Perhaps so, but how to do it without angering people who want to stop piracy but not if it becomes inconvenient for them in the process?
The trouble is partly hardened criminals but also finding yet another balance between enforcing the protection with enough people and working hard to prevent turning everything into a police state by having people continually watched to make sure they don’t ‘break curfew’. When 16 year old is stealing cars he or she will not say to their ‘pals’ they have to stop because it’s 11:00 pm and curfew time and if they are out stealing cars most likely their parents won’t notice they are missing either, and such an area probably falls under the profile of high crime, low civic involvement and overworked police force, so the solution is not simply to make a rule those not committing the crime already probably follow out of fear of their own safety and those already committing one crime will not suddenly follow and lack of enforcement allows them to continue to break curfew as the police are more worried about car thefts then a few 16 year olds that might actually just be breaking curfew.
Similarly when thinking of piracy and as I mentioned at the start of this post, to stop it must be in a way that those that support stopping it will not find themselves inconvenienced by or they might not support the method. Those pirating are probably doing it in their homes and not at a library computer, so they are where they are not seen because thankfully “Big Brother” is not (yet at least) in our homes. So it is harder to monitor what means they are using and how skilled these people really are, or if it is just techonology advancing in the means that the ability to pirate outstrips the ability to protect against pirating. Nevertheless, you’re right making it harder to pirate will stop some of these people.
Regardless, I think enforcement of already existing rules is perhaps the key. However, once again how to do that while keeping the balance between enforcing the laws and not having a police state “Big Brother” watching everywhere including the internet?
Or perhaps more serious and a different way of educating about the harm of pirating rather then a lot of what these companies have now which even sometimes makes me slightly sympathetic toward the pirates (for about two seconds) even as I stand against pirating.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 02-24-2004).]