Online Piracy Poll

[Kirjava]

If that is the case, then it's a matter of accessibility instead of pricing.

Huh? You said if you wanted quality you should pay for it. I then gave an example of how the free version is higher quality. Then you said it's not a matter of price?

 

[Godmil]

Libraries have allowed millions of people to read books without paying the author per read,

That's true, but there is a limited number of books in the library, and they only lend each copy out to one person at a time, I'm sure some publishers see it as lost sales, but I think it's long since been incorporated into the business model, and doesn't count for a large loss.

museums have allowed millions of people to look at art without necessarily paying the artist per view.

However, The artist, knowing that the Museum will be profitting off his work, sells it at a premium... a lot more money than he could sell to an individual who casually likes his work. Also by making it public he can possibly then make money from selling prints. It's an established business model that everyone is aware what is going to happen going into it.

Movie rental stores have been around for decades,

Rental stores don't buy the products at normal price, again they pay a premium price for it. Some companies may not like rentals, but at least it does bring in some money.

It could be argued that it is naive to think a musician or a game company deserves money for each download, and that getting a copy of a song or game without buying it deprives the author of revenue.

You're right that every download doesn't equal a lost sale.... but a chunk of them do, and it is significant enough to cause major problems for their old business models. Also this is different from your other analogies, because in almost everything else you said you are talking about temporarily having a copy, with pirating you have a copy to keep that doesn't remove it from anyone else.

The Humble Indie Bundle more or less works off this concept...

But remember when the stats for the the first HIB came in, a substantial number of copies were pirated... for something that was almost free, many many people still thought it didn't deserve any money.

The only paid content I think should be downloaded for free are covers and adaptations of other's work. If the people who made the cover or adaptation didn't originally make what they produced, they don't really deserve any profits from it.

You do realise that when people release a cover of a song, a good chunk of the money goes to the original composer.
I remember a guy from Merciful Fate saying that they made more money off Metallica releasing a cover of one of their songs than they ever did from selling their one copies.
I think the composers share of the profits is more than the performers.

I know it takes a lot of money to make movies and video games, but how much could it have really cost to make Sony Vegas 10 Pro or Coral Paint?

That is an excellent point, some companies grossly inflate prices because they are a market leader. (Read about the difference between Geforce and Quadro graphics cards... same hardware, massively different prices). What many producers of creative software do though is release free versions, or not care too much about home users. The advantage being if you learn how to use their software then when you work for a company they're more likely to buy the software you're trained in.
That is an example of where personal pirating is actually good for a company.
A really clever businiess model is the one Epic does with Unreal Engine 3. Anyone is free to download all the software to make a game with it... you can even start selling your game, and you don't have to pay Epic anything until you're profits go over something like $50,000, then you start paying them a share. Genius method of encouraging large scale adoption/market dominance.

Let's say I go to the park and sit on a bench....

Ok, I like you Zarxrax... but seriously, this is the dumbest analogy I've ever heard, it sounds like you've come up with some crazy cognitive dissonance to justify pirating to yourself.
Lets look at the models.
Benchmaker: takes 2 days to build a bench... needs ~$300 to cover his time and make his work worth while. He uses $50 of raw material. He sells his bench to the council for $350. Done! If he can keep the supply and demand balanced he now has a successful business.
Game studio: Needs 2 years to make a game... needs ~$20,000,000 to cover the expenses for all the staff and outsourcing. They can either 1) Sell one copy of the game for >$20,000,000 and that owner will then probably let other people have a shot on it. or 2) Sell the game at a much smaller price, but aiming to sell as many copies as they can.
Which do you think is the more realistic business model? (I'll give you a clue, it's not the one that's analogous to the benchmaker)
(before anyone gets pedantic, I'm lumping the development and publishing sides together for simplicity)

Lack of DRM.

How does DRM affect the quality?
If you're talking about convenience, then yes, sometimes pirating software is more convenient than buying it... which is where companies go wrong... as soon as you make it more convenient to buy it legitimately then you make it more appealing than pirating. A great example of this is Steam, it's sooo easy to buy games on there, and not have to worry about installing them or typing in codes, or having to update them, and there are tons of nice user features, like achievements. Without Steam, PC games would be in a lot of trouble.

There are some good arguments in this thread... but there are many more people who have an inflated sense of entitlement, and seem to be doing some amazing mental gymnastics to try to justify it to themselves.

 

[Kirjava]

How does DRM affect the quality?

If something has DRM, the product is inferior to the no-DRM version - making the DRM free version a higher quality product.

Here's another reason;

There are some good arguments in this thread... but there are many more people who have an inflated sense of entitlement, and seem to be doing some amazing mental gymnastics to try to justify it to themselves.

Can you post an example of this happening? I do not see it anywhere in the thread.

 

[LarsN]

Huh? You said if you wanted quality you should pay for it. I then gave an example of how the illegal version is higher quality. Then you said it's not a matter of price?

I think it's a poor example. DRM is a matter of putting limitations on an item which the user has already paid for. That's a different discussion and the reason I started to talk about accessibility. But I don't think that is the topic of this poll.

 

[Kirjava]

I think it's a poor example. DRM is a matter of putting limitations on an item which the user has already paid for.

Maybe you prefer the other example that I posted in my last post. The image.

That's a different discussion and the reason I started to talk about accessibility. But I don't think that is the topic of this poll.

Please stop posting in this thread if you're going to refuse to reply to something because you don't believe it matches the original intent of the poll closely enough. If it is that badly off topic, a moderator will delete it - something that will blatently not happen here as it is clearly on topic.

 

[applemobile]

That image above forgot to mention the 10 mins it took to peel the celophane wrapper off the case. Companies in the intelectual property market are just too humble to admit that they haven't moved with the times. They need to find new ways of making revenue, such as advertising. If your company is making losses because of some people not paying for your product, there is no point sitting shouting at them to give you more millions of pounds, they just won't listen. They need to adapt, hell, even when I was growing up and we all recorded songs onto tape off the radio, they always spoke over the start and end to stop people doing it, untill And generally it worked, well untill i discovered Napster/bearshare and limewire. A provider should not blame the 'customer' for their own losses, they should adapt and change to suit. You will never stop Piracy, it will only get worse.

 

[Godmil]

If something has DRM, the product is inferior to the no-DRM version - making the DRM free version a higher quality product.

You're talking about the overall 'quality' of the experience - which is valid. But we both know LarsN was talking about the perceivable quality of the experience (sound quality for music, image/sound quality for films) I have some pirated dvd's that fit perfectly with what he was saying.
And OMG do I know about the pain of starting some DVDs/BluRays... I have two small kids who love their Disney/Pixar collection, but I can seriously jam on the Skip Chapter/Main Menu buttons for a minute before I'm even close to getting the film to start. I was thinking the other day about filming myself loading one of those Disney DVD's to show how the fastest way possible of starting it takes an age. It's rediculous. However at the moment it is still more convenient for me to pop a disc in than sort out any other way of getting it on the main tv.

Can you post an example of this happening? I do not see it anywhere in the thread.

Sure, let me just skim through the first page of examples of one or both of the things I suggested:

If I paid for all the music that I listen to and enjoy, I'd be broke many times over.
Why make one of my favorite things in my life responsible for making me not able to afford anything else?

Why would I pay for something I can get for free?

So it's one lost sale. Big goddamn deal.

If I set up a buisness selling apples, and people had to walk through my orchards to get to my stall, do you think I would have the right to complain when people didn't buy my product?

Lets look at that first one again... If I had to pay for all the things I wanted, I'd be poor.... so I shouldn't need to pay for them. Tell me that doesn't sound like an inflated sense of entitlement.
And as for the mental gymnastics... do I really have to go over the Park Bench argument again.

 

[Kirjava]

You will never stop Piracy, it will only get worse.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[Godmil]

Companies in the intelectual property market are just too humble to admit that they haven't moved with the times.
You will never stop Piracy, it will only get worse.

There are some excellent points in that post. Companies have to learn to adapt to the market. You can't stop piracy, so you have to work out a way to make your product more attractive to buy than steal.
Someone did an excellent tweet the other day that Kickstarter is the best anti-piracy approach... sell your game before you've even made it

 

[applemobile]

Look at the Xbox 360. If I want to play a game online, I need to buy the genuine game. If I don't, then you get banned for life. Now I do know that there are ways around this, but they are not easy, and certainly not cheap. They have pretty mich stopped piracy on online multiplayer games.

 

[Kirjava]

You're talking about the overall 'quality' of the experience - which is valid. But we both know LarsN was talking about the perceivable quality of the experience (sound quality for music, image/sound quality for films) I have some pirated dvd's that fit perfectly with what he was saying.

I don't see how that is not part of the experience. The point I was making is that pirated content doesn't mean poorer quality, and often leads to a better experience for the user.

I've had to download torrents of films I've paid for before because the DVD won't play in my computer.

Sure, let me just skim through the first page of examples of one or both of the things I suggested:

Thanks for doing that, but personally I don't see why justification is even required. In my eyes there is nothing wrong with doing what they are doing.

 

[Godmil]

I don't see how that is not part of the experience. The point I was making is that pirated content doesn't mean poorer quality, and often leads to a better experience for the user.

Oh, no you're right, it is part of the overall experience. However what larsN was saying was that frequently pirated copies of things have poorer sound/visual quality (not always, but that certainly is the case sometimes), and so people may buy legal version to get the better image/sound quality. And that is true, I've had some poor quality pirated copies of films, and rather than eating up my bandwidth downloading different versions to see if any of them are better, I've just bought the DVD, cause you know it will work fine. sound that goes out of sync by a second is more of a showstopper for me than a couple of minutes of trailer.... although both are annoying.

 

[Kirjava]

frequently pirated copies of things have poorer sound/visual quality (not always, but that certainly is the case sometimes)

Instead of a cam or telesync, download an R5 or DVDrip.

I don't think this is a good complaint against piracy, as it is a very minor con compared to the advantages piracy gives you.

I've just bought the DVD, cause you know it will work fine.

It's actually illegal for me to play DVD's I've bought on my computer. That is not 'working fine'.

sound that goes out of sync by a second is more of a showstopper for me than a couple of minutes of trailer....

VLC has an option to resync audio and video ^^

 

[LarsN]

I understand the argument that pirating gives a better experience as in the second example by Kirjava.

I do however find it hard to believe that people will stop pirating if the producers start offering their movies as paid direct downloads with no ads, trailers, DRM or piracy warnings. I imagine that the majority will continue to pirate because it saves them money.

 

[Godmil]

Instead of a cam or telesync, download an R5 or DVDrip.

Oh I'd never deliberately download a Cam recording... I can't believe people still make those. But some have found there way into my house. But still even with testers you can get random logo's appearing on the screen.

it is a very minor con compared to the advantages piracy gives you.

The advantages are: doesn't cost anything, no filler, more options for where you can play them.
The disadvantages are, sometimes the encoding is poor, it can be tricky sometimes sourcing a good/correct version, may not work on all your devices.

For a legal product to be more practical than pirating it has to be more convenient... and you're right that is so rarely the case. But some times it is the case (I've one touch bought some stuff on my ipod that was pretty cheap and was more convenient for me than tracking down pirated versions) and if companies want to survive in the future they need to understand that.

It's actually illegal for me to play DVD's I've bought on my computer. That is not 'working fine'.

Do you mean it doesn't work on your computer? Because you haven't given the impression that legallity was much of an issue for you.

VLC has an option to resync audio and video ^^

True... but at some point the hastle of fixing something is more of a problem than the cost of buying something.

Anyway, like I said... Piracy is a massive massive grey area. I don't think a yes/no answer can really sum it up.

 

[Kirjava]

I do however find it hard to believe that people will stop pirating if the producers start offering their movies as paid direct downloads with no ads, trailers, DRM or piracy warnings. I imagine that the majority will continue to pirate because it saves them money.

Of course. My point was that you can get a better experience by pirating, that's all.

The disadvantages are ... may not work on all your devices.

huh?

For a legal product to be more practical than pirating it has to be more convenient... and you're right that is so rarely the case. But some times it is the case (I've one touch bought some stuff on my ipod that was pretty cheap and was more convenient for me than tracking down pirated versions) and if companies want to survive in the future they need to understand that.

This is what's so good about Steam.

Do you mean it doesn't work on your computer? Because you haven't given the impression that legallity was much of an issue for you.

No, I mean that I have to break the law if I want to watch a legally purchased DVD on my computer. See: DeCSS

Another reason why paying for films is problematic.

True... but at some point the hastle of fixing something is more of a problem than the cost of buying something.

You have to press a single key to fix it.

 

[Godmil]

huh?

It's not easy trying to find a copy in a codec that will easily work on my ipod.. or PS3.
My ideal codec for the PC does nothing on my ipod, then I've also got to consider recoding it in a different resolution cause the file size is rediculous for what I'd see on the smaller screen.
I'm just saying 'sometimes' pirating can be a pain in the ass.
I'd love a steam equivalent for films where you just buy it and it works, you can redownload it on whatever machine with no hastle.

No, I mean that I have to break the law if I want to watch a legally purchased DVD on my computer. See: DeCSS

So one of your arguments is that you pirate films because you don't want to break the law?

 

[Kirjava]

It's not easy trying to find a copy in a codec that will easily work on my ipod.. or PS3.
My ideal codec for the PC does nothing on my ipod, then I've also got to consider recoding it in a different resolution cause the file size is rediculous for what I'd see on the smaller screen.
I'm just saying 'sometimes' pirating can be a pain in the ass.

If you buy a DVD, you are not able to play it on any of these devices anyway, so this is no disadvantage.

So one of your arguments is that you pirate films because you don't want to break the law?

No, one of your arguments was that when you buy a DVD it 'just works'. This is clearly not the case for some users who are unable to play their legally purchased media.

 

[Godmil]

If you buy a DVD, you are not able to play it on any of these devices anyway, so this is no disadvantage.

That is also true... it was a dissadvantage for both I guess.

No, one of your arguments was that when you buy a DVD it 'just works'. This is clearly not the case for some users who are unable to play their legally purchased media.

But you said it does work; it's just illegal. By that argument I could say that pirated movies don't work - but I wont

 

[Kirjava]

But you said it does work; it's just illegal.

Your original point was that playing a purchased copy was easier because it 'just works'. Being illegal is a side point, you have to download and install software to break the copy protection to play it.

If people paying for the film cannot watch it legally anyway, why bother paying?

By that argument I could say that pirated movies don't work - but I wont

Pirated movies don't require copy protection breaking software to play - they just play.