Hi,

Yesterday was ‘Internet’- and ‘Copyright’-evening on Arte (a German/French tv station), and after a documentary about Google books there was another documentary about the legal process against the ‘The Pirate Bay’-founders in Sweden. Unfortunately, it started quite late and I wasn’t able to watch it until the end (but, it could be watched again over the Internet: http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/tpb-afk-the-pirate-bay-away-from-keyboard–7415440.html).

First of all: Yes, I have quite some sympathy for these guys, and there are a lot of reasons, why Internet-sites like ‘The Pirate Bay’ work. However, I also respect the copyright, so yeah, it was definitely not right what they did. Nevertheless, I must add here some comments about the content industry, who really, definitely missed the train:

• Most people do not want to use illegal sites (yeah, the content industry is right on that – I would not go into a supermarket and leave with stuff without paying)
• Often, it is not possible to get a content on a legal way. And that is – in my opinion – the big miss-out of the content industry. They have the advantages of a globalized world (they can sell their films, music, etc. everywhere on the world), but they do not want their customers to have these advantages as well. If I hear a song on BBC Radio 1, I sometimes would like to buy the album of the artist (or Mrs. Markus wants the album). But I am not allowed to buy it on legal channels (if there is a release date in Austria, even if it is 3 months in the future, neither Amazon nor ITunes let me buy that album :-(). That is like going into a supermarket and seeing something, but not being able to buy it, because only the English or US-guys are allowed to buy that item – I would definitely try to steal it then.
• So, in my opinion, the only option for the content industry is to realize that the future has already begun, that it is not possible to avoid people from watching a film around the globe on the same day, or to have an English language track, not only the localized ones.
• Moreover, the local video rental shops died away during the last years, but it is not possible to rent a film over the Internet (yes, I know, there are sites like Hulu, but not in Austria or Germany), and if, it is often more expensive than buying the DVD.

So, that’s just my 2 cents on this topic for today, I’m quite sure there will be much more on this topic in this blog later-on.