Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

[Dirtbag59]

Online piracy is here to stay. Sure they'll start with the websites but eventually movie studios and record companies are going to want to move on to individuals who download music and movies. I'm glad that a good amount of Republican Senators and Congressman oppose the bill seeing as how they currently have a lot of seats in both houses.

The sad thing though is that the studios and record companies charge way to much for their products. Hence the appeal of piracy. They said back in the 80's when CD's first came out that the price would eventually go down as the cost of production decreased. Some 10, 15 years later companies are still trying to get $14 or $15 for a CD.

An HBO series single season on DVD cost something like $40 or $50 and anywhere from $60 to $80 on Blu Ray. Companies are trying to get $15 or $16 for a single movie on DVD and now are trying to squeeze more out of legitimate companies like NetFlix for the rights to other movies. ITunes had a great model for legitimate music downloads. People could buy 2 songs for $2. Then the record companies got greedy and pushed for the price to be raised. Now you have people downloading 1 song for $1.29 instead of 2 for $2. And worse then that the record companies now realize that in the digital age artist need them less and less.

I'm all for capitalism but the studios and record companies brought this on themselves and are now getting this ass kicked in a true free market system. And the ironic thing to is that piracy has increased exposure. People that wouldn't watch a TV show before because they had no idea what was going on could get caught up with previous episodes and then watch the current episodes with commercials. Musicians that they never heard of that get bunched with theme based torrents suddenly get noticed by illegal downloaders. And believe it or not a lot of people that download music illegally will go back to itunes and purchase legitimate versions of the songs they download.

Bottom line though is that this is censorship and an extension of the Patriot Act that will lead to more and more basic liberties being taken away.

Ironically if this gets passed VPN sales will probably end up going through the roof.