Photo: Wesley Fryer / Flickr

Like music before it, the film industry’s transition to digital has been ravaged with widespread piracy. Unlike said film industry, the eBooks market has seen very little piracy to date. For media owners, and tech consumers alike, it’s worth exploring why this is so.

Giving credit where it’s due

This article was inspired by a similar article in ReadWriteWeb, so it’s worth reading that one for greater context on the issue. While that article examines whether the present day pricing of ebooks will force people down the piracy route, we’re more interested in a to-the-point answer on why ebook piracy isn’t more widespread already.

Having said that, the ReadWriteWeb article, which itself was inspired by a Reddit thread, serves as a great jump off point for our post, making the case that major eBooks, when compared to paperbacks, are ridiculously priced.

More specifically, The Book Thief, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner are just a few examples of ebooks that cost more than their hardcover equivalents. Given how much cheaper it is to distribute digital copies than it is to manufacture, print and distribute physical copies, this should strike you as immediately ridiculous, and as a reason for ebook piracy to be on the up, right?

It’s simple: book piracy is really difficult

Perhaps you’ll think this a cop out, but the primary reason ebook piracy is not more widespread, I believe, is that it is a little difficult right now. While with music, and video content, people very quickly settled on a format of choice, the same has not happened with ebooks. Given that iBooks is a proprietary format, as is Amazon’s Kindle content, and then add ePub to the mix and even PDF, and you’ll see why it’s been difficult to get people to focus on one format for distributing books.

What’s more, the fact that different ebook readers can only support certain formats – i.e., those that are not proprietary – only further increases the difficulty of ebook piracy. This may be a stroke an accidental stroke of genius by the makers of ebook readers, or just a temporary solution pirates may work their way around.

Buy content

We can’t pretend piracy does not exist, but we still encourage you to buy content. A lot of love, effort, and money goes into writing a book, recording an album, or producing a film, and while it’s easy to justify illegally downloading a digital copy, it is worth remembering that it is putting many creators out of work.

This is not ideal, and so, regardless of why ebook piracy isn’t that widespread, we hope it never becomes widespread. Yet publishers seriously need to pass their savings on manufacturing costs off to consumers.

Photo: blogpocket / Flickr

The US media stakeholders are taking their fight against internet piracy to another level, approaching a milestone of 100,000 P2P file sharers being sued in the last 12 months.

Thorough research

A Torrentfreaks reader has spent several months of his own time compiling a list of the numerous PS2 lawsuits filed in the US since the start of 2010. Most of these suits were mass suits, so, while his workload was large, it wasn’t as ridiculous as finding every separate individual guilty of sharing.

The anonymous reader’s findings were that between 8 January 2010 and 21 January 2011, 99,924 individuals were sued. It’s believed prosecutors are using these lawsuits in an attempt to discover the personal details of the major P2P file sharers. Oh, and with Limewire having been shut down lately, the bulk of the focus is around the popular BitTorrent service. The tactic being adopted by a lot of companies, especially adult companies, is a scheme called ‘pay up ’

Stop file sharing

The fact is it costs content producers to make the TV series’, music, movies and applications commonly shared on P2P networks. And in consuming something without getting hold of it legally, you’re committing a crime. And in our world, crimes are punishable. The problem is, to hunt down people who download the odd song here or there is ridiculous, as ridiculous as it may one day seem to buy films or music outright.

That’s why we’ve become major proponents of streaming movie services like LoveFilms, and streaming music services like Spotify. The simple ease of use of these services coupled with the low monthly costs makes pirating seem a tiresome, lengthy process, to get anything. This is the way internet piracy will be minimized – by making it seem like far too much work – and not by arresting people.

Photo: Jeff the Trojan / Flickr

UKIE, the British games publishing trade organization, has released a damning report on the state of piracy. Apparently for every title that’s legitimately purchased, four are pirated.

PC is being raped

The trade organization claims that this alarming stat on pirated games was ascertained from one of its members, even though spokespeople for the company did not give a format-by-format breakdown.

For our money, the bulk of this piracy probably happens on the PC, where it is far easier and involves fewer hardware-related modifications to make stolen games playable, unlike what one sees on consoles.

Killing the industry

Outside of alarming us as to how widespread pirated games are, UKIE claims that this state of piracy is absolutely killing the already struggling UK gaming industry, costing it a whopping £1.45 billion in 2010 alone.

As if that figure wasn’t shocking enough, UKIE claimed that those numbers were based on conservative estimates. ‘We took a conservative position of saying if this is only 1:1 across all titles it would have a retail equivalent value of £1.45 billion.’

Killing jobs

Furthermore, the publication is quick to point out that the purchasing of cheaper pirated games, or acquisition of pirated games through illegal means is actually to the benefit of criminals. Michael Rawlinson, who is UKIE’s director, this week said that ‘when people play a pirated game that money goes to a criminal, not the industry. That takes away jobs from young developers and graphic designers, so it actually stifles creativity and stops new games coming out.’

Here we go again

It’s impossible to go any lengthy period without discussing ‘the piracy issue’. The fact of the matter is, even though we’d love to ignore it, the unlawful ‘acquisition’ of copyrighted material is against the law, and indirectly affects those of us who do pay for our music, movies and games.

Buy your games. Buy them second-hand, even, if you must. Pirating games (or music or films or books) only hurts the industry, which in turn hurts the gamer (or listener or viewer or reader) who is clamouring for new and exciting experiences. That gamer, folks, is people like you and I.

Photo: kalleboo / Flickr

Piracy has fundamentally altered the film, gaming and music business, killing the massive margins once generated from the mediums and leading to major job cuts. Well, Sony and Universal are discussing ways of circumventing this problem through a policy called ‘on air, on sale’, which would effectively kill the traditional radio single. The problem is this policy isn’t really that novel, but is rather dead obvious and you can’t help but wonder why listeners haven’t been able to purchase music on demand until now.

So what is this policy?

The ‘on air, on sale’ policy [via TechRadar] would effectively kill the six-week window period radio stations get to play a song before it is commercially available for download or purchase. So, as its name suggests, if you can hear it, you can buy it immediately. Music on demand, basically.

And Sony BMG has already trialed this model through the X Factor, allowing viewers to download the music played on the show day and date with its airing. How did that work out, you wonder? Well, it propelled Matt Cardle’s ‘When We Collide’ Christmas single all the way to the top spot.

Wait, why is this only happening now?

Not being someone who lets what’s playing on radio shape my musical taste, I cannot help but hang my head and wonder why this is only happening now. You mean to tell me, record labels, all this time, when people have been amped about hearing a song play on radio and then wanting the instant gratification of buying it right away to play on their mp3 players, there has been no way for them to do this?

This is absolutely absurd. No, it is actually borderline stupid, and the Chief Executive Office of Universal Music, David Joseph, is in agreement even if he doesn’t word it as strongly.

Joseph says, ‘Wait is not a word in the vocabulary of the current generation’, a statement followed up by: ‘What we were finding under the old system was the searches for songs on Google or iTunes were peaking two weeks before they actually became available to buy, meaning that the public was bored of – or had already pirated – new singles.’

No music on demand? Absurd.

Photo: orangeek / Flickr

We all know piracy is rampant. We also know that it is illegal. Yet, even with it being in contravention of the law, most law-abiding citizens with decent internet connections practice piracy without so much as a second thought. While there’s an interesting psychological conversation to be had about that, governments and copyright infringement agencies worldwide have been trying to figure out how to curb the problem.

Sweden, one of the most developed nations when it comes to Internet usage and broadband penetration, is one such nation attempting to curb piracy, with an anti-piracy agency recommending a ‘piracy tax’ being levied on all storage devices from as soon as 1 April 2010.

Private copying fee

Anti-piracy agency Copyswede used to charge a tax levy called a ‘private copying fee’ on recordable mediums, such as blank CDs, DVDs, mp3 players and other media playback devices with built in storage. Now, since people no longer burn DVDs or CDs, the agency wants to charge this tax on all storage mediums, reports SemiAccurate. We’re talking being charged a certain percentage on the price Swedes pay for external storage solutions and even flash sticks.

Crazy

What’s bemusing about this anti-piracy initiative, as the commenters in SemiAccurate’s piece point out, is that it pertains to the perfectly legal practice of private copying. So, at the extreme end of the pendulum, people who purchase CDs in stores and rip them to an external storage device for personal consumption will be charged extra money for that right.

Market distortion

While the cost to consumers is obvious, manufacturers of external storage devices will also suffer if this initiative passes, since it will distort prices of hard drives in Sweden. This will then favour manufacturers on the outskirts of the country, since they will not be bound by this tax, as well as unfairly favouring internal storage devices, which aren’t bound by this tax, either.

Piracy is not okay, but when anti-piracy policies and laws treat the honest consumer as a criminal, one cannot help but feel some disdain for the means used to try to control and limit piracy.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

A massive police raid is being carried out across 14 countries in Europe at present in a bid to snuff out illegal file sharers. Only four arrests have been made so far, with this number expected to climb as the sting carries on. As if prison is not enough of a deterrent, we have three more very good reasons to stop piracy in your own home.

Reason One: There are fantastic substitutes

With illegal content sharing being so prevalent, various industries, entrepreneurs and web services have emerged to proactively deter users from needing to steal (that’s what piracy is, you know) from content producers. Music services like Spotify and movie services like Netflix now stream unlimited content on demand either for free, or for an affordable, sub-£10 monthly fee. Add to that the awesome recommendation engines and social tools built into many of these services, as well as the fantastic integration with audio systems and smartphones, by pirating you’re taking the roundabout, tedious way of getting content.

Reason Two: Adverse effects on retail price of goods

While data is not irrefutably conclusive, it stands to reason that pirating content, especially expensive-to-make software, has an adverse effect on the retail price of that software. In worst case scenarios, some companies actually go under due to rife software piracy, robbing you of the ability of using applications you may have grown fond of yet do not consider worthy of paying. To stop piracy is also to support applications, musicians and filmmakers you enjoy interacting with.

Reason Three: It’s illegal

The fact that it is prohibited by law is, strangely, the smallest deterrent. The truth is very few of us are mass pirates. We get the odd song here and there and the odd film here and there, but we think it won’t hurt and, more importantly, we think we won’t be caught. This Europe-wide sting suggests otherwise. You may not go to jail, but people like this unlucky guy who is $1.3 million in the red because of piracy will argue vehemently why piracy is not so smart a move.

It’s really simple – help stop piracy by not practicing it yourself. We won’t stand on a high horse, claiming complete benevolence and innocence, but when you stop to weigh the pros and cons of piracy beyond that instant gratification, you realise the negative effect it really has.

Photo: Blizzard

Starcraft II has done impossible numbers – we all know that. And the greatest victory, according to the folks over at Activision Blizzard are the very very low piracy numbers. How did they pull this off? Read on.

Multiplayer baked into the experience

Fans of Blizzard will know that the company has been working on improving its server framework – Battlenet to Battlenet 2.0. This is the core online service that allows gamers to connect to each other and play competitive multiplayer games. The thing is getting into Battlenet 2.0 without an original copy of StarCraft II is very, very difficult. Furthermore circumventing the service takes too much work.  And finally, multiplayer is central to the StarCraft experience, meaning going the piracy route is just not worth it. In short, Blizzard built the game in a way that made piracy unattractive, if not overly difficult.

Persistently streaming connection

Battlenet 2.0 and its success with negating the piracy of StarCraft II may also be revelatory on the future of gaming. Much like Microsoft has used Live as a way to gauge if people are using pirated consoles, thus banning them from Xbox Live, we may soon see a future where all gaming has a persistent online connection. Oh, wait, that already exists in some form, with OnLive and Gaikai.

Though we’re still not completely sold on the viability of streaming gaming this early into broadband technology, there is a sense of inevitability about it all – an always-on connection to confirm you’re not stealing. It’d have to be significantly more sophisticated than present day solutions, but these are the types of problems engineers solve everyday.

Great games always win, though

But the biggest take away from the success of Battlenet 2.0 and the unmitigated success that StarCraft II has enjoyed on the ‘dying gaming platform’ that is the PC is that great games will always sell well regardless if piracy is partially or completely negated. This is a truism. And one needs to understand that the definition of a great game must encapsulate the marketing that goes into it, too.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

Fact: Piracy is on the increase, and students are at the centre of it. Universities and their rogue campus networks are hot beds for the illegal. So someone at Warner Bros UK thought it would be a brilliant move to hire students to help in their anti-piracy efforts.

The joke

The particularly funny thing about this Warner Bros UK initiative is that the story was broken by Torrent Freaks, a network that all-but supports piracy and, in addition, has encouraged its users to apply for the position.

The requirements

Photo: Ubisoft

Warner Bros. UK is offering students who are ‘IT literate’ who also have knowledge on file-sharing applications and services an internship wherein they will help the media company’s anti-piracy efforts. This internship will pay a decent £17,500 salary over the 12 months of the internship and requires potential applicants be to be studying some computing discipline, with skills in computer development being a bonus.

The problem

The problem is, as many often point out when anti-piracy initiatives are brought up, is that piracy can no longer be policed. Pirates will always find a way to illegally duplicate digital content, while the efforts by digital publishers to prevent this will be to the detriment of paying customers. This has been nowhere more apparent than in the video games industry, where draconian DRM that required PC Assassin’s Creed 2 players always be online ruined the experience of an otherwise stellar video game when the servers came crashing down.

The other problem is people within the pirating community may apply for this position because young people consider piracy a lesser crime than other crimes. It’s considered more graffiti than theft, even though theft is what piracy amounts to. Still, Warner Bros. UK, like every video game developer, film and music publisher in the world has to fight piracy, if for no reason other than to appease shareholders.