2 easy ways to stop internet Piracy (Or, a consumer's rant)

Here it is, people. Just 2 simple steps to stop piracy and make better business. It's just common sense, after all.

1) Go Lean
Content producers should adopt software development practices: Make design, production and development of content a collaborative and agile job. That way, they would avoid racking up the costs of production and thus making products cheaper and get to market faster.

2) Localize your business
What content producers in the US and Europe don't seem to realize is that a huge amount of those who pirate their goods are people that don't live in the US. And why is that? Because charging U$S 200 to an american customer for a Windows software is steep, but try and charge that to a customer in a country in which the currency is worth 4 or 6 times less, and that price becomes prohibitive. 

Simple math: If the average salary in my country is U$S 1000, and Windows costs U$S 200, I'm not gonna spend 1/5 of my income on software I can get for free. 

So isn't it a better idea for companies to have different price rates according to the country you're selling it to? It's not a new idea, people. Just think, wouldn't Adobe rather sell 100.000 copies of Photoshop in 3rd-world-country-X for U$S 10 than sell just a 100 copies at U$S 200 and have their software pirated all over?

It's not a matter of people being robbers who want to hurt the content industries, it's a matter of democratization of products. Since the average education level has risen all over the world, and as millions of Indians, Chinese, Latinamericans and other populations join the internet age and grow in prosperity, their expectations, which are formed mainly by the american consumer culture, put them in perfect condition to become consumers. But they find that things are too expensive for them. Globalization has caused a rise in living conditions in a lot of countries, but media and software have not been globalized. They adhere to the same logic they had in the 20th century, and that doesn't hold water anymore.

Even if this doesn't eliminate piracy completely (let's face it, it's impossible. Worst case scenario, people will swap pendrives with their friends), it will help struggling industries that can't find sources of revenue.

Let's try another example.

I'm an avid comic-book reader. I was a big reader back when comic-books were affordable in my country, as they were translated and edited by a local company. But years later, all I could find where seriously expensive comic books and that made me leave the habit of buying. Once I found file-sharing sites, I was able to read up on outdated books and that made me want to read more. Even though I admit I didn't pay for a lot of those issues, I still remained a dedicated reader and then spent a lot of money con collected paperbacks and hardcovers for those book that were definitely worth the money, and also on the comic-book movies.

So not all file-sharing is wrong, evidently. The comic book industry could have lost a reader, but instead gained one thanks to "piracy". If they had realized their readers extend beyond US and Canadian borders, they could have made available their books digitally at reduced prices, and would have gained even more money. I'm still waiting for the day comic-books are priced at U$S 0,99 digitally. That day, they'll gain a lot of business from me.

Same thing with media streaming. If Netflix, or Amazon, or anyone else, had targeted the LATAM market two years ago with streaming media at an affordable price, people wouldn't have flocked to Cuevana. Now, Netflix opened operations in Argentina providing a good price (which I would pay gladly) but their catalog is weak and most of their movies and tv shows are dubbed instead of subbed! That's just ignoring your audience, really. The reason Cuevana and other sites have soared is because cable tv and studios have dropped the ball. I don't want to see the latest episode of Spartacus in three months when it reaches my local cable, by the time I will have read a millions spoilers online. I want to watch it same-day, or next-day at least, with subtitling. We are highly educated people, knowledgeable and english proficient mostly. Why not cater to that?

So evidently, something is wrong with the business model, and not with "us", the consumers, especially in 3rd world countries. Companies need to realize they're not tapping into a major well of consumers, just by reducing their margins a little bit and gaining in volume what they resign in price.

If that happens, and if authors and creators actually get a bigger portion of the pie, people will pay. Most people want to, they are just ignored by the industry. If I know a comic-book creator or a writer makes 70% of the cover price (like Amazon does), then I'll sure as hell pay for it and support my favorite authors, if the price is not completely prohibitive.


So there. Big media and software companies, the ball is in your court.