FOSS - fully agreed. It's at the core of many industries (movie-relevant example... guess how many encoders are based on ffmpeg? Answer: practically all of them. Patent restrictions around codecs are so complex that it takes a questionably-legal product used in quiet ways to get real business done).
At least tw0 different perspectives here I think, requiring two different thought processes.
When viewed as a collective social issue, gray- and black-market forces are part of the panoply of market forces, and that is a good thing. If every human on the planet voluntarily conformed to white market forces no matter what the terms, we would be completely, totally screwed. At the very least, the work required to tune the legal system to accommodate everyone's needs satisfactorily would produce a big mess. To some degree, it's the corruption, work arounds and back room dealing that enable the system to keep functioning, given that legislators and enforcers are flawed humans just like the rest of us.
When viewed as an individual, personal issue, we need to draw the line somewhere with our own behaviour. We need to decide when we're going to take the risk and go around the system as it exists, based on our feeling of how fair the system is, and we should consider things like what harm we're doing, and whether we're being hypocritical, as part of that. There is most certainly some hypocrisy in creating and defending IP controls on software products, but calling an open season on digital media; but it's also obviously not 1:1. I believe, morally, that it's important to really think about what the impact might be when you pirate something.
Basically I think as a participant in the system you need to be aware of both. Perspective #1 helps defuse the rage, and perspective #2 directs your personal actions.
Personally, with media, I draw the line at failing to find a reasonably-priced option. In my country, digital delivery platforms are hamstrung, and cable packages are foolishly assembled. I'm caught in a gap created by distribution contracts that mean I need to pay minimum $50/mo cable to watch the one or two shows I actually want to watch with no direct-buy or digital delivery service available. I don't accept that as reasonable, and I'm not going to get in line with it. I'd pay $20 a season/movie, easy. Give me the option and I'll do it.
But, one last note. I work in video tech, and I can assure you that the TV and movie industry is up to its eyeballs in IP negotiations, ownership disputes, technical obstacles and oppressive pre-existing distribution relationships. Content producers have to negotiate with Netflix, theatres, ISPs and cable companies, many of which are co-owned in weird ways and create serious conflicts of interest. Sony needs to negotiate with Warner/AT&T to get their show distributed, but Warner produces their own content, competing for the same pool of eyeballs, and AT&T owns massive portions of the US cable distribution and ISP space, not to mention much of the hard infrastructure those services are deployed over. It's a minor miracle that distribution rights are even negotiated successfully in the first place... I sometimes wonder if MPAA lawyers shouldn't get invited to hostage situations. So have some compassion for the corporations too, they actually can't just up and fix this thing.
I think this could recreate the problem to some extent, as the shared infrastructure would be owned/administrated by someone, who then would have lots of aggregate data to sell.
Further to this, in Canada at least, all DSLs are subleasing lines in bulk from one single backbone provider (Bell). Competition is legislatively required but de facto questionably existent; in addition I would be surprised that Bell doesn't have all the aggregate data on traffic through subleasing ISPs as well.
At least tw0 different perspectives here I think, requiring two different thought processes.
When viewed as a collective social issue, gray- and black-market forces are part of the panoply of market forces, and that is a good thing. If every human on the planet voluntarily conformed to white market forces no matter what the terms, we would be completely, totally screwed. At the very least, the work required to tune the legal system to accommodate everyone's needs satisfactorily would produce a big mess. To some degree, it's the corruption, work arounds and back room dealing that enable the system to keep functioning, given that legislators and enforcers are flawed humans just like the rest of us.
When viewed as an individual, personal issue, we need to draw the line somewhere with our own behaviour. We need to decide when we're going to take the risk and go around the system as it exists, based on our feeling of how fair the system is, and we should consider things like what harm we're doing, and whether we're being hypocritical, as part of that. There is most certainly some hypocrisy in creating and defending IP controls on software products, but calling an open season on digital media; but it's also obviously not 1:1. I believe, morally, that it's important to really think about what the impact might be when you pirate something.
Basically I think as a participant in the system you need to be aware of both. Perspective #1 helps defuse the rage, and perspective #2 directs your personal actions.
Personally, with media, I draw the line at failing to find a reasonably-priced option. In my country, digital delivery platforms are hamstrung, and cable packages are foolishly assembled. I'm caught in a gap created by distribution contracts that mean I need to pay minimum $50/mo cable to watch the one or two shows I actually want to watch with no direct-buy or digital delivery service available. I don't accept that as reasonable, and I'm not going to get in line with it. I'd pay $20 a season/movie, easy. Give me the option and I'll do it.
But, one last note. I work in video tech, and I can assure you that the TV and movie industry is up to its eyeballs in IP negotiations, ownership disputes, technical obstacles and oppressive pre-existing distribution relationships. Content producers have to negotiate with Netflix, theatres, ISPs and cable companies, many of which are co-owned in weird ways and create serious conflicts of interest. Sony needs to negotiate with Warner/AT&T to get their show distributed, but Warner produces their own content, competing for the same pool of eyeballs, and AT&T owns massive portions of the US cable distribution and ISP space, not to mention much of the hard infrastructure those services are deployed over. It's a minor miracle that distribution rights are even negotiated successfully in the first place... I sometimes wonder if MPAA lawyers shouldn't get invited to hostage situations. So have some compassion for the corporations too, they actually can't just up and fix this thing.