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Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

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Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#231

Post by robryan »

arjunnarayan wrote: post #168
krig wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing that boggles my mind. World of Goo was a huge success! How the piracy rate fits into the relative success or failure of World of Goo is not at all clear. I don't see how anyone can believe that there's a possible reality where World of Goo would be just as successful as it was with a 0% piracy rate, and where information exchange is free. You can't have both! If World of Goo had made a pitta…

I've paid for World of Goo twice (When I first bought it when it came out, and once for the iPhone version). I've also pirated World of Goo three times. When I switched from PC to Mac; when I gave my iPod touch to my sister and installed it on my new iPhone as well (does this count as piracy? I have no idea. Its the same iTunes account running on two devices now...). And once on my Linux box when I wanted the linux v…

Blizzard deals with the redownload and key issue well, you can login to your account and download the game or any platform and access any key that you need.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#232

Post by davidw »

mikeash wrote: post #129
pilom wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Clearly, people think it is their choice." And that is where the author disagrees. People think it is their choice to either pay or not pay and get for free without consequences. That is wrong. If you choose to download without paying, you can't take the moral high ground because what you did is wrong.

This is just the kind of junk I'm talking about. I get that the author disagrees. The problem is that neither he nor you back it up with any reasoning. You're just declaring that you're right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. What's the point of that? The simple fact is that copyright infringement is not a universally-agreed wrong the way e.g. murder is. If you want to convince people that it should be, that's…

Here's my point of view: "intellectual property" exists as a solution to the under provisioning of public goods:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

It's not perfect; indeed, it's a 'messy compromise'. Currently, one that's tilted too far in favor of producers. However, consumers should also realize that producers can't just create stuff for free: it takes time to write books, lots of money to do movies, and selling music helps bands do what they do full-time, rather than as a hobby, and thus create more music that you, a fan, presumably are happy with.

I'm not sure what the 'right' answer is, but I have a feeling that it won't be simple and 'easy', but rather a bit messy. I think that easy access to 'legit' stuff is definitely part of the solution though. By making the legal route the easiest one, it takes away a big excuse.

Something more people need to think about is life "at the margin", in the economics sense of the term. Don't think about Lady Gaga and Windows and stuff like that: think about people who are on the edge between making a living with some form of IP and having to pursue it only as a hobby.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#233

Post by gamble »

ap22213 wrote: post #172
VMG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

Was there ever a software company, or music artist, or movie studio that decided not to put out a product because of this so-called free rider problem? Just curious.

Speaking from experience, piracy has a very strong influence on how much money video game companies are willing to spend on development. Piracy is the reason that PC gamers have to put up with games that are primarily designed for consoles, with very little invested in adapting them to a PC interface. Few companies are willing to spend money on PC development when you can only expect a few hundred thousand sales.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#234

Post by res0nat0r »

onemoreact wrote: post #171
kiba wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Sir, what make you think our situation is historically unique? If you read the history of copyright, you would realize that our is not so special. Rather, the current situation is a continuation of debates that started centuries ago.

The ability for 1/2 the people on the planet to distribute content without meaningful cost barriers is vary new. It's caused people to create and publish far more interesting content in a single day than you can consume in a single day. We are transiting through a tipping point where locating and filtering content is becoming more valuable than creating it. Consider, on average do you enjoy reading HN posts? In what…

I'm pretty sure no one is trying to make a living by creating new HN posts with interesting content. If he is, I need to send him a couple of boxes of ramen so he can eat next week ;)

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#235

Post by chaz »

roguecoder wrote: post #208
chaz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World of Goo launched on Steam and still saw 90% piracy. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/my-software-is-bein...

Why would it have been a better outcome if the same number of people had paid for the game and only 10% as many people got to play? It wouldn't have been better for the game-makers and it would have been far worse for the population.

The fundamental argument for anti-piracy is that at least some of the pirates would have paid for the content if piracy was not available. It's not all the pirates, and it's not none of the pirates. Nobody would care about pirates if they were 100% unmonetizable.

I'm making numbers up, but let's say 10% paid as usual, 1% converted to payment because piracy wasn't available, and 89% didn't want to pay and didn't play. The publisher gets 10% more revenue if piracy wasn't there.

Nobody knows what the actual percentage is.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#236

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #129
pilom wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Clearly, people think it is their choice." And that is where the author disagrees. People think it is their choice to either pay or not pay and get for free without consequences. That is wrong. If you choose to download without paying, you can't take the moral high ground because what you did is wrong.

This is just the kind of junk I'm talking about. I get that the author disagrees. The problem is that neither he nor you back it up with any reasoning. You're just declaring that you're right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. What's the point of that? The simple fact is that copyright infringement is not a universally-agreed wrong the way e.g. murder is. If you want to convince people that it should be, that's…

[deleted]

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#237

Post by robryan »

chaz wrote: post #157
krig wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing that boggles my mind. World of Goo was a huge success! How the piracy rate fits into the relative success or failure of World of Goo is not at all clear. I don't see how anyone can believe that there's a possible reality where World of Goo would be just as successful as it was with a 0% piracy rate, and where information exchange is free. You can't have both! If World of Goo had made a pitta…

I'm not saying that they missed out on 90% of their revenue (though it's fair to say they lost out on some revenue). Rather, they did everything right: a fun game that anyone can play, great press, broad distribution through multiple channels, and no DRM. And yet a huge audience still saw it fit to pirate their game. It'll be interesting to watch the evolution of game distribution. Xbox and iOS are massively growing…

I think any game is still going to have the issue of kids not having access to the means to pay for it. Do they wait for heir parents and hope they decide to buy it for them or do they get it for free right now?

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#238

Post by v0cab »

grantheaslip wrote: post #219
v0cab wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to make that stuff. They can try to find something else to do instead.

If there was legitimately no demand for these products, then sure, they should move on and make something else instead. But there is a demand for them — it’s just that many of the people consuming it are stealing it. This is what laws are there for. Again, I know this analogy isn’t perfect, but what you’ve said is not all that different from telling a shop owner who was robbed that maybe he should do something else i…

We're talking about large-scale sharing of movies and software, not 'stealing'. It isn't desirable or practical to have the government regulate the Internet and punish offenders to stop this sharing, so content owners are going to have to adapt.

A more suitable analogy would be to a bookstore owner who's struggling because of (legal) Kindle downloads. Sucks for him, but time marches forwards. Perhaps he should partially convert to a coffee shop or similar.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#239

Post by jarek »

res0nat0r wrote: post #234
onemoreact wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability for 1/2 the people on the planet to distribute content without meaningful cost barriers is vary new. It's caused people to create and publish far more interesting content in a single day than you can consume in a single day. We are transiting through a tipping point where locating and filtering content is becoming more valuable than creating it. Consider, on average do you enjoy reading HN posts? In what…

I'm pretty sure no one is trying to make a living by creating new HN posts with interesting content. If he is, I need to send him a couple of boxes of ramen so he can eat next week ;)

Following this logic, if someone really, really rich creates intellectual property, it's okay for the rest of us to pirate it? It's not like they're creating it to make a living.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#240

Post by Czarnian »

Apreche wrote: post #5

The only problem I have with this article is this line: "since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them?" Legally obliged to pay for? Yes. Morally? No. I have no moral problem with piracy. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Those are the foundations of my morality. I wo…

Do me a favor, wouldja? Please cast this particular tenet of your moral code into the form of the golden rule. Exactly what are you doing to others that you would have them do unto you?
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