How To Deal With Piracy: Legislate or Innovate

from the choose-your-own-adventure dept

The entertainment industry's preferred method of battling piracy in the US has been a reactive one, preferring to try to intimidate people through the courtsand push through legislation to protect its interests. But in China, where it's likely those strategies are fruitless, they've been forced -- gasp -- innovate with their products and business models to get around pirates. This includes things like releasing movies on DVD when they open in theaters, selling music over cell phones and focusing on online, rather than hard-copy, video games. What's interesting about this proactive strategy (although it's quite likely many of the record labels and movie studios don't realize it) is that not only does it make pirated goods less attractive and relevant, it also offers new revenue streams to grow their businesses. Fighting piracy through the courts and government merely limits so-called losses. But tackling it by adapting products and business models can actually add to the bottom line as well.