As always piracy is a symptom not the problem. People pirate when a) they don’t have enough money or b) the experience for paying customers is significantly worse than for pirates, or c) the price of services far exceeds their perceived value. Piracy was down for a while because Netflix and Hulu were relatively cheap (or free), ad free, and the economy was doing OK so most people had a little disposable income.

Now that we’re in a recession that’s starting to look like it might turn into a depression and Netflix and Hulu (and others) have cranked the prices of their services up and stuffed them full of ads, yeah I’m not in the least surprised to see piracy surging. Every time you turn around there’s another email from some service letting you know they’re raising prices another couple bucks a month, and a bunch of people cancel their subscriptions and start sailing the high seas.

“You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a baby. You wouldn’t shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn’t go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman’s grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.”

Why is TV so expensive in USA? People just taking on so many subs?

Everyone is stealing The Verge.

News sites telling on everyone again. Snitches.

I know someone that uses TVpass.org and thinks that it’s not stealing because it’s a .org and “they only give those org websites out to good people” It made me smile.