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The Anniston Star, Ala., Dan Whisenhunt column: Piracy and youApr 23, 2009 (The Anniston Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- I get that the film industry doesn't want us downloading their products online. More than one fanboy probably won't plunk down money to see the new Wolverine movie because it was panned after a pirated version was made widely available on the web. The movie companies are justifiably ticked. In a blow against piracy, last week a Swedish court sentenced four men behind The Pirate Bay file-sharing site to one year in prison and slapped them with millions in fines. I think the majority of Internet users get the message. It would help if music and movie companies got the message, too. File sharing arose because people could get movies quickly and for free using programs like Kazaa. Today it's BitTorrent. Tomorrow, it will be something else. It's a futile battle for defenders of copyrighted material, like scraping sand off a beach. Going after the pirate headquarters is a good strategy. An even better strategy would be offering affordable content, free of stifling digital rights management software. I nearly gave up on my iPod because I wasn't able to control content I bought and paid for. Apple finally listened to users' complaints and removed said software from music on iTunes. It would also help if downloads moved quickly. Recently, I've tried downloading movies for rental on my PlayStation 3. I've learned that if I want a movie in high-def, I have to plan about a day ahead. I also can't play any of my video games online because it will stop the download. The television shows move much quicker, but most are priced at $1.99 an episode. That's $1.99 whether its 20 minutes long or 12 minutes long. Why not price this content based on its merits and not what Sony thinks everything is worth? Movies tend to vary in cost, but some of the films coming out today just aren't worth a dang. They remade The Fast and The Furious! I don't think consumers should have to pay a new movie price for something most of them remember from high school. It's not the consumers' fault Hollywood has run out of ideas. I'm also annoyed when these companies claim they're smarter than us. I've heard more than one industry rep claim their companies can give us something you can't download for free on the Internet: the experience. They can give us the experience of exclusive content and the experience of watching and listening to programming we may not have known we wanted. (They can also give us the experience of wasting $8 to see Watchmen in theaters.) Let's dust off the old business cliche, the customer is always right. Instead of fighting users' ability to control their entertainment experience, big media companies should embrace it. It doesn't mean they have to give content away, but they shouldn't sell us a load of patent medicine either. Oh how bitterly I remember the days when I'd purchase an album for one song that I liked, only to learn the rest of it was about as useful to me as a coaster. I'm definitely not in favor of institutionalized piracy. Burning a CD for your friend is OK, but claiming millions of strangers have the right to swap content for free using your site is ridiculous on its face. In order for these companies to address this behavior, they need to examine why these millions of people turned to piracy in the first place. I'd also like my $8 for Watchmen back. Dan Whisenhunt was raised in Mobile and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. When he's not staying on top of current trends in gaming, he covers Oxford, Lincoln and Munford for The Star. To see more of The Anniston Star or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.annistonstar.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, The Anniston Star, Ala. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |