Don't Block Our Torrents!

On MSNBC, I read an article about Comcast blocking some internet traffic. Tests show that Comcast is interfering with some peer to peer (p2p) network traffic. While I'll admit a lot of p2p traffic is of copyrighted material, it does have its major uses as well. For instance, pretty much all Linux Distributions can be acquired from a p2p network (usually through torrents). Internet companies should stay competitive, and neutral on data. Don't think for a moment that internet companies aren't being pressured by media companies either. I tend to rant about the media companies "not getting it". So here it goes.

Torrents provide a way for anyone, especially "the little guy" to provide content to others, while avoiding high costs of servers and bandwidth. Torrents are one of those revolutionary ways of distributing files, and I think some people just can't grasp it.

One way for media companies to avoid many illegal downloads would be to provide a legal way of obtaining them. Of course, the prices should be void of any manufacturing, shipping, or packaging costs. The media companies that have tried to digitally distribute content can't seem to grasp this. Other than ease of use, why should you have to pay full price for half a product, when everyone else can get it with packaging? And, especially when a torrent of the full, non-protected content is a search away.

You must overlook the people who say, "Well, then get up and go buy it". These people can't seem to grasp the idea. Look at it this way. In a brick and mortar store, would you normally sell a product to someone at the normal sale price, even if it was missing its packaging or damaged? Any legitimate store would be negotiable with such an item. The damage in this case would be the extreme DRM (digital rights management).

So take this in mind next time you set prices on digital media:
"Digital Media = Open Box Content. Price accordingly."