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My appeal to reconsider copyright

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

  1. forestjohnson

    forestjohnson

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    Wow, it's been a long time since i've posted here, and obviously a lot has changed. I know y'all are a tough crowd when it comes to anti-copyright, being primarily business people and all, but I thought I'd post this as I'm curious what the consensus (or argument) on the issue is.

    This was designed with a wider audience in mind, so some of it will be redundant and boring, just giving fair warning.



    edit: aww the smileys are different now! I miss this:
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012
  2. Ippokratis

    Ippokratis

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    Hi Forest,

    Some people find great pleasure in having much more than average. To achieve this, other people end up having very few or nothing. It happens since the beginning of the known history. "Morality", "laws" of "gods" and humans, are perpetually used tools in this direction - ensuring that some people will have more than the others and most people will have very few or nothing.

    When something new occurs, something that threatens to disturb this situation, it is gradually absorbed and transformed into a gear of this meat - chopping machine. Take Jesus for example. His "Love One Another" message got transformed in a cross on crusader's swords that slayed people across East.

    Greed is the base of the problem. The only reason greed is considered "bad" from a moral POV is to lower the competition. The same play is played over time with different actors ( kings, priests, politicians and lately bankers and stock investors ) and most people do not realize that they are supporting actors in their life's movie.

    Those who could change the situation are easily sedated with fair doses of material happiness - having the great pleasure of going home in an expensive car with homeless people at the corner of the street. How can a person find hapiness when people around starve ? Easily, by characterizing them as useless and by thanking his god-abilities-luck-name yours for being better than them.

    Beautiful modern times - more than 5000 years old.

    Internet becomes another gear of this system - SOPA is just one of the many faces of this "integration". It becomes part of the human - chopping machine. Raising people's awareness is a hard thing to do.
    Nice try btw.
    -Ippokratis
     
  3. sybixsus2

    sybixsus2

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    It makes me sad that all young people can find to rail against these days is not getting enough free stuff. In the past, people protested for peace, tried to stop nuclear proliferation, campaigned for equal treatment for women, people of other races and people of other sexualities. These days, the best they can come up with is "I can't create anything of value, so why should people who can be allowed to benefit from it?" Sure, they dress it up and make it sound political, but the message is still the message no matter how you paint it.

    Equally, jealousy is the root of the other side of the problem.
     
  4. Morning

    Morning

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    By "in the past" you mean today right? Because that is happening just like it did in the past if not more.
     
  5. Ippokratis

    Ippokratis

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    Hi,

    subisxsus2: Thanks for sharing your point of view.
    Cheer up, people still do rail instead of staying apathetic.

    Messages are like seeds - they need soil. They can be interpreted in various ways - each one deserves to be respected.

    Too many problems with too many sides - solutions need actions.

    Kind regards,
    -Ippokratis
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2012
  6. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I would rather live in exciting times than apathetic times. But I do think that a lot of people are lazy as (djoy SHL 1) these days. I'm happy to be greedy if I worked for it.

    I don't consider copyright a problem, but I do consider patents a huge problem. It's lame to have your work copied and passed off. It would be freaking bedlam if it were allowed. Patents are evil though, since they represent and idea you can't use, instead of work you can't copy.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  7. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    Absolutely Brilliant Argument!

    There's an absolute ton of great stuff out there that is free!

    Therefor it's a completely rational and sane argument force everything to be free.

    /FAIL
     
  8. JRavey

    JRavey

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    You typed so much and said so little. =/ First class Internet style.
     
  9. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Almost a haiku from ippo there isn't it? :)
     
  10. Starsman Games

    Starsman Games

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    To everyone here against copyright, it helps to understand what it's doing.

    Copyright protects you, as a creator.

    Copyright has nothing to do with the price of a product. In fact, it's nearly impossible for a company to file a successful lawsuit against you for pirating a copy of anything for your own use.

    What is a [successfully prosecuted] crime is redistribution. If there was no copyright, sony can just walk by, grab a copy of Mario 64, Minecraft and hey, why not, my own Misu Misu Kaboom/Bomber Cat game and re-sell it on the App Store, Steam, and many other places without giving me a penny.

    They can just grab my game and place it in a heavily promoted website (that looks less likely to host viruses than my own thanks to well paid web designers) and sell adds to give my own game for free and make money.

    They can put my game for free in the App Store for free and stamp in app purchases so the money people pay for skins and costumes go to their pockets, not mine.

    And if it's legal THEY WILL DO IT because corporations don't care about playing nice, they just want to make money in any legal way possible.

    Copyright law exists precisely to prevent any corporation from redistributing your creations and cut you out of any form of revenue you decided to pursue (advertisements, subscriptions, etc etc.)

    Many are angry at copyrights but it's obvious they have no clue WHY they are angry at them. The real problem is a small one: punitive damages. These where established over a century ago, if I'm not wrong. What are they? They basically say "for ever product you make available that breaks copyright, you have to pay between $38,000 and $50,000."

    What does that mean? It means, if I seed torrents for 5 movies, I can be sued and, should I lose, I may have to pay between $190,000 and $250,000. Why those huge numbers? Because the goal of these punitive damages was precisely to prevent large companies from thinking they would just violate copyrights and pay small compensation to the owners if caught.

    This was never intended to be used against a small individual at home, simply because when they were introduced it was literally impossible for such an individual to create the level of distribution needed to be target of a lawsuit. This law MUST be rewritten so that independent/non commercial entities (individuals) that don't profit from their piracy are punished (they should) but not this harshly. The penalty should be more inline with driving violations and required to go via small claims courts (unless the individual was doing the piracy for profit.)

    There is another issue that spawns from the punitive damage deal and it's not too different from patent trolls: since going to court is so expensive, some sleazy lawyers will just go which hunting, threatening people left and right, and offering expensive settlements that are better than going to court and paying a lawyer to defend yourself. This is another reason why there should be laws to prevent abuse of the law and force such claims to go to small claims courts.

    But again: remove copyrights and you may as well forget about ever becoming an indie anything, because anything you do will just be automatically and legally stolen and sold by large companies, cutting you out of the action completely.
     
  11. DigiLusionist

    DigiLusionist

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    I work, I create, I deserve to benefit from my labors. Others who had no part in the process do not.

    Nothing in life is free. Nothing. If it is a product, someone worked to produce it. Unless the lazy and socialist in the world advocate turning others into slaves to produce things for them for "free," the argument against greed is silly.

    As Gecko said, greed is good. But, as someone else also said, too much of a good thing is bad.

    Whatever the heck that all means...
     
  12. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    +1

    They key though is they actually be punished - right now piracy is so easy as to be common and even expected. The long term repercussions of such ethical and moral codes is something I don't want to think about.

    And many have to remember that we here, as smaller game companies, are suffering because of these issues. We not only have to compete with entertainment that costs up to HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars... but at a price point of $ZERO thanks to piracy.
     
  13. Vert

    Vert

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    To me, this short reply from Ippokratis seemed to be more thought provoking than lacking substance. It made me ponder more about his previous posts and the others before his latest here.

    Interesting views in the video. From what I can see, it looks as if copyright abuse and business models are the real topic here, not copyright itself. Copyright helps all your favorite freebies from being cut off at the knees when they are young. It prevents duplicates and clones from popping up that could overshadow the idea of the original creator. It seems that the real problem is the business and marketing tactics here.

    People can get things for free and are not afraid to do so online. This is a segment of the market businesses need to look at seriously. Many of them do not and feel that their business as usual is good enough. That is suicide though. I've read countless articles on piracy and intellectual property theft that occurs on the internet. It seems that people are willing to pay for what they want its just that many times they don't want a to do extra work for it. I always refer to this image when copyright is brought up: (taken from http://boingboing.net/2010/02/18/infographic-buying-d.html)

    So really, which item is less hassle for the customer? As a content creator and provider we must consider this kind of mentality now that the internet is here. Its a stance that Valve holds, piracy isn't a problem, they are just undeserved customers. This article explains Valve's view of pirates: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090219/1124433835.shtml

    Another problem that music and movie industries complain about is user uploaded copyrighted content that they have refused to make available. I am referring to old TV shows and region locked music albums that people pirate. Sure it is copyright infringement, but if someone wants it and enjoys it that much to search for it, isn't there some of them that would pay for it? Or even watch a few ads to view them online? This I feel is copyright abuse, when a company seeks damages due to copyright infringement on a product that they never released in to a specific market. Companies need to realize these markets when they arise and address them. Oh there is a cult of people downloading our TV show from the 80s? Well make a DVD box set or allow people to purchase and download the item from your store with some exclusive content and you instantly make it worth it for the fans to purchase what they wanted. Some music publishers only publish CD's in certain regions. We are a global economy now, other areas may want that CD. Which is easier to obtain, pay $40 for a CD with $20 international shipping from some offshore online shop that specializes in importing music or to find it on a torrent site for download? (from what I have seen, certain record labels only want to serve certain customers in certain ways and there are cd's out there that can only be purchased in CD form by importing it at 5 times the regular cost.)

    So I don't think copyright is the issue at all. I feel this is more or less business models and tactics that are the real problem causing the "problems of piracy and content theft". Copyright protects content creators from other content "creators" who prey on start ups and those who want to make a quick buck off someone else's work. I know I don't want just anyone being able to use my artwork for their business. Do away with copyright and Disney characters would be advertising everything. You wouldn't be able to go anywhere without seeing someones popular image trying to represent a brand. That would be a state where you would not easily benefit form being a content creator, which I am sure most people would not want to be in.

    The problem that needs to be addressed is how the individuals and businesses handle the market. That determines their profits and customer base. Copyright has nothing to do with that other than ensure they themselves can bring their content to the market instead of the guy next door who copied all of the new content made.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  14. Starsman Games

    Starsman Games

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    @MakerOfGames

    There are two issues at play here.

    Issue one: BlueRay is garbage. You can get legal movie downloads digitally from iTunes and other sources without that much struggle.

    Issue two: That image is a big lie :p The pirate route usually involves visiting some website with a lot of potential malware infested ads, hunt down the true torrent, wait an hour or two, maybe more if the seeding is bad, and hope you picked the right torrent and not just a virus. Once you get the file now you better hope it's a format you can play or that you are geeky enough to have VLC installed. If you are geeky enough you may now start the burning process so you can watch on the TV.
     
  15. keithsoulasa

    keithsoulasa

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    Its at the point one might just have to go to the library and read a book , or download a classic public domain book for FREE
     
  16. TylerPerry

    TylerPerry

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    Then you get to start watching the bury, shaky mess with someones head in front of the camera :D
     
  17. Noisecrime

    Noisecrime

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    Sorry but i'm going to have to disagree with this, not on principle (moral/ethic codes are very important and punishment has its place in society), but on practicality and that I believe it will still fail to make any changes.

    I think the problem here is that content creators view every pirated copy as a lost sale and that this has gotten worse with the rise of digital content.

    Taking the second point first, piracy ( not stealing, which deprives the seller of a physical product) is nothing new, you've always been able to copy and every few decades it got easier due to the distribution and creation of the copies getting easier. E.g. Tape decks for copying records. In addition you've always been able to sell, lend, share content in the past and no-one has was ever bothered by it.

    Indeed in some markets it was beneficial (e.g. newspapers. I remember reading that for every copy of The Sun sold, 4-5 other people would read it, but that wasn't a problem as it meant higher numbers of people seeing the adverts over the base circulation number). Then of course there are places where its actively encourage, such as Libraries, though i'm unsure if they pay some minimal license to royalty collectors?.

    It only appears to be more of an issue now, because its somewhat easier for people to copy stuff that they couldn't necessarily get hold of so easily before and circumvent things like regional releases. Prior to this you'd be limited to your personal network of friends/family.

    Something else is that its only now with digital distribution and 'phone home' type software that we can get a reliable view as to the actual numbers of copies being made, but whilst the reach has certainly gotten wider, i'm not sure you can really claim that things are worse when we have no idea of the numbers prior to this.

    So i'd question whether the 'actual numbers' in regards to piracy has any real relevance.

    Now the first point, every pirate is a lost sale. This is so obviously untrue and judging by various figures about paid vs pirated copies of content, matched to my own purchasing habits between xbox live demo's downloaded vs conversion to paying for the full game, I strongly believe its around 10-15%. Obviously this could be a substantial money value for say you're latest summer blockbuster movie, but is almost negligible for your 1000 copies of an indie game sold.

    That's not to say I condone piracy or happy that the work and effort of developers are losing potentially 10% of their revenue, i'm just not sure its 'that big a deal' and more to the point, nothing like as big a deal to justify the massive expense of implementing a 'driving violation' penalty charge type system ( not talking about having license points added which is a different thing altogether), which in itself has also failed to achieve anything but raise money to pay for government/police forces. In fact i'd argue that its become a tax, which if you are rich enough you can afford to pay when you are caught out.

    So honestly I don't think that 'punishments' are going to make a blind bit of difference to piracy, neither punitive (which have been happening for over a decade now) or marginal such as suggested similarity to 'driving penalties'. Certainly not for 'personal' piracy, commercial piracy is a different thing (i.e. selling downloaded content at a market, in the pub etc), but I could easily see that sector growing massively if you managed to stop or discourage people from download copies personally.

    No the answer is not simply 'punishment', though there are cases where it needs to be available. Instead we must accept a certain level of 'personal' piracy with all content. Which happens for a large number of reasons ( wanting something for nothing, unaffordable, advertising (must have the latest thing), collectors, try before you buy etc, etc), but which the bottom line is that it will only be a small percentage of your potential profit. Its a losing battle that will never be won, i'm surprised no-one has started a 'War on piracy' ;)

    Instead we need to look at ways of maximizing revenues from those consumers who want to purchase our products, or want to align themselves with our product, who are fans of our product. These are the consumers who care about our product, who care about the creativity and effort developers put into their product and whom will support us. Treat these with respect and not draconian DRM and you will flourish.

    You only have to look at how successful some Kickstarter projects have become to see that there are plenty of consumers out their willing to support a product, and a large percentage of them willing to do so above and beyond your basic unit cost price (i.e the higher tiers of rewards over $30-60). This is nothing new, there can't be many people here who haven't at one time or another 'bought' into some franchise, be it a film, pop group, TV series, book, going on beyond any initial cost for the single product and purchasing more (e.g. t-shirts featuring your favourite band).

    Again these are the people we need to tap into whilst using the pirates for free marketing and potentially broadening our fan base into paying/supportive costumers.

    Well that's my opinion anyway, one that has been developing for a over a decade and one which I can't help feeling is going to become more and more the norm, once big corporations suddenly discover there normal consumer/fanbase evaporates the more they hinder paying customers and keep producing crap ;)
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  18. DigiLusionist

    DigiLusionist

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    Ah, the Internet religion of Kopimism is rearing its head on this forum. LOL

    So if forestjohnson spent time developing a game and, after he released it, I were to claim the title as my own work and make money off of it, that would be cool, right?
     
  19. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    Well you're wrong on a couple points. For a start for all practical points every pirated movie, game etc. is a lost sale. What people don't often understand is that the lost sale isn't necessarily one that hurts the big corporation. Every time linux is ignored in favor of pirated windows, every time stolen 3ds max is used instead of gimp, every time some one plays crysis instead of half a dozen free flash games...

    That's all lost 'sales', and in many instances it helps assert the big corporations dominance. People who pirate lose their vote - to the detriment of others.

    This is the place where I'd counter your argument regarding the prior effects of piracy:

    "Indeed in some markets it was beneficial (e.g. newspapers. "

    Done.
     
  20. Noisecrime

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    Only if you count every pirated copy literally as a lost sale, not as is in fact the case of someone who would have neither have the means (financial), inclination, or interest in actually owning the product. I guarantee if you had a method to stop all piracy tomorrow you'll sales on products would NOT jump 90%, at best you'd get 10-15%. Not only that but I strongly suspect you'd see profits fall as consumers will become even more cautious with their spending, especially as we know companies would not remove their DRM even though there is no need for it now, no they'll keep it and force you to buy a separate license for a movie for every closed system to watch it on.

    Not sure I follow your logic afterwards, seems very flawed. Who on earth would pirate windows if they wanted Linux in the first pace? Plus Linux is free so where is the lost sale even if they did use it? I assume you mean Photoshop not Max vs gimp, which again gimp is free no lost sale there.

    Seems you are subverting 'sales' to mean that everyone should be using open source projects to stick it to the corporations. Which I actually find worse (well apart from sticking it corps) as suddenly every expects and gets everything fore free legally, then how is anyone to make a living at all? Or perhaps you are proposing a money-less society ala Star Trek? ;)



    Sorry not following your point here.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  21. keithsoulasa

    keithsoulasa

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    Ubuntu can do everything Windows can for 70% of people, non-gamers who just go on facebook and type essays .
    Then again, many of those people don't have the knowledge to pirate
     
  22. TylerPerry

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    But, when you serch a program on Google and click download you get a exe? that would make the operating system not good for normal people its actually frustrating searching around on the page to find a "Downloads" then clicking through to find a Ubuntu version, if it is supported.

    Mac OSX and windows are truly the only decent operating systems non of the others can compare.
     
  23. keithsoulasa

    keithsoulasa

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    You can also get a virus that way, normal people don't NEED to do that , in fact if your just on the internet looking for random EXE your going to eventually get a virus . Think about it . Theirs plenty of open source and free software out their .

    Ubuntu is better then Windows any day, for the most part I never have to worry about maleware or the crap deciding to not work . And worst comes to worse I have to re-install( never had to do this with Ubuntu ) without dealing with M$ tech support asking me if i'm a pirate .
     
  24. TylerPerry

    TylerPerry

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    No one said a random EXE just any EXE.
     
  25. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    And how do you come to that conclusion? [And even using your numbers, that's got to be billions of sales.]

    Life is about choices. Choices have pro's and cons. The $100 windows fee is either worth it [in which case MS gaines a lost sale] or they don't [in which case Linux or other gets a sale]. The problem only occurs when the game is distorted so that neither party gets a sale.

    If you honestly believe a 'free' user has no real value, then I suggest you start opening your eyes.

    I do no such thing. I want strong and legitimate competition from both sides, and to use whatever works best for me.

    I'll just point you to a local example:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11195407
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  26. Noisecrime

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    ... and you fall into the trap that the record industry and other media companies make. At some point, quite quickly it becomes irrelevant concerning the loss of total sales across the board as there isn't enough money in the pockets of your average consumer to cover it! So again if you could suddenly make everyone purchase a copy who had pirated it, you'd still not see these profits as there simply isn't enough money to go round.

    I don't deny there is a 'technical' loss of money here, just the reality is its never going to be anywhere like as much as you think.


    Interesting point about the distortion, though I don't feel the example is very good or even useful. For the vast majority of computer users linux is simply not a viable alternative. In general terms though I'm not sure this is such a big deal, it only seems to apply when you have a free - open source alternative and frankly most of the alternatives I've tried simply don't match the paid experience.

    I also don't see this as a valid argument, since if people are choosing to pirate paid content, then its unlikely that they wanted to use the free alternative in the first place. So whilst I could see a case for getting more users for Gimp or OpenOffice or linux, which in itself could increase popularity via word of mouth, the reality is no-one i've shown those first two to wanted them.

    All depends on what type of 'free user' we are talking about. In terms of linux, no i'm afraid not. Sure it helps add to their consumer base and could help generate more interest in their 'free' product, but honestly outside of techies no one cares or wants linux. Plus as I said above i've tried to get friends/family to use openOffice and gimp, none of them were interested and would rather keep buying the paid product. Simply having a free alternative is not enough to make any difference in this argument.


    Then why use 'sales' term in such a strange way? You are not talking about sales in your argument here, you are talking about customers. For whic I would on the whole agree it would be nice to turn them onto some of the free open source alternatives, but its got nothing to do with pirating.


    Huh? What has the closure of TNOW got to do with why newspapers were perfectly happy to have one person buy a copy and up to 5 others read it?


    I'm really not sure its worth bothering to reply to your posts, you never seem to directly provide any counter arguments to my points, but instead go off at tangents. I'm not looking for agreement here, I don't 'claim' to be right, but (obviously) I believe my opinion has some merit as it is based on developments that I see happening all around. Therefore I would be very interested in counter arguments against these opinions, in order to refine my position. Sadly though you never seem to offer any.
     
  27. Morning

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    Copyright laws need to be there, but they have to be redesigned to adapt to the current world. So do companies. You do not stop pirates by censoring internet, you stop pirates by offering quality products and services. Look at Valve and Steam. Many people who pirate games usually buy them on steam, many even refuse to pirate if the game is available on steam. That's because it's a great service and does not ruin your experience like many other DRM systems do.
    I suppose same could work for movies. Having one huge website where you can buy movies and download them to watch would be a big success. Services like netflix and some others are popular, a service that has all major dvd releases available to buy online would be a major success.
    The problem as I see it is that these big corps treat customers like cattle. They don't care about you or your interests, they care about ways to get more money from you. Sadly many disagree with their ways and thus resort to piracy.
    A pirated product is never a lost sale. Everyone counts how much their product was pirated, but no one counts how many of these pirates actually bought the product later. Treat pirate like a potential customer, not a thief or criminal.
    There's a reason why kickstarter and crowdfunding is so popular. It's because contributors know that indies will not plaster their game with terrible DRM, they will not cut the game to later release DLC to make the game 100%. If big companies considered this they'd be swimming in money and happy customers. Instead all they do is bitch and complain about how piracy is destroying them.
    These who adapt and evolve will survive. These who fight the future will be left behind and die. Though a multi-billion beast takes a lot of time and struggle before it dies.
     
  28. npsf3000

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    I do not have the time sadly to continue this argument, but I'll note one thing before exiting.

    I love your logic.

    If the product is worth while, then people would buy it [otherwise they won't]. What you're now claiming is that since there's not enough money to go around, even though the purchase is worthwhile people won't make it. My question is simple... where is the money going? Where is this value, that has been stolen from the creatives, going?

    Because it has been created. It does have this value. People are taking advantage of it. But it's not being paid for.

    Take windows for example. Most people have it. Most people save/generate $$$ from having it. Yet people [apparently] can't afford to buy it.

    That's FUBAR.
     
  29. Noisecrime

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    Finally a direct question/counter argument, though not a very interesting one.

    Its quite simple, the money was never there in the first place. What you think everyone has piles of cash hidden under their bed? Obviously some products would get the money, but eventually that person runs out of disposable income, so quickly find that large numbers of products could not be paid for.


    This is just one of the many failings that companies seem to forget when touting out the same old rhetoric, they also seem to conveniently forget that in the last 3-4 decades we've had an explosion in consumable goods to purchase ( which strangely don't seem to last as long as their predecessors), such as the games market itself which is now sucking up billions of disposable income already.

    Look, as I've said numerous times now, I'm not against the principles here. Neither am I happy that hard-working people are losing money, I'm just a realist, that understands you could only potentially claw back a small percentage of 'pirated' sales and only through draconian methods that serve to alienate you further from your consumers. Its the wrong direction and its only going to get worse, until finally we get to a point where companies who understand the new world will walk in and take over.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  30. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    What a load of old righteous bollocks being posted in this thread vs piracy. I've pirated. You've pirated. Have you never downloaded an mp3? did you ever copy a tape when younger? That is still piracy. So to get on your high horses and start the rallying cry to punish some kid that's downloaded a pirated game is f- incredible.

    Singular piracy should never, ever be punishable by law, only distributive piracy which is damaging. A single dork isn't damaging anyone but if he uploads, spreads it and makes it freely available to others, well I'd call that damage.

    Have some self respect.


    And for those who say "vote with your wallets" that doesn't mean "steal it and don't pay for it" - it means either you pay for it or you don't get it. A lot of people say "but the quality of the pirated version is higher" well in that case pirate it AND buy the original. Fair enough?
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  31. Morning

    Morning

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    Not only that, punishing does not solve anything. As I said, convert pirate into a customer. The kid likes your song, he becomes fan, he attends your concert, you get money. Oh wait no, record labels do not profit from concerts, mainly from mp3 sales. They will not like that the kid downloaded the song.
    Piracy has never destroyed industries and never will as long as these industries produce quality entertainment. The problem here is that current mentality is to spend less and sell for more. This results in lower quality product but still high expectations of profits.
     
  32. Filto

    Filto

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    I'm sure this will sort itself out soon enough. There is money to be spent, the industry just needs to produce a product that is worth paying for. Selling entertainment by the title is soooo old. What they should focus on is selling a service not a title. A movie service, a game service, a music service and so on. I believe the future is subscription based. You get a steady income and tie your costumer close to you. The music industry already have good services. I use spotify and pay 15 bucks a month for their music service, no problem.

    What happened for me was this. I used to buy maybe an album a month or so, then internet came along and you had a huge library of music at your disposal, quick and easy. no need to go to the store, just search and download, AWESOME!. So for a couple of years I didn't spend a dollar on music, it was clumsy, tedious and expensive compared to the alternative. Paying for one song!? Thats stupid i'm not doing that... Then Spotify came along, an app where music was streamed to me, the library was bigger, quicker and all in all bettter than using DC or torrentsites. Hey I'm paying for this, no problem so once again the industry gets my 15 bucks steadily every month.

    The movie industry now has me in that inbetween state where I don't spend a dime on movies or series. Hey I don't even own a dvdplayer anymore so I'm not buying a DVD, my old ones are just sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Besides the series I follow isn't even available in my country yet. So I download everything I need like a lousy pirate even though I have the money for the movieindustry to take, JUST TAKE THEM!. Create a service that I am willing to pay for and you can have them no problem. I'm not paying you for one movie or one episode of a TV-series, forget it, those times are gone. A monthly subscription for an up to date library of movies, series, documentaries and what not is the way to go. I'm just waiting for it to happen, which will be soon i'm sure.

    So forget counting lost sales, it is just a fantasy figure. It never was there and never will be. I have an amount of money I'm willing to spend on entertainment. In music it was around 15 bucks a month and you have them now. Don't count the zillions of fantasy dollars I stole from you during my music downloading era, they never existed. And stop counting the zillions of dollars I steal from you at the moment by downloading movies, they don't exist either. I have a limited amount of money set aside for you guys in hollywood and you can have them. I'm just waiting for you to make your move.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  33. Vert

    Vert

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    We know that it seems more of a hassle and threat to our own pc's security to pirate, but the public can hold another opinion. Most of the kids in my computer science classes in College were open about being software/movie/music pirates and I have even encountered people in the workplace that hold the same view. They thought firing up a torrent program or a simple search to a website was easier to obtain what they wanted than to part with their money and "go out of their way" to purchase something. But this is what I have encountered with my own experiences I am sure others have many different kinds of stories pertaining to piracy. That is why I stress over the business models in place and prices/availability of product. I have heard these kind of statements from pirates first hand.
     
  34. AdrianC

    AdrianC

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    For movies, there's Netflix.
    For games there are a few services, depending on the country, where you pay a monthly fee and you can have a few games out at a time. They send the discs to you through the mail. You send it back and get another. Blockbuster also offered this in Canada before they went bankrupt (no delivery though, just in store pick up).



    Anyway, I understand that a pirated copy isn't a lost sale, but what if I look at this from a different perspective. What if I don't care that I may have lost money because of piracy, what if I just dont want people who didn't pay for my game to enjoy playing it?
     
  35. ChaosWWW

    ChaosWWW

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    Time for me to enter this thread :D.

    If you are creating something that you really care about, then you want people to experience what you created. You sell this thing for money because you want to get something out of it other than people's gratification and you need to pay your bills etc, but the main concern should be that people get to enjoy it. If someone doesn't pay for your game and still enjoys it, then you should still be reasonably happy because they still enjoyed the thing you made. You are still getting money from the legitimate customers, yet more people enjoy your game than just that group. If all you care about is getting the most money possible, then I think that is quite greedy. But also, you shouldn't be in a creative field and should consider a different career where you are far more likely to get more money. People in a creative field should care about their art form first and for most, and making money second.
     
  36. Morning

    Morning

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    One problem with netflix
    and another is that it has a really small selection and most movies are rather old too. Could be a better service. For games there is steam though. That's a good service and has a wide selection. But it has a flaw that european customers are charged more than they should. Steam is usually the most expensive alternative.

    Then from my view you're a selfish person. Games are made to enjoy. And even if the pirate doesn't pay, he can be used as a good free advertising source.
     
  37. Filto

    Filto

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    You miss the point. You have to create a service that is BETTER than pirating. New movies (preferably movies showing in the cinemas, big library, High Quality, streaming etc. You can't create something that is subpar, there are many services like that but people won't pay for them of course. Sending digital information through the mail?! how old fashioned isn't that? As for you not wanting people to enjoy your game if they didn't pay for it. Fine you may feel that way but it doesn't solve the problem with piracy and it won't create more paying customers for you either. It would just lead you to being angry, bitter and poor. Why not focusing on making a product that people are willing to pay for instead?
     
  38. AdrianC

    AdrianC

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    I definitely agree with you guys that I'm a little greedy, but that's just how I am, can't change people right? I do want people to enjoy my games, but if after working hundreds / thousands of hours on a project, people can't be bothered to pay $1 for it, it's a little annoying.

    Anyway, any project I release always was and always will be free with in game ads and maybe some micro-t. I kinda side step the piracy issue this way.

    Regarding the sending of games through the mail being old fashioned, well major PS3 and XBOX games only come on discs, so those companies can't do anything about that. It is moving a lot more towards downloadable nowadays though, through Live and PSN.
     
  39. Morning

    Morning

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    Maybe just me, but I'd rather pay $1 than have ingame ads.
     
  40. AdrianC

    AdrianC

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    Sure, then have an in app purchase to remove ads for like 50c.
     
  41. Starsman Games

    Starsman Games

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    I have heard a lot of BS from a lot of pirates first hand too. No one will ever admit publicly they are doing something wrong so they will look for anything they can find to justify their actions.

    I DO agree that a partial solution for piracy is to make things more easily available in a digital format (like iTunes is already doing) but there still will be too many that will keep pirating and now say "oh but I hate Apple because it's evil, and I don't trust Amazon with my credit card, and Google tracks the hell out of everything, and Microsoft is eeeeevil.... so I MUST pirate it!"

    At the end of the day they pirate because they can easily find the piracy, and that's why movie studios are so aggressive against piracy distribution. Making digital content alone easy to get is not the complete solution, you also must make piracy hard to get.

    Music already, in my eyes, overcame this. Music piracy is harder to get than the legal digital download, but movie piracy is still too easy to come up with (despite the risks I mentioned above, that list was just to bust the 2 step lie.) Music is harder to get piracy because of years of aggressive legal departments.

    Games.... games are going it a horrible way. Other than pats in the back to any bill or legal movement that kills piracy, game studios don't seem to invest much in legal assaults, instead they just punish every single user by bloating their titles with absurd DRM acrobatics.

    Bah, I'm rambling...

    Points:
    • Pirates will always make up excuses.
    • Stuidos need to make digital distribution as easy to get as music.
    • Studios also need to make movie piracy as legally challenging as music piracy.
    • Users should fear legal action if they pirate.
     
  42. Morning

    Morning

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    The thing is, you can't technically prove someone pirated something unless you search their computer. Open routers, hacked computers, other people using computers, all these factors make you a criminal even if you haven't done anything. Not only that, the legal action is ridiculous. A few songs or a movie could land you in debt that you will never be able to pay off since majority of pirates are lower class citizens with limited incomes. Such lawsuits ruin people, ruin families. All that will be left will be hardcore pirates. The casual ones will all be in jail or unable to even afford internet connection any more.
    These media companies sue for ridiculous amount of money. How about suing for realistic amounts that people can actually pay off? You don't see police fining you thousands of dollars for breaking speed limit or parking wrong. And again, the detection system is faulty, making an innocent person pay is just dirty.
    An IP is not a person, it's just a bunch of numbers (or letters too if you're using IPv6). There's thousands of ways to hijack them. I bet quite a lot of casual users have at least some sort of virus or malware that could be used against them.
    And it's not even hurting the big cats. Each movie that comes out breaks box office or something. The movies that fail usually fail not because of piracy but because the movie is genuinely bad. A camrip will never be able to impact theatrical release. And dvd is only for after profits when the theatrical showing ends, corps hardly profit from dvd sales, it's just additional income for the sake of it. Sure there are straight to dvd movies, but again, they're failing because they're bad movies, that's all.
    If piracy is killing industries, how come each year they are grabbing billions of dollars worldwide? I see piracy as a byproduct, not a competitor.
     
  43. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I see it as an occupational hazard with potential fan conversion.

    But yes they can indeed prove you've broken the law if you are uploading or "seeding" any torrents. That is provable by law. The reason they don't go for you is not because they don't want you, but because it is actually rather expensive in terms of manpower and so on to go after you. So for now, they have convinced isp's to log everything you do, and leave the task of combating piracy up to the individual ISP. In America this will usually mean something like an email from your isp warning you that your service may be suspended if you continue to pirate stuff.

    The law (in US and UK) allows the police to investigate your complete internet activity for a period of a few months. This is invaluable and I would never try to stop them doing this. It is wonderful because currently the police are using it worldwide to track down paedophile rings :)

    That is one really, really good thing. Getting rid of proper internet scum like that. So beware of being TOO anti-establishment. Sometimes, it is genuinely for our protection (and the protection of our children).

    I believe we are moving to the cloud if I am not mistaken. Cloud computing (and games that run on the cloud, and even make ingame decisions on the cloud) are coming. These can't be hacked to run at home short of having the server source code, since the code would be executed much like an MMO on the server, while allowing you to play the game at home.

    This isn't like steam, or anything requiring an internet connection, it is placing important game events outside of your computer, which of course can break a game. You can't crack what's not on your computer.

    Downloading the data is also useless because the crackers will have to reverse engineer far more than they do now. It comes to a point where if a cracker has to spend months reverse engineering a game to run off the cloud, he won't bother. It's just not worth anyone's time.

    Right now it doesn't make sense for them to do it. But they know about it. And it's coming. I'll give it about 10 years.

    In the meantime I would expect them to start by offering freemium on the next generation of consoles with much much more internet capability. Seems innocent enough... for now ;)
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2012
  44. stimarco

    stimarco

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    Hi Yoggy,

    1. People give things away for free all the time. This is not new. People were giving stuff away for free long before computers—and even copyright—were even invented. People have even volunteered services—check out "Doctors without Frontiers" for an example—so it's not just physical goods.

    The existence of copyright clearly does not prevent free stuff from being given away. So why remove its protection from those who do need it and use it?

    The RIAA and MPAA can scream and scream and stamp their feet as much as they like, but (a) they have no jurisdiction outside the USA, and (b), they're dinosaurs and they know it. Computers have been slowly democratising every linear medium; without computers and the internet, "Homestar Runner" wouldn't even have been possible.

    2. A key problem with making everything free is Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crud". "Homestar Runner" and "Cave Story" are exceptions; there's a hell of a lot more dirt than diamonds on the internet. This is true of every medium: Sturgeon's Law is also why there never seems to be anything good on TV, despite the ever increasing number of channels.

    One of the services publishers can—and often do—offer is quality control. They're curators of content. You might not necessarily agree with an individual Commissioning Editor's choice of authors to publish, or TV documentaries to produce, but if they're terrible at their job, they won't last long anyway, so it's a self-moderating system at this level.

    3. Some people believe in the concept of "Art". I do not. I believe only in craft. To me, making a game or creating an animation is a work of skill and craftsmanship. A furniture maker is a craftsman. Michelangelo was also a craftsman—artists were employed then for much the same reasons as one would employ an interior decorator today. Yes, Michelangelo's work was considered beautiful, but they also said the same of the Basilica of St. Peter. "Art" is derived from "artisan", which is still a synonym for "craftsman".

    The notion of "Art" as something that can keep art critics in gainful employment is utter balderdash. It's a notion invented by the Victorians, who, contrary to popular myth, didn't get everything right.



    They haven't "refused" to make them available. Most businesses worth a damn really do want your money. The problem is that the contracts signed with the people who produced those old TV shows rarely even considered the possibility of home video, let alone the internet.

    The BBC is a classic example: their long-running SF series, "Doctor Who", had many characters created for its many, many episodes over the years. In only the second story—"The Daleks"—the titular antagonists were created by writer Terry Nation. At the time it was standard practice for a character's creator to retain the rights to his character. Ergo, whenever the BBC have used the Dalek characters since—and they have, many, many times, as they were very popular—Terry Nation (and, today, his estate) had to be asked and paid money first.

    (Also, back then, it wasn't unusual for older video recordings to be wiped in favour of newer recordings. Videotape was very expensive. The BBC were wiping tapes well into the 1970s.)

    Furthermore, broadcasters like ABC and CBS (in the US), ITV (and in recent years) the BBC (UK), would often just buy in a programme made by an outside production company. Verity Lambert's "Euston Films", for example, made a lot of shows for ITV in the UK. The rights to those programmes are held by Euston Films. With all the buy-outs, mergers and whatnot over the years, it can be very difficult to work out who owns the rights to what.

    Music, on the other hand, is complicated by the simple fact that a singer may be signed up to different record labels in each territory. E.g. RCA in one country, BMI in another, Virgin in a third, and so on. As with television, there have been a lot of mergers, spin-offs, buy-outs, and so on over the years. The upshot is that, in some cases, the rights to some old, or obscure, records may be so hard to track down that it's probably just not worth the effort.

    Again: businesses DO want your money. The problem with the internet is that it has formed into a massive community of the ignorant. While we, here, in this forum bewail the neophytes who want to create a WoW-beating MMORPG overnight on a shoestring budget as examples of such ignorance in our field, we are not alone:

    Novelists are constantly asked to write-up someone's "idea for a great novel" (with a 50:50 split, because, naturally, having that "idea" was extremely hard and said novelist is bound to be glad of it).

    Train drivers are accused of being paid big money for doing little more than pushing a lever, pressing a few buttons, and checking the doors (never mind that said drivers also have to help scrape bits of dead human off their train whenever someone decides to jump in front of it; or that said drivers are also responsible for the safety of every passenger on their train should anything go wrong; in most cases, they're also trained to perform basic maintenance and repairs to get the train moving again if it's failed).

    Lawyers are constantly berated for raking in money and charging huge hourly rates, despite the fact that learning how to be a successful lawyer in any country with a legal system like that of the UK or US means committing the results and rulings of many hundreds of legal cases to memory—the cases that set important precedents. These precedents indicate how a judge may rule on a similar case in future, but it's not that simple and all that rote learning is bloody hard work. (And, of course, these people literally hold your future in their hands. If they f*ck it up, they can get into serious trouble and, by law, may even have to leave their chosen career.)


    In short, we are just as ignorant as the newbies who demand professional help at just $100 / day for their awesome MMORPG. We're just ignorant in different fields. We should be a little less quick to criticise other professions when we're just as ignorant of them as most of them are of ours.

    The Victorian engineers were generalists, but it is impossible to know everything there is to know about every topic today, so this is something we'll have to learn to adapt to. The most difficult stage in our species' socio-cultural evolution will be to realise that everyone is ignorant and, most importantly, how we can find out what we need to know before expressing an opinion on a topic we don't know much, if anything, about.

    I'm British, so naturally I crave disappointment. Therefore, I'm not going to hold my breath for that one.
     
  45. keithsoulasa

    keithsoulasa

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    Spotify is something that eliminates the temtation to pirate , I actually pay 10$ a month to use it, its a great service, the only thing thats annoying is some songs in albums aren't available on spotify since the labels consider them to valuable . Anyway for the most part its a fantastic service
     
  46. Starsman Games

    Starsman Games

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    I refer you back to my previous post on how individuals should be treated over piracy.

    It is possible to nail down if some one actually pirated something, with the help of an ISP. A suspect downloader can be flagged and then monitored until a pattern. Via monitoring you can determine if the piracy is for personal use or some virulent activity is hijacking the user's computer. It's possible even without accessing the user's computer. At that point you can demand access to the user's wireless router if needed to find out exact point of access.

    Even when detected, as I noted before, legal action about personal use downloaders should be limited to, at worst, small claim courts (where lawyers are not allowed and there is a relatively low cap to how much money can be awarded to the prosecution.)

    My point is not that such individuals should fear their lives be ruined, but they should fear pirating as much as they fear going 50 in a 35 MPH limit zone.

    To be honest, prosecution is not even required, I seen a lot of people chicken out and stop all piracy activity when they get caught by Comcast and get the first "stop or we will cancel your service" letter.
     
  47. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    Then you end up with a situation were either:

    People are so lazy that they want to consume media they haven't the money to buy. Which is bad because it defeats one of the most important aspects of capitalism [work for what you want], as well as distorting markets. There are a LOT of book authors out there today better off because I could not buy Star Trek on DVD due to pricing and refused to pirate.

    People need software vital to their living [e.g. Windows] but simply cannot afford it. Firstly, this does not represent a lot of pirates - as an Australian our dole is sufficient to buy these items and yet we have a large piracy problem. Secondly, it highlights huge socioeconomic problems that should be addressed, and much like petty theft is not an adequate solution to the problem.

    My concern, which I may not have explained better earlier, is that many people [even in this thread] who try to 'justify' piracy are simply supporting self-harming practices. For example: by pirating a game because it's 'too expensive' has a direct and negative impact upon those who create free or low cost games. That's without even beginning to cover issues such as 'entitlement' which I would suggest be fundamentally flawed and damaging in the long term.
     
  48. Filto

    Filto

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    Exactly. There are ways to beat the piracy but its not using stricter laws and more surveillance. Just simply make a service that is more attractive than what piracy offers. Which frankly isn't all that hard.
     
  49. Morning

    Morning

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    I am not a networking expert but I think it doesn't work like that.
    If someone else is using your router, it will light up on the pattern checker too. Not to mention how will you detect these patterns?
    When you're torrenting you can only see what the person is downloading if you're connected to the torrent too. Otherwise it just looks like generic p2p traffic that would take a lot of resources to filter it out assuming you're a big ISP. When it's HTTP it gets even harder unless you start reading file names and everything, but that would be considered an intrusion of privacy.

    Then we also got viruses, what if you're a part of a botnet that does illegal things? It's not your fault if someone secretly is cooking meth in your house without you knowing.
    And if you demand access to user's router, what are you going to get from it? A temporary list of connections? That's not going to help anyone.

    While I as a developer don't support piracy, this is not the way to beat it.
    Such system would turn people paranoid too. What if a friend comes over but he has uTorrent on and starts downloading or uploading things? You're getting a warning/fine for something you didn't do.

    I do agree with this solution here. First time offenders imo should get away with a warning, second timers a small fee and have big case only when they're re offending multiple times.


    One thing some people are missing is that casual pirates, even if they don't pay, are great for advertising. Even if he doesn't pay, he tells friend who instead buys the thing.
    The only thing IP catching or otherwise will achieve is it will cause piracy to evolve and become even more secure. If such hunting was active enough, soon pirates will start using always on encryption and what not. I also would feel really bad knowing my ISP is sniffing my traffic.
     
  50. AdrianC

    AdrianC

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    Not really. He tells his friend, and burns him a disc with the game on it.