The short answer is not to make any movies or games.

If they really wanted to stop it they would go after the companies the make software and hardware that enable people to do such things as crack and rip music and film from DVD or CD's. They've pretty much made it illegal to duplicate any CD or DVD, even for personal use, so why do companies still legally sell things that allow people to so it? Instead of imprisoning and fining kids and people that use torrent sites and stuff, why not do it to those that make it all possible? They'll never stop every illegal downloader, they'll never stop every torrent or rip site, but they could easily go after the companies producing the software and hardware that make it possible..but they don't do that...why? Money.

How about making the damn things a little cheaper for the working class so that we can afford them instead of being money-grubbing assholes about it?

Well first, what is the comparison of costs of production to current income? If they weren't making enough as it is, they wouldn't keep making movies and games. Second, do the benefits of taking further precautions against piracy outweigh the costs it would take to implement such measures?

They CLAIM that they do. However the figures they quote are deeply flawed. The way they calculate it is to consider every downloaded movie/game as a lost sale at full retail price. However many people who do these downloads, download FAR more than they would buy if they had to pay the full price. It's impossible to calculate what the percentage is, but it's definitely not 100%. As for how to combat it, in the case of movies all they have to do is stay ahead of the game. Give people a reason to go to the cinema. Back when TVs were a grainy, black-and-white affair, going to the cinema was a major outing for the family. Today people have large format, high definition flat TVs or projectors, surround sound and microwave popcorn at home. Why take the trouble to drive to the cinema, pay exorbitant prices for the snacks and drinks, when their home entertainment system offers something almost just as good? But what if the cinema industry decided to make ALL movies 3D? Now that's something I can't get at home. It would make going to the cinema an exciting prospect all over again. And, as a side benefit, 3D movies cannot be recorded with a video camera in the auditorium. It would take years for the home entertainment industry to catch up, by which time they might have taken the next step - maybe the ground will shake during epic battles, and the audience will be able to smell the gunpowder. And another thing: They mustn't wage war on the internet. If they don't want people to turn to illegal means to acquire what they want, they must be proactive and provide people with a legal way to do it, at a reasonable price, otherwise someone will step in to provide a supply to meet the demand.

I would like to point out that they do not, in fact lose billions of dollars but instead fail to gain billions of dollars. There is no guarantee, though, that the people buying or making pirated editions would spend the money to buy the given movie or game if they had to pay full price.

The movie and video game industries don't lose ANYTHING from piracy, which has been shown time and again. They are just lost in a new economy, refusing to adapt to the times, and expect the government to prop up and business model that is outdated so they don't have to change with the times.

They need to make a better and updated version of Pirates! for online play on all consoles with various different activities to partake in.

This is almost entirely the media's fault. They charge more for video games now than at any other period in history. A X-Box 360 or a PS3 costs more than a Neo-Geo did when they came out - remember Neo-Geo - of course you don't, because no one had them, because they were too damned expensive. You ha to beg Daddy for an NES; like Hell you were getting a Neo-Geo. Video game companies spend too much money on titles that never sell and therefore they have to charge a lot of all of them to recoup losses from crappy games. So, video games are too expensive, ergo piracy. . Movies are just a rediculous mess. First of all, most of the good piracy - not those crappy NYC bootlegs from a theatre - I'm talking real deal DVD copies - happens in southeast Asia more than anywhere. Why? Part of it is that they don't have the money to buy a real DVD of the movie. The bigger part is that these movies will come out in the theater August 2008, be on DVD in the USA Christmas 2008, but not be on DVD in Asia for at least another year. Europe and the States gets DVD at the same time, a few months after box offices stop showing it; Asia has to wait a year or longer for it. But they saw it - they liked it - they want it - why wouldn't someone order an overseas DVD and re-copy it to sell in Asia? This is also a reason that most Asian DVD players have no region coding. The poor marketing of DVDs to most of the planet is the reason so much piracy happens. . Music? Well, we've been ripping off music since forever. Nobody used to freak out when we recorded a movie on HBO or some radio broadcast of a song; now we've got artists striking so they can have a platinum-plated shark tank in their bathroom instead of the gold-plated one. I personally got sick of paying $15 for albums that had a couple of good songs - the days of "great albums" are long gone, and we can thank the radio's compulsion to get 3-minute songs to play between the commercials. These people tried to stuff this crap down our throat, all-the-while stuffing their pockets as much as possible, and when the people they were exploiting got sick of it and said, "You can Napster deez nuts," they ran and cried to the government that it wasn't fair. It's insane. . I'll pirate forever. I download all the new TV you watch in the USA - House, LOST, Prison Break, etc. - but why do I do this? Because the streaming from abc.com, cbs.com, fox.com, etc. only streams in the USA (and sometimes Europe - sound familiar?!!). This means that in order to watch the TV I so miss, I have to be on Limewire 24/7 downloading TV like a crack addict. I have a Terabyte hooked up to my TV that just runs a cycle of American TV, because the TV in Taiwan sucks. If they didn't put me in that position - if I could just stream an watch them as I wanted - I wouldn't pirate them. They created this problem and I have decided to create my own solution instead of waiting for them to pull their heads out of their asses.