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My appeal to reconsider copyright

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by forestjohnson, Mar 13, 2012.

  1. Ippokratis

    Ippokratis

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    Hey Jashan,
    Interesting views.

    Paul said Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas.
    Ton Steine Scherben had some interesing views too ( it is a shame I cannot find a decent English translation of this song for my English-speaking friends ).

    Dear all,
    Copyright is just a tree, raise your head and see the forest.

    -Ippokratis

     
  2. stimarco

    stimarco

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    Authors aren't creating DRM systems. Publishers are.

    People may become authors for many reasons: fame, a desire to educate, money, kudos, you name it. But publishers are mainly in it for the money. If they've spent a ton of money supporting the author, promoting them and their book, with point-of-sale displays and whatnot, I, for one, can't blame them for thinking inside the box when it comes to protecting that investment.

    Book publishers are not IT experts. Neither are most movie moguls, record label owners, and so on. THIS is what people keep forgetting.

    Just because you know why DRM rarely works, it's not a given that everyone has had the same education and life experiences you have. Most musicians, writers, movie directors and so on will have learned how to use ProTools or Logic Pro, or the 10% of Microsoft Word that they use, or Final Draft. But lots of people who have no clue how computers actually work do this all the time. Accountants know what a PivotTable in Microsoft Excel is for too, but they have no understanding of how a computer actually works.

    Most people genuinely have no clue how that magic box of tricks you call a computer operates. They don't know what it can or cannot do. They watch movies like "Independence Day" and genuinely believe you could write and upload a virus to an alien spaceship using nothing more than an old Apple laptop and some pretty graphical animations.

    Education is the solution, not blathering on about how "evil" companies are. Never attribute to malice what can be more easily explained by simple incompetence. Most of the wrongs in the world are entirely due to ignorance, not deliberate intent.
     
  3. Tobias J.

    Tobias J.

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    First I must confess I haven't read past page 4. I will, but I have to get to bed now.

    My general opinion of the subject is that the market is changing. Piracy can't be stopped (barring the most absurd permutations of '1984'), and companies have to adjust. These are the years where they adjust, but adjust they will.

    Someone made the point on page 2 or 3 that movies are still breaking records for most earnings in opening weekends (and the like), and now musicians are making their money from concerts, not the sales of CDs or other recorded media. In many areas we're entering an economy based on events or experiences, rather than ownership of some physical item.

    There are still money to be made, but not in the way they used to be made.

    Excellent discussion!! :)
     
  4. JRavey

    JRavey

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    A man who goes to bed with an itchy butt, wakes with a stinky finger.
    -Confucius
     
  5. _Petroz

    _Petroz

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    I agree, and it seems like this legislation being considered is taking us in the '1984' direction. It is better to put the responsibility in the hands of content providers rather than the government.
     
  6. MitchStan

    MitchStan

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    Nice to see you on the Unity forum, Forrest. We miss you.
     
  7. n0mad

    n0mad

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    This picture is so much full of win ...
     
  8. jashan

    jashan

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    That's why wise people quote themselves when speaking on "The Internets(tm)" ;-)
     
  9. Ippokratis

    Ippokratis

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  10. Noisecrime

    Noisecrime

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    Ok this may be broadening out the discussion a bit much to discuss the 'near' future, but if many of us here think copyright itself is already failing ( and yes I would includes those who think it works, as in fact it only works with additional DRM ), then we must address the future issues now before we end up in the same mess.

    What am I alluding too? The fast approaching era of 3D Printing and its coming faster than you might expect and pirating of designs is already happening from what i've read.

    We already have relatively cheap ($1,250) home 3D printers being made now, albeit for a max of 5x5x5 inch creations and this is an area that is going to explode within the decade. Granted for the next decade its going to be somewhat restrictive in what it can accomplish, but that wont last forever. Commercial 3d printers are of course much more advanced than the home ones, but at least there you might have a gateway that could offer some protection.

    Thinking about it, this doesn't change my current perception about copyright infringement of media. I'm still not overly concerned (well actually I am, but I tell myself not to me as its pointless to worry about it) about individual so called 'pirates', copying something for their own use to try out and who would in all probably never have purchase my product anyway, but I am concerned about those that redistribute copies to profit off it.

    The trouble with the era of 3D printing is that it mixes both virtual goods (media - i.e the modelling data) with the physical (the generated product). Meaning that people who copy the data, get to create a physical product out at the end of it. How is copyright going to protect me then? How is DRM even going to protect me? What happens when a3d printer capable of creating itself emerges?

    I don't have an answer other than perhaps beginning to agree with the OP's video, that the notion of copyright at that point may have run its course and we need to find a whole new way to deal with it or rather not deal with it and move to a money-less society ;)
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  11. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    I honestly don't see how that changes anything. The printer didn't destroy the printing industry - but it did greatly increase the ability to generate your own content.

    Policing copyright is fairly easy and straightforward [we do it effectively today in mediums other than the internet] - and devices like the 3d printer only increase the need for copyright and other intellectual properties, from both a creator and consumer perspective.
     
  12. stimarco

    stimarco

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    ^^^ This.

    It amazes me how often the anti-copyright lobby insist that computers can only make infringing copyright easier, as if the computers themselves know what it is they're being instructed to do.

    There is no reason to assume developments in IT will not also provide better copyright protection tools. Quantum cryptography is a good illustration of this: if it can allow fully secure transmission of data, then it can also allow fully secure transmission of software, because software is data. Embed that kind of technology right into computer chipsets and you can make it effectively impossible to crack future "quantum DRM" systems. And that's just one possibility.


    Note, too, that DRM is not inherently "evil". Variations of it are used all the time to protect our personal data. I don't see anyone demanding that online purchases are sent over the Internet to the likes of Visa or Mastercard without any form of protection whatsoever, yet that's what the anti-copyright lobby are demanding of copyright owners. Seriously: get over yourselves. It's not wrong or evil to fit strong locks to your doors and windows when you know there are people out there who want to break in and steal your stuff.

    The problem with DRM on media today is that all attempts have taken a proprietary approach. What happens if the media's owner goes under and all their DRM-supporting infrastructure goes down with them? That is where the problems lie: not the concept or the underlying technology, but in its user experience.

    Steam is DRM done right. (Yes folks, Steam uses DRM.) Apple's various stores are another example. (Only iTunes' podcasts and music tracks are DRM-free. Everything else is DRMed to the hilt, but nobody of any importance seems to be complaining.)

    However, both of those examples are still proprietary. While Apple and Steam aren't likely to go into receivership any time soon, there is always that vague feeling that, at some point, you're going to find yourself trying to use something you paid for only to find that its DRM system is no longer supported.

    What's needed is standardisation and third party support for common DRM mechanisms, so that the media is always supported. At the very least, this means a legally enforced policy of automatic DRM removal if the entity that supports it collapses, and nobody else is able to take on the burden of supporting their legacy. That means inventing standard APIs, protocols, formats and the like. It will probably mean setting up industrywide entities to handle this and provide standard infrastructure. In short: DRM requires its own Visa and Mastercard-like level of standardisation and global acceptance.

    None of this is technically difficult. It's certainly possible to build something like that today. It's not even politically all that hard. But it does need someone with the vision to push it through and make it happen.

    But instead of trying to solve problems, the anti-copyright lobby simply claim that copyright should no longer apply in a digital age. To which the only logical answer is: "bullshit". Similarly, I keep hearing the idiotic cry that "no thief would have paid for that downloaded content anyway!" If the content was so S***, why in the name of all the universe's free-flying f*ckmonkeys would it be worth going to the effort of finding and downloading?

    Either you wanted to watch / hear / read / play it, or you didn't. Which is it? You don't get to choose both, because access to the fruits of the labours of other people is not something to which you have an "inalienable human right" to access. Entertainment is a luxury, not a basic requirement for life.

    Back in my day, we made our own entertainment. On a ZX81. In Sinclair BASIC.

    But the most powerful argument against the anti-copyright lobby is simple: if there is no copyright any more, then Google and their friends—including your very own governments—will have every right to know everything there is to know about you. Copyright and privacy depend upon each other. Lose one and you lose the other, for if you cannot own the information about your very self, you cannot have a concept of privacy in this digital age.

    Copyright laws do need to be changed and updated to reflect changes in technology, but this is nothing new. Copyright laws were invented because of technological changes. The invention of printing presses with movable type brought copyright into existence. Prior to that technology, copying a book required long, laborious and very expensive work.

    I therefore contend that Copyright must live!

    M'lud, the case for the defence rests.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  13. Noisecrime

    Noisecrime

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    Well the problem with the printer is that it often costs more to copy something due the lack of volume. For example it wouldn't make financial sense, even today I suspect to print a 300-400 page book on your home printer?

    The 3D printer is very different to old 2D print, as you are not copying the product, but the data to make the product. if you wanted to make the product the price of materials is the same, but the data/design can be paid or freely pirated.

    Copyright is not easy or straight forward, its a constant arms race and one which the copyright holders (or rather publishers) are constantly losing. If that wasn't the case there would be no need for this thread. I agree if you take today's standpoint that copyright is essential (which I'm not saying it isn't and in some cases its woefully inadequate e.g. game cloning) that future tech will need copyright too. I'm just of the opinion that it copyright really doesn't protect anyone from the personnel/home copying issue we've been discussing.


    Did you just send them an email or did you get a letter from a lawyer? If the former then you were very lucky, if the latter how much did that cost you? You see as said previously the problem is if those guys turned around and said 'so what' to you, do you really have the money to litigate?

    Would you even have the money to start the process with a simple legal cease and desist letter? I doubt it. Even if you did, would it be worth it, what is the chance that they would simply default on any costs award, do they have sufficient profits to cover any awards given in your favour. Thats were copyright breaks down for me.

    That's the problem copyright may help protect the big companies it does nothing for the independents and that's where I see the future going, small independent one man bands or 3-5 people working for a small company, these people will never or rarely have the finical backing to take it to court. So in my opinion copyright in this aspect is practically useless. The only way to make it work is if the costs can be brought down dramatically.



    @Stimarco:

    You make some interesting points, but honestly you're still hoping for a technological solution that in my opinion will never happen. To date no DRM has not been broken or have a workaround found and I don't see that changing in the future. Build it into chips sure fine, but once people can print their own chips, they simply remove the DRM. Many encryptions have been broken, if not directly then indirectly (there always seems to be a weak point) and there will always be people who will enjoy the challenge of doing it.

    However maybe an issue here is that we need something different to copyright. I have to agree with your points about keeping companies in check like Google and that on the whole copyright is a good thing, but needs to be updated. My trouble is I cannot see a way to update it that will make a difference to how things are now vs in the future.

    Just to be clear i'm not anti-copyright, I just don't think it works very well in the modern world and is going to work even less well in the future. I think authors rights need some protection but we are going to have to find a new way forward.

    To re-iterate what i've said previously, I think for digital media the issue of copying can be negate by better business practises and not having the mind set that every single personal copy is a lost sale. However when people can then start making physical products from copying your digital files then that is an issue as its the same as someone flogging DVD rips of the latest blockbuster down the pub.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  14. stimarco

    stimarco

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    Always assuming your 3D printer can print any component in any material necessary to produce a widget that's indistinguishable from the original. We're talking about devices that can mostly "print" only in a very limited range of materials—mostly plastics. Unless your goal is to put LEGO out of business, you can forget downloading a torrent and "printing" your next iPad.

    Define "losing". Most of the Big Media corporations seem to be doing quite well, thanks. I don't see Disney-Pixar going out of business any time soon, despite "John Carter of Mars".

    Actually, this "debate" exists primarily in the minds of fringe weirdoes like Cory Doctorow and his ilk. I've never had a problem with the concept of DRM-protected content myself.

    To most users, "DRM" is synonymous with "file format". I.e. "This file won't open on device X". They don't care why it won't open. As far as they're concerned, it's a fault with the product they're using. This is very much as a user experience issue, not a technical one: supporting another file format's DRM is just a software issue.

    Personal / home copying isn't something I have a problem with. It's when people start copying software illegally for money that I have a problem with it. And, on that front, the war is being won using copyright laws.


    Most lawyers worth a damn have a ton of templates than can use for this. I know of at least one who'll print off and sign such a form C&D letter for less than €100. You won't get such a service for free, but for the price of a couple of games, you get to put the fear of God—or legal proceedings—into your nemesis. (I know what I'd choose. This is a matter of principle, not profit: it's my property, not yours, so I'd get downright Sicilian on anyone who thinks they're entitled to my property, intellectual or otherwise, without my explicit permission. And yes, I really am half-Italian with Sicilian roots, so that's not an idle threat either.)

    The purpose of the exercise is to shut them down. As long as they're copying your property without your permission, they are devaluing your work. Literally. It's exactly the same reason why counterfeiting banknotes is generally frowned upon, except this time, it's personal. Every illegal copy of a game you make sends two messages:

    1. "I don't believe your game is worth paying YOU for, but I obviously want it anyway, or I wouldn't be paying some street hawker for the dodgy DVD-ROM with a copy of it. I am, however, quite happy to pay said hawker."

    Paying a fee to download from some online file locker is tantamount to the same thing. As is paying a membership fee to a bit torrent site, or what-have-you.

    2. "Every copy I make of your game makes every legal copy worth less and less."

    This is what irritates me the most: I put my heart and soul into a project. I also had to go shopping and pay the rent and the car insurance while doing so. But the entitlementards who think they have some god-given right to be entertained for free expect me to dance for their edification for nothing?

    Seriously, WTF? When did this attitude become acceptable? Nobody has such a right! Never in the entire goddamned history of Homo Sapiens Sapiens has it ever been considered a "right" to demand the fruits of other people's work for free.

    Even slaves had to be housed, fed, and clothed by their owners. (Yes, I went there!)


    Then your problem is with the system and the lack of education on the subject of copyright.

    Everyone thinks design is easy, thanks to Desktop Publishing. Everyone thinks writing a novel is easy thanks to the existence of word processors, grammar checkers, spelling checkers and so on. Everyone who owns a camcorder thinks making a movie is easy, thanks to apps like iMovie. Everyone thinks making a game is easy, thanks to Unity and its peers.

    Democratisation is the process of making it possible for anyone to create something awesome.

    Education is the process of explaining why only some of those who try will actually succeed.

    I do. I may by slightly biased, but I consider my opinion to trump your opinion, what with me being right and all.

    Nobody's managed to 'crack' quantum cryptography either. As I said, DRM is just a fancy word for cryptography. If you can build quantum cryptography technology right into the motherboard, your DRM will be uncrackable to all intents and purposes. I guarantee it. (Sure, a major government with billions of dollars to spunk up the wall on cracking specific DRM and devices may eventually find a way, but casual software counterfeiting? Dead as a door knocker.)

    When Tim Berners-Lee unleashed the World Wide Web, he envisaged people having their own servers and sharing directly from their own computers. Instead, we got a glorified consumer system that hearkened back to the days of thin clients: a few (very big) servers, feeding an awful lot of clients that could be running CP/M for all the difference their capabilities make.

    Technology is always evolving, but it never quite evolves in the way we expect it to.
     
  15. Noisecrime

    Noisecrime

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    Wow you write almost as much as me ;)

    Sorry I think my point wasn't clear. Talking about what's possible now, using existing 3d printing materials, people are designing products whose design files are already being put on torrent sites. So the problem is happening now and will only get worse, assuming you distribute your design files, which is really the whole point of home printing.

    Your specific example is what will happen in the future. Its going to be a long way off before you create a single product like an iPad, but in the near future it will be possible to create many of its components.

    I define losing as publishers costly bitching about piracy and introducing more and more draconian methods to try and prevent it, encryption, blu-ray, HDMI. Most of which have failed completely (been hacked) and others can be circumvented by pirates, annoying often leaving the genuine user with no way to make back ups or cause them more hassle.

    Strange i've only recently discovered Cory and like his books, but not read enough about his opinions to make a judgement on him personally. Sure most people don't have a problem with DRM until they suddenly find they can't use a product they've paid for because there internet has gone down, or they want to make a copy of an expensive blu-ray so that if the kids don't break the original etc.

    Its kind of interesting you seem to like copyright so much, that you don't care about the rights of those who buy the product?

    Never heard that before, most times people blame the hardware or worse don't realise that all those lovely kindle books they've bought can't be transferred to another competing device, locking them into a single supplier.

    Agreed about the problem, but I'm sorry I don't see where its being won at all.After all we're really talking about criminal activity and actual organised crime at those levels. You can take down a few sellers, but others will pop-up in their place.

    .. and just to muddy the waters further you have cases such as 92yr old-movie-bootlegger-is-soldiers-hero


    That's the problem though, if indie developers struggle to pay UT $1500 for Pro are they really going to find €100 easily?
    Then what if the person ignores your letter? What if they are in another country, just how exactly are you going to pursue that without it costing tens of thousands of dollars? Most developers can't protect themselves from patent trolls, I can't imagine litigation against a copyright infringement is going to cost much less?



    .. and we're back to the assumption that all pirates are evil and everything is a lost sale. That's just not true and there are other reasons such as 'I don't know if you game is worth paying for' or 'i don't have the money', neither of which make it right morally, but it happens. The argument has been that you turn this to your advantage, you change the business model, as Cory and others advocate.

    I agree its irritating and soul destroying and i'd be a hypocrite to suggest otherwise. However over the years i've come to realise that hoping copyright, DRM or putting these people into stocks is not the solution, it just adds to the problem. The solution is new business models.

    Back in the 60's, 70's, 80's when everyone was home taping? To the point where it became legal to 'time shift' TV on VHS for how ever many days it is, but do you really delete all your recordings after 30 days? Of course the difference between then and now is that we have the capability for perfect copies.

    No need to get personal, unlkess you are a lawyer I don't see either can claim more knowledge on copyright than the other.


    Um, yeah, that's quite normal in a discussion. The point is not who is right, but to express different view points and perhaps refine ones on stance. Otherwise this whole thread is pointless.

    Yeah but we don't have working quantum computers yet either ;) - thought they do seem to be edging ever closer. Besides as in most things that wont be the weak link that is attacked, so I suspect it will ultimately become irrelevant. If its not then I fear we can wave goodbye to consumer rights, at least are old rights of buying something to own to resell, to timeshift or make back ups, publishers will be in complete control of all media and it will be a sad world.

    True, it will be interesting to see what happens over this next decade, social, economic and technological changes are coming.
     
  16. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    Dear God, please don't let us invent Replicators like they have on Star Trek.

    If they do...most people will simply have jobs making Replicators.
    Unless, of course, the Replicators can replicate Replicators. Then I guess we'll sit around and teach abstract concepts like ethics ;)
     
  17. Swearsoft

    Swearsoft

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    Sorry guys, but copyright is needed. People say that musicians make money at concerts, cool story bro. How is an illustrator, game developer, movie creator going to do this? If the film isn't a blockbuster, the next week it won't be available in theaters. So will we only have blockbusters?

    Or are illustrators going to do live shows? Maybe game developers will have a theater.

    Copyright is not the problem, although 70 years is a bit much, it could be a lot less and still serve it's purpose.

    Media companies want to combat the problem of Piracy with technology, law and stupid campaigns that make them seem even douchier. (basically because it is the moguls making the decisions and they aren't cool guys IRL, why would the come up with something cool?).

    The obvious issue/solution is pricing and quality.

    If you see so many people pirating and you want to monetize them, try to offer them something they can afford, while making sure you don't pad it with crap. CDs really lost momentum when people realized that the single had the only song worth anything and that the rest were just trying to justify the price tag.

    Bands and musicians that do a good job are still making millions, so are movie makers and game creators. That is not because DRM is working somehow, it's simply because people that like the stuff will spend their money on it.

    They say piracy is what killed the PC, which is simply not true. Bad quality games hyped as AAA didn't do well, because people wised up. They looked on the net (Amazon,eBay etc) for better prices, they looked online for reviews (metacritic) and decided that not all games are worth their money, nor are they worth twice as much from a retailer.

    PC games have always been an example for piracy. Well I will show you how this is a problem.

    Let's take a closer look at the conditions that led to the "demise" of PC gaming:

    Although PC gamers do have access to the internet, the information that they will most likely access is not a pirated copy of the game, but
    • Reviews,
    • Game Forums,
    • Friends/Gamer Friends and
    • On-line Shops.

    Right?
    Suddenly all this info should be considered hidden , but ISOs are everywhere?

    You have access to professional critics, forums of gamers interested in the game sharing opinions, friends whos opinion you value more than an ad and a method to acquire games without getting up and you see piracy as an issue? Really?

    Let's say that yep ok, they don't have access to this stuff and google shows them only ISOs.

    Do you know what sales Publishers count?

    Actual Sales you might say.

    No, that is not the case (well it is, but not to customers), they don't track every copy, nor do they count activations. They simply count retail orders.

    Meaning how many units they shipped out to stores, which is of course what they care about since that's where they get their money from. They don't even announce online sales, nor does anybody count the copies that end up in the bargain bin.

    So the important thing to them is how many boxes retailers will order and how good the first day/week/month will go, so that they can get more orders based on that success.

    OK now think about retailers for a minute.

    Do you think there is some guy who reviews the games and brings in only the best, turns down the hyped S*** and makes sure they have only quality titles that will sell?

    No, sorry, there is no such guy.

    There is a guy who is in charge of the department and makes orders based on: Magazine covers, franchise familiriaty, tv spots etc. Nobody is doing market research, no one is checking quality, no one makes an informed decision in the whole process, yet it's somehow somebody else's fault when the crap they stock doesn't sell.

    Retailers stopped ordering since they never chose titles based on actual quality, but simply who was on the cover of magazines or who's ad was on TV. When they stop ordering their excuse: it doesn't sell, all this PC S*** doesn't sell, I only want console, cos I can still push the crap to uninformed people like me.

    When the over-hyped game they stocked was finally released and it flopped, they had no sales to show for it, they didn't blame their decisions (naturally), but the idea that suddenly millions of people decided to pirate all the games. Of course why lose my job, when I can blame those "darn pirates".

    Now think of this.

    When a Publisher decides to fund a game what do they look at? The sales of other titles, which were made by the retailers, not the customers. They use this data to make decisions. So basically one guy orders 100.000 copies of COD for WallMart and when the exec sees the data he thinks that obviously that is what people like. The manager at WallMart only made the decision because he knew the previous title and so on and so forth.

    Even when they take into account how many units were actually sold they can't determine if a gamer bought it also because it was familiar, was the safe choice (especially for console with 70$ per title), it was forced down his throat for months on end. The actual quality of the title doesn't really become a factor they can measure, so they simply throw money at developers and marketing, make a list of features (similarities to other games) and continue.

    So when people don't buy the game and all the stats show they should, they blame piracy. They don't see that they are using their own hype/marketing to make decisions about their next game.

    It's like selling tomatoes and simply because you are selling to a guy who believes in them (first batch sold out) and because people only see tomatoes on the stall they buy tomatoes, you should continue only providing tomatoes. He keeps ordering, they keep buying because there is no alternative and you use that data to decide what to grow.

    It doesn't occur to them (or they don't want it to, because it's harder) that people might be making informed purchases: ordering through Amazon (pre-order, get title on day of release without waiting in line, better price etc) or going on IGN,metacritic etc saw how crappy the game actually was and simply didn't buy.

    That's why WOW only had 15 million subsribers, paying a monthly fee, it was cos everyone was pirating...thar damn PC crowd, a bunch of thiefs.

    Then you also have things like GOG, Steam and Community funded projects (Kickstarter, Desura, IndieGOGO, 8Bit, Interstellar Marines), but still it's all that Piracy that's too blame, not that they didn't want to buy the same game again. People actually wanted a new Wasteland, a new quality 2D adventure etc etc .

    So retailers stopped selling PC games, cos PC gamers didn't buy any old crap. Retailers stopped stocking all PC titles to be safe and in turn Publishers stopped funding PC games because there wasn't an audience. Really no audience?

    So it's:

    1 million people doing all the buying and having tons (literally) tons of games, every release, every iteration (1 million OCD game collectors). Oh and it's the same 1 million people that have 15 wow subscriptions each, just to show how much they love Blizzard. Not to mention 35 Steam accounts each....they also buy they indie games and the lesser franchises and keep an eye on BigFishGames too.

    or

    it's actually the market working and weeding out the obvious crap and some of the less obvious too, basically: you simply aren't making a good enough product (one that can pass an informed decision anyway)

    Now the Console gamer is also getting access to the same information through his console, he has all his buddies on a list and if the game is crap only the first one eats the crap. So again instead of blaming the crap, everybody has a hacked console, but everyone also bought Gears of War or Uncharted, yep, that's sounds just about right.


    Make it good, charge a fair price, you will sell. Obsessing over DRM isn't going to help and Copyright extends to a lot more stuff to simply discard it as an old idea. Creators and Publishers (they help creators get to market) deserve some monies for their trouble, balance is key as my Ancient ancestors used to say: Pan metron ariston.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  18. stimarco

    stimarco

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    By my standards, that was a short post. You should see some of the posts I've made to other forums. I've tried to cut down in recent years, but I do love the sound of my own typing.

    Anyway...

    Er, yes. That was my point. However, I've seen some of these 3D printers in action and, frankly, unless you're willing to spend more money than the price of a decent apartment in London, you're not really going to be building much of any real value. It's still very early days for that technology.

    The cheap 3D printers available now are, frankly, toys. (In some cases, literally.) These are the Apple Newtons of the 3D Printer world: close, but no cigar. Yet.

    The primary purpose of DRM is to raise the barrier sufficiently high that few people bother trying to circumvent it. Ubisoft were slammed by the anti-copyright fanatics for using a particularly draconian DRM system. Did it make a dent in their sales? Nope. Not even slightly.

    Hell, Steam uses DRM as a matter of course, but we don't hear people complaining about that.

    Why let kids play with something so expensive in the first place, when Ultraviolet would let them stream or download the movie instead? See? Big Media may be slow, but they get there eventually.

    Media is licensed, not bought. The physical disk is guaranteed to work, but the right to copy a movie from a Blu-Ray or DVD is not included in that license. (There are some national exceptions where backups are permitted, but see my 'Ultraviolet' link above.)

    Beyond that, there's the right to choose to buy Product A over Product B; the right to merchantable quality—I.e. does it do what it says on the tin? And the right to a warranty on tangible items, such as disks and cassettes.

    There's no right I'm aware of that guarantees you the right to make multiple copies of the content itself. That's the whole damned point of Copyright! It's the right to copy. It's not that hard to understand, surely? The clue's right there in the name.


    I can't run Android apps on my shiny new iPhone. I can't run Windows apps on my Mac. (Not without buying a VM anyway.) I can't run ZX Spectrum games natively on my iPad. EVERYTHING is "locked" to some extent. Some are more locked than others, but I've yet to see a recent version of either Microsoft Word or LibreOffice that will let me open old Tasword files.

    I've always preferred to champion open standards over mere open source as a result. Open standards are the solution, but the ICT industry is so hell-bent on bickering for the sake of bickering, few have ever managed to succeed in the real world.

    I'm sorry, but what, exactly, are these mythical developers developing their games on? A second-hand Amstrad CPC464? If you can afford a PC or a Mac good enough for running Unity, you can sure as hell afford €100.

    The research I've seen suggests most will not ignore such letters. Also, almost every nation is a signatory to the international convention on copyright. If the perp insists on doing it the hard way, I'm more than up for informing their nation's police force of the criminal's activities. Whether that makes any difference is another matter, but it's only the actual going-to-court bit that costs the heavy money. If I stand to lose, say, €10K from the the criminal's behaviour, I'll spend up to that sum. If the little scrote ends up in jail instead of paying that money back, at least he'll be an example to others.

    Again, there's a principle involved here. It's not always about profit.

    "I don't know if your game is worth paying for" is an utterly moronic excuse for a "reason". The internet exists. It is not difficult to find out if the game will be to your tastes. There is no valid reason for violating copyright on such grounds.

    As for "I don't have the money"... seriously? You consider that a valid "excuse"? To such people, I would say only this: go and get a f*cking JOB! Deliver newspapers. Stack shelves in a supermarket! I've done both. Hell, I've even worked in construction to make ends meet. This is an asinine, unethical and utterly immoral reason for taking something that doesn't belong to you.

    So, that's both of your alleged 'reasons' kicked into the garbage...

    Yes, Cory and his friends keep saying this, but they also keep failing utterly to come up with a viable alternative business model. Nor do they explain why the business model should need changing to begin with. As I've pointed out above, none of the excuses given for taking the work of others without paying for it holds any water. It's just plain wrong. End of story. If you start encouraging such unethical and immoral practices, what kind of message are you sending?

    Actually, yes. Unless you have one of those PVRs that can copy to an external drive (in a usable format). The MySky HD box my aunt uses has a 500GB limit. She hits that limit regularly and goes through deleting stuff she's already viewed. She's not interested in keeping programmes and movies around forever, because—and perhaps you've missed this—they repeat them endlessly anyway. The satellite TV channels are the "cloud" in this example.

    I wasn't suggesting you lacked an education. I was pointing out that the counterfeiters lack that education. We're raising a generation that expects to be entertained for free. Many of them genuinely believe they are entitled to read books, watch TV and movies, and play games without paying a penny. This is not healthy.

    Why? There's nothing preventing you from making your own entertainment. Independent musicians, writers, filmmakers and game developers do it all the time. They've been doing it since before home computers even existed.

    That's been my point all along: Big Media can co-exist with the little guy. There's no reason why this has to be an "either / or" argument. Some publishers will prefer DRM. Some won't.

    As with the whole Climate Change alarmism, there's no need to keep crying "Wolf!" or run around screaming that the sky is falling. The novel has survived the invention of the printing press, photocopiers and television and is still going strong. We might be seeing the end of the "pulped tree" file format, but that's about it. Games certainly aren't going to disappear either.
     
  19. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    You have a few misconceptions about 3D printing... but let us work on the principle it's a perfect replicator that costs nothing to run.

    You now have a choice:

    • You live in a world with no copyright, so that available designs are limited and generally speaking poorly funded. Generally speaking they are weaker, less suited to purpose, less safe, require more resources etc.
    • You live in a world with copyright and similar. You get all the designs of above, but you also get designs that have serious financial backing behind them - are stronger, better tested, far more advanced technology and techniques, use less resources etc and are available at a nominal cost - or free.

    That's a decision each country, and to a lessor extent the international community has to make. Free/opensource/public domain materials are valuable to our society, and in some cases they do compete with commercial interests, but they have not shown any capability of *replacing* commercial sector. [Not that copyright is exclusively commercial, but it does support said industry.]

    Computers themselves are all about intellectual property - CPU's and other components don't get made because the billions of dollars of R&D in them is handed out like lollipops to whoever asks.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  20. Noisecrime

    Noisecrime

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    Guess it depends on what you mean by value. I've seen some very impressive looking designs such as a 3d mobius loop or interesting light fittings and Robots ( and since robots are the coolest thing ever I win the argument by default ;) ) However I will agree that in most cases at the moment many designs are either desk toys, ornaments or just geometric shapes, but I can't see it staying like that for long.

    I quite like steam, i'd say so far their DRM hasn't become an issue to me, though I don't think they are necessary value for money. I had a big discussion about digital downloads (after it was leaked that the next box will probably not have physical drive), and the upshot is you can still frequently by the physical product for cheaper, even when Steam has sales. But thats a whole different discussion and getting quite off-topic.

    and to steal one of your lines, 'when did that happen' its not on any of the thousands of records I own and I don't remember it on early to mid CD sales, though wouldn't be surprised if its now included on all current CD sales. I'm guessing it happened with VHS or perhaps laser disc (which came first?) and most likely due to the fact that up until that time film had been pretty much a closed industry.

    Maybe so, but it used to be you could always sale it on afterwards, that is no longer the case.

    Maybe you can but not all developers can.

    The only evidence i've seen is when big companies come after small companies or individuals, or when a third party such ass the Apple store are involved and thus pull the infringing game themselves. I also serious doubt someone would get jail time for copyright infringement, off-hand i'm not even sure its a criminal offence?

    Having principles is all very nice, but it doesn't mean you can follow them through. Just look at the issues developers have with trademark or patent trolls. For example the Edge guy, he was only really beaten when he stupidly went after EA (it think, sorry its very late and i'm too tired to research now) and Mirror's Edge. Up until that point plenty of smaller developers had paid up, hell even a major publishing company.

    As I said its a reason not an excuse, I don't look to excuse these people, just to show there are more factors than simply not wanting to pay. If you ignore those factors, you'll never find a solution.

    Really? I thought Cory's own success in publishing was an illustration of this. Kickstarter is an illustration of this, have you seen how many 'whales' there are? People willing to pay $500-$1000 for a product thats worth 1/20th or 1/10th? (more about whales - very long 3 part video 45mins)

    All those things you mention have only happened in the last 5-10 years or so.


    Ok, sorry got the wrong end of the stick there, but with your remark about 'reading' what about libraries? If there are any still open of course, you could borrow books and records, tapes and videos the last time I went to one. If games had any educational value i'd expect them too.

    Anyway its very late now, its been interesting, but as with NPSF3000 I fear we're all pretty ingrained in our current viewpoints and I guess there really isn't anything new to say. So to stop going in ever decreasing crircles I'll bow out again for now. Thanks for the discussion. I suggest we all meet up again in 10 years time and see who was right ;)
     
  21. _Petroz

    _Petroz

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    That's where I landed as well. There are a few people more interested in being right than exploring the issue, so debate is anything but fruitful.
     
  22. stimarco

    stimarco

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    The original intent behind these printers was to make it easier to build prototypes and visualise designs held in a computer. They were never meant to evolve into Star Trek-style "replicators", capable of printing anything you like. They are also unlikely ever to do so as there's the small matter of supplying all the necessary raw materials in a form the printer can actually use. How much do you think Epson and HP would charge for a complete set of "2000-material" cartridges?

    It's always been there. Until recently, nobody had to be repeatedly told how licensing and copyright worked, which is why you only see the "©" symbol (and, more recently, the similar Performance Copyright "℗" symbol) on most materials. Those symbols were considered enough to inform the user of the licensed status of the material thereon.

    Remember, too, that until the rise of the Internet—and broadband internet connections in particular—the status of Copyright had been very stable for decades. We had the printed word, lithography, photography, film recordings, sound recordings and, from about 1936-ish, television too. Electronic recording media appeared during WW2. That was it. Until the 1980s when twin-deck cassette recorders appeared—excuse me while I wave at Sir Alan Sugar for his contribution to consumer copyright devaluation—things remained much the same for about 50-odd years.

    And then came computers and digital communications. Once that hit the fan in the 1990s, with the rise of MP3 downloading and Napster, the incumbent media companies—and their ageing managers and CEOs who had no clue what they were seeing or how to react—simply flailed about for a few years, lashing out at everything they could. But, eventually, the old guard and their generation get kicked out by the shareholders and their boards of directors until we finally start seeing more rational responses by people who actually have a clue.

    Note that this has resulted in the rise of iTunes. Clearly enough consumers are happy to buy songs, rent / buy TV shows, and whatnot through this system, despite the continuing existence of BitTorrent clients and online file lockers of dubious ethics.

    Copyrighted content has always been licensed to end users. Public Domain content, on the other hand, is owned by everyone.

    Which brings me neatly onto my next topic...

    ... the GNU Public Licenses, and all their pretty, innocent little children. Abolish Copyright and all of these licenses will become worthless. It may seem ironic, but Stallman, et al's concept of "Copyleft" relies ultimately on the existence of the concept of intellectual property: that you can "own" something you have created, despite its intangibility.

    Without Copyright, there can be no Copyleft either. All that open source code will belong to anyone who wants it, as if you'd placed it into the Public Domain. You will have no say in how it is used, who by, or even who gets to put their name(s) in the list of credits at the top. They can even delete your name from the source code entirely and you won't have a single, solitary, legal leg to stand on.

    So the question boils down to this:

    Should it be possible to "own" the results of your own work?

    1. If so, what should the limits be, and for which media?

    2. If not, why not? And how can we adapt to that?

    I'm obviously in favour of 1 as I don't think Copyright is broken. It needs some new tyres and maybe an oil change, but that's about it.

    Clearly, others disagree. But I have never, ever, not once, heard a single, viable alternative to the very foundations of Copyright: the notion that you can own your creations. Copyright merely acknowledges this view and gives you the right to decide how your creations are used and sold for a finite period of time.

    Nothing else makes any sense. Some have said musicians should give concerts instead, but concerts are bloody expensive and there are only a finite number of suitable venues. Furthermore, many musicians create in studios and are not natural performers. A good example is Enya, whose music often include hundreds of overdubbed layers. Try doing that live without spending a fortune on choirs and orchestras. (Another example is Jean Michel Jarre, whose spectacular concerts wouldn't really work as well in, say, a south London pub.)

    How are writers to make money? Book signings? Merchandising? If you think the latter is a great idea, do remember how George Lucas has milked his own franchises. During the 1980s merchandising boom, many animated TV shows for children became little more than long adverts for toys. Is that really the level of "creativity" you want to see in future? Because I can assure you, that's what you'll get.

    Where will the money for movies come from? For (cable) TV series? TV Licensing (the EU model)? Subscription fees (which amount to much the same thing)? From advertising alone?

    The thinner the profit margins, the more risk-averse companies become.

    Copyright, like Democracy, may be the least worst solutions to their respective problems, but you can't go around replacing something until you have something much better to replace it with. To date, nobody has come up with such a replacement for either.
     
  23. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    I was going to bring this up... but thought the topic was dead.

    Much of the open source movement is under copyright - very few pieces of code [at least, in my perusal] are actually left in-public domain - they almost always have some form of license attached.
     
  24. jashan

    jashan

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    Actually, there's fair use and there's other limitations and exceptions to copyright. In Germany, you also pay a little amount for each CDR, CD-writer - even computers and printers - because these devices give you the possibility to make copies. Frankly, when some restrictive DRM comes along I do feel ripped off because I can't do what I paid for (and there's no way I could not pay this amount in any of those devices because it's built into the price).

    What I can do, however, is either buy products that have no DRM at all - or products that have DRM that doesn't prevent me from doing the copies I feel I need.
     
  25. stimarco

    stimarco

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    Agreed: vote with your wallet. If nobody bought content with terrible, draconian DRM, nobody would use such technologies in the first place. But people do buy such content in such irritating wrappers, so clearly the market is viable. There's nothing to stop a content creator from selling direct, however. Today, many do just that. Often in multiple formats, including open ones.

    Note, too, that "fair use" and similar exceptions are not as cut and dried as many believe. In the UK, "fair use" is known as "fair dealing". It is also completely discretionary. The law states that the concept exists, but there is nothing on the statute books that explicitly defines how much of a particular piece of copyrighted material can be used under "fair dealing" as it depends entirely on the material and the context. Thus, what constitutes "fair dealing" can only be decided in a court of law.

    Some common sense is applied to avoid spamming the legal system with spurious claims, but it's nowhere near as clear-cut as many people believe. Every nation has its own legal quirks and loopholes.

    Despite the international treaties, copyright laws differ in each country.

    But I digress...

    That German "anti-piracy" levy doesn't exist in the UK. In Common Law, such levies are difficult to impose as they imply guilt on the part of the buyer despite there being no proof, violating the "innocent, unless proven guilty" tenet. If there's any chance that a device or medium can be used legally, it may be impossible to impose such a levy.

    The Spanish have arguably gone too far in the other direction: the levy has been applied so heavily that it has backfired, making it much harder to succeed there as a content creator or publisher.


    I have no quarrel with the fundamental tenet behind Copyright Law: that a creator has a short monopoly over his own creations in order to make a living. However, I'm more than willing to agree that there are areas where the laws can, and should, be improved and updated.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2012
  26. jashan

    jashan

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    Actually, it's not an "anti-piracy levy" but a fee you pay for the legitimate use of the device - for copying copyrighted stuff you've licensed for your own, private purposes.

    You do have a right as a licensee to make copies for your self. If you know German, you can read about it in detail on the Wikipedia: Privatkopie. Seemingly, this applies to Austria, Germany and Switzerland in one form or the other - and it does include making copies for friends as long as you don't make money with it. There has been one court decision that if you create more than 7 copies, it is too much (but aside from that, the precise number is unclear).

    And there seems to exist something similar in the US: United States / Audio home recording in general.

    I always like to see laws and court decisions that really make sense - and these do (IMHO ;-) ).
     
  27. forestjohnson

    forestjohnson

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    Wow, when I first posted this I though it was just going to be ignored- I'm surprised to see this many replies! I just wanted to spark discussion on this issue because I think it is very relevant to how our society functions, and how it is changing may be relevant to the way that our society will change.

    I am a clear advocate against copyright. But I'm not really saying "Legislate against copy protection now! Force content creators to deal with the harsh new reality of internet piracy!"

    Instead I'm saying "There are economic pressures which are already forcing people to reconsider how they do business, and this trend is going to continue, so we need to create new norms and reconsider how we think about copyright, and eventually we should change the laws to match how the market actually works."

    In some cases that's already happening, like the compromise offered by the DMCA, but I see further change in the future.
     
  28. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    To put this simply; I'm creative, work hard, and I'm quite proud of my work. I'm also a fan of eating from time to time, and my landlord sure enjoys my rent checks. So no, you can't have my work for free.

    And, as mentioned earlier, yes, every pirated copy is, in fact, a lost sale. If the people pirating the work weren't interested in owning a copy, then they wouldn't be pirating it, would they? If they're broke, that's not my fault, and it certainly doesn't mean I should give them my work for free.

    The only thing removing copyright would accomplish would be to crush the small, innovative developers. All we have are our ideas. If the big companies were given free reign over them, they could easily use their limitless money to out-develop and out-market every indie developer that exists.
     
  29. Filto

    Filto

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    Its hard to call it a lost sale because you don't know under which conditions the person find your product of value. Maybe it is only when being free the person find your product worth acquiring. I'm sure you have bought something on sale just because it was so damn cheap, for the original price you would never consider buying though. Or maybe you accepted a free sample of a product you never really use otherwise, but hey its free why not.
     
  30. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    It doesn't matter how you try to angle the conversation. If you take something without paying for it, you're stealing. Sheesh, what's happened to this generation? It's like a bunch of entitled 12 years olds.
     
  31. forgottenmindset

    forgottenmindset

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    It's run by servers, that cost a lot of money to run and maintain. They run on personal computers that people have to work for to have money to earn. Electricity powers them, which is run by fossil fuels, dams and nuclear power plants, which are in turn maintained by thousands of highly skilled workers and engineers.

    The servers that house your coveted pirated movies have to be sheltered with property that is not free and require huge internet bills that the ISPs need to pay off their investors, employees and men that keep roofs over their heads and maintain the lines that run across the nation. League of legends is no more of a saint than World of Warcraft, they bothe earn money, just in other ways. Everything in this world decays, everything requires work to keep working. Right down to the food we eat, it has to be worked at to be able to have a harvest, so that you can eat. Free is possible in Heaven, not on Earth, where moths eat, and rust does decay, and thieves steal.

    The people that always complain about stuff not being free, in my observation, don't even work, or barely.
     
  32. stimarco

    stimarco

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    Its irrelevant: there's a principle at stake here.

    If you don't want to pay the toll, you don't get to cross the bridge. Those are the Conditions of Use. If you don't agree with those conditions, you can always swim, or hire a boat. Or travel 10 miles down the road to the next bridge. You have a choice. And that's the principle.

    You have a choice: you can either agree to my terms and conditions and play my game, or you can go away and play someone else's. You won't die if you don't play my game. The world will not end. The hungry and starving of this world will benefit not one iota regardless of your choice.

    Games are a service. They provide you with a number of hours of entertainment. People complain and moan about having to pay, say, $40-60 for a game that might keep them occupied for weeks, yet they'll happily pay $10+ for just 90 minutes' worth of linear, non-interactive entertainment.

    Yes, but the point is that it is the CREATOR's choice whether to offer their work at full price, at a discount, or even just give it away. YOU do not get to make that decision. You did not do any of the work. All you get is a service providing you with entertainment. This is a luxury, not a human right. You are not entitled to anybody's work for free without their prior agreement.

    I honestly cannot understand why so many people seem to have trouble with this. It really isn't even complicated. Just ask yourself this:

    "Did I make it?"

    If the answer is "No", you don't get to decide what its price tag shows.
     
  33. Filto

    Filto

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    It has nothing to do with your argument of a lost sale which I was adressing though. I'm not angeling anything. i'm responding to your direct argument., You however brings in morals of stealing which has nothing to with what you were talking about. Angeling comes from your side not mine. I didn't even say if I thought it was morally ok to pirate or not.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  34. OmniverseProduct

    OmniverseProduct

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    I agree completely. I really do hate it when people angle the conversation like it's not stealing. Yes, everyone has probably done it in some form or another, but odds are we won't do it constantly.

    Note: I wasn't referring to filto but to everyone in general
     
  35. Filto

    Filto

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    I'm talking about lost sales here. Not wether its ok to pirate or not. I think the principle is very clear here. if you pirate you take something you are not entitled to, end of story. If that means a lost sale though is a whole other story. You might want to talk about right or wrong. I think that is totally uninteresting and very clear cut though, the impact on the industry is far more interesting to me. Some people come at it from a moral standpoint like you, others like me come at it from a pragamtic standpoint. they are different and can't meeet because they are totally different discussions.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  36. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    I wasn't discussing morals. If it makes you feel better, instead of "stealing is wrong" I can say "stealing is illegal". Is that pragmatic enough?

    As for "impact on the industry", every media industry has lost significant money due to pirating. Whether its music, movies, video games, book sales, etc., it doesn't matter. The simple fact remains that pirating takes money away from the creators of the product.
     
  37. _Petroz

    _Petroz

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    I don't know who revived this thread but it seems to have come full circle and degenerated to focus on the "piracy is stealing" argument. Viewing piracy as a lost sale is a very 1990's view of the situation, and really doesn't bring us any closer to a solution. MPAA and RIAA have a strong interest in preserving their business model and that is why they a strong proponents of this view point, despite the fact that more money is being put into music and movies than pre-piracy.

    I am not going to ask what's wrong with previous generations, I know they are stuck in the past and resist change. Developers that expect everyone who plays the game to pay for it, are acting like a bunch of entitled 12 year olds. It is the responsibility of content creators to understand the market they are serving and plan a monetization model that actually works. Many studies have shown that there is more money going into these industries and the games industry despite the widespread piracy.

    At the end of the day there is more money in the industry than ever before, viewing piracy as a lost sale is quite simply wrong.
     
  38. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    You can't be serious. Expecting customers to pay for a product you created is being childish?

    And looking at video games from "then" to now is incredibly short-sighted, considering the "then" of video games was 20 years ago. Only recently have video games really gone mainstream and started hitting their potential. This would come faster and stronger if it weren't for piracy.

    This isn't a matter of "resisting change", its a matter of having to cater and coddle a generation of spoiled brats.
     
  39. Filto

    Filto

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    You are still not adressing the issue of lost sale that I was respodning to. Everything you are doing now is merely attacking opinions that you assume I have.
    "Every media has lost significant money due to pirating"? Unless revenue has gone down which i believe it hasn't, it has rather increased for many medias I guess you can only make that statement based on your argument that every pirated is a lost sale which I don't agree with so we are back at the topic you are still not adressing. But sure pirating is wrong and illigal I agree, lets get that out of the way
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  40. AdrianC

    AdrianC

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    This thread again...

    It's been shown many times that the piracy rate (at least for indie games) is somewhere in between 95% - 99% of total game downloads. So that means for every 1 legit copy, there are 99 pirated copies. Now if even 1% of the people who pirated that game actually went out and bought it, that would almost double the total sales of that game (which I think is huge).

    On the other hand, you could argue that all those pirated copies actually increased the overall popularity of the game, which resulted in more sales. This however can't be proven.

    Anyway, not sure why we're even talking about piracy, since this thread is about copyright. Personally I can't understand how anybody could be against copyright, so maybe someone on that side could take the time to explain their position a little more clearly.
     
  41. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    I wasn't attacking anything.

    Very well, think of it this way. Copyright is automatic and free. Great for unfunded indies like myself. Larger corporations back this up with the costly "trademarks" and "registered" content.

    Now, a small indie like myself relies on every single sale. Each time someone plays my game, I throw a little parade in my mind. This isn't a matter of "thousands of intalls pirated" in a sea of tens of millions sold. We're talking about 900 copies pirated of the 1000 total played. That's 90% of the people playing my game that I haven't made money from.

    The end result? Despite the fact that I've worked hard, was good at my job, and successfully created a game that people enjoy, I don't get to eat this week. Why? Because the people playing my game didn't think they should have to pay for the things they want.

    (Of course, by this logic, maybe I should just go out and steal some food to balance things out, eh?)

    People attempt to blur things with semantics like "what is a sale, really", which is just plain juvenile (though they may have a bright future in politics). If people that play my games don't pay for them, then I go broke. That is the bottom line.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  42. Filto

    Filto

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    I'm not taking a stand on it. There are pros and cons. But I'll link this video cause it brings up interesting thougts on the topic

     
  43. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    True, we have gone off topic a bit.

    Personally, I don't understand why anyone would want to do away with copyrights (unless you're just woefully unoriginal and are counting on stealing someone else's idea).

    Aside from vague references in the original video about offering your products for free, no one has really stated exactly why they want to abolish copyright protection.
     
  44. _Petroz

    _Petroz

    Joined:
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    Posts:
    730
    I said entitled and I was just reusing the word someone used to describe the market. A better word might be delusional, if you are creating digital content it will be subject to piracy, that is the reality. Expecting any different has no basis in reality, if you want to work in a piracy free market, perhaps mineral trading is more your speed.

    The reality, is that piracy happens and markets are growing regardless.

    Which is why I chose to include both the music and movie industries in my comment which are far more established. They too have seen high levels of piracy accompanied by continued growth.

    It's no skin off my back if you want to live in a fantasy land. I'll focus on catering to the real market while you keep your head firmly buried in the sand.
     
  45. khanstruct

    khanstruct

    Joined:
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    Posts:
    2,869
    You said "entitled 12 year olds" (mimicking my words), which does imply childish.

    Did I, in some way, claim that piracy doesn't exist? Or even that we could somehow put an end to it? I suffer no delusions about this. I'm very aware that it happens, it will continue to happen, and there is very little that can be done to prevent it.

    However, its a broad jump from being aware of its reality to attempting to justify it, or even passively accepting it. This apathetic "oh well, can't stop 'em" attitude is the very definition of burying your head in the sand.
     
  46. _Petroz

    _Petroz

    Joined:
    May 13, 2010
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    That's not my position and I made that quite clear. Content creators need to adapt to the market. Piracy has not reduced the size of the market, it has only grown.

    The full impact of piracy is far more complex than simply a 'lost sale'. An argument could be made that the increased exposure some games got through piracy had a net positive impact. I'm not arguing that it is always positive, but a high piracy rate could also be indicative of other problems, such as poor distribution, marketing, or pricing. There are a lot of ways of looking at it and simply labeling it as stealing is unproductive.
     
  47. n0mad

    n0mad

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2009
    Posts:
    3,732
    Oh, some people here are ok with working very hard for free ?
    Great ! I need 32 human 3D models, fully textured, rigged, 1000 poly limit, with AAA textures. For asap, indeed.
    ;)

    /joking
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  48. superpig

    superpig

    Drink more water! Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2011
    Posts:
    4,649
    The whole "lost sales" thing is a red herring. It makes the mistake of presupposing that as long as the creator hasn't lost out financially, then nothing else matters.
     
  49. npsf3000

    npsf3000

    Joined:
    Sep 19, 2010
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    3,830
    That would be a stupid argument to make though, because it it doesn't understand the fundamental problem with piracy - it distorts the market. If free exposure increases sales, then people should be rewarding companies that offer free versions. Piracy on the other hand damages those that offer free versions while occasionally rewarding those that don't.
     
  50. ZeroByteDNA

    ZeroByteDNA

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2012
    Posts:
    1,042
    The market has grown. Period. There are more people today than there were yesterday. Saying that piracy has not reduced the size of the market is not saying anything.

    One can bring up their excuses, reasons, and rationalizations for breaking the law at sentencing...