Ethical Piracy

[Nova]

Hello, I come to you people with a topic widely discussed/contested.

Online Piracy

There are several different aspects to online piracy and different ways it is affected.

I will list a few positive ways that piracy helps different industries and a few negative effects.

As with any discussion, My reasons are my own personal opinion and will more than likely vary from person to person depending on your understanding and morals.

Positive Effects

*When people download a song illegally, Although that person in specific did not pay for it, If the song is good that person is likely to spread the word about it making it more popular.

*This in turn increases sales of digital copies and promotes radio stations to play the song because its popular in turn giving royalty fees to the artist.

*Also the increased popularity of the song will cause the artist to gain a sort of "Celebrity" Status, Making them popular.

*Popularity = a following. When the artist then releases future content the following will rinse and repeat eating the content up giving the artist more money

----Side note----

Yes, I understand that if we all payed for the song in the first place the artist would have more money in theory. But really the fact is that the artist is more likely to become more popular because of the "Wildfire" effect of people sharing the song online.

----Side Note #2----

As mentioned in note 1, This causes the excuse of the artist not making enough money, stopping to make content and such biased because they are actually making more.

Negative Effects

*Overall revenue and sales are hard to keep track of because of non-traditional money making methods.

*Recording Companies have more of a work load to promote artists because the traditional CD Sales method has changed

*With the new age of Online Sharing, Some artists are choosing to give their music online for free with optional donations. (I.e Brad Sucks) A bad decision because they wont make as much as going with a record label.

*New, Un-released albums can be leaked pre-release date online causing the initial release sales-spike to be not so substantial.

-----Side note------

For recording companies having trouble being a typical business in terms of seeing money being made on paper and promoting their product, They must understand as with ANY business you must stay current with technology and understand that the internet and file sharing isn't just a phase and is certainly the future. Spend some money and develop techniques that work todays modern society of "I want it now!"

Alternative Notes

In terms of the labels/Movie Productions/Games Productions complaining that sales are lost, This is how I view it.

A Gaming Development company (Bungie) creates halo 3. Even with Piracy, They absolutely shatter every sales record in history making something insane like $800 Million on that game. The game cost a near $75 Million to develop. Now if i'm not mistaken there is generally only like 100-150 employees at MAXIMUM who developed the halo games. the profit of 700Million + split between them (giving different positions/Payments) that should still mean the average payout was like 5 Million.

If that is not enough money for you, Then I dont know what to say other than your a greedy bastard.

You complain that your not making money with the excuse of piracy, You are wrong. You made shit content that nobody wants in the first place.

Any input, Please share.

[Sabre]

If you are focusing on music, I have little to input, but with games piracy has many many beinfits. While there are who people who will download "cos they can", there are many other reasons

The common one between the 2 is that DRM is a pain in the arse for the paying customer, but no problem for pirates. I would understand DRM if it worked and if it stopped piracy, but that's not the case. In some cases I had to pirate a game I already bought in order to get it to work. Here's a guy explaining it better then I can. Language Warning

[Nova]

The common one between the 2 is that DRM is a pain in the arse for the paying customer, but no problem for pirates. I would understand DRM if it worked and if it stopped piracy, but that's not the case.

I agree that DRM is a pain in the ass how ever, The only PC games I have ever actually payed for were WoW, Diablo 2, Starcraft 1/2 and Halo 1. (Along with the Orange Box/L4D2 on steam but those were only $10 total)

Everything else has been pirated so I have never had a run in with Anti-Piracy other than the ones implemented into Diablo 2, Starcraft and Halo because those required CD Keys from a list of REGISTERED Database of Production Line keys rather than just using the algorithm. I bought those 4-5 years ago back when I was a noob, If i wanted to now I could EASILY pirate them working online within 10 minutes (As a matter of fact I shared Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft with all my friends on facebook 2 days ago XD )

[Sabre]

You are still a n00b. You are 16, and I don't know if you heard, but there are no 'real' hackers under the age of 20. I think it's known as the eturnal september. Basicly, you have hackers and script kids. Being about to download a torrent through a proxy doesn't make you 'pro'.

[Nova]

You are still a n00b. You are 16, and I don't know if you heard, but there are no 'real' hackers under the age of 20. I think it's known as the eturnal september. Basicly, you have hackers and script kids. Being about to download a torrent through a proxy doesn't make you 'pro'.

[Steve]

Now, now, that's not a smart way to counter arguments with Sabre, besides, you already used that picture three times already.

Eh, the piracy thing depends on the person and the philosophy of said person.

["User"]

Sabre age doesn't mean that much when it comes to ones abilities, one hacker in Montreal back in high school in the early 2000's managed to take down cnn, yahoo and other high traffic sites due to his skills.  And for the record I've seen first hand what nova is capable of doing and rest assured, he is no script kiddie.... 

[Mr. Krystal]

Good points for both sides, reasonable suggestions for both groups, ideas for working together. I agree with this video. (Warning: some cursing)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy

Now if i'm not mistaken there is generally only like 100-150 employees at MAXIMUM who developed the halo games. the profit of 700Million + split between them (giving different positions/Payments) that should still mean the average payout was like 5 Million.

If that is not enough money for you, Then I dont know what to say other than your a greedy bastard.

You are completely mistaken on this point. 100-150 employees actually make the game. Probably 10 times that many did everything else: marketing, sales, packaging, shipping, management, promotion management, insurance. A good rule of thumb is that whatever you send to develop a game, you spend twice that in advertising if you want a highly successful product (barring a few exceptions, great games, without good advertising campaigns, don't sell well while mediocre games with good advertising campaigns sell very very well). Then there's the fact that over 99% of games are not as successful as Halo 3. That one good game pays for the hundred other games that didn't do quite as well, and probably didn't even return their initial investment.

As a game programmer, take it from me:

Game programmers make LESS money than the average programmer in ANY other part of the programming industry

Game designers (who actually get fame sometimes, unlike programmers) make even less than the programmers

Game artists make less than game designers

Despite what you've heard, most people, even those who would otherwise be greedy, don't have the opportunity to be as greedy as culture will have you believe.

["User"]

You are completely mistaken on this point. 100-150 employees actually make the game.

This is what he originally meant though...

[Mr. Krystal]

This is what he originally meant though...

That's not the problem. The problem is that he assumes that all of the profits went to the people who made the game. If it's like most studios exactly $0 of profit went to the people who made the game. Game makers aren't paid on profit, they are paid on advances from the publisher (with the exception of bonuses, SOMETIMES).

["User"]

That's not the problem. The problem is that he assumes that all of the profits went to the people who made the game. If it's like most studios exactly $0 of profit went to the people who made the game. Game makers aren't paid on profit, they are paid on advances from the publisher (with the exception of bonuses, SOMETIMES).

Ah, alrighty then. 

And yeah, I would have assumed the same thing as well.

[Sabre]

Good points for both sides, reasonable suggestions for both groups, ideas for working together. I agree with this video. (Warning: some cursing)

I normally disagree with those guys, but that's a good vid. Even so, the idea that there is 1 and only 1 reason to justify piracy is a gross simplification. Also, the writing to devs about demos won't work, because there is an inverse corrilation between demos and people buying the full game usually. Let's say I want to buy Mr K adventure, you put out a demo, and it doesn't run well on my system. -1 sale. Or it might be a simple game that the bite sized varsion is enough for me, eg. Dead Rising Case Zero. again, -1 sale. or perhaps the demo is to short for a good taste of a game and thus achieves nothing.

This is why most big name games don't have demos, and when they do they tend to a few weeks after release. Demos work for indie of course, but rarely do they work for the big name games. Word of mouth/peer pressure is better iirc.

[Thu'um]

I hate the idea of "hacking" ever since live free die hard and eagal eye.

[Sabre]

What?

[Thu'um]

What?

chicken butt

[Sabre]

Just done some reading on hardware clones. Technically illegal, but it's the only way to get replacments for old stuff like NES or SNES. Even the famous Nintoaster falls under this catagory.