Studios and Samizdat

Just read a couple of great articles on copyright infringment over at forbes.com: You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You and Lies, Damned Lies, and Piracy.

They both mostly cover the same ground: one of the biggest reasons that people use samizdat rather than buy content is because it is easier. The MPAA could build something like Steam or iTunes, and blow giant holes in the number of samizdat downloads. Another is that movies are grossly (and grotesquely) overpriced, both in production and for the end-user. And studios and labels are increasingly profitable, even as samizdat increases.