Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

Stop Piracy by Bundling Media with Web Access – Can “Music Tax” Work?

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Last week, Jeremie Zimmerman of La Quadrature du Net appeared in Business Week saying that “File-sharing is unstoppable anyway. The real question will be about how to use it to find new ways of funding creation. All conservative and repressive measures are bound to fail.” There was one arguably non-conservative idea ...

Segmenting the Pirates

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

It is odd that the views on digital media piracy are so amazingly polarized: folks that pirate are either the scourge of the earth threatening to destroy creative media OR the liberators of information and entertainment from the clutches of their tightfisted masters. As foolish as this is, so too are ...

Combating Piracy: You can (and must) compete with free

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Rarely does a news item relating to piracy go by without some industry representative exasperating that they cannot compete with piracy because it is free. Not true - and many lessons can be drawn from industries unrelated to piracy...

Pirate Bay Trial: the battle for hearts and minds (+ wallets)

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

While the movie industry may have sought a low-key Oscar ceremony earlier this week, one of their largest (albeit unendorsed) distribution channels was making a bigger song and dance at their Spectrial. The Pirate Bay has continued to keep the antics up this week and it would seem that their ...

Microsoft on Vista Software Piracy

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Software Piracy was given an airing by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer on Tuesday where the transcript includes a quote that "Windows license is #1. Pirated windows in #2 -- tough competitor, great product and a price that's tough to beat." This would seem true where your product is a wholly stand-alone piece ...