Piracy

[Humodour]

Dicksmith.

 

**** Smith.

 

O.o

Edited November 28, 2010 by Krezack

[Serrano]

Being able to post their name on the internet without hassle from filters is compensation for being called Dicksmith. Let them have that one, their life is difficult enough.

[Humodour]

Heh heh. It's actually a widely popular electronics franchise in Australia. **** Smith himself is a renowned and well-respected business leader.

 

I don't know how he managed to rise above his name, but he did.

[Serrano]

Good for him

[~Di]

Or if someone copied a book I wrote.

by "copied" you mean didn't buy it? because as far as writers go (the real ones), they don't care, the more people read it the better, right? or am I alone in this?

 

We sure as hell DO care. It means money out of my pocket, and copying, scanning or xeroxing any copyright-protected book is illegal.

[Humodour]

Yeah the thing is you've got artists like Di who see it as stealing, then you've got other artists like Cory Doctorow, Trent Reznor, etc who send the opposite message and encourage the free proliferation of their works and often pose economic or social reasons as their rational.

 

Interestingly, it is those people who are probably onto something according to a study by the Dutch government:

http://www.marketingvox.com/study-file-sha...ng-term-042837/

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/01/du...is-positive.ars

 

"Curiously, freeloaders consume paid content in the same amounts as nondownloaders—for games, freeloaders even buy more than non-downloaders."

 

So the artistic community is certainly not united on the matter.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Krezack

[~Di]

Yeah the thing is you've got artists like Di who see it as stealing, then you've got other artists like Cory Doctorow, Trent Reznor, etc who send the opposite message and encourage the free proliferation of their works and often pose economic or social reasons as their rational.

 

Interestingly, it is those people who are probably onto something: http://www.marketingvox.com/study-file-sha...ng-term-042837/

 

So the artistic community is certainly not united on the matter.

 

The publishing community is quite united. The Authors Guild sued Google, and got massive reparations for books they offered illegally online. And I suspect you'd be hard-pressed to find any game developer on the planet who loves piracy, because they just want to, like, have more peeps enjoy the product they've created even if they can't pay for it.

Edited November 28, 2010 by ~Di

[Gorth]

"Curiously, freeloaders consume paid content in the same amounts as nondownloaders

[kirottu]

I have to say I don

[Oner]

I have to say I don

[WorstUsernameEver]

And of course, you can occasionally keep coming to the library to update your 'borrowed' copy and play multiplayer too, amirite?

 

Honestly, there's little justification (if there's any) for piracy right now. Especially since, as long as you know where to get games and you can bear waiting a little bit, you can get them dirt cheap. Not to mention that games are a luxury. That said, I wouldn't think anything bad about someone that really did download games to try them and then either deleted them or bought them (I have met many people that do that with music). I have.. yet to meet someone that does.

[kirottu]

I

[Mamoulian War]

Yeah the thing is you've got artists like Di who see it as stealing, then you've got other artists like Cory Doctorow, Trent Reznor, etc who send the opposite message and encourage the free proliferation of their works and often pose economic or social reasons as their rational.

 

Interestingly, it is those people who are probably onto something: http://www.marketingvox.com/study-file-sha...ng-term-042837/

 

So the artistic community is certainly not united on the matter.

 

The publishing community is quite united. The Authors Guild sued Google, and got massive reparations for books they offered illegally online. And I suspect you'd be hard-pressed to find any game developer on the planet who loves piracy, because they just want to, like, have more peeps enjoy the product they've created even if they can't pay for it.

 

Of course the publishers are quite united, because they live out of another people creative work publishers != authors... here is some prime example how a free to download thing actually makes more money, than signing in with a publisher...

 

http://questioncopyright.org/sita-distribtion-numbers

 

 

if you can't be arsed to read it here is the summary...

 

Q. So how much money did you personally make releasing a Free film under an open ShareAlike license?

A. In the film's first year, I got about $132,000. I've received more since then.

 

Q. How much would you have made had the movie not been Free?

A. When I was still trying to sell conventional monopoly rights to distributors in 2008, the highest advance I was offered was $20,000; I was told by one reputable distributor that the most I could expect in my wildest dreams to make in a 10-year contract was $50,000, and more realistically I could expect about $25,000.

 

EDIT: adding in one more link which is worth to see, (just in case that you have missed it in the article ) http://sitasingstheblues.com/license.html#total-compliance

Edited November 28, 2010 by Mamoulian War

[Mamoulian War]

And one very interesting link from one of the Indie studios, who participated on the Humble Indie Bundle (Wildfire Games)...

 

One of the most realistic views, on what's happening, from inside the industry, which i have ever read...

 

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13065

[Meshugger]

The influence that piracy has on lost sales can not even be proven to begin with. Would person X have bought product Y at all to begin with if he didn't downloaded it? I sure do not know. Piracy is a side effect of technology being ahead of the business models that companies use. The only way is for companies to adapt (spotify) or to declare bankrupcty.

 

What the question is however, is how they should be punished. The current law makes them worse than 2nd degree murder, rape and arson, and actually stealing a box of DVDs from a store. This of course, is so excessive that it is not funny, and most people can smell the b-crap. The way it is now, pirates and crackers will be considered to be rebels against a corrupt system until it is changed. But again, the question is what is the proper measure?

[sorophx]

Also a good source for backup copies in case a disk explodes.

I remember buying a copy of the PC port of Gears of War on a CD, I beat the game in 1 afternoon and naturally wanted to try it online. but then my system got corrupted and I had to wipe everything off the hard drive. so I tried to reinstall GoW. and it wouldn't let me. on any other system the PC would just reject the CD.

 

now, it might have been possible to download another version with my CD-key directly from the publisher, I never got to trying. but the idea of making the installation 1-time-only just blew my mind. did I download a cracked copy of the game afterwards? yes I did. because it seemed like the easiest solution. was it wrong? I don't think so.

 

P.S: the Wildfire Games post is right on the money.

[Mera]

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13065

Want some coverage and sales? Write an article how piracy is totally not killing PC gaming and wait until people pick it up and spread it everywhere

[Hurlshort]

I

[RPGmasterBoo]

Broken record topic alert.

[sorophx]

But there are a lot of non-piracy routes to doing this. Demo's, rentals, preview videos

preview videos? right.

 

and aren't rentals essentially the same thing as piracy? or does the publisher get a cut every time I rent their game from some store?

[Malcador]

But there are a lot of non-piracy routes to doing this. Demo's, rentals, preview videos and all that are legal ways to check them out.

 

 

Demos ? uh ok. Rentals for PC games is a new one to me, and as for preview videos...you like the taste of manure ?

 

However one useful thing to have is consumerist friends, you can rely on them to buy mindlessly and then glean any input from them. Most useful thing I've come across so far.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Malcador

[Nightshape]

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13065

Want some coverage and sales? Write an article how piracy is totally not killing PC gaming and wait until people pick it up and spread it everywhere

 

It's not a realistic opinion either.

 

Plus indie development and multi-million tripple-A development are a world apart.

 

While he mentions Blizzards success, because they make quality software that runs on a wide range of machines, that doesn't change the fact that Starcraft 2 has been pirated in the same kinds of numbers that its sold, it also doesn't touch on any analysis of the fact that a majority of Blizzard's success has been due to the fact that they integrate the experience with DRM especially when it comes to addictive multiplayer functionality, just look at WoW, or Diablo, hell anything Blizzard has made in years. They all have DRM components when it comes to multiplayer.

 

So if we accept the author as correct, then DRM also cannot be a problem if the product is percieved to be of a particular level in regards to quality.

 

I could go on, but frankly the author is serving himself, and not actually supplying an unbias view on how piracy effects the industry.

 

Mamoulian War, a pirate? I don't know... I lean towards it being very likely though .

[Volourn]

"I have to say I don

[sorophx]

piracy is about selfishness and noit caring for other people.

this is true to an extent. but it doesn't change the fact that piracy isn't that big a deal, and it's certainly not theft.

[Purkake]

But there are a lot of non-piracy routes to doing this. Demo's, rentals, preview videos and all that are legal ways to check them out.

 

 

Demos ? uh ok. Rentals for PC games is a new one to me, and as for preview videos...you like the taste of manure ?

 

However one useful thing to have is consumerist friends, you can rely on them to buy mindlessly and then glean any input from them. Most useful thing I've come across so far.

What's wrong with video previews?