Cyberpirates Made the Internet Better

Since the late 1990s, Internet piracy has been assailed for wreaking havoc on all manner of creative content — from music labels, movie studios, and independent artists. Doomsdayers have believed for decades that creative works of art have no chance of surviving online as long as digital thieves run amok.

It was once the case that the media would pick up on stories of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) pursuing litigation against some poor grandmother for hundreds of thousands of dollars because her grandson illegally downloaded a handful of songs from the Internet.

But these stories have all but disappeared in recent years. As it turns out, the incidence of piracy never really morphed into anything truly newsworthy. To call it a threat is a bit of an exaggeration at this point because it’s been more or less contained. The Internet has witnessed increased growth in both the music and film industries, and the trend has only continued in the past few years.

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What’s causing this trend? Have pirates been scared straight or suddenly grown a sense of ethics? Has the system itself found a solution to the problem? The answer is “yes” to all of the above.

Sandvine, a global networking equipment company, recently released a global Internet traffic report showing that 70 percent of all peak Internet traffic in the U.S. consisted of audio and video streaming — double the rate five years ago.

Meanwhile, the report also revealed a continual decrease of BitTorrent, a client famously used to pirate music, games and video. Piracy traffic has been significantly reduced as a share of total Internet usage, dropping from 7 percent to a paltry 5 percent over the past year.

Legitimate media consumption is more popular than piracy by a factor of 14, and concerned media companies can thank consumer advocate groups and other critics for dragging them kicking and screaming to the solution.

Critics and consumer advocates generally will concede that piracy is not a good thing. Obtaining content without paying the rights holders is financially damaging over the long haul to both the artist and the companies backing them.

However, many critics like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to Internet privacy, innovation and digital civil liberties, differ from rights holders in their view of piracy in that they are more interested in looking at the motivations for engaging in digital piracy.

Copyright holders and content owners view copyright infringers as morally bankrupt data hackers who should be brought to justice in a court of law or otherwise prevented from accessing digital content. The term “copyright infringement” is a euphemism for theft in the eyes of the companies that represent talent.

On the other side of the debate, consumer advocates have condemned the knee-jerk reaction to litigate, instead suggesting market solutions designed to make piracy less appealing.

Apple scores
In 2003, Steve Jobs approached a music industry being slaughtered by piracy with a simple directive: adapt or die. The labels were legitimately losing money hand over fist due to people preferring to download songs for free rather than paying $15-$18 for a CD with two or three good songs.

Jobs’ approach was to price every song at a more-or-less equal value ($1 to start) and centralize purchases in one easy platform, namely iTunes. With music labels approaching bankruptcy, the appeal of a buck or two was better than nothing.

Obviously, this strategy paid off. Apple now makes far more money from iTunes and Apple Music than it does from any other product.

Netflix reboots
Around the mid-2000s, Internet bandwidth had improved enough to make pirating a video a legitimate threat, and video content owners were forced to face the music, as well — so to speak.

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The question remained: Is it better to earn $1 at a time, or nothing at all?

Netflix led the charge by aggregating the rights to content from TV and film studios to start what is now their bedrock streaming service. Hulu followed in the footsteps of the budding media giant in the spirit of competition.

At every juncture, media content owners have dragged their feet, only shifting gears when threatened by criticism, competition, or all-out destruction. Only recently, perhaps, are these companies able to recognize all they’ve accomplished.

Build the bridge, and they will come
The central mantra of consumer advocate groups has always been “Make it easier than piracy, and we’ll happily pay.”

Now, instead of circumventing the system and risking viruses and other unfavorable consequences, consumers are happy to patronize music- and movie-sharing sites because they have streamlined the delivery of their valued content.

As a result, media pirates are now reformed consumers. Many consumers have a hard time justifying the expense of cable to watch a handful of their favorite shows or a newly released film, and downloading them illegally was traditionally easier than waiting to buy the DVD when it was released. More conscientious consumers might justify an illegal download by purchasing the DVD at a later date, but they undoubtedly were plagued by the ethical question that arose: Is it OK to pay for content later if I want it now?

With the evolution of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, consumers have more access to quality video content than they’ll ever be able to watch in a lifetime. Sure, they don’t own it outright. That would cost a premium.

Likewise, music lovers can subscribe to platforms that give unprecedented access to songs from the present and decades past.

The option to view for the price of a rental or subscription fee is the bridge that made piracy less desirable. It was a simple solution that challenged the all-or-nothing thinking of the previous era.

The birthing process for streaming and rental services was an uncomfortable one for many years. Customers were treated like criminals bent on destroying the industries they only wished to support. But after much debate and a great deal of discomfort, sensible solutions have emerged for all involved.

With coming advancements in technology allowing for live streaming of television networks and the rise of YouTube as a new platform for a new generation, it’s reasonable to expect that content owners will continue to adapt.

Listening to consumer advocates seems to be the key. When industry leaders view their critics as allies rather than adversaries, positive change — and growth — is possible.