Why does their need to be a viable alternative? Copyright works. Seriously. It does. Content creators need no more protection.

GAO wrote a paper in April of 2010, trying to objectively access the affects of piracy:

"Three commonly cited estimates of U.S. industry losses due to counterfeiting have been sourced to U.S. agencies, but cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology. 

First, a number of industry, media, and government publications have cited an FBI estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to counterfeiting on an annual basis. This estimate was contained in a 2002 FBI press release, but FBI officials told us that it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated.

Second, a 2002 CBP press release contained an estimate that U.S. businesses and industries lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs due to counterfeits of merchandise. However, a CBP official stated that these figures are of uncertain origin, have been discredited, and are no longer used by CBP. A March 2009 CBP internal memo was circulated to inform staff not to use the figures. However, another entity within DHS continues to use them.

Third, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association reported an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit goods and attributed the figure to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The OECD has also referenced this estimate in its report on counterfeiting and piracy, citing the association report that is sourced to the FTC. However, when we contacted FTC officials to substantiate the estimate, they were unable to locate any record or source of this estimate within its reports or archives, and officials could not recall the agency ever developing or using this estimate. These estimates attributed to FBI, CBP, and FTC continue to be referenced by various industry and government sources as evidence of the significance of the counterfeiting and piracy problem to the U.S. economy."

I can however point you to real-life examples of where piracy helped (I would like to point out this does not justify piracy in the least): Paul Cohen, Neil Gaimen.

I can also point you to examples where piracy sucked, but didn't hurt their bottom line because since they were selling the game at < $5 you can pretty much conclude these people would _never_ have actually bought the product: Gish.

I can point you to examples where the fear of piracy hurts sales: Harry Potter eBooks.

Again, all this evidence points to one thing: copyright is enough. You don't need anymore protection. You may be willing to give up your right to browse anonymously (sans court order anyway... yes the ISP could, today, embarrass the crap out of everyone) so that people can more easily track their electronic goods. I am not. No third party is getting my data (w/ identifiers) without my express permission, and the ISPs aren't going to sniff and potentially punish me based on some arbitrary decision on what they think is illegal sharing. Dear god, I don't even want to know what the RIAA thinks of my Pogoplug slinging music from Indiana to wherever I'm traveling to.

Copyright protection only goes so far. It won't eliminate "the market".

If losing net privileges means nothing to the thief, then neither will these measures. However, I'm betting they will.

Actually, I'm loving the 'brick and mortar' store example more and more. I believe the merchants deserve the protection and the thieves need hounding off the net or reforming their ways.

I believe that if people decided they wouldn't deal in illegal drugs and wouldn't buy them, the market would dry up and disappear. I don't believe it'll happen, but it's a wonderful thing to think of.

Innovation and improvement comes through successful economies. Thieves are an economy's enemy.

Any way you look at it, it's a win. The thieves lose their privileges and not go to jail (where we'd have to support them). I love it!

Haha, awesome illmunkeys 

He like edits and to edit his so edits do not show. So no surprise.

So you are saying more reasonable prices is not reasonable alternative. 

Why does Impulse offer weekend sales then. As far as I know they are hugely successful. And copied be many companies. There is a bit of fight going on who's invention they were. 

I am willing to bet that some of those purchases are generated from people who pirated software first. 

With advent of internet and fast internet services distribution of media was never easier.

After you create something there is no need for any physical medium to transport that creation to end user. A lot of companies are eliminating store distribution all together and distribute digitally only thus eliminating need for resources for DVD and manuals. So why are the prices of digital only and content that is sold in stores the same? 

No, I'm not. I said that Piracy probably has little but still something to do with prices.

Copyrights have little to do with catching individuals who have stolen software. They catch people who display or claim others' work as their own. For people/criminal organizations stealing software with large files, movies and games as well as music. The new mechanism will be more effective in catching them.

Impulse sales are sales. Impulse itself is an anti-piracy measure as well as an updating/storage mechanism.

add:

I think that these measures are not ideal. I also think that there has to be legal/judicial oversight as to actions taken: Especially when severe. Unfortunately it's come to this. It's odd that I hear nothing against theft of other peoples' property. I hear only cries about how this has limited freedoms.

Now, because of these thefts, ISP's will be looking at info going down their pipes. This is a direct and expected result of people's and companies' property being stolen, and revenues being compromised. Why would you expect less? If your goods were being stolen, wouldn't you expect something to be done to help you protect your goods?

The ISP's have tried to mitigate these notices and have put in a 6 strike rule.

Will there be mistakes and injustices, probably yes. Does that mean these companies have no rights to protect themselves? No. I don't like the fact that ISP's are being turned into cops. Some of them don't like it either. But honestly, copyright is only one limited tool. If you need a wrench, why should you be forced to use a screwdriver?

What probably will happen is that companies will be setting up their own distribution systems. Like Impulse. That is a mechanism I thought folks would suggest. That's a better system, I think.

What will also happen is more and more cyber attacks against the companies and their distribution systems. I hope you'll all be as vociferous in defending their rights as you are in defending your own.

Kona, please pm me with details, ok?

I don't support piracy and never will.

But the fact that it exists doesn't give companies permission to take law into their own hands. We have governments to do that. They were elected by the people and they represent opinion of majority of people of the country.

ISP and Media companies do not. They represent shareholders only.

If OP was sanctioned by government I would probably have nothing to say. The fact is It is not.

I also don't think piracy will ever be completely eradicated. They tried a lot of things DRM and Steam....

Some will do it for the thrill of not getting caught, some will do it for knowledge (to learn how to circumvent various protection mechanisms), and some will do it out of pathological reasons. Some will do it because they cannot afford it and some will do it just because they can.

What they need to do is try to minimize it, but they need to do it in a certain way.

I had always felt that there should be a separation between "carriers" and "content" as well as a "presumption of innocence".

I also believe that it's gotten to a point where brazen theft can no longer be tolerated...

The ISP's (especially in cities where choice is possible) are not going to cut off anyone's service. There are "mitigating measures", however.

However much I believe in freedom though, I refuse to have that belief defend piracy. That is the point where freedom is abused, and people are needlessly hurt.

I believe (again) that all reviews should 1) Have no fee until it becomes apparent that they are in fact pirating and then be accompanied by the review being turned over to the software company damaged. 2) Reviews be conducted by independent, disinterested bodies. 

The solution should be technological.  They already are embedding digital idents in film and audio and are working on the same for graphic images.  Simply require every copy of a media file to have a unique fingerprint that points back to exactly who the owner is.

If someone pirates the copy you have, allow that person to request a new ident code and have the old one invalidated.  Require players to "see" a unique fingerprint for any media copy in order to play.

If people create fake ones then they can get busted for fraud and theft and the owner of purchased music/vid doesn't have to worry at all.

It's just easier for the media companies to be able to intrude in any one's computer to get what they want.

But I totally agree this is stealing and hurts business when people just take things.  Several years ago, the numb er one platinum selling folk musician in Russia drove a taxi because he didn't make enough in royalties to pay his rent due to online piracy.  He could buy his own bootleg CD on the street anywhere in the country but couldn't sell them himself.

Not quite.  I have to deal with RIAA and MPAA, and know that downloading will get you their attention - somewhat.  But what they do is basically farm the P2P networks looking for files AVAILABLE for downloading, and try to nail you then.  In otherwords, if you rip your copy of "Born this Way" (legal), but make it available for others to download, they come after you.  You do not have to do anything overtly illegal, you just have to have the right "equipment" in place.

Kind of like the woman with the fishing pole and the sheriff.  Except this is no joke,

In France and Greece, individuals have a legal right to internet access. Earlier this year it has been enshrined as a human right in Finland and Estonia. Such laws mean that file-sharers cannot be disconnected per a “strikes” regime that copyright holders have been promoting around the globe. The United Nations (currently 192 member states), is also moving slowly towards internet access declared a universal human right. See you later MPAA/RIAA you wont fool us with your scaremongering campaign. 

Ere now Cap'n!  I believe I be in charge of the grog ration.  If anyone gets an extra ration, it be me!

Oh, jolly good of them, too.

That will cure the world's ills in one fell swoop.

Now if they could just tackle the minor issues of famine and health...child abuse and terrorism.....I have a slight, vague feeling there's some universal human rights there being right royally fucked ..... with or without the UN 'moving slowly' up their own collective arse.