People "in general" don't want to steal. They're happy to generally pay for something, given that its price intellectually/intuitively feels somewhat justified.

With the advent of digital and globalization, Content publishers have wet dreams when they project their old business model onto the new potential audience. Obviously, it's encountering issues.
The market is enormous, but the price, availability, and (lack of/DRM) ease of use of the legitimate version is prohibitive compared to the ease of use and availability of free pirated versions.

I spend much time in the Philippines, where locals routinely spend 30 pesos (~65 cents) buying pirated dvd's of widely varying qualities. From good dvd-quality screener copies, to horrible in-theater recordings with coughs, people standing up in middle of screen, and poorly synced bad-quality sound.
While they don't have to pay for the making of the movie, they still have to pay for the printing of the CD, creation and printing of a jacket and cd-box, multiple layers of distribution etc. And still make enough of a profit to justify the risks. 65 cents covers all that it seems.
And Filipinos are very poor, yet still are willing to pay a little for entertainment.

Sell movies online between $0.5 and $2 with no/minimal DRM depending on quality/popularity/whatever, and millions/billions will buy rather than pirate. Sell a collector's edition in stores for $30 if you like (With no DRM at that point, since it won't be needed) for those that want/like a physical version.
Offer monthly download/streaming subscriptions Netflix-style for $10/$20/$30 with the best stuff available first in the $30's. Again, no real DRM needed.

Same for music. Make it a few cents instead of a dollar, and you'll find that a whole lot more people don't mind paying for an actual music collection.

In either case, a tidy profit will -still- be made. Not to mention how much MORE can then be made from the derivatives when you tell ad execs that yeah, that 60 cents movie was purchased by 1.3 BILLION people actually. With a neat breakdown in metrics by country, age group and whatever else you make customers fill-out when they sign up.

Books are a bit more tricky. A song takes 5 min to listen to. A movie 2hrs to watch. A book is more in the 5 to 20+ hrs range and is a significant time investment on the reader's part.
I know I skip a lot of free books, even though they're easy to get from Amazon for my Kindle, just because I'm not interested. A good book is worth a good bit more to me than a good movie, but a bad book is worth a whole lot less than a bad movie. So prices ranging from a few cents (you can get the book for a song!) to $6 ?

Studios are trying to make orders of magnitude more $, without providing that much more -value-.
The market is dramatically larger, distribution is dramatically cheaper, prices -should- be dramatically lower. THAT is why people pirate.

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www.gamersloot.net: Gametime cards, Cd keys and game news. No gold sorry!

Considering how many people (me included!) still occasionally whip out D2 for some fun, I -do- expect that this will be HUGE. Enormous really (http://www.gamersloot.net preorder your copy now ;) ).

I was quite disappointed I couldn't get my gf interested because the graphics were so dated for her (ah the young generation!).

I know that we're -still- selling keys for D2 and expansion to this day, and expect we'll keep selling more until D3 is out (and maybe after??).

I'm actually pretty astounded at the fact that Bliz not only supported the game this long, but actually continued -development- for it for over 10 years!! Do you know -any- other "pay-once-and-get-forgotten" games that get patches and actual new CONTENT 10 years later?? (from developers that is, am sure there are plenty still supported by fans/mods) It's hard enough to get devs to fix a few of the more egregious bugs after launch.

I tried torchlight, and it was ok for a while. But just... not the same.

I think I'll start yet another sorc now actually... 'later ;)

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http://www.gamersloot.net/

I moved away from XP about 4 years ago. I wanted a laptop that just -worked-, and the low quality buggy, virused windows machines definitely weren't it. I didn't want to tinker forever with linux, so had to wait until the business could afford a mac (http://www.gamersloot.net , get your Cataclysm key early to beat the rush ;) ). Burning crusade came out, business was good, and off I switched.

Have loved my mac ever since, great support, and the software pretty much just... works. But. I am worried about the direction Apple is heading in. Picked up an ipod since there wasn't(isn't?) much else out there. However when phones came out, I couldn't justify the lock-in of the iphone. Bid my time and jumped on the Nexus one when it came out. Love it.
Interface ease of use is pretty much the same as my gf's Iphone (yeah I know, i'm a reformed geek... don't wanna tinker with linux and have a gf!), yet I don't need to worry that google is going to take away functionalities from it. (And for books, sorry but nothing beats the Kindle. Still using my 1st gen and loving it =b)

Enters Chrome OS. I'm guessing it'll be a -whole lot- cheaper than a macbook/pro and that... it'll work. Employees in the philippines will be able to use those without worrying about the ubiquitous viruses passed on by friends and anyone that plugs in a USB.

The question is, (similar to Android's speedy rise?) how long before Chrome OS is popular and mature enough that all basic/popular programs are available on it? (YM, Skype, image/video tools, games etc). Couple years?

Not in a hurry to move from my M.Pro, but heartened to see Google entering the space. I expect it's just a question of time. While it's easy to criticize, I sure have appreciated Goggle's approach to most things a whole lot more than Microsoft, or even more recently Apple.

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http://www.gamersloot.net/

Many posters rail at "virtual" currency and indicate it is bogus because you can't pay your taxes with WoW gold, or trade it on FOREX.

I would encourage those slashdotters to check up on Philippines Pesos, or even Chinese Yuan.

1) AFAIK You can't pay your taxes in any currency but the legal tender of said country (Euro is an official currency, but can't pay your US taxes with those)
2) You can't exchange certain country's currencies on the FOREX market. If you have Philippine Pesos, you can pretty much only exchange them for something else (including another currency) in the Philippines.

The only difference with most game currency is that those exchanges are not overseen by the "government" (game company), but done on a black market. If Blizz "prints" lots of money (or there is a dupe), value will go down fast. It's happened in many games. A sudden crackdown on gold farmers will drive currency value up. Same with a new expensive gold sink.

With your Chinese Yuan, you can get services in China only. With your WoW gold you can get services in WoW only. I'm pretty sure there's a market for wow gold in nearly every country out there. Likely easier to monetize that, if you really wanted to, than some leftover Chinese yuans you might find in a drawer...

There is well enough activity and services available in MMO's that a lot of those currencies have "real" value and something like an exchange rate. I don't see where the issue is with that though. When you've paid $10 to watch a movie in a theater, you only have the experience of it left afterwards. if you pay $10 to get some wow gold and get a flying mount, you get an experience as well.

Disclaimer: I own http://www.gamersloot.net/ and we -used- to offer in-game gold/services a long while back (now mostly just cd-keys)

Considering how many people were using companies like http://www.gamersloot.net/ to get characters leveled for them as they didn't want to have to click too much, i don't see this becoming too common! =b Then again, maybe that's why those guys dropped the PL thing and just offer keys and such now. Pushed out of a business because gamers became fitness addicts? Who'd have thought!

Actually... I did sign a California house purchase digitally using Docusign, doing it all remotely from the Philippines. It didn't include a mortgage, but I was nonetheless rather impressed.