Software Piracy

[MattJek]

I am curious as to your position Mattjek (and Sorceress). Is it that intellectual property has no right to be protected? forgive me for not going back through this whole thread. Do you think that piracy be tolerated because everyone is doing it and it is easy?

Just because everyone is doing it does not make it a good thing. An extreme (and harsh to paint a picture) example would be that everyone (actually lots) of Hutu's opinions tipped toward genocide against the Tutsi's in Rwanda. It didn't make it right morally or legally.

I dont agree with piracy either. I think its actually a lot easier to go and buy the game than waste your time trying to download it using questionable programs from shady sources. This post kinda got off topic one he started personal attacks on other posters who challenged his opinion with sound arguments. So my comment wasnt really directed at the piracy issue.

 

[Tarascan_King]

I cant beleive I just read through all 16 Pages!!! Wow! There's a lot to digest and think about, but personally its very simple & I just use my good old common sense.
My opinion is, that its all about RESPECT, very simple.

If the owner's,producers,developer's are selling the software & I want it I WILL BUY IT!

It the owner's producers,developer's don't want me downloading the software they produced, I will RESPECT Them and not download it for free.

I will RESPECT the Owner, producer, developer, creator, I WILL RESPECT HIS WISHES!

 

[spankey]

I dont agree with piracy either. I think its actually a lot easier to go and buy the game than waste your time trying to download it using questionable programs from shady sources. This post kinda got off topic one he started personal attacks on other posters who challenged his opinion with sound arguments. So my comment wasnt really directed at the piracy issue.

Sorry.. didn't catch the flaming or criticism or the reasons why. I have thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. I've never spent so long on this forum as I have today. And I have been lurking for years before I signed up. Oh well, good night all...

 

[snepp]

I dont agree with piracy either. I think its actually a lot easier to go and buy the game than waste your time trying to download it using questionable programs from shady sources.

During my heyday of irresponsibility, boozing non-stop, skipping work, piracy, etc, (aka: when I was a bachelor ) it took less time to download/install a game than it did to get in the car, drive somewhere, buy the game, drive home, then install. No questionable programs or shady sources were involved.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

I have yet to preach ANYTHING, as far as I know.

Sorry, it sounded a bit like it, really, especially since - as you have seen, it really doesn't make much sense over here. I guess the grip of corporate America is a bit tighter over where you live.

And it's spelled "moral" for future reference. Low "morale" is what people have when they lose arguments.

For that, I honestly thank you. As you see, English is not my mother language (although, weirdly enough, when I woke up after a bit of surgery a couple of days ago, people were most astonished to hear me babbling away in English... must be visiting forums too much *g*). I actually was not aware of the difference, as both is the same word in German. Thx.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

DemonDeLuxe

Take, for example, Divine Divinity from Larian Studios. This game didn't receive a lot of hype at all. It was the first game to come out of a fledgling development studio in Belgium, and the life-and-death of the studio really hinged on its success.

Once a few people started realizing it was a decent game, it was widely pirated. I could find 40+ people at any given time sharing it on my college campus, and hundreds if I ventured out beyond the firewall.

What an EXQUISITE example. I actually bought this game when it was cheap (5,- &#8364. You know what? I was very sorry to have spent even 5,- € for that ugly piece of crap with it's poorly designed interface, lack of atmosphere, technical primitivity and overall appeal of something that had been nailed together by a bunch of hopeful college kids.

And trust me, I recognize a decent RPG, having played the genre since the days of ULTIMA III, and eyecandy definitely is not my primary concern (I would prefer ULTIMA VI any day instead of Divine Divinity - what a DREAM of a game!).

Can you imagine my anger if I had actually payed full price for that poor excuse for a game? Thanks, you JUST pointed out why I prefer to test a game out before buying it.

Unfortunately, when this hype does start to build and more and more people learn about your game -- just when sales might start to rise -- that's usually when it gets pirated and hits the P2P networks like a wildfire.

This might be true to an extent. Both you and me lack any hard facts here, however. We seem to agree at least that smallish companies are NOT initially in the focus of the pirates. Everything has two sides, even success. And you would be honest if you admitted that, typically, the amount of sales AND piracy rises in a more or less parallel way - with less known games having the headstart we obviously agreed upon. So there.

And to make it clear: I really do NOT advocate software piracy as such. What I do is try to explain why it is relatively more common than, say, burglary. It simply doesn't help anybody to declare a holy crusade against it. One has to recognize the reasons for a behaviour so widely spread. It's a symptom. For what? That is the question - but a question you are quite unlikely to answer if you simply retreat to the position that it's the embodiment of ultimate evil.

Btw. in case you wondered why I answered to you at all: That's because you finally managed to post without resorting to insults. My respect.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

For a smaller game, it doesn't take as much pirating to keep them from being able to cover development costs. A little bit hurts the little guy a lot. While he may have proportionally less piracy than the big guy, it hurts him proportionally more.

Yes, I understand. The question, however, remains: How to solve the problem?

I mean, it really ISN'T as easy as simply stating: "It's theft, it's evil".

I remember when I was a schoolkid that we used to trade music: One of us bought the LP and about a dozen of us copied it to tape. None of us had a bad conscience there. And, actually, it WAS legal (according to German law): You were (and still are) allowed to make private copies and even give them to your friends (a reasonable number and non-profit are key elements here). To give the companies and artists something in return, there was (and still is) a fee on every blank tape. None of us would ever have BOUGHT all that music on LP. While at the moment when I switched to CDs I had a considerable stack of LPs (among them A FEW of which I had had tape copies before), I was not inclined to buy all that. And I couldn't have afforded it, anyway.

It looks like that was quite an acceptable way of handling it for everyone, no?

The simple thing is: You just CAN'T provoke the desire in people to own something (that's what marketing does) without some people wanting it for free. Two sides of the medal. It would be honest to look onto piracy (to an extent!) as secondary marketing costs. The secret seems to lie in creating a loyal fan base. True fans of a band want to own each CD of it as an original (and then the live CDs, the special editions, you name it). Obviously, creativity and quality are the key (on average, of course). People feel much more inclined to cheat when they feel cheated. Rule of thumb.

And now you go around and ask how many people actually DO feel cheated by the media and software industry. E.g. you could ask around the people here on the forum who have bought CIV4 and own a comp satisfying the official minimum requirements and who can't play the game in the way it is supposed to be played.

 

[Machete Phil]

What an EXQUISITE example. I actually bought this game when it was cheap (5,- &#8364. You know what? I was very sorry to have spent even 5,- € for that ugly piece of crap with it's poorly designed interface, lack of atmosphere, technical primitivity and overall appeal of something that had been nailed together by a bunch of hopeful college kids.

And trust me, I recognize a decent RPG, having played the genre since the days of ULTIMA III.

Funny, it was actually the quality of the title (and the unique implementation of this style of game - not quite Diablo, not quite Baldur's Gate, but a really interesting and refreshingly open-ended combination of the two), that saved it.

Despite lack of press it managed to gain a cult following among plenty of people who recognize a "decent RPG" and have been "playing the genre" since it wasn't on our TVs but our coffee tables and card tables we hauled out of the basement on the weekends.

Or was this you trying to "pull rank" on me again?

Can you image my anger if I had actually payed full price for that poor excuse for a game? Thanks, you JUST pointed out why I prefer to test a game out before buying it.

It did have a DEMO you could have tried.

The fact that you consider this worthy of piracy while so many others lauded it is a great example of why your approach to this subject is hilariously flawed.

You're basically saying that your personal opinion of what makes a quality video game is what determines whether or not it's okay to steal it?

Haha. Yes sir! Understood sir! You have deemed our game unworthy sir, the masses may have at it! Enjoy! Free to everyone! Yay! Yay!

This might be true to an extent. Both you and me lack any hard facts here, however.

I have facts.

Fact #1) Piracy is a real, direct, and not insigificant cost to game development studios worldwide.

Fact #2) Higher development cost, to which piracy contributes in a real way and not in insignificant amounts, result directly in lower profits.

Fact #3) Lower profits can lead to loss of project funding, cancellation of contracts, missed investment opportunities, and ultimately bankruptcy.

Do you somehow dispute these facts?

Do you deny that piracy costs development studios money?

Do you dispute that thousands, maybe tens to hundreds of thousands of people sharing software for free around the world (whether by P2P networks, IRC, or sales of bootleg copies on the street) represents a real and significant cost for these studios?

Is it somehow not evident that, being a not-insignificant cost, piracy could easily mean the difference between a new studio getting off the ground and offering fresh new content in the game industry and them closing their doors for good due to lack of funding?

Lacking facts, indeed. You're the only one lacking facts. You're arguing around the issue.

Pirate. Fine. But at least be man enough to accept that you're taking something that doesn't belong to you. It's really pretty shameless that you're trying so very hard to argue your way out of this relatively black-and-white issue. (Or, maybe not you as in Demon directly, but the "you" of the pirate apologists).

You haven't responded intelligently to any of my counterpoints.

There are thousands of things in life that are expected and required by law to be paid for in full before you are (or ever can be) sure that they are going to fully meet your expectations or satisfy your desires. Maybe the five I mentioned you were able to draw up quick and clever semantic responses to, but I could spend all night typing up lists of similar products or services that are exchanged for money with no guarantee of customer satisfaction.

That's a fact of life. That is the producer-consumer relationship. Your power as a consumer when faced with a product you find unsatisfactory lies in your ability to take your business elsewhere, not in your "Inalienable Right to Steal From Those Who Dissatisfy You."

It's even more ridiculous, because you're suggesting it's okay to steal not because you have been dissatisifed, but because you may be dissatisfied.

Like some kind of preemptive satisfaction strike? Not sure if you're going to like it? Better just frickin' take it! Excellent lesson for all the young ones out there.

Just the kind of sound moral foundation our society can rest firmly upon.

It's a symptom. For what? That is the question - but a question you are quite unlikely to answer if you simply retreat to the position that it's the embodiment of ultimate evil.

I answered this question already.

It's a symptom of four simple facts:

1) People are cheap, and like money. (Or, put nicely, most people desire to maintain or acquire wealth whenever possible - not to relinquish it.)

2) People are lazy and like to take the easy way out. (Or, put nicely, most people prefer to maximize their leisure time. If something is available on the other side of the room, that's where people are going to get it.)

3) When the odds of suffering any consequence are relatively low, people will justify minor wrongdoings in favor of honoring #1 and #2.

4) Right now, despite all efforts to the contrary, it's laughably easy to pirate and share software illegally, both in soft- and hard-copy.

That's it. That's the "great and mysterious force" behind piracy that you think we're never going to figure out. People want to keep their money, get stuff quickly and easily, and not get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

It's no different than the goddamn vending machine in a college dorm. Every day kids walk by it. Every once in awhile someone buys a candy bar or some M&Ms.

Then, one night during a rowdy party someone accidentally breaks the glass of the vending machine, exposing the contents.

You tell me what the 25 college kids in standing in that lounge are going to do next.

You can guess. I'm sure of it.



(Edit: By the way, this really happened. It was my dorm, about 7 years ago, and yes what you think happened is exactly what happened - more quickly than you could ever imagine. Was it no longer the property of the vending company because the glass had been broken? No, arguably we were now in debt to the company for having shattered the glass. But a) The high chance for reward, and b) The low chance for punishment meant one thing - free f'ing candy for us all.)

 

[Machete Phil]

I should also add, while I'm here (and thinking about it), that the entire "we have been victimized by low quality games" argument is just as ludicrous as the rest.

Have you never been satisfied by a game? Are there no games you have ever liked?

Would it not be fair to say that you, like me and every other human being who has ever played video games in the history of man like some games and don't like others?

That's called personal taste. We all have it. It's a bummer. Sometimes you try a new dish and it tastes like a toilet. Them's the breaks. Here in civilization we don't respond with theft.

Plus, it doesn't make any sense anyway, because every game studio is different - a different group of people run by a different company. But, you're trying to argue that because some game studios have disappointed you on some occasions that it's perfectly all right to steal from all of them all the time?

It's really the definition of ridiculous, and you're here, right in front of us, offering it up like it makes any sense whatsoever...

 

[Machete Phil]

And finally, for the coup de grace, a nice article for you. I've highlighted interesting parts.

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NEW HAVEN, CT-Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Matthew J. Etre, acting special agent-in-charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced that Hunter Pine, 27, of 33 Gold Street, New York, New York waived indictment and pleaded guilty today before Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

According to documents filed with the court and statements made in court, Pine was a participant in the "warez scene" - an underground online community that consists of individuals and organized groups who use the Internet to engage in the large-scale, illegal distribution of copyrighted software. In the warez scene, certain participants (known as "suppliers") are able to obtain access to copyrighted software, video games, DVD movies, and MP3 music files, often before those titles are even available to the general public. Other participants (known as "crackers") then use their technical skills to circumvent or "crack" the digital copyright protections; and yet others (known as "couriers") distribute the pirated software to various file servers on the Internet for others to access, reproduce, and further distribute.

"Stealing the intellectual property of others is no different from any other form of thievery," U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor stated. "It is a priority of this Office and the Department of Justice to protect the intellectual property rights of our nation's inventors and creators."

Pine's guilty plea represents a continuing effort to prosecute individuals targeted during Operation Safehaven, a 15-month investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and the ICE Cyber Crimes Center, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut and the Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section ("CCIPS"). Operation Safehaven culminated in April 2003 with the simultaneous execution of more than 20 search warrants nationwide, resulting in the seizure of thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs, plus dozens of computers and servers, including the largest warez site ever seized in the United States to date.

"Software piracy is not a victimless crime," stated Matthew J. Etre, acting special agent-in-charge of ICE in New England. "Every year, trademark holders lose billions of dollars to criminal networks that steal intellectual property of others. ICE will continue to target and dismantle criminal organizations that abuse the Internet by facilitating and participating in this activity."

Judge Burns has scheduled sentencing for Feb. 6, 2006, at which time Pine faces a maximum term of imprisonment of five years and a fine of up to $250,000.

This case was investigated by ICE and is being prosecuted by Clement J. McGovern, Senior Trial Attorney from the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice, and Assistant United States Attorneys Maria Kahn and Edward Chang of the District of Connecticut.

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I mean, maybe it's got a little government slant, but when it comes time to decide whether or not what I'm doing is a "form of thievery" I'm going to go with U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor's opinion over DemonDeluxe's.

No offense, of course.

 

[Machete Phil]

Actually, I have one last thing to say, DemonDeluxe. When you try to step back and say you're not "advocating piracy," it's not really true at all.

The attitude and viewpoint you're more than happy to stand by is exactly the kind of apathetic, morally amibguous mish-mash that people will use to justify logging on DC++ to download the latest version of their favorite game even though they just spent $120 on beer and chicken wings at the bar the night before and are primed to do it again.

"Well it's not like they're going to go out of business." or "Look at all the money these big game companies have! Screw them!" or "Hey if they can't make a game I like, I'm just going to take them for free until they do," and all of the other patently untrue statements you've tried to feed us are exactly the excuses people need.

The same goes for arguing that it's not theft, like somehow changing the word for taking something that doesn't belong to you means what you're doing isn't quite as bad as, say, taking $50 out of a birthday card you find in your neighbor's mailbox.

You may not be "advocating" piracy, but you're certainly championing all sorts of reasons why those who do ought not to stop any time soon. Seems kind of like the same thing to me.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

even though they just spent $120 on beer and chicken wings at the bar the night before and are primed to do it again.

Wow, u americans spend so much money in bars each day ?

I spend ~2$ a day for food and still i'm not able to save enough money for ram that Civ4 needs so much

 

[Bhruic]

I have facts.

Fact #1) Piracy is a real, direct, and not insigificant cost to game development studios worldwide.

Fact #2) Higher development cost, to which piracy contributes in a real way and not in insignificant amounts, result directly in lower profits.

Fact #3) Lower profits can lead to loss of project funding, cancellation of contracts, missed investment opportunities, and ultimately bankruptcy.

Do you somehow dispute these facts?

Absolutely.

1) You have provided no proof of this claim.

2) Piracy leads to higher development costs? In what way? Development costs all take place before a game ships. Pirates (except in rare cases) do not get the game before it ships.

Development cost is entirely unrelated to sales, and since piracy can only affect sales, piracy can't impact development costs.

3) Well, sure. The beating of a butterfly's wings can lead to hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico. But saying something "can lead" to something else is an extremely abstract statement.

Do you deny that piracy costs development studios money?

I would dispute anyone's claim to know to what degree piracy costs studios profit.

Do you dispute that thousands, maybe tens to hundreds of thousands of people sharing software for free around the world (whether by P2P networks, IRC, or sales of bootleg copies on the street) represents a real and significant cost for these studios?

Absolutely. Because they don't cost the studios anything. They may decrease profits, but that's not the same thing. As I said previously, someone who pirates a game they would not have purchased anyway has cost the studio nothing. And, in fact, has not caused them to lose any profit.

Is it somehow not evident that, being a not-insignificant cost, piracy could easily mean the difference between a new studio getting off the ground and offering fresh new content in the game industry and them closing their doors for good due to lack of funding?

That's a rather specious argument. If there is a demand for the 'fresh new content', then the studio will make money. If there isn't, they won't.

Lacking facts, indeed. You're the only one lacking facts. You're arguing around the issue.

No, what you are doing is presenting your opinions as facts, and then getting annoyed when people don't accept your word on those so-called "facts". If you want to have a discussion, then you need to be able to prove your "facts", otherwise, it's just a bashing of opinions (which sums up most internet arguments).

Pirate. Fine. But at least be man enough to accept that you're taking something that doesn't belong to you. It's really pretty shameless that you're trying so very hard to argue your way out of this relatively black-and-white issue. (Or, maybe not you as in Demon directly, but the "you" of the pirate apologists).

Again, you seem to believe that because you think it's black-and-white, that it is. You have not, however, provided sufficient proof to establish that. I've seen any number of decent arguments that show how many shades of grey the issue have, but you have seemed to ignore the majority of these.

Bh

 

[CyberChrist]

Fact #1) Piracy is a real, direct, and not insigificant cost to game development studios worldwide.

How so?

Fact #2) Higher development cost, to which piracy contributes in a real way and not in insignificant amounts, result directly in lower profits.

Again, how so? Unless you are including the selfimposed copyprotection schemes - which only really achieve to be an annoyance to the paying users anyway - then I don't see how.

Fact #3) Lower profits can lead to loss of project funding, cancellation of contracts, missed investment opportunities, and ultimately bankruptcy.

Ok, this one I agree with - at least when it comes to smaller software houses/publishers. Sure bigger softwarehouses/publishers have gone bankrupt also in the past and I am sure some of them cried "Piracy is to blame!", but I am confident that if you were to look closer at the reasons it would actually be due to overhyped dodgy products failing to sell (and rightly so), lack/delay of new ideas/products, failed investments, loss of key staff members and/or any other type of poor management/planning you can think of.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Funny, it was actually the quality of the title (and the unique implementation of this style of game - not quite Diablo, not quite Baldur's Gate, but a really interesting and refreshingly open-ended combination of the two), that saved it.

This, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Actually, I was playing Diablo II and Baldur's Gate II shortly before buying Divine Divinity (hoping I WOULD get something along the lines). In fact, I bought it the same day I bought "Neverwinter Nights", another disappointing game that lost it's touch by going 3D. And if there was a demo for Divine Divinity, it would have been hard to get: I said I bought it for just 5,- €, so this was long after it was new, when demos are around (maybe on a website, yeah... but then again, I just was tricked by the box).

Or was this you trying to "pull rank" on me again?

Ah, no, just to illustrate that I'm not new to the genre Give me Bard's Tale or Dungeonmaster any day, but stay away with Divine Divinity, plz. But, of course, it's a matter of taste (well, the graphics WERE crappy...).

The fact that you consider this worthy of piracy while so many others lauded it is a great example of why your approach to this subject is hilariously flawed.

Again you, in almost ingenious way, absolutely fail to understand my point. I never said that. In fact, why would I advocate piracy of a game I didn't like at all? Doesn't make much sense, does it?

However, I WOULD NOT have bought it had I known what (and how) it was. As simple as that. So the original basis of a contract ("I give you what you want and you give me what I want in exchange") was not there. Granted, this is the case with many contracts, but that doesn't justify it. And IF I had pirated that very game, I would have de-installed it as quickly as I did. So the sole reason that company actually made money with me (luckily, just 5,- € in this case) was that their product was not what I actually wanted to buy. This is NOT a healthy approach, not at all.

You're basically saying that your personal opinion of what makes a quality video game is what determines whether or not it's okay to steal it?

I would very much like to see the part from which you extract this most original interpretation of my words. Listen: A game I get and I deem good - I buy. If I don't like it - I don't buy it. All I wish for is a means to judge that BEFORE I give away my customer's advantage (i.e. having the money the company wants). And basically, it is ME who decides what it takes to convince me. Never mind law - that has no influence on what it takes, right? To clarify:I don't mean: "Ignore the law" - it's just that law has no impact on what is necessary for me to mke up my mind on a product.
I said in an earlier post that my first copy of CIV4 indeed was "pirated". Mind you: My FIRST. It was rather coincidential (I didn't read the forums here and had no idea id was released already). There wasn't any demo availableyet. I bought it a couple of days later. Now, am I a "pirate" or not? Or, to ask in another way: Would Take2 / Firaxis rather have customers like me? Or not? In fact, since I am an old CIVer, if that one copy had shown me the game as SO bad that I wouldn't buy it (hardly thinkable with a CIV game), I wouldn't have played it. Sounds logical, right? And if you ask me why I did get that copy in the first place instead of running to the shop ASAP: Simple. I hate the copy protections that force me to insert the disc. I still use that copy. My original is untouched but for the manual.

Haha. Yes sir! Understood sir! You have deemed our game unworthy sir, the masses may have at it! Enjoy! Free to everyone! Yay! Yay!

You have an irritating tendency of generalizing things which are not meant as general judgements. If *I* test a game and deem it "worthy" (or not), this is a decision for me and me alone. Ok,with our internet café here, it might be a decision whether to buy a dozen more copies or not. This has NOTHING to do with whether everyone should have it for free and not paying even if he DOES like it. You totally miss the point.

Fact #1) Piracy is a real, direct, and not insigificant cost to game development studios worldwide.

That's not a "fact", that's a buzzword. While no one denies that there IS a negative effect, you lack the hard facts in the form of numbers. This problem has been around since the companies recognized the phenomenon, resulting in mostly wildly exaggerated nubers of alleged losses.

Fact #2) Higher development cost, to which piracy contributes in a real way and not in insignificant amounts, result directly in lower profits.

Again, you resort to words like "high", "not insignificant", "lower". No facts, just (maybe educated) guesses. You, of course, are interested in demonizing the phenomenon, which explains your use of "large" words. The question is how justified they are. You fail to present any proof. Calling a postulate a "hard fact" doesn't make it one. A tomato doesn't become an apple by calling it one. All you utter is a hypothesis, a postulate. While I definitely agree that there *is* an effect, you make no effort as to show it's impact. My guess is that you quite simply can't and try to make up for that by posing as if you could.

Fact #3) Lower profits can lead to loss of project funding, cancellation of contracts, missed investment opportunities, and ultimately bankruptcy.

Yes, they can. And they can have a variety of reasons, amongst them poor financial management, failure in knowing what the customer wants, bad luck in the choice of developers and a gazillion more. Sounds to me as if you were looking for an excuse for any bancruptcy in IT there has ever been. Or the other way round, you try to open up a modern witch hunt, making "piracy" (or what people understand by that term) responsible for anything but bad weather (and I wouldn't be surprised if you find a way as to this aspect, too).

Do you somehow dispute these facts?

No, just the impact. You know, as we all know, alcohol isn't exactly the healthiest of beverages. This does not mean that small quantities are something the devil has a hand in and that each bottle of wine should be forbidden as poison. So, you would be well advised to prove that "piracy" not only presents a (real or potential) problem, but a CRITICAL problem that justifies your witchhunt mentality (and don't deny that you have that mentality - you're acting as Grand Inquisitor in this respect).

Do you deny that piracy costs development studios money?

No. It's just the question whether it comes near to the claims of the software industry. Do *YOU* deny that crappy software costs the customer money (without an equivalent value in return)?

Do you dispute that thousands, maybe tens to hundreds of thousands of people sharing software for free around the world (whether by P2P networks, IRC, or sales of bootleg copies on the street) represents a real and significant cost for these studios?

While I do not dispute the fact as such, I *DO* dispute, however, whether the claims are justified that this is "the doom of the industry" or something to that effect. You have no facts, no numbers. You have just an opinion whith a sorry lack of backup. If I were you, I would be a bit more careful. I am quite conceding here, you know. I could just as well simply say "Yes, I dispute all that" and leave you out in the cold with no hard facts at all to prove me wrong. As you see, I have mercy

Is it somehow not evident that, being a not-insignificant cost, piracy could easily mean the difference between a new studio getting off the ground and offering fresh new content in the game industry and them closing their doors for good due to lack of funding?

Yes, exactly that: It COULD. On the basis of aforementioned assumption. Now, if we only had a way of determining if said assumption holds true, right? Sadly, it's just an assumption. It's a possibility. One among hundreds and thousands of possibilities what can go wrong. Makes you wonder: If all those companies are part of such an endangered species, how come that some of them make hundreds of millions? And why do they found new companies every day? Are all these people masochists, thinking: "Hell yeah, I really WANT to get rippe dto pieces by software pirates! Ah, the pain... I love it!"? Or is it not nearer to the truth that quite a bunch of people are fully aware of the phenomenon and see a rewarding market nonetheless?

Lacking facts, indeed. You're the only one lacking facts. You're arguing around the issue.

Aha. I see. Please give me a link that backs up your "facts" by presenting numbers (not ASSUMED numbers but REAL numbers, based on research by INDEPENDENT people).

Pirate.

Nah, I don't. I don't have the time to play more than one or two games regularly anyway, and those I can easily buy (after testing ). But you happily ignore me stating that for I-don't-know-how-many posts now...

But at least be man enough to accept that you're taking something that doesn't belong to you. It's really pretty shameless that you're trying so very hard to argue you're way out of this relatively black-and-white issue.

It is, as most things are, NOT a "black-and-white issue". Most problems in this world stem from people who think something would be either black or white in an effort to justify their own radical position. It's basically an attempt to find a rational excuse for one's own emotions. In fact, black & white looks nice at the first impression, but is essentially crap (pun intended). While one can, of course, have a merry time feeling like the holy warrior of one's cause, one doesn't even get near the roots of the problems that way. Your attitude may be nice to FIGHT an issue - it is quite ineffective in SOLVING it. Of course, if you prefer to play the white knight in an everlasting battle, that's your choice. Everybody needs a hobby.

You haven't responded intelligently to any of my counterpoints.

I don't really think you are in a position to judge that. Again, you show a tendency to ridcule everything that's not to your liking, thus hurting your own credibility and position. That's your choice, of course - everybody is free to act as moron if he feels like it. But e.g., personally, I don't think you are not intelligent. I don't even think that your reasoning is unintelligent, although I don't share most of your views. It's just very narrow-minded, and the way you utter it is quite uneducated and disrespectful. You seem to overestimate your own arguments as the ultimate strokes of genius. I'm sorry if it comes as bad news that not everyonenecessarily shares that impression. You seem to belong to the type who, if asked: "Are you a God?" would happily answer: "Yes, of course, if not me, then who?".

There are thousands of things in life that are expected and required by law to be paid for in full before you are (or ever can be) sure that they are going to fully meet your expectations or satisfy your desires. Maybe the five I mentioned you were able to draw up quick and clever semantic responses to, but I could spend all night typing up lists of similar products or services that are exchanged for money with no guarantee of customer satisfaction.

Ah, look, that e.g. was one of those not-so-brilliant utterings, being a well known (and technically, very weak) rhethoric trick: "You might have proven me wrong in those examples, but I could mention so many more where you couldn't". Hm. And who forced you to mention the weak arguments if you have so much better ones?

That's a fact of life. That is the producer-consumer relationship. Your power as a consumer when faced with a product you find unsatisfactory lies in your ability to take your business elsewhere, not in your "Inalienable Right to Steal From Those Who Dissatisfy You."

Yes, I see where you come from. You want to have the customer to pay anyway, even if it is the last crap he is offered. Effectively, while talking about the "power of the consumer", you intend to take it away from him, fully trusting that for every disappointed customer there are two inexperienced ones who can be tricked into a (for them) bad deal. I'm sorry, that's not how I want the world to be. Sadly, it IS so in many respects, but luckily, sometimes it's not. Seems we stand on different sides here. We, however, the customers, are the majority. Tough luck, buddy. Seems that somehow that trick to avoid quality of service doesn't work (yes, I know, I overdo it a bit here *g*).

It's even more ridiculous, because you're suggesting it's okay to steal not because you have been dissatisifed, but because you may be dissatisfied.

Hopefully for the last time:

a) NO "stealing" is involved.
b) There even is hardly any "piracy" involved if you buy the products you like and simply delete those you don't like.

What do you advocate here? Forcing people to stick with all that crap marketing-crazy companies promise them and fail to deliver? Go away. Produce quality and you will be rewarded. Go with thelow-quality approach and you (hopefully) get raped... and deserve it.

Just the kind of sound moral foundation our society can rest firmly upon.

Ts... did I mention I am a web developer? That a large part of MY work is prone to copying because you can easily steal the code, the graphics etc.? And that I find your presentation of emotion very... well, it tells me quite a bit, let me put it this way.

1) People are cheap, and like money. (Or, put nicely, most people desire to maintain or acquire wealth whenever possible - not to relinquish it.)

So do you. And YOUR approach to it seems to be to sell low-quality software that people would never willingly buy if they only knew what a bunch of bad design and bugs they get in that fancy box.

2) People are lazy and like to take the easy way out. (Or, put nicely, most people prefer to maximize their leisure time. If something is available on the other side of the room, that's where people are going to get it.

So are you. The rather unlikely possibility of you being either an AI or an alien aside, YOU are "people" just the same. I thinks we can agree that it wouldn't be of much use to proclaim that you, among all the people were any "BETTER" and thus had a right to complain. But you seem to have a rather negative view on people. You know what they say? That it is mostly what you know about yourself that you deem possible with others? So, basically, what you are telling me is that you are greedy and lazy. I figured that.

3) When the odds of suffering any consequence are relatively low, people will justify minor wrongdoings in favor of honoring #1 and #2.

Like publishing buggy software sold at full price, you mean? I agree.

4) Right now, despite all efforts to the contrary, it's laughable easy to pirate and share software illegally, both in soft- and hard-copy.

It, in fact IS very easy. And it will stay that way, no matter what seemingly ingenious nasty devices the companies come up with (can you say "rootkit"? Muaha-haaaaaaaaa-haha!). If you truly are a developer, you must be aware of that. There is no way back. Companies will have to find different approaches. "Fee market" (or capitalism) is, like evolution, all about the ability to adapt to a changing environment. YOUR environment is changing. You can protest, swear, whine - and you will dwindle and get extinct. Adapt, and you will flourish.

That's it. That's the "great and mysterious force" behind piracy that you think we're never going to figure out. People want to keep their money, get stuff quickly and easily, and not get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

So what's new? You knew that from day one. What are your consequences? Other than playing the self-proclaimed white knight in an affair you WANT to see as black & white, that is?

It's no different than the goddamn vending machine in a college dorm. Every day kids walk buy it. Every once in awhile someone buys a candy bar or some M&Ms.

Then, one night during a rowdy party someone accidentally breaks the glass of the vending machine, exposing the contents.

You tell me what the 25 college kids in standing in that lounge are going to do next.

You can guess. I'm sure of it.

It never happened to me, however, you seem to talk out of experience. So, basically, to sum up your rant, you want people to behave differently from your own behaviour.

Cute

 

[AU_Armageddon]

Bugger it, I'm bored since Civ crashed when I traded for the world map so I'll bite and wade into this. machete's a good name. straight and pointless.

We dun needa worry about these issues here in Australia. EB stores are everywhere and offer 7 day refund no questions asked on all PC games. At christmas they give you 6 weeks to return it. Seriously, even if you just simply don't like it is your reason. All 100% legal. I still take it further though, no-cding about 1 in 5 that aren't value for money.

I buy tonnes of games from EB. I return about 2/3rds of em. Used to be 1/3rd but unfinished games and devs with their hand out for begging for charity has become something of the norm. If they are good, I am happy to keep em and they can keep my money. If they are playable in doses, but not worth the 100 bucks we have to pay for games in Aus (78$US) I chuck on a no-cd patch and exchange em.

Civ4 I expected to keep cos it was likely to be good, and comes with an actual manual. Useful manuals often factor in whether it's worth payin for (read: keeping). It runs like silk on mine, but if I was crashing like many I'd have put on a no-cd or burnt it for blue-moon play only, cos that's all it'd be good for.

Small developers can sometimes be factored into decision (minor factor). I kept Warlords Battlecry III because it's from a small developer here in Aus, even though it was barely different from II and I, and as such really should've been sold as x-pacs not full price games. Decent x-pac, but that's all it was, maybe 10 hours play out of it.

I could care less for Machete's style of concerns about the poor individual who is supposedly not to be held accountable for the crappy games their company produces. No time for excuses. There are plenty of companies who produce good games that are value for money despite being on small teams on small budgets. It doesn't have to have state of the art graphics. It just has to work, and work 'as advertised' without the falsehoods. Like every business, some manage despite odds and some fall into the 9 out of 10 of all businesses that fail due to poor management and lack of foresight.

These so-called individual downtrodden employees with their starving families have the option to show the integrity to not work for a team who releases sub-par crap expecting charity from me to foot the bills. Even if fired from economic redundancy, they still have the experiences gained, experience many people would do anything for, and can use this to next time find work for a group with more vision, more talent, and more integrity. Or alternatively, maybe they are part of the fault in the crappy release and shouldn't be working in the industry anyway. There's a lot of that crowd in gaming, that's for damn sure. Always plenty of cleaners jobs floating about, no matter where you live in the world.

Any game with the bodgy types of secure-rom's that cause hours of headaches to get a game installed, playing or the like, always get burnt and returned as protest vote.

Regarding downloading - Releasing games staggered is a factor for many people including myself. RTS style games for serious MP gamers especially where if you don't start with the community from the beginning, your skill starts waaaay behind and after missing the boat on the forming communities private games where the real action happens, it never truly catches up. Most games are 6 weeks to months after US here in AUS. I d/led one RTS and it's x-pac that I played a lot for a whole year. I would've preferred to have bought it, but if it means starting late I don't bother cos the experience for this particlar goal is cheapened and not worth it. I don't expect my single protest vote in such cases to make the difference, but I wish it would.

Respecting the law just for it's own sake is not a frame of mind I can relate to and I leave it to the sheep. Some laws are good laws that everyone who is moral respects, and some laws are self-evidently unfair. When the door swings both ways, only a small minority will break a given law. When a company can misrepresent their product, screw you in any of a hundred ways and that's supposed to be okay because it's expected, and meanwhile you have no recourse, and conversly instead you can go to jail for protecting yourself, then it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it is not just a minority who doesn't respect the law.

It's always been this way. Laws that no-one follows are not fair laws and never have worked and never will work.

Only thing I agree with from machete style argument here is that it's not moral to actually make money off their work, selling pirated copies or the like. Being the moral element, it's naturally the one most people agree with.

 

[Sorceresss]

I disconnected around 11pm (Eastern USA time) to prepare to go to bed. I then read a few pages of a book on "psychic archeology" (= how to find archaic ruins by ESP "remote viewing"). I slept from Midnight until 10am (Saturday). I came back here around 10:30am, and :

I was totally blown away by the very lengthy & intelligent posts which had been composed during the past 11 hours.

I had gone to bed thinking that the thread had degenerated into a petty skirmish (in which I had somewhat participated )...so I was surprised to see, Saturday morning, that some posters had taken the time & trouble to compose lengthy & brilliant analyses on the thread's main topic (agree or not with their points of view) :

SOFTWARE PIRACY

 

[Machete Phil]

Bhruic

1) You have provided no proof of this claim.

Proof? I need to prove to you that piracy costs software companies money? How about deductive reasoning, dude? Some of the pirates getting the software would have paid for it if pirating were not so easy and carefree. That represents a direct loss of sales, a drop in revenue, and at the end of the day lower profits.

There’s a large population of people who would otherwise be willing and able to pay full price for a product taking it for free, and you’re going to sit here and tell me I need to prove to you that this represents a loss for the company that produces said product?

2) Piracy leads to higher development costs? In what way? Development costs all take place before a game ships. Pirates (except in rare cases) do not get the game before it ships.

Development cost is entirely unrelated to sales, and since piracy can only affect sales, piracy can't impact development costs.

Aww, cute little semantic dodge there.

Development cost is unrelated to sales? Sales generate revenue. Revenue is necessary to offset development costs before profit is possible. Sounds to me like they’re pretty well intertwined.

Piracy represents a loss of sales. You cannot honestly deny this. Granted, not every pirated copy represents a lost sale, but there are certainly plenty of people who would be buying these games if they weren’t so easy to get for free. How many of you know people who pirate PC games but buy console games? I think I knew about 6,000 people in college who would fall into this category.

Hence, piracy results directly in lower revenue, and can mean the difference between profit and loss at the end of a project. It’s just like having an employee sitting in the corner doing nothing but making $100,000/yr. during your development cycle.

For third-party developers there is also the ever-present and real threat of project cancellation or the loss of future contracts due to lower sales on existing titles.

Added development costs, lower revenue, cancelled projects, it’s the bottom line that matters – at the end of the day they need to have enough money to continue to pay their employees - and if you’re honestly going to say that piracy has no affect on the bottom line profits of the release of a piece of software (any software, not just games), then I can do nothing but laugh. Laugh long and heartily right near (or possibly in) your face.

3) Well, sure. The beating of a butterfly's wings can lead to hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico. But saying something "can lead" to something else is an extremely abstract statement.

Hahaha. Brilliant! We’re not talking chaos theory here dude, it’s relatively simple economics. Lower profits for a studio = the possibility for all those things I listed to happen. It doesn’t take a chain reaction. It takes one person picking up a phone and saying “Let’s find another studio to do the sequel.”

I mean, seriously? This is really your argument?

I would dispute anyone's claim to know to what degree piracy costs studios profit.

I would dispute anyone’s claim that the degree to which your action affects something has anything to do with whether it is right or wrong.

I realize how convenient it must be for you to try and hide behind the inability to calculate this cost exactly, but it’s a really weak shield, because you’re side of the argument suffers the same shortcoming.

You’re basically trying to argue that because we do not know the cost, it must be insignificant and therefore piracy must be “okay.”

That’s a straight-up Tobacco company argument. “Gee, we don’t know to what extent cigarettes contribute to any of these things precisely, so smoke up!”

Absolutely. Because they don't cost the studios anything. They may decrease profits, but that's not the same thing. As I said previously, someone who pirates a game they would not have purchased anyway has cost the studio nothing. And, in fact, has not caused them to lose any profit.

What a beautiful and wonderous world you live in.

How do you figure this, exactly?

If people buy games from stores, the stores order more to replace the inventory. This means more profit. If the people who were going to buy them download them for free instead, the retailers don’t need to restock. This means lower revenue. Lower revenue means lower profits.

Seriously.

What’s your argument to the contrary?

That's a rather specious argument. If there is a demand for the 'fresh new content', then the studio will make money. If there isn't, they won't.

If they go out of business before they have a chance to put it out, you won’t know either way genius. A studios first title is rarely its best. If they can manage to make enough money to parlay their experience into another titles, it’s usually a lot more polished.

Of course, lost sales due to piracy can affect whether or not they make enough money to do this, and hence determine whether you’re able to see the new content.

No, what you are doing is presenting your opinions as facts

Sorry, no.

It’s not an opinion that some pirates would buy the game.

It’s not an opinion that lost sales means less revenue for studios.

It’s certainly not an opinion that less revenue is bad for any company.

I've seen any number of decent arguments that show how many shades of grey the issue have, but you have seemed to ignore the majority of these.

Of course you have, you already agreed with them to begin with. Most people think there are shades of grey, because that makes them feel better when the queue up their free MP3s and boot up their pirated copy of Counterstrike…

 

[CyberChrist]

It’s just like having an employee sitting in the corner doing nothing but making $100,000/yr. during your development cycle.

Oh come on, please! If all software companies had someone on their payrole that was copying their products and shipping them out for pirating then - and ONLY then - would this be a true statement. Loss of potential profits, possibly, but software companies do not withdraw money and send them to the pirates.

And your post is full off similar flawed comparisons, assumptions, personal opinions and 'deductive reasoning'.

Since when did such things start passing as facts?

 

[Efexeye]

Lol, he actually sent me a threatning PM

Okay, can't ignore that, that's just a blatant lie. My PM asked him to let the flame war die, that was it.

However, the one he sent me, "why the hell did you send me a PM you looser" shows his level of intelligence brilliantly.

Have I somehow flamed someone in this thread that I didn't know about? And what's with all these Johnny-come-latelys that have nothing to say about the topic, but are allowed to troll? Are they getting warned by mods?

EDIT: Normally, I don't question the mods, they have a tough and thankless job to do, and 99% of the time I agree with them. I'm asking this, because the posts of at least 3 individuals in this thread seem to be aimed at doing nothing but stirring up trouble. In the past, on this board, whenever I have even come CLOSE to flaming someone, I get a warning.

Is this yet ANOTHER message board where some people get special treatment? I hope not, I'd like to stick around, but I'm not going to if certain people are gonna be allowed to post OT flames and suffer no consequences.