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Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

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Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#211

Post by marcamillion »

Xcelerate wrote: post #149
marcamillion wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect this is pretty ignorant. If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered. The very nature of the action of them trying to get your creation - even though they don't have money - is testament to the value they think you have created. If they keep pirating your stuff every time you release a new version - you really should re-consider your pricing optio…

> With all due respect this is pretty ignorant. Ignorant? Do you know what that word means? Let me quote dictionary.com for you: "Lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned". I don't appreciate you calling me ignorant, seeing as how I do not meet the definition in any way. > If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered. If someone goes to the lengths/peril required to…

Well...let me ask you something, which do you think is worse...making something no one cares about or making something so successful that you can't "monetize" every copy.

I guarantee you, if you make something that so many people want such that they go to great lengths to pirate it, you are in a good position and should feel flattered that they do it.

Ask Peldi from Balsamiq. He handles piracy in the best possible way.

Balsamiq is widely pirated, yet if you email him and tell him you want his software but can't afford it, he will likely send you a license free.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#212

Post by angersock »

Domenic_S wrote: post #184
angersock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very simple thought experiment: A rap artist is hired by a label to create an album. Said artist later dies. The label goes bankrupt soon thereafter, or perhaps simply folds up shop and leaves the business without auctioning off its assets. I have produced a copy of the album, which I host at my own cost from my server, once these events have transpired. There is no reasonable "victim" left for this crime of infrin…

> There is no reasonable "victim" left for this crime of infringement The victim is the artist's heirs.

What'd they do to deserve anything?

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#213

Post by kstenerud »

Flimm wrote: post #196
kstenerud wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense, considering that music production software tends to be viciously expensive, and music producers tend to not have much money.

If cageface's data is accurate, the expense of the software would not explain the sudden drop. Do music producers suddenly get poorer after a crack is released?

The pressure to buy at a painful price is suddenly removed.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#214

Post by Xcelerate »

marcamillion wrote: post #211
Xcelerate wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all due respect this is pretty ignorant. Ignorant? Do you know what that word means? Let me quote dictionary.com for you: "Lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned". I don't appreciate you calling me ignorant, seeing as how I do not meet the definition in any way. > If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered. If someone goes to the lengths/peril required to…

Well...let me ask you something, which do you think is worse...making something no one cares about or making something so successful that you can't "monetize" every copy. I guarantee you, if you make something that so many people want such that they go to great lengths to pirate it, you are in a good position and should feel flattered that they do it. Ask Peldi from Balsamiq. He handles piracy in the best possible wa…

Let me put it this way. If I ever made something to be so popular that a lot of people wanted to pirate it, I wouldn't be too concerned about the piracy in a business sense.

But the problem is that every business has to tolerate some level of immoral activity whether they like it or not. Department stores have to tolerate some employees stealing merchandise. Restaurants have to tolerate employees giving meals away to their friends. Gas stations have to tolerate the occasional late night robbery. With regards to profit, there is an optimal amount of resources you should spend on fixing behavior like this. Spend too much and your company will lose money. Spend too little and everyone's going to see what they can get away with. Same with software.

However, just because this stuff happens and people are expected to deal with it and build it into their business plan does not mean it's okay. Cities deal with murder and theft on a daily basis; they shouldn't be flattered that their city is so popular that is has a lot of crime.

I am unfamiliar with Balsamiq, but he has a certain model that works for him. Great. But why should everyone else be forced to adopt the same model he does? There's a gas station where I live that gave me free water once when I was on a run. Does that mean every gas station should be forced to give me free water? If they don't give me free water, should I just take it anyway? It's a negligible loss to them; they won't notice anyway. In fact, if I hadn't taken the water then I wouldn't know how great their water was to come back and buy some more or tell my friends.

Do you understand what I'm getting it? There's a difference when arguing piracy on an optimal business basis vs a personal moral basis. I am arguing on the personal basis. I think we both agree on what makes the most business sense (as should any intelligent businessman).

P.S. I'm still curious why you called me ignorant. What field do I lack training or knowledge in that pertains to this discussion?

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#215

Post by tatsuke95 »

javert wrote: post #109

I’m just saying that it’s not all black and white. It is black and white. It's theft. The issue of whether you shold steal in certain conditions is a separate issue, as discussed some in the article. But it is black and white, it's theft.

>"It is black and white. It's theft."

No, it isn't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/opinion/theft-law-in-the-2...

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#216

Post by koide »

cdawzrd wrote: post #208
keithpeter wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some people seem to manage with these tools! And if more people were introduced to them, perhaps the feedback and number of interested coders would increase. I admit I was thinking more of supercollider and puredata, so more 'sonic arts' I suppose.

Until there is a open-source program that replicates what Ableton Live offers (seamless and easy-to-use integration of audio recording and nonlinear editing with MIDI production), no one will consider using an open-source tool. The biggest hurdle from my point of view is that low-latency audio on operating systems that are not Windows or OS X is a joke. Some organization needs to sink and huge chunk of developer time…

Easy to use? I've played with some of these tools, including Ableton Live and I've never found any that is actually easy to use.

They are all too stuck in the sliders/knobs metaphor. I'm not sure it's an adequate metaphor for people who has not produced in the physical world before.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#217

Post by ktf »

Downloading a pirated version of Visual Studio 6 over a 56k modem definitely changed my life in high school, and allowed me to write code I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. (I still have those discs, mostly for nostalgia's sake.)

Of course what changed my life even more was subsequently downloading Slackware Linux (on that same 56k connection!) and realizing that I didn't need to pirate an expensive IDE to write code...

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#218

Post by drcube »

"Of course cheap and accessible software would be a lot better, but there’s so little of that going around."

GNU.

I have no problem with pirating (except for the word). But why illegally download an expensive OS when better, free versions abound on the net? Stay legal, and have a more powerful, hackable OS to go with your clean conscience.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#219

Post by rdl »

glomph wrote: post #207
rdl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that stuff existed with TOPSITES, ftp, etc. before the torrent sites. The torrent sites are just the "retail" level of the game; the real players are getting prereleases, ripping, potentially cracking, and doing stuff on topsites.

Oh I know that it all existed before, I am just commenting on how prevalent it is and how much it is built in by design. To be honest I think you are slightly out of date in thinking torrent sites are just the 'retail' level. The majority of pre retail releases of movies (CAM/R5/Screener/HDTV etc) these days are done by p2p groups. A huge amount of pre release leaks of bluray disks come from Chinese bittorrent sites.…

Ah, that makes sense. I'm pretty out of date for anything post DoD/RZR, which was 2001.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#220

Post by javert »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #172
javert wrote: post #109

I’m just saying that it’s not all black and white. It is black and white. It's theft. The issue of whether you shold steal in certain conditions is a separate issue, as discussed some in the article. But it is black and white, it's theft.

There is a lot of accepted theft in our society. For example, American settlers stole all the land from Native Americans. Might as well direct your anger at that.

You're using "stole" here as, ironically, a "stolen concept." Look it up in an epistemology book.
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