I used to be this guy, i would pirate software, music, tv shows, films, games etc. I did it mainly because it was easy. Innovation has changed my ways, not completely, but mostly.
I no longer pirate music, ive paid for spotify for over 2 years now, i get music wherever i want on any device and its great, i wish they had metallica and acdc but theres youtube for that.
I no longer pirate software, linux got good at "just working" and i've been using ubuntu for years now. I use google docs and other SaaS apps and pay for really good apps like dropbox.
I no longer pirate games, mainly because i'm not much of a gamer, but i have paid for some indie games like SPAZ, Minecraft, QUBE, Darwinia etc because they're indie and the money goes to the developer and the price point is much more reasonable than the big games that come with heavily restrictive DRM.
I still download TV Shows, but not as much as i used to because of BBC iPlayer and similar initiatives, its mainly American TV i download, i've actually no idea if this is illegal or not, considering most of the shows are put on the american networks websites for streaming too.
For films there are LoveFilm, Netflix (now in the UK), iPlayer does some films now as does youtube, but i still think films are the category that is lacking the most, but also a really tough nut to crack, but hell, if it can be done with music, it can be done with films.
So, in my opinion, innovation and me feeling good about giving money to actual people rather than conglomerates is what has stopped me from pirating as much as i used to and thats the key.
Interestingly, I still pirate shows that are available on iPlayer. Simply because the iPlayer experience is inferior to pirating it. Why? Well, let's see...
* iPlayer runs through Flash, it has to because of DRM (the iPhone version gets around this I think). I use a relatively recent Macbook Pro and the playback performance is dreadful. Even on my beasty iMac the HD versions of shows were stuttery at best, so I was forced to use the SD version. Normally I'm quite happy downloading and watching an SD broadcast of a show in full-screen, but in iPlayer the quality of the upscaling is so bad that it's distracting.
* Shows are quite often available on torrent sites before they're available through iPlayer (discounting watching content as it airs), this is especially true of HD content.
* Despite living in London, my internet connection simply isn't reliable enough to handle streaming without occasional buffering, even with SD. So my preferred approach is to download a show rather than stream it. I've generally found that downloading into iPlayer Desktop is slower than using a torrent site. As well as the fact that VLC doesn't eat my CPU like Adobe Air does.
By comparison, I'm a happy customer of Spotify, and I'm more than happy to pay for a video equivalent. I've tried Netflix now that it's out here, but the Silverlight player is as bad as Flash when it comes to CPU usage. The quality of the Netflix streams is pretty poor too, I've yet to manage to get it enable streaming in HD.
The regional licensing is the biggest barrier in my opinion. Germany is even worse than the UK and access to English speaking media is very difficult here. There are no legal outlets.
Frustratingly I would happily pay to access US and UK TV shows in the same way that I pay for music via Spotify, but the media companies aren't interested in taking my money. They are too busy trying to sue us and censor the internet instead.
BBC iPlayer Global is a joke. I have to navigate the Germany Apple Store (in German), sign up for a German iTunes account and my UK issued credit card is refused, even though the billing address held with the credit card company is correctly registered to my German address.
US internet companies struggle with the concepts of locale, language and applicable regional law. The whole issue is complex and nobody gets it right. It is often forgotten that where someone lives is not directly related to the language they speak (or preferred language). I find legally binding terms and conditions hard enough to understand in English, let alone in German. Legally, that is still my problem. Should it be? Do I need to see ads in German Google? Accept Language anyone??? http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14...
I no longer pirate software because I can live with free software or if I really need/want something I guess I could just pay for it. I no longer pirate games because I don't play that much and if I do I mostly play games that are "free to play". Several times a year I buy a "serious" game on steam because it is so easy.
However I still do pirate movies because they are extremely expensive and I know of no way how to watch them online for smaller prices. I still pirate TV shows because there is no way I could watch them otherwise (that I know of at least). Music, well.. much less than I used to.
Luckily it is not illegal to download a movie or a song, but it is still not right. I guess.
I no longer pirate music, ive paid for spotify for over 2 years now, i get music wherever i want on any device and its great, i wish they had metallica and acdc but theres youtube for that.
I no longer pirate software, linux got good at "just working" and i've been using ubuntu for years now. I use google docs and other SaaS apps and pay for really good apps like dropbox.
I no longer pirate games, mainly because i'm not much of a gamer, but i have paid for some indie games like SPAZ, Minecraft, QUBE, Darwinia etc because they're indie and the money goes to the developer and the price point is much more reasonable than the big games that come with heavily restrictive DRM.
I still download TV Shows, but not as much as i used to because of BBC iPlayer and similar initiatives, its mainly American TV i download, i've actually no idea if this is illegal or not, considering most of the shows are put on the american networks websites for streaming too.
For films there are LoveFilm, Netflix (now in the UK), iPlayer does some films now as does youtube, but i still think films are the category that is lacking the most, but also a really tough nut to crack, but hell, if it can be done with music, it can be done with films.
So, in my opinion, innovation and me feeling good about giving money to actual people rather than conglomerates is what has stopped me from pirating as much as i used to and thats the key.