So Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is released this week. I've also been downloading a lot of music in my spare time since the PlayStation network has gone down, so now seems like an appropriate time to discuss piracy. Specifically the music and movie variety.Without getting into too much of the whole right vs. wrong morality angle of the whole thing, I'm pretty much going to rant about how awful the music industry has handled this situation.
So downloading music illegally has been pretty mainstream since Napster. And before that people just used cassettes to record their favorite songs off of the radio. Not wanting to pay for music is nothing new, but technology has reached a point where it's never been easier to "steal" stuff. I mean, EVERYONE knows what an mp3 is.
Whenever a new development affects a particular industry, it's forced to adapt. That is, unless it's the music/movie industry when it comes to the whole piracy issue. Instead of saying, "People aren't going to stop, maybe we should find other ways to make profits. At least they're still interested in listening to our songs," they've basically said, "This is so fucking illegal. How can people get away with this? How about we sue the pants off of a few people who we'll randomly pick out of a hat to make an example of?"
That seems like a great strategy.
