Instead of SOPA, Beat Piracy With Better Product > Supply and Demand

But piracy shouldn't be regarded as competition for paid content.

That would like comparing working and robbing a bank as a means of earning a living.

The first time these programs air EVERYTHING is paid for and profit is to be had, anything else is just double dipping and extra icing on the cake.

Actually, everything *isn't* paid for. If you actually worked in television (as I have), you'd realize that the hope is that everything is paid for, but often times isn't.

When the next-day's Nielsen report hits the networks *and* the advertisers, a less than promised audience results in a lower rate for the advertising. These days, only stupid advertisers pay the rate card.

It is because scarcity doesn't exist in a digital world where everything is infinitely copyable. Decent content will be widely available no matter what. That's the reality.

What the paid/pirated ratio looks like is dependent upon what the content owners charge and how widely they make it available.

But piracy exists because content people want is not available where they live or how they want to view it.

Up here in Canada one of our cable companies teamed up with FX and created FX Canada.

What's on it? Older shows that FX cancelled (Lights out), non current seasons of SoA, and a host of reality shows to fill out the schedule, but I'm expected to pay through the nose for this.

I can't watch Boardwalk Empire unless I subscribe to the Uber premium gold pressed latimum package, I'd be happy to shell out $x for HBO, if I could get it by itself,without the bundled bs, to me it's worth it.

So the restrictions put in place by the media companies has forced me to look elsewhere for their content and they aren't legal means.

I'm not justifying what I'm doing, but the reality if I could get what I wanted to watch, when I wanted to (even if it means paying for HuluPlus)I would resort to those alternative methods of getting my fix.

Now you can say wait for the Blu Ray/DVD to come out. OK, so in the above example of Boardwalk Empire, I'll have to wait till next fall (HBO releases the Blu Ray/DVD's just before the next season starts) to watch the previous season and the cost is now higher then if I just paid $X/month to HBO.

It is because scarcity doesn't exist in a digital world where everything is infinitely copyable. Decent content will be widely available no matter what.

It has come to the point where people view piracy as an entitlement. Sure SOPA was bad in many ways and I absolutely don't support it in its current form but no one who works in the industry can deny that piracy is a problem.

So what does this all have to do with your comment? Everything. To simply assert "scarcity doesn't exist in a digital world because it's technically possible to copy digital works" is ignoring all the ways mankind has built up businesses and markets and even economies around artificially scarce goods. There is no reason that it's not possible to create artificial scarcity around digital goods. It's happening all the time right in front of you.

Like in non-digital markets, artificial scarcity in digital markets requires an enforcement mechanism.

Except that it's not just "technically possible". Computers were designed to easily handle digital data. Copying that data has been one of the core functions of computers since they were first invented.

To create scarcity in digital files, you have to essentially break the proper functioning of the computer. To keep people from ripping DVDs or Blu-Rays, you need to introduce some method of keeping the system from reading data from discs, or prevent ripping programs from running, both of which are at odds with how the computer was designed to function. To prevent people from sharing or making copies of digital downloads, you need some method of keeping the system from playing those files, which is also at odds with what it was designed to do.

Do they also require penalties that are higher than those for physical goods?

Shoplifting is also a big problem, but I don't recall Walmart lobbying the government to impose special $20,000 fines and multi-year prison sentences or to make it an automatic felony.

To create scarcity in digital files, you have to essentially break the proper functioning of the computer. To keep people from ripping DVDs or Blu-Rays, you need to introduce some method of keeping the system from reading data from discs, or prevent ripping programs from running, both of which are at odds with how the computer was designed to function. To prevent people from sharing or making copies of digital downloads, you need some method of keeping the system from playing those files, which is also at odds with what it was designed to do.

It's like trying to create a physical book that can only be read by one person.