The biggest thing I can think of that actually encourages piracy is the locking of content due to your location in the world. Netflix does it, Hulu, Amazon ... the list goes on. Many services that people across the world will happily give up money for are locked to American users.
This is partly because of the whole has to be censored for your area of the world type deal. Every country has different censorship laws. So every item of media has to be censored to that country before release.
But what if, this is a novel idea here, we did this crazy thing of letting people decide for themselves what is appropriate to watch. I can understand censorship in wanting to censor things like kiddie porn, seriously only sick people look up that stuff and frankly if your caught doing it you should be turned over to the community you reside in for punishment (I'm sure that community can come up with some very creative ways to punish someone who would even think of doing that to their children).
But lets be honest here. Legal pornography (you know the type between two consenting of age adults) isn't exactly hard to find. There is endless websites now dedicated to the amateur porn stars of the world. Most of them free. And there is a very long line of people wanting their two minutes of porn fame. This fact is actually killing the porn industry but that's something for another day and probably not a rant I will do.
But my point is I have seen a penis in a video tape. I have seen a boob. I have seen a vagina. These are not new sights. I'm married. I've seen my husband's. Hell I've had to look at my own bits in the mirror my whole life. I've seen pornography. So none of this is new.
As for violence ... well most movies now days take the cake. There is very few movies that can make my stomach churn now days. I would have to say the saw series is about my limit. Most people would say I'm a pussy for admitting that, but hell have you actually watched the brutality in those movies? Not my cup of tea but you know its someone else's. The human centipede comes to mind as another movie that I don't really care for. I think South Park did a much better job anyway with that movie.
Then again movie studios are putting out dribble like Twilight. That's probably worse that the two examples above. Bout the only movies that make me want to puke. Yet those pieces of trash which destroy the whole movie making industry by being mass produced money making machines rather than true art (or failing true art something that doesn't kill brain cells for an hour and a half). So I don't know which is more scary ... the destruction of ever known piece of vampire mythology by a woman who cared more about her bank account or a line of surgically grafted together humans giving permanent ass to mouth.
So the real point I'm working towards here is that censorship laws are a bit out dated when you consider what they are really for. Limiting the amount of filth on your TV screen. Its not hard to legitimately find alternative sources of some of the most horrific or sexual ideas around. Movie studios have been pumping these out for years. All censorship laws are doing is preventing access to services that the world is crying out for.
So if I want to go on to Netflix and pay and be a good little bunny and give up my money to view media content, if I'm outside America I have to trust these dodgy VPN networks to mask my physical location. Not all VPNs are dodgy, but lets face it you are routing every piece of your internet usage via a third unknown party that doesn't really have to adhere to legalities like large corporations do. You have to select probably a bit of a fringe VPN because ones supplied by large corporations would quickly pick up on you being dodgy and ban you or send around the FBI to cart you of to Guantanamo Bay.
Strictly speaking using a VPN to access Netflix for instance from another country is a legal grey area. Companies like Netflix will say that its against their policies but in all honesty if they catch someone doing it what are they going to do? If I was them, I was give them a warning and then forget about them. Why do I really care where in the world someone is as long as I'm getting my fees? They are paying for it, the only issue is they aren't in the right part of the world. And is that really enough to turn away a paying customer?
And movie studios ... what are they going to do? Come down hard on someone who is actually paying for their content? They weren't popular when they were suing kids for copyright infringement or old ladies for downloading porn (old ladies who had trouble switching on the computer in the first place let alone finding a torrent site) so how popular do you think they will be if they sued someone who was paying for their content?
At the end of the day, services like Netflix and Hulu and so on are the way of the future. And I still think we should consider this - let the people choose what is appropriate for them to view. And until these services are equal everywhere, piracy will exist because placing a boundary only means that users have to find another way around it.
Then again I worked for a retailer who sold video games. The number of parents that abused us for not selling R18 rated games to them for their 5 year old child was unbelievable. So maybe the human race is not quite ready to be responsible and decide for themselves ...
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