Internet Piracy

[devonin]

Everybody has the right to profit from their own work and effort. At MINIMUM, you should be able to recoup the costs of development and creation while having paid yourself a reasonable wage throughout.

The problem is people conflate Piracy with Theft and then say "but since it's not actual theft, it's therefore perfectly fine and harms nobody" which is entirely nonsense.

Lets equate the "Digital goods are cost-less to mass-produce therefore, piracy doesn't take anything" scenario to the real world by positing the invention of a device. This device is essentially an incredibly accurate scanning device with an incredibly high-fidelity 3-d Printer attached.

You are a master carpenter. You spent years in trade school, years as an apprentice, a journeyman and now finally a master. You spend a month hand-carving a beautiful oak table. This oak table would be for sale, in all honesty, at a fine furniture store for probably 2500 dollars. Hand-crafted work by master carpenters is absolutely worth that much if not more.

Now someone comes into your store front, scans the table, and creates what is, to pretty much every test besides destroying it, a table identical to the table you spent all that time creating, using the skill you earned from years and years of study training and practice, and says "Oh...well, you still have your original table. I wouldn't have bought your table anyway, I just want one that is exactly like it without paying for it. You can still sell that one, I didn't STEAL from you."

Do you think that makes -any- sense as a defence at all?

When a person puts something up for sale, they are creating a contract with you. That contract says "I have made this thing. I feel that X is a fair price for that thing. If you would like that thing, please pay X. If you won't pay X, I'm afraid I can't let you have the thing"

By pirating, whether you'd have bought it or not, you're breaking the implicit contract attached to a thing being for sale in the first place.

[MinaciousGrace]

correct me if im wrong but you're stating that it would be a bad thing if other people could duplicate physical objects at no cost so that an infinite number of people have a chance to derive joy from your creations, and you in turn could do the reverse

[Dynam0]

1) It is wrong on some level, even for personal use.
2) The vast majority of internet users do this because of how easy it is.
3) It's difficult to enforce since virtually everyone with a computer would be infringing on copyright laws of some kind.
4) How much actual harm it does is difficult to project and this is why I think piracy will continue to go largely unchecked.
5) The 3d printer/table analogy is okay...but this "table" is intended to be copied and mass-produced anyways, only instead it's by a distributor that splits the profit with the industry who oversees production of the original. The artist obviously gets some profit as well. For something to be pirated in the first place, it's almost all of the time going to be something that has already made profitable gains and is a sought after item.
6) Given that piracy is evolving too quickly to be enforced properly, people who get themselves into the media industry need to make intelligent decisions on how they release their material. Just like people have adapted ways of pirating copies, artists need to adapt to new ways of pitching their products in the smartest commercial avenue possible.

[omega_grunt666]

On the analogy itself: Presumably the table is in your store, or the stores you distribute through. This copy is in some back alley, it still has your name on it. If someone likes the table and wants matching furniture they might even come find your store (which they previously had no intent on doing) and are more likely to spend money there knowing the product is something they can rely on (Aren't you more likely to buy from a brand you know then spending blindly?) or maybe they get that from the alley as well, but they really like the stuff. So one day they find your real store and decide its worth shopping at and you get business that way. Not everyone wants to do business from the alley, you still get more than enough business to keep paying for materials/rent. And if you don't get enough business, your better off improving your product/advertising because its doubtful many people are interested in getting some from the alley let alone enough to sustain off of if they had to pay. What is the downside of them having a copy of your table at no expense to you if they cannot at the moment afford it? Is that worth the possibility they might in future be more likely to purchase from you?


I won't dispute piracy at its core is negative, but when the system is such that you are literally clicks away from "illegally" distributing or sharing content sometimes inadvertently. The problem is definitely with the system. Ok, now what do you do about it? Cracking down on power users and distributors is just about the only logical solution but it doesn't stop much. DRM and content locks do more to hinder the average end-user and usually can/will be cracked/avoided by pirates anyways. And who benefits if piracy was stopped completely? People who aren't buying the stuff still aren't and less people know about your music/movie/product and are less likely to buy it unless you put more work into making it available to everyone.


I think the only way to stop digital piracy is to restructure modern digital distribution and basically redefine piracy. Society would benefit from things hitting Public Domain sooner, The exception of course being more complex media like online games and constantly updated software where the best experience is provided by continued support from the developer. Every creator should be entitled to credit and compensation for their efforts, but your average internet piracy isn't doing much to harm that.

[devonin]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

correct me if im wrong but you're stating that it would be a bad thing if other people could duplicate physical objects at no cost so that an infinite number of people have a chance to derive joy from your creations, and you in turn could do the reverse

Try harder next time. Piss poor trolling attempt. 2/10 at best.

[MinaciousGrace]

id try harder if you had a more sensical analogy but the bottom line is that comparing physical goods to digital ones is silly and close minded

[Cavernio]

Get rid of capitalism, get rid of piracy.

[devonin]

What is the downside of them having a copy of your table at no expense to you if they cannot at the moment afford it? Is that worth the possibility they might in future be more likely to purchase from you?

Who said couldn't afford? I said "wouldn't have bought"

The issue here was never "I think you are charging too much" it is "I feel entitled to a thing you created for the purpose of making a living, while depriving you of the means to make that living"

To extend your analogy: Okay, maybe nothing is wrong if YOU make your copy of the table instead of buying it. It's still for sale after all. But what if -everybody- had the option to copy the table instead of buying it? If you have the choice between "Pay 2500 dollars" and "Pay nothing" almost everybody will somehow manage to morally justify choosing to pay nothing. Just because the difference is 60 bucks for a AAA title game, or 15/16 dollars for a music album or 15 bucks for a DVD or Blu-Ray doesn't change anything.

Also, it's pretty much impossible to draw a line on when something has "Made enough money that now pirating it is okay" You've got teams of dozens and in some studios hundreds of people who all got specific education, training and experience working on a game. You've got all the overhead costs of running a studio, running a distributing company, running the logistics of shipping and sales. You've got the need to compensate all of the staff enough that they continue to work for you and continue to be motivated enough to generate you new ideas that will also make you money. You have to pay for advertising, marketing, design of things as simple as logos and box art.

All of that leads to an -incredibly- nebulous "Okay, you've made enough money, now it is morally okay to use your product without paying the agreed upon price"

[devonin]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

id try harder if you had a more sensical analogy but the bottom line is that comparing physical goods to digital ones is silly and close minded

The defense of digital piracy is that "when I take a copy of the digital good, you still have the good, therefore, I'm not stealing, therefore, it's ok"

By creating a situation where you can look at a physical good, and go "When I take a copy of it, you still have it, therefore I'm not stealing therefore, it's ok" and then show that no, that really makes no sense, because the whole point of a purchase agreement for a good is that the person creating it is doing so with the understanding that they will get compensation for that good.

By refusing to give that compensation, even if you can claim with certainty (which you can't) that you would never ever in a million years have bought that good, you are violating the entire purpose of the creator/customer relationship.

[justin_ator]

barter system 4 lyfe

[Charu]

I'm going to pirate a house now.

I'm gonna do it!

[Hakulyte]

Arrest the internet, all of it, there's a chance someone is a pirate. Burn their house, kill their family. Justice demand retribution!

The question is not wrong or right imo, it's more "what to do about it".

Rules can be changed at any time to adapt marketing system to this and make profit out of it just as much if not more.

Edit: pmuch ninja'd by omega

[devonin]

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

Arrest the internet, all of it, there's a chance someone is a pirate. Burn their house, kill their family. Justice demand retribution!

The question is not wrong or right imo, it's more "what to do about it".

It is the question though, because if it's not wrong, the thing to do about it is "nothing" and if it is wrong, THEN you can talk about actions to take.

[omega_grunt666]

Once again, Its well established as wrong. What do you do about it?

The harm can't be measured, the benefits can. There is no feasible system being proposed that is beneficial to the creator or consumer. On a day to day basis it seems less like a real issue and more like an artifact caused by a system ill suited for todays technology and markets.

[Charu]

I say if you really want to stop piracy and the like, you're pretty much going to have to put an end to free digital sharing somehow... Good luck with that.

[Dynam0]

That's why I mentioned that the artists and markets themselves need to develop adaptive business strategies to still be compensated fairly for their products.

[justin_ator]

Just going to step in and say that I wouldn't know about a butt load of the artists in my iTunes if it wasn't for song compilation torrents where I looked up the artist later because I liked them.

[Arkuski]

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

The question is not wrong or right imo, it's more "what to do about it".

I meant to pose this debate in terms of right/wrong

[Kibblre]

Originally Posted by justin_ator

Just going to step in and say that I wouldn't know about a butt load of the artists in my iTunes if it wasn't for song compilation torrents where I looked up the artist later because I liked them.

I've had a similar encounter with games and I know my friends have as well:

Game looks fun, not sure if the cost will be worth it -> pirate game -> "OH SHIT GAME'S FUN" -> buy game -> support developer in other ways (like merch)

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

id try harder if you had a more sensical analogy but the bottom line is that comparing physical goods to digital ones is silly and close minded

It's you who is close-minded if you think it's actually about the goods (digital or physical) instead of the idea/skill. It's hardly ever really about the production costs of an item, but about the idea that makes the item. A good painting for example costs very little in terms of material costs (canvas and some paint), but it's not the material that makes it good or worthful. It's the idea and the skill of the painter that makes it good, and that´s what determines the worth. Even if it's then mass-produced (though it does decrease value that way), it's still the idea you're paying for much more than the materials used to produce that copy.


That said though, I pirate a lot of music but mostly because I don't have the money/income to support buying the ever increasing amount of CDs that I want. There will always be people that will never want to buy a thing and are content with rips of music or movies or games, but likewise there are also a lot of people (like me) who will purchase physical CDs (or movies, or videogames) because they enjoy the products AND there are people who didn't plan on buying the product anyway, find out it's really fun and want to support the creators later on (like Kibblre mentioned).

As for digital downloads, I think it's a very convenient way for people to make money off of it because it's much more accessible to buy a 3 dollar digital album than a 12 dollar physical album. The problem with digital downloads for me though is that I feel as though I'm paying for not much more than a couple of bytes, which is kind of contradictory to my previous statement about worth being in the idea but that's just how I feel on an emotional level about it. It's good for anyone else willing to spend their money like that, but I'd rather save up a bit and buy the physical album since it comes with just that little bit of extra (booklet, stickers, flyers w/e). Physical products appeal to me more than a digital product, but that's just me.