As long as there has been media, there has been ways to record/copy and share it. When there was radio, people were making recordings. With VHS, people were recording TV shows. When cassette tapes came around, people were making copies and sharing it. The same with CDs. The same with DVDs. If you went to a market, you could almost guarantee that you'd find someone selling pirated media. With the increase in internet speeds (both upload and download), sharing media digitally was even more viable. In the early 2000s you had Usenet, eMule, eDonkey, Kazzaa, Napster, Limewire, and the start of torrents which all allowed people to find what they wanted, and share what they already had. Even software that had DRM (Digital Rights Management - read more here) succumbed to being pirated as teams developed around the purpose of creating cracks for the software to bypass protections.
Gabe Newell (Valve Co-Founder and Steam CEO) said in 2011 that piracy is not a pricing problem, rather it is a service one (source) and I somewhat agree. That said, I do think there are two types of customers who pirate. The customer who couldn't afford it in the first place, and the customer who would buy it if there were no issues with purchasing it.
Now, the customer who can't afford it (from poorer countries, low income households, kids, and students) will always pirate, regardless of price and service. They don't have the disposable income to afford it, but people will always need distractions (before anyone jumps in about how those people should work 24/7 to improve their conditions, go watch The Shining) and will find them however they can. These customers will not be converted regardless of service as their problem is personal. There is no lost revenue here as they never would have purchased to begin with.
I believe instead the customer we should be concentrating on is the one which has the ability to purchase as their issues are solvable. In the mission to solve these service issues by creating streaming platforms and digital stores, a new problem has emerged which I'd like to call 'the platforms problem'. This is in reality a service problem, but slightly more specific.
When Netflix came around as a streaming platform, I jumped on it instantly. I thought it was the best thing going, being able to watch films and TV shows while commuting and at home. As long as I had an internet connection, I had the ability to be entertained. It was great. Not only that, but Netflix had a strong library of content. Very quickly though I saw a problem. Because of licensing issues, the content in the UK was limited and to get around this, I had to use a VPN. I had to hop around various US and European endpoints to be able to watch what I wanted (for example, when I went on a horror movie binge, Sweden's Netflix library was far better than the UK and US). This in itself wasn't too bad as I was still able to watch everything on a single platform, just with another step.
Through a combination of Netflix removing content and licensing deals expiring, more content started disappearing with the content replacing it not being of the same caliber. In the UK right now, The Wire is not on any streaming platforms. Your only option is to buy it on Amazon Video, costing you £120 right now, or the same as Netflix Full HD for a year which is crazy. On Apple, it costs £70 which is far more reasonable but this now introduces the platforms problem. The platforms problem is where the content you have access to is distributed across multiple platforms and trying to watch it wherever you want, however you want could involve jumping through multiple hoops. All of a sudden, getting a VPN and looking for a torrent site is far more appealing. Especially if you combine that with an inexpensive (£80) Plex server allowing you to stream the content you have.
I appreciate I'm glossing over several other scenarios and reasons which contribute to piracy (also ignoring people just not wanting to spend money). I am working with broad strokes here, showing the issue for the masses and not going in-depth to solve the outlier issues.
Is There A Solution?
Yes and no. There will always be piracy in some form. People will always want something for nothing. That said, can we solve the platforms problem? I think there is a solution. The solution does involve creating another platform (ever heard of the standards problem?) That, instead of the platform curating the content, its submitted. On top of that, as the platform users' pay a monthly fee (for a set amount of hours per month with more available), after costs for the platform itself, the money should then be distributed based on watch times.
This has potential to work as mass storage is at the cheapest it's ever been. If the studio who submits their work pays for the nominal costs of storage, they have a platform to showcase their work and be paid for it. The more it's watched, the more they earn. Which also pushes them to concentrate on marketing and pushing their own content, without having to worry about the platform. Not only is it reasonable for the studios (as they don't have to worry about working on and providing their own platform), it works well for the customers too as there's the potential for it to have all the content they want in one place which lets them watch it how they want and when.
As long as the platform itself isn't too greedy (people are the biggest problem, as noted somewhat in my other post Pitchfork Mentality) and works to make things better for both sides, there is opportunity in my eyes. Granted it is not fully fleshed out and explored.