Piracy encourages innovation?

[Geekosaurus]

Piracy encourages innovation?

So does genocide. Doesn't make it right, y'all.

 

[DeathsHands]

No it does not, and is in fact just another pathetic excuse that pirates use in an attempt to make their piracy look "noble" as apposed to just being something people use to obtain free shit.

Pirates don't need an excuse. They're pirates.

Should I look that word up for everyone?

Pirates. Do not. Care.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

If you also believe that going on a Deathproof-style vehicular rampage encourages the use of seatbelts, then yes, piracy encourages innovation.

Without Napster, would the music industry have evolved at all?

If the rapid development it went through over the course of the twentieth century without so much as the internet is an indicator...then yes. It would have.

Sorry but I think we all know that Napster pushed the industry in a direction it did not want to go. Downloadable music was accelerated by Napster, at the very least.

...what? Causing unpleasant changes is hardly "encouraging innovation."

 

[stompy]

yes but if you don't produce a succesful game you won't be hired again. (and they do get ancilliary bonuses based on sales anyway)

True but still, those against piracy can't argue that piracy is denying the developer income, their livelihood. I understand that it hurts the industry in the long-run but the immediate cost is borne by the publisher... the people who gamers often have little sympathy for.

 

[Grygor]

I was reading through some articles about how The PC is concidered to be one of the best platforms for releasing games for new developers due to the low barriers of entry, and that it allows them to be more experimental with their games and a guide about the problems of piracy to the industry, something weird occured to me.

Piracy encourages innovation?

Correlation does not equal causation.

The innovation comes from the fact that the PC is basically an open platform - anyone who has a computer can make games for it. All you need is a compiler (can be obtained for at most a few hundred dollars, and there are also good free ones), some hardware-interface libraries (many are free, including the DirectX 11 SDK), and maybe some content-creation tools (it's possible to drop a few grand here, but again there are also good inexpensive or free options).

Consoles, on the other hand, require a license (expensive, and they are not given to Joe Blow bedroom-coder) and custom-made development hardware and tools (several thousand dollars each). Additionally, the licensing fee structure means that a portion of the revenue generated by your game goes straight to the platform manufacturer (generally about $10 per copy). The sole exception is the XNA Game Studio, which allows independent developers to develop XBox 360 games using PC development tools and sell them via the XBLM (though that requires passing peer review, and said games can't be sold for more than $5) by paying a $99/year subscription fee.



It just so happens that the qualities that make the PC so much easier to develop for and innovate also make it easier to crack copy-protection and DRM; but this in no way means that piracy causes innovation (except of course in the area of copy protection/DRM).

 

[Char-Nobyl]

If you also believe that going on a Deathproof-style vehicular rampage encourages the use of seatbelts, then yes, piracy encourages innovation.

Without Napster, would the music industry have evolved at all?

If the rapid development it went through over the course of the twentieth century without so much as the internet is an indicator...then yes. It would have.

Sorry but I think we all know that Napster pushed the industry in a direction it did not want to go. Downloadable music was accelerated by Napster, at the very least.

...what? Causing unpleasant changes is hardly "encouraging innovation."

Do you think that innovation comes only from pleasant things?

Actually, I don't think that pushing music into the realm of "buy per song" is worse. I think it is better than having to buy an entire CD for one good song. Would you also prefer that we could still only watch movies at the theater or on TV? No VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc...?

Technology changes things and I don't want to go back to a business model where you had to buy a bunch of songs you don't want to get the one song you do. I don't want to go back to the days when you couldn't watch what you wanted on demand. Do you?

Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. Ice cream sales rise and fall in direct proportion to shark attacks, but that's only because they both are seasonal statistics. I can argue with equal, if not greater, validity that Napster simply came into existence around a time when individual music files simply could be sold online and happened to do so before the music industry as a whole.

 

[Hiphophippo]

As a direct result of it? No. That said, it could be an unintended side effect sometimes depending on the the angle the developer takes with it. That doesn't justify it though.

Listen, piracy is wrong. Whether it's "stealing" is certainly debatable (I don't believe it is) and I've certainly pirated my lion's share of things in the past but I don't really do it anymore. It's an odd subject with me I guess. I think it's wrong but I'm not totally against it.

I guess my views got clouded when some of my good friends started working in the industry.

 

[Serioli]

Piracy encourages innovative DRM, that's what. If we didn't have pirates, we wouldn't have all these companies going crazy with DRM.

Yes you would, DRM isn't about piracy. It's about stopping used sales and controlling how you use a product.

It's why DRM doesn't stop piracy but companies still keep using DRM.

So without piracy, you would still have DRM.

No, DRM came about because people were copying games (pirating) via floppy disks back in the 80's-90's on PCs. The earliest form of DRM that I've ever seen is a series of codewords in the game manual, which the user needs enter in to play the game. (these were popular during the DOS era) Example: What is the code word on page 97? They did this to make lending games and copying games difficult, so they wouldn't lose money.

Eventually, the practice evolved, and became more sophisticated (and simplified) as the game industry exploded, with the use of CD keys to UbiSoft's new controversial online DRM.

To say that DRM isn't about piracy is a mistake.

Anyone remember the plastic doo-dad in 'Elite'? Made no difference to selling the game on.

This thing: (D'oh, link to torrent site! Trying again... Ah, wikipedia )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenslok

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Were you around and an adult when Napster became popular?

Well, you're already launched into condescending hysteria, if this and the CAPS LOCK ENGAGED later on are any indicator. Oh well. Continuing at my own risk.

There were no record companies selling individual downloadable songs. It was Napster that pushed this new way to purchase music because now people could just download the songs they wanted. People were willing to pay for individual songs but there wasn't a record company offering such. People had grown tired of the old model of buying alot of songs they didn't want just to get the ones that they did.

Record companies would have preferred to continue selling you full albums but that time was over and they had to adapt. They took Napster to court and won but there was no putting the shit back in the horse. There was no way to convince people that full albums were the best way to purchase music.

NAPSTER SET IT ALL IN MOTION.

Right...except that I seem to remember Napster being, you know, free. That was kind of the point of it. You notice how fast it plummeted when it turned into a "legitimate" site? It was like the PirateBay returning as a pay-per-download site.

To claim that Napster had nothing to do with the changes of how music was sold is ridiculous.

Now, let's look to the future. For years people have complained that they have to buy channels they do not want to get the channels they do want on their cable TV package. The cable companies don't want to allow people to only pay for the channels they want but will eventually be forced into this model by services like Netflix, that offer on demand viewing, Hulu, YouTube or some other service (possible a form of piracy) that pulls the shit out of the horse and changes things forever.

...wait, what? Did we just take a turn onto Batshit Avenue where Hulu and Netflix are "possible form(s) of piracy"?