How is pirating content so common and illegal yet nobody faces consequences for doing it?
In: Technology
People do face consequences for it. The problem is that piracy is so wide spread that there aren’t enough resources to fine and arrest everyone that does it.
The agencies try to focus on content distributors to try to slow piracy down, but also target random downloaders with large fines to try to get media attention to scare people into stopping.
The other problem is jurisdiction. Pirate websites are deliberately hosted in countries where US agencies have no jurisdiction so it takes a lot of effort to get the sites taken down.
Agencies also have come to realize that spending all these resources to shut down sites like the Pirate Bay is ultimately futile, because if the site goes offline 3 new sites prop up to take it’s place within a week.
Big companies like Disney have also changed tactics deciding to start streaming services instead. After decades of online piracy companies have finally started to realize that a lot of people don’t pirate to save money, they do it because it’s a more convenient way to consume media.
The idea being that if you provide people with the same or better level of quality and convenience as BitTorrent for a reasonable fee then people will stop pirating.
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