When I was a kid, I would download the shit out of everything, mainly because A. I had no money, B. it was relatively easy and C. I was all like "fuck the man rah rah" etc.
These days I rarely pirate anything, aside from the random album here and there. This is generally because of two reasons:
1. I've grown up and matured, and respect what it takes to create a game/album/movie/etc, I can afford to support the products I enjoy, but more importantly I actively *want* to support them so the makers of said products can continue to make more products that I enjoy.
2. Purchasing things legitimately is actually much less of a hassle than stealing it these days. Its funny, but there are actually a wide range of services that make it simpler and easy to buy stuff.
A. Steam for games
B. Itunes(shity file restrictions aside) or Amazon(actually not bad) for mp3s
C. Netflix/hulu for tv/movies
So, really just continuing to add services that make it just as easy or easier for the consumer to purchase legitimate products goes a long way. I think the last thing we want to do is make the environment harsher for the real customer than the pirate(ie: terrible DRM), however I also do not think pirates should be coddled and "marketed to" as if they control a significant part of the market, as most of them naturally will pay for things as they grow older and mature, the rest of them who will never pay for anything are just scumbags and are never going to pay, pirating just for the sake of it.
I dont think that the system is broken, or that there is anything particularly wrong with copyright/IP law, as it protects the little guy the same as the big guy, as we've discussed in other threads. Nor do I think its a smart or even realistic or feasible to market towards or try to monetize piracy, I mean we have lots of proper, legitimate services that fill that role, for people who would prefer to pay a flat fee to "rent" instead of buying.
When I was a kid, I would download the shit out of everything, mainly because A. I had no money, B. it was relatively easy and C. I was all like "fuck the man rah rah" etc.
These days I rarely pirate anything, aside from the random album here and there. This is generally because of two reasons:
1. I've grown up and matured, and respect what it takes to create a game/album/movie/etc, I can afford to support the products I enjoy, but more importantly I actively *want* to support them so the makers of said products can continue to make more products that I enjoy.
2. Purchasing things legitimately is actually much less of a hassle than stealing it these days. Its funny, but there are actually a wide range of services that make it simpler and easy to buy stuff.
A. Steam for games
B. Itunes(shity file restrictions aside) or Amazon(actually not bad) for mp3s
C. Netflix/hulu for tv/movies
So, really just continuing to add services that make it just as easy or easier for the consumer to purchase legitimate products goes a long way. I think the last thing we want to do is make the environment harsher for the real customer than the pirate(ie: terrible DRM), however I also do not think pirates should be coddled and "marketed to" as if they control a significant part of the market, as most of them naturally will pay for things as they grow older and mature, the rest of them who will never pay for anything are just scumbags and are never going to pay, pirating just for the sake of it.
I dont think that the system is broken, or that there is anything particularly wrong with copyright/IP law, as it protects the little guy the same as the big guy, as we've discussed in other threads. Nor do I think its a smart or even realistic or feasible to market towards or try to monetize piracy, I mean we have lots of proper, legitimate services that fill that role, for people who would prefer to pay a flat fee to "rent" instead of buying.
I was the opposite when I was in my early 20's. I thought it was wrong and people shouldn't do it. I carried the opinion that many of you appear to hold. I started to change my mind when I learned about how copyright, DRM, and patents were not being used to spark innovation, but used to abuse others whom try to innovate. Every act of "piracy" that occurred, I kept hearing the publisher advocates make the same unsubstantiated claims. They sued people with little to no real evidence or proof of harm and getting obscene awards in court. Then I learned about how and where copyright came from, what it was used for, and whom it really benefited. It was a slow and gradual process that changed my opinion. I'd estimate that I've spent roughly the past 4-5 years reading articles, essay, reports, and history on or about this. Though, I have no industry experience in this personally, I have read what those that are experienced have to say on it.
I was the opposite when I was in my early 20's. I thought it was wrong and people shouldn't do it. I carried the opinion that many of you appear to hold. I started to change my mind when I learned about how copyright, DRM, and patents were not being used to spark innovation, but used to abuse others whom try to innovate. Every act of "piracy" that occurred, I kept hearing the publisher advocates make the same unsubstantiated claims. They sued people with little to no real evidence or proof of harm and getting obscene awards in court. Then I learned about how and where copyright came from, what it was used for, and whom it really benefited. It was a slow and gradual process that changed my opinion. I'd estimate that I've spent roughly the past 4-5 years reading articles, essay, reports, and history on or about this. Though, I have no industry experience in this personally, I have read what those that are experienced have to say on it.
I think the biggest problem with this, and I feel its been relatively clear with all of your posts, is that all of this time you spend reading articles and research or whatnot, you're only looking at one side of the issue, and you have an extremely biased viewpoint because of it.
This isnt meant as an insult or a jab, just an observation. However I feel many others think the same, as is obvious by how people tend to react to your posts/threads. This isn't a simple matter of "you guys profit from the system, so you're apposed to change" but moreso how you seem to present your opinions.
Well, I was assuming online authentication meant something like what Ubisoft did with AC2. That type of invasive software has no place in this market, people with the means to defeat it will not abide by it. I also don't think the "are you a paying customer?" test with online authorizations is going to engender any loyalty either.
I think you need to look up the term "invasive" being online is by no means invasive. UBisofts drm was actually alot less invasive than most, just that you needed to be online to play.
I've seen a few people in this thread refering to services that make good alternatives to piracy(spotify, netflix etc.), I just wanted to point out the very americanised view there is on this debate, and I can understand since most people there live and work in the US where these services are avaible. Now, to counter-point this from an european view(mainly from Denmark) we simply do not have services that makes worthwhile alternatives.
Spotify aint avaible yet(I think it's because the big record labels won't allow it streaming their IP's in denmark), we do not have a netflix like service here(I presume it's because the big studios don't want their IP's streamed in denmark) and alot of the series are either not shown on television or is atleast 3-4 seasons behind(again due to the goddamn IP holders), so we do not have the alternatives that you guys have and I think it's important to keep that in mind when trying to use it as counterpoint. Now I won't say I support piracy as stealing without giving, but when I don't have any alternatives either to having to import from outside denmark(where you can risk it gets caught in the tax check at the airport and you end up paying 300% of it's value) or pirate it, guess what's most convenient to almost everyone.
I really hate all the big record labels and series IP holders for limiting services like Spotify(which I would gladly pay for) and Netflix for growing in a country like Denmark.
That's my 5 cents, and I believe it's important that you guys remember that not every country has so convenient services like the US.
Yep Zpanzer, I totally agree. Once you get used to such services it is pretty hard to go back and I know that being unable to access them is quite a bummer - especially since having to purchase physical copies of everything is just plain expensive. For instance I can watch a whole series on netflix over the span of a few weeks for just a small fee, instead of having to buy DVD boxsets only watched once ...
From what I understand, the only worldwide alternative so far seems to be Itunes (music, movies, TV) but I am personally against it as feels like a ripoff, fills up your hard drive fast, and has no streaming features.
BTW regarding spotify : you can bypass it by using a credit card from a country with the proper license, and then use the "Spotify abroad" premium option. That's what I do in order to use it from the US.
I wonder if Onlive is restricted to certain countries too?
I wonder how long it'll take for such services to become more widespread worldwide. It certainly isn't perfect at the moment but at least it offers a proof of concept answer to the OP question!
I'm aware of you can bypas their country restriction, and I've considered doing it, but for me it would be mean I would have to make a new paypal account and pretend I had a norwegian adress, and I thought it would be very ironic that I have to do something illegal to gain acces to a service as an alternative getting all my music illegal.. I do use grooveshark a fair bit though.
Edit, Yeah. I think Spotify and Netflix are great concepts and if they would allow them in Denmark, I would use them as an alternative to downloading a movie or an episode of a serie once in a while.
I think the biggest problem when it comes to movie and music piracy, is that the studioes are to slow at changing their business plans, services that allows me to stream(read Spotify, Netflix and etc.) or get my games very fast(read Steam) is the way to go and makes it just as convenient as going to your prefered torrent tracker and downloading it.
As far games, I do pirate them once in a while, and I'm not afraid to admid it, not even on a forum where peoples jobs are supported by buying the games, but I don't have alot of money on my current salary and the ammount of PC demoes now a days are just redicolous, and I'm no ready to drop 50 euro on a game without trying it first(also, what the hell is up with steams $1 = 1 euro, it makes games atleast 33% more expensive in Europe).
To talk about piracy and copyright is a huge stupidity and a huge waste of time, so i won't add much. As far as i know, Pirates will not understand the creator's position until they become a creator. So, to talk to a fucking pirate is like to break our heads on a wall, or worse, it's like to discuss with a monkey. Creators have their rights and that's something they don't understand, they make a living and their work can't be for free.
Well, i must say that i own some of the latest games from ubi like splinter cell convition, and the DRM DOES NOT BOTHER ME. I support their efforts because i totally understand it. The game needs a permanent connection to internet.. err and what? that's not a problem, the PC is nowadays a multiplayer/online platform.
I would like to see all players with the need of connecting to a server with an account, in order to play a game, one player campaigns aswell. Personal details should be given aswell (real name), and as in korea, also with your "kssn" (personal authentication). Game Piracy can be stopped, "so.. you want to play our game? pay for it as unique option and give us all your details".
Games are a luxury, not a need. Think that.
Culture is not a right.
Intellectual property is a need. Now, go and steal the idea of "Naruto" and copy the manga and make it yours.
Edit: BTW, steam games are 100% pirated, their drm is useless.
I'm gonna do my last post in this thread because it's a topic that will never we will never be done discussing.
I just want to add to Blaizer that sometimes the creators needs to see it from the consumers view too, and the legal consumer are the people who pays for the studio's efforts in stopping piracy with stupid DRM systems... Yes stupid.
I bought Assassin's Creed 2 on the release day and went home to play it, only to find myself victim the DRM servers being DDoS'd by cracker groups to protest their STUPID drm system, I couldn't play the game for 2 days and when they finally resolved the issue, I found my game session getting interrupted when my net even dropped for a sec or two.
Pirates get a better working product for free then the consumer who pays for it, because studioes try to protect their games... I don't see why they even borther, it won't work. The only real DRM that works is online play and online DLC(although DLC gets cracked easy too) and they hurt the consumers who actually spend their money on their products.. I don't think we as consumers should just let that happen without expressing our concerns.
Zpanzer, pirates don't get a better working product, they get only a part of it working with bugs, and they only can play one player.
As i clearly said, as consumer, i haven't got problems with their DRM. Furthermore, i support it because i perfectly know that it's uber difficult to deal with piracy.
It can't be helped. They must protect their product, because if they don't sell enough, too many people are fired and end of business.
Start thinking to work in another profession, because as game developer, you will work for the devil if you don't protect your work very well.
As i clearly said, as consumer, i haven't got problems with their DRM. Furthermore, i support it because i perfectly know that it's uber difficult to deal with piracy.
I'm sorry but, what? You support draconian DRM (Like what Zpanzer mentioned) that in the pirates case gets cracked a few hours, to a week after release, and doesn't affect pirates OR protect the software anymore?
I don't think we as consumers should just let that happen without expressing our concerns.
Pretty much this, if you don't like something, and have a good reason why you dislike it there's no reason to not be vocal about your opinion.
Anyway, there's a select few worthwhile posts here that I found to be quite interesting to read, so thanks to the handful of you that contributed something worthwhile to the discussion~
I think you need to look up the term "invasive" being online is by no means invasive. UBisofts drm was actually alot less invasive than most, just that you needed to be online to play.
I don't get why you think that. The game forced you to be online for a single player game. If you lost your connection, you lost your progress. "Invasive" probably isn't the correct term in this instance. Maybe "abusive" would fit that particular DRM. My main problem with those types of measures is that they wreak of paranoia towards the customer base. The message they send to their customers is "We don't trust you, so here's some restrictions you have to put up with". It's completely absurd to do so because there are teams of people dedicated to defeating those restrictions so people can get a better experience than they paid for, but should have had in the first place.
EQ said:
"I think the biggest problem with this, and I feel its been relatively clear with all of your posts, is that all of this time you spend reading articles and research or whatnot, you're only looking at one side of the issue, and you have an extremely biased viewpoint because of it."
You're probably right. I could very well be biased and I'm sure a lot of my disdain for the abuse publishers deal out to paying customers colors my opinion of them. Part of the bias towards the consumers' side probably comes from a lack of good logical arguments coming from the other side of the debate. It's hard to find a point out there that's doesn't simply blame the other side for everything and call for their heads on a platter. I can't tell you how many times I hear people scream "fucking pirates ruin everything" without taking one moment of thought as to whether that is even true. It's easy to just pile all of the guilt on the people on the other side of the law while the other side pretends they are the blameless victims.
What are the main justifications the publishers use for their behavior?
1. If pirates aren't stopped, the games industry will cease to be because nobody will pay for it.
Well, we know that isn't one bit true because we have a whole lot of historical precedence that shows that when a new technology comes along that is heralded as the end of the industry, the industry adapts and makes it work for them.
2. We need stronger laws to keep people from stealing our property.
I can understand the trepidation if you believe the first claim to be true. If they can't get people to buy games because they are stealing copies, then the only remaining option is to make laws more strict to deter infringement or use restrictive software that only allows paying customers to play them. But that doesn't really work either does it? Making harsher laws doesn't make a particular type of data any less copyable.
3. Torrent = piracy. If they torrent it, they stole it.
I never understood how people could come to this conclusion. You can't know a person's context for downloading a game. It certainly doesn't mean they didn't pay. There are many reason for a paying customer to download from other sources not authorized by the publisher.
4. Copyright works and is good for artists.
I just don't get how people can think it's good to give someone a monopoly on the distribution of a particular work that lasts for the better part of two centuries. Who does that benefit? All I see there is art that nobody can use because some suits wanted to own it for a lifetime. By the time it's due to go the public domain, they may have extended the term or it might not be socially relevant anymore.
These are the kind of things most often ever hear from the publisher side. The file sharing side isn't any more factual than their counterparts. It would be refreshing to hear an argument based on fact rather than the same old tired rhetoric I hear (from both sides). The one indisputable fact is that neither side is defending their arguments with facts.
Blaizer:
I'm glad you can be comfortable with DRM on the games you play. More power to you. For the millions of others that just can't stand it, that's not good enough. There are so many out there that can't even play the games they pay for because the DRM refuses to let you play, causes a bug, or conflicts with another piece of your software. This does happen and it happens a lot. Those people paid for a working game and it gives them nothing but grief.
I just don't get how people can think it's good to give someone a monopoly on the distribution of a particular work that lasts for the better part of two centuries. Who does that benefit? All I see there is art that nobody can use because some suits wanted to own it for a lifetime. By the time it's due to go the public domain, they may have extended the term or it might not be socially relevant anymore.
Go to the dildocorn example again, copyright nowdays is in place to protect this out of a hundred billion different ways to do something, just so that people cannot go and do exactly the same thing and earn money on the fact that the previous creator built up an IP with it, there are far more people out there who are not suits, and who run one man companies that can make use of the IP-laws.
It doesn't hinder anything.
It didn't hinder james cameron from making pocahontas in space.
It didn't hinder blizzard from creating their own warhammer style world.
It didn't hinder them again when they created starcraft.
It didn't hinder people from creating their own modern warfare style games.
It doesn't hinder people from creating their own world of warcraft copy.
It does hinder people from creating a direct copy of something.
And most reasonable people who are for the IP laws, are also against the people who choose to abuse it, since it wasn't made to be abused, it was made to protect peoples work.
But some people are just so narrowminded that they believe that everything has already been done and there's no more room amongst all the IP's, it's the people who cry when I tell them to "create your own universe instead" when they want to make some fangame from hell.
... For instance I can watch a whole series on netflix over the span of a few weeks for just a small fee, instead of having to buy DVD boxsets only watched once ...
The one draw back to streaming content, like netflix and "in-demand" is that they cycle through what is available, their library might be huge but its not all available when I want to watch it. It's kind of a luck of the draw sort of thing, if they happen to have your old classic that you want to watch great, if they don't well... maybe in 6 mo it might pop up. Also the politics behind what they can stream and when are kind of annoying, some are DVD only for months and don't start streaming until after the rental places have had their way with the DVD release.
It's kind of weird that Comcast calls their service "on-demand" but I can almost guarantee I can demand a show or movie and not find it.
Maybe at some point in the future they will be more like Spotify or steam, and less sporadic but its the reason I haven't given up buying certain things, I've definitely cut way back and gotten choosy about what I buy.
There's just so much to wrong with how you look at the issue and no way of getting through soo... you just keep rebutting arguments with the same skewed views. Soo...
2. Purchasing things legitimately is actually much less of a hassle than stealing it these days. Its funny, but there are actually a wide range of services that make it simpler and easy to buy stuff.
totally agree...
copyright and IP aside...fact is people do this for a living...they need to get paid...
I'm too 'lazy' to pirate any more (would also like to support the people making it happen). it isn't that hard to get a hold of legit software and games these days. A good product should be incentive enough. How DRM and copy protection affects or hurts the user's experience is up to the makers of the game/software.
I realize there's been some weird shit I disagree with posted since the first page, and I admit I've only scanned over some of the larger chunks of it, but whatever. This is mainly in response to the first post. Also, this is pretty long-winded, but I'm trying to unpack the whole thing.
This is my current take on the whole piracy issue:
Piracy is a problem. This is stupidly obvious.
Piracy is never going to stop. At all.
The only way to prevent piracy is to make the alternative easier.
The rest of this post is basically those three points in longer detail, so skip if you like.
So why is piracy a problem? A lot of people will tell you that any time somebody pirates something, that counts as a lost sale. However, plenty of other people, mainly pirates, will tell you that people who pirate games actually use pirating more as a try-before-you buy scheme.
Clearly somebody here isn't 100% correct in what they're saying.
I can't provide hard statistics on game sales and piracy rates and I very much doubt anybody could come up with accurate numbers for how many people bought, pirated, or both on any thing ever made and distributed. So if it's impossible to come up with exact numbers, how do we know piracy is a problem at all? Simple: Distributors are reacting negatively to it and pirates are shamelessly pirating for various reasons.
Distributors are claiming that piracy hurts sales and drives up production costs because of lost revenue. Thus, they are doing things to try and prevent piracy mostly in the form of DRM.
Pirates are copying and distributing things for reasons spelled out in the first post they want to try before they buy, they're feeling righteous indignation and want to stick it to the man, they simply don't believe that people can own certain things, they're poor and can't afford stuff, it's easier than getting stuff legally, the list goes on.
So, who's in the right here? Are the distributors right in saddling paying customers with some truly horrific DRM in the name of keeping a handle on stuff they own the rights to? Are the pirates right in any of what they're doing if they're using something that they haven't bought the right to use?
Distributors legally peddle their wares. They hold the copyrights, they either made it themselves or they're publishing it for a third party, they've made legal arrangements to sell things at certain prices to make money. That money goes to supporting the people who make the things they distribute.
Pirates illegally peddle the wares of distributors. They do not hold any of the rights to distribute, but they also do not make money (...usually). Because they are not making money (...usually), no money is going to support the people who make the things they distribute.
So. That last bit is the kicker. Distributors want to make money off of the people enjoying their products, but the distributors aren't seeing any money from the pirated copies of their products.
Now, piracy is never going to stop. There's always going to be a segment of the population whose goods are ill-gotten. These could be people who steal TVs or people who pirate music. Doesn't matter. There's always going to be a chunk of the population who gets stuff using less-than-legal methods. However, piracy is a bit touchier of an issue than stealing a TV.
As has been pointed out by many people in many places, piracy is not typical stealing. It is not the same as carrying something out of a store that you didn't pay for.
To steal a TV, you have to physically remove it from one place and put it in another. This is easy to argue as one lost sale, especially if that particular TV had recently been the focus of a major marketing campaign and it was about to go on sale in retailers.
To pirate music, you basically just click a button and download an exact copy of something that was never removed in the first place. Now that song is in twice as many locations as it once was. This is more difficult to argue as a lost sale, even if it was, like the TV, the focus of a major marketing campaign and it was about to go on sale in retailers. Here's why:
The act of stealing a physical object comes with very real, physical dangers. This could be that you might get shot, or you might go to prison, or that you could simply pull a muscle lifting a heavy TV. Most people do not wish to subject themselves to those sorts of dangers because they don't believe the reward outweighs the risk.
People who steal things are generally looked down upon as thieves, as untrustworthy people who violate social codes to achieve their ends. They're the outliers and the desperate. Many people say they wouldn't have a problem shooting someone who was trespassing on their property with the intent to break, enter and steal.
In contrast, people who pirate are generally just normal people who see an easy route to get something and they don't have to pay for it. The risk to them is much less and they don't upset the social contract with others by simply making a copy of something.
Because there's very little danger or social stigma involved, people who don't want to spend money will keep pirating things.
I've been reading a lot of stories lately from people around here and other places like Reddit who note that since Steam started getting really good with its support and sales and such, they haven't been pirating as many (or any) games. Sure, this is only anecdotal evidence, but what does it actually mean if those stories are actually true?
It means the actual lost sales to piracy that game publishers are always on about have started to become fewer. Certainly they've not been eliminated, but fewer people are pirating instead of buying. Why is this?
Okay, Steam makes buying games easy and cheap. But how does it do that, really? How is it easier than pirating games? I mean, they're still charging people real money, for chrissake!
There are a number of reasons it's easier to buy games and pay real money on Steam than it is to pirate:
Installation is as easy as pressing a button and waiting for the download to be finished.
Largely unobtrusive DRM. If you've connected to the Steam servers, you can play your game. No keys to write down or stupid crap (like MS Live, EA whateverthehell, or the Rockstar social bullshit) to sign up for... usually.
Easy management of games in your library through one central application.
Uninstallation is as easy as right clicking and telling it to remove everything.
You can make hard backups of your games legally and reinstall them from your own disks.
The ability to download using one computer and then transfer all data to another quickly and easily with a thumb drive or portable hard drive.
Most importantly, Steam offers the ability to click a single button and instantly own a copy of a game and it does not require waiting for somebody to put it up on a torrent.
So, if people are actually buying stuff through Steam instead of pirating, why? Because it's stupidly easy. No hunting for trustworthy torrents, no mounting ISOs, no waiting for somebody to crack the DRM or create a keygen. You click a button and you instantly have a game. People stop pirating when it becomes easier to spend money.
People are lazy and stupid and they don't want to go through excess crap before they can play their My Little Pony or their Gritty Brown Realistic Shooter. They want their stuff right goddamn now and they will fight you to get it. They would prefer, however, that they just had to click their mouse and wait a sec for it to finish downloading and then never have to worry about it again.
People will stop infringing on copyrights and copying your property without your permission and downloading things illegally and stealing things and sticking it to "the man" when the man makes it easier for people to get what they want through legal means rather than illegal means.
Honestly, publishers could make it more convenient. Example: I have an illegitimately aquired expansion pack for a game I do own legally, but buying the pack is no longer an option (unless.. Steam?), though I can buy a bundle and pay for the original software again.
It's not like the industries have a "donate to relieve your conscience" button! It would be convenient if they did... ties back to the "pay what you want" model some people here suggest, I suppose.
For the casual internet user, I must admit it is also difficult to grasp the legal difference between streaming yourself an episode of FRIENDS, and downloading it.. somehow streaming is an okay way to enjoy contents you did not pay for.
Some IP advocates in Denmark are often trying to push a general 'internet use license' that should pretend to pay for this to acquire money to then be paid to the industry, the same way the radio pays to play songs, but it's super fishy, because: User A may be enjoying thousands of Euros worth of data for free on the internet, while user B only enjoys material that was gratis, free, opensource, etc. I think many feel these money would pay the advocate companies more than they pay the content providers (as is somewhat the case in the music industry).
It is currently protected under copyright. You created and published it. Therefore, it's copyrighted. The only missing component is registration of your copyright to aid you in any infringement claims against another party.
I designed dildocorns as far back as 2009, COURT TIME!
What are the main justifications the publishers use for their behavior?
1. If pirates aren't stopped, the games industry will cease to be because nobody will pay for it.
Well, we know that isn't one bit true because we have a whole lot of historical precedence that shows that when a new technology comes along that is heralded as the end of the industry, the industry adapts and makes it work for them.
I wouldn't call fire sharing new its older than some of the posters we have here... I think the fact that the industry is still around after such a long battle shows it's managed to minimize it to a point it can survive and for the most part keep moving forward to bigger and better things. Does everyone agree its a problem, probably. How big of a threat is up for debate. Obviously some companies view it as a big enough threat to play Russian roulette with their brands.
2. We need stronger laws to keep people from stealing our property.
I can understand the trepidation if you believe the first claim to be true. If they can't get people to buy games because they are stealing copies, then the only remaining option is to make laws more strict to deter infringement or use restrictive software that only allows paying customers to play them. But that doesn't really work either does it? Making harsher laws doesn't make a particular type of data any less copyable.
So then you suggest making it easier to steal and remove any penalties? Why not launch a few million dollar ad campaigns that teach people how to pirate games, hand out achievements for pirating, hand out special merchandise to those that pirate. "oh sorry you only seeded the game for 149 days, if you had gone 1 more day we would of sent you a gold planted helmet signed by Jesus himself".
Why not start cranking out art and releasing it for free. Nothing is stopping anyone for passing their work into the public domain for free. The reason that many people don't isn't because they're brainwashed sheep following what corporate America tells them to do, its because that is the best way for them to keep doing what they do and earn a living. If you're pass it to the world and they'll look out for you attitude worked more people would do it, there is nothing stopping them from doing it.
3. Torrent = piracy. If they torrent it, they stole it.
I never understood how people could come to this conclusion. You can't know a person's context for downloading a game. It certainly doesn't mean they didn't pay. There are many reason for a paying customer to download from other sources not authorized by the publisher.
I think its pretty safe to assume that people aren't getting two copies of the game. If they buy it and have the files they'll just get the crack instead of DL'ing the whole thing to get things they already have. There might be a handful that are getting two copies just to get the crack, but I think your average pirate is playing for free.
But what about the ones that DL and don't play? They're idiots, if you're going to do the time, at least enjoy the crime. They still seed it for a while, which means they're helping other people who might of bought it to play it without paying.
I just don't get how people can think it's good to give someone a monopoly on the distribution of a particular work that lasts for the better part of two centuries. Who does that benefit?
The person that poured their countless ours of hard work into the product. So people who don't create should be allowed to take things they haven't worked on and profit off of them? How is that at all fair for the person?
Why so long? Because people live a long time and deserve to be compensated for their work. When you're 90 years old, and need 2 large for heart pills, can't hold a paint brush and need help pissing in a pot, no one is going to steal your accomplishments and start making money off of them at your expense.
All I see there is art that nobody can use because some suits wanted to own it for a lifetime. By the time it's due to go the public domain, they may have extended the term or it might not be socially relevant anymore.
So instead of looking to steal art from other artists and pass it around for free or profit off of it, you should go make your own art and enjoy the protection of copyright. Copyright is only a threat to knuckle heads who can't create just barrow and steal.
Those people paid for a working game and it gives them nothing but grief.
When I worked for Atari doing tech support we spent some of our time fixing those issues and getting paying customers up and running, we went the extra mile to help them because they where paid and verified customers. Most of the time it was as simple as "oh you have this problem, here do these steps, bam your up and running".
PC games because the OS is so open and so much hardware and software can conflict its really easy to run into problems.
Most of the problems we helped people with where drivers out of date, video cards that sucked, and 8 billion programs running in the background. The second we stripped it down to a clean boot with updated drivers 90% of the time the games would run like butter with DRM intact. The other 10% who had conficts with the DRM we had very specific things that would get the game up and running while leaving the DRM intact.
I remember two cases where we couldn't get games up and running:
1) One guy had the disc explode in the drive while on the phone. The drive was faulty and he used the paperclip method to open it while it was spinning. Specific light-on drives had a rubber gasket the disc would sit on, if the drive got hot enough the glue would melt and the rubber would stick to the disc. The next disc to go in would stick to the seat and get stuck. HP used those drives for 2 years, massive problems, most of the time the drives wouldn't open and very few customers where stupid enough to try and force it open while it was spinning...
His hardware was out of warranty and we had a few brand new drives sitting around about to be liquidated so our director decided that we should send him a new drive and a new copy of the game.
2) The other case involved a guy that was convinced it was the DRM that was keeping him from playing. He was right, our DRM check app came back that it wasn't a legit copy of the game. He then claimed the disc was defective and that is why the check failed. We told him he could exchange the game for another copy at the store or we would replace it if he sent it in and it failed testing. He then asked us how to burn the game to a disc...
For a year we made a push to contact "customers" who posted in our forums who where raging about DRM, most refused our help, those that took us up on our offer where up and running in a few min or hours.
Long post short.
In my 5+ years of experience doing tech support and dealing with PC games in the ugly days of piracy, most of the customers didn't have problems with DRM, those that did who contacted us, damn near 100% where up and playing the game.
I can't speak for other companies but I after working at Atari I looked all the hot wind that gets blown around the net with a little more skepticism than I normally did before.
A few days in the trenches of "the other side" and you would probably have a more balanced point of view. Just saying maybe you should temper down your arguments until you march a mile in the other sides boots.
"People stop pirating when it becomes easier to spend money."
This is probably the most important observation of all. It's plain to anyone that when it's easier to just spend money, people spend money. Those that want to use the diy method are the ones willing to endure a little inconvenience to get what they want for cheaper. There are whole business models built around those types of people. That's why we have home centers where people buy stuff to do their own projects. So the core issue I've been trying to get at, but couldn't articulate until now is, how do we make paying more appealing than infringing and/or creating a business around those that want to take the diy route? So far I've seen some good ideas and I think we should keep going with that. New properties of a material, tangible or not, introduces new applications for it. What I'm saying is, how many ways can we skin this cat?
Mark:
I understand that you see me not seeing thing from every angle. You're probably right. I can't possibly know everything, but every time I say something that's misinformed, somebody is there to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. I do this to learn just as much as I do it to inform others. They say teaching others is the best way to learn. I'm no Steven Hawking, but I make up for that in dedication.
But I do want to speak to one point you made:
"The person that poured their countless ours of hard work into the product. So people who don't create should be allowed to take things they haven't worked on and profit off of them? How is that at all fair for the person?
Why so long? Because people live a long time and deserve to be compensated for their work. When you're 90 years old, and need 2 large for heart pills, can't hold a paint brush and need help pissing in a pot, no one is going to steal your accomplishments and start making money off of them at your expense."
Everybody deserves to be paid for their labor. Why should artists be entitled to unlimited payment that took a fixed amount of labor to produce? They can build a retirement plan just like everyone else. The 90 year old that can't build cars anymore isn't any less disadvantaged. Besides that, the core goal of granting copyright was to give incentive to create more works, not give artists an excuse to create and then sit on their laurels (or in the nursing home). Shorter terms would go a long way to induce the creation of more works than the current system. Shorter terms mean that more work becomes available to use. Just like Disney uses the Grimm brothers collection to create works, so could other people use Disney's works to create new art. Where would Disney be today if the type of copyright law that exists now was enacted then? There would have been no Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or the latest Tangled, which is basically an obvious adaptation of Rapunzel. By today's laws, Disney would be up for massive lawsuits of wanton infringement and looking at damages that would likely bankrupt them.
Some guy working in a car plant is a very poor analogy. Did he design the car? Is he making a unique product at the time of creation? Henry ford(and whoever the rights passed to when he died) certainly owns the right to the designs of his cars, and why shouldn't he/they?
Your points about Disney are BS, because the stories themselves are created so long ago even current IP/Copyright laws would offer them no protection. Say in 300 years someone wants to remake Toy Story, Pixar is long since defunct and the rights are in the public domain, you would have no problem remaking Toy Story. This is exactly what Disney is doing.
In addition to that, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from making a movie similar too, and inspired by Toy Story. Hell most of Pixars movies are pretty blatantly copied shortly after release.
IP/Copyright law does little to stifle creativity, instead it prevents lazy assholes who lack even basic creativity from profiteering directly from someone else's work.
I'm not sure where this idea of, because an artist owns the rights to his work, he is somehow sitting on a infinite money pile? This has no basis in reality.
Why should artists be entitled to unlimited payment that took a fixed amount of labor to produce? They can build a retirement plan just like everyone else.
What is this "unlimited payment" you're talking about? That doesn't make sense at all. Copyright is set up so that it protects intellectual property from being used without permission by the original creator. IP is nothing like a desk or a loaf of bread or a car; it's a product that there is a continuous demand for and if people want access to it, they should be paying the creator for access to it since they created it.
The 90 year old that can't build cars anymore isn't any less disadvantaged.
This has nothing to do with anything. Content creators are nothing like people who work in a factory and they have never been in a position where their job stability is anything like that of somebody working in a factory. Somebody who owns an IP or who creates works of art for a living is likely to never have retirement options unless they also work a day job doing some industrial labor job or something in academia.
Besides that, the core goal of granting copyright was to give incentive to create more works, not give artists an excuse to create and then sit on their laurels (or in the nursing home).
Granting copyright just means that the holder of the copyright owns some sort of intellectual property. They own the rights to copy something. This doesn't have anything to do with resting on your laurels unless you decide to do just that. Hell, I technically own the copyrights to any and all artwork I've ever created since I've never done anything commercial with it, but that doesn't mean I'm "resting on my laurels" if I decide I want to keep that stuff instead of dumping it all on the internet and telling people to have at it in as many ways as they want.
Shorter terms would go a long way to induce the creation of more works than the current system. Shorter terms mean that more work becomes available to use.
So I should approve of the government saying I don't own the rights to things I create, is that what you're saying? If I made a character that I thought was kind of cool, and some company wanted to buy the rights to it but I told them no because I thought they were an immoral piece of shit organization, it would be okay for them to wait however many years until copyright is technically up and then use my character to endorse their products?
Just like Disney uses the Grimm brothers collection to create works, so could other people use Disney's works to create new art. Where would Disney be today if the type of copyright law that exists now was enacted then? There would have been no Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or the latest Tangled, which is basically an obvious adaptation of Rapunzel. By today's laws, Disney would be up for massive lawsuits of wanton infringement and looking at damages that would likely bankrupt them.
The Grimm brothers just collected stories that had already been around for hundreds of years and codified them in a large collection. The Grimms didn't own the rights to those stories any more than Disney does. All Disney owns the rights to are the characters they created for their movies, characters which are almost completely different in most cases than the originals.
This thread started out with a very promising first post and then just went completely off the rails. It's apparent that both the copyright, trademark and patent systems in the US are pretty fucked up and in need of an overhaul. The ability of companies like Monsanto to patent DNA or the ability for someone like Drew Curtis from Fark to trademark "Not Safe for Work" are both good examples of how fucked up the system is. However, trademarks, copyrights and IP laws still do a reasonably good job of protecting people who create stuff that they don't want to have illegally copied.
The people who tell you copyright and stuff doesn't work are often the people who've been screwed over by somebody or people who actually want to screw somebody else over.
This thread started out with a very promising first post and then just went completely off the rails. It's apparent that both the copyright, trademark and patent systems in the US are pretty fucked up and in need of an overhaul. The ability of companies like Monsanto to patent DNA or the ability for someone like Drew Curtis from Fark to trademark "Not Safe for Work" are both good examples of how fucked up the system is. However, trademarks, copyrights and IP laws still do a reasonably good job of protecting people who create stuff that they don't want to have illegally copied.
The people who tell you copyright and stuff doesn't work are often the people who've been screwed over by somebody or people who actually want to screw somebody else over.
It's not going to be fruitful to try to abolish copyright altogether. There are too many people that find value in it as a system to make a living on art. I don't agree with that belief, but it's not going to change anymore than the the people who share files. We can argue who's right and who's wrong until our sun dies, but we will likely never resolve that.
Secondly, I don't think copyright is wrong because I got screwed over (maybe a little, but who doesn't feel animosity toward the rich and powerful these days?) and I certainly am not looking to screw anyone else over. What I see wrong about copyright is that it puts profit in priority over art. Money drives art instead of art driving art. I know people have bills to pay and need to eat, it just sucks that art doesn't get made for art's sake more often while people still get paid. I see big publishers pushing out so much high grossing work out the door, not because it's good, but because it sells. It's completely subjective and they do make standout games from time to time. You probably don't agree with me and that's fine, it's a personal philosophical belief I happen to hold.
Alright, I think I've said as much as I want to say about the validity and purpose of copyright, trademark, and patents. I think everybody is well aware of my stance by now. They all need to be fixed for today's world and they all get abused at the expense of the people. Let's take this thread back to topic and keep looking for better ways to get art to the fans that keeps everybody happy, cool?
Neverminding the greevar circus act, I've got a question about IP that I'm unsure of.
OpenArena has a Free open-source from-scratch map called 'wrackdm17'. It has the general layout design of q3dm17. Some GNU GPL fans argue that it's perfectly legal because it's an original work created from scratch (which it is), though in my head i'd say it's treading a grey area of being a derivative work just for having the recognizable layout and setting of the most played FFA map in existence (3-tiered platform arena in space).
So far my course of action was to move the map to a 'tribute pack' section of the SVN so it would no longer be part of the main releases (I don't want to push clones), though I'm getting more worried about this as one of the attractive points of q3, and it is not my intent to have clone maps (the characters and weapons look all different, the sounds suck, nothing else is illegally derivative (what was legally derivative was the code and the gpled q1 map sources )).
Besides, if they want q3dm17 for free so badly, they can live with Quake Live or the Q3 demo, lol... but seriously this is sticking out like a sore thumb and I don't like the blatant clones either. But, this is also a community favored map and is among one of the most played along with the shittiest rendition of q3dm6 you've ever seen (that map is also an issue too even if it's blocky brush crap), so....
Greevar, money has driven art for thousands of years. Portraits, statues, carvings and paintings for temples and churches, there's always been some sort of monetary incentive there. Sure, there are people who love to make art, but the people who love to make art and also love to keep having food on their table and a roof over their head sell their work so they can support themselves. Hell, even cave paintings from twenty millennia ago were done to celebrate the hunt and bring good luck to hunters, just another way of putting food on the table. In more modern times, people like Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol made art so they could sell it for mountains of cash even though it wasn't something like a portrait or a commission.
Art for art's sake does not do anything except use up time and resources. That's why artists sell their stuff. That's the way it's been forever and it's highly unlikely it's ever going to change unless we suddenly decide that we're living in Star Trek and money is for suckers. And considering how much people really like money, I can't see that ever happening in a normal human span of time.
If the posters in this thread put their effort into art instead of fruitlessly arguing with greevar, there would be some mind blowing shyt in pnp right now.
I mean this in the best possible way. Greevar were you sent here to destroy game art as we know it?
P.S. Your ability to contribute to society in any form i believe is directly correlated to your openness to piracy.
Greevar, money has driven art for thousands of years. Portraits, statues, carvings and paintings for temples and churches, there's always been some sort of monetary incentive there. Sure, there are people who love to make art, but the people who love to make art and also love to keep having food on their table and a roof over their head sell their work so they can support themselves. Hell, even cave paintings from twenty millennia ago were done to celebrate the hunt and bring good luck to hunters, just another way of putting food on the table. In more modern times, people like Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol made art so they could sell it for mountains of cash even though it wasn't something like a portrait or a commission.
Art for art's sake does not do anything except use up time and resources. That's why artists sell their stuff. That's the way it's been forever and it's highly unlikely it's ever going to change unless we suddenly decide that we're living in Star Trek and money is for suckers. And considering how much people really like money, I can't see that ever happening in a normal human span of time.
Fair enough. I'm tired of arguing. I just want to talk about ideas to deal with it diplomatically. I appreciate all the constructive ideas I've seen so far.
If the posters in this thread put their effort into art instead of fruitlessly arguing with greevar, there would be some mind blowing shyt in pnp right now.
I mean this in the best possible way. Greevar were you sent here to destroy game art as we know it?
P.S. Your ability to contribute to society in any form i believe is directly correlated to your openness to piracy.
1. Agreed. Don't try to argue with me. I have an unhealthy compulsion to defend my statements. I think I might be this guy: http://xkcd.com/386/
2. No, I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.
3. It's not an openness to it. I just don't see the benefit in fighting a battle nobody can win. I do see opportunity in it. Even if others don't.
Trying that as best as I can. I'm even contemplating doing a new SVN tree to jettison all the shameless clone bloat from the past.
There's also the 'shitstorm risk' which is the chaotic repercussion when I do something about it (delete files and pull offending releases). It's happened twice in the past and each time I seem to be painted as a traitor to free speech, and an advocate of censorship, lol... it demotivates everyone involved, even though I pulled it in favor for defending the project against infractions toward the license they are so obsessed with. It's a pretty funny double-edged sword. Precious production time turns into internet babysitting.
btw doesn't Quake Live have FreezeTag for subscribers?
I can feel the love. If you don't like what I have to say, why bother coming into a thread I started? This thread would have fell into oblivion if everyone who disdains my comments had abstained from participating in a debate with me. It's not surprising that I'm found unpopular here. My talents for social discourse seem to be rather lacking. Oh hell, I'm a Sheldon Cooper? S**T!
Well, let's just sum this all up shall we?
I'm unemployed, I've never worked in the industry, and I'm a troll. So, you win. Excuse me while I add another social venue that can't stand me to the list.
So yeah, just lock it. I can tell when I'm not wanted.
Although I don't see the topic getting much better than the link in the second post, and I have a tendency to skip large walls of text.. there's probably a lot left to argue about. Who knows it may stop the subject spewing over into other topics as much... and people who may want to talk about this subject for some reason or have a question could just add it to this for discussion. I mean you can jab greevar for having a different opinion and get him to give up as has happened numerous times, but the subject will reappear again after a week.
The thread will not be locked. If you dont care to read what greevar has to say about this, avoid the thread. Better here than it pouring over into a bunch of other threads.
"People stop pirating when it becomes easier to spend money."
This is probably the most important observation of all. It's plain to anyone that when it's easier to just spend money, people spend money. Those that want to use the diy method are the ones willing to endure a little inconvenience to get what they want for cheaper. There are whole business models built around those types of people. That's why we have home centers where people buy stuff to do their own projects. So the core issue I've been trying to get at, but couldn't articulate until now is, how do we make paying more appealing than infringing and/or creating a business around those that want to take the diy route? So far I've seen some good ideas and I think we should keep going with that. New properties of a material, tangible or not, introduces new applications for it. What I'm saying is, how many ways can we skin this cat?
Second Life? Or some sandbox type app? If you want it to be about DIY, then give users/customers the ability to create their own assets and do all of their own programming. Paying is already more appealing than infringing. I think the difference to most people is that they don't realize how much goes on behind the scenes to get that game/movie shipped.
This pretty much. Pirate away but just admit you're thieving and contributing to studios closing and pulling development from the console you're pirating on.
This pretty much. Pirate away but just admit you're thieving and contributing to studios closing and pulling development from the console you're pirating on.
I don't want argue about the validity nor the excuses of infringement. That's an argument that will never end. It's pointless. I want to talk about solutions. I want to find as many as possible, because I think the key to making it in the new digital economy is being perpetually adaptable.
Soulution 1: stop pirating. Seriously. You dont stop selling cars only because some get stolen.
You can argue morality and ethics until you're blue in the face and we'll still be right where we began. You don't like it and want it to stop. I can see how you feel that way, but I'm trying look at the reality of the situation. It's low risk, easy, and has a high payoff. It's a no-brainer why people do this. It happens. All the moral and ethical pleading in the world isn't going to change human nature. Laws can't stop it either. Your best remaining option is to appeal to their nature by offering something better than what they already get through file sharing. I'm sure you don't think you should have to do that, but it doesn't matter what you like. You can't legislate the nature of information. "Make a better mouse trap and people will beat a path to your door" is what they say and it still applies. Right or wrong, legal or illegal. It doesn't matter. People will infringe on your copyrights. You can choose to be angry about it and get nowhere or you can try to turn it into a money maker.
Let's face facts. DRM or not, when you sell a copy of your software to someone, you automatically give them the capability to copy it over and over again. You can't even use the software if you can't copy it. That's how computers work. There's a copy in your RAM, Hard Drive, CPU cache, and your GPU frame buffer every time you use it. If you can find a way to make the innate copyable nature of software 100% copy-proof, then you'll never have any need for copyright nor worry about infringement ever again.
I think piracy is a smaller problem then most people realize, and probably not worth doing much about so long as the situation doesn't get any worse.
I believe the largest problem with piracy from a practical standpoint is actually that most pirates are worthless assholes who have way too much free time, which they use to clog up your user community with negativity. Often they will download some shitty broken version of your game and then complain incessantly about minor issues or problems that are not in the real release.
Especially for smaller devs, word of mouth and your user community are your most valuable assets, and damage to those could have a large negative impact on sales.
Deep!
(I was starting to think you were actually trying to come up with a business model for a project of yours or something. But if it's just for the sake of "theory" ... then theres not much reason for so much discussion I think.)
If you can find a way to make the innate copyable nature of software 100% copy-proof, then you'll never have any need for copyright nor worry about infringement ever again.
This is simply an incorrect statement, if you can stop people from copying a file, that doesn't mean you no longer need copyright law. Copyright law is still absolutely essential to prevent some 3rd party from creating, from scratch, a copy of your work, product etc. This is less applicable to unique works of art as it is to software, and general products/branding. But very much necessary none the less.
If I make my own Mario game, and call it "Mario Jizz party 69" and try to sell, you think Nintendo isn't going to sue me for copyright infringement, simply because I didn't directly copy the files from their game?
Replies
When I was a kid, I would download the shit out of everything, mainly because A. I had no money, B. it was relatively easy and C. I was all like "fuck the man rah rah" etc.
These days I rarely pirate anything, aside from the random album here and there. This is generally because of two reasons:
1. I've grown up and matured, and respect what it takes to create a game/album/movie/etc, I can afford to support the products I enjoy, but more importantly I actively *want* to support them so the makers of said products can continue to make more products that I enjoy.
2. Purchasing things legitimately is actually much less of a hassle than stealing it these days. Its funny, but there are actually a wide range of services that make it simpler and easy to buy stuff.
A. Steam for games
B. Itunes(shity file restrictions aside) or Amazon(actually not bad) for mp3s
C. Netflix/hulu for tv/movies
So, really just continuing to add services that make it just as easy or easier for the consumer to purchase legitimate products goes a long way. I think the last thing we want to do is make the environment harsher for the real customer than the pirate(ie: terrible DRM), however I also do not think pirates should be coddled and "marketed to" as if they control a significant part of the market, as most of them naturally will pay for things as they grow older and mature, the rest of them who will never pay for anything are just scumbags and are never going to pay, pirating just for the sake of it.
I dont think that the system is broken, or that there is anything particularly wrong with copyright/IP law, as it protects the little guy the same as the big guy, as we've discussed in other threads. Nor do I think its a smart or even realistic or feasible to market towards or try to monetize piracy, I mean we have lots of proper, legitimate services that fill that role, for people who would prefer to pay a flat fee to "rent" instead of buying.
I was the opposite when I was in my early 20's. I thought it was wrong and people shouldn't do it. I carried the opinion that many of you appear to hold. I started to change my mind when I learned about how copyright, DRM, and patents were not being used to spark innovation, but used to abuse others whom try to innovate. Every act of "piracy" that occurred, I kept hearing the publisher advocates make the same unsubstantiated claims. They sued people with little to no real evidence or proof of harm and getting obscene awards in court. Then I learned about how and where copyright came from, what it was used for, and whom it really benefited. It was a slow and gradual process that changed my opinion. I'd estimate that I've spent roughly the past 4-5 years reading articles, essay, reports, and history on or about this. Though, I have no industry experience in this personally, I have read what those that are experienced have to say on it.
I think the biggest problem with this, and I feel its been relatively clear with all of your posts, is that all of this time you spend reading articles and research or whatnot, you're only looking at one side of the issue, and you have an extremely biased viewpoint because of it.
This isnt meant as an insult or a jab, just an observation. However I feel many others think the same, as is obvious by how people tend to react to your posts/threads. This isn't a simple matter of "you guys profit from the system, so you're apposed to change" but moreso how you seem to present your opinions.
I think you need to look up the term "invasive" being online is by no means invasive. UBisofts drm was actually alot less invasive than most, just that you needed to be online to play.
win lol
Spotify aint avaible yet(I think it's because the big record labels won't allow it streaming their IP's in denmark), we do not have a netflix like service here(I presume it's because the big studios don't want their IP's streamed in denmark) and alot of the series are either not shown on television or is atleast 3-4 seasons behind(again due to the goddamn IP holders), so we do not have the alternatives that you guys have and I think it's important to keep that in mind when trying to use it as counterpoint. Now I won't say I support piracy as stealing without giving, but when I don't have any alternatives either to having to import from outside denmark(where you can risk it gets caught in the tax check at the airport and you end up paying 300% of it's value) or pirate it, guess what's most convenient to almost everyone.
I really hate all the big record labels and series IP holders for limiting services like Spotify(which I would gladly pay for) and Netflix for growing in a country like Denmark.
That's my 5 cents, and I believe it's important that you guys remember that not every country has so convenient services like the US.
From what I understand, the only worldwide alternative so far seems to be Itunes (music, movies, TV) but I am personally against it as feels like a ripoff, fills up your hard drive fast, and has no streaming features.
BTW regarding spotify : you can bypass it by using a credit card from a country with the proper license, and then use the "Spotify abroad" premium option. That's what I do in order to use it from the US.
I wonder if Onlive is restricted to certain countries too?
I wonder how long it'll take for such services to become more widespread worldwide. It certainly isn't perfect at the moment but at least it offers a proof of concept answer to the OP question!
Edit, Yeah. I think Spotify and Netflix are great concepts and if they would allow them in Denmark, I would use them as an alternative to downloading a movie or an episode of a serie once in a while.
I think the biggest problem when it comes to movie and music piracy, is that the studioes are to slow at changing their business plans, services that allows me to stream(read Spotify, Netflix and etc.) or get my games very fast(read Steam) is the way to go and makes it just as convenient as going to your prefered torrent tracker and downloading it.
As far games, I do pirate them once in a while, and I'm not afraid to admid it, not even on a forum where peoples jobs are supported by buying the games, but I don't have alot of money on my current salary and the ammount of PC demoes now a days are just redicolous, and I'm no ready to drop 50 euro on a game without trying it first(also, what the hell is up with steams $1 = 1 euro, it makes games atleast 33% more expensive in Europe).
Well, i must say that i own some of the latest games from ubi like splinter cell convition, and the DRM DOES NOT BOTHER ME. I support their efforts because i totally understand it. The game needs a permanent connection to internet.. err and what? that's not a problem, the PC is nowadays a multiplayer/online platform.
I would like to see all players with the need of connecting to a server with an account, in order to play a game, one player campaigns aswell. Personal details should be given aswell (real name), and as in korea, also with your "kssn" (personal authentication). Game Piracy can be stopped, "so.. you want to play our game? pay for it as unique option and give us all your details".
Games are a luxury, not a need. Think that.
Culture is not a right.
Intellectual property is a need. Now, go and steal the idea of "Naruto" and copy the manga and make it yours.
Edit: BTW, steam games are 100% pirated, their drm is useless.
I just want to add to Blaizer that sometimes the creators needs to see it from the consumers view too, and the legal consumer are the people who pays for the studio's efforts in stopping piracy with stupid DRM systems... Yes stupid.
I bought Assassin's Creed 2 on the release day and went home to play it, only to find myself victim the DRM servers being DDoS'd by cracker groups to protest their STUPID drm system, I couldn't play the game for 2 days and when they finally resolved the issue, I found my game session getting interrupted when my net even dropped for a sec or two.
Pirates get a better working product for free then the consumer who pays for it, because studioes try to protect their games... I don't see why they even borther, it won't work. The only real DRM that works is online play and online DLC(although DLC gets cracked easy too) and they hurt the consumers who actually spend their money on their products.. I don't think we as consumers should just let that happen without expressing our concerns.
That's my last 5 cents.
As i clearly said, as consumer, i haven't got problems with their DRM. Furthermore, i support it because i perfectly know that it's uber difficult to deal with piracy.
It can't be helped. They must protect their product, because if they don't sell enough, too many people are fired and end of business.
Start thinking to work in another profession, because as game developer, you will work for the devil if you don't protect your work very well.
I'm sorry but, what? You support draconian DRM (Like what Zpanzer mentioned) that in the pirates case gets cracked a few hours, to a week after release, and doesn't affect pirates OR protect the software anymore?
Funny, there's loads of examples of DRM Free games that did great. Braid, Amnesia, shall I go on?
Uhhh
what
also
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2011/01/four-months-after-amnesias-release.html
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010/10/one-month-after-amnesias-release.html
Pretty much this, if you don't like something, and have a good reason why you dislike it there's no reason to not be vocal about your opinion.
Anyway, there's a select few worthwhile posts here that I found to be quite interesting to read, so thanks to the handful of you that contributed something worthwhile to the discussion~
I don't get why you think that. The game forced you to be online for a single player game. If you lost your connection, you lost your progress. "Invasive" probably isn't the correct term in this instance. Maybe "abusive" would fit that particular DRM. My main problem with those types of measures is that they wreak of paranoia towards the customer base. The message they send to their customers is "We don't trust you, so here's some restrictions you have to put up with". It's completely absurd to do so because there are teams of people dedicated to defeating those restrictions so people can get a better experience than they paid for, but should have had in the first place.
EQ said:
"I think the biggest problem with this, and I feel its been relatively clear with all of your posts, is that all of this time you spend reading articles and research or whatnot, you're only looking at one side of the issue, and you have an extremely biased viewpoint because of it."
You're probably right. I could very well be biased and I'm sure a lot of my disdain for the abuse publishers deal out to paying customers colors my opinion of them. Part of the bias towards the consumers' side probably comes from a lack of good logical arguments coming from the other side of the debate. It's hard to find a point out there that's doesn't simply blame the other side for everything and call for their heads on a platter. I can't tell you how many times I hear people scream "fucking pirates ruin everything" without taking one moment of thought as to whether that is even true. It's easy to just pile all of the guilt on the people on the other side of the law while the other side pretends they are the blameless victims.
What are the main justifications the publishers use for their behavior?
1. If pirates aren't stopped, the games industry will cease to be because nobody will pay for it.
Well, we know that isn't one bit true because we have a whole lot of historical precedence that shows that when a new technology comes along that is heralded as the end of the industry, the industry adapts and makes it work for them.
2. We need stronger laws to keep people from stealing our property.
I can understand the trepidation if you believe the first claim to be true. If they can't get people to buy games because they are stealing copies, then the only remaining option is to make laws more strict to deter infringement or use restrictive software that only allows paying customers to play them. But that doesn't really work either does it? Making harsher laws doesn't make a particular type of data any less copyable.
3. Torrent = piracy. If they torrent it, they stole it.
I never understood how people could come to this conclusion. You can't know a person's context for downloading a game. It certainly doesn't mean they didn't pay. There are many reason for a paying customer to download from other sources not authorized by the publisher.
4. Copyright works and is good for artists.
I just don't get how people can think it's good to give someone a monopoly on the distribution of a particular work that lasts for the better part of two centuries. Who does that benefit? All I see there is art that nobody can use because some suits wanted to own it for a lifetime. By the time it's due to go the public domain, they may have extended the term or it might not be socially relevant anymore.
These are the kind of things most often ever hear from the publisher side. The file sharing side isn't any more factual than their counterparts. It would be refreshing to hear an argument based on fact rather than the same old tired rhetoric I hear (from both sides). The one indisputable fact is that neither side is defending their arguments with facts.
Blaizer:
I'm glad you can be comfortable with DRM on the games you play. More power to you. For the millions of others that just can't stand it, that's not good enough. There are so many out there that can't even play the games they pay for because the DRM refuses to let you play, causes a bug, or conflicts with another piece of your software. This does happen and it happens a lot. Those people paid for a working game and it gives them nothing but grief.
Go to the dildocorn example again, copyright nowdays is in place to protect this out of a hundred billion different ways to do something, just so that people cannot go and do exactly the same thing and earn money on the fact that the previous creator built up an IP with it, there are far more people out there who are not suits, and who run one man companies that can make use of the IP-laws.
It doesn't hinder anything.
It didn't hinder james cameron from making pocahontas in space.
It didn't hinder blizzard from creating their own warhammer style world.
It didn't hinder them again when they created starcraft.
It didn't hinder people from creating their own modern warfare style games.
It doesn't hinder people from creating their own world of warcraft copy.
It does hinder people from creating a direct copy of something.
And most reasonable people who are for the IP laws, are also against the people who choose to abuse it, since it wasn't made to be abused, it was made to protect peoples work.
But some people are just so narrowminded that they believe that everything has already been done and there's no more room amongst all the IP's, it's the people who cry when I tell them to "create your own universe instead" when they want to make some fangame from hell.
It's kind of weird that Comcast calls their service "on-demand" but I can almost guarantee I can demand a show or movie and not find it.
Maybe at some point in the future they will be more like Spotify or steam, and less sporadic but its the reason I haven't given up buying certain things, I've definitely cut way back and gotten choosy about what I buy.
totally agree...
copyright and IP aside...fact is people do this for a living...they need to get paid...
I'm too 'lazy' to pirate any more (would also like to support the people making it happen). it isn't that hard to get a hold of legit software and games these days. A good product should be incentive enough. How DRM and copy protection affects or hurts the user's experience is up to the makers of the game/software.
This is my current take on the whole piracy issue:
- Piracy is a problem. This is stupidly obvious.
- Piracy is never going to stop. At all.
- The only way to prevent piracy is to make the alternative easier.
The rest of this post is basically those three points in longer detail, so skip if you like.So why is piracy a problem? A lot of people will tell you that any time somebody pirates something, that counts as a lost sale. However, plenty of other people, mainly pirates, will tell you that people who pirate games actually use pirating more as a try-before-you buy scheme.
Clearly somebody here isn't 100% correct in what they're saying.
I can't provide hard statistics on game sales and piracy rates and I very much doubt anybody could come up with accurate numbers for how many people bought, pirated, or both on any thing ever made and distributed. So if it's impossible to come up with exact numbers, how do we know piracy is a problem at all? Simple: Distributors are reacting negatively to it and pirates are shamelessly pirating for various reasons.
Distributors are claiming that piracy hurts sales and drives up production costs because of lost revenue. Thus, they are doing things to try and prevent piracy mostly in the form of DRM.
Pirates are copying and distributing things for reasons spelled out in the first post they want to try before they buy, they're feeling righteous indignation and want to stick it to the man, they simply don't believe that people can own certain things, they're poor and can't afford stuff, it's easier than getting stuff legally, the list goes on.
So, who's in the right here? Are the distributors right in saddling paying customers with some truly horrific DRM in the name of keeping a handle on stuff they own the rights to? Are the pirates right in any of what they're doing if they're using something that they haven't bought the right to use?
Distributors legally peddle their wares. They hold the copyrights, they either made it themselves or they're publishing it for a third party, they've made legal arrangements to sell things at certain prices to make money. That money goes to supporting the people who make the things they distribute.
Pirates illegally peddle the wares of distributors. They do not hold any of the rights to distribute, but they also do not make money (...usually). Because they are not making money (...usually), no money is going to support the people who make the things they distribute.
So. That last bit is the kicker. Distributors want to make money off of the people enjoying their products, but the distributors aren't seeing any money from the pirated copies of their products.
Now, piracy is never going to stop. There's always going to be a segment of the population whose goods are ill-gotten. These could be people who steal TVs or people who pirate music. Doesn't matter. There's always going to be a chunk of the population who gets stuff using less-than-legal methods. However, piracy is a bit touchier of an issue than stealing a TV.
As has been pointed out by many people in many places, piracy is not typical stealing. It is not the same as carrying something out of a store that you didn't pay for.
To steal a TV, you have to physically remove it from one place and put it in another. This is easy to argue as one lost sale, especially if that particular TV had recently been the focus of a major marketing campaign and it was about to go on sale in retailers.
To pirate music, you basically just click a button and download an exact copy of something that was never removed in the first place. Now that song is in twice as many locations as it once was. This is more difficult to argue as a lost sale, even if it was, like the TV, the focus of a major marketing campaign and it was about to go on sale in retailers. Here's why:
The act of stealing a physical object comes with very real, physical dangers. This could be that you might get shot, or you might go to prison, or that you could simply pull a muscle lifting a heavy TV. Most people do not wish to subject themselves to those sorts of dangers because they don't believe the reward outweighs the risk.
People who steal things are generally looked down upon as thieves, as untrustworthy people who violate social codes to achieve their ends. They're the outliers and the desperate. Many people say they wouldn't have a problem shooting someone who was trespassing on their property with the intent to break, enter and steal.
In contrast, people who pirate are generally just normal people who see an easy route to get something and they don't have to pay for it. The risk to them is much less and they don't upset the social contract with others by simply making a copy of something.
Because there's very little danger or social stigma involved, people who don't want to spend money will keep pirating things.
I've been reading a lot of stories lately from people around here and other places like Reddit who note that since Steam started getting really good with its support and sales and such, they haven't been pirating as many (or any) games. Sure, this is only anecdotal evidence, but what does it actually mean if those stories are actually true?
It means the actual lost sales to piracy that game publishers are always on about have started to become fewer. Certainly they've not been eliminated, but fewer people are pirating instead of buying. Why is this?
Okay, Steam makes buying games easy and cheap. But how does it do that, really? How is it easier than pirating games? I mean, they're still charging people real money, for chrissake!
There are a number of reasons it's easier to buy games and pay real money on Steam than it is to pirate:
- Installation is as easy as pressing a button and waiting for the download to be finished.
- Largely unobtrusive DRM. If you've connected to the Steam servers, you can play your game. No keys to write down or stupid crap (like MS Live, EA whateverthehell, or the Rockstar social bullshit) to sign up for... usually.
- Easy management of games in your library through one central application.
- Uninstallation is as easy as right clicking and telling it to remove everything.
- You can make hard backups of your games legally and reinstall them from your own disks.
- The ability to download using one computer and then transfer all data to another quickly and easily with a thumb drive or portable hard drive.
- Most importantly, Steam offers the ability to click a single button and instantly own a copy of a game and it does not require waiting for somebody to put it up on a torrent.
So, if people are actually buying stuff through Steam instead of pirating, why? Because it's stupidly easy. No hunting for trustworthy torrents, no mounting ISOs, no waiting for somebody to crack the DRM or create a keygen. You click a button and you instantly have a game. People stop pirating when it becomes easier to spend money.People are lazy and stupid and they don't want to go through excess crap before they can play their My Little Pony or their Gritty Brown Realistic Shooter. They want their stuff right goddamn now and they will fight you to get it. They would prefer, however, that they just had to click their mouse and wait a sec for it to finish downloading and then never have to worry about it again.
People will stop infringing on copyrights and copying your property without your permission and downloading things illegally and stealing things and sticking it to "the man" when the man makes it easier for people to get what they want through legal means rather than illegal means.
tl;dr is at the top of the post, basically.
It's not like the industries have a "donate to relieve your conscience" button! It would be convenient if they did... ties back to the "pay what you want" model some people here suggest, I suppose.
For the casual internet user, I must admit it is also difficult to grasp the legal difference between streaming yourself an episode of FRIENDS, and downloading it.. somehow streaming is an okay way to enjoy contents you did not pay for.
Some IP advocates in Denmark are often trying to push a general 'internet use license' that should pretend to pay for this to acquire money to then be paid to the industry, the same way the radio pays to play songs, but it's super fishy, because: User A may be enjoying thousands of Euros worth of data for free on the internet, while user B only enjoys material that was gratis, free, opensource, etc. I think many feel these money would pay the advocate companies more than they pay the content providers (as is somewhat the case in the music industry). I designed dildocorns as far back as 2009, COURT TIME!
I wouldn't call fire sharing new its older than some of the posters we have here... I think the fact that the industry is still around after such a long battle shows it's managed to minimize it to a point it can survive and for the most part keep moving forward to bigger and better things. Does everyone agree its a problem, probably. How big of a threat is up for debate. Obviously some companies view it as a big enough threat to play Russian roulette with their brands.
So then you suggest making it easier to steal and remove any penalties? Why not launch a few million dollar ad campaigns that teach people how to pirate games, hand out achievements for pirating, hand out special merchandise to those that pirate. "oh sorry you only seeded the game for 149 days, if you had gone 1 more day we would of sent you a gold planted helmet signed by Jesus himself".
Why not start cranking out art and releasing it for free. Nothing is stopping anyone for passing their work into the public domain for free. The reason that many people don't isn't because they're brainwashed sheep following what corporate America tells them to do, its because that is the best way for them to keep doing what they do and earn a living. If you're pass it to the world and they'll look out for you attitude worked more people would do it, there is nothing stopping them from doing it.
I think its pretty safe to assume that people aren't getting two copies of the game. If they buy it and have the files they'll just get the crack instead of DL'ing the whole thing to get things they already have. There might be a handful that are getting two copies just to get the crack, but I think your average pirate is playing for free.
But what about the ones that DL and don't play? They're idiots, if you're going to do the time, at least enjoy the crime. They still seed it for a while, which means they're helping other people who might of bought it to play it without paying.
The person that poured their countless ours of hard work into the product. So people who don't create should be allowed to take things they haven't worked on and profit off of them? How is that at all fair for the person?
Why so long? Because people live a long time and deserve to be compensated for their work. When you're 90 years old, and need 2 large for heart pills, can't hold a paint brush and need help pissing in a pot, no one is going to steal your accomplishments and start making money off of them at your expense.
So instead of looking to steal art from other artists and pass it around for free or profit off of it, you should go make your own art and enjoy the protection of copyright. Copyright is only a threat to knuckle heads who can't create just barrow and steal.
Pirates won't participate in surveys and don't like being tracked. The industry
When I worked for Atari doing tech support we spent some of our time fixing those issues and getting paying customers up and running, we went the extra mile to help them because they where paid and verified customers. Most of the time it was as simple as "oh you have this problem, here do these steps, bam your up and running".
PC games because the OS is so open and so much hardware and software can conflict its really easy to run into problems.
Most of the problems we helped people with where drivers out of date, video cards that sucked, and 8 billion programs running in the background. The second we stripped it down to a clean boot with updated drivers 90% of the time the games would run like butter with DRM intact. The other 10% who had conficts with the DRM we had very specific things that would get the game up and running while leaving the DRM intact.
I remember two cases where we couldn't get games up and running:
1) One guy had the disc explode in the drive while on the phone. The drive was faulty and he used the paperclip method to open it while it was spinning. Specific light-on drives had a rubber gasket the disc would sit on, if the drive got hot enough the glue would melt and the rubber would stick to the disc. The next disc to go in would stick to the seat and get stuck. HP used those drives for 2 years, massive problems, most of the time the drives wouldn't open and very few customers where stupid enough to try and force it open while it was spinning...
His hardware was out of warranty and we had a few brand new drives sitting around about to be liquidated so our director decided that we should send him a new drive and a new copy of the game.
2) The other case involved a guy that was convinced it was the DRM that was keeping him from playing. He was right, our DRM check app came back that it wasn't a legit copy of the game. He then claimed the disc was defective and that is why the check failed. We told him he could exchange the game for another copy at the store or we would replace it if he sent it in and it failed testing. He then asked us how to burn the game to a disc...
For a year we made a push to contact "customers" who posted in our forums who where raging about DRM, most refused our help, those that took us up on our offer where up and running in a few min or hours.
Long post short.
In my 5+ years of experience doing tech support and dealing with PC games in the ugly days of piracy, most of the customers didn't have problems with DRM, those that did who contacted us, damn near 100% where up and playing the game.
I can't speak for other companies but I after working at Atari I looked all the hot wind that gets blown around the net with a little more skepticism than I normally did before.
A few days in the trenches of "the other side" and you would probably have a more balanced point of view. Just saying maybe you should temper down your arguments until you march a mile in the other sides boots.
This is probably the most important observation of all. It's plain to anyone that when it's easier to just spend money, people spend money. Those that want to use the diy method are the ones willing to endure a little inconvenience to get what they want for cheaper. There are whole business models built around those types of people. That's why we have home centers where people buy stuff to do their own projects. So the core issue I've been trying to get at, but couldn't articulate until now is, how do we make paying more appealing than infringing and/or creating a business around those that want to take the diy route? So far I've seen some good ideas and I think we should keep going with that. New properties of a material, tangible or not, introduces new applications for it. What I'm saying is, how many ways can we skin this cat?
Mark:
I understand that you see me not seeing thing from every angle. You're probably right. I can't possibly know everything, but every time I say something that's misinformed, somebody is there to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. I do this to learn just as much as I do it to inform others. They say teaching others is the best way to learn. I'm no Steven Hawking, but I make up for that in dedication.
But I do want to speak to one point you made:
"The person that poured their countless ours of hard work into the product. So people who don't create should be allowed to take things they haven't worked on and profit off of them? How is that at all fair for the person?
Why so long? Because people live a long time and deserve to be compensated for their work. When you're 90 years old, and need 2 large for heart pills, can't hold a paint brush and need help pissing in a pot, no one is going to steal your accomplishments and start making money off of them at your expense."
Everybody deserves to be paid for their labor. Why should artists be entitled to unlimited payment that took a fixed amount of labor to produce? They can build a retirement plan just like everyone else. The 90 year old that can't build cars anymore isn't any less disadvantaged. Besides that, the core goal of granting copyright was to give incentive to create more works, not give artists an excuse to create and then sit on their laurels (or in the nursing home). Shorter terms would go a long way to induce the creation of more works than the current system. Shorter terms mean that more work becomes available to use. Just like Disney uses the Grimm brothers collection to create works, so could other people use Disney's works to create new art. Where would Disney be today if the type of copyright law that exists now was enacted then? There would have been no Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or the latest Tangled, which is basically an obvious adaptation of Rapunzel. By today's laws, Disney would be up for massive lawsuits of wanton infringement and looking at damages that would likely bankrupt them.
Your points about Disney are BS, because the stories themselves are created so long ago even current IP/Copyright laws would offer them no protection. Say in 300 years someone wants to remake Toy Story, Pixar is long since defunct and the rights are in the public domain, you would have no problem remaking Toy Story. This is exactly what Disney is doing.
In addition to that, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from making a movie similar too, and inspired by Toy Story. Hell most of Pixars movies are pretty blatantly copied shortly after release.
IP/Copyright law does little to stifle creativity, instead it prevents lazy assholes who lack even basic creativity from profiteering directly from someone else's work.
I'm not sure where this idea of, because an artist owns the rights to his work, he is somehow sitting on a infinite money pile? This has no basis in reality.
This thread started out with a very promising first post and then just went completely off the rails. It's apparent that both the copyright, trademark and patent systems in the US are pretty fucked up and in need of an overhaul. The ability of companies like Monsanto to patent DNA or the ability for someone like Drew Curtis from Fark to trademark "Not Safe for Work" are both good examples of how fucked up the system is. However, trademarks, copyrights and IP laws still do a reasonably good job of protecting people who create stuff that they don't want to have illegally copied.
The people who tell you copyright and stuff doesn't work are often the people who've been screwed over by somebody or people who actually want to screw somebody else over.
It's not going to be fruitful to try to abolish copyright altogether. There are too many people that find value in it as a system to make a living on art. I don't agree with that belief, but it's not going to change anymore than the the people who share files. We can argue who's right and who's wrong until our sun dies, but we will likely never resolve that.
Secondly, I don't think copyright is wrong because I got screwed over (maybe a little, but who doesn't feel animosity toward the rich and powerful these days?) and I certainly am not looking to screw anyone else over. What I see wrong about copyright is that it puts profit in priority over art. Money drives art instead of art driving art. I know people have bills to pay and need to eat, it just sucks that art doesn't get made for art's sake more often while people still get paid. I see big publishers pushing out so much high grossing work out the door, not because it's good, but because it sells. It's completely subjective and they do make standout games from time to time. You probably don't agree with me and that's fine, it's a personal philosophical belief I happen to hold.
Alright, I think I've said as much as I want to say about the validity and purpose of copyright, trademark, and patents. I think everybody is well aware of my stance by now. They all need to be fixed for today's world and they all get abused at the expense of the people. Let's take this thread back to topic and keep looking for better ways to get art to the fans that keeps everybody happy, cool?
OpenArena has a Free open-source from-scratch map called 'wrackdm17'. It has the general layout design of q3dm17. Some GNU GPL fans argue that it's perfectly legal because it's an original work created from scratch (which it is), though in my head i'd say it's treading a grey area of being a derivative work just for having the recognizable layout and setting of the most played FFA map in existence (3-tiered platform arena in space).
So far my course of action was to move the map to a 'tribute pack' section of the SVN so it would no longer be part of the main releases (I don't want to push clones), though I'm getting more worried about this as one of the attractive points of q3, and it is not my intent to have clone maps (the characters and weapons look all different, the sounds suck, nothing else is illegally derivative (what was legally derivative was the code and the gpled q1 map sources
Besides, if they want q3dm17 for free so badly, they can live with Quake Live or the Q3 demo, lol... but seriously this is sticking out like a sore thumb and I don't like the blatant clones either. But, this is also a community favored map and is among one of the most played along with the shittiest rendition of q3dm6 you've ever seen (that map is also an issue too even if it's blocky brush crap), so....
Destroy?
Art for art's sake does not do anything except use up time and resources. That's why artists sell their stuff. That's the way it's been forever and it's highly unlikely it's ever going to change unless we suddenly decide that we're living in Star Trek and money is for suckers. And considering how much people really like money, I can't see that ever happening in a normal human span of time.
I mean this in the best possible way. Greevar were you sent here to destroy game art as we know it?
P.S. Your ability to contribute to society in any form i believe is directly correlated to your openness to piracy.
Fair enough. I'm tired of arguing. I just want to talk about ideas to deal with it diplomatically. I appreciate all the constructive ideas I've seen so far.
1. Agreed. Don't try to argue with me. I have an unhealthy compulsion to defend my statements. I think I might be this guy: http://xkcd.com/386/
2. No, I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.
3. It's not an openness to it. I just don't see the benefit in fighting a battle nobody can win. I do see opportunity in it. Even if others don't.
There's also the 'shitstorm risk' which is the chaotic repercussion when I do something about it (delete files and pull offending releases). It's happened twice in the past and each time I seem to be painted as a traitor to free speech, and an advocate of censorship, lol... it demotivates everyone involved, even though I pulled it in favor for defending the project against infractions toward the license they are so obsessed with. It's a pretty funny double-edged sword. Precious production time turns into internet babysitting.
btw doesn't Quake Live have FreezeTag for subscribers?
Glad we agree. Can we lock this now?
I can feel the love. If you don't like what I have to say, why bother coming into a thread I started? This thread would have fell into oblivion if everyone who disdains my comments had abstained from participating in a debate with me. It's not surprising that I'm found unpopular here. My talents for social discourse seem to be rather lacking. Oh hell, I'm a Sheldon Cooper? S**T!
Well, let's just sum this all up shall we?
I'm unemployed, I've never worked in the industry, and I'm a troll. So, you win. Excuse me while I add another social venue that can't stand me to the list.
So yeah, just lock it. I can tell when I'm not wanted.
Second Life? Or some sandbox type app? If you want it to be about DIY, then give users/customers the ability to create their own assets and do all of their own programming. Paying is already more appealing than infringing. I think the difference to most people is that they don't realize how much goes on behind the scenes to get that game/movie shipped.
This pretty much. Pirate away but just admit you're thieving and contributing to studios closing and pulling development from the console you're pirating on.
I do that 40+ hours a week, my mouse elbow hurts at the end of the day.
I don't want argue about the validity nor the excuses of infringement. That's an argument that will never end. It's pointless. I want to talk about solutions. I want to find as many as possible, because I think the key to making it in the new digital economy is being perpetually adaptable.
Soulution 1: stop pirating. Seriously. You dont stop selling cars only because some get stolen.
You can argue morality and ethics until you're blue in the face and we'll still be right where we began. You don't like it and want it to stop. I can see how you feel that way, but I'm trying look at the reality of the situation. It's low risk, easy, and has a high payoff. It's a no-brainer why people do this. It happens. All the moral and ethical pleading in the world isn't going to change human nature. Laws can't stop it either. Your best remaining option is to appeal to their nature by offering something better than what they already get through file sharing. I'm sure you don't think you should have to do that, but it doesn't matter what you like. You can't legislate the nature of information. "Make a better mouse trap and people will beat a path to your door" is what they say and it still applies. Right or wrong, legal or illegal. It doesn't matter. People will infringe on your copyrights. You can choose to be angry about it and get nowhere or you can try to turn it into a money maker.
Let's face facts. DRM or not, when you sell a copy of your software to someone, you automatically give them the capability to copy it over and over again. You can't even use the software if you can't copy it. That's how computers work. There's a copy in your RAM, Hard Drive, CPU cache, and your GPU frame buffer every time you use it. If you can find a way to make the innate copyable nature of software 100% copy-proof, then you'll never have any need for copyright nor worry about infringement ever again.
Find more solutions and solutions to problems that haven't come up yet. Only a fool sits on his laurels. My plan is perpetual adaptability.
I believe the largest problem with piracy from a practical standpoint is actually that most pirates are worthless assholes who have way too much free time, which they use to clog up your user community with negativity. Often they will download some shitty broken version of your game and then complain incessantly about minor issues or problems that are not in the real release.
Especially for smaller devs, word of mouth and your user community are your most valuable assets, and damage to those could have a large negative impact on sales.
(I was starting to think you were actually trying to come up with a business model for a project of yours or something. But if it's just for the sake of "theory" ... then theres not much reason for so much discussion I think.)
This is simply an incorrect statement, if you can stop people from copying a file, that doesn't mean you no longer need copyright law. Copyright law is still absolutely essential to prevent some 3rd party from creating, from scratch, a copy of your work, product etc. This is less applicable to unique works of art as it is to software, and general products/branding. But very much necessary none the less.
If I make my own Mario game, and call it "Mario Jizz party 69" and try to sell, you think Nintendo isn't going to sue me for copyright infringement, simply because I didn't directly copy the files from their game?