Article by: Carlos Po
Photographs by: Ji Young Kim
On September 9, 2014, hundreds of millions of iTunes users woke up to a mysterious new album in their music libraries: U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence. It had been added to every iTunes library in the world for free as part of a controversial marketing strategy. Decades ago it would have been unthinkable to miss out on millions of potential sales like this–so what has changed between now and then that makes solely relying on consumer devotion a viable business strategy?
Today, any vaguely internet-savvy person can acquire Utorrent, Vuze, or other pirating clients and begin torrenting movies, music, or shows before they have even been legally released for purchase. Among high schoolers, piracy is becoming a social norm as shown in a recent study of 1,600 North Carolina high schoolers of which 15 percent had recently pirated a song, and 29 percent had recently pirated a movie.
Of course, a powerful tool is not without drawbacks. Creators will inevitably lose profits to piracy, forcing them to adapt to protect their content such as through the Digital Rights Management (DRM), a system that checks whether media has been acquired legally. A famous example of this was the Xbox One prototype system that would connect to the internet every 24 hours. If a check was failed, the Xbox One would become unable to play games, even offline.
Another tactic used by game developers to combat piracy is the “free-to-play” concept. Under this system, the base game is free to download and in theory, free to play, but offers purchases that make the game easier or offer greater customisation. However, this has the unfortunate side effect of centering the game around purchases, resulting in a less immersive game experience overall.
Not every creator is able to protect his or her product from piracy. Passionate artists attempting to make a living out of what they love are often disheartened by piracy. Stephen Christian, lead singer of rock band Anberlin, mentioned in an internet Q&A that, poor sales due to piracy force him to work a part-time job when not on tour. “We both love what we do and are very proud of the work we’ve put into it,” says Robert Hazelton of indie band Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society. “Every song a person downloads is a stolen dollar from an artist.”
Piracy is slowly widening the gap between independent creators and massive media conglomerates. It forces creators to burden their work with inconvenient security features on the off-chance it will be stolen. But as a society, we will have to accept that piracy is inherent in digital media. As long as banks store and distribute money, there will be armed men with nothing to lose. And as long as files are bought and sold over the internet, there will be members of internet hive mind willing to take a different route.
