Just because I don't download movies doesn't mean I don't think about it pretty much for this reason:

If they made a DVD player with a giant red "play the freaking movie right freaking now" button, I'd buy it. Wouldn't you?

(Image is in the Public Domain)

This article is a treasure trove of historical information about the battle between consumers and copyright holders in P2P and DRM.

A bit about the attitude of the market:

Rhetoric about internet democracy aside, the point of interest was that such a huge number of people had no problem with copying and sharing movies, that they regarded it almost as a right.

A bit about the Media companies' "shame on you" campaign:

The strongest moral card they hold is that illegal downloaders are ripping off the artists. This, however, is the most shamefaced hypocrisy imaginable. Media companies have historically been the biggest sharks going, pressuring artists into exploitative contract deals that cut them out of most of the money and limit their creativity. Their argument seems to be, "Buy the disc or else your favourite singers and actors will be sleeping in the gutters."

A bit about DRM:

Trying to control the technology itself only breeds resentment and the kind of reaction seen on Digg as a hacker took the power into his own hands and shared it with the world.

A bit about reality:

Critics point out that illegal downloads hit smaller, independent companies the hardest as they depend on direct sales. This may be true but it only suggests another economic model. Maybe artists should be selling for themselves directly. And if an artist has a song that’s downloaded illegally by 5 million users, they now have 5 million fans. That translates into lots of concert tickets. Canadian artist Leslie Feist was shocked to hear American audiences singing along to her new songs – the album hadn’t yet been released in the US. When she asked her fans how they knew the words they yelled back: Illegal downloads!?

Nice.

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

It looks like there's a legitimate working hack for Vista that kills their bogus activation scheme. Microsoft is saying that they're not going to do anything about it yet because they don't know if it will become a wide exploit. But I think this commentor (from the source article) has it more correct:

They didn't think it through as a "hacker" (pirate more like it) would, and now they have a problem. Millions of legitimate users are out there with legitimate hardware sold with Vista. MS can't simply pull the carpet out from under these users. They will need to devise a way that all users can continue using their systems without having to do something drastic like reinstall or update the BIOS because many users simply don't know how to. Even locating the product key on the sticker would be difficult for some.

MS can't simply pull the OEM keys and try again.

But on MS's side, the number of users using this method is very low. And MS have said they'd prefer we pirate Windows than use MacOS or Linux.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Here's a neat story from the Consumerist about an enthusiast turned pirate and why.

I thought I was the music industry's dream consumer.

…

"You don't understand," I said, "These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them."

"Well" she responded, "You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to."

Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said.

She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can"

Crikey. Maybe your customers would be more loyal if you didn't abuse them?

For all the complaining, P2P filesharing has actually helped fight piracy

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Here's something that the RIAA and MPAA haven't admitted publicly, P2P filesharing has actually helped to kill pirates. Where once you could make real money by copying a movie and selling it at a flea-market, now that's impossible.