Pirating

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Hell, the Gaming Messiah himself once said that piracy is a service problem, not a cost problem.

I loved Warren Spector's statement on piracy (it's sig quality!):

"I never minded piracy. Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn't going to buy it anyway!"
~ Warren Spector

[PizzaSHARK]

I don't do it myself, but I do borrow movies that other people download. Maybe I'm just as bad?

Assuming they got those movies through piracy, yes, you're just as bad even if you didn't do the act yourself. Guilt by association, basically.

---------- Post added 2012-02-28 at 08:35 AM ----------

I loved Warren Spector's statement on piracy (it's sig quality!):

Warren Spector? No, he's just like... an archangel or something. Gabe Newell is the Gaming Messiah you silly goose. I'd guess John Romero is the Gaming Antichrist. I'd say that's Bobby Kotick but he's not actually a game developer.

[crica]

I don't do much but I get the odd bit of music and I watch a few movies online. I will say that I like to buy movies in the store especially ones I've already seen and loved.

I know theres no point justifying it and the people that do try look silly. All this pirating is what is leading to these SOPA-type acts. We only have ourselves to blame. These things weren't created to be free

if i could not get a copy from a friend for free or borrow it from a friend for free, i would not pay money for it

they would not get our money even if SOPA were enacted - they would be making the same amount of money they are now if no one were able to easily copy/loan their stuff

the only difference would be is how much harder it would be for pirates to MAKE money from their stuff

[Deleted]

Pirating music or games or movies or whatever is absolutely no fucking different from walking down to a convenience store and just walking in and shoplifting whatever the fuck you want.

I don't agree. A song in the internet is not a physical commodity and can exist in as many copies as it needs to.
If you steal from a store, the store now has one less item, and you have one more. The store now needs to purchase another product and stand to lose exactly the cost of that item + shipping on the replacement item.

If you download a song, the original doesn't disappear. You just *also* have a copy now.
Is it stealing? Possibly. Is it the same? No.

The real question is - would I have purchased this digital commodity in any case? In the large amount of cases where the answer to this is 'no', no one really loses out, do they?

Moreover, I might download a movie that I'd kinda sorta want to see, but I certainly wouldn't go and buy a DVD I haven't seen and I would never go to the cinema to catch a movie I'd only 'kinda' wanna see. You can claim that I've infringed some intellectual rights by viewing a film I was not supposed to, but you can't say that by pirating you miss out in revenue by default, because you simply don't. In some cases you do, but the industry is certainly making the problem a lot larger than it is.

[Collegeguy]

Uh dude, its simple.

You pirate the stuff and its convenient, instant and watchable.

You get the DVD and you have to sit through crap. Of course it isn't the sole reason people pirate and for many it isn't even a reason at all but it is an obvious example of the pathetic service provided by the content providers that whine so much about piracy. If you want to avoid adverts it remains (at least in some cases) better to pirate than actually buy the product. That you missed the point entirely is astonishing.[COLOR="red"]

That's ok. I don't want to understand that type of logic of "pathetic services." Please don't explain it again. Hundreds of professors in business already rolled in their graves the first time.

[crica]

I loved Warren Spector's statement on piracy (it's sig quality!):

Anyone who pirates your game wasn't going to buy it anyway!"
~ Warren Spector

this is true for me and everyone i know about anything we get for free from the internet...

i share what i buy with everyone on the internet as well - i am not just a taker ^_^

[PizzaSHARK]

I don't agree. A song in the internet is not a physical commodity and can exist in as many copies as it needs to.
If you steal from a store, the store now has one less item, and you have one more. The store now needs to purchase another product and stand to lose exactly the cost of that item + shipping on the replacement item.

If you download a song, the original doesn't disappear. You just *also* have a copy now.
Is it stealing? Possibly. Is it the same? No.

Yeah, you're right. It's stealing, but you're correct in that it's not quite the same. The internet and digital mediums are special that way, and it's one of the reasons why current copyright laws and DRM and crap are rapidly showing themselves to be outdated.

The real question is - would I have purchased this digital commodity in any case? In the large amount of cases where the answer to this is 'no', no one really loses out, do they?

Debatable. If you downloaded an album, realized that all the tracks except the one you wanted are garbage and thus wouldn't have bought the album, you actually come out ahead while the music label loses money from a sale it wouldn't have gotten anyway. The obvious solution is to stop putting shitty music on albums as filler, and to be fair we're going right back to the days of vinyl where you're largely buying songs individually again.

In regards to that (buying individual bits and pieces of a larger whole), if you wanna make sure the song is worth the money... shit man, go listen to it on Youtube.

Moreover, I might download a movie that I'd kinda sorta want to see, but I certainly wouldn't go and buy a DVD I haven't seen and I would never go to the cinema to catch a movie I'd only 'kinda' wanna see. You can claim that I've infringed some intellectual rights by viewing a film I was not supposed to, but you can't say that by pirating you miss out in revenue by default, because you simply don't. In some cases you do, but the industry is certainly making the problem a lot larger than it is.

I know. I absolutely agree - I'm not defending the current system AT ALL. The current system is in the state it's in because the old farts in charge of the major associations like the MPAA and RIAA aren't aware of how much more money they could be fucking making if they'd just realize that they need to adapt to the new market system.

It's ironic. Back in the day, you could walk into a store (for me it was usually a Radio Shack) and buy demos of various games - in fact, I remember buying a little 3.5" floppy with the Warcraft demo on it for a couple bucks, which later resulted in me (okay, well, my dad; I think I was like 9 at the time) picking the game up. I wouldn't really disagree with this kind of thing happening today. Assuming the demo is actually representative of the finished product (i.e. not some piece of crap that hasn't been updated since the early beta versions of the game), I wouldn't be adverse to paying $2 or $3 to "test drive" the game before buying it. If it turns out I don't enjoy it, I'm not out any significant amount of money and the developer still made a little bit off the transaction.

Even if that doesn't work out, things like Steam sales are a great solution. I might not buy a game for its full $60 price, but I might pick it up during a sale for $30, and if I have even a small amount of interest in it you can almost be guaranteed I'll snap it up for $10 or $15. Sure, you didn't make the $60 you wanted but you still made SOME money, and that's still a LOT better than making NO money because they decided not to put up with your stupid DRM bullshit and pirated it instead (eat a dick, Ubisoft.)

But it all comes back to the players. By pirating, you're extending the problem, not solving it. If you really do care about getting rid of these outdated business models and copyright laws, you have to stop pirating. Period.

---------- Post added 2012-02-28 at 08:47 AM ----------

this is true for me and everyone i know about anything we get for free from the internet...

i share what i buy with everyone on the internet as well - i am not just a taker ^_^

You're causing the problem though! Sharing a Steam account with a good buddy is one thing, but torrenting a game or movie is completely different!

[Deleted]

Shitbags like the RIAA and MPAA (and EA) need to get their shit together and fix their business models. The only way you're going to get that to happen is by not giving them your money, and by not fucking stealing their shit. If you steal their shit, all they have to do is snap their fingers, say they lost however many millions of box sales due to piracy, and blame the players rather than themselves for the problem.

That's hopelessly naive.

Suppose we all do as you say, we stop giving the RIAA and MPAA (and EA) our money, and don't pirate their products either. So we watch fewer movies, and spend our time on other things, say, books. Then all they have to do is snap their fingers, say they lost however many millions of box sales due to reading, and blame the readers rather than themselves for the problem. See how it works? They can always blame someone.

If it hadn't been for piracy, I doubt we would have seen the online direct-dowload music stores we have now. The RIAA would have much preferred to stick with its old businessmodel. Piracy teaches companies what kind of services they have to provide to attract paying customers. MMO's, for example, do very well. Starcraft II also offers some attractive online services.

[crica]

You're causing the problem though!

causing what problem?

if we stopped sharing everything we buy with each other, what problem would go away?

the companies would still not make anymore money from us since we would not buy it if others did not share it with us...

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Warren Spector? No, he's just like... an archangel or something. Gabe Newell is the Gaming Messiah you silly goose. I'd guess John Romero is the Gaming Antichrist. I'd say that's Bobby Kotick but he's not actually a game developer.

Silly, Warren Spector is like THE god in gaming. While John Romero was having his break down in the Dallas Ion Storm Studio with Daikatana, Spector was at the Austin Ion Storm Studio and quietly released Deus Ex. The rest is history.

And he made news again.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/warren-...-gdcas-6349767

Dammit, will a MMO publisher pick him up???????

[Deleted]

Copyright infringement is as old as mankind really.

Taken from Wiki :

Copyright infringement was first practiced in the taverns of European inns during the middle ages. Minstrels would routinely rip off other minstrels by listening to their music and singing and then reproducing it themselves at a later date without even so much as giving credit to the original minstrel. Some minstrels defended this practice by claiming that the music had been released into the public domain, and thus was fair game for anyone who wanted to use it. They pointed out that Homer did not intend for only a single person to be able to orate the Iliad or the Odyssey as the queues to see his shows would have become too long. Instead he intended for other performers and orators to copy his work and give it to anyone that asked. However other minstrels countered this by claiming that they weren't in the business for the art, they were in it for the money.

At the same time writers in China were experiencing their own copyright infringement plague thanks to the invention of printing. The famous legend Journey to the West was appropriated by numerous writers who proceeded to write and print their own copies of the story like a group of fan fiction writers. Eventually the characters mutated from their normal god-demon like origins into becoming a really hairy man who fought with a stick, a pig who fought with a rake, and a fish who fought with a shovel. This copyright infringement continues on to the present day in numerous forms. Some cultural experts call this phenomenon 'inspiration', but common sense states that any use of someone else's intellectual property is a copyright violation.


So basicly, they are trying to beat a Monster with new Bills like SOPA/PIPA or ACTA which simply cannot be beaten.
If they close all the big Public Adresses like kino.to etc, they simply force the People who run those pages underground, but they will never stop.

The only way to actually beat "pirates", is to be better.

A steaming Service for brandnew Cinema Movies, for like 5$ a Movie in HD.
Same for new Shows on TV, selling Worldwide...for 1-2$ a Episode.
Humble Indie Bundle Games... pay as much as you like.

But all that is Dreaming really, the Big Companys rather send Lawyer Armys on poor Kids who ripped off a Game or Movie.
So their fat ass Managers like Kotik & co earn more Cash for another Ferrarie or two.

Another funny fact.

If you sell 100g Marihuana in Germany and get caught, you go to Jail for 2y 6m.
If you rape & sexually harrass 64 Kids in School (Happen in Leverkusen) you go to Jail 2y 6m.

If you get caught running a Webpage like Kino.to you go to jail 5 years.

[Kakokun]

Theft is theft, whether you steal an original and make copies of it (not quite counterfeiting) or whether you just keep stealing many originals. It's beside the point.

If you are pirating games, music, movies, books, etc, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM. As long as people are stealing shit, the people in charge of these stupid DRM systems and copyright laws are just gonna point to those people and use it as evidence as how THEY don't need to change shit, people just need to stop stealing.

Stop stealing, watch them still piss blood versus services like Netflix and Gamefly and then they either wise up and change their methods or they die and someone better adapted to the market takes their place.

Oh I'd love to pay to be able to stream more movies and tv shows legally. But most of these services can only be accessed by people from the US. Most of the time I actually have to pirate things to be able to enjoy them.

If the industry doesn't want me as a customer then the industry can fuck off.

[bumrush]

I have over 200 games on Steam because I want the PC games industry to have a reason to not pander to the console market. Generally I wait for good sales and get bundles when they are cheap. If a game does not seem like it is worth the money, then I can live without it.

When it comes to movies and music, I do not support the MPAA or RIAA. They keep trying to get horrible legislation passed and nearly ruined the internet recently. Am I going to pirate their garbage? Nope.

[Deleted]

Yes, I pirate but not beacause im poor; So thats my way to go.

I wouldn't buy the movie or album if I couldn't download it, I would just let it go. Neither way the company gets nothing and this what they seem to not understand going ape shit "OMFG PIRATING!!1!!" cos over half of the ppl downloading wouldnt buy it actually.

There was a poll somewhere showing how many ppl would buy the product if they couldnt download but I dont know where it is :S

[bumrush]

Oh I'd love to pay to be able to stream more movies and tv shows legally. But most of these services can only be accessed by people from the US. Most of the time I actually have to pirate things to be able to enjoy them.

If the industry doesn't want me as a customer then the industry can fuck off.

I can understand this, I do the same with anime. If it isn't something you can legitimately obtain... that becomes a bit of a grey area doesn't it?

[cFortyfive]

I have over 200 games on Steam because I want the PC games industry to have a reason to not pander to the console market. Generally I wait for good sales and get bundles when they are cheap. If a game does not seem like it is worth the money, then I can live without it.

Do you really think that people like you who wait for sales would make them reconsider the pc market ? That ship had sailed long ago. Despite how well you can sell titles on pc it won't matter - consoles will always bring better numbers.

[Deleted]

Despite how well you can sell titles on pc it won't matter - consoles will always bring better numbers.

Public Enemy No#1 on Consoles are the.... yeah right.... RESELLERS !!!!
Resellers are almost as bad as Pirates...if you believe everything they tell you^^

On a Sidenote, Consoleros rip off games as much as PClers. Custom Firmware etc.

[Deadanon]

Pirating isn't the problem, its the symptom.

People pirate because the industry doesn't provide a reasonable alternative.
People don't want to pay big bucks for a blue ray they'll watch 10 times over the course of the next 10 years. They don't want to pay big bucks for a game they'll play through once now, and once more in a couple of years, and they certainly don't want to buy a full album for one good song. I don't want my house to be clotted with DVDs and CDs - hell I don't even own a stereo.

We need a service that allows digital, cheap access to our entire entertainment collection anywhere we want, in high def and on all platforms, provided there is an internet connection. They could even include single screenings of new movies for slightly reduced price of a cinema ticket. I'd pay a monthly fee for that kind of service.. hell yes. The industry needs to get over itself and start accepting that people are tired of its business model.

This is exsactly the problem. The industry has not moved at the same pace as the rest of the world. It has always been like that.

OFC there should be online streaming sites that offer monthly subs. And ofc there should be gaming sites that offer Pay to play games. But no... that would be in the best intrest of the consumer. Then ppl would not actually shell out 50 USD for a computer game that they dont play or is so broken that it is not playable at all.

Its actually in the best intrest of the PUblisher and developer of a game to charge high price for a game without ppl actually knowing the quality of it! Thats just a fact that has been ongoing in the industry for many years now. And its not acceptable.

The main reason for "Pirating" is because noone is offering better service for the right price.

And lets stop the bullshit that the gaming industry is broke cause of pirating. The gaming industy is now one of the most profitable industry in the world compared to the actual cost of making the content. It would be even more profitable if there were good services that would support it.

This is not about breaking even - this is about making more money. And its not the ppl that are working in the industry that profit with the more money. Its the investors that already got their 5% worth of investments. They are just pushing for the extra 15%.

[Jager]

I only pirate tv shows and films, mostly films. I don't have a tv so i never really watch tv, but i love big bang theory so will watch it online. Films i download for when i spend my three hour train journey every fryday and sunday evening to and from my gf's house.

I see no reason to buy a film that i'll only watch once, and since renting films cost 3 pounds a film, and services such as net flix don't really have any films i haven't seen or interested in seeing, that would be a waste of money for me. If i could rent a film from itunes for 50pence for say 24 hours, i would do that everytime.

Oh and i pirate ebooks as well, altho i still buy more paperbacks than i download ebooks, but again, 5 pounds for a book that i'll read only once, seems like an unreasonable waste of money, but once again, if there were online libraries that rented ebooks out, with new titles not just old ones like my local library, i would happily use that...you know what, i might just patent that idea!

[Deadanon]

Public Enemy No#1 on Consoles are the.... yeah right.... RESELLERS !!!!
Resellers are almost as bad as Pirates...if you believe everything they tell you^^

On a Sidenote, Consoleros rip off games as much as PClers. Custom Firmware etc.

No - resellers are not pirates even tho publishers would like to claim they are. Why? Because they are reselling a used copy of a game that has already been PAYED FOR. Publisher might loose money - but nothing is STOLEN from him cause he has already made his profit of that copy of the game that is on the disk.

But if Publishers are loosing money cause of resllers... why not sell the copy 10$ cheaper in the first place and get more sales that way?