Avast ye! piracy and its justifications
- Thread starter jim_doki
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I prefer this onemrverbal said:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MTbX1aMajow
Much more in keeping with this Government.
I only pirate stuff if I'm not going to buy it otherwise. That way no one loses out on any money but I still get cool stuff. It's a victimless crime!
Well, being the manager of an independent video game store, I more than agree with allowing game trade-ins. Independent stores like the one I run, rely on things like preowned sales to keep profit margins at a decent level. And even then, with the amount of tosh that gets released nowadays and gets immediately traded back in by everyone and their grandmother on account of it being so ridiculously piss-poor, preowned sales aren't always a big money maker. Trade-ins benefit both retailers and consumers, and to an extent the developers too. I've known many people buy preowned games, and liked them enough to come back a couple of weeks later and buy the sequel brand new whilst trading in their original purchase.Fangface74 said:
I do agree it may be taking money from the hands of the developers, obviously if no-one sold preowned games, people would only be able to buy new. However, I remember trading Mega Drive games back in when I was young, to get the latest release. That must have been about 14 years ago (I'm 24 years young so stop with the sniggering!) and looking at things nowadays, trade-ins certainly haven't hurt the games industry, far from it. If it had any sort of negative impact, it would have shown by now.
I also agree with trade-ins because the majority of people can't afford to spend £40-£50 a week on new games. A lot of people say games should be cheaper, but I'm quite indecisive when it comes to that argument. On one hand, mass production is a lot cheaper nowadays, and it must cost less to make games compared to back in the day. Though on the other hand, I remember the prices of Mega Drive and SNES games when I was younger. Comparatively speaking, the prices nowadays when you take into account inflation and the difference in the quality (visual of course, please refer to my earlier "piss-poor" comment) make games seem reasonably priced.
My own personal theory is that if preowned games didn't exist in stores, then there would be less gamers, down to the cost of games brand new.
Being able to resell the game lowers its real cost. If a game costs $60 but I can resell it for $20 if I don't like it enough to keep it, then I'm risking $40 rather than $60. Unless several hundred years of supply and demand experience are wrong, that increases demand and therefore sells more new games.LilMissEvil said:
Hmm...Your googling skills are better than mine. To be fair, when I started searching for it, I used the name "Them", which probably didn't help in my search for either legit copy in stores or torrent online.cleverlymadeup said:
What information, may I ask, did you use? Date the movie was released and name, or name and some actors? Would make searching for obscure movies easier if you could teach, of wise one.
A more accurate comparison would be if you drew something a friend liked, and they could either copy it for free, or pay you for it. In your example there's a clear loss - piracy only causes the lack of a gain. And in most cases, that's only initially.L.B. Jeffries said:
I'm a relatively active downloader, but my main reason for doing it is my annoyance at not receiving my money's worth. I'm not happy paying $30 AUD a cd for bands that get good reviews in magazines but are actually horrible (and just paying for the review), or that completely change their style and turn to rubbish. I'm not happy having to pay ridiculous amounts for a game ($100 AUD new, at a minimum) when the only thing I have to go off is the box art, or the opinion of someone else. If you're going to rip me off with high prices and shoddy products, then of course I'm going to stop buying what you're selling. Being in Australia as well there's huge issues with release dates - I'm not waiting a year to see a TV show when I could download it right now. If it's good, I'll buy the DVDs when they're finally released in 2 years. But for now, come aboard the SS Piracy, we sail at dawn.
That being said (and I've mentioned this earlier in another similar thread) I find that when I pirate, it generally turns out better for the creator if the product is quality. If it's shoddy, they might have gotten me to buy that one cd/book/game, or see their movie, but I wouldn't have been happy, and would have stayed away from everything else they've made, and possibly even anything under the parent company. There are numerous bands I would never have gone near (because they were a completely new style to me, because I thought earlier that they were crap, because they're relatively unheard of, etc) but with the ability to download their discography, they're able to reach a new audience. Perfect example - DJ Shadow. He was a little out of my new-to-hip-hop comfort zone initially. A well-written review sparked my interest, but when I was only earning $100 a week, there's no chance I'll risk $30 of it on the cd. With downloading however, I was listening to the reviewed album in 30 minutes, some more of his stuff within a few hours. Since then I've bought every CD of his I could get my hands on, a t-shirt, a DVD, and went to 2 concerts.
For years I hadn't bought anything because of prices and poor quality - the last game I'd bought was Red Alert 2 back when it was new, and I owned about 12 cds. I finally got a decent internet connection, I was able to expose myself to a wider range of products and test what I was getting first, and I'm now in possession of about 140 cds and counting, 10 games just in the last 6 months, and cupboards full of DVDs. All these people never lost anything from me - they either gained it back later, or I never would have bought the product in the first place.
If you think otherwise, have a look at the trends nowadays for movie producers and new bands to actually promote the torrenting of their files. It builds hype, gains a wider audience, and generally ensures that their other products will sell better. Loss now for gain later, it's business. Just because someone takes it for free now doesn't mean you'll lose out on that money. Piracy isn't even a new issue - mates making cassette copies of new releases for their friends was a big worry years ago. It's just as widespread now, it's only taken a different appearance.
I pirate. Things like Photoshop, because it doesn't do damage very much unless you start using it to make profit; then you got to fork over the grand for CS3 if you don't want Adobe-hired Lawyers on your ass.
And I like the policy on Jonathan Coulton's website: "Already Pirated my Music? No problem. Just please make a donation. For the sake of the monkeys. Think of the monkeys."
(Okay, that last part was artifice, but you get the idea.)
And I like the policy on Jonathan Coulton's website: "Already Pirated my Music? No problem. Just please make a donation. For the sake of the monkeys. Think of the monkeys."
(Okay, that last part was artifice, but you get the idea.)
I have pirated songs off the web mostly because I cannot find them on Itunes and I did download an emulator of N64 and Super NES but I realized that I loved those systems to much to prostitute them so thoughtlessly. If I wanna play those games I plan to cough up a nail and pay for the systems. Piracy is only justified in cases of EXTREME need.....like needing the ORIGINAL star wars without any digital enhancements.