I'm not going to waste a lot of time here trying to justify my personal actions, because I just don't need to. The major coporations in play on the battlefield of fair use have violated the consumers' rights to such an extent, and for so long, that they simply have no moral authority by which to judge our actions. Of course, if any corporate tools are out there reading this, let me say this: If your company is without sin, go ahead and throw the first stone.
What are the corporate sins of the software/media world?
*Violating fair use through the prevention of allowing users to create back-ups to both software and media.
*Creating content that punishes the user for ACTUALLY BUYING said content through anti-piracy measures that either function so poorly or are so draconian that they force users to download PIRATED versions of their paid content simply to get them to work.
*Greed, on the scale of which is unrivaled by anything I can think of in the history of humanity. If these comanies could find a way to charge you little bits of your soul for their products, they would.
*The simple idiocy of the people in charge for failing to realize that punishing piracy doesn't gain them anything... In my world, being willfully ignorant is simply the biggest sin there is, and these companies seemingly base their business strategy around it...
If these are very pointed complaints, they have reason to be. If I could make a couple suggestions to the corporations to make their product more palatable, here goes:
Provide an actual quality product. Make sure that when someone buys your product, they feel appreciated, rather than persecuted. Let them know that you appreciate their investment, by letting them create a back-up copy for safe-keeping. Be gracious- if a 15-year old spends his months' allowance on your video game, don't sue him for downloading the soundtrack off a torrent site. Providing more value for someone's dollar will ALWAYS generate a better bottom line than suing them for it.
Lastly, realize that pirates are very rarely potential customers, but can be future customers- most people I know pirate two types of software: The kind they plan to buy if it's any good, and the kind whose cash flow is already lined up as squarely to purchases as possible. Going after either of these is a zero-gain activity- you either negatively affect the people who were thinking about buying your product, or you piss off people who were buying as much media from you as they possibly could. They don't have to.
There are some companies that get it. Stardock is one- their software is quality, and it comes without in-built copy protection. They treat their customers with class. Some Blu-Ray distributors are offering free digital versions of their products along with the standard disc. Apple and others allow you to buy just that one Justin Timberlake track you like, and leave the 14 others that sound like hot garbage on the shelf.
It can be done. And it doesn't have to make people want to kill themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment