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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

#281

Post by snowwrestler »

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.

That's not really the way the harm actually plays out.

The free rider problem generally won't affect entities that are very large, rich, and established. Microsoft has a ton of profitable relationships that won't just go away. Besides, they have so much money in the bank that they could easily fund the development of Windows 9 even if they did not receive a penny of revenue from Windows 8. Likewise, Radiohead is not checking the latest rates of piracy before deciding whether to put out another album. They have a big enough fan base that it doesn't really matter.

But, if the free rider problem is bad enough it harms the ability of new entities--who do not have deep cash reserves or established relationships--to grow large enough to challenge the incumbents. To go from garage to professional success means making enough sales to either bootstrap or convince investors to buy in. If most customers are taking the product and not paying, that obviously is going to be a lot harder to do.

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

#282

Post by EwanG »

grantheaslip wrote: post #196
tikhonj wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, copying is completely different from stealing, but we've been over that before. Secondly, stores actually do deal with shoplifting--they euphemistically call it "inventory shrinkage" and just chalk it up as an expense . "Unauthorized" copying isn't even an expense!

Fair point — I was being a bit facetious — but the fact remains that if a critical enough mass of people steal/copy Windows, it’s no longer economically viable. Every user who hasn’t paid for it is being subsidized by those who have. Windows may not be the best example since it’s so massively profitable, and sells a lot to enterprise customers and OEMs who won’t pirate it. That said, I suspect the business case for p…

So MS would announce that it is no longer making Windows, and companies would then have to decide whether they want to stay in business by moving to another OS or not. I'm sorry, but I think there is a STRONG argument that if something can be obtained easily for free, or worse can be obtained MORE easily for free, then trying to defend the model by making free illegal is much like trying to make people pay a wave tax or it's illegal for them to touch the water at the beach...

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

#283

Post by snowwrestler »

alexqgb wrote: post #275
funkah wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It seems folks have dug in and staked out their positions, much as they have with abortion, and are now just screaming at each other from across the chasm. Awfully stale indeed.

At the same time, some positions are clearly less informed than others. And there seem to a fair number of mindless idiots on either side, serving no purpose aside from getting the mindless idiots on the other side so riled up that the screaming din makes intelligent debate exceedingly difficult in any remotely public setting. The reality is that copyright law evolved over the course of three centuries during which t…

I would put your position into the "clearly less informed" camp, sorry.

Copyright originally was created as a legal concept shortly after the invention of the printing press* because individual small printers were making and selling copies of other people's books. At that time (about 400 years ago), there were no "well capitalized industrialists." The industrial revolution had not even happened yet, and the few corporations that existed at all were captives of the sovereign rulers who created them.

In addition, from the very beginning, copyright was an individual author right that accrued to people, not companies. That is how it was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for instance, although at that point in time it was already an old concept. The idea that it has always been (or is even today) a matter of industrial law is not accurate.

> In truth, copyright law - as it exists - is fundamentally and irredeemably incompatible with a democratic society in which citizens have the power to duplicate and distribute at virtually no cost.

This is the exact opposite of how public policy works. It is the very ease of copying that creates the need for a legal framework to regulate it. Before the printing press existed, copyright did not exist either--because it was not needed.

In a free society where copying is free, the most precious thing is original throught, original opinion, original content. That is the last true scarcity, and must be protected. Otherwise how are we to distinguish one citizen from another?

* BTW it is worth spending some time reviewing the history of the printing press and the impact it had on the world. I would argue that it was much more of a revolution than the Internet has been so far, although of course the Internet is still in its early stages of development.

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

#284

Post by jquery »

gamble wrote: post #233
ap22213 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Speaking from experience, piracy has a very strong influence on how much money video game companies are willing to spend on development.

The PC gaming market is very healthy, probably healthier than ever, so I honestly do not know what you are talking about here.

Triple-A games aren't targeted to consoles because of pirates, they are targeted to consoles because consumer demand is higher for console games. Only a few genres are more popular on PC, like RTS, MOAB, and MMORPG.

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

#285

Post by FreeFull »

matteodepalo wrote: post #244
roguecoder wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't understand how Ethics works. On the anti-piracy side there are two groups: The first are artists who believe, without any evidence, that they can make more money when copyright is enforced. The second are people start out assuming that the right to control information is a moral right. They then derive the ethical implication that people shouldn't pirate. On the pro-file sharing side there are two groups…

I totally agree. However I think we should include a third group in the pro-file sharing side: people who don't have the money to pay for content or just wont because they're cheap. The problem is that the anti-piracy side mostly sees this group instead of the other ones and that's why, imho, they claim that pirating is like stealing and that it causes the same damage.

If they don't have any money to pay, how is anyone losing any money when they download? This shouldn't hurt anyone in any way.

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

#288

Post by sirclueless »

pilom wrote: post #278
marknutter wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. LOL. Is that a threat?

I'm curious who your employer is and what your response would be if the parent said "What happens if nobody pays for a copy of ?"

You mean 3rd most profitable product :-P

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/windows-drops-to-no-3-ca...

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

#289

Post by mikeash »

SteveJS wrote: post #266
mikeash wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it gets tough (although I think the Golden Rule answers the temple question, and a lot of others). The thing is, in this case, they aren't even trying . The whole "you don't have a choice" bit rests on the assumption that piracy is immoral, and the posts themselves serve simply to remind people of that. It's rather condescending, and entirely pointless if they don't accept the assumption that piracy is i…

It can't quite be the Golden Rule .. "Do unto others as you'd have done unto you". I'm an atheist. I have zero holy places to profane. And yet I do think it is immoral to profane someone's holy place, despite my belief that it is a social creation. I don't believe many serious people would ascribe to this 'GR' moral logic: "I don't care if someone appropriates my creations" (because I give mine away, or I have none)…

The Golden Rule just needs a little more depth to be applied here. You have zero holy places, but if you had property, you'd want people to respect it. Therefore, you should respect other people's property.

I think it's very much condescending if you treat the immorality of piracy as a base assumption held by both parties. If you treat it simply as your own base assumption, that's fine. But treating it as a base assumption of the other side and then arguing against their behavior based on that qualifies in my book.

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

#290

Post by teamonkey »

jarek wrote: post #273
gamble wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you know that developers would put in more money into ports if piracy was eliminated and they had more sales at no cost to them?

The PC is certainly seen to be less profitable than consoles, which is why it's given a lesser priority.

For multi-platform titles, typically 360 and PS3 titles are developed in parallel. Often the PC version comes later, after the console releases have finished and a small subset of the console devs have time to polish the PC port.

Usually two reasons are given. One is that it's not worth the extra management complexity and dev time to release at the same time as the PC. The other is that the piracy rate on PC is so high that launching all platforms at the same time actually cannibalizes both PC and console sales.

PC games generally cost less at retail, but manufacturing costs are lower and no subsidies go to console owners. Dev costs are slightly harder due to the challenges of developing for a wide range of hardware vs two fixed targets. I think that the profit per unit sale is slightly higher on PC than console (I could be wrong).

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