There's another industry bailout in the works right now that you probably haven't heard of. It's the Senate's attempt to make the Department of Justice get heavily involved in the litigation game being played by the RIAA and similar groups, so that they don't bare all of the costs themselves. As Ars Technica puts it:
It's interesting to see how the video game industry is not suffering from the shaky economy, compared to the movie and music industries. No small part of that is the fact that the video game industry provides better value for the price paid. A game that lasts 10 hours and that goes for $60 costs $6/hour of enjoyment; a new Blu-Ray movie at $30 for an average 1.5 hours of play time is $20/hour. Regular DVDs aren't much better, and most CDs are stuffed with filler that few people really even care about. The reason these industries aren't doing well is that they provide a terrible price/value ratio, and a lot of people have wised up and realized that. At 18 hours of game play (1 completed game, 1 game halfway finished) of playing Too Human, I've paid an average of $3.33/hour for the game. By the time I'm done, I expect that to be between $2.25/hour and $2.50/hour.
In polite but unmistakeable language, the Departments of Justice and Commerce yesterday told Congress that the new Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 (EIPRA) was a monstrosity so horrifying that only a stake through the heart of several key provisions could make it palatable. This is the bill, remember, that would give Justice the power to bring civil (not just criminal) lawsuits on behalf of groups like the RIAA, seek "restitution" damages, and then turn the money over to the private groups.The Department of Justice is not exactly known for its tendency to refuse new jurisdictions and police powers. It was a smart move, though, because if this legislation goes through the DoJ will end up having to spend considerable resources to protect private business interests in cases that in a more honest system would be barely actionable offenses. The responsibility rightly rests with the industry trade groups like the RIAA and MPAA because that is one of the key reasons they exist in the first place!
In other words, the DoJ could become a pro bono lawyer for the RIAA, freeing the trade group from all that bad PR and the millions of dollars it has spent filing tens of thousand of lawsuits in the last few years. Plus, the RIAA would still get all the money. Shockingly, the DoJ didn't think this a really good use of taxpayer-funded resources.
It's interesting to see how the video game industry is not suffering from the shaky economy, compared to the movie and music industries. No small part of that is the fact that the video game industry provides better value for the price paid. A game that lasts 10 hours and that goes for $60 costs $6/hour of enjoyment; a new Blu-Ray movie at $30 for an average 1.5 hours of play time is $20/hour. Regular DVDs aren't much better, and most CDs are stuffed with filler that few people really even care about. The reason these industries aren't doing well is that they provide a terrible price/value ratio, and a lot of people have wised up and realized that. At 18 hours of game play (1 completed game, 1 game halfway finished) of playing Too Human, I've paid an average of $3.33/hour for the game. By the time I'm done, I expect that to be between $2.25/hour and $2.50/hour.
And when you've had enough of your game, you can take it to a game store and sell it. You might even find someone willing to trade games with you, making it a two-for-one deal.
RIAA is a cartel, nothing more. Their strategy is to sue anyone and everyone and hope that most of them prefer to settle out of court.
I'm not surprised the Justice Department is a bit leery about taking up the flag for RIAA. If they tried to prosecute or sue every black market uploader, they wouldn't have time or resources for anything else.