I think we have all been missing the point on piracy, I don't think it ever was a matter of morality or property, I think it's a simple power struggle among consumers and companies.

But let me elaborate. I think most of us tend to believe in "voting with your wallet", which would mean we, the consumers, are in control of the companies, if they shit on us we can stop buying their product, if the market doesn't want something it will be rejected. But after a great post by a random anon a few days ago and some reading on the matter I don't believe that anymore.

Now I think companies tend to shake hands and work with one another more often than they try to compete with one another. For example there is a general understanding among companies that price wars are bad, so if competitors can agree to offer the same sub-par service for the same high price your only choice as a consumer to protest that would be to exit the market altogether. Very few people are willing to go that far so they take far more shit than they normally would.

Think about boycotts, in which cases they succeed and in which cases they fail. The rule seems to be that you can boycott a single rogue company and force change, but you can never boycott an industry wide trend and make it go away.

That's why we have laws against false advertising, antitrust, first sale, price dumping and consumer protection laws in general. The free market is just incapable of regulating itself like the manifesto says.

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