We may buy less CDs, but go to gigs more often and perhaps buy a band t-shirt while there (everyone knows that the profits from the tour shirts goes almost uncut to the band, opposed to random vendors).
We go to gigs more often because of piracy ? How you know that ?
We buy less CDs, period. Theres no reason to think individuals have a constant propotion of their budget for entertainment. Preferences is extremely obscure topic, specially because it's very indivual thing. It's 100% impossible to deduce what consumers do with the money they "save" by using pirate entertaiment. To be honest the only thing we can tell about the effects of piracy on consumer's choice is that free entertaiment is a insentive for workers to produce less ( trade-off between work and have fun reduces is pushed to the "have fun" side once having fun costs less). This would be a good thing - workers working less and spending more times with their families - except they doing that because of they are "stealing", not because they are earning more and producing more. Piracy promotes a global reduction of labor supply and prejudices economic growth of nations.
Agregate all companies in one single entity is also a mistake. Agregation is only possible when theres reason to believe utility of all agents in a group variates based on the same stimulus. If someone decide to eat fancy food cause he no longer needs to spend money on movies it will please the food chain producers, but not the movie chain producers.
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
As you see, the only entertainment industry experiencing a declining profit margin in the US is music (and it's hard to say whether it's simply because of the recession). All others are growing, and in fact they have been growing a lot faster than other industries in average. Entertainment industry has been and is the fastest growing industry in the world.
lol you're killing statistics o.O
You're impling no correlation between piracy and profits (or production). This can only be done using another tools, basically because profit margins are correlated with dozen of other factors and it might be growthing because of those other factors. No way we can tell.
I never read any study explaining this growth, but it's natural that entertaiment keeps growing undefinetly while other industries stay behind because while people get more money as time goes buy the needs for many services (health, transport, education) stays more or less constant.
Another important point to take in consideration is that profit margins includes profit over the entire good, not only the intellectual one (and piracy only hurst the profits over intellectual goods).
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
This is not true. Small companes sell ther softver in low cost, so even people that pirated softwer will support them. This is most obvious with games. If you sell somthing that is cheap, a lot more customers will buy it, including pirates. Pireting exists in this big numbers because people cant afford to buy things. With other words, if you want to stop pirating in this big numbers, you need to lower the price, or better increases the economy status of people that pirates.
Another important point to take in consideration is that profit margins includes profit over the entire good, not only the intellectual one (and piracy only hurst the profits over intellectual goods).
Piracy doesn't hurt profit. Simple because there would be no profit from them.
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
This is not true. Small companes sell ther softver in low cost, so even people that pirated softwer will support them. This is most obvious with games. If you sell somthing that is cheap, a lot more customers will buy it, including pirates. Pireting exists in this big numbers because people cant afford to buy things. With other words, if you want to stop pirating in this big numbers, you need to lower the price, or better increases the economy status of people that pirates.
The size of the company doesn't matter. Everyone is affected by piracy in some manner. Even Android and iOS apps that sell for $1 are pirated. Pirating exists because these commodities (music, apps, software, movies, etc) cost money. Until everything is free, piracy will continue and it will be a factor.
Another important point to take in consideration is that profit margins includes profit over the entire good, not only the intellectual one (and piracy only hurst the profits over intellectual goods).
Piracy doesn't hurt profit. Simple because there would be no profit from them.
Of course piracy hurts profits. The statement that "I wouldn't buy it anyway" is such a poor argument. To try and prove it's the prevailing thought behind piracy is impossible. Frankly, it's just another way to try and justify theft.
Like I said, all of the content in ACTA is secondary to US law, and does not in any way "affect the way we run things around here".
I know you've said in the past you're for a global agenda (something similar, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe nationalist was the term you used), however I am not. I want nothing to do with a global agenda. I don't want my government to poke it's nose into other countries business just like I don't want other countries doing it to us.
It has nothing to do with separating the PEOPLE of the countries and everything to do with keeping the governments apart.
Are you honestly trying to say just because it's labeled an agreement it doesn't have to be followed? Which country is going to sign the agreement and then not follow it? Does it have to be? No. Will they? Yes. That's sort of the point.
The more agreements made, treaties signed and legislation passed to try to homogenize our governments I worry more and more about the state of the world. If governments can become corrupt now, which I think most people have seen at least to some extent, thinking about a global government at some point in the future disturbs me. The UN and NATO is bad enough. Each country should deal with its own problems in its own way, we shouldn't have ruling councils to decide what is morally okay for one country or decide there is some sort of threat when in fact there isn't. (see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).
I'd much rather see every country stay sovereign. That's what America was founded on, staying sovereign as a republic of it's own.
Like I said, all of the content in ACTA is secondary to US law, and does not in any way "affect the way we run things around here".
I know you've said in the past you're for a global agenda (something similar, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe nationalist was the term you used), however I am not. I want nothing to do with a global agenda. I don't want my government to poke it's nose into other countries business just like I don't want other countries doing it to us.
It has nothing to do with separating the PEOPLE of the countries and everything to do with keeping the governments apart.
Are you honestly trying to say just because it's labeled an agreement it doesn't have to be followed? Which country is going to sign the agreement and then not follow it? Does it have to be? No. Will they? Yes. That's sort of the point.
The more agreements made, treaties signed and legislation passed to try to homogenize our governments I worry more and more about the state of the world. If governments can become corrupt now, which I think most people have seen at least to some extent, thinking about a global government at some point in the future disturbs me. The UN and NATO is bad enough. Each country should deal with its own problems in its own way, we shouldn't have ruling councils to decide what is morally okay for one country or decide there is some sort of threat when in fact there isn't. (see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).
I'd much rather see every country stay sovereign. That's what America was founded on, staying sovereign as a republic of it's own.
The Kyoto Accord for the win, people don't have to follow what they "agree" to. I can agree on your other points of how the UN is terrible. I also like the idea we should focus on our own country, unfortunately don't live in a world that supports this idea anymore i.e. America shitty banking + Wall Street = economic meltdown for world, which then kick starts a potential EU economic collapse (yes separate issue but this surely never helped).
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
I think in this day and age if a country or several makes agreements they are bound to it pretty closely unless the request is absurd. Imagine if everyone else was following it just fine and then one country decided to disagree, they would be scorned.
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
This is not true. Small companes sell ther softver in low cost, so even people that pirated softwer will support them. This is most obvious with games. If you sell somthing that is cheap, a lot more customers will buy it, including pirates. Pireting exists in this big numbers because people cant afford to buy things. With other words, if you want to stop pirating in this big numbers, you need to lower the price, or better increases the economy status of people that pirates.
You're implying big companies = big price goods, small companies = small price goods. Thats your mistake.
Small company suffer more because they can't afford counter piracy strategies and because they profit margin are usually smaller to begin with. While piracy only hurt big companies profits, it takes small companies out of business.
I think in this day and age if a country or several makes agreements they are bound to it pretty closely unless the request is absurd. Imagine if everyone else was following it just fine and then one country decided to disagree, they would be scorned.
Which is why torture was completely banned, right? *Glares at USA*
If ACTA interferes with our local law, in my case swiss law, it's likely going to run into heavy resistance sooner or later. Sometimes our politicians actually make smart decisions, I hope they will here aswell. I'm not sure we get to vote on this.
One day your child will ask, daddy where were you when they made the internet lame. Hopefully your answer will be: raising hell.
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"Traitors! Even in death, the armies of Khanduras will still obey their king!"
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
This is not true. Small companes sell ther softver in low cost, so even people that pirated softwer will support them. This is most obvious with games. If you sell somthing that is cheap, a lot more customers will buy it, including pirates. Pireting exists in this big numbers because people cant afford to buy things. With other words, if you want to stop pirating in this big numbers, you need to lower the price, or better increases the economy status of people that pirates.
You're implying big companies = big price goods, small companies = small price goods. Thats your mistake.
Small company suffer more because they can't afford counter piracy strategies and because they profit margin are usually smaller to begin with. While piracy only hurt big companies profits, it takes small companies out of business.
You say that big companies don't suffer more because they can aforde county piracy strateges, that has no real effect at piracy, and only harms their customers. Small company don't invest lot in country pirating because they know that they can't stop it, and they don't get any benefits from trying it. Also small companies will succeed if they are good and make good products no metter of pirecy. But if they have bad products they will fail much faster becose of pirecy. Piracy does not lower the competition, it removes bad competition.
All the DRM and other securities for games are not to stop pirates, but to give them time to sell their games, if the game is bad, it will not be sailed at all because of feedback of pirates, if the game is good, it will be sailed a lot, no metter of pirating. Same is for small companies, if thy sell good product,they will have profit no matter of pirating.
Companies think that every downloaded illegal software is a loss for them, but that is not true at all. They lose potential customers, but a lot of them, were never there potential customers, and never will be.
I should mention that I saw on TV here in Canada a lot of opposition to our version of 'protect the children act'. Seems like our 'democrats' are calling it out as spying basically. Good stuff!
You say that big companies don't suffer more because they can aforde county piracy strateges, that has no real effect at piracy, and only harms their customers.
If counter piracy has no effect on piracy why do companies spend time, money and resources to fight it ? We're not talking about fringe market strategies here. Counter piracy is a wide spread pratice among every heavy R&D industry and those guys know what they are doing, believe me. Counter piracy would never be applied without alot of industrial research and evidence.
Small company don't invest lot in country pirating because they know that they can't stop it, and they don't get any benefits from trying it. Also small companies will succeed if they are good and make good products no metter of pirecy. But if they have bad products they will fail much faster becose of pirecy. Piracy does not lower the competition, it removes bad competition.
I totally agree with your first statement. Small companies don't invest in counter piracy because they don't benefict from it. This is just a different way to say they can't afford it.
Afford doesn't mean only money. If a small companies produce some B game (Runic producing Torchlight 2), they know they shouldn't add a lot of user unfriendly features (counter piracy). If they do they will just draw hate towards an not so loved product. Now if Blizzard launch a triple AAA like Diablo they know some people will hate the counter piracy but the public likes Diablo enough to support the absense of offline mode, for exemple. Blizzard can afford counter piracy, Runic can't.
However small companies can't produce "good" products. Remember we're talking about intellectual goods and property rights. Small companies can't inovate because they don't have enough money for R&D. A small company will never be able to make a game thats 10% of Diablo's quality (I mean production quality - gameplay, graphics, sounds, plot, etc...). Indie dudes might be able to inovate, doing crazy new games, but thats only on genres that requires low production quality. You don't see a good indie RTS or FPS or Action on steam do you?
Piracy is alot harder for those people because they are doomed to loose sales for it. They simply can't use counter piracy strategies.
Piracy does not lower the competition, it removes bad competition.
Dude that such an evil thing to say. You've no idea how hard life is for people who are trying to enter the industry. Just because a company can't afford genius level programmers doesn't mean they are bad and should be wiped out of the market. In the end they can produce something new, maybe not great, but new. They could gain earn some money cause people still buy a bad games just to pass time and they would be doing a honest work. Be cause of piracy, people are allowed to steal their work, totally breaking the legs of someone whos trying to emerge. If market expels some pratices because of it's own laws of functioning thats ok. Being stealed is not bad market pratice.
And "bad competition" has nothing to do with bad companies existing. A bad company competes and contributes to eveyrone's wellfare by offering more options and pushing prices down (they reduce market power of bigger companies). Companies leaving the market because of institutional issues reduces competition ALLWAYS. Ex: Because of piracy Runic's can't make a lot of money. The company will grow really slow and won't be able to compete with Blizzard at any time soon. Theres less competition in the hack and slash arpg market, which is allways bad.
All the DRM and other securities for games are not to stop pirates, but to give them time to sell their games, if the game is bad, it will not be sailed at all because of feedback of pirates, if the game is good, it will be sailed a lot, no metter of pirating. Same is for small companies, if thy sell good product,they will have profit no matter of pirating.
This only have any sense if feedback allways detracts sales. This is completlety untrue, specially for bigger companies (the ones who apply counter piracy reletlesly). You're impling that people will just be nice and buy instead of steal just because they like that thing. The more people like something, more they want it. They accept a higher price but allways prefer to pay nothing and will do it if they can.
It's like saying if I open a store with really great products i don't need any security or sales men. People will get those things and selflesly leave the money just because they liked my supply.
Companies think that every downloaded illegal software is a loss for them, but that is not true at all. They lose potential customers, but a lot of them, were never there potential customers, and never will be.
Companies don't think that. They think a % of downloaded software is a loss for them. While many people only consume something because it's free, many others would pay for it only if it was needed. Without counter piracy strategies sales of softwares would be ridicolous, the industry would not even exist to this day.
@Don_guillotine: It's hard to determine but industry economists do it at daily basis. The industry would never apply such public hated features like "no more lan mod" or "online only singleplayer" if it wasn't profitable, and people estimate how profitable a certain move is long before actually applying it.
Changing business model is just one of the possible reactions. Companies fight piracy the best way they can - cutting the offline game mode and investing in heavy online policy. This is highly detrimentrial for the customerers who had a whole universe shutted in their face - moding, lan parties, etc...
Other reaction is seize to exist. The industry is doing fine but piracy still make it's victims. Piracy effect different companies in many different ways. The industry has too much agregation, it's impossible to analyse it. I'm sure Titan Quest's developer would still exist if it wasn't for piracy. Once i was a avid TQ players and the vast majority of people i knew in that game played with illegal copies. Now they are doing a indie undergod game that I really want to succeed but I already know it's going to be a finantial suicide for that guy - because people will simply steal his game, his work, he will not be properly payed for what his offering to people who play his game.
The entertaiment industry survive piracy not because piracy is irrelevant - but because they reacted. This reaction was far from good if you ask me. Sorry but I would love to live in a world were I could play D3 offline and maybe some mods, were small developers like the guys doing Path of Exile and Grim Dawn would not bankrupt because people are stealing for then.
You say that big companies don't suffer more because they can aforde county piracy strateges, that has no real effect at piracy, and only harms their customers.
If counter piracy has no effect on piracy why do companies spend time, money and resources to fight it ? We're not talking about fringe market strategies here. Counter piracy is a wide spread pratice among every heavy R&D industry and those guys know what they are doing, believe me. Counter piracy would never be applied without alot of industrial research and evidence.
Il say it again, because when the game is released, the incomes are highest in that few months. The protections is to give them time, so the game is not pirated the moment it is relesed, when there is most income.
However small companies can't produce "good" products. Remember we're talking about intellectual goods and property rights. Small companies can't inovate because they don't have enough money for R&D. A small company will never be able to make a game thats 10% of Diablo's quality (I mean production quality - gameplay, graphics, sounds, plot, etc...). Indie dudes might be able to inovate, doing crazy new games, but thats only on genres that requires low production quality. You don't see a good indie RTS or FPS or Action on steam do you?
What are you saying? Did you ever play any quality indie game? They don't have good gameplay and storyline or music of AAA? Lol. That is exactly what they have, and why they are sucsesful There are games with the quality gameplay, great story and music that is better then most of AAA games. The only thing that they cant have is best 3d grafic (for shooters), but they still have great graphic and some of the best art dizayn i ever saw. This sentence is so wrong man, you must play some indy games .
Piracy is alot harder for those people because they are doomed to loose sales for it. They simply can't use counter piracy strategies.
This is also not correct, I will tell you way. First they don't have any protection against piracy (or very small one, that is broken in 15 min), so there would never be any games by your standards that would sell, and indy industry would never exist (everyone would get it for free). But there's one thing why this doesn't happen. Low cost of the game, makes it much more accessible to people that pyret the game, and second they are great games, so people want to suport them,much more than big companies, and want to see new product from them. Most of pirates are not selfish idiots, but are just people that can't afford it.
Piracy does not lower the competition, it removes bad competition.
Dude that such an evil thing to say. You've no idea how hard life is for people who are trying to enter the industry. Just because a company can't afford genius level programmers doesn't mean they are bad and should be wiped out of the market. In the end they can produce something new, maybe not great, but new. They could gain earn some money cause people still buy a bad games just to pass time and they would be doing a honest work.
Evil? People will not pay for bad products, if they know it's a bad product, you must know that. They would pay because of marketing, and not because of bad product. Can a bad company produce somthing good? Maybe, but It's much bigger chance that a bad company will not produce a good product. Also i'm not talking about programmers, but their end products.
And "bad competition" has nothing to do with bad companies existing. A bad company competes and contributes to eveyrone's wellfare by offering more options and pushing prices down (they reduce market power of bigger companies). Companies leaving the market because of institutional issues reduces competition ALLWAYS.
This is also not corect. Competition is NEVER EVER made with bad companies against good ones, AND PRICES ARE NEVER LOWER BECAUSE OF BAD PRODUCTS. NEVER. Competition is made because of competition with good products. You can have a ton of bad products, it will never lower the price of a good one. I'm talking here of a product that is bad and has similer cost to a good one.
Because of piracy Runic's can't make a lot of money. The company will grow really slow and won't be able to compete with Blizzard at any time soon. Theres less competition in the hack and slash arpg market, which is allways bad.
It's not because of piracy. You must understand that the income if there was no pirecy would not increase dramatically, if not at all. Pirecy exists because most of them DON'T HAVE MONEY TO PAY.
It will compete with blizzard because it offers somthing different from d3.
All the DRM and other securities for games are not to stop pirates, but to give them time to sell their games, if the game is bad, it will not be sailed at all because of feedback of pirates, if the game is good, it will be sailed a lot, no metter of pirating. Same is for small companies, if thy sell good product,they will have profit no matter of pirating.
This only have any sense if feedback allways detracts sales. This is completlety untrue, specially for bigger companies (the ones who apply counter piracy reletlesly). You're impling that people will just be nice and buy instead of steal just because they like that thing. The more people like something, more they want it. They accept a higher price but allways prefer to pay nothing and will do it if they can.
Country piracy are not effective at all. There is no game on this world that is not craced or pirated. Tell me a game that was not pirated? There are non, and never will be. Does industry exist.? Yes. Why, when they can wait 1 month after release and get the pirated version for free? Tell me?
People will buy product because they want more of it, and not becose its nice. If you like torchligt, and have money, you will pirate the game, and then you will buy it becose you want to see torchlight 2.
Companies think that every downloaded illegal software is a loss for them, but that is not true at all. They lose potential customers, but a lot of them, were never there potential customers, and never will be.
Companies don't think that. They think a % of downloaded software is a loss for them. While many people only consume something because it's free, many others would pay for it only if it was needed. Without counter piracy strategies sales of softwares would be ridicolous, the industry would not even exist to this day.
People consume somthing for free because they don't have money for it. There are always a minority that even if they can afford to buy, never will.
Without counter piracy? Il repeat, what game was not cracked? Counter piracy doesn't stop from pirating games. And thats for more then 20 years . I still see industry growing, and is still here.
If the things you said would be true, we would not have today that industrybecause counter piracy methods are not effective in any way.
The entertaiment industry survive piracy not because piracy is irrelevant - but because they reacted. This reaction was far from good if you ask me. Sorry but I would love to live in a world were I could play D3 offline and maybe some mods, were small developers like the guys doing Path of Exile and Grim Dawn would not bankrupt because people are stealing for then.
They cant react.
From your answer I see that you're not that much informed in all this. I know all this stuf becose I am a active pirate.
If you want to stop piracy in big numbers (there will always be a minorty that will never pay), there are only 2 things you can do:
1.llower the cost of games
2.Increase the economy standard of all people that pirate
Pirating was active a long time ago, when there was no internet. If ACTA and thing that would one day forbid downloading ilegal sofvet from internet in entire world. piracy will not die, not even be lowered. The biggest benefits from it will get pirates sellers, and will start again selling like it was 15 years ago.
Also, most of people will always support and buy a product if they like it and have money for it. If this was not true, today software industry would not exsist, because you can get anything for free.
Also read this, it's really interesting to see why some are pirating.
Great argument Ragnar.
I would like to say though that none of this has anything to do with law, the use of the word law much of the time is fraudulent use.
Everything discussed here has entirely been about legal fiction.
Nothing involved here has intrinsic value, none of it has anything to do with basic needs and is pure luxury.
If you wish to combat piracy you do it through innovation protecting your own interests, it is support of unqualified tyranny when through socialist intimidation a 3rd party("Governments") pretend they are creating policy in the public interest when serving a minority. While encouraging authoritarian legislature in a self serving manner in a fictional market through which it intends to cause unlawful damage as a consequence (Damage to property). Use of legality to break a law does not supersede a law, signing a contract on behalf of the people of a land is never binding only to those pledging fealty. But then people are ignorant to the law and make this pledge all the time.
Attempting to impart economic growth through extrinsic/luxury trade commodities is in principle vampiric and detracts completely from what it feigns to promote, thus fiction with no intrinsic value, no necessities only luxuries.
This is perhaps why Asian governments wish to crack down on internet gaming as it is very much a blight to stable growth building a sustainable community, there is nothing sustainable about paper/fiction trading useless consumers, as some would put it.
If you are trading luxury/paper/fiction and not providing your own necessity, another must be providing your necessity as well as their own while luxury is superfluous and in the invent it outweighs the necessity producer you have a fantastic collapse.
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We go to gigs more often because of piracy ? How you know that ?
We buy less CDs, period. Theres no reason to think individuals have a constant propotion of their budget for entertainment. Preferences is extremely obscure topic, specially because it's very indivual thing. It's 100% impossible to deduce what consumers do with the money they "save" by using pirate entertaiment. To be honest the only thing we can tell about the effects of piracy on consumer's choice is that free entertaiment is a insentive for workers to produce less ( trade-off between work and have fun reduces is pushed to the "have fun" side once having fun costs less). This would be a good thing - workers working less and spending more times with their families - except they doing that because of they are "stealing", not because they are earning more and producing more. Piracy promotes a global reduction of labor supply and prejudices economic growth of nations.
Agregate all companies in one single entity is also a mistake. Agregation is only possible when theres reason to believe utility of all agents in a group variates based on the same stimulus. If someone decide to eat fancy food cause he no longer needs to spend money on movies it will please the food chain producers, but not the movie chain producers.
Another known effect of piracy is that it makes really hard for small/new companies to enter the market - it reduces the competition between companies in a given intellectual industry, which is ineficient result. In order fight against piracy by their own they have increased fixed costs which makes harder for then to compete because they can't afford. Investments in R&D for outside public in small companies are terrible. Because they can't invest in new technologies, very rarely a small group compete against the oligopolies of eletronics and software industries.
lol you're killing statistics o.O
You're impling no correlation between piracy and profits (or production). This can only be done using another tools, basically because profit margins are correlated with dozen of other factors and it might be growthing because of those other factors. No way we can tell.
I never read any study explaining this growth, but it's natural that entertaiment keeps growing undefinetly while other industries stay behind because while people get more money as time goes buy the needs for many services (health, transport, education) stays more or less constant.
Another important point to take in consideration is that profit margins includes profit over the entire good, not only the intellectual one (and piracy only hurst the profits over intellectual goods).
This is not true. Small companes sell ther softver in low cost, so even people that pirated softwer will support them. This is most obvious with games. If you sell somthing that is cheap, a lot more customers will buy it, including pirates. Pireting exists in this big numbers because people cant afford to buy things. With other words, if you want to stop pirating in this big numbers, you need to lower the price, or better increases the economy status of people that pirates.
Piracy doesn't hurt profit. Simple because there would be no profit from them.
The size of the company doesn't matter. Everyone is affected by piracy in some manner. Even Android and iOS apps that sell for $1 are pirated. Pirating exists because these commodities (music, apps, software, movies, etc) cost money. Until everything is free, piracy will continue and it will be a factor.
Of course piracy hurts profits. The statement that "I wouldn't buy it anyway" is such a poor argument. To try and prove it's the prevailing thought behind piracy is impossible. Frankly, it's just another way to try and justify theft.
I know you've said in the past you're for a global agenda (something similar, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe nationalist was the term you used), however I am not. I want nothing to do with a global agenda. I don't want my government to poke it's nose into other countries business just like I don't want other countries doing it to us.
It has nothing to do with separating the PEOPLE of the countries and everything to do with keeping the governments apart.
Are you honestly trying to say just because it's labeled an agreement it doesn't have to be followed? Which country is going to sign the agreement and then not follow it? Does it have to be? No. Will they? Yes. That's sort of the point.
The more agreements made, treaties signed and legislation passed to try to homogenize our governments I worry more and more about the state of the world. If governments can become corrupt now, which I think most people have seen at least to some extent, thinking about a global government at some point in the future disturbs me. The UN and NATO is bad enough. Each country should deal with its own problems in its own way, we shouldn't have ruling councils to decide what is morally okay for one country or decide there is some sort of threat when in fact there isn't. (see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).
I'd much rather see every country stay sovereign. That's what America was founded on, staying sovereign as a republic of it's own.
The Kyoto Accord for the win, people don't have to follow what they "agree" to. I can agree on your other points of how the UN is terrible. I also like the idea we should focus on our own country, unfortunately don't live in a world that supports this idea anymore i.e. America shitty banking + Wall Street = economic meltdown for world, which then kick starts a potential EU economic collapse (yes separate issue but this surely never helped).
You're implying big companies = big price goods, small companies = small price goods. Thats your mistake.
Small company suffer more because they can't afford counter piracy strategies and because they profit margin are usually smaller to begin with. While piracy only hurt big companies profits, it takes small companies out of business.
One day your child will ask, daddy where were you when they made the internet lame. Hopefully your answer will be: raising hell.
Water boarding isn't torture people love it, it's like going to a water park or scuba diving. Good times.
You say that big companies don't suffer more because they can aforde county piracy strateges, that has no real effect at piracy, and only harms their customers. Small company don't invest lot in country pirating because they know that they can't stop it, and they don't get any benefits from trying it. Also small companies will succeed if they are good and make good products no metter of pirecy. But if they have bad products they will fail much faster becose of pirecy. Piracy does not lower the competition, it removes bad competition.
All the DRM and other securities for games are not to stop pirates, but to give them time to sell their games, if the game is bad, it will not be sailed at all because of feedback of pirates, if the game is good, it will be sailed a lot, no metter of pirating. Same is for small companies, if thy sell good product,they will have profit no matter of pirating.
Companies think that every downloaded illegal software is a loss for them, but that is not true at all. They lose potential customers, but a lot of them, were never there potential customers, and never will be.
D3 Channel: OnetwoD3
If counter piracy has no effect on piracy why do companies spend time, money and resources to fight it ? We're not talking about fringe market strategies here. Counter piracy is a wide spread pratice among every heavy R&D industry and those guys know what they are doing, believe me. Counter piracy would never be applied without alot of industrial research and evidence.
I totally agree with your first statement. Small companies don't invest in counter piracy because they don't benefict from it. This is just a different way to say they can't afford it.
Afford doesn't mean only money. If a small companies produce some B game (Runic producing Torchlight 2), they know they shouldn't add a lot of user unfriendly features (counter piracy). If they do they will just draw hate towards an not so loved product. Now if Blizzard launch a triple AAA like Diablo they know some people will hate the counter piracy but the public likes Diablo enough to support the absense of offline mode, for exemple. Blizzard can afford counter piracy, Runic can't.
However small companies can't produce "good" products. Remember we're talking about intellectual goods and property rights. Small companies can't inovate because they don't have enough money for R&D. A small company will never be able to make a game thats 10% of Diablo's quality (I mean production quality - gameplay, graphics, sounds, plot, etc...). Indie dudes might be able to inovate, doing crazy new games, but thats only on genres that requires low production quality. You don't see a good indie RTS or FPS or Action on steam do you?
Piracy is alot harder for those people because they are doomed to loose sales for it. They simply can't use counter piracy strategies.
Dude that such an evil thing to say. You've no idea how hard life is for people who are trying to enter the industry. Just because a company can't afford genius level programmers doesn't mean they are bad and should be wiped out of the market. In the end they can produce something new, maybe not great, but new. They could gain earn some money cause people still buy a bad games just to pass time and they would be doing a honest work. Be cause of piracy, people are allowed to steal their work, totally breaking the legs of someone whos trying to emerge. If market expels some pratices because of it's own laws of functioning thats ok. Being stealed is not bad market pratice.
And "bad competition" has nothing to do with bad companies existing. A bad company competes and contributes to eveyrone's wellfare by offering more options and pushing prices down (they reduce market power of bigger companies). Companies leaving the market because of institutional issues reduces competition ALLWAYS. Ex: Because of piracy Runic's can't make a lot of money. The company will grow really slow and won't be able to compete with Blizzard at any time soon. Theres less competition in the hack and slash arpg market, which is allways bad.
This only have any sense if feedback allways detracts sales. This is completlety untrue, specially for bigger companies (the ones who apply counter piracy reletlesly). You're impling that people will just be nice and buy instead of steal just because they like that thing. The more people like something, more they want it. They accept a higher price but allways prefer to pay nothing and will do it if they can.
It's like saying if I open a store with really great products i don't need any security or sales men. People will get those things and selflesly leave the money just because they liked my supply.
Companies don't think that. They think a % of downloaded software is a loss for them. While many people only consume something because it's free, many others would pay for it only if it was needed. Without counter piracy strategies sales of softwares would be ridicolous, the industry would not even exist to this day.
@Don_guillotine: It's hard to determine but industry economists do it at daily basis. The industry would never apply such public hated features like "no more lan mod" or "online only singleplayer" if it wasn't profitable, and people estimate how profitable a certain move is long before actually applying it.
Changing business model is just one of the possible reactions. Companies fight piracy the best way they can - cutting the offline game mode and investing in heavy online policy. This is highly detrimentrial for the customerers who had a whole universe shutted in their face - moding, lan parties, etc...
Other reaction is seize to exist. The industry is doing fine but piracy still make it's victims. Piracy effect different companies in many different ways. The industry has too much agregation, it's impossible to analyse it. I'm sure Titan Quest's developer would still exist if it wasn't for piracy. Once i was a avid TQ players and the vast majority of people i knew in that game played with illegal copies. Now they are doing a indie undergod game that I really want to succeed but I already know it's going to be a finantial suicide for that guy - because people will simply steal his game, his work, he will not be properly payed for what his offering to people who play his game.
The entertaiment industry survive piracy not because piracy is irrelevant - but because they reacted. This reaction was far from good if you ask me. Sorry but I would love to live in a world were I could play D3 offline and maybe some mods, were small developers like the guys doing Path of Exile and Grim Dawn would not bankrupt because people are stealing for then.
Il say it again, because when the game is released, the incomes are highest in that few months. The protections is to give them time, so the game is not pirated the moment it is relesed, when there is most income.
What are you saying? Did you ever play any quality indie game? They don't have good gameplay and storyline or music of AAA? Lol. That is exactly what they have, and why they are sucsesful There are games with the quality gameplay, great story and music that is better then most of AAA games. The only thing that they cant have is best 3d grafic (for shooters), but they still have great graphic and some of the best art dizayn i ever saw. This sentence is so wrong man, you must play some indy games .
This is also not correct, I will tell you way. First they don't have any protection against piracy (or very small one, that is broken in 15 min), so there would never be any games by your standards that would sell, and indy industry would never exist (everyone would get it for free). But there's one thing why this doesn't happen. Low cost of the game, makes it much more accessible to people that pyret the game, and second they are great games, so people want to suport them,much more than big companies, and want to see new product from them. Most of pirates are not selfish idiots, but are just people that can't afford it.
Evil? People will not pay for bad products, if they know it's a bad product, you must know that. They would pay because of marketing, and not because of bad product. Can a bad company produce somthing good? Maybe, but It's much bigger chance that a bad company will not produce a good product. Also i'm not talking about programmers, but their end products.
This is also not corect. Competition is NEVER EVER made with bad companies against good ones, AND PRICES ARE NEVER LOWER BECAUSE OF BAD PRODUCTS. NEVER. Competition is made because of competition with good products. You can have a ton of bad products, it will never lower the price of a good one. I'm talking here of a product that is bad and has similer cost to a good one.
It's not because of piracy. You must understand that the income if there was no pirecy would not increase dramatically, if not at all. Pirecy exists because most of them DON'T HAVE MONEY TO PAY.
It will compete with blizzard because it offers somthing different from d3.
Country piracy are not effective at all. There is no game on this world that is not craced or pirated. Tell me a game that was not pirated? There are non, and never will be. Does industry exist.? Yes. Why, when they can wait 1 month after release and get the pirated version for free? Tell me?
People will buy product because they want more of it, and not becose its nice. If you like torchligt, and have money, you will pirate the game, and then you will buy it becose you want to see torchlight 2.
People consume somthing for free because they don't have money for it. There are always a minority that even if they can afford to buy, never will.
Without counter piracy? Il repeat, what game was not cracked? Counter piracy doesn't stop from pirating games. And thats for more then 20 years . I still see industry growing, and is still here.
If the things you said would be true, we would not have today that industrybecause counter piracy methods are not effective in any way.
They cant react.
From your answer I see that you're not that much informed in all this. I know all this stuf becose I am a active pirate.
If you want to stop piracy in big numbers (there will always be a minorty that will never pay), there are only 2 things you can do:
1.llower the cost of games
2.Increase the economy standard of all people that pirate
Pirating was active a long time ago, when there was no internet. If ACTA and thing that would one day forbid downloading ilegal sofvet from internet in entire world. piracy will not die, not even be lowered. The biggest benefits from it will get pirates sellers, and will start again selling like it was 15 years ago.
Also, most of people will always support and buy a product if they like it and have money for it. If this was not true, today software industry would not exsist, because you can get anything for free.
Also read this, it's really interesting to see why some are pirating.
I would like to say though that none of this has anything to do with law, the use of the word law much of the time is fraudulent use.
Everything discussed here has entirely been about legal fiction.
Nothing involved here has intrinsic value, none of it has anything to do with basic needs and is pure luxury.
If you wish to combat piracy you do it through innovation protecting your own interests, it is support of unqualified tyranny when through socialist intimidation a 3rd party("Governments") pretend they are creating policy in the public interest when serving a minority. While encouraging authoritarian legislature in a self serving manner in a fictional market through which it intends to cause unlawful damage as a consequence (Damage to property). Use of legality to break a law does not supersede a law, signing a contract on behalf of the people of a land is never binding only to those pledging fealty. But then people are ignorant to the law and make this pledge all the time.
Attempting to impart economic growth through extrinsic/luxury trade commodities is in principle vampiric and detracts completely from what it feigns to promote, thus fiction with no intrinsic value, no necessities only luxuries.
This is perhaps why Asian governments wish to crack down on internet gaming as it is very much a blight to stable growth building a sustainable community, there is nothing sustainable about paper/fiction trading useless consumers, as some would put it.
If you are trading luxury/paper/fiction and not providing your own necessity, another must be providing your necessity as well as their own while luxury is superfluous and in the invent it outweighs the necessity producer you have a fantastic collapse.