Everyone has probably dipped their toe in piracy in some form. It is a crime that never quite gained the shame, guilt, and consequence that record companies and film studios were so desperate at one point to convince the public and lawmakers of.

The streaming era heralded the demise of piracy, at least for casual audiences. The ease of use and access, along with quickly acquired catalogues of media properties presented to the consumer as endless, erased many of the reasons why people turned to piracy in the first place.

But corporate greed and the battle for market share have recreated a lot of the same conditions where piracy once thrived. For film and television, the battle for rights is often an exclusive agreement, meaning having access to everything requires paying subscriptions to multiple services. If you want everything available that you wish to watch, then make sure and subscribe to Disney , Netflix, Max, Apple TV , Hulu, Amazon Prime, and an assortment of others.

It all becomes reminiscent of the expensive and burdensome cable packages that plagued the 2000s. The lessons learned from the past become easily forgotten through the tunnel vision of quarterly profits, and the decisions of media corporations seem to always be taken at the expense of their users.

© Herald Scotland