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My appeal to reconsider copyright

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

  1. SevenBits

    SevenBits

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    Because it's only illegal once you get caught! ;)
     
  2. ZeroByteDNA

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    The getting caught thing's kind of interesting. The people that pirate various things - would they walk into a store, pick something up off the shelf, and try to walk out the door with it? I mean, if they think that pirating things is okay - then they should have no problem walking into a store and doing that - right?

    In the end though, I suppose the thing that kind of ticks me off is the nature of it. The gradation and rationalization...my own, that is. For example, while I cannot say I ever looked too fondly on the guy pirating the $50 game...the folks pirating the $1 game? Really? A $1 game? FFS. That's not saying that pirating the $50 game is okay...but really, a $1 game? I mean, c'mon - that's just damn pathetic. Then the people that are pirating software needed to make a product that they hope to sell... really? They think people should pay for their product after they've not paid for the products they needed to make their product? Again, that's just outright...well, pathetic.

    It's just mind boggling.
     
  3. stimarco

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    Our planet has gained over one thousand million new people over the last 20 years or so, which makes claims that sales are "still increasing" irrelevant: you need to show how you've accounted for increasing populations and new markets (e.g. the rise of China as a consumer market over the last decade or so) before pretending that copyright violations have had little effect on the industry.


    To those who consider developers to be "entitled 12 year-olds", you might want to look up the terms "counterfeiting" and "devaluation".

    A hacker can cut and paste the digits from your bank account into his own. Why should they get thrown in jail for that? It's just digital data! It's just a number stored in a computer! And we all know that "information wants to be free!" so that hacker should be hailed as a freedom fighter, releasing your money and sharing it with the world. (Or, at the very least, himself.)

    Hell, all it takes is a few taps on a keyboard and I can have some more, bigger, numbers in my bank account. Again, it's just numbers. The world's national and international economies are built on shunting digits around networks and, effectively virtual, currencies. No biggie: it's just data, so I'll just add, oh, say, a couple of million Euros to my current account. Who will that hurt, eh? Nobody, of course! It's just data. Just numbers! Digits!

    But if everyone else starts doing the same thing, that virtual money in my account buys me less and less. Almost overnight, governments and their national banks will have to start devaluing their currencies. So we'll just add more, bigger, numbers to our bank accounts... and the hyperinflation continues.

    The Android platform is a perfect illustration of this. For all its fanatical followers' assertions that it's got the "biggest market share", developers serving that market rarely make much, if any, money from it. And certainly far, far less than they can make from the iOS platform. Why? Because one of Android's much-touted advantages is also its Achilles' Heel: it's trivial to install applications on it from anywhere... including from a downloaded BitTorrent file.

    For most developers, Android is a waste of time and effort. The "Freemium" model is the only viable model for that platform now. All the other sales models have been effectively devalued to worthlessness.

    This affects end users too: How do you provide in-app purchases for, say, a drawing app or some other productivity tool?

    I hate the "Freemium" model and have absolutely no intention of ever supporting it; I don't like being nickel-and-dimed myself, so why should I inflict it on my own customers? That effectively rules out Android for me. Those developers who are mercenary enough to not mind using this model might do okay, but many will not want to do this.

    So, developers and customers on Android are effectively limited to just two sales models: "Freemium" and "Free". So much for Android's much-touted freedoms, openness and choice. I, and my customers, have more choice on iOS, despite all the claims about it being a "walled garden"*.

    This is a fundamental philosophical and design flaw in Android (and the FOSS movement in general): if you deliberately avoid installing locks on anything, you only have yourself to blame when someone breaks in, or decides to squat in your living room. That kind of hippy crap works fine in tiny communities where everybody knows everyone else, but it just doesn't scale. The internet has already proved this: everyone who isn't an idiot has a firewall between their computer and the internet—even Richard Stallman.

    So, yes, piracy is damaging the industry, by devaluing the software we develop. By devaluing what we do for a living.

    Now, I'm multi-skilled and not limited to a single career path. But it does sadden me how much effort people put into justifying their clearly immoral and unethical actions when they could be trying to come up with a better, more viable, alternative instead. Because if you can't tell us what we should be doing, you're just part of the problem, not the solution.

    (And please, for the love of Codd, don't trot out the usual "live performance" or "merchandising" options as viable alternatives: if I'm going to make my money off T-shirts, why would I bother writing music too? I might as well just make nice T-shirts instead!)



    * ("Gated community" fits much better than "walled garden". The latter term is effectively meaningless.)
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2012
  4. Filto

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    Is anyone here really justifying piracy? Is there anyone who doesn't believe pirating is wrong? Sure people here have different opinions on the severety of the crime and the consequences of piracy.
     
  5. stimarco

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    You justify counterfeiting whenever you suggest that it's something we have to "live with", or allow for. Shopkeepers do indeed allow for a low level of shoplifting and theft—reducing crime to zero isn't viable thanks to the law of diminishing returns. But telling a struggling artist (in any field) that they should accept a 90% counterfeiting rate and just deal with it in some vague, magical, hand-wavy way, isn't going to win you any friends.

    Currently, developers have only a few options to reduce that rate: use DRM and use curated app stores in "gated community" platforms that don't go out of their way to make installing counterfeits applications easy. (You know, like Android does.)

    Apple's approach is certainly not perfect, but it's by far the least worst option for many developers who actually want to make a living doing what they do best. Microsoft are learning fast too.
     
  6. khanstruct

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    The funny thing is, the same people will then be complaining about restrictive DRM.

    And last I checked, the iOS market produces between 4 and 10 times more profit than the Android market. This is ridiculous, considering the open market of the Android, providing thousands more apps and having millions more customers, should provide more money. It doesn't. And that is a direct result of piracy.

    But I think we've beaten that dead horse quite enough. Yes, the reality is that it will happen. No, we shouldn't just accept it and certainly not condone it. But if you hope to survive as a business, you do need to account for it.

    This is why our game is being released on iOS, despite that fact that I don't own an i-device, I'm not a fan of Apple, and it'll cost me more than I currently have to publish it. But on the App Store, people are less likely to steal it.

    Now, on topic, what do you think would happen to me if a big company came along, took the name of my game, reproduced it as their own and buried mine under millions of dollars in marketing? Would there really be any point in even trying to be an indie developer?
     
  7. n0mad

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    Even more on topic, this is exactly what happened to this dev :
    http://kotaku.com/5935599/developer-some-company-in-china-stole-my-game
     
  8. khanstruct

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  9. ZeroByteDNA

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    That's a faulty conclusion.

    Cost of iOS device vs. Android device? The iOS product costs more. The iOS customer is already used to spending more. By contrast, the Android customer's used to spending less money.

    Number of iOS apps vs. Android apps? The Android market is flooded with people by comparison, and so each item is trying to squeeze out a little money amidst all of those apps.

    Even without piracy, it's obvious that with those two items alone one should find more money in the iOS market than in the Android market.

    An issue that's often overlooked is the devices themselves. How many Average Joe's feel the need to jailbreak their iPhone compared to how many Average Joe's feel the need to root their Android phone? For Android, it's usually a case of trying to remove bloatware that the manufacturer installed that you can't remove without rooting the phone. It's a case of trying to get an updated version of Android for the phone that the manufacturer decided not to release in the hopes that you would buy their next phone. Android manufacturers have all but created the need for many Average Joe's to find a way to root their devices...unlike Apple. It's not a justification for piracy in the least, however - it's done two things: it's generated animosity in the user base and it's put the device in a state where piracy is easier.

    Again, it's not an excuse in the least - but the device manufacturers have created a group of users that pirate, that are not the typical pirate. They did not root their phones to pirate apps. No doubt, those folks exists. They're pirates. These folks though, while they're pirating - they're opportunity pirates.

    Say a riot breaks out. You'll have your looters. You'll have the guys that throw bricks through windows to get at the goods inside the store. You'll have the guys that notice the window is no longer there and may grab something.

    It's still stealing. There's little doubt there would be less of it if people did not feel the need to root their Android devices though.

    One could say that IAP helps Apple and iOS developers avoid some of this, but IAP's been hacked. But still, those are your actual pirates and the like. You're going to have them. Everybody's got them. The opportunity pirates though, Android manufacturers manufacture them with every device...meh.
     
  10. _Petroz

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    Not only have you failed to provide any source for your fabricated statitics (a quick google search shows the iOS global revenue is roughly double that of Android) you have also assumed a causal link between piracy and profitability, providing no evidence. Following your logic, the open Windows platform should generate less revenue for developers than the closed OS X platform. There are many other factors at play and attempting to simplify it down to a 'lost sale' is incorrect.
     
  11. Filto

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    At the same time it is usually people with the crappiest products who blame their failing on pirating. The mobile app market is totally swamped with junk because there is no quality assurance of the products whatsoever. Anyone can create an app today, call themselves developers and then mope because their "learning about game development experiment" wasn't a success because pirates "stole" their money. If they offered a money back if not satisfied clause on those games we would learn better how much pirating actually hurt the games compared to how the developer "ripped off" the costumer. Buuut...also I am going off topic :)
     
  12. khanstruct

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    Ugh, ok, the reference to the amount made on iOS vs. Android was the average I've seen involving interviews and posts from successful developers. So, perhaps more accurately, I should say that a "successful app" tends to generate between 4 and 10 times more money on the App Store than on the Android market.

    And again, this is still drastically off topic and getting repetitive and nonsensical. I truly don't care enough about the subject to write a term paper and cite my references. To make the claim that piracy doesn't negatively affect sales is ridiculous and, since no one can provide numbers on the loss of sales (because pirates don't tend to keep records), this ranks right up there with arguing with a priest who wants you to disprove god. It's tiring and entirely pointless, since your response will always be little more than "nuh-uh, prove it".

    Now, please continue and possibly even stay on topic.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2012
  13. ZeroByteDNA

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    Well, there's not really much to the original topic. Remove copyright - remove ownership...anybody can do anything they want with anything. Communism failed...whether talking politics, economics, sociology, etc, etc, etc...
     
  14. _Petroz

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    There are a number of reasons why your Android vs. iOS argument was flawed. I don't doubt that there are titles which have seen ratios as you described, but it is not representative of the market as a whole. It is more likely an indicator of titles suited more to one market than the other.

    The main reason I chimed in was to offer a fresh perspective. There were many posts where people were equating piracy to lost sales and the reality of the situation is far more complex. Piracy has not prevented the market from growing, that is a fact. Whether it has hindered or accelerated that growth is impossible to determine. However it is not particularly important either, my main point was that the market continues to grow. The talent pool is also growing, but if you get in early you should have a prime position to get a piece of that ever growing pie. Whether or not the pie is a big as it could be, whether a world without piracy would have a bigger pie, is a purely academic question. The reality is we live in a world with piracy, that paying customers dislike intrusive DRM, and it can do more damage than good. Rather than trying to make everyone pay for the game, perhaps it would be better to make a game that enough people want to pay for.
     
  15. ZeroByteDNA

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    I'm not sure why you would try to separate the two.
     
  16. _Petroz

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    Perhaps this is clearer:
    Energy spent countering piracy could be better spent increasing accessibility and overall quality.
     
  17. ZeroByteDNA

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    Ignoring the issue does not make it go away...

    ...burying your head in the sand inevitably leads to...

     
  18. Jaimi

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    Seems spot on to me:

    http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/21/piper-jaffray-android-app-revenue-is-7-of-iphones/

    Here's an interesting tidbit:

     
  19. Jaimi

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    The best games are the most pirated. The worst games are the least pirated -- after all, no one wants them.
     
  20. ZeroByteDNA

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    "Philip Elmer-DeWitt has been covering Apple since 1982, first for Time Magazine, and now on the Web for Fortune.com."

    I agree - that's an interesting tidbit. It explains the crap statistics he made up.

    I'm not sure anybody would actually argue the difference between the two, but sheesh...Phil's articles tend to be a trip on the USS Fanboi.
     
  21. Jaimi

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    Not sure if you read it or not, but the numbers are not his. But please, find and post something showing that the Android is making people more money -- I don't work for Apple, nor do I have any stock, i'd be interested to see if this is turning around. You may want to read the posts of the developers in the IOS forum here, though, who have similar stories on a smaller scale.

    But I think the Android market has definitely fallen on the side of the posters argument, which appears to be "I want everything for nothing".
     
  22. hippocoder

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    OK you asked, hippo provides.

    1. A big company like epic isn't made up of retards. It's made up of people far brighter than you AND me.

    2. They say: http://phandroid.com/2011/11/23/inf...racy-concerns-preventing-android-development/

    Nuff said. Although the situation is changing, it's changing super-slowly. Too slow to live off for all but a lucky few developers.
     
  23. ZeroByteDNA

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    If you read what I said, I stated that "I'm not sure anybody would actually argue the difference between the two"... as in pretty much everybody agrees that iOS > Android when it comes to developer money.

    And yes, it's incorrect to place the blame for the made up stats on Phil - Gene made them up - Phil just regurgitated them. Phil didn't actually say anything in the article - other than to spread Gene's garbage. Gene took two sources, took them out of context, to make a point. Phil happily passed it along.

    Again, I do not think anybody's going to argue the trend so far has favored iOS developers over Android developers (and those that do both, do better than those that do not).

    The issue is that the stats are based on the following:

    July 10th 2008 through September 30th 2011 for the App Store.
    October 23rd 2008 through November 11th 2011 for the Android Market.

    The App Store was launched the day before the iPhone 3G running iOS 2.0...
    The Android Market was launched a month after Android 1.0. The same day that the first Android phone became available - the T-Mobile G1.

    Prior to Cupcake, there were 2300 apps in the Market. After Eclair, there were over 16000 apps.

    Android really didn't start to blossom until the end of 2009. Hell, the group that created Android did form until Nov 2007.

    The first iPhone was released June 2007 (yes, one could probably see how the OHA formed around 11 months after Jobs announced the iPhone). iOS 1...and yes, the iPod Touch was released September 2007. iOS was developing a market well over a year before the first Android device.

    And that's just part of it. Amazon App store? Direct downloads of APKs from other sites? The other various alternative Android app stores? Some of them are even proprietary for the device.

    All in all, it's bad stats...really bad stats.

    Which is unfortunate, because there has been a lot of information which supports iOS having been better than Android for developers. It's there - all over the place - easy to find...in stats that weren't made up.
     
  24. stimarco

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    Dragging this thread kicking and screaming back on-topic...

    Copyright underpins so much of our lives today that removing it would be tantamount to triggering a massive western-hemisphere-wide revolution.

    People forget that Copyright (and the concept of IP ownership in general) does NOT apply only to games and other forms of entertainment. Research and development documents in any corporation are subject to automatic copyright as are standard business letters, utility bills and pretty much any other form of processed information. Governments would be powerless to prevent copying of their internal, secret, documents on legal grounds, because there wouldn't be any legal grounds any longer. MI5, the CIA, etc., would all have to find ways of producing papers and reports that cannot be read by anyone.

    That's one of the reasons why we still have a lot of research and development going into encryption and decryption techniques; DRM wrapping is just an offshoot of that industry.

    Remove Copyright and IP laws and DRM is our only option. Openness and transparency are all very well in theory, but when you FORCE everyone to live in glass houses, you'll end up with a society that's a hell of a lot less free and open. Because we're humans. We're tribal. And territoriality and notions of ownership are instinctive. Try taking something from a baby sometime and their natural reaction will be to cry. We have to teach our children about sharing and altruism; these are not natural traits. Studies of our simian cousins also show similar attitudes towards property and ownership. Without these instincts, we'd have very weak family and tribal bonds.

    Ownership and Tribalism are two sides of the same coin. It's all about belonging.

    If you want to destroy the very concept of Intellectual Property, you'd better have a better alternative ready to replace it first. Because simply repealing it isn't going to enrich society in any way, shape, or form.

    As I pointed out earlier: If the only way I can make any kind of income from playing an instrument is to sell T-shirts, I'd be a fool to take up a career in music. Sure, I'll probably learn to play the instrument for my own personal entertainment, but I'll be damned if I'll go to all the effort of recording and selling / distributing my songs. What'd be the point? Kudos? Fame? Neither interest me in the slightest: you can't eat either of them.

    If your only solution to the problem of how to earn a living from making music is "Become a fashion designer!" you're really not helping. And you're proving my point: that there remains a need for IP laws, including Copyright. They may need adjusting, but not repealing entirely.
     
  25. hippocoder

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    When mankind gets rid of money and becomes a star trek inspired idealistic world of peace based on achievements, not money... thats when IP and copyright no longer matter. It's pretty much a perfect world as anyone can imagine.
     
  26. ZeroByteDNA

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    In Star Trek, there's still attribution. :)
     
  27. khanstruct

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    That would be nice. The problem is that a perfect world requires perfect people (or at least, slightly more altruistic people).
     
  28. stimarco

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    Star Trek doesn't have a particularly detailed background; everything that's defined is there purely to serve the story. The only thing you can infer from the ST series is that there is some form of economy—some of the novels talk of "credits"—that can presumably interface tolerably well with the economies of other Federation members. Like the Ferengi, who clearly do use a money-based economy.

    One of the golden rules of telefantasy writing is that you never provide any more background detail than is absolutely necessary, otherwise you run the risk of writing yourself—or a fellow writer—into a corner. "Canon" is a major pain in the arse in ongoing series like these because each bit of detail you add can have a massive effect on the stories you can write. So there's no point looking to these TV shows for solutions to major social problems. Occasionally, getting a prediction right (more by accident than by design) doesn't make them any more useful as predictors of the future than Nostradamus.


    If you do want to know how to solve our economic problems in a realistic fashion, there is a good idea for an economic system hinted at in one of the late Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted" novel: use time as the basis of all our economies' currencies.

    Unlike gold, silver, or subprime mortgages, nobody can manufacture time. Nobody can change how many hours, minutes and seconds there are in any one day. And all work takes a finite amount of time to perform.
     
  29. ZeroByteDNA

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    The mention of time in such a manner - well - I cannot help but think of this film:

     
  30. stimarco

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    Because, of course, Hollywood never gets the science wrong...
     
  31. ZeroByteDNA

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    Has nothing to do with the science - has everything to do with the people.
     
  32. npsf3000

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    Hell Star Trek is all about IP - what do you think the Prime Directive is really for? :p
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2012
  33. TylerPerry

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    No, as when we get to that point the Star trek creators will charge everyone for copyright infringement :(
     
  34. n0mad

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  35. ZeroByteDNA

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