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Posted On: 07.10.2013
Gizmodo wrote an excellent piece on why people still pirate. The tl;dr of the articl e is digital downloads should come standard because digital and physical media compliment eachother.
Cory Doctorow wrote something about this awhile back giving the pro v con of Digital and Physical, comparing it to the printing press version of books verses the hand copied illistrated monastic versions of Ye Olde Bible.. The short on That is each has it's own strengths. Physical media you can expect extras, not have to deal with connectivy, in the case of games can include 'feelies' that help tie you deeper into the game itself or in the case of albums include liner notes and things from the band that just don't feel the same if it's a PDF bundled in. Digital has, if done correctly, copyability so you don't have to worry about the hundred dollar ultra ultimate deluxe super edition you spent a few hundred on for season sixteen of Digital Piracey: A Documentary becomes useful only as coasters for your drinks.
The problem is right now at least if you aren't Steam of GoG 'Digital' tends to get treated as a second class media.
Digital books often cost as much IF NOT MORE THAN their physical versions. Digital copies of whatever movie you want include only the movie and if you're exceedingly lucky a few select special features. Oh and that also costs about as much as the physical version. Yes servers and bandwidth cost money but you don't have to rev up a disc pressing factory for a digital version of Whatever. You don't need ot hire fleets of trucks sent out to brick and mortor distribution points (IE Walmart, Best Buy, Hastings, etc) that you then have to split profits with. You pay for serveers and bandwidth and there you go.
Instead we get locked down media that might not work after x number of downloads without propping more money into the system, iffy 'maybe it'll work with windows maybe we'll have to download a special authorized player' and if you have linux? fugidaboudit!
Look to Steam! The reason people pirate that wouldn't have anyway is distribution. Steam is far from perfict, but it's better than it used to be and now it runs on windows/mac/ubuntu (I'd say Linuxbut not really. You can get it to work in other flavors but they tested it under ubuntu.) Sure the linux and mac game selections on these two digital storefronts is kinda thin but its constantly improving. Why does the MPAA not do this? Sit the studios down with the eff, google, amazon, and so on and hash out a universal repository. None of this fractured crap where you're going to nickel and dime and demand we download YET ANOTHER SERVICE because there's two or three movies we like.