So if you haven't heard there's some bills floating around congress that are trying to destroy piracy. The problem is that it really puts much of the content available on the internet in the hands of a corporation, mainly the MPAA. Which is already nefarious for over-reaching it's authority when it comes to rating movies.
As of now the first bill, SOPA, has been killed but PIPA still remains. Both of which are not right and will do far more harm than good.
The problem with this is that I called it! I knew that all the piracy and just constant, constant promotion of it in countless internet communities would eventually cause a reaction. A reaction that severely limits our freedoms on the internet just as both SOPA and PIPA threaten to do. We might get lucky and squeak by having some protestors and speakers try and thwart the bills. But we will not be able to keep it up forever therefore the best action I believe is to honestly stop or at least limit pirating on an individual level.
I'll admit I was a bit of a pirate myself when I was 12 as the opportunity was there. Of course eventually I did get a letter which sort of scared me straight. Oh and I got a job, so pirating was therefore the more inconvenient way to obtain movies & music.
However in order to do such a thing I think it's important to make aware of the legal alternatives out there.
Piracy Alternatives
- Music can be listened to for free via http://pandora.com which has a wonderful selection of radio stations by artist or genre.
- Another great music alternative is http://spotify.com which allows you to build playlists and stream media from their servers.
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Amazon music store http://www.amazon.com/b/?ie=UTF8&node=2658409011&tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=10051401225&ref=pd_sl_6fao23lz18_e which allows you to put your music on servers and play it from anywhere you have an internet connection for $20 a year.
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Hulu has a lot of shows available for free and for a pretty reasonable monthly fee you can access the full library from a plethora of devices.
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Netflix is my personal favorite. With a basic account you will be able to stream a ton of movies to many devices, and rent them via DVD or Bluray directly. The membership is roughly $8 a month which is a bit much but you can always create a family plan and split the costs with some comrades.
Anyway I hope some of these help you or someone reduce the amount of intellectual property theft committed. Doing so will be a solid way to prevent things like SOPA and PIPA form re-appearing that threaten the wonderful world that makes up the internet.