Piracy is harmless?

[secretsantaone]

Strangely enough, piracy actually helps the gaming industry in a few ways.

Firstly, the whole is piracy = theft argument is wrong. You are not stealing from the developers, you are making a copy of it. There's a big difference, it means that when you pirate, they are losing hypothetical money from the sale, rather than money spent on producing a game you have stolen.

The notion that pirates just want free stuff is mostly wrong as well. Most people who pirate have spent hundreds buying a PC capable of running modern games and pay monthly for high speed broadband. They are willing to spend money, but only on products they think are worthy of their hard-earned cash.

Take Valve, they have very few problems with piracy. Why? Because they turn out quality products, with unobtrusive DRM, updated and patched regularly and offer good customer support. Now take Ubisoft, a company renown for thier crappy PC ports, poor customer service and infamous DRM. They have huge problems with piracy. Piracy is a reaction to product quality.

Piracy can also be benificial, especially for smaller games. The often quoted statistic is that 80% of people pirated World of Goo. This may seem awful, but World of Goo was created on $100,000 and developed by 2 people and yet they sold millions of copies. How many copies do you think they would have sold if the pirates hadn't got hold of it, played and enjoyed it, and reccomended it to their friends? Piracy is fantastic for word of mouth marketing.

Finally, the biggest pirates are usually the biggest consumers. To suggest that most pirates are pure thieves is wrong. They are perfectly willing to spend money on products, so long as they think they're getting their money's worth.

I'm not trying to defend piracy here, of course you shouldn't do it. All I'm saying is that it really isn't as bigger deal as people say it is.

 

[manaman]

Piracy's impact is hard to judge, but because the first question you have to ask is how many people that downloaded it would bought it if it wasn't so easy to pirate it in the first place. Something that sadly companies are finding isn't exactly the windfall they where suspecting when they do manage to gimp, or keep games from being pirated for the first couple of months (Spore for example, which is probably why EA shifted focus to picking up slack in the used game market).

I can tell you one thing. All those people that are downloading the game rather then buying it are taking directly from you, me, and everyone else that does pocket. The company still needs to make a profit, so they have to base what they charge for games based on average cost to make them, vs sales expected for the games. I highly doubt game prices would fall if every bought their games, but I do know that the next price jump would be held off longer.

To me piracy just shows you don't care about video games or supporting them.

Your money does not go to the developer, it goes to the publishers. I disagree with publishers and I see them as a bane on developers. If I had the ability to send money directly to the developers I would gladly do so. As of now, however, I have a big problem with buying games that are not self published.

Publishers spend as much if not more then the developers spent making a game advertising it so that it does make money. Many of those games with $30 million budgets had $10-15 million of that used for advertising. It only costs around $10 million to make a current gen game. The publishers take a huge chunk because on top of that many times they gave the developer the funding to make the game in the fist place as well. Not a lot of studios have $50 million laying around to make a couple of games simultaneously and advertise them, plus whatever it cost for them to distribute them. Sure the system could use an overhaul, but it's not exactly the root of all evils.

You re missing the point the vast majority of people that download wont buy it anyway as most of the networks run on a mix of popularity and general archiving&distribution of anything that moves.

Did you read my entire post? Cause your response says you didn't I went ahead and highlighted a relevant portion for you. Mow if you want to comment on something I haven't address I welcome it.

snip

I would offer you a rebuttal, but that is basically such an idealized, and hopeful scenario it should be obvious that its just a wishful dream. The publishers are not magically holding back indy studios and stifling creativity. You would find the developers doing the same things you complain about the publishers doing should all the publishers magically cease to exist.

 

[Geekosaurus]

The reason I don't feel bad when I pirate movies is this; I would eventually see it on the television without ever buying the movie, so I haven't damaged anything, as I wouldn't buy it anyways.

But the broadcasters have paid for it and you pay your TV license to watch it.

Exactly, I have 'already' bought it, so to speak. So I'm a monster and a thief because I get to see it a year or two early?

I still think one should buy movies, but when in my case, as with most, we're not actually damaging anything by pirating.

You really think that paying for a television license entitles you to watch any film ever made for free? And that piracy does no damage whatsoever? I think that's extremely narrow-minded and wrong.

I would see them anyway. We have Canal + which cover all movies (except indie movies), so yes, I would see every movie ever eventually.

I never said I am entitled to do anything, I just said in my exact circumstance, I am not hurting ANYONE.

Apart from all the people you're stealing from.

 

[Socius]

even the musicans still earn plenty of money thanks to tours etc.

muicans dont earn plenty of money
most muicans are broke
you know how lil money you get for a tour not plenty that for sure get your head out of your ass

You want to play like that ey?
Didn't I say that I buy LP's? I support the musicans I like by buying their music.
and believe me, touring is a great way to earn money for any second class band.
along with all accessories that are sold they get a fair prosent deal. I know many people who
play in such bands, hell I have cooked for Gojira. and let me tell you, musicans live just fine by what they make, even with piracy.

edit: oh and if they're broke, they're not very good mucicans are they?
maybe they should get real and get a job.

 

[bubba145]

Sea going yes. Music no.

 

[AngelicSven]

@secretsantaone

Valve isn't pirated from cause typically you need steam to play their games. Granted, there are steam cracks but they are typically squashed cause they're easily identified in the steam system.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I think part of the problem is, or at least was, that pirating a game is easier than buying it. Even those with loads of disposable income may feel that it's easier to click on a torrent, install it, copy over a patch and play, rather than install, register it, type in the CD key, go online, regiester with GFWL, install that too, etc etc.

However, now we have Steam, and games are buyable and installed in about 2 clicks, kept up todate in the background, AND made stupidly cheap after a few months, and well, I think piracy doesn't have that excuse any more. I consider myself pretty poor when it comes to disposable income, and I admit I've pirated things in my time, but I have a Steam list of over a hundred games, because I've picked up so many for literally a couple of bucks a time, and very rarely paid over $10.

I don't think the 'industry' is going to gain much sympathy however by continually going after individuals and hitting them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages however , and ACTA is just a whole new world of dumb. To me, if the entertainment industry can afford to bribe enough politicians to get ACTA thru as a worldwide treaty, then they're not doing too badly for money.

I think if you're caught for piracy, and piracy is theft, then you should be treated as tho you ran out of Walmart with a copy under your coat, not treated as tho you spent a few years embezzling funds from a corporation, and I also think they should try nailing the hacking and cracking groups instead of single end users, as I beleive most people will still think 'well, it's horrible what happened to them, but they're still one in millions, so I'll keep on downloading'.

TL;DR version, make games easier to buy and play, and make sure they're AT LEAST as good and easy to use as the pirated version.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

This might work for games, but not for films. Nobody gets a pirate copy of a film, watches it, and then thinks 'now I'll pay to see it in the cinema/for the DVD'.

I'm not defending piracy.

But if I enjoy a film I watch in less than moral ways then I make an effort to track down a DVD of it.

Case in point, A Clockwork Orange.

I watched that on a livestream and I loved it so much I went out and bought the DVD as soon as I could. Now I can watch it any time I like legally.

To the OP:

'Piracy is okay because other people will pay for it'... that's a pretty bad justification for an illegal and immoral action that steals money straight from developers.

Though I would say there is a certain need for pirates now... with whole companies devoted to DRM and finding ways to protect media... without any pirates those companies would be useless and have to die out.

I still think they should hunt them down though, and I don't encourage piracy and I use it as a 'try before I buy' on old films.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

@secretsantaone

Valve isn't pirated from cause typically you need steam to play their games. Granted, there are steam cracks but they are typically squashed cause they're easily identified in the steam system.

Not really the games are repacked without steam so you get all SP content without the hassle of steam.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

This might work for games, but not for films. Nobody gets a pirate copy of a film, watches it, and then thinks 'now I'll pay to see it in the cinema/for the DVD'.

I'm not defending piracy.

But if I enjoy a film I watch in less than moral ways then I make an effort to track down a DVD of it.

Case in point, A Clockwork Orange.

I watched that on a livestream and I loved it so much I went out and bought the DVD as soon as I could. Now I can watch it any time I like legally.

To the OP:

'Piracy is okay because other people will pay for it'... that's a pretty bad justification for an illegal and immoral action that steals money straight from developers.

Though I would say there is a certain need for pirates now... with whole companies devoted to DRM and finding ways to protect media... without any pirates those companies would be useless and have to die out.

I still think they should hunt them down though, and I don't encourage piracy and I use it as a 'try before I buy' on old films.

Unless you trans code it and put it on your Ipod.... then you are breaking the law.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Firstly, the whole is piracy = theft argument is wrong.

"Theft (noun): the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another."

You are required to pay for it and you didn't. It's theft.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Unless you trans code it and put it on your Ipod.... then you are breaking the law.

I have no idea what that is and I don't own an iPod cause I think they're pointlessly overpriced MP3 players...

 

[AngelicSven]

@secretsantaone

Valve isn't pirated from cause typically you need steam to play their games. Granted, there are steam cracks but they are typically squashed cause they're easily identified in the steam system.

Not really the games are repacked without steam so you get all SP content without the hassle of steam.

Can You play online with those games?

 

[Geekosaurus]

This might work for games, but not for films. Nobody gets a pirate copy of a film, watches it, and then thinks 'now I'll pay to see it in the cinema/for the DVD'.

I'm not defending piracy.
But if I enjoy a film I watch in less than moral ways then I make an effort to track down a DVD of it.
Case in point, A Clockwork Orange.
I watched that on a livestream and I loved it so much I went out and bought the DVD as soon as I could. Now I can watch it any time I like legally.

What about all the pirate films you saw but didn't like? I understand what you're saying but you've still technically stolen them.

 

[Akalistos]

IMO piracy is harmless and blown way out of proportion, most things that are pirated are popular making millions a year in profits and most workers get paid while they were working on the media project so there is no real damage done to the day to day employee,maybe if you get a royalty but thats always a gamble on the profitability and public interest level of a project, if it fails to gain the public's interest it remains a small fish in a large stormy ocean more likely to die or be eaten..

For the most part piracy is a way information is spread outside the highly controlled rackets of retail chains.

However the moment piracy comes in contact with ad revenue,donations or money from direct sell its no better to society than a drug dealer selling crack, where as the common downloader is more dangerous to pizza snacks and green filed bowels .

I really can not see any harm in illicit distribution its a part of how media and information is disseminated to the public and mostly to freethinkers or the poor, its to small to do any real harm, not when the world wide media industry brings in trillions a year beyond what even large nations make.

At the end of the day between popularity and public interest these things harm media more than illicit distribution can as it will always be in the shadows of the main retail system, as it should be.

All that sound suspiciously like a cry for help from your conscience. Otherwise, you wouldn't have told everyone that you are a Pirate.

Hardly I just wordy and would like to do a CP/OP based discussion.

Here's where i got a problem with you reasoning

You said:

At the end of the day, between popularity and public interest these things harm media more than illicit distribution can.

It's impossible that Popularity and Public interest can hurt a medium... much less more than Piracy. Let's take a example: I download Scott Pilgrim which has a pretty narrow target audience. Just doing that is showing interest in the product. Now, that's money they will never see. In turn, they use that earning as a way to check his progress and measure it to the other product...AKA popularity. That will also go unnoticed. Those thing that you say hurt the media are directly linked to piracy. In a way, you just listing effect of piracy as cause... shielding yourself to the truth.

And then, there's the industry. You see, when you make something like a movie. You are paying the distribution company a set amount of cash. The same with the everyone involve in the project. What does the artist get? A percentage of the money made... and that's if it sold well. The less they make, the less money they got paid. What you would call the "BIG CATS" get what they want and it far from affect them. That's only for music... it's far more complicated with Movies.

 

[Charisma]

I'm sick of these piracy threads. Face it, you can't justify breaching copyright law.

Not in front of a jury of your peers, you can't.

But in private, as long as you're essentially immune to litigation because the legal fees outweigh the value of the total software you've pirated, you can justify whatever you want.

I neither support nor condemn software piracy, because I sympathize with both sides.

 

[BrassButtons]

And how did things get made before the internet, and copyright? The various ages of man happened without copyright just fine.

There's a bit of a difference between physical objects and digital ones. If I want to copy, say, a chainmaille jewelry design I must physically make a product. I must get the materials and the tools, and have the knowledge and skill to replicate the design in question (interestingly there's actually a bit of a movement against copyrighting designs in the chainmaille community right now, which makes for an interesting comparison to threads like this). With digital media, however, I can copy an entire product without doing any of the work myself. I don't need any of the development tools, programming knowledge, or anything else like that. So the creators of digital media arguably need copyright protection more than the creators of physical items.

 

[oranger]

@secretsantaone

Valve isn't pirated from cause typically you need steam to play their games. Granted, there are steam cracks but they are typically squashed cause they're easily identified in the steam system.

Not really, its easy enough to deny the steam system the ability to "see" a program on your comp.
Multiplayer is the exception of course. You can't fake the dynamic secret handshake well enough.

 

[secretsantaone]

Firstly, the whole is piracy = theft argument is wrong.

"Theft (noun): the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another."

You are required to pay for it and you didn't. It's theft.

Nope.

Theft, as you've so kindly defined, is 'the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another'.

With piracy, you are not taking and carrying away anything physical. You are not stealing a physical copy of the game from a shop. You are making a virtual copy of it.

If you'd have stolen the game, the developers would lose the cost of creating the disk, packaging ect.

With piracy, it doesn't technically cost the developer any money but the cost of the hypothetical sale, which may or may not have taken place.

Theft is theft.
Piracy is piracy.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

I just pirate stuff that isn't going to be brought the Americas (specifically Canada). thats what those idiots get for not bringing their games to us.