[SecretDreams]

Yes. Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy. It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others.

Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving.

[fc417fc802]

> It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others.

By which definition they utterly failed.

> Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving.

Not at all. Netflix and Spotify do well because they are a good value proposition for the average customer. Piracy is free at point of "purchase" but is (and always has been) expensive in terms of various sorts of overhead.

[black_knight]

As long as enough people keep the pirate bays open, it will be there as an alternative when the services start their inevitable enshittification.

I for one do not enjoy the “Which service has the classic film I wanted to watch this week?” Nor having to switch services every time I want to see a new TV series.

We need (and have!) similar “free” alternatives to the watermarked generative services. Just like I hate the yellow dots on my printed images, I am not happy to have my creative assets (I do nothing nefarious) stained with SynthID.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy.

But this is moving the goalposts. You can win against piracy either by making piracy less attractive or by making the paid offering more attractive. The first has utterly failed, piracy remains easy as a rule, and to the extent that they've succeeded it's not only disproportionately by doing the second thing, the DRM itself is a net negative because it has such a small effect on the ease of piracy while making the paid offering worse.