Insightful article at The Guardian on game developer Cliff Harris. Bothered by piracy of his game, Harris asked gamers why they take pirated versions of games. The feedback works across all types of media.

Few claimed the moral high ground, but instead focused on the price (too high, even at £10) and the quality of the games themselves. Some argued that buying them over the internet was much harder than stealing them: how might those without a credit card purchase them (since that's needed for PayPal)? And copy protection drove some to distraction - or more precisely, to filesharing networks.

Reacting to the feedback, Harris dropped his prices, removed DRM and is doing his best to make each game bigger and better. The results are not yet known, and his sales are relatively small, but the approach is in contrast to those of some large game companies. But this is obviously not a simple issue since companies with more popular titles have more to lose from piracy and smaller companies' lack of financial resources make them more prone to find alternative solutions.

"Don't get me wrong - I'm still opposed to piracy," Harris added. "I just hope we're not going to nosedive into oblivion like the music industry did." Given changes in technology and formats, I think a nosedive was inevitable for music. The industry's fight against piracy does, however, help determine the angle of that nosedive.