The Entertainment Industry – Greed

Check this out:
Pirate Bay’s Web Host PRQ Raided By Swedish Police

All I see here are tons of resources being poured into getting these “bad” guys. How many police forces worldwide could use a budget boost? And yet the greedy entertainment industry can get the feds and police to do their work for them? Here’s a thought – put your product online and sell it yourselves for a fair price. I know it might mean some bigwigs will have to give up their third or fourth mansion…but they can’t keep wasting the people’s resources on this crap. And that’s what it is – the people’s resources. The police work for us, not an industry.

These words won’t do a thing. Not to these clowns. Zero impact. After all – it’s working. They pull out a wad of cash and the feds (of whichever country – in this case Sweden) start doing cartwheels. The only way this will stop is if the feds stop it. Just put the brakes on. I know it means turning your back on a briefcase full of money (or a bag with a dollar sign on it)…

Listen, I have my work pirated all the time. Do I whine to the authorities? No. (probably because I don’t have many sacks with dollar signs on it, but I digress) What I do is revamp my product and the way I sell it. Frozen Pool, a tool that is on DobberHockey, was copied and given away for free. Did I call my local politician and cry? No. I got rid of memberships. I gave away everything on Frozen Pool that was pirated – for free. And then I broke up other areas of Frozen Pool and charged a smaller price. Adapt and adjust.

Quick suggestions

TV – put the shows online, open with an ad, close with an ad, stick an ad in every 10 minutes. It’s not enough to cause us to fast forward through it, since it’s only one ad. Quit pretending that people watch the ads – most don’t. Not with PVR. Or even channel-flipping during the break. These ads will be watched, since it’s only 15 seconds. You charge more for them. Granted, the dinosaur thinkers that make up the ad-buyers won’t pay more for them, but you start them low and jack up the price over time. Then there will be no point in pirating TV shows.

Music – quit letting Apple set the price. Charge 10 cents a song and you’ll be surprised how many stop pirating songs. I know it’s not as simple as that, of course. But the details are your problem to work out. The answer is there. Find it. Instead of spending money on paying off various police agencies, use it to solve this issue.

Movies – again, just make them available online and sell at a fair price. A fair price. Twenty bucks is not fair. Ten bucks is not fair. But five bucks is. That’s the old Blockbuster movie rental price. Charge that, and you’ll be surprised.

Again, I understand that it’s not that simple. But I’m not solving world hunger here, I’m just making suggestions that will get your mind on the right path. Solve it yourself. Shutting down a bittorrent website isn’t going to do Jack, nor Squat. People will just move onto the next one. Meanwhile, someone in Sweden was getting assaulted, but didn’t get any help in time because the police were too busy running errands for the entertainment industry.