The following is adapted and expanded from some comments I left on Cranach: The Blog of Veith‘s post on Wikipedia going dark yesterday.

As many others have pointed out, there are many better solutions to piracy than those proposed by PIPA and SOPA. One of these solutions is to address the root issues of much of the piracy that goes on: the absolutely backwards systems that the content-publishers themselves have created, systems that inconvenience only the people who actually care about copyright. The only people who respect the inane digital rights management systems present on most DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs are people who already care about copyright laws. The people who intend to pirate will do so. The real question is whether a media publisher’s policies make it so difficult to use the content one has purchased that piracy begins to appear a reasonable alternative.

Consider: music piracy dropped significantly after the launch of the iTunes store. Why? Because people could get the music they wanted in digital form easily and inexpensively. It didn’t need to be free; it just needed to be convenient, relatively inexpensive, and follow the distribution model – digital downloads – that now ruled the day. The same is true of movies. Digital copy protection on disks, a half dozen unskippable commercials before the content actually plays, etc… these don’t actually stop pirates or significantly increase the profits of the publishers, but they do frustrate people to the point that many people are tempted to “pirate” content they would not otherwise. Why in the world should I not be able to copy a movie I purchased from the DVD to my computer? Yet that is the case with most video content out there. (One number nobody on the content side wants to publish or even think about is this: how many “pirated” copies are just people downloading a copy of something they already own because they don’t want to have to deal with the enormous hassles involved in dealing with the copy they do own? The number is higher than you’d think.)

So one of the best ways to defeat piracy – and publishers who have embraced this mentality have already reaped the rewards – is to make content relatively inexpensive and readily available in the channels people want. If I buy a Blu-ray, give me the digital copy. Some publishers have started doing this, but most of them have still imposed absurd restrictions that make it difficult to access that content, including arcane registration and management systems, time limits on the availability of the digital download, etc. Take that away, and people will see far more value in your product. Leave it there, and people are far more likely to think, “Look, I already bought this. I’m just going to download it from somewhere that’s less of a hassle.”

Similarly, many content producers are trying frantically to limit access to their content – but this again has the exact opposite effect intended. When a major broadcast network delays the availability of its shows on its website for a week, piracy skyrockets. They want to push people to watch the show on their televisions when it airs – but this is no longer how people interact with content. When, instead, the content is readily available immediately, piracy drops. People don’t want to pirate, generally speaking. They just want to watch the content – so give it to them!

Look: I’ll pay for Hulu Plus if I can get the content I want on it. That money then goes back to the people making it. But I’m not going to pay for it if you refuse to publish your content there because you can’t imagine most of your money on a TV show not coming from DVD sales. But wait – ten years ago, you didn’t want to sell DVDs because you thought you’d never make money on them, and you worried that people would watch them instead of watching whatever your current show on television is. In another decade, digital distribution is going to be far and away the primary means by which people get their content. The only question is who will be profiting from those downloads.

The reality is that old ways of protecting content are dead. Digital distribution is in. Your content will be distributed digitally. If you don’t do it, someone else will – they’ll digitize it, and they’ll make it available for others. The best way to make money off your product is to beat them to the punch. Get your product out there, and make it easy for people to get to. Then ask them to pay a bit so you can keep giving it to them. Guess what? They will!

For more reading, see “SOPA, Internet regulation, and the economics of piracy” at Ars Technica.