Online Piracy

[KMD]

Nothing new, but worth discussing. What are your thoughts on online Piracy? Is it wrong? Is it killing media, or an over feared problem?

     I think that PC game piracy might just kill big developers from the PC, but its been a while since I've played. Its stupidly easy, and most of the pirates have no shame. From what I hear, PC games have been coming out with anti-piracy software that makes them harder for legit users to play. That sucks, and I see these pirates as the biggest assholes around.

        Music: I'll pirate music to my hearts content, but only because i'm a poor college student. It's not all bad because it exposes artists, who can make money other than just through album sales. When I get a decent job, i'll probably buy my share of albums to support those that I like (Even though the record companies take most of it). If you're a music performer, don't get too pissed off that people are pirating your music. Yes, you should get paid for it, but music performance is not something you go in for the money. I'm surprised at how many people are releasing pay-what-you-want EPs.

           Movies: A lot of people do this, but I avoid it. Big budget films cost tons of money to produce, and I feel guilty getting it for free when they are extremely cheap thanks to redbox or netflix.

         Games: Again, I avoid this unless the games are hard to come by legitimately, or so old that the company wouldn't make money from them (roms). They cost too much to design. I don't feel bad pirating roms though, especially ones that I own physically. With the right hardware, I could legally put the image on my computer. How is this any different?

        So how do you all feel?

[ShadyGuy]

I'm a pirate. I pirate games, movies and music and don't feel guilty about it whatsoever. The music, movie and gaming industry made record profits last year.

Music: I honestly haven't bought a cd in years and the way they are priced in the Netherlands I'm not going to for a very long time. I do go to concerts, though.

Movies: I'm a movie buff and I watch hundreds of movies every year. More than I could ever pay for. So in addition to the average of 10 films i see in the cinema every year and the 8 to 10 dvds/blurays I buy, I download a lot. I also download and watch a lot of really old movies that aren't even in print anymore (eventhough they're still copyrighted). I also run a bittorrent tracker geared completely towards bad movies, cult films and unknown gems. I'm sure Night Owl would love the place if he pirated movies cause it has stuff he wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. If anyone wants an invite, send me a message.

Gaming: I don't think there's any denying pc gaming is in decline. One of my favorite pc gaming magazines, PC Gameplay changed their name to Gameplay last year and started reviewing console games as well, simply because not enough pc games were coming out. However I don't think this is because of piracy, as much as it is fueled by the paranoia about piracy at the publishers side. So what they do is install draconian DRM measures that actually punishes their own customers instead of the pirates who only have to wait for a crack and then can effortlessly play the game that legitimate customers cannot. I think this is what will hurt sales more than actual piracy.

That said, looking at the list of multi platform and pc games that have to come out this year (Bulletstorm, Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, Crysis 2, Homefront, Dragon Age 2, etc) and how well indie gaming has done last year, I think the pc gaming industry is FAR from dead. And if you look at my Steam account. I have bought almost 100 games over the last 4 years. I tend to download games and buy them later when they become cheaper.

So, I don't know if I'm a typical pirate, but I think I give as much as I can and take everything. A lot of the movies and games I played/watched through piracy I'll probably buy at a later date when I have the funds or when the prices have gone down. The big mistake record, gaming and movie production companies make is thinking that every pirated copy represents a lost sale. This has never been the case.

[Chucara]

First of all, I don't understand why game pirates are any worse than other pirates (arrr?)

But to follow your setup:

Games: My pirating of games has rapidly decreased since Steam. I am up to 160+ games on steam, and any games I pirate these days are games that I want to try out before I buy them, and no demo is available. Frankly, the quality of games is too varied to justify paying €50-60 for a game that you might potentially play for 2 hours then never play it again.

Music: I haven't bought a CD is ages. Optical media are dead to me. I listen to music when: a) I'm driving to work, b) I'm working or c) I'm having a party. For a and b, I listen to the radio (FM or internet) and at parties, buying CDs isn't an option as I can't anticipate what music to listen to. So instead, I use Grooveshark.

Movies: I buy a lot of movies and I download a lot of movies. I couldn't possibly afford all the movies I watch, but all in all I am the one in my circle of friends that buys the most movies even though I also pirate a lot of them.

Common factor for all three types of media:
- If it has DRM, I pirate it instead of buying (with a few exceptions)
- Optical media is dead to me. I have ripped all my movies and music to my server and stream everything from that.

[AcdQueen89]

Movies: I'm a movie buff and I watch hundreds of movies every year. More than I could ever pay for. So in addition to the average of 10 films i see in the cinema every year and the 8 to 10 dvds/blurays I buy, I download a lot. I also download and watch a lot of really old movies that aren't even in print anymore (eventhough they're still copyrighted).

I'm in the same boat here, for the most part. i netflix alot but there are just some things that i like watching when i have no internet access or something that i grew up with and for nostalgia factor want on hand.

since i've gotten netflix i've dl'd less, but but if i look for anything foreign or overly specific netflix is at a loss.

[Night Owl]

I used to be somewhat anti-pirate, but now I don't care - my stance has definitely softened. I look at it this way: if you had the disposable income, you'd likely just buy it, as it's always more time consuming to take it. Hence, I don't see the pirate as a lost customer - I see him or her as someone who would not have bought it in the first place.

I definitely used to download music before itunes, because there was no other way to get it in digital format (ripping wasn't as simple as it is now). Now I'm an itunes junkie - I probably spent 1k there in the last year or so. I buy WAY more music now than I used to.

I have bought pirated DVD's off the street in NYC because I wanted to see the movie now - in almost all cases, I bought the legit version when it came out. Yea, I'll take your invite, Shady.


Also, in what Shady said about PC Gaming.... it's prettymuch dead. There was no bigger PC Gamer than I - I still have 100+ games in my back room that I just can't part with. But the gaming experience on the xbox 360 and a PC are night and day. PC's are still great for strategy games (I wish they'd do another Myth game), but that's about it - the xbox does everything else waaaaay better.

[Silver Dragon]

I used to be somewhat anti-pirate, but now I don't care - my stance has definitely softened. I look at it this way: if you had the disposable income, you'd likely just buy it, as it's always more time consuming to take it. Hence, I don't see the pirate as a lost customer - I see him or her as someone who would not have bought it in the first place.

I agree with this almost in its entirety...the only difference being I never had the anti-pirate phase.

Also, in what Shady said about PC Gaming.... it's prettymuch dead. There was no bigger PC Gamer than I - I still have 100+ games in my back room that I just can't part with. But the gaming experience on the xbox 360 and a PC are night and day. PC's are still great for strategy games (I wish they'd do another Myth game), but that's about it - the xbox does everything else waaaaay better.

Be forewarned, its 4:30am here and what follows is kind of ramble-y...

I disagree with this on a few points.  One, I don't agree that PCs are only good for strategy games; I can't see playing an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, or Age of Conan on the XBox, there's just not enough 'control' with the controller when you have need of between 10 and 200 keybinds to activate combat abilities/professions/manipulate inventory or environment/etc/etc/*blink blink*/etc, (and I just wouldn't want to play Fallout in any form on a 'console'...that just wouldn't be right )...

Which brings me to point number Two.  Your X-Box 360 is a PC. A 'set top' PC with an entirely different marketing scheme behind it.   In my opinion, 'consoles' have evolved into basically dumbed down* versions of PCs, at least from a technological aspect.  Let's see,  IBM triple-core PowerPC-based CPU, custom ATI GPU, 512MB memory, 20GB upgradeable hard drive, 3 USB ports, built in Ethernet, 802.11 A/B/G Wi-Fi...sounds like a PC to me!   Currently the only difference I see between a PC and a console gaming system (with one caveat) is how the user physically interfaces with the device; they've condensed the interface down to a vibrate-y controller with a dozen-ish buttons for consoles instead of the keyboard and mouse for PCs.  Otherwise, consoles are simply micro PCs with standardized components (which serves the purpose of virtually eliminating the multitude of bugs generated by the 'variable component spectrum' of PCs), different user interface device(s), and a different OS than your typical desktop PC.  Essentially, at least as I see it, 'console gaming' IS PC gaming.   (The one caveat I mentioned is the X-Box LIVE/Marketplace aspect, that has the desktop PC gaming experience beat hands down, imo.)  And unless you're referring to the All-Seeing Eye of Sauron err, I mean the Kinect, I personally don't see that big a difference between PC and console gaming, other than the stuff I've already mentioned...or forgot to mention...  Do they have motion controllers for PCs? Or keyboard/mouse that you can plug into your X-360? *rambles off*

*I use the term dumbed down in reference to the lack of the average end-user's ability to upgrade and/or replace components of consoles

[KMD]

Which brings me to point number Two.  Your X-Box 360 is a PC. A 'set top' PC with an entirely different marketing scheme behind it.   In my opinion, 'consoles' have evolved into basically dumbed down* versions of PCs, at least from a technological aspect.  Let's see,  IBM triple-core PowerPC-based CPU, custom ATI GPU, 512MB memory, 20GB upgradeable hard drive, 3 USB ports, built in Ethernet, 802.11 A/B/G Wi-Fi...sounds like a PC to me!

   So they're made of the same parts. Fine. At least Xbox gamers don't even need to know these exist to enjoy their games.


    Pirating PC games is a moral issue to me. A dying platform with a long history; And prolific pirating, which causes developers to include DRM software in many major games. The software limits the freedom of and frustrates legitimate buyers. No other media is fighting piracy by frisking customers (Save for maybe DRM Mp3s) quite like this. At least as far as I've heard, I admittedly haven't had much experience. But there sure are a lot of people complaining...
    If your pirating is causing major headaches for real customers, thats a good enough reason to stop to me.
   
     I consider pirated games to be lost sales. But not to a 1-to-1 ratio. I think that people who Illegally download PC games can be categorized. Sure, a lot of Pirates would never buy the game. But I'm certain that a percentage would intend to buy that blockbuster hit, if illegal downloading wasn't an option. Maybe 30%, does that sound ridiculous?