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On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you?
But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable.
His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant.
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On December 02 2011 15:31 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:19 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 15:13 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:54 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:47 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:35 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:03 refmac_cys.cys wrote:On December 02 2011 13:59 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 02 2011 13:52 refmac_cys.cys wrote:
[quote]
Oh please. Now you're just being stubborn. There is a clear distinction between taking credit for the work of another, and distributing another's work for others to read/consume. Cheating clearly falls into the former category, while piracy falls into the latter, along with the sharing of notes, teaching or tutoring for free, and basically the entirety of modern science. So in your world, voluntarily educating others for free is the same as a person taking concepts derived by another and distributing them despite the originator not wanting them to be? Sorry, but no. We've already established that you don't believe in intellectual property, but the fact is you're wrong. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 While that seems like a good example, thinking about it for a bit shows it really isn't. People are willing to put a bit or a bunch into one thing that they're interested in. This wouldn't happen if there were 2-3 Sons of Starcraft type movies a month. No one would buy pre-orders on every game, or even a majority of them. It's just not something someone would do if given the choice. Hell, I'd pre-order one game a year and get everything else free, and I love supporting games. It's an interesting idea, but it would tank so fast if a lot or even some of the games did that.
Then there is our fundamental difference that will only end in anger. I believe in the inherent good of man. You do not. I think that, when given the choice and treated like human beings, people will behave themselves and do the right thing.
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On December 02 2011 15:24 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:04 refmac_cys.cys wrote: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? 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). 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. 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 games were just ideas, that argument would hold water. Except they're not. They're months, years of programming, art design, and development. They're millions of dollars in wages, advertising, and creation. If a game was just "Guys! I thought of this cool thing!" and it popped into existence, I'd give that shit away for free all day every day. But it doesn't work like that. As long as they take time, manpower, and money to make, they'll require money to continue being made. Same for movies, same for music, same for software. That shit does not come from nothing, it is like anything else, which is why you have to pay for it like everything else. And yes, it was your argument: Show nested quote +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. That's the same as saying "Well, if they didn't want those cars stolen, they wouldn't just put them on the street with easy locks to pick". Hell, it's almost the same justification as "Of course I grabbed her ass, look at how she's dressed!". You're saying that, because it's there, they obviously want you to steal it. That's a selfish view and you know it.
But once the production is done, they are just ideas. They're just millions of billions of snippets of code. And I'm all for the monetization of Games. Music and Movies too. Just do it under a different umbrella.
That may have been how you read it, but it's not how it was intended to be used. I apologize for the confusion. I was attempting to establish that between two distinct states - someone not wanting their ideas to be shared at all, or someone wanting their ideas to be shared - the game maker or song producer clearly falls into the latter.
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On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant.
Are you kidding, I may or may not have clicked a button at the bottom of a large text not written in my native language. Try me.
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On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant.
I don't if I pirate the game...
Edit: or rather, I don't accept the EULA or ToS in the first place if I pirate it.
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On December 02 2011 15:34 visual77 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:31 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:19 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 15:13 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:54 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:47 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:35 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:03 refmac_cys.cys wrote:On December 02 2011 13:59 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:
[quote]
So in your world, voluntarily educating others for free is the same as a person taking concepts derived by another and distributing them despite the originator not wanting them to be? Sorry, but no. We've already established that you don't believe in intellectual property, but the fact is you're wrong. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 While that seems like a good example, thinking about it for a bit shows it really isn't. People are willing to put a bit or a bunch into one thing that they're interested in. This wouldn't happen if there were 2-3 Sons of Starcraft type movies a month. No one would buy pre-orders on every game, or even a majority of them. It's just not something someone would do if given the choice. Hell, I'd pre-order one game a year and get everything else free, and I love supporting games. It's an interesting idea, but it would tank so fast if a lot or even some of the games did that. Then there is our fundamental difference that will only end in anger. I believe in the inherent good of man. You do not. I think that, when given the choice and treated like human beings, people will behave themselves and do the right thing.
I do as well, which is why I've been arguing against piracy this whole time. Or rather, I think most people are good, but we need to help/police those that aren't.
It's unreasonable to expect every person to pay for every game when they can conceivably get it for free. They'd pay for some, maybe even half, but not all of them. Halving the income of gaming industries would destroy the livelyhood of those that work on games.
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On December 02 2011 15:36 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant. Are you kidding, I may or may not have clicked a button at the bottom of a large text not written in my native language. Try me.
If you get it legally, you can't play unless you agree. If you are playing without agreeing to it, it is literally illegal.
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I pirate things, albeit infrequently. I live in the United States, so I can't say I can't afford games; I have plenty of money. The reason I do it is because I want free stuff. Who doesn't?
But here's the question: why not do it? I don't have any moral obligation to support massive gaming corporations that will be fine without my money. I'd rather be $60 richer.
If there's a good reason to buy a product rather than pirate it, I will. That's why I don't pirate DS games etc. But if I can get a comparable or better experience for free, why would I bother paying?
This is a situation very similar to evolution. If organism A is a parasite to organism B, both will evolve in a way that will harm the other. If they had a mutualist relationship, they would work to gain more benefit out of supporting the other. Corporations making DRM's is like a parasitic relationship between them and consumers/pirates.
Instead of making things worse for everyone, the gaming/movie/music companies need to make the bought product worth buying instead of pirating. Then the problem will become negligible as far as money lost goes.
As for indie games, I sure as hell wouldn't want a DRM-ridden infestation of a game. The fame gained from more people playing it is probably worth more.
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On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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.
:D
And for the record, I don't honestly care anywhere near as much as I've made myself out to. There was a small moment where I was honestly taken aback by the ignorance of the dude I originally quoted, but that's about where my sincere emotional involvement ended. Seriously though, any rational adult that has a) Paid an electric bill and b) Had even the smallest notion of what they were agreeing to would know that you don't own the services you pay for, you pay for the rights to use the services.
You don't own a cabbie and his cab because you commissioned him to drive you somewhere. You commissioned him to drive you somewhere with the understanding that he could tell you to get the fuck out of his car at any moment because you violated any of his fully arbitrary unvocalized conditions that are your end of the bargain in him providing you a service.
Spoiler alert : I'm not actually mad, I'm just being dramatic. It'd be pretty awesome if someone actually got mad enough to SHOUT certain specific words for EMPHASIS, but seeing as this is the internet and I can do it not because of how I'm feeling but because the person I'm directing my message to will actually believe I'm mad, plus it makes me laugh my head off... yeah. Don't believe everything you read (or do, because I probably want you to :D)
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Lord_J
Kenya1085 Posts
Games are pulling in more money than ever, so I'm not particularly convinced there's a problem. It's not even clear that very many of those who pirate games would in fact buy them if piracy weren't available as an alternative, and, to the extent that they wouldn't, their piracy only serves to reduce the deadweight loss created by IP rights, which isn't exactly a bad thing.
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On December 02 2011 15:38 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:34 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 15:31 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:19 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 15:13 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:54 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:47 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:35 visual77 wrote:On December 02 2011 14:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 14:03 refmac_cys.cys wrote:
[quote]
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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 While that seems like a good example, thinking about it for a bit shows it really isn't. People are willing to put a bit or a bunch into one thing that they're interested in. This wouldn't happen if there were 2-3 Sons of Starcraft type movies a month. No one would buy pre-orders on every game, or even a majority of them. It's just not something someone would do if given the choice. Hell, I'd pre-order one game a year and get everything else free, and I love supporting games. It's an interesting idea, but it would tank so fast if a lot or even some of the games did that. Then there is our fundamental difference that will only end in anger. I believe in the inherent good of man. You do not. I think that, when given the choice and treated like human beings, people will behave themselves and do the right thing. I do as well, which is why I've been arguing against piracy this whole time. Or rather, I think most people are good, but we need to help/police those that aren't. It's unreasonable to expect every person to pay for every game when they can conceivably get it for free. They'd pay for some, maybe even half, but not all of them. Halving the income of gaming industries would destroy the livelyhood of those that work on games.
I'm not trying to argue for-or-against piracy. You have yet to say anything implying I defend piracy, but I just want to lay that out right now. My entire viewpoint on everything is that content creators could benefit so much more by embracing the new digital distribution methods and changing their viewpoints on what it is they are selling, how they sell it, and what it is worth.
But another quick example of studies indicating that those who share tend to be those who pay the most can be found by merely doing a Google search of "pirates buy more music".
There is also the Humble Indie Bundle, who stated that Linux users contributed far more than Windows users. Linux is a free-and-open-source OS, yet the community is very, very giving.
On a similar note, I put my money where my mouth is career wise. I can explain more if you care, but I'll just say that not only do I feel content creators should do this, I actually do it.
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On December 02 2011 15:42 Staboteur wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. :D And for the record, I don't honestly care anywhere near as much as I've made myself out to. There was a small moment where I was honestly taken aback by the ignorance of the dude I originally quoted, but that's about where my sincere emotional involvement ended. Seriously though, any rational adult that has a) Paid an electric bill and b) Had even the smallest notion of what they were agreeing to would know that you don't own the services you pay for, you pay for the rights to use the services. You don't own a cabbie and his cab because you commissioned him to drive you somewhere. You commissioned him to drive you somewhere with the understanding that he could tell you to get the fuck out of his car at any moment because you violated any of his fully arbitrary unvocalized conditions that are your end of the bargain in him providing you a service. Spoiler alert : I'm not actually mad, I'm just being dramatic. It'd be pretty awesome if someone actually got mad enough to SHOUT certain specific words for EMPHASIS, but seeing as this is the internet and I can do it not because of how I'm feeling but because the person I'm directing my message to will actually believe I'm mad, plus it makes me laugh my head off... yeah. Don't believe everything you read (or do, because I probably want you to :D)
Obviously not. But I do own certain physical items, which I can use in any manner I choose.
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On December 02 2011 15:40 Lightwip wrote:
I pirate things, albeit infrequently. I live in the United States, so I can't say I can't afford games; I have plenty of money. The reason I do it is because I want free stuff. Who doesn't?
But here's the question: why not do it? I don't have any moral obligation to support massive gaming corporations that will be fine without my money. I'd rather be $60 richer.
If there's a good reason to buy a product rather than pirate it, I will. That's why I don't pirate DS games etc. But if I can get a comparable or better experience for free, why would I bother paying?
This is a situation very similar to evolution. If organism A is a parasite to organism B, both will evolve in a way that will harm the other. If they had a mutualist relationship, they would work to gain more benefit out of supporting the other. Corporations making DRM's is like a parasitic relationship between them and consumers/pirates.
Instead of making things worse for everyone, the gaming/movie/music companies need to make the bought product worth buying instead of pirating. Then the problem will become negligible as far as money lost goes.
As for indie games, I sure as hell wouldn't want a DRM-ridden infestation of a game. The fame gained from more people playing it is probably worth more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Your $60 doesn't matter. Yours plus the millions of others does.
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On December 02 2011 15:40 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:36 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant. Are you kidding, I may or may not have clicked a button at the bottom of a large text not written in my native language. Try me. If you get it legally, you can't play unless you agree. If you are playing without agreeing to it, it is literally illegal.
I drank beer when I was 14 and that was illegal too. Sometimes (often) I drive above the speed limit and that's illegal. Yes you may very well be right, but when did the law become my standard of living? I take what's good from it and I trespass on the rest provided it's moral enough for my standards AND my risks of getting caught are low.
In this case, I consider that
1: My actions are morally correct, despite the fact that they're illegal. 15km/h driving zones are bullshit and I don't respect them.
2: I will respect them if they're enforced, that is, by necessity. AKA: If bullshit rules are enforced, I have to fold and I lose.
Not respecting an EULA may be illegal, but seriously, I can break it all day and none of it will hold up in court. And it shouldn't.
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On December 02 2011 15:44 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:40 Lightwip wrote:
I pirate things, albeit infrequently. I live in the United States, so I can't say I can't afford games; I have plenty of money. The reason I do it is because I want free stuff. Who doesn't?
But here's the question: why not do it? I don't have any moral obligation to support massive gaming corporations that will be fine without my money. I'd rather be $60 richer.
If there's a good reason to buy a product rather than pirate it, I will. That's why I don't pirate DS games etc. But if I can get a comparable or better experience for free, why would I bother paying?
This is a situation very similar to evolution. If organism A is a parasite to organism B, both will evolve in a way that will harm the other. If they had a mutualist relationship, they would work to gain more benefit out of supporting the other. Corporations making DRM's is like a parasitic relationship between them and consumers/pirates.
Instead of making things worse for everyone, the gaming/movie/music companies need to make the bought product worth buying instead of pirating. Then the problem will become negligible as far as money lost goes.
As for indie games, I sure as hell wouldn't want a DRM-ridden infestation of a game. The fame gained from more people playing it is probably worth more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commonsYour $60 doesn't matter. Yours plus the millions of others does.
Not sure tragedy of the commons really applies here, since nothing is being lost collectively. It's not an issue of distrust of others either.
$60 means WAY more to me than it does to them, at any rate. The point is, I have no moral reason to support them anyways.
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On December 02 2011 15:45 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:36 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant. Are you kidding, I may or may not have clicked a button at the bottom of a large text not written in my native language. Try me. If you get it legally, you can't play unless you agree. If you are playing without agreeing to it, it is literally illegal. I drank beer when I was 14 and that was illegal too. Sometimes (often) I drive above the speed limit and that's illegal. Yes you may very well be right, but when did the law become my standard of living? I take what's good from it and I trespass on the rest provided it's moral enough for my standards AND my risks of getting caught are low. In this case, I consider that 1: My actions are morally correct, despite the fact that they're illegal. 15km/h driving zones are bullshit and I don't respect them. 2: I will respect them if they're enforced, that is, by necessity. AKA: If bullshit rules are enforced, I have to fold and I lose. Not respecting an EULA may be illegal, but seriously, I can break it all day and none of it will hold up in court. And it shouldn't.
It's not morally correct to take something that you should pay for and get it for free because you're too cheap/lazy to buy it or you feel entitled to something you can't afford. If you can justify that to yourself, seek help.
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On December 02 2011 15:51 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:45 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:36 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:28 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. Well I could write the DJZAPZ'S SCROLL OF LOLZ (DSOL). Did you read the DSOL? It's legally irrelevant. Also he's being kind of douchey calling the guy functionally retarded and dipshit, what kind of people are you? But I didn't sign the DSOL. You agree, whether you read it or not, to every ToS or EULA you Accept. You are legally bound to it. That's how a contract works. It's highly relevant, and punishable. His words were 4chan-y, but his points were relevant. Are you kidding, I may or may not have clicked a button at the bottom of a large text not written in my native language. Try me. If you get it legally, you can't play unless you agree. If you are playing without agreeing to it, it is literally illegal. I drank beer when I was 14 and that was illegal too. Sometimes (often) I drive above the speed limit and that's illegal. Yes you may very well be right, but when did the law become my standard of living? I take what's good from it and I trespass on the rest provided it's moral enough for my standards AND my risks of getting caught are low. In this case, I consider that 1: My actions are morally correct, despite the fact that they're illegal. 15km/h driving zones are bullshit and I don't respect them. 2: I will respect them if they're enforced, that is, by necessity. AKA: If bullshit rules are enforced, I have to fold and I lose. Not respecting an EULA may be illegal, but seriously, I can break it all day and none of it will hold up in court. And it shouldn't. It's not morally correct to take something that you should pay for and get it for free because you're too cheap/lazy to buy it or you feel entitled to something you can't afford. If you can justify that to yourself, seek help.
I think the problem you run into with this argument is that the thing being discussed is something that should be paid for.
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On December 02 2011 15:44 refmac_cys.cys wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 15:42 Staboteur wrote:On December 02 2011 15:26 HereAndNow wrote:On December 02 2011 15:22 Djzapz wrote:On December 02 2011 15:20 Staboteur wrote:
Yes, Imad, but at least I'm not functionally retarded. Man, you may be fine functionally, but... 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. :D And for the record, I don't honestly care anywhere near as much as I've made myself out to. There was a small moment where I was honestly taken aback by the ignorance of the dude I originally quoted, but that's about where my sincere emotional involvement ended. Seriously though, any rational adult that has a) Paid an electric bill and b) Had even the smallest notion of what they were agreeing to would know that you don't own the services you pay for, you pay for the rights to use the services. You don't own a cabbie and his cab because you commissioned him to drive you somewhere. You commissioned him to drive you somewhere with the understanding that he could tell you to get the fuck out of his car at any moment because you violated any of his fully arbitrary unvocalized conditions that are your end of the bargain in him providing you a service. Spoiler alert : I'm not actually mad, I'm just being dramatic. It'd be pretty awesome if someone actually got mad enough to SHOUT certain specific words for EMPHASIS, but seeing as this is the internet and I can do it not because of how I'm feeling but because the person I'm directing my message to will actually believe I'm mad, plus it makes me laugh my head off... yeah. Don't believe everything you read (or do, because I probably want you to :D) Obviously not. But I do own certain physical items, which I can use in any manner I choose.
What, your computer?
Sure, you can use your computer however you choose.
The physical CD that files come on? Heck yeah, cut that thing into a ninja star and see if you can get it to stick into the wall.
The files on the CD? Nope, not really. You paid for the right to access the files but I'm pretty sure there's a stipulation that the files you've been "given" are not to be modified or redistributed without permission of the developer. Same goes for digital copies.
The internet? Nope, right to a service. You may not engage in copyright infringements simply because you think you made a case strong enough to vindicate your actions, because it is not your decision to make. You noted that this was not your decision to make when you agreed to the terms of service your internet service provider displayed to you when you signed the thing that says they could cut off your internet -because they're bored-, much less because you're using it to engage in illegal activities.
Claiming that purchasing a right to a service gives you the right to abuse that service is contradictory. It's something akin to renting a canoe, filling it with dynamite and trying to blow up a cruise liner with it... and expecting the canoe rental company to be totally fine with it because you paid that 80 bucks for the day of what they understood as "using the canoe to canoe around in for a day" and you understood as "Owning a canoe for 24 hours"
Same goes for electricity, though you'd be much harder pressed to find ways to power your electronics maliciously than you would be to use the internet for illegal activities.
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"Don't be cheap" is one of the stupidest arguments in existence.
No one has enough money to throw it around and waste it. If there's a good way to save money without harming yourself, you will do it.
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I pirated Amnesia the Dark Descent and the Penumbra games, after realizing how awesome they were I bought them. I am not against piracy in both the music scene and videogaming scene because it actually supports developers in a way. For example, piracy helps bands gain notoriety because it allows their music spread to a greater number of people, sure they don't get paid from piracy but in the end it actually makes them more famous.
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EPT
