE his CD player because of the heat! Try telling him that he has no right to make a copy of his CD to take into the car so he doesn't have to buy another CD if that one gets destroyed. What if the CD is no longer available for purchase? Why should he not be allowed to rip all the CDs to his hard drive for safe keeping?

I have boxes of DVD's I have purchased. Yet, I am told it is illegal for me to copy them all to my hard drive so I can watch them whenever I like without rooting through all my boxes. Tough - I rip them anyway and convert them to mp4 format and can store 10 DVDs in the space of one. I can watch them whenever I want, and I'm the only one in my circle of friends that never had to buy Spongebob Squarepants movie 3 times when the original became too scratched to be readable!

Now, they want to put more and more DRM restrictions on the media I purchase. Vista downgrades high definition content if it doesn't comply with HDCPI,even if it is unprotected content from your own high def camcorder. Where is the fairness in that? Vista was removed from my computer quickly and XP put back on. Now, more and more programs are showing up in my Media Center recordings as "copy protected" which means I can't watch them after a certain length of time, skip commercials, copy it to another device for viewing later, record something for a friend who was unable to get home to record a favorite show, etc. This seems unfair to me, so I'm looking at a Linux solution that ignores the copy protection flags and lets me use my content as I see fit. I'm not selling anything, I just want to watch things when and how I want. If I pay for it one time, I shouldn't have to pay for it 2 or 3 times just because I want to do something convenient for me.

I'm sorry this is so long, but these are the reasons piracy is so prevalent and will continue to be. As DRM becomes more and more restrictive, people are going to object more and more to losing quality or having to pay more and more for things and are going to be more willing to pirate than ever before.

Watch out content providers. You are pushing more and more people in the opposite direction you claim to want them to go.

Posted by: TucsonGuy   Posted on: 08/13/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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