Nov 2, 2006 23:05
Do you want more frickin' pirates?
Posted by babelmachine
How frustrating is it, particularly if you're tech-savvy, to be willing to shell out good money for digital content, only to be stymied by the fact that this online service isn't available yet in your country?
I'm sure many users across Asia are experiencing this, just as I'm sure many Internet users are using BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer apps to download files, many of them illegally.
By denying users a legal alternative for downloading content, are companies just encouraging more people to become pirates?
I'm really torn over this because while years ago I made a public stand against piracy and stopped buying bootleg discs of any form--whether games, apps, music or movies--I also think DRM as it exists today is mostly stupid. And what's an even more bitter pill to swallow is that even when you're willing to play by the rules, it so happens they don't want you to be part of the game.
Case in point: the iTunes store still isn't available in the Philippines. Sure, if I use a credit card with a billing address in the US or the other countries where the iTunes store is available, I can purchase content even if I'm in the Philippines. But we're trying to do things legally, right?
PayPal recently became available in the Philippines, though in a limited form--you can send money, but can't receive funds. PayPal, however, still isn't a solution for buying content from iTunes because your PayPal account must originate from a country where the iTunes store is available. D'oh!
Which is why I feel like yelling at these companies: What do you want us consumers to do? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. As a gaming journalist, I've heard the same reason being given for why, say, the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube were never officially launched in the Philippines. And yup, as of this writing, the Xbox 360 still hasn't been officially launched in the Philippines. Of course, they'll cite the problem of piracy and the supposed lack of demand for original products.
But you know what? A sizeable number of people in the countries you're dismissing do want and can afford to buy original content. Yet you're making it harder for us by not even investing in an official presence in our countries and facilitating legal means of acquiring your products and services.
Forget the pirates. You wouldn't get money from them anyway. There will always be people who will prefer pirated goods--and they're not just the people who are actually poor. If poverty were the only reason for piracy, then it would be non-existent in a country like Singapore or, heck, the US itself.
Think about it: We're choosing to patronize original goods, in spite of the ready availability of bootlegs. I think vendors are underestimating the purchasing power of this segment of the population. Of course, it would help if they lowered the prices of originals, and this has actually been happening in Asia. Compare the prices of the Asian versions of Xbox 360 titles with the US editions, for example.
Once upon a time, during the days of the original Napster, nobody thought people would pay to download digital music when you could get the files for free via P2P. Then iTunes came along with a pricing that hit the sweet spot and a user-friendly way to download these tunes.
Which is why it's sad that, until now, Apple is still denying users in many countries the right to easily purchase content from the iTunes store. If I sound frustrated, well, I happen to be really excited over the hot new NBC series Heroes, and was more than willing to pay US$1.99 per episode to download them from iTunes.
Again, what do you want consumers to do?
More and more, people are exchanging files on P2P. We know there's a huge demand for the content, and that the technology is readily available.
Heck, we don't even have to go as far as P2P--like many people, I spend more time viewing clips on YouTube than I do watching TV. We know a lot of the content that's online on YouTube violates copyrights, though, of course, now YouTube is forming partnerships with different content providers and Google has US$1.65 billion worth of reasons to make sure it goes the legal route.
I know there aren't easy answers. We can expect more battles over copyrights and consumer rights. But the burden is now on companies to provide legal alternatives that satisfy this seemingly insatiable desire for digital content.
After all, it doesn't matter how many of us are willing to buy, if you have nothing to sell.
I'm sure many users across Asia are experiencing this, just as I'm sure many Internet users are using BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer apps to download files, many of them illegally.
By denying users a legal alternative for downloading content, are companies just encouraging more people to become pirates?
I'm really torn over this because while years ago I made a public stand against piracy and stopped buying bootleg discs of any form--whether games, apps, music or movies--I also think DRM as it exists today is mostly stupid. And what's an even more bitter pill to swallow is that even when you're willing to play by the rules, it so happens they don't want you to be part of the game.
Case in point: the iTunes store still isn't available in the Philippines. Sure, if I use a credit card with a billing address in the US or the other countries where the iTunes store is available, I can purchase content even if I'm in the Philippines. But we're trying to do things legally, right?
PayPal recently became available in the Philippines, though in a limited form--you can send money, but can't receive funds. PayPal, however, still isn't a solution for buying content from iTunes because your PayPal account must originate from a country where the iTunes store is available. D'oh!
Which is why I feel like yelling at these companies: What do you want us consumers to do? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. As a gaming journalist, I've heard the same reason being given for why, say, the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube were never officially launched in the Philippines. And yup, as of this writing, the Xbox 360 still hasn't been officially launched in the Philippines. Of course, they'll cite the problem of piracy and the supposed lack of demand for original products.
But you know what? A sizeable number of people in the countries you're dismissing do want and can afford to buy original content. Yet you're making it harder for us by not even investing in an official presence in our countries and facilitating legal means of acquiring your products and services.
Forget the pirates. You wouldn't get money from them anyway. There will always be people who will prefer pirated goods--and they're not just the people who are actually poor. If poverty were the only reason for piracy, then it would be non-existent in a country like Singapore or, heck, the US itself.
Think about it: We're choosing to patronize original goods, in spite of the ready availability of bootlegs. I think vendors are underestimating the purchasing power of this segment of the population. Of course, it would help if they lowered the prices of originals, and this has actually been happening in Asia. Compare the prices of the Asian versions of Xbox 360 titles with the US editions, for example.
Once upon a time, during the days of the original Napster, nobody thought people would pay to download digital music when you could get the files for free via P2P. Then iTunes came along with a pricing that hit the sweet spot and a user-friendly way to download these tunes.
Which is why it's sad that, until now, Apple is still denying users in many countries the right to easily purchase content from the iTunes store. If I sound frustrated, well, I happen to be really excited over the hot new NBC series Heroes, and was more than willing to pay US$1.99 per episode to download them from iTunes.
Again, what do you want consumers to do?
More and more, people are exchanging files on P2P. We know there's a huge demand for the content, and that the technology is readily available.
Heck, we don't even have to go as far as P2P--like many people, I spend more time viewing clips on YouTube than I do watching TV. We know a lot of the content that's online on YouTube violates copyrights, though, of course, now YouTube is forming partnerships with different content providers and Google has US$1.65 billion worth of reasons to make sure it goes the legal route.
I know there aren't easy answers. We can expect more battles over copyrights and consumer rights. But the burden is now on companies to provide legal alternatives that satisfy this seemingly insatiable desire for digital content.
After all, it doesn't matter how many of us are willing to buy, if you have nothing to sell.
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