Internet 'piracy'

This perhaps isn't something which affects the US as much, but with the MPAA etc, the manipulation of the DMCA and the successful attempts to limit torrent sites, if not shut them down, the physical net does seem to be slowly closing.

Clearly musicians, directors, game studios etc deserve good money for their efforts, but for the most part they get this from sales, as well as an advertising and reputation boost from downloads (assuming what they made was worthy of it). For me, immediate concern is over the proposed 'Digital Economy Bill' here in the UK, which would have every ISP attempting to detect illegal downloads, and then implement a three strike system - send warning letters and then slow or disable the offender's connection; this is not to mention 'making legal action more effective', and the disregard for both the primary culprits in my mind - people who can't afford the ridiculous prices for dying physical media - as well as the ridiculous cost and near impossibility of monitoring all internet traffic.

Basically, what I'm asking is: do you think the clampdown - be it by governments, copyright organisations, or the mercenaries like MediaSentry who sell information on people downloading - is both justified, and a sensible use of their time and resources?

Quite frankly, piracy is a topic that I am scared of touching, even with a plier. The problem I have is, that I don't like people being able to monitor, what I do at which point and when on the internet. However, being a transparent human, you can't really do anything against it, except trying to vote for the right political parties that try to grant you at least some privacy.
However, I think there are 2 different categories of piracy that we need to seperate:
First of all we have the "I downoad things because I want to try out program X / program X is too expansive" category. Of course it is still illegal, but sometimes person "X" is really a rather innocent person. I think I can speak for alot of program users if I say that activation methods and "you may use cd key abc x times before you have to write us an e-mail which takes us weeks to answer or you have to spend days in the hotline" ways of copy protection etc are often leading them to look for an "illegal" way to circumvent said protections, even if they own an original copy of the game / program.
THe other large party is the "I am downloading all those 23984792834 programs and am selling them on a burned CD / DvD / other medium to those people out there (maybe even claim it to be genuine". This is the group that is giving the people the worst headaches, as they are profiting of other peoples work.

To an extent. I believe music should have the right to be on the internet for free. I also believe that premium quality music should not be free. If someone wants to listen to the music I believe they should have a right to access a poor quality music (No base, no surround sound, no music video).

As for games, I'm going to be a hypocrite and say they should not be pirated. I have downloaded many things on this site without knowing whether they are freeware or not, and have simply played ignorant. I have also pirated a few lower named games such as Braid, but when it comes to big name titles, anything in value over 30 dollars I don't touch.

Maybe I'm biased towards the gaming environment because songs can be pirated and games not, but I believe that songs are made for their quality (and they will be blasted on the radio anyways as free entertainment) so a poor quality is not a crime, while a game is made to spend time, in which case only trial versions should be pirate-able.

The thing is, as oft used an argument as this is: companies aren't going bust, they just aren't making as much money as they used to. The vast majority of them, however, choose to claim back as much money by any means on their current products and services, rather than trying to tackle the root of the problem in a way which appeases the majority. Some companies are at least trying to sell online, integrating offers, or use services (like the excellent Spotify) to allow users to listen to songs etc, but have to buy them for the portability which is now so treasured. I appreciate that kind of smart marketing a whole lot more than the whining and inability to listen to the user base.

Well, I think that the price for software has skyrocketed quite a bit. If companies would save the money they invest in new anti piracy methods and lower the price on the game instead, it would make people think twice before risking being busted for piracy for downloading a game, they aren't even sure has quality.
Another reason for the increase in downloads these days is simply due to the fact that many companies don't offer demo versions any longer, or at least not interesing ones, that show things you might find interesting.
When it comes to music, quite honestly, I think there should be a few free samples and the rest should be purchased, or if inteded, free availble by the artist, though it is hardly piracy than.
A musician spends alot of time on a single song, pouring alot of work into it and I don't see a difference between pirating a music or software.

I don't really have a particular say anyway. I mean, they are well within their rights in an attempt to stop piracy, but the internet is too big to tackle effectively, and they'd rather ruin the way the internet has operated for over two decades just so they can futilely attempt to capture a handful of downloaders.

In the end, they really do more harm than good. Especially when they try to make a show out of it. I'm sorry, but I don't care what or how much you download there is no excuse for being sued for millions of dollars. That is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to make a show out of someone.

I never pirate music, I have no use for music XD

But however I tend to rage whenever there's some new cool game in japan i want to play but can't coz there foreign language i torrent it out of frustration and check out what it looks like then usually just delete it.

I would be spending a lot more cash if world was more open instead of crummy region locks and region licensing etc etc etc

Piracy is usually a problem but then again, there's problems in the industry in the first place.

Cash grab games and such the kind that makes shitty game and sell hope to make millions when they shouldn't be even existing on shelves in first place at all.
That is also other form of piracy covered up in a legal organization in my own opinion XD However this piracy grabs your cash in exchange for some lame game that isn't worth playing.

As I speak of this, I had the Shuffle Eroge torrented and saved to my HD for years and years until the mangagamer finally did the translation on it and I bought it instantly. The japanese copy is however deleted XD

What i do probably could be called piracy but, I do it to enjoy things that will never reach USA coast in decades or EVER and end up on store shelves anyways.


EDIT: This just occured to me.. we don't pay for Library except in state taxes for their upkeep right? Technically it is free but does it also means little kids is pirating from the state every time they read books in the library? Library thing just popped into my mind for first time O_o

I'm a bit torn on the subject.

On the one hand, I believe a person has the right to do with their property as they see fit. If I wish to make a copy of my Civ 3 game and give it to a friend. In middle school a guy I knew named Thomas gave me a copy of Mech Commander. Did we do anything wrong? Not from my eyes since I loved the game so much I bought the sequel. Doing things like this is a good way to try it before you buy it. You test drive a car before you buy it, you look at a home before you buy it,etc. So why is it such a fuss when I download an album to listen to before I buy it? I recently bought the Alice in Chain "Black gives way to Blue" album. I basically feel like I wasted my money since I only like one song on the album enough to listen to specifically. I could have avoided that if I downloaded the album before and listened to it once. That, I believe is a major reason why people pirate music because they got tired of spending $20 for a C.D. with maybe 3 good songs on it or worse, only 1 decent song from the radio.

On the other, these programmers, artists and musicians make money from their products which we are making copies at levels unheard of in history. People copy songs so easily that the printing presses of the entire U.S. treasury couldn't keep up at full capacity. While one can argue that CD sales don't really go to the artist but, instead go to the record company but, that money is still going to pay producers among the other employees of those record companies.

For games you are taking money out of the pockets of the accountants, programmers, management, graphic designers who made these games.

I see no problem with downloading to try something out to see if you want to buy the product. I see a problem with people who download with no intention of ever purchasing the product in a legit fashion.

I've downloaded Civilization 3 complete and Sid Meier's Alpha Centarui: Alien Cross Fire but, after I tried and like the games, I went and bought them.

Now, the idea of some company monitoring everything I do online in order to make sure I'm not doing anything "naughty" is bad enough but, we already have enough monitoring and we have some expectations of privacy and I'm not fond of the idea of that changing.

The thing is, its within their right to try and stop piracy, but they are going beyond that and invading the privacy of potentially innocent people.

But im a pirate through and through. And I dont feel bad at all about it, because if its 'fuck them' or 'fuck me' then fuck them

what he said, because if files were 100% safe then there be no free music..... and other stuff..... >.> D:

I download stuff all the time. Not movies, mostly anime and music. And in my defense, most of the anime I download isn't even licensed in this country, and is gone 90% of the time before it is. So in all technicality, I'm not doing anything illegal. Now as for music, that's a different matter, I do try to go buy the albums I really like but it's hard to track down the bands I like.

This.


That aside:

Corporations complaining about "piracy", i.e. copyright infrigement by natural personae are hypocrites. They, as a capitalist entity, have entered the market knowing that they will have to compete.
Their problem is, that their primary business model until-lately is no longer a valid business model: DISTRIBUTION. In this day and age, a 12-year-old with internet access is better (more cost-effective, closer to the customer's wishes, offering higher quality, or offering goods the corporations are purposely withholding from the market) at distribution than all the intellectual property distribution companies together. They are therefore simply losing to their competition, and they don't like it.
Their only way out of this mess, is - such dictates the iron logic of the market - to change their business model to something other than distribution, or to fade into extinction.

So far the theory. As they are, of course, unable or unwilling to do either, they have resorted to what they do best: lobbying for more protectionism (cf. the candlemaker's plea). This protectionism thus is keeping an entire branch of business artificially alive that ought to be good and dead, and I am fiercely opposed to it; not to mention the vast and catastrophic repercussions the struggle of this deathworthy industry has had on the legal system of so many civilized nations.

All their arguments as to "copying killing music", etc., are either the most blatant propaganda, or I am indeed the smartest individual on earth, for I can name several business models off of the top of my head that would allow culture to eternally flourish, despite even an all-out legalisation of piracy.

That, of course, is only a tiny segment of the actual, tremendous problem of current copyright legislation. Every day, every user on the internet is infringing on so many copyrights that everyone with connectivity might as well be put up the river, forever, this very moment - which, in my view, shows that copyright as it is now is in urgent need of abolition, as it clashes gruesomely with reality.

I am, however, highly pessimistic about the situation. Politicians have repeatedly referred to IP as the "oil of the 21st century"; I thus expect more and harsher legislation to follow (viz. ACTA; Sarko's lex Vivendi; Lord Mandelson's new directive; ...), no matter the cost in civil rights, or legislative humbug.



PS: I actually buy DRM-free music from independent labels, and I buy games that are really worth it.




This defense is null and void. In all technicality, you are still infringing on the copyright of the IP's proprietors, and thus guilty of piracy, and thus doing something illegal.

I think of it like this, why would it mater if someone is downloading something if they weren't going to pay for it in the first place.

As for that 3 strike rule. My ISP Cox communications already uses it. I downloaded a harry potter audio book a while back(didn't even listen to it or fully download it for that matter) and someone reported my I.P, so my ISP shut of my net for 3 days.

I called every few hours asking why I had it shut off and they wouldn't tell me. Finally I talked to someone and he told me it was cause of Piracy, he asked me too delete the file, which I did. Then I had my internet turned back on and he told me "We use a 3 strike rule if this happens two more times we will shut of your internet"

The main problem is in my opinion that too man companies expect people to pay for an uncertain factor as the fiery penguin mentioned already.
Problem is, that often you don't know what to expect. A popular example for that would be EA (first that springs to mind.) On one hand you got (ex) companies under EA that you know were producing good games in the past (Bioware), however having Electronic Arts pop up makes (me at least) think of "here you go with eye-candy games, no matter how bugged they are, now give us your money!"
The logical consequence is that often people are downloading a game, testing it and than deciding on if they are willing to buy it or rather want to just delete the game after trying it. And seeing the agespan of people playing games, I doubt most of the target community can just throw out 50€ followed by the decision that it is crap and throw it in the combustible trash.
I really liked the solution that was offered by Guild Wars, to try the full version of the game for something like 10 hours and than decide if you want to buy the game or scrap it. Something like that would be a rather good example in my opinion, as I for one, don't like buying a cat in a sack.

Funny thing is, software is easily distributable and replicated. it is almost close to being infinitely abundant, limited only by bandwidth and disk space. thinking of it as a 'commodity', it is abundant, so it should be cheap, if at all, costless.

I think the internet and software is bad for product/commodity oriented businesses as opposed to service oriented ones, because it is something that is prone to unlicensed/unlimited copying and distribution. but business sees profit in the internet. for the sake of its avarice, it will try to make profit of it.

I... uh. I personally think, "Yes, I want to not download it and just buy it. SO RELEASE IT IN MY COUNTRY ALREADY."

Oh no, large corporations are no longer making record sales as often as before? How ever will I sleep at night...

When I download something off a torrent, most of the time it's because I don't have X amount of money to purchase (and not use if it's crap) this software, game, or album and I don't want to waste the money I do have on something I'm not going to like.

When I do download a game or album it's to see if it's worth a purchase or not. I've bought games before that I regretted the purchase of because there was no demo to attempt and no way to decide whether I would like it or not. I use downloads now to try out games I've heard would be good to see if they're worth a purchase, and if so I buy the game. The only other time I download a game is if it'd something that's not going to make it to US shores so I wouldn't have the chance to purchase it anyway.

Companies can attempt their best to stop or regulate piracy, but that's going up against a large portion of the internet community. No matter what kind of policies they implement there will always be some way around it and people will still be able to do as they please. Unless each company hires someone to sit around every computer and monitor it, there's no real way to stop piracy. So instead of spending time and money trying to pass policies to punish those who pirate, they should spend some of that money and time asking their user base what it would take to get them to buy their products more often, because a lot of pirating could be avoided if the companies themselves fixed the way they distribute their products.

They're already doing that, via ISPs.



If they can data mine to an extent, they can monitor to such extent. Expect worse to come.