Why action against piracy must be harsh and taken now

[Joey D]

In which case why does anyone bother in trying to make a profit? (I may be daft, but to throw it out, isn't that communism? Again, don't quote me on that, never really researched it.)

Some game companies actually make products people want to buy in spades. Look at Halo and the amount of money that was trucked into Bungie's development studio over it. If your game is appealing enough people will buy it, one only needs to look at the large amount of money the game industry takes in every quarter to show that piracy isn't hurting them as much as they may claim.

1. Because we still created the game you are using.

That still doesn't detract from the fact if I was never going to buy it in the first place you would never receive my money. Even then I would have to be considering buying the game from your company directly to actually make you guys feel the loss.

2. Interesting, but if it's used, someone has already bought it. That money goes to them, and not us.

Does it matter? That means two people were able to enjoy the game with only one person giving you money. By what you are saying that would be a loss to your company and stealing.

 

[Sureboss]

But not at the same time, which is quite important.

That still doesn't detract from the fact if I was never going to buy it in the first place you would never receive my money. Even then I would have to be considering buying the game from your company directly to actually make you guys feel the loss.

But we've still valued it, it has a value to us and you're using it without giving us that value.

Some game companies actually make products people want to buy in spades. Look at Halo and the amount of money that was trucked into Bungie's development studio over it. If your game is appealing enough people will buy it, one only needs to look at the large amount of money the game industry takes in every quarter to show that piracy isn't hurting them as much as they may claim.

Indeed, but we have a niche market and could never hope to compete (or ever aim to) with the big companies. We work in the same industry, that's our only relevance. I suppose it's quite common that they say the smallest businesses get hit the hardest, in any industry.

 

[Northstar]

In which case why does anyone bother in trying to make a profit? (I may be daft, but to throw it out, isn't that communism? Again, don't quote me on that, never really researched it.)

Companies need to adjust and find other ways to make a profit(subscription fees are probably most common). Look at iRacing, they have found a way to make it so it is essentially impossible to pirate their game.

I may be mis-reading your wording, in which case I'll pre-apologise. But there aren't production costs in something that isn't physical? (ie, downloaded software)

Nope, If you go and copy/create a new file on your computer is costs nothing. However there may be a development cost, but like I said earlier can be offset with other means.

So if physical copies of games didn't exist, you would pirate and not buy a downloaded version?

I wouldn't download or even pay for a download if there is no physical copy. This is the same approach I have with movies.

 

[Joey D]

But not at the same time, which is quite important.

That still doesn't matter, you are still losing money since only one person bought the physical game from you, therefore you are losing out on an additional sale of a unit.

But we've still valued it, it has a value to us and you're using it without giving us that value.

It could have all the value in the world to you, but if the downloader had zero inattention of buying the game in the first place you aren't losing anything. If there wasn't a torrent of the said game then that person wouldn't have it. You still aren't losing any money in that situation. You are losing money in the scenario of the person who would have directly purchased the game from you but decided to torrent it. However since there is no way to prove how many people download for various reasons, the figures that are thrown around for loss due to piracy are misleading and overinflated.

Indeed, but we have a niche market and could never hope to compete (or ever aim to) with the big companies. We work in the same industry, that's our only relevance. I suppose it's quite common that they say the smallest businesses get hit the hardest, in any industry.

As I keep saying your either have to move, adapt, or die. Those are your choices. Piracy is here to stay and you'll never stop it, so the best thing to do is figure out how to live with it.

 

[Sureboss]

But should we have to live with it?

I could say the same about terrorism, it's always been here, it's here to stay, but we aren't going to "live with it", are we?

And before someone jumps down my throat, I'm using the example and not comparing them.

 

[Joey D]

But should we have to live with it?

Yes. Unless of course you figure out a way to do what Keef proposed and change human nature.

The only thing you really can do is make an excellent product people want to buy and keep up on the best security measures you can.

 

[Northstar]

But should we have to live with it?

I could say the same about terrorism, it's always been here, it's here to stay, but we aren't going to "live with it", are we?

And before someone jumps down my throat, I'm using the example and not comparing them.

You have to live with it since you can't control the people react and act. However you can try and prevent it, this is what game developers need to do. Either that, or what Joey said make a game people want to buy.

 

[Omnis]

Of course there are development costs. However, there isn't a cost for copying. Part of development costs should include code security, if you intend to make it proprietary. Otherwise it works just like any other copyright-expired literature does.

 

[Sureboss]

No, there isn't a cost for copying, as we have a "single" game, each game will be identical to the last. But you can't just put all the costs on one, you spread them out over how many copies go out, be they legally sold, or illegally downloaded. So it affects your gross profit.

 

[Keef]

But we've still valued it, it has a value to us and you're using it without giving us that value.

The consumer determines the value of a product. What it's worth to you is meaningless, what it's worth to them is all that matters.

Besides, you know that if sales were guaranteed you'd sell the game for 100 pounds, not just 18. Maybe even thousands. But sales aren't guaranteed, and you have to price products at a point where consumers find it's cost reasonable. Hopefully that market value is above it's actual worth, or else it's back to the drawing board. You can't please everyone, but there is a reasonable tradeoff somewhere in the pricing spectrum.

But no matter what your price is you can bet someone will go out of their way to get it cheaper. Especially when it's as easily done as digital media. So far it's been something every industry has always had to deal with.

 

[Omnis]

The consumer determines the value of a product. What it's worth to you is meaningless, what it's worth to them is all that matters.

No, Keef, supply does. Way to sound like a hardcore socialist.

Anyway, Thomas Jefferson says:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

So if you want to make money on your game (which is just an inventive organization of limitless code), you need to keep the code a secret and rent its use, or make it impossible to play without some kind of usage fee. Contract law doesn't apply to third parties, so, honestly there's not much else to do. Unless you stop making unprofitable games and shift your resources to something more productive.

 

[Keef]

No, Keef, supply does. Way to sound like a hardcore socialist.

The more of it there is, the less it's worth. Like GM. But what happens if you have only one of something and nobody wants it? Obviously it wouldn't be worth anything. But if one person wants it the value would go up. If two people wanted it the value would probably be even higher because they'd auction for it. Or am I looking at this backwards. Surely its not very complicated.

So if you want to make money on your game (which is just an inventive organization of limitless code), you need to keep the code a secret and rent its use, or make it impossible to play without some kind of usage fee. Contract law doesn't apply to third parties, so, honestly there's not much else to do. Unless you stop making unprofitable games and shift your resources to something more productive.

I know WoW requires a subscription, but I don't know how exactly the game's software is distributed. Live for Speed allows you to download a demo, but pay for the license to unlock the full game. I don't know if there have been any cases of people cracking the demo-only thing yet without paying for it. Anyone heard of that?

 

[Omnis]

The more of it there is, the less it's worth. Like GM. But what happens if you have only one of something and nobody wants it? Obviously it wouldn't be worth anything. But if one person wants it the value would go up. If two people wanted it the value would probably be even higher because they'd auction for it. Or am I looking at this backwards. Surely its not very complicated.

And if that auction doesn't meet the reserve price, the property doesn't get sold.

 

[Blake]

The consumer determines the value of a product. What it's worth to you is meaningless, what it's worth to them is all that matters.

No, the consumer only has the right to decide if they're willing to pay the price that the retailer decides it is worth. If they take the product without paying for it they are stealing.

And Joey, arguing that people who download the game but wouldn't have purchased it in the first place doesn't affect profit is flawed. If they didn't want the game, they wouldn't download it. If they don't think it's worth the price the retailer asks they have no right to take it for nothing.

Their options are a) pay $18 to get the game or b) don't get the game. The third option - c) take it for nothing - is immoral. Any attempt to paint it otherwise is deluded.

Just because it is a fact of life doesn't make it right.

 

[GT Pro]

All prices on music, games and whatnot are merely 'invitations to treat'; they are offers by the producer to the consumer and the consumer can either reject, accept or make a new offer to the producer on those goods. The producer in turn can then decide whether or not to accept the consumer's offer. Legally, if the consumer carries out their proclaimed offer without acceptance by the producer (i.e., the consumer's counter-offer to a $24.99 CD was $12.00, the producer either doesn't acknowledge or accept that new offer) then it constitutes stealing. This is one way in which to illustrate that the downloading of music (without the artist's consent - sometimes artists such as NIN have offered it for free) with no direct payment to the producer is considered highly illegal.

 

[Duke]

If somebody is not willing to pay for the product, then they should not get to use it unless the real owner legitimately gives it to them for free. Anything else is illegal and immoral.

End of freaking story.

 

[Omnis]

And you can't own what is not property.

 

[Duke]

Yes, you can. I own my ideas.

 

[Omnis]

Yes, you can. I own my ideas.

No, actually, you don't. You possess ideas, but you do not own them.

 

[Joey D]

If somebody is not willing to pay for the product, then they should not get to use it unless the real owner legitimately gives it to them for free. Anything else is illegal and immoral.

End of ****ing story.

Now there is some upstanding mod administrator like behaviour 👍! With an obscenity too!

 

[Duke]

Now there is some upstanding mod administrator like behaviour 👍! With an obscenity too!

Good thing I wasn't posting as an administrator, then, just as an honest citizen.

No, actually, you don't. You possess ideas, but you do not own them.

I maintain intellectual property rights over my ideas, such as architectural designs, even if they are not a physical object to own. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

 

[Joey D]

Good thing I wasn't posting as an administrator, then, just as an honest citizen.

It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's another to act how you did. I really thought GTP was above flaming posts, seems as if I was wrong.

If it really was the end of story you wouldn't have some many differing opinions nor would you have so much talk about it throughout the net, in the media and even in politics. Digital piracy is not black and white just because you say it is, there is a lot more to it then that.

 

[Pako]

Theft IS black and white. If you take something that isn't yours, whether or not the victim is being hurt by this is beside the point. The point is, if you take something that isn't yours, it's steeling...and that includes a digital copy of a game that you weren't going to buy in the first place.

 

[Omnis]

I maintain intellectual property rights over my ideas, such as architectural designs, even if they are not a physical object to own. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

This is what I'm getting at, as previously quoted:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's another to act how you did. I really thought GTP was above flaming posts, seems as if I was wrong.

If it really was the end of story you wouldn't have some many differing opinions nor would you have so much talk about it throughout the net, in the media and even in politics. Digital piracy is not black and white just because you say it is, there is a lot more to it then that.

Don't interrupt a discussion with straw men.

 

[Joey D]

Theft IS black and white. If you take something that isn't yours, whether or not the victim is being hurt by this is beside the point. The point is, if you take something that isn't yours, it's steeling...and that includes a digital copy of a game that you weren't going to buy in the first place.

There is more to it than that though, if it was black and white there would be no conversation about it and no arguing. There is obviously a grey area with digital piracy because there is quite a bit of discussion on it.

Let me get back to my original point though since it's gotten lost in all of this. My original point was piracy doesn't hurt the gaming industry nearly as much as is being claimed, because if the downloader never planned on buying the game then the game company never would have sold a unit to that person in the first place. Thus they aren't really losing money on it. I was not out to argue the morality of piracy or whether it is right or wrong. I was merely trying to point out that saying the game industry is losing a ton of money because some people download a game is a rather daft idea, especially when you look at the figures for the gaming industry's profits.

My other point was that there is no way to combat piracy and the industry either needs to the move, adapt or die.

Don't interrupt a discussion with straw men.

I don't believe I was, and if I did that wasn't my intention.

 

[Omnis]

I don't believe I was, and if I did that wasn't my intention.

Your first response was... or at least it didn't contribute anything. But, ok, let's continue.

Theft is black and white. However, the question is not whether theft is okay. It is the legitimacy of "intellectual property" as something of which theft is possible at all. In other words, we should be talking about whether intellectual property is actually property. And, in any case, it isn't.

I suppose that in order to own an idea, it must first not exist in any manner, and, secondly, it must never be disclosed to anyone or manifested in any way. And if that's the case, what the heck is the point of owning an idea?

 

[Northstar]

It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's another to act how you did. I really thought GTP was above flaming posts, seems as if I was wrong.

If it really was the end of story you wouldn't have some many differing opinions nor would you have so much talk about it throughout the net, in the media and even in politics. Digital piracy is not black and white just because you say it is, there is a lot more to it then that.

I think most of the debate is over what they can and cannot do to stop it. Currently it is hard since there only effective way is either ip tracking(which can easily be blocked)or going after the major "outfits"(I guess that would be the best name for the sites and programs designed for P2P) for the files, so the problem is basically uncontrollable since the "pirates" are basically two steps ahead. Really the only way to stop it is by regulating the internet which would be a major rights violation.

 

[Blake]

And you can't own what is not property.

Code is property. Data is property. The game industry isn't selling ideas, it is selling a digital product.

 

[Omnis]

Code is property. Data is property. The game industry isn't selling ideas, it is selling a digital product.

Code and data are not property because one man can possess another's wholly and without detriment at the same time. You can't just arbitrarily define property, or especially theft in cases like these.

The game industry doesn't sell digital products either. It sells either physical products or a permission/license for/of use. For the latter, if one party breaks the contracted agreement, that party can and should suffer the consequences under contract law. However, third parties are not bound by such agreements.

 

[Pako]

There is more to it than that though, if it was black and white there would be no conversation about it and no arguing. There is obviously a grey area with digital piracy because there is quite a bit of discussion on it.

Let me get back to my original point though since it's gotten lost in all of this. My original point was piracy doesn't hurt the gaming industry nearly as much as is being claimed, because if the downloader never planned on buying the game then the game company never would have sold a unit to that person in the first place. Thus they aren't really losing money on it. I was not out to argue the morality of piracy or whether it is right or wrong. I was merely trying to point out that saying the game industry is losing a ton of money because some people download a game is a rather daft idea, especially when you look at the figures for the gaming industry's profits.

My other point was that there is no way to combat piracy and the industry either needs to the move, adapt or die.

So if a retailer continues taking losses from theft, they're just supposed turn the other way and increase their writeoff accrual? Certainly not, they put in alarm systems, hire guards, put in camera security systems. Maybe this is what you meant by your "adapt or die" comment but I took it as "they just need to count their losses and accept a certain amount of margin loss as a cost of doing business, business is still good so we can afford it". Well, that's something I can't swallow. There is no way to speculate how many downloads are detouring actual purchases, (example using simple math) but if millions are downloading it, even at a 10% probability they would have purchased it otherwise, that's 10,000 copies of unearned revenue.

So is piracy theft? There is no grey area here, it was a rhetorical question not meant to be answered. Of course piracy is theft, that is not the debate.

The debate, or the grey area, that you speak of, has to do with company's that provide the tool for piracy. Much like the grey area of gun control. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Likewise, Pirate Bay doesn't pirate games, people pirate games.

Again I'll say, there is no debate that piracy is illegal and that it is also theft. It is black and white with no debate, and not just because I say so, but because theft is theft regardless what you call it.