SOPA & PIPA

I suppose it is about time I give my two bits on SOPA and PIPA. Not suprisingly I am greatly opposed to it. I also Really do believe that piracy is bad. But Twenty sided had a point. If you are a company that has one channel of making money and then protecting/sustaining that channel comes to cost more than the channel is worth, you should drop it.

For example, Telegraph is dead. Truth be told it was much cheaper to have a telegraph line than a phone line, but the public has spoken, or at least they litterally wanted to and telegraph died. The postal system is another one. There was a big out cry when some one proposed that the postoffice only deliever 3 out of the 6 days of the week, to cut costs by reducing the number of mailmen dramatically. I don't blame mail men, nor am I suprised by the massive opposition they put forth. But think about it. Bank statements, bills, and almost all leters come digitally anymore. its faster, cheaper, and more reliable. Tell me. If something was faster, cheaper, and more reliable, wouldn't you toss the old one?

My point with the mail system is that times are changing. We don't use the mail system as a vital life line of information anymore. It has been replaced. Times are changing with computer games too. The days where you actually buy physical media is dying out. Now publishers don't like this for a couple reasons.

1. it is what they are used to. For a few decades everything was done by buying floppies, CD's, DVD's, Cartigages, etc etc. This was a simple system and easy to control.
2. They loose their advantage on barrier to entry. In order to make money selling a video game you have to sell a large quantity of copies. With DLC, the cost of each additional copy is negligable. But when you are selling physical media, each additional copy can cost you 2$ or so. Publishers use this to their advantage, previously you couldn't make any money with out a huge investment. Now the app store, steam, android market, etc, just take a small royalty, meaning there is no barrier to entry. and this means indie games are rising. And big time publishers don't like that extra competition.

Why SOPA and PIPA are bad is that they are backwards and close minded. They are bills that are trying to protect an out dated system. Do I think piracy is good? no. But obviously people aren't using the postal system, so why defend it? I understand defending out dated systems because that is where your income is from. I don't have any problem with people thinking they should, it is your lively hood. But you know what the really smart and successful people do? Rather than try to help an out-dated industry limp along, they find ways to take advantage of the new industries that come around.

A fantastic example of this is the dot com boom. Thousands of start ups came around. But after all has been said and done, we have Amazon and eBay, that's it. There were dozens of companies that did exactly what Amazon and eBay did, but they did it right, they did it better, the competition died out and left just the two. The dot com boom happened when everyone decided that putting everything on the internet was a fantastic idea. well suprise suprise, the internet has its limits, just as any other medium. Walmart clobers lots of litte stores, but some how every little town in Iowa still has its own grocery store. why? because walmart isn't sufficent, walmart can't do everything. particularly, walmart can be in every small town.

I'm just kind of rambling at this point so I'll bring this to a close. SOPA and PIPA, they are backwards and narrow sited. the DRM problem with video games will cease to exist when all video games are just stored on the cloud. Do I think that that is what's going to happen? Probably, I'm not 100% certain, but it certainly seems like it is probable. And guess what happens when everything is stored in the cloud? You can't pirate it.