One of the most virulent topics on internet culture is, of course, the so called problem with internet piracy. Now while the mass media will have you believe that piracy (a derogatory term they came up with) is a dangerous threat to the music and entertainment industry, all analytics show piracy as a small symptom of the industry's inability to change, rather than the cause of their steadily declining profits. Not to say that the industry is hurting in anyway. Justin Bieber is worth hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of dollars, even though his discography is one of the most traded items on the net.
To clarify, internet piracy is users sharing files with one another - Most files obtained perfectly legally, I might add. Furthermore, the majority of people that download this material do so because they cannot afford them, in which case the industry wouldn't be getting their money anyway, and/or it's just plain easier to obtain and use the material by these means.
As a few examples, I used to jailbreak all of my iOS devices to gain access to tweaks and apps that Apple didn't offer or condoned, but after a few years, Apple finally started adding these features to the firmware and I stopped taking the jailbreaking route. The great tide of mp3 piracy of the nineties subsided when Apple, Amazon, and many others offered selling individual tracks for 99¢. Commercial free streaming and downloading of tv shows and movies by Netflix, AppleTV, etc.. has also been a large factor in dropping the rates in which these files are shared over the internet. These efforts to change the marketplace to accommodate new and easier means of consumption and use, are the key to ending piracy, not over-reaching copyright laws that do more harm than good.
Internet piracy will never be gone for good, but there are things that can be done to sway people away from it. Unfortunately the industry is still implementing things that do nothing but encourage piracy. Things like BluRay discs having unskippable commercials, cable and satellite tv only offering ever more expensive bundles, annoying digital rights management in nearly every piece of software, and it goes on and on. This is the kind of 'solution' to the problem that only punishes legitimate users while increasing the number of people that prefer to get their content through piracy.
All this being said, I do still share and download content myself. My piracy habits have decreased quite a bit as parts of the industry have changed for the better, but there's still content I prefer to get free of all the strings.
For those interested, here are a few links to the safest and easiest bit torrent tools and sites:
uTorrent is, by far, the best torrent client around. Simple, easy to use, and completely free.
The Pirate Bay is still the foremost torrent sharing site on the net. Sure the ads along the sides are annoying, but you won't find a more comprehensive public library anywhere else.
EZTV is my favorite place for all the latest tv shows from the US and the UK.
Demonoid is a private torrent sharing site, offering slightly more than you could find on the Pirate Bay. I'm a registered user, so if you'd like an invitation, just send me an email, and I'll see what I can do.
UPDATE: Demonoid is very dead, at the moment. Due to pressure from US based groups, the Ukranian government hit the servers with a DDoS attack and soon after they were shut down completely. Since then, it was rumored that the servers were being sold, and there are also rumors among Demonoid members that the site may be on it's way back. That might happen, but not anytime soon. Demonoid has suffered attacks like this in the past and has returned many months later, but who knows...
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