Data piracy is an increasingly prevalent topic in the world today. With many people pirating movies, music, games and more, the rise of lawsuits filed by the owners of the intellectual properties are staggering. Even more surprising are the amounts of money won at trial with some ranging in the thousands to others in the millions, amounts which the defendants cannot possibly pay. The criminalization of data piracy is now being debated whether or not the fines and penalties associated with the act are justified. Clearly something should be done to curb piracy, however penalizing selected individuals to act as "examples" is clearly not an acceptable solution, rather than dealing with the problem after it has occurred something needs to be done to stop it from happening in the first place.
When I bought Daft Punk's sophomore album Discovery - well more than likely not me but my parents (this was 2001; I was nine) - it came with a "Daft Club" membership card, which granted access to Daft Punk's online music service. This website featured remixed songs, a live recording of Daft Punk and an a cappella and instrumental version of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." At this time I had no reason to see this as a cool "extra" that I got from buying the CD. However, this is exactly the type of thing that artists and companies need to do. Instead of worrying about what to do with people who pirate their intellectual property they should focus on how to convert those pirates into customers by making the item more appealing with something that cannot be pirated.
The difficulty comes from finding out what to include that would make people want to buy the product instead of pirating it. Some bands have included t-shirts, posters, or other extras along with the purchase of their album, while others have gone a step further and offered incentives such as access to concert tickets earlier, potential future downloads, or even early entry to their concerts. Some videogames have been packaged with a code that grants access to free downloadable in-game content, which would otherwise cost fifteen dollars. Movies on the other hand, by buying Blu-Ray discs, offer far superior visuals and audio compared to pirated versions.
By pursuing lawsuits against individuals involved in the piracy of protected intellectual property the companies and artists are only distancing themselves from their fan base and putting themselves in a negative light. In most cases the people they charge cannot possibly pay the expected amount granted. Likewise, the assumption that by convicting and charging people who download and/or distribute data it will convince others no to do so, as the risk is too much. Data piracy is still very active today with people using torrents and file uploading sites to download music, movies, programs, etc. The only feasible way to eradicate piracy would be by putting impossibly draconian measures in place, something that would have the entire internet community up in arms about the injustice of the situation.
This is not to say there are not artists who "support" downloading. In a blog post on Portugal. The Man's website an article titled "The Leak. The Response. The Review." talks about their stance on downloading music.
"Please don’t feel guilty about downloading. Download the album if you want to hear it in advance of the purchase and make sure you like it and in doing so keep in mind that some of our favorite records have been growers 
. Download the album if you have no idea who we are and a friend or respected music blog or magazine recommend it. Download the album if you live in a place where shipping will end up costing you more than the record (We don’t have distribution everywhere.). Download if you honestly don’t have the money, we understand the times. "
However encouraging those words are that's not to say that there isn't a "dark side" to this whole issue. In an earlier post John, the singer for Portugal. The Man, talked about several of the downsides of piracy. I'm sure we all know the feeling of anticipation or excitement for something. Perhaps a trip coming up, a movie premiere at midnight, an album release, whatever, which had you waiting for the day it happened, marking the calendars. That "hype", that excitement seems lost today. If an album leaks you just type in google "------ torrent", "------ download", "------ mediafire/megaupload/rapidshare" whatever, and you have it. There's no driving to the store after work to see if they have it, waiting for the mail to come to see if the package is here, it's just lost.
The other problem is that you're taking their work, time, creativity, genius all for granted by pirating whatever they made. Take this quote from Portugal. The Man's singer's post, "I sleep on a hard wood floor in the house of people I did not know before Ryan’s joining of this band. I sleep on this floor with Ryan and Ian, our tour manager. Our tour manager sleeps on this floor with us because he will not let us pay him when we cannot pay ourselves." They're people, their music is their work and how they get any money, if you download the music you don't give anything to them. You might say you're fighting corporation "fat cats" who are in turn cheating the artist, yet today when record sales are down (I'll use Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest (first auto search was "Grizzly Bear Veckatimest mediafire" with "Grizzly Bear Veckatimest torrent" in a close second) was about 33,000, probably a bit more now) recording companies work with the artists fairly now. Also remember that less money means less promotion, less money behind the release, less money for a tour and less chances for you to see them. For other media it's the same, but could also influence the possibility of a sequel, or continuation of a director's or company's career.
In short, buy the item if you can, support the artists, creators, the people whose job it is to bring you these things. If they can incentivize these products to make you want them even more, great, since it should help convince more people to buy them. However, companies going after downloaders for large sums of money isn't going to solve anything, nor will continuously downloading items. Remember, their future is in your hands. If you buy the item you support their continued success for the things you like.
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