I know this probably won't get read and I will get a lot of flack for this, but I'm not the only one who thinks this way. In fact, there is even something called the "pirate party" that has several seats in European congresses that share my same mentality and philosophy.

It's called the free sharing of culture. And that's what movies, music, video games, images, artwork, etc are. They are culture. The idea of intellectual property is wrong. In "piracy" nothing is stolen. It's copying. Copying is not theft. No one is deprived of anything they own.

Before anyone jumps the gun. I am actually a creator of...well creative things, images, entertainment, etc. I'm in that business...in fact it's my career. And it's been quite successful so far and I give away all my content for free. There's a lot of ways to make money give away your product for free.

Piracy (free sharing of culture) is what creates the perfect level playing field. It turns the market for culture into one where people pay to support the creators they love and for what they want to see created, instead of paying to be allowed to access existing culture as passive consumers. It is completely fair. So prime example of these things are:

-James Rolfe, The AVGN, raised money to shoot his AVGN movie. -The Oatmeal (Comic artist) was able to raise over a million dollars to save the Nikola Tesla museum -The Cheetahmen 2 Fundraiser Project (although admittedly controversial.)

I love the idea of crowd funding. Culture and the people dictate what is made and created. This has been massively successful for a lot of different mediums and creators and now we're seeing it leak over into the larger industries. E.G. music industry (musicians are now abandoning the record label and becoming widely successful on their own terms. I don't think I need to explain to you how much a musician makes off each CD they sell or song they sell at the iTunes store.

Why deny people who don't plan on paying for your content anyway, access to it? If I enjoy your work, I'll donate money, I'll buy it legitimately, etc. because I want to see more of it.

Preventing me from accessing "illegal" content doesn't suddenly make me buy your product. You just lose any chance of my business later. I won't watch/listen/play your content, I won't be sharing it with my friends, wearing a t-shirt advertising it, I won't be visiting your website seeing adverts, and I won't go to your live show if you're a musician, or your booth at a convention if you are a gaming company, etc.

Again, piracy isn't theft. Not too long ago we had records in which we played our music from. When you bought a record, you could give it to your friend, you could resell it in a garage sale, you could lend it out to someone you know, you could sell it back to the record store after you grew tired of it so that you could buy new records, etc, etc. It's a physical product. You can do none of this with music you buy from iTunes, you can do none of this with most digital products. I don't believe this should be so. You bought it, you should be able to do with it what you like.

Culture finally has the power to make stars out of ordinary people and give them success. This is a threat to the corporate entities that run some of these industries. They cling to an ancient business model that just doesn't fit with today's modern world.

Censorship and laws will never prevent "pirates" be denied the media and content they desire. Anti-piracy legislation doesn't work. Censor a website? 2 more take its place or use a proxy, VPN, connect directly to the IP of the website, use an underground internet connection. Even if the ISPs get on board with this. Like you said, pirates will never go away, don't fight us.

I'll be a pirate always.

Well even though it worked well for Itunes, it doesnt mean that there is something that could be done to reduce the cost that much for video games. Games take way more effort and money to make and I do not believe that digital distribution is going to be the answer for consoles ever.

I believe that we will go to streaming games first, although I dont even believe that we will get there. All of this is just speculation and frankly I have seen no evidence that suggests digital distribution will be embraced by consoles, or that it will significantly cut the costs of production. Yes I know that the companies dont have to make boxes, DVDs and pay for shipments, but the price of that is much smaller than the actual production costs of the game, the actual rendering, scripting, game design, voice acting, scoring.

Honestly I really think people who believe this are off the mark. Just because it is what PC games have embraced does not mean that console games will do the same.

I think that game companies should just bite the bullet and take these things into account in their costs. Every business does this. Do you think that a retail store does not take into account inventory shrink from theft in its operation? Well they do and so should game companies. Trying to get an oppressive law passed when all they need to do is prosecute these things as normal theft is just asinine.

Also, the argument could be made that they chose a business that is increasingly being treated as an art form. People are not denied the free access to books at the library nor are they kept from masterpieces in museums, yet if they wanted to experience the artistic nature of games, they would not be able to. I think this is just what legislators had in mind when they put the fair use clause on copyright law. These laws are to prevent other people from saying they created your work, not to ensure that the companies get every cent they feel they deserve. I'll be glad when the fakers and IP thieves leave. That doesnt mean that the federal government needs to protect private companies' profit margins.

If I could give this a standing ovation somehow, I would. Bob, this is the first truly objective response to SOPA that I have come across. Unlike the droves of whiners who hated the bill just because they knew they wouldn't be able to download movies for free anymore, you acknowledge and analyze both sides of the argument using human psychology as your driving evidence.

I also enjoy that rather than go into the technicalities of the bill, you instead discuss the issues it is meant to address, which is not going away regardless of future legislation for the internet.

All this piracy law stuff is BS because it will never stop it. The only thing that may actually have an effect is countries where stolen intellectual property is owned issuing massive fines to the countries that do the pirating (we all know who the biggest offenders are) with the penalty that trade between the countries will end if the fines are paid. It would require getting estimated values of pirated merchandise so that the money from paid fines could be allocated in proportion to the companies that have their IP stolen. It would force the countries where the biggest piracy takes place to crack down on it.

Going after the consumers of pirated stuff will never work. You have to go after the source.

Many game companies and TV Stations or people who make stuff for TV ALREADY do digital distribution, and I wouldn't be suprised if there was a way to buy movies digitally from the source and not something like netflix or blockbuster.

The regional availability is however still an issue. Though there are people like Toei who released english officially subtitled versions of their anime. Digimon Adventure 02 is available on many digital video markets and Xros Wars: The young hunters who leaped through time is on crunchyroll for free with limited commercials.

Very intelligent discussion as usual! :)

Nice episode, good to know that the Internet WILL change, hopefully for the better, and by people who actually KNOW what they're talking about, and AREN'T complete hypocrites (Mr. Lamar Smith! >:( ). Great episode!

Also, down with ACTA, like everyone said.

Down with ACTA!

I grew old of Piracy of games and music, so I tend to buy what I can. However I still pirate my materials that are not...wait, never be available in the states! I am in a minority where it will destroy a culture here in the states, one example is the tokusatsu fanbase. Tokusatsu is basically to US know it best is Power Rangers, but the original is the Super Sentai series. We can't get other series such as Kamen Rider series which I love, to pay for materials like this is hard just like a import game. Plus there is no subtitle and lived on watching anime in subs and there are people who do that and I can enjoy watching a series I love. Second, the music in them are great as well for me to listen and the import for a huge amount for little amount of songs sucks. Luckly like you said, iTunes have remedy a bit cause they have the intro songs of the Super Sentai(Look it up, it is there on iTunes) in their library and available in the states, however, they don't have all songs of the series such as OST. If fan subs go down, it's a big slap to the face to me, and why you ask? The company TOEI is the company owns the series and they have a youtube page avaiable(http://www.youtube.com/user/TOEIcojp?feature=g-user-a) to watch their series on it. But when I try to access it, it gives me a page saying it's not available to me cause I live in the states and it's unfair for me as a fan. But the biggest insult I can say is they do have few videos that promote a movie available and the example is their latest movie, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs Space Sheriff Gavan(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1nE6dkMIs&feature=channel_video_title) . A movie where I can't watch it in the states yet your allowing me to see promos of it but also having it translated in English by YouTube's Closed Captioning...you can see how enraged that clean up of Piracy will destroy a minority of people's lives. I agree that Piracy is a issue that has to be resolved but the minority of those who have to pirate materials they can't get in the states is the one voice no one will hear and it will be severely damaged greatly.