Combating piracy - Page 36

On December 02 2011 14:03 refmac_cys.cys wrote:

If the originator didn't want his ideas distributed, he shouldn't have put them on the market.
Edit: Point being, the originator in this case (most cases) clearly wants his ideas shared. If I may quote Pete Townshend: "a creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored" (BBC NEWS). I think, for the majority of artists out there, whether they be game designers, musicians, what have you, there's an innate desire for their creations to be enjoyed by others, which is the driving force in their decision to create in the first place. To be quite frank, IP, as it exists, serves to strangle most people, and it is only by removing that restriction that they can come to be known.

On December 02 2011 14:03 refmac_cys.cys wrote:

If the originator didn't want his ideas distributed, he shouldn't have put them on the market.
Edit: Point being, the originator in this case (most cases) clearly wants his ideas shared. If I may quote Pete Townshend: "a creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored" (BBC NEWS). I think, for the majority of artists out there, whether they be game designers, musicians, what have you, there's an innate desire for their creations to be enjoyed by others, which is the driving force in their decision to create in the first place. To be quite frank, IP, as it exists, serves to strangle most people, and it is only by removing that restriction that they can come to be known.

On December 02 2011 14:09 zer0das wrote:
I glanced through and didn't see anyone mention this:

The Witcher's 2 DRM slowed the game down to a crawl. It took like a full minute to load the menus on my computer, and it ran at maybe 30 fps, sometimes lower. People realized pretty quickly without DRM, the game ran much, much better. When they patched out the DRM, the menus loaded nearly instantly, and I was getting 60+ fps. I wouldn't be surprised if a substantial chunk of those who pirated the game were just doing it so they didn't have a subpar experience.

Note: You could get it DRMless if you bought it form their store on Day 1, but I got it via Steam (as did a lot of other people).

On December 02 2011 14:33 HereAndNow wrote:


Your logic here is that "if it exists on the market, I should be able to have it free of charge". That's ridiculous. Humanity would never get anywhere with that model. It's selfish, egotistical, and honestly immature.

On December 02 2011 14:35 visual77 wrote:


Without getting into the whole thing, I will say there is a very well thought out economical model referred to as "infinite goods / scarce goods" that you might want to read about.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml

On December 02 2011 14:47 HereAndNow wrote:

This is assuming games are infinite and free. They aren't. You don't get 3 people together with an idea on a weekend and pop out Halo. Games, especially games worth buying, are a scarce resource in this model, so it's even worse to consider pirating them.

Let me go more into that: the example was with music, and it kind of holds with games, but I disagree. The idea is to charge more for things like concerts and live sessions but make digital music free. How does that work for games? A company isn't going to make enough profit on tech demos, expos, or donations. A triple-A title game is a multi-million dollar expenditure.

Also to contrast games and music in this scenario is how they're made. Yes, you need expensive music equipment, mixing software, instruments, and stuff like that. But that's a one-time buy and making the music itself is just having a space and time. Games require more people involved, more storage for data, servers for online games, the latest software and hardware for developing, and HAVE to be put onto a disc if it's a console title. PC games and music can be completely digital, console games need a physical copy, except the little indie games.

Interesting read though.

Edit: actually come to think of it, you could never use the described model for games. Music is all about profit, which is why you see musicians with mansions and a dozen cars. The average game developer makes a very modest wage, a free model would kill the industry. And like I said, there is no concert or live rendition allegory for gaming, they need to make their profits directly from the game sales itself and nothing more.

What the fuck? The market is intended for goods and services in exchange for money and profit. Neither party is to be coerced into either distributing or consuming that product. Putting something up for sale doesn't mean that you get to do what you please with it. Again, your "intellectual property doesn't exist" isn't a viewpoint, it's wrong.

Also, let me give you a scenario:
I just finished my petroleum engineering dissertation in which I created a groundbreaking algorithm for the stochastic estimation of oil reserves. I put 5 years of incredibly hard work into this particular program and the results were published in a highly respected journal. They were published so that I receive personal recognition and for a general display of "what is possible." I absolutely don't want anybody using this algorithm, period. It is to be used by me solely, or the rights to it will be sold at my discretion. Fortunately, my hard work was noticed because oil companies are now making handsome offers in hopes that I will bring my method for their economic advantage.

Now, in your mind, you are okay with taking my published results, and using my method despite me not wanting them to be?

Again, that's a very narrow view. It's not that we're attacking you as a person, but your ideas are small-minded and frankly, wrong.

Your logic here is that "if it exists on the market, I should be able to have it free of charge". That's ridiculous. Humanity would never get anywhere with that model. It's selfish, egotistical, and honestly immature.

Yes, if designers had their way, every person would be able to enjoy their game free of charge. But the issue is that economy doesn't allow for that. If they're going to put time and energy into making something, they need to get paid. The workers need to pay for food, housing, etc. The company needs to make break even not to go under, and they need to make a profit to be able to make games in the future.

The idea of IP has it's downsides, true. But in a without it, no one would ever create and share anything worthwhile. You can't honestly think that just giving away everything for free or taking what you want without asking or recompense is a way to live life and support a global economy. You're either trolling or uninformed.

On December 02 2011 14:54 visual77 wrote:


First off, Games are an infinite resource *once created*. That is exactly how piracy works. The marginal cost of reproducing a copy of a game is near zero (bandwidth / electricity costs is essentially it). Making the new game is a scarce good. Therefore, a company could sell the scarce good (in this tiny example, the creation of a new game) and use the infinite good (the completed product, with *completed* being the key word) as an advertising vessel.

And in your own post, you explained how it could work for games. - servers for online games. That is inherently a scarce good. Take WoW as an example. Using this business model, they could give the game away for free, and charge a subscription for *access to the server*. That access is scarce, the future patches (that are not yet created) are scarce. The created game content is infinite.

Of course, these are only small examples with very obvious real-world applications. There are a lot of scenarios this doesn't cover, but I think I will leave it to a business expert (rather than a mere code jockey like myself) to work out the full details. And those full details, once made, are infinite. But whatever genius figures them out in the first place should command a high salary for his time solving more problems.

Edit: I don't want to sound like I'm bowing out while the fight is going, but this will be my last post in this thread. Piracy is far too heated of a subject for me to get into. Everyone is so... angry.

On December 02 2011 15:13 HereAndNow wrote:

Bolded is the point of contention. How do you sell a new game and then give it away for free? It's impossible, no one would buy it new and would just wait. Unless every game ever came with a pre-order bonus (physical or in-game), you can not both sell the game and give it away for free. Income has to come from somewhere, if not from game sales, then where?

The WoW example is more or less how it works. If they made it free to download with a monthly fee, it'd work pretty much exactly the same. Except MMOs (and MOBAs, I guess) are the only games that can run this model.

I don't consider it a fight, your example was one of the more well thought out ones on here. It hasn't changed my mind, I still dislike pirating, but it's a good discussion for future business models.

On December 02 2011 12:43 refmac_cys.cys wrote:

See, I'm glad you brought this up. My internet service, my computer, my electrons, and all of the electricity that I pay for, are my property, to do with what I will. Now what I might do, for a variety of reasons, is acquire a copy of some new song. If you try to stop me, you're limiting what I can do with MY property, and saying that my physical property rights are inferior to the intellectual property rights of the music industry. Is that right?

On December 02 2011 15:04 refmac_cys.cys wrote:

But that's the point - the market isn't right for ideas, because of the reasons I gave earlier. But what you're signaling, by putting the ideas on the market (where they shouldn't be), is that you're ok with their distribution. As to your example - absolutely. Because that idea can't be property, because the minute that idea is property, it means I can't do what I want with my oil reserves. Even better than that, I would feel free (if I had a background in Petroleum Engineering) to make improvements to your idea, to develop it, and to publish it, crediting you. If physicist me discovers some new natural phenomenon, and I publish a paper, why shouldn't someone take advantage of it? It's not like I created this phenomenon. All we can do is reshape, rearrange, and discover what's already present.
Now, what you could do, which I would be perfectly ok with, is set up your own corporation, without having published this idea. Go around, and say "I will estimate shit for you." If it works, you can sell your service. The idea, though? That's either nobodies, or Gods (whichever you prefer).

Small-minded? Potentially. They stem from one uniform critique of the concept of Intellectual property. I could have gone with a Marxist critique, or with the more measured arguments that are so prevalent.

That wasn't my argument, and you know it. My argument was that ideas shouldn't be on the market at all, and what was brought up there was to show that individual A did, in fact, want there ideas shared.

That problem I leave to the companies. One problem is that current patterns of distribution are out of phase with current technology, which many people have pointed out. Until the companies can make it so that they're providing a service, rather than selling an idea, piracy will continue, and I will continue to support it.

But they do, and have done, and will continue to do so without the motivation of intellectual property. What intellectual property does is allow someone else to take credit for that idea, restrict further the development of technology, and restrict what I can do with my very very real physical property. As I've stated before, I'm being very, very serious. Under ordinary circumstances, would I have chosen a different line of argument? Probably. But this serves for now. I think that ideas need to be utilized for them to have any value, and by placing limits on that utilization, you restrict growth and development. I'm not taking everything for free. Just ideas.

On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded.

On December 02 2011 15:04 refmac_cys.cys wrote:

But that's the point - the market isn't right for ideas, because of the reasons I gave earlier. But what you're signaling, by putting the ideas on the market (where they shouldn't be), is that you're ok with their distribution. As to your example - absolutely. Because that idea can't be property, because the minute that idea is property, it means I can't do what I want with my oil reserves. Even better than that, I would feel free (if I had a background in Petroleum Engineering) to make improvements to your idea, to develop it, and to publish it, crediting you. If physicist me discovers some new natural phenomenon, and I publish a paper, why shouldn't someone take advantage of it? It's not like I created this phenomenon. All we can do is reshape, rearrange, and discover what's already present.
Now, what you could do, which I would be perfectly ok with, is set up your own corporation, without having published this idea. Go around, and say "I will estimate shit for you." If it works, you can sell your service. The idea, though? That's either nobodies, or Gods (whichever you prefer).

Small-minded? Potentially. They stem from one uniform critique of the concept of Intellectual property. I could have gone with a Marxist critique, or with the more measured arguments that are so prevalent.

That wasn't my argument, and you know it. My argument was that ideas shouldn't be on the market at all, and what was brought up there was to show that individual A did, in fact, want there ideas shared.

That problem I leave to the companies. One problem is that current patterns of distribution are out of phase with current technology, which many people have pointed out. Until the companies can make it so that they're providing a service, rather than selling an idea, piracy will continue, and I will continue to support it.

But they do, and have done, and will continue to do so without the motivation of intellectual property. What intellectual property does is allow someone else to take credit for that idea, restrict further the development of technology, and restrict what I can do with my very very real physical property. As I've stated before, I'm being very, very serious. Under ordinary circumstances, would I have chosen a different line of argument? Probably. But this serves for now. I think that ideas need to be utilized for them to have any value, and by placing limits on that utilization, you restrict growth and development. I'm not taking everything for free. Just ideas.

If the originator didn't want his ideas distributed, he shouldn't have put them on the market.
Edit: Point being, the originator in this case (most cases) clearly wants his ideas shared.

On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:

Man, you may be fine functionally, but...

On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:

Except his points were all more or less correct. Do you ever read the ToS or EULA? Probably not. Everything we're arguing is clearly stated on there.

On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:

Except his points were all more or less correct. Do you ever read the ToS or EULA? Probably not. Everything we're arguing is clearly stated on there.

On December 02 2011 15:21 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:

Unfortunately for you, the way our reality works is that ideas manifest themselves in the form of physical objects, which in my and the developers' case, are intended to be sold for profit. Period. You don't have any claim to them, so if you are in petroleum engineering, stay the fuck away from my product. The sooner you out yourself as an altruist living in "everybody shares everything" la-la land, the sooner we can disregard your ideas for what they are: nonsense.

On December 02 2011 15:19 visual77 wrote:


I lied. I can't ever leave these discussions.

But I think you misunderstood what is being sold in my example. I'm not saying "sell the game", I'm saying "sell the creation of the game". How do you do that? By offering ridiculous pre-order bonuses before the product is even made. You can ask "who would pre-order something not yet made and pay out the ass to fund it, knowing that most of the end consumers are getting it for free?"...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1751892223/the-sons-of-starcraft