Wow.

They go on to cite many cool statistics and tell fun stories (read about it on ars technica), but they leave out a very important question: Would the people who are pirating these movies go to them in the first place?

Seriously, would they? I’ve known people who might download a movie to check it out, but they would never pay money for it, so are these really dollars that the movie industry can honestly say that they have lost? Or are they just hoping against hope to get people to stop pirating?

They should look at this from a different perspective. Honestly, people are going to pirate movies, music and other things — people have been pirating things for thousands of years. What the movie industry should do, instead of spending money look at how much money they’re losing is to spend that money to look at piracy from a different angle.

How can the movie industry live with piracy? What can they do to shift the paradigm in their favor? That, my friends, is the real question.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the games and have been since I was a very little kid (my father always loved them, so I grew up with it…plus, it didn’t help that I loved the movie The First Olympics, check it out), but watching it has always been a bit of a problem.

I remember in 1992 when NBC finally started getting better coverage than just showing it at 8pm every night. Since then, they have increased their programming. In fact, now they’re promising huge coverage, including online. Though, for the exciting events that people are dying to watch, those will get delayed three hours.

To fix this problem, NewTeeVee has come up with a few different techniques for people to watch the Games: p2p streaming, live video sites, YouTube, torrent sites and foreign TV. Now, as to the details on how to get those working for you, go check out the article.

As for me, I remember watching some of the Euro Cup this year on TVU Player — was it good? Not really. Did it satisfy my Euro desires? Oh yes. I got to watch the games, for free even. Which is exactly what good pirating is all about!

That’s right, we’re not talking about piracy from the 1700s here, we’re talking about piracy, running rampant in 2008. How rampant? The Piracy Reporting Centre (that’s right, they have a whole piracy reporting center!) of the International Maritime’s Bureau reported that there were 49 attacks within the first three months of 2008, which is 8 more than the 41 reported during the same period in 2007.

Would the pirates of old be proud of the work that these modern pirates are doing? Well, now that’s an interesting question now isn’t it?

The word alone strikes a chord with people. Everyone’s imaginations start flooding with pictures of movies and buccaneers on the Spanish Main during the early 18th century. Is that really all there is to piracy? Can it so easily be summed up in a Bruckheimer movie or two?

Hell no.

Piracy didn’t die when we hit the modern age — it just changed shaped. Don’t get me wrong, there are still people who commit piracy on the sea. However, there are so many different ways to pirate these days that to confine it to such a small definition would do pirates everywhere a disservice.

We’ll have to explore everything pirate related. Such as, what were the former codes of ethics for pirates (was there really a pirate code?)? Are there any modern iterations of such a code? Are there really modern-day pirates? Does everyone who is a pirate have to be on the water? What different types of pirates are there?

Stay tuned and these and many other questions will get answered. Not only that, but you’ll start seeing pirates everywhere, because they are everywhere, you just need to know where to look.

-verb used with object
5. to commit piracy upon; plunder; rob.
6. to take by piracy: to pirate gold.
7. to use or reproduce (a book, an invention, etc.) without authorization or legal right: to pirate hit records.
8. to take or entice away for one’s own use: Our competitor is trying to pirate our best salesman.

-verb used without object
9. to commit or practice piracy.