Posted 04/19/2009 at 09:04:45pm

Bravo!!!  I absolutely agree with you on several points you brought up, but the main being that there is a lesson the companies have to take out of this.  Being a computer junkie, I'm used to using the internet to find what I want when I want it.  This is the age we live in and this has become the social norm.  The business models that supply media have not caught up with this social norm- you have i-tunes, amazon, emusic, etc- but these are all fractured models at best and do not offer a comprehensive solution to their customers to purchase the music they want (DRM and price tiers for i-tunes and amazon, limited selection for emusic).  When it comes to video, no one comes close to a business model that proposes what you want when you want like a torrent site does.

If there existed a legal model to allowed the selection of a torrent site with a reasonable price structure and no or at least realistic DRM, I'd be all over it like a hobo on a hotdog.  I've not found anything close.  The more these companies fight piracy, the more they're missing out on the bigger picture of satisfying customers by providing a structure to sell them what they want instead of offering what they want then strapping it down in a propriatery format or restricting it with DRM shackles.

As for games, Steam and even EA Link are on the right track, though I feel that most of the folks out there who pirate games probably weren't going to buy them anyway.  I've never pirated a game, but I have certainly thought about it after anxiously awaiting a patch that might actually allow me to play the game I just spent $50 without fear of the next crash (I'm looking at you, Fallout 3).  I want to give money to game companies so they can develop more and better games, but I'm not going to keep loyalty to any game developer if they can't produce quality goods.  No one buys a shirt or shoes or DVD and then puts up with it unraveling, untying or skipping until the manufacturer releases a fix!  Why is gaming so damn different?