Piracy as Protest- You're Doing it Wrong

[Epona]

Ok, so you want to use Rainfall as a success example. I have an example of my own that is much larger in scale. Napster and all the nasty pirates changed the music industry forever. The music industry didn't want to change but in the end, they saw that they had no choice. They couldn't put the shit back into the horse.

Could you elaborate more on that or send me somewhere that summarizes it? I don't really know the entire story with Napster and I'm interested, but I dunno what to Google in order to read up on that...

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/spring01/burkhalter/napster%20history.html

 

[Epona]

I dont think pirating makes a difference at all. Companies will find ways to blame piracy even if its not related.

Ok, so you want to use Rainfall as a success example. I have an example of my own that is much larger in scale. Napster and all the nasty pirates changed the music industry forever. The music industry didn't want to change but in the end, they saw that they had no choice. They couldn't put the shit back into the horse.

Could you elaborate more on that or send me somewhere that summarizes it? I don't really know the entire story with Napster and I'm interested, but I dunno what to Google in order to read up on that...

Napster was what us oldies used to get us free songs. Metallica and many bands raged against it, tried to shut it down. but programs like Limewire and just torrents in general spawned. Now the music industry is changed, you can buy individual songs instead of the whole CD. They adapted instead of trying to fight it. Honestly, 99 cents for a song? If I like the band, why wouldn't I buy it.

it's alot better solution then these shitty DRM's we keep seeing.

Yes, try as they might, the music industry will never be able to go back to the way it was when people had to buy a single cassette or CD for $5 or a whole CD just for one song or two. People weren't going to trade free songs for $5 songs. However, Apple clearly saw an opportunity and took it, today you have iTunes. iTunes is better than piracy because the price is right and it's super convenient. It's like Gabe said, piracy is a service problem.

The same thing could happen to the game industry, look at the struggle between smartphones and handhelds. 99 cent games or $50 games, what's going to happen?