Typical Meth Addict In MissouriThere was a time, when I worked at a gas station, in North-East Missouri. We had been having a lot of issues with local meth dealers stealing supplies from our store. Eventually the owner installed security cameras, gave me a baseball bat, a small pistol, a can of mace, and eventually talked about hiring a security guard. It wasn't uncommon around the area as the problem got worse.
You started to see mom and pop gas stations and souvenir shops begin to hire security guards. If you had a cold and wanted Sudafed, you had to go up to the pharmacist and provide two forms of ID before getting it. The meth dealers continued to produce product at an unprecedented rate and everyone else had to live in fear.
In many ways, DRM, is the same way but is a lot more foggy as a subject. Everyone has an opinion and no one has a solid solution as to how to end piracy without infringing on the rights of honest consumers. Why has this even became a necessity and has it even effected piracy?
The Business Of Business
Your typical group of shareholders, except they perfer backstabbing as compared to cutting off ears I don't think that any company really likes DRM as an option. It causes a whole list of headaches and doesn't really stop the problem of piracy. No programmer I know thinks it's a good idea and even RWS doesn't support this tactic. Who wants DRM then?
Shareholders, people who buy and trade companies stock in order to make money. They want to know that their investment is being protected and that a company will show a profit. Most investors are a nervous sort in general or completely psychotic. That's why I no longer work in that field.
As you gather investors and people start betting other people's life savings on your company, they want to know that you will continue to make large sums of money. The problem with investors, including myself, most of them know what the companies do but are separated from the public interest. These investors get a say in how the company is ran through shareholder's meetings.
This is when things like DRM come to exist. Shareholder's tell companies essentially what to do and when to do. While the company may have some say, they are just pawns of a group of people who maybe out of touch with the real world. Shareholder's only want to know that thy won't lose cash and the company uses their money to continue to operate. The only companies to avoid this are privately owned companies like RWS.
Breaking Away From The Herd
Independent companies don't have to answer to these people. They only have to answer to their customers and what they want. The issue is that indpendent's get their operating funds from their customers and possibly small business loans. This is a difficult structure to operate as compared to a publicly traded company in which you can get funds from investors and by issuing stocks and bonds.
Banks are reluctant to loan money to independent software companies especially in the sector of electronic entertainment. That's because it's seen as an incredibly high risk unless you have an established brand and have sold millions of copies as well as having name recognition. The Catch 22 is that if you have met these conditions, you don't need a bank loan.
Kickstarter, has helped people start companies but this is based off of a pre-order system and you still need an established fan base in order to achieve your goal. If you need 100,000 dollars, you have to pre-sell almost 2,000 copies at 50 bucks a piece. Depending on your product and whether you have that name recognition, this might be possible but it's still hard. Especially if you have lost consumer confidence with a bad product prior. Most companies do see some beneficial side to piracy.
The Piracy Issue
If only being a douchebag was too. Two Microsoft employees discussed in a memo how piracy could be beneficial. That's because people who pirate programs, become familiar with them, are then more likely to purchase them later because of familiarity. A lot of us played Postal 2 for the first time pirated, do to limitations on purchasing it at time of the release. Software piracy isn't even the most pirated product in the United States.
In the United States pirated fashion and fraudulent memorabilia are the biggest. That's because of the profit margin involved in making knock off merchandise. Why sell bootleg DVD's for 5 bucks when you can sell a fake Louis Vuitton purse for 100 times the profit?
Most piracy doesn't involve monetary gain and a lot of it is to back up older software. Current numbers on piracy are skewed because there is no way of knowing who downloads from torrents, that do or don't own a license for their product. There is only a few assumptions made that if a person is downloading from a torrent then he must not own the software.
I am not condoning piracy. I am just stating the facts and how they are inappropriately skewed in the favor of certain corporations. I also agree with Kim Dotcom in the fact that these companies and interest do donate a lot of money to political parties. Politics aside you aren't hurting the company when you pirate and that's a huge misconception.
You really only hurt the consumer and consumer's rights. Much like the issue with the meth addicts, you only give them an excuse to use DRM when you pirate software without paying for it. There is a socioeconomic issue when it comes to the DRM complaint as well.
Screwing The Meek
The Colombian flag flying over a generic city. There is a limitation of spending on entertainment when it comes to lower income households and societies. A large amount of piracy that occurs, is often done in countries that are developing economically. Columbia, Malaysia, Russia, China, and India are all in the top five when it comes to piracy. When you compare average monthly salaries in these countries to others, you can see why piracy is part of the lifestyle.
The average income for American Households was 3,000$ monthly and in the UK it is 5500$. Russia it's 740$, India 120$, China 65$, and in Colombia it's about 40$ a month per household. That could be the largest contributing factor to piracy in these countries versus others. There isn't an easy solution to solving the piracy problems in these countries other than providing cheaper software and releasing it in these areas far after the release date.
This still doesn't provide an answer as to who is right and what should be done in this circumstance?
The Fuck Should We Do
And you don't even get kissed... If you have money, invest a large sum of it into corporations and then speak up at shareholder's meetings. You could just buy 5 shares, get a list of other shareholder's, and campaign to explain why these companies need to remove DRM to increase profitability. The next thing you could do, is just not buy their products.
Don't pirate them because that's only more of an excuse to continue using DRM. Just simply don't buy them and don't support anything the companies or their subsidiaries makes. That's exactly why I don't go to Wal-Mart. I don't like their store, so I don't support them with my money. I don't go burning shit down and stealing crap just because I don't agree with what they do.
Beyond those responses, I have nothing. I can't say that there is an end all be all solution because I really support both sides in the debate. I understand that businesses need to protect their products and that costumers don't want to be punished because of the jack-offs. I need to have a Dr. Pepper and shut-the-fuck-up. Take care.
