Media Piracy

[Ragnell]

Piracy? I don't do it. I try to be a good person and all, but there's more to it than that. Even though I may have no moral problem with downloading Sacred Stone's ROM ('cause it's old and I'm not stealing profit from Nintendo), the government disagrees. I doubt that I'd get caught anyway, but I don't take the chance. I'm sort of a perfectionist, so little what-ifs nag at me to no end. So I simply eliminate them. And I want to be a good person. :D

I have illegaly gotten music 1 time ever, and that was me putting a song from the library's CD on my Ipod. And yes that's not quite pirating, but it's the same idea.

[Chalis]

Yeah, I pirate. I borrow games from friends back and forth via hard copy. The company isn't making any money by me playing my friend's game who was probably another person's game too. Libraries are perfect examples of getting things for free too, although, they're not illegal. Any video rental store is almost pirating too. They buy the movies and make profit from renting the stuff out. The company makes no future profit from people renting the movies from the video store. Radios make no money out of playing music, and people listen for free. Being near by a concert and hearing the songs for free works out too. But when the internet is involved the world goes mad because anyone can do anything on a mass scale. Companies make their initial break from selling their goods to retailers, and then are units sold. I rather not get caught up in buying something furthering and increasing debt to who ever. I'm a neutral kind of person, but others view me on 'the wrong side'.

Money = Debt, as some of you know.

[Celice]

If I end up using a thing I pirate long enough, and it seems good enough, next chance I get with my funds, I go back and purchase the thing. Last one was Fallout 3--knowing the outcome of users and their construction set, I knew it was an instant purchase, but I couldn't afford it until just a week ago (my timecard goes monthly, as does my check).

[Doom103]

You're full of shit, it's not even close to the same.

Why not?

[YokaiKnight]

This is one of the ways the rich keep getting richer.

Uh, what's inherently wrong with rich people getting richer?

[Liz]

you people DO realize that if there is too much pirating, there won't be any incentive to actually create anything anymore, right?

its the possibility to make money that attracts many peoples, you know. After all, business is business, and from a businessman's perspective, if there is no monetary gain from doing something, there's no point in doing it. That is the way the world works.

Having said this, I admit that I have pirated things before. but i don't make it a habit.

Yeah, I pirate. I borrow games from friends back and forth via hard copy. The company isn't making any money by me playing my friend's game who was probably another person's game too. Libraries are perfect examples of getting things for free too, although, they're not illegal. Any video rental store is almost pirating too. They buy the movies and make profit from renting the stuff out. The company makes no future profit from people renting the movies from the video store. Radios make no money out of playing music, and people listen for free. Being near by a concert and hearing the songs for free works out too. But when the internet is involved the world goes mad because anyone can do anything on a mass scale. Companies make their initial break from selling their goods to retailers, and then are units sold. I rather not get caught up in buying something furthering and increasing debt to who ever. I'm a neutral kind of person, but others view me on 'the wrong side'.

Money = Debt, as some of you know.

you are aware that in order for video stores and radio stations to work and be legal, they have to pay for licenses? i'm not sure about libraries, but i wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have to pay for licenses too.

Edited December 13, 2008 by Bianchi Ridell Crimea

[Defeatist Elitist]

Uh, what's inherently wrong with rich people getting richer?

Generally, their is an implied "without working for it. And the poor just keep getting all their money taken." tacked on at the end. :P

[YokaiKnight]

Generally, their is an implied "without working for it. And the poor just keep getting all their money taken." tacked on at the end. :P

Generally=/=inherently. I know what's usually connotated by that, but I wanted Death to elaborate so I tried not to jump to conclusions.

[Krevin]

Torrenting a CD is the same as shop lifting one

just if you torrent you wont get caught

I've stolen my share of CD's from Target, and I've never gotten caught.

Moot point is moot lololol

[lolDeath]

Why not?

Because when you shoplift you are taking something that money went into creating, actual physical items. Pirating music costs them sales, it doesn't make them actually lose money in the same way. Also, stores buy the albums from other places and just raise the prices, shoplifting hurts the STORE and not the actual creators and distributors of the music so much.

And I forgot who I said that other thing do, but Revan is correct. A billionaire making millions on his ass from owning.. I don't know, a restaurant chain while someone who is building a school is struggling in life is a pathetic reality.

[Starwolf_UK]

Torrenting a CD is the same as shop lifting one

just if you torrent you wont get caught

Also who is the victim? Some potential profits. Would the customer have bought it in the first place? If yes is the answer you need to work out why they didn't. Speed and convieniance are basically it. Music is sorted pretty much, games are getting there (several digital distributions all fighting each other but most of them still are stuck with region locking everything for various reasons) but TV and films is where you'll run into problems but it is a dawn. Streaming media hasn't reached top dog in quality yet and it probably cannot for the next 20 years due to the infastructure of the internet not being able to handle, say streaming a high definition movie as well as the fact doing that will cripple your average shitty ISP with their 3 GB monthly transfer limit some ISPs had the cheek to say "Net Neutrality is a load of old bolocks" and companies like youtube should pay them else their site will be bvandwidth shaped...of course will the money go into upgrading the shitty ISPs infastructure or customer services...oh no, keep reeling in new customers down a 50-year old copper wire

Stealing is the wrong word to use but it is hard trying to find the right word. Fraud is about the closest you'll get but even that feels iffy. It is hard to find a word that has impact without exagurating the truth.

As for the whole its fine the companies made thier profit its up to retail to shift it. Actually if a product is selling poorly accross the baord the publisher will price protect it. That is lower the wholesale price thus giving money back to the retailers who will then drop their in-store prices. If a publisher doesn't price protect they risk selling less in the future retailers will turn around and go "well your last one didn't sell so we're not getting much of this one".

you are aware that in order for video stores and radio stations to work and be legal, they have to pay for licenses? i'm not sure about libraries, but i wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have to pay for licenses too.

That is correct, radios (as well as shops) need liscences for whatever they are playing. As for video rental stores. The industry provides them with speical rental copies. As far as videogames go technically the industry could just turn arround and outlaw it completely if they want to. In Belgium that has happened. I guess the hard times the eccenomy is in caused publishers to outlaw rentals in an attempt to boost sales...

Personally, that isn't the right approach. Make a legal form on renting would be better.

This might be an interesting read. A developer put out a simple question; "Why do people pirate my games?" and here is a summary of the findings made. The logic steps don't always work* but it is interesting to hear some justifications

Also suing the hell out of everyone isn't going to work either (its not like ROM sites and old game sites have shut down because of gametap and the virtual console) but some companies are trying a scare tactic anyway.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p...p;postcount=106[/url] ]Most of the action publishers and distibutors are taking now are against users directly and it has taken a much darker tone in recent years.

A few publishers (notably Atari and Eidos) now contract a European company to seed torrents of their games on the network and gather IP addresses that way. The idea is to turn it into a revenue stream by sending threatening letters demanding a settlement to people threatening court action.

This really is one of the most disgusting turns in the whole piracy debate since the publishers are now actively trying to use entrapment to make a profit. Fortunately in many European countries (Germany, Spain and France among them) the company involved has been told that they face prosecution if they attempt to carry out their little scam and sent packing. Unfortunately they have now cropped up in the UK and are using Davenport-Lyons, a respected firm of Barristers, to process their claims.

You basically get a letter demanding £500 or thereabouts and threatening to take you to court if you don't pay. They really are preying on the gullible since they know that they can't take anyone to court. If they actually did try to go into a law court the case would be thrown out and they would be liable under UK law. Instead they are hoping to snare some uninformed people who panic and send them the money.

The porn industry has recently undertaken the same route. Evil Angel were the first I think, a number of cases revolving around Bitchcraft 2 sprung up.

The whole thing is made even more ridiculous because they got arrogant in Denmark and tried to sue someone. That person immediately defended themself by saying their wireless network was compromised and the case was thrown out. They've stopped operating in that country now.

They'll stop eventually when a judge rules what they are doing is unethical. The current advice is to not ignore the letter (the only case they ever won was someone not turning up to court) but send them letters back telling them that you are fully aware of the laws and will defend yourself with legal means in court. They'll go away as soon as you do that.

I suppose those tactics will keep the shareholders happy as it drives piracy underground.

In a way the media itself is to blame for the rise of piracy. They throw about words like modchip, the pirate bay and the like as if they have no meaning. Back in my day before we had a proper internet (the world wide web had only just been born, usenet had pretty much made BBS obsolete) you would have to go via shady mail order companies to buy a backup playing device for your games consoles and they cost a hell of a lot more than a modchip (the flipside is they could actually cut copies of games) and couldn't be upgraded in the same way (you'ld have to buy the new model) and then getting the games either required a long chain of friends to get down to someone with a form of internet access who probably had to dial into an expensive BBS to download the files at...0.5kb/s or a dodgey market stall with someone selling a load of floppies with the games on.

Also the end result was inferior due to the fact you would have to load your game of a floppy disc which would take a couple of minutes but from the era of tape based games (which were far easier to copy, you just need a tape player with two inputs and it can cut copies...of course the quality would degrade for each copy meaning owning the original was worth while) made people used to it.

Then there was the 56k era. You wouldn't dream of copying PC games as downloading 600MB at 5kb/s and being charged by the minute was a deterant. Though most dumping groups back then would hack the games to not require the CD and only the hard drive instalation. Of course that means no music, FMV and the like. So again inferior experiance. Unless you can find that market stall selling cut copies...

Basically these days piracy is too easy and anti social. When your pirated music by tape you would have to go round to that persons house and have a conversation or something in the *length of tape* it took to copy. Nowerdays you click up some torrent and walk away for a few minutes and you're done.

Edited December 13, 2008 by Starwolf_UK

[SmartRutter7]

Here are the results. There were 67 votes total. Thanks for voting. Survey is closed.

btw below are the percents and amount of people that voted for that particular option. :P

1. How often, if at all, do you pirate or otherwise illegally obtain media over the Internet?

Very often 46.3% 31

Occasionally 35.8% 24

Maybe once or twice 10.4% 7

Never 7.5% 5

2. Do you think that it is wrong to illegally download or copy music?

No 50.7% 34

Yes 28.4% 19

Only in certain cases. (explain when below) 20.9% 14

3. Do you think it is wrong to download videos, such as content ripped from dvds?

No 37.3% 25

Sometimes 31.3% 21

Yes 31.3% 21

4. What about video games? do you think it is wrong to download those illegally?

No 31.3% 21

Yes but it is only wrong if they are newer games, older ones are fine. (or if the developer is still making money on it, it's wrong). 50.7% 34

Yes, no matter how old it is. 17.9% 12

5. Are you at all worried of getting caught, if you do pirate anything?

Yes, I'm worried 3.0% 2

somewhat worried 31.3% 21

not worried 65.7% 44

6. If you do pirate, do you use bittorrent or other torrent software to obtain media?

Yes 68.7% 46

No 19.4% 13

I don't pirate 11.9% 8

7. Do you think that DRM (Digital Rights Managment) is helping to limit piracy at all?

Yes 7.5% 5

No 56.7% 38

Not sure/don't know what it is. 35.8% 24

8. How much do you think media piracy is affecting the businesses that create said media?

It has affected it a lot 20.9% 14

Somewhat 49.3% 33

Not at all 29.9% 20

9. Would you be fine with ISPs being able to use filtering software to track illegal downloads and stop them?

Absolutely not 80.6% 54

I wouldn't mind 17.9% 12

Yes, i think this would be a good thing to enact 1.5% 1

10. Do you think that ISP filtering would be helpful in reducing the amount of piracy on the Internet?

Yes 14.9% 10

Maybe somewhat 53.7% 36

No 31.3% 21

Edited December 17, 2008 by SmartRutter7