According to surveys done, it appears that piracy’s appeal isn’t so much about things for free, but getting them conveniently. Respondents of the survey indicated that they would be willing to pay for content as opposed to illegally downloading it as long as the alternatives are reasonable.
Not many of us know how all of this piracy all began, all this ruckus about Torrent, Piratebay and Kickasstorrents. If you’re old enough, you should have heard of Napster which had a short life span between 1991 to 2001 before it was shut down after being buried in lawsuits. Napster provided an easy way for users to find songs to download from any artist and any album, just two years before the Apple iTunes Store came about. It was the convenience of getting any track you wanted right to your computer that made it so popular. All you had to do was search online and anyone else online who had the file in their computer and was willing to share it with you would be able to and you could easily download their file that way. Peer sharing at its finest. It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to complete your music collection or finding songs that weren’t being burnt on disks anymore, Napster has got you covered.
If you think about it, it’s actually somewhat like social media since you can access someone’s music library to understand them better and use your own playlists to showcase your personality.
However, fast forward to 2017, this essence of social networking is no longer found. The methods of getting the file of your dream has now evolved into a convoluted system, that’s an incredibly efficient file transfer mechanism based around PTP, which is peer-to-peer file transfer. That’s the basis for Torrenting these days.
These torrent sites however, are constantly attacked and taken down by governments and companies, with a slew of lawsuits. Despite this, new ones are always popping up simply due to the demand for more movies and music.
We love free stuff, but an Australian report has noted that legal options such as Netflix, Amazon and Spotify have actually significantly reduced the amount of piracy on the web. People are indeed willing to pay to get their entertainment, as long as it is affordable and convenient. I can’t live without my Spotify premium subscription even though I can technically download everything I need off the web.
The main reason why illegal download flourishes nowadays is because of people who are constantly searching for new episodes of TV series. Whether you’re hastily waiting for the next episode of Descendants of the Sun or wanting to watch an episode of Game of Thrones you missed on HBO, torrenting, seems to be the way to go. TV channels, recognizing the needs of these users are actually simply giving people what they want. HBO has HBO Now and CBS has CBS All Access. For a little subscription fee, you can get your favourite shows at the tip of your fingertips. The job of TV stations is to get people hooked on their shows and after you get these addicts, like me hooked, it’s time to feed them, fuel their addiction. If you don’t, they are just going to turn to alternative sources to satisfy their cravings. If they need to do it illegally, that’s just how it’s going to be. HBO and CBS has recognized that and is simply giving people what they want, and it seems to be working for them. So if other producers simply flood users with endless streams of entertainment, piracy might be reduced to an all-time low.
About the Aut
hor
A Dentist-To-Be Dabbling in Tech Journalism:
Zayne is a writer who reports for VR-Zone, Stuff Singapore and The New Paper on all things tech-related. Follow this geek on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!
