Piracy

This came up in another discussion, and I think it deserves it’s own thread.

I was wondering what are your viewpoints on piracy?
Be it programs, music, games, or films.

Does it have any pros in addition to the cons we hear so much about?

Are you a pirate? For what reasons?

Is it right to ever illegaly copy a product?

I’d love to see some input on these questions and many more.

Internet Piracy is a problem, but eventually it will have to be tolerated, or the internet will become a more regulated, government-monitored medium than it is now. Nobody wants that. I think the most excusable and the most popular one is music piracy; it is the one I sympathize with the most since it seems to be the most victimless (record producers, distribution, big box store companies, media conglomerates, psh) of all the piracies. Films are quite profitable as is in America, it is in Asia where those billions of consumers aren’t paying their fair share for the films the West makes. China is the main source for that, however I sense not much will be done about it for now. That is a different form of piracy, where the legitimate seller gets beat out by knockoff disks for only $1-2. However many people are poor and it will persist no matter what should the status quo stay. I don’t know much about games and programs that are pirated; software is expensive and thus temptation to pirate that kind of software is huge.

I am not a pirate; I don’t use file-sharing programs. It’s not worth the risk and I don’t want to get any viruses or trojans.

Overall, I don’t see much of a problem from it however. Piracy will be around so long as there is demand and the supply is in its current form.

Stardock is an interesting reference point to use for this discussion, IMO.

Stardock’s products are shipped with no copy protection, however they provide considerable online support, competitive rankings, online highscores, updates etc. to people with legitimate copies. If you look around the Stardock boards, you can see many threads saying “I originally pirated this but I thought it was so good I went and purchased the real thing”. Essentially, they’ve realised that nothing they can do is going to stop people pirating their software (short of making it so bad that no-one can be bothered, but that’s not good business either), so they’re basically making the most of it and using it as free advertising.

Second post because editing causes confusion:

I have pirated software, movies, and a little music. I don’t feel guilty about it. Anything I would have actually payed money for, I purchase. I’m not depriving anyone of anything – anything I don’t buy, I wouldn’t have payed for if I had to – as far as I see it, if I can better my own position without hurting anyone else’s, I’d be a fool not to, and that’s basically what I’m doing.

That’s cool Jabor. Not everyone on these forums, or any forum for that matter, will admit to pirating anything.

I’ve always felt that piracy of programs, games, films, music etc is a good way to preview the product. Personally this has in the past led me to buy many products I never would have dreamed of trying in the first place. Due to games for the most part beeing unreasonably costly.

Whenever I find a game that I liked, or enjoyed. Be it old or new, I will buy a copy if I can afford it. Developers deserves our contribution when making a good product. If we refuse to buy then the industry will suffer, and furthermore they will take it as a sign that their product wasn’t wanted.

I’m a student now, so I can’t really afford much, but whenever I can afford a concept that I want to see more of, then I buy the product with that concept. As I see it, this is the only way to encourage companies to keep making products of such a concept.

Don’t know if this make any sense to you guys, but to me it does. You rarely see demos for computer games anymore, and testing a product before buying it is just common sense, isn’t it? You do test-drive a car before you buy it, and you look at a house beofre buying that aswel. Sadly many don’t care for the supporting of the developers and just pirate for the profit of themselves.

In the end though, some profit from this practice, and others don’t.

as Jabor I don’t feel bad about it either, but I do feel good when I buy the game. It’s someting special about owning the thing, with package and all.

It’s someting special about owning the thing, with package and all.

That’s why I have everything I’ve every purchase, original box, manual, disks – everything, stashed away. I still have some original game floppies!

It’s also why I try and purchase Collector’s Edition’s where possible, and barring that, games in unique and/or nonstandard cases (for example, the Baldur’s Gate 5CD original. You don’t see many games packaged like that).

I also insist on a printed manual. They are so much better than a silly .pdf.

I also insist on a printed manual. They are so much better than a silly .pdf.

Oh, I so agree with that. It’s someting special when you can feel it in your own hands, turning page for page. Just like with books vs e-books and newspapers vs internet papers.

I have a hard time beliving there are none that have any views to offer on piracy on an internet gaming site.

I think SP might actually be right on this one. Everyone else pirates stuff and thinks it’s OK, but they aren’t going to own up to it on a public forum.

Sad, but true.

However, they do not have to tell about all their piracy activities here, I’m interrested in viewpoints on piracy. Why? Why not? etc.

Piracy is so wide-spread it’s almost a way of life now, i have no shame in saying that i am a software pirate by today’s standards, but i don’t pirate everything i see… personally i like going out and buying CDs for my collection, books for my bookcase (and brain)

The guys over at penny arcade just posted about the new drm that will be in “Mass Effect” and “Spore” for the PC. Here is their comic on this subject and a link what they are talking about. Also EA backed down somewhat.

I posted about DRM over in the What is the Best Anti Virus Thread

“I consider things like DRM a why the hell are you bothering. Odds are there will be a creaked version of your game on warez sites a week before the game hits shelves with the DRM striped out. So all your doing is making life for your paying costumers a pain.

Then are the people like the ones that made crysis complaining that they did not sell many copies of their game. For starters make a game that can run on a decent computer(like a mid range rig from two years ago). Even with a core2duo(runing at 3Ghz) and a video card like the 8800GT and you still won’t hit medium settings and keep a decent framerate. If you go crazy and get the best system you can buy you still won’t be able to reach max settings."

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ4OSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

I’d like to add to the crysis thing a bit. They reduce the market for their game by making it a FPS and they reduce it even more by making it require insane hardware to run halfway decently. What I mean by making it a FPS is that the main market for that type of game is male age 16-24(while a game like the sims, sell to males and females of all ages), then on top of that, your shooting for a market that needs a good amount of money to keep there PC up to date. If you want to buy say the 9800GTX to get medium settings, you’ll spend about $300-400US, if you want to run them in SLI, that will set you back $700-800US. If your going to limit your market, you have to be ready to live with the consequences.

I would prefer a system where music is free, but concert tickets cost more. Would that even work? o-O

Could concert tickets cost more?

I can’t afford remotely as many concerst as I’d like.

Anyways, lots of copy-protection just makes the game harder to use by the legal owner.
I’ve come across cracked versions that I’ve prefered to use instead of my original in cases.

There’s a massive thread in the Bioware forums about the copy protection. The big point that keeps coming up is “this system inconveniences legitimate users more than pirates.”

Something else that kept coming up is that when it’s easier to download a pirated copy than install and use the real thing, you have a problem.

Oh, that is too true.

I cam across a game that had such aweseome copy-protection that the devs had to release a hot-fix that removed the while thing. Legit users couldn’t even run the game. lol.

Same with music. Some of the cd’s in my collection refuses to run when I try to put them in my cd-rom on the computer. :/

Yeah, well, Bioware are going to have to either keep servers up constantly, or release a patch that does the same for ME.

Which is going to mean if you want to archive the game to dig out in a couple of decades, you’re going to have to burn the patch and store that as well.

That’s just fucked. Sorry for my language here, but it is indeed exactly that.

I’ve already planned to buy ME anyways, and Spore as well, because I think both concepts seem highly interresting. Also all that I’ve heard about ME makes it a game that I want to support.

Sad how the consumer is hurt for the sake of forms of copy-protection that are doomed to be broken.

I don’t pirate things, but I think the people who own the things pirated should be the ones trying to do something about it.

Err… what?

The consumers owning the products, or the companies that produced them?
And do exactly what?

…what do you think copy protection is for? Except it’s entirely ineffectual. To stop people pirating your software, you need to give them a reason to not pirate it, instead of making it slightly harder to pirate while simultaneously inconveniencing the people who are actually paying money for your product a whole lot.

I know someone who has a philosophy that goes like this: “I will pirate a game, music file, software, Whatever, if I know that it is not above average, and I do not particularly LOVE the company. But if the company that produces this item is a company I like, I will buy it to support them”. I agree with this.

In this section of the forum, I have made some big confessions. Now, I will admit to pirating different things.

Music: I will when A) I want it now, like the Black Tide CD on release day. It was PA, so I would have had to wait until my brother bought me a copy, which would take forever. B) I can’t find it. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find a copy of the first Iron Maiden CD for less than $20 in this town of half a million people, so I pirated it. 3) I get it from the library. Our public library has a larger music collection than most stores, and this makes it much too easy to rip a not-so-awesome CD. I won’t pirate music when I can find it at a decent price, it’s not PA, and I actually enjoy it.

Software: A) It is ridiculously expensive. I accidentally pirated Flash 8, I think. I searched forever for it, and finally found it at some strange, not specifically pirate, site. After 30 days, however, I was still able to use it. B) It is old. I love old games. More than 90% of the new stuff. It is impossible to find games like the first Roller Coaster Tycoon and older SimCity games in stores.