Digital Piracy and How to Slow It

New reports (http://tinyurl.com/d2jfae) are putting digital piracy of media at $20B worth of content every year and rising. Much of this content is from US media companies, and as you see from the article, these kinds of figures start generating a lot of political churn.

However, realistically, can lawmakers make the slightest dent in this activity? Simply put I think the answer no. The methods and channels are just not subject to any serious action feasible from a legal perspective.

Can technology ala DRM throughout the production and distribution channel solve this problem? To some degree, yes. However, as the recent theft of the new Wolverine movie demonstrates, the problem is not strictly one of technology, amenable to technology solutions; in this instance, it's virtually certain an "insider" in the studio lifted an early (unencrypted) "digital print" of the movie for illicit distribution. More extreme internal controls on access may help here, but obviously are difficult given the breadth of people involved in film production in general, particularly ones with high special effects content. There's also the simple low budget and low quality, but still effective, pirating approach of simply "filming" (videoing? interesting how all our terms are out of date with current technology!) the film in the theatre, a pirating approach that is only amenable to full body searches at the doors of theatres. While posturing lawmakers might suggest it, it's obviously never going to happen.

So where does that leave those companies that are getting robbed blind?

I don't think it's beyond rationality to think that they might just take matters into their own hands. After all, people and organizations that are losing serious money eventually will resort to "serious" actions to solve the problem. What am I implying here? I'm implying the use of questionable at best if not outright illegal actions to attempt to impede the business of the distribution organizations involved in the piracy, particularly those using the internet as a distribution channel.

What kinds of actions? Web site attacks, in general, via all the "usual" means that hackers use to access company intranets today for illicit ends: penetration attempts followed by operation of s/w that would compromise the piracy delivery operations, and denial of service attacks as a start. A kind of "fight back with the tools available" approach...even if those tools are on the wrong side of the law.

Let's be clear: I'm not promoting illegal activities by "the good guys", and taking this kind of action would move "the good guys" into a difficult morale area, at best (vigilante action is always questionable, but it is sometimes popular as a means of getting justice). I'm merely raising the question: at what point does Big Money Lost move to Serious And Illegal Action in order to get on the offensive against the thieves robbing them blind? Does it start to happen at $20B? I'm suspicious it just might...