Re: [tlug] Pretending to be outside Japan?

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 12:34:00PM +0100, Benjamin Tayehanpour wrote:
> On 18 January 2014 11:19, Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> wrote:
> 

> As an aside, I tend to buy, or at least "buy" (i. e. purchase a
> legitimate right to view said content, as it seems you can't really
> buy anything anymore) stuff. I torrented an e-book, liked it, bought
> the whole series on paperback. That's how the new generation does its
> content shopping, and if the content owners can't/won't adapt to their
> customers... Well, who's the moron then?

I do remember an irc acquaintance mentioning how they'd pirated an ebook
from TOR, and when they began it, saw the standard TOR notice that they
have worked hard to bring you the book free of DRM.  They were embarrassed
enough to delete the copy and buy it on B&N or Amazon--IIRC, they had a
Nook so used Barnes & Noble.

As I liked that author, and their series, and they had a contact email on
their home page, I sent them an email with the story, as well as thanks for
their books, which I enjoy. The author, Carrie Vaughn, sent me back a
thanks and a request to forward the email to her publisher, which of
course, I granted. 

Anyway, point being that even for those who do frequently pirate, they can
often be reached.  I think that one reason Louis CK's $5 download made so
much money was that people wanted to show the content holders that if they
make it available in the same way pirated media is available--that is, a
download that can be played on any platform, moved to any platform, and
even given or loaned to someone, people will definitely pay.

I remember an amusing cartoon about the difference between pirated and
legally rented media.  This was back when Blockbuster was still a thing,
but the premise was that first one has to sit through an FBI warning, then
ads that can't be skipped and it's almost 5-10 minutes before one can
actually watch the movie.  In contrast, download a pirated version and
voila, there's the movie.

The content holders could easily cut piracy by a large percent by simply
not being such evil people.  Not sure about Josh, who is, I believe, in
a first world country, but here in the US, the content holders are allowed
to blatently threaten our elected officials to do as they were paid to do. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
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