For as long as there has been software there has been piracy. From the earliest days of sneaker net floppy disks through to broadband speed web surfing piracy has been a fact of our computing life. The movie companies and music execs like to shout from the high hills of Hollywood about how bad piracy is and how it is destroying their businesses, even while they are recording record profits.
The reality is that you can take any numbers about the damaging effects of piracy and add them to a bunch of salt before throwing them over your shoulder. Piracy is only successful when the consumer doesn’t have an easy way to pay for goods on the web, which is something that the entertainment industry just doesn’t get.
Rather than making it drop dead simple to buy their products these industry giants try everything from DRM to convoluted payment methods, and as a result we have people trying to get something for nothing.
Here’s an interesting infographic outlining some numbers ts about piracy on the web.
via WindowsObserver
