Except me, the shmoe. I know you're thinking: "Rrrrright." But no, bear with me for a second.

We know why the MPAA's wrong. And the RIAA. I maintain that if somebody is stealing your shit, then congratulations, you have something worthwhile that somebody wants so bad, they'll steal it.

But why? Why are they stealing it?

Obviously, some folks are poor, have ready access to a high speed network, and have nothing better to do with their time (*coughkoffcollegestudents*) and you're not going to convert them. You're not even going to be able to stop them, so why waste your time?

Instead, they should be focusing on what I maintain is their failure: people want your product, but not enough to pay for it today. This means one of two things is happening. Or both.

1) People don't think your product is worth buying. Worth watching. Worth listening to. But not worth buying.

2) People would buy your product, but you're not giving it to them in the fashion they want. In other words, not quickly enough, not in the right format, etc. etc.

I do think it's a little bit of both, because it's not like piracy's killing the industry. As we've seen with the recent box 0ffice performance of DaVinci Code, X3, and hell, even Break Up, people will go see movies that they want to see. Torrents of at least the first two are all over the Net and yet, box office is big for those. Horror movies–a genre you think would be crippled by piracy since the aforementioned coughing demographic is spot on who the studios are trying to get in there to see it–make money. Gnarls Barkley is selling like hotcakes, but versions of their songs have been available since January. So the MPAA and RIAA don't know what the hell they're doing–not news to anyone here, I'm sure. But the MPAA and RIAA aren't used to giving up control and as a result, they'll eventually die, when all of you out there get sick of paying for their crap.

But the pirates have it wrong too. And I'm not just talking about doing things that are illegal. I make no bones about it: it's illegal. However, the only reason these people (apart from the coughcough) are doing this is because the people behind the products have forgotten how to deal with their own customer base. While I wish that the customer base would switch and buy stuff from people that want them to play around with their stuff and have it whenever they want (full disclosure: like me–buy my stuff already), that's going to be a long slow process because people are not necessarily long, but certainly slow.

Here's the thing. Check out this post from the lawyer who's handling Pirate Bay. Read the whole thing. I'll wait.

Did one thing bother you when you read that?

…those of you who believe that freedom and law should not be dictated solely by financial power, but by logic, compassion, human rights and the right for everyone to have access to all cultural material, be it music, movies, books or pictures…

The right to…wait, what? Hold on, he'll say it again:

…to a non-profit trust fund that will work towards advancing freedom of speech, freedom to have access to culture, freedom of information and the right to personal privacy.

I'm with the guy 100% until he says that people have a right to access to all cultural material. Is there anybody who doesn't have access to cultural material at this point? I mean, it's one thing if you're downloading a movie and it's been banned in your country or whatever, but does anybody think that's the majority of what's going on here? No, what I fear is that he's talking about free access to culture. And it's not free. It shouldn't necessarily be free. Shit costs money. And while it's the fault of the studios and record labels they're producing hardly anything worth money, I don't want anyone thinking that they should have free access to everything.

If you want to see a movie in the cinema, go and pay money for it. If you download a song and like it, go buy the song. If not, then sooner or later the only thing we'll have is free culture because all the paid culture–even the good bits–will have gone the way of good Steve Martin movies. So no, you don't have a right to access or a right to free access. You should–and this isn't a right, people are so hung up on "inventing rights"–have companies that actually sell you what you want when you want it, instead of trying to force you to do it their way and suing the shit out of you when you don't.

But, on the other hand, every dollar you give to MPAA and RIAA-related companies are dollars they're using to attack you. So, in reality, you're all masochists. The lot of you.

Our therapy time's up for today. See you next week. We'll talk about your childhood then.