It’s no secret that the digital age has brought on a lot of headaches for content producers and rights holders alike. Where once their traditional business models served them well they have struggled to migrate them to a world where the traditional barriers no longer existed and customers began demanding more from them. Where this demand wasn’t met by legitimate means many turned towards other methods, many of which provided a better service and higher quality product than they’d otherwise have access to. In all honesty it should have come as no surprise to us as this trend has been going on for some 100 years with the rights holders always being brought kicking and screaming into the modern age. However there are signs that they might finally be starting to get it, even if that isn’t directly translating into the product they’re willing to offer us.
There’s been a few examples of executives from some high end content producers, like HBO for example, who’ve gone on record saying that piracy isn’t a big concern for them anymore. Indeed many of them are now starting to see piracy as an ancillary marketing tool and indeed there’s been a couple studies that have shown the biggest pirates are among the ones who spend the most on the products they pirate. Unfortunately whilst they might have a positive outlook on what piracy does to them they don’t seem to be warming to the idea of addressing it directly such as providing a service that out-competes the pirates. This is especially true for countries like Australia which are bereft of good, legitimate options which, unsurprisingly, leads to us being some of the filthiest content pirates in the world.
It does seem that this sentiment from some content executives isn’t just hollow rhetoric either as there seems to be tangible flow on effects that I honestly didn’t expect. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the primary body responsible for pursuing litigation against users who’ve infringed on their member’s copyrights, has recently reported a huge downfall in revenue. Primarily this comes from a decline in membership fees which is a direct result of rights holders no longer wanting to continue their membership with them. Much of their spend has decreased as well with their legal budget declining sharply over the past couple years. I haven’t seen anything stating similar outcomes for the other content associations but I’d assume it’s a very similar picture which is good news for both legitimate and illegitimate consumers of content.
The next step that the rights holders take from here though is what will ultimately determine whether or not they will be able to compete in today’s market. It’s one thing to stop wasting your money on pursuing small cases of copyright infringement here or there and another thing completely to revamp your business model in order to compete against those who are peddling your product illegitimately. For now that second piece of the puzzle is still missing and until the rights holders take a page out of Valve’s book their piracy problems aren’t going to go anywhere. They might not care so much about it now but it won’t take long until some little upstart comes and eats their lunch.
