thoughts on piracy?

[logen]

Games: Don't really care about them anymore. Back in the old days, I used to download a shitton of roms, and ps1 isos, and even have a filesharing irc channel. But as to why: Well, pretty much because they were not available in my country, or they were, but had a ridiculous price tag on them.

Movies, anime, manga, tv shows: Well first off all, I rarely go out to see movies anymore. It takes time, traveling costs money, and have to deal with idiots who ruin the whole experience, not to mention the fucking commercials at the start, and the sound that is always way too loud. I usually buy the dvds of the movies which I liked, but obviously there's a shitton of movies which I don't like, and would ask for my money back if I'd seen it at a movie theater. Not to mention, sometimes the release dates are fucked up. Like "UP" was released half a year later here, than in the US. Go figure.

There's also a lot of stuff that you can't get simply because it was never released, or is out of print. Imho, I'd make every movie freely streamable after 3 years, simply because, whoever wants to watch it, will watch it and pay for it, while it's still "fresh", while the rest will just wait for a torrent. And since movies are usually broadcasted after a while on TV, I don't see the point to pay for them after that. I mean really, I could just simply record it, and then digitize it. But why go through all the trouble if I can just simply download it.

Manga and anime: I don't buy any of these anymore, simply because I got irritated. I can only import 99% of these, but either the subs suck, they're censored, edited or the translation is culturally changed, and I would have to wait a lot of time to be able to watch it. Also the distribution system sucks balls. They should fucking make simulcasting sites already, that support every damn country. I mean really, how hard would it be to make? Fansubbing groups and scanlation teams usually release everything the same the day it's been broadcasted / published. And they have to do the encoding, timing, translating, scanning, cleaning, redrawing... I really can't believe they couldn't do this professionally, when stations / magazines have the material weeks before it's publication date.

Music: Again, distribution, and availability. Even if I could order a CD i want, the shipping costs would be twice as much. Not everything is available online. But, even when I buy a CD, I still pirate the music, because really, who uses a cd player anymore?

And as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Plus, I really think that piracy is just a form of marketing. I would have never gotten interested in a lot of stuff, and spend money on them later on in some way, if not for downloading them. The big bucks are never made from the sole product, but rather the related merchandise. Simply because they are something physical, that you can touch.

And just as someone already said it before me: You don't steal by pirating stuff. No one loses the original product, you just make a copy for yourself, and go about your business.

[rtil]

It is simply because there's so much brutal shit on German television and in movies and it doesn't get censored at all. In fact we are even some steps ahead of America in most instances as we are allowed to say the nasty words on television and show tits on tv without causing scandals... and then this happens because some conservative shitheads think that violence in games makes everyone a spree killer.

Regarding Counter Strike (and some other games) of course it doesn't really change the concept of the game but it's just annoying and ridiculous and that can completely ruin the feeling of a game... at least that's what it does for me. I acquired a gifted version from a Swedish guy, which bypasses the usual censorship but other games that I purchased myself just felt so unreal that I immediately lost interest in them and I think that is the sad thing: I would have gotten an original if I pirated the relative games while actually paying for them only gives me a downgraded piece of badly executed censorship. And still, they wonder why people pirate games...

then the problem in your country is the government getting in the way of what would otherwise be a non-censored service - and you can change that by voting and being an activist for what you believe in.

[dilly]

[rtil]

ALL ABOARD

[W.A.C.]

And as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Piracy definitely effects sales. There are albums I would have definitely bought in the past if I never became a music pirate. But as you brought up, it can also increase sales for certain artists since it allows people to discover music they might have never discovered otherwise.

[Sinitron]

yeah so it evens out between people who find music that's worth paying for and people who pirate everything anyway

[rtil]

And as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Piracy definitely effects sales. There are albums I would have definitely bought in the past if I never became a music pirate. But as you brought up, it can also increase sales for certain artists since it allows people to discover music they might have never discovered otherwise.

i think the effect is overexaggerated though. many people who pirate things never had the intention of purchasing the item anyway, so i don't think i'd count it as a lost sale. if they couldn't pirate the item and had the option between buying it and not having it at all, i think most would settle for the latter.

[sev]

>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

[Greenkitten]

America is weird.

[Kött]

>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

I have never heard of a case as the latter one... Maybe the fine might be that high if you actually were the one uploading that files on the internet or distributing them over a torrent or file-sharing tool but as far as I am concerned people have never been punished for simply acquiring virtual media until now.

[W.A.C.]

i think the effect is overexaggerated though. many people who pirate things never had the intention of purchasing the item anyway, so i don't think i'd count it as a lost sale. if they couldn't pirate the item and had the option between buying it and not having it at all, i think most would settle for the latter.

I agree it's over exaggerated and one of the most difficult aspects of piracy is knowing how much it hurts and helps sales. MW3 was massively pirated for example, but a lot of people might have done it simply to test whether or not the game is playable on their PC since there isn't a demo. Considering how a lot of people bought Sonic Generations only to find out it doesn't work on their computer, I don't blame a lot of people for pirating games without demos. Sonic Generations has a demo now though. I think piracy probably hurts mainstream music artists more than anyone else when it comes to things like album sales but they make so much money anyways from both sales and concerts that it's hard for me to be extremely sympathetic.

[Kött]

Does anyone know good statistics on piracy? It would be interesting to know how many of the worldwide/American internet users actually pirate files on a regular basey or how many have ever downloaded something illegally. So far, I haven't been able to find anything official...

This is what an English google search spat out about the rate: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate

[sev]

>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

I have never heard of a case as the latter one... Maybe the fine might be that high if you actually were the one uploading that files on the internet or distributing them over a torrent or file-sharing tool but as far as I am concerned people have never been punished for simply acquiring virtual media until now.

i actually just stole that from some guy on /v/ and posted it in this thread to see how people felt about it (i didn't actually do my research on how true it is)

[rtil]

Does anyone know good statistics on piracy? It would be interesting to know how many of the worldwide/American internet users actually pirate files on a regular basey or how many have ever downloaded something illegally. So far, I haven't been able to find anything official...

This is what an English google search spat out about the rate: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate

what exactly do those percentages indicate? a "software piracy rate" could mean anything.

also, it's really impossible to measure a per capita piracy statistic. the only thing that can be estimated closely is how many times a piece of software has been pirated, and even then the number is nebulous. for example, the most pirated games of 2011

[Kött]

Well, as you just said it can be estimated how many times a product has been pirated so they probably just focussed on a special amount of software and calculated the ratio. The problem is that the acticle neither contains any sources nor does it explain the exact method and the products the statistics focus on but the numbers should roughly be correct as far as I'm concerned...

[BlueScarab]

It really is Pandoras box, which can never be sealed.

It's bad yes. But should be legal for rare items that are out of print.

I never pirate books though, just paid 77 pence for "Romance Of The Forest".

[redmongoose]

[retrosmash]

download sum pirated pussAy on me hard drive!!whatUP

[ZennyPLUS]

Pirating is evil and you all are going to burn in hell for your sins.

/recent vapid convert

[rtil]

will there be anime in hell?