So you have a new colony world. It’s little over forty-sixty years old. Second or third generation. But you need more than a mule and an acre of land for modern or future colonists. You’ll need entertainment. You’re colony will have an Internet and folks will want something to look at when the robot is done plowing the north forty.
Initially, the colony will be totally dependent on entertainment brought to the colony by supply ships. And depending on various things, those ships might show up once every two to three years. Also, is the colony a “chartered” colony run by the home world, a corporate colony, or an independent?
The first two, there’s an entertainment budget and a committee dedicated to acquiring the latest vids, e-mags, and other forms of entertainment. And they cost money. Depending on the colony size, you’re either buying rebroadcast rights or buying individual copies for everyone in the colony. Neither is cheap, so only those shows that don’t have high ratings, or were popular 10 years ago are affordable. Books and games also have the same problem, though a “digital” library is viable and doesn’t have the problems movies and series have in terms of licensing.
And this happens because “Hollywood” or it’s equivalent, believes that piracy is not possible on the colonies. Like a lot of entertainment executives, they lack imagination.
The most common form of piracy is “intentional inattentiveness”. Independent cargo haulers can get a “theater” license to show the latest movies, and “demo” license to sell digitally signed copies of various series. What happens is that the ship uses a “entertainment” computer to run the projectors and sell legal copies of various shows. And then they purposely leave the computer unattended.
On that computer are “unsigned” copies of the stuff that they are selling. And they have unguarded data ports. One petabyte datastik and you too can have the complete, 5 season run of “My neighbor the Martian” for free. There is a “donation jar” app on the computer, and most folks donate. It’s cheaper than plunking down 250 credits to have the privilege of watching the antics of Bob the Martian.
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7 kCred suggested donation
Piracy happens, even when it is not for profit, some folks will do it out of spite. For the content creators and distributors, the challenge is to get the maximum amount of profit that you can. There’s a threshold where anti-piracy efforts are not worth it or are even illegal under local colonial law. Depending on the availability of star ships, I can see distributors offering packets of media to outgoing ships with a profit sharing deal.
In UW terms, I can see favors and debts come into play as factions take advantage of a ship’s mobility to get their brand of entertainment/propaganda out there.