TPB is just a forum where people post links.

So is Legaltorrents. Hrm, I wonder why TPB is on trial and Legaltorrents is not...

I think you read the comment that you expected to read, not the comment that I actually wrote.

Yes, after reading your reply to mine you do appear to be on point.

My apologies, it's just that /. is so filled with people with such juvenile attitudes towards piracy that you're right, it WAS what I expected to read.

Ok, then your solution is?

Don't pirate and don't show your support for piracy-backed causes. You can't control how everyone else behaves, but just because others don't compensate content makers in exchange for the ability to enjoy said content doesn't mean that it gives you an excuse to do the same thing. And just because you aren't satisfied with conditions X, Y and Z that the content is licensed to you isn't an excuse to pirate either, you can either play by their rules or take your ball and go home. It's their content, not yours.

Piracy isn't going away, if its a real problem then the solution is to change the business model. Its the only solution. You cannot stop piracy. It doesn't matter how wrong, immoral, whatever you may think it is, the fact remains it is not going away.

Of course their business models will change because of how big piracy is these days. However, you seem to make the assumption that it will change for the better. What will you do when games are done with mass appeal in mind so they can recoup the most from piracy losses? And then treat the PC as a second class citizen to further limit their losses? Or store so much on a remote server that it can't possibly be emulated as is the case of MMORPG's? Or if your favorite PC publishers close up shop or go multi-platform with gimped PC ports because their game was so widely pirated on PC they felt burned (see: Crytek, Epic)?

The tiny fraction of the market that can pirate will continue to do so, regardless of the measures taken against it.

And said hardcore gamer/tech savvy gamers will find less and less games targeted at them. As mentioned before, there's your shift in the market you so badly wanted, make games so casual or server-oriented enough that losses from piracy are kept proportionally at a minimum.

You seem to have the misguided belief that people who download media content would have otherwise purchased it.

You seem to have the misguided belief that people who aren't willing to pay for media content are still somehow entitled to it.

I think it does in aggregate. I know that for plenty of things I've pirated, I've ended up generating revenue for the people involved. For instance, I pirate a lot of books. If I like a book and it's something I think I'll want later, I'll go out and buy the dead tree version.

You are in the minority. Loss of revenue to piracy is a real problem and trying to justify piracy by saying that you ended up buying the product later isn't an excuse.

I think it's time for darknets.

Or time to...you know...start paying for software.

Google and every other search engine would be equally culpable.

Why do you think that Pirates Bay is on trial and Google isn't? Pirates bay specializes in piracy, Google only snaps up those links because it's indiscriminate about what it indexes.

1. Computer-based OCR already has trouble reading reCAPTCHA submissions.

2. Even if reCAPTCHA is being defeated by real humans, they are at least contributing to something worthwhile at the same time.

Because it's already installed, and the amount of time and money that could be spent figuring out how to remove the DRM cleanly from their own products without introducing potential new attack vectors into the DRM itself isn't worth it to most publishers.

And who says that they ever want to remove DRM? You don't see them removing Steam's DRM from Half Life, do you, and it's over 10 years old.

M$ lost quiet alot of their userbase to Apple & Linux, will they get those users to switch back for Windows 7??

Since when is a small fraction (Linux) and a larger fraction, but still not anything in the enterprise world (Mac) 'quiet alot'?