Piracy Beats Legitimacy?

I know, I kinda fell off again. I have pretty bad luck, let me tell you. Every week bad stuff just seems to happen. Last week, I was consumed with interviews for NSC and that was followed by a crisis for someone dear to me, and then I had a project due at midnight last night.

Still, I wanted to crank out a small post in the new format I decided to move to. At the heart of what I want to talk about is this article. When it's easier to pirate stuff than get it legally, what do you do? I mean the advantage with movies to buy the real DVD from a bootleg copy is better quality, and it's more reliable, right? And with books it's just a lot more convenient than trying to copy a book you borrow from a friend or something. With TV shows, do we have that? It turns out that not only can you get high quality copies of popular shows, as we all knew, but it's easier than ever now for non-techies. The program described in that article will literally just pull new shows you your computer as they're available, and there's no restrictive DRM on it or anything! Why would you turn to iTunes, which NBC has abandoned, has only comparable quality, and is strapped with DRM?

Basically, the studios need to use their heads and collaborate with Apple or another major player (who else is there that big though?). They need to hand over more content, and Apple needs to compete better with pirates. When it comes to digital media, it's beyond just delivering content, it's about making it faster, easier, and better quality than pirated copies at an affordable price. They're failing to do this, and their success is limited and will stay limited until they try to progress. How long has iTunes had video now? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was the Fall before last. So why hasn't it gotten much better?

To top it off, Winamp is bringing the heat with the support of mp3 blogs for you to stream your libraries as you listen to them. Oh, and it makes it easier to host an mp3 player, much easier than back in the pre-Napster days. I haven't used Winamp in forever and even I'm tempted to get this new version. Who knows, I may try it out later tonight. Not territory iTunes will enter anytime in the forseeable future anyhow, it focuses too much on simplicity whereas Winamp focuses on the music geeks.

I love Ars, so I'm plugging their iPhone Touch review. It's a great read, as always.