Someone counter this anti-piracy argument, because I don't know how

[Brawndo]

Let's pretend I own an orange tree that produces unlimited oranges - whenever someone picks one, another instantly grows in its place. Now imagine that I live in a village with 100 people, and from market research I think there is a demand for 50 oranges. As the tree owner, I have the right to distribute my oranges as I see fit. I can sell exactly 50 oranges, I can flood the market with 500 oranges, or I can sell only a few and create a scarcity. Sure, it would be a completely artificial scarcity, but it doesn't matter if it is artificial because as the tree owner I have the right to sell as many or as few oranges as I want.

But then one day some guy decides he's going to pick oranges from my tree at night and hand them out to the villagers for free. I haven't lost any oranges, it's true, but I'm still screwed out of the true value of my tree.

Why? Because the guy jacking my oranges is damaging my scarcity power.

By handing out an unlimited number of my oranges for free, my oranges have lost almost all of their value. It doesn't matter that there are theoretically infinite oranges - it is my right to control their distribution because the value of my oranges is largely based on their relative scarcity. Mr. Orange Robin Hood is causing demand for my product to be obliterated by oversupply. And no matter how nice and accommodating I am to my customers, I will never be able to compete with the orange snatcher so long as he continues to have free access to my tree. I could deliver the oranges to customers' homes for no cost, I could slash the price to pennies, but whatever my competitive effort "X" is, the orange thief's method is always "X minus one".

 

[Wolfram23]

There's no argument against that. Piracy can and does hurt the industry.

That said, what if you just showed up in town, and just finished growing this magic orange tree. You want to start selling the oranges, but nobody wants to buy them. Maybe a couple people do, and they say "hey, these oranges are good!" but everybody else looks at them like they're crazy, because they've never had an orange before.

Then your night theif shows up and steals some oranges. The next day, a large group of people want your oranges. They were afraid to buy one, but getting one for free allowed them to try it and decide if they like it. If they didn't get one for free, they might have just continued to eat papayas or something, because they know they like it.

So... games should have demos.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

No analogy is perfect, and this is no exception. The problem here is that what is happening in Magical Orangeland is to a supply of a single, static substance, that isn't dependant on the money raised from the selling of it's product to continue to function.

To make the analogy more lifelike you would have to say that the orange tree only gave unlimited fruit when tended to by a dozen of the village people, that this left them no other way to earn a living, and the only way for them to continue to tend the tree was the profits they were getting from the 50 oranges. Then the free orange seller was in danger of jeopardising their ability to continue to work full time on the tree. meaning that the whole system of oranges for anyone was in danger of being damaged or destroyed altogether. Also the orange thief fancies your mother.

The main problem here is whether or not piracy has negatively affected the games industry. Even if you believe that not a single sale has ever been lost from piracy, you cannot deny that companies have spent lots of money on anti-piracy measures that negatively affect legitimate gamers, just like if the orangetree owner set all his oranges inside mini bear traps to stop people stealing them, and all the legitimate customers had to try and eat around them, occasionally getting caught when the trap accidentally messes up and snaps shut on their face.

Piracy has led to games developers being less risky with the titles they produce, and less likely to produce titles for the PC, so we are already suffering from piracy, even if no company ever lost a single sale (which they have)

 

[GothmogII]

You kidding me? If you had a tree with unlimited oranges. You can bet your ass every country in the world would want a hold of that. And what an evil bastard you'd have to be to hold on to it, or worse sell its fruit. Oranges may not provide the full range of vitamins and nutrients a human needs, but -if- such a thing existed it could go a long way to fixing food shortages the world over!

This difference is, to an extent I agree that people should profit from the fruits (badumpish) of their -own- labour and creativity. Your orange tree is neither of those things.

 

[Brawndo]

So... games should have demos.

You'll get no argument from me on this, I agree completely. However, game developers and publishers aren't always keen on the idea because they'd rather you just base your purchase off of their marketing machine and the bought-and-paid-for 9/10 review. Demos have made or broken game purchases for me more times than I can remember

The main problem here is whether or not piracy has negatively affected the games industry. Even if you believe that not a single sale has ever been lost from piracy, you cannot deny that companies have spent lots of money on anti-piracy measures that negatively affect legitimate gamers, just like if the orangetree owner set all his oranges inside mini bear traps to stop people stealing them, and all the legitimate customers had to try and eat around them, occasionally getting caught when the trap accidentally messes up and snaps shut on their face.

Piracy has led to games developers being less risky with the titles they produce, and less likely to produce titles for the PC, so we are already suffering from piracy, even if no company ever lost a single sale (which they have)

Agreed. I don't support Draconian legislation like SOPA and PIPA, or customer-punishing DRM. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the whole concept from an academic or logical standpoint.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I think that in that analogy, you're an asshole if you don't want to share your fruit...just an opinion.

The constant analogizing over piracy seems silly to me. I view these bite-size clarity-helpers as an insult to my intelligence. Something doesn't always have to be likened to another thing to be understood, oftentimes that process only serves to distort the truth. These analogies are never perfect, they always overlook something important to the real world example they're attempting to draw from...it's disingenuous by nature, and that's why it's almost always employed by those with an agenda rather than those genuinely looking for truth and balance.

If you can't look at something and judge it by it's own merits, you maybe shouldn't form a strong opinion on it. We could spare each other the political maneuvering and just look at the facts.

 

[Veylon]

It's a decent - if flawed - metaphor. It only really works if you're the one who created the tree and thus deserving to own it. And if there were other limitless trees with different fruit that anyone could pick from.

After all, game companies that want to sell games for $60 aren't the only providers of games. There are cheaper games and free games. Pirates aren't driven to piracy because there is no other way to get games, but because they desire the taste of this or that particular game and are unwilling to pay the price.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd suggest it's like if I created something and wanted to sell it, and people came along and took copies of it without my permission without paying me for the work and creativity I'd poured into making it worth having.

I'd also suggest that's what it is and there's not much else it's like

Honestly, I've tried this myself, I was likening the scarcity thing to counterfeiting money, in that you're devaluing the originals.

However, in the end, copyright infringement isn't that, it isn't theft, it's not even piracy, it's copyright infringement, and that's a bad thing, I hope we can all agree that much.

 

[LoneWanderer19]

I just came here for the awesome orange analogy!

No but seriously, if the game developer knew that his game was going to be priated for free, I doubt that he would work as hard or probably wouldn't work at all, because that game he's making is putting oranges (lol) on his plate. So if piracy goes unchecked, then all of our games will be crap.

Bottom line: Piracy is stealing. Even if its from a "big, evil company that controls the flow of the market"

Someone worked hard on that game, and people should be thankful. (unless if the game is bad, then piracy is okay! (jk,jk))

 

[Amethyst Wind]

You've just provided a parable for exactly why we don't simply print more money any time we need it.

The more that is available, the less valuable it is. You're working with oranges instead of dollars but the principle is the same. We could print more money any time we choose but we don't as it would make the money we have worth less. You could saturate the market with oranges but then nobody will want your fruit anymore even if you did want to sell it. They'd move onto something they perceived as more valuable due to its rarity.

Because there is a plentiful supply there is no demand. Piracy causes the same problem, even leaving the original in place, because there are now more avenues to obtain the product the supply is greater which causes the demand/value to lessen. Supply and demand have to be in balance for a healthy economy, if one is disproportionate to the other then the system stops working.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

DISCLAIMER: Over the following post, I will be discussing oranges. NOTHING MORE.

OK, first, let's look it at from the consumer's perspective. A reasonable consumer will always want the best quality product at the lowest possible cost. So while it's your right to induce an artificial scarcity for maximum profit, it's the consumer's right to take their business elsewhere when they get sick of dealing with you. Enter the Orange Thieves.[footnote]It is important to keep in mind that this would be a pretty awesome name for a band.[/footnote] Again, let's look at it from the consumer's perspective: Yes, the orange thievery is clearly illegal, but it's free, and since the thieves are doing all the work, benefiting from their actions involves very little risk or effort on the part of the consumer. So it's hard to blame them for accepting the Thieves' help.

Now, what are your options as the orange tree's rightful owner? Well, you can either change your business strategy to encourage consumers to return to you, or you can do everything in your power to stop the orange thieves. Although, if you look at the effectiveness of recent...ah...anti-orange-thieving efforts...I'd say neither one actually works all that well.

 

[balberoy]

In your Orange Tree argument you completely neglect the customers perspective.

Why does he steal the oranges?
- does he maybe not have the money to buy them?
- does he just want to try some (demo) to test if he wants more?
- etc...

Not all of the thieves steal because they want to steal, but because they couldn't afford it
otherwise. When I was still in school I had no money to buy all games I wanted (more then 10 years ago). So it meant getting them "somehow" or not.

And as above was mentioned, this is a monopoly you describe here, not a "free" "transparent" market, ich by the way never can really exist. So your metaphor is nowhere near the problem you describe.

 

[Freechoice]

Add in a detail that goes along the lines of the tree's owner having to have worked meticulously on the cultivation of the tree for 3+ years and his own investment, monetary and emotional, going into it.

 

[DustyDrB]

So many analogies are used copyright infringement (stop calling it piracy! As a native of Charleston, I say piracy should only refer to Blackbeard and the like). The analogies are totally unhelpful. Why? Because in every single discussion, the debate shifts from the actual topic to "what is the appropriate analogy". And then people are just trying to win that (totally meaningless) debate. We just get this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW87GRmunMY] sort of thing.

This is why I mostly try to stay out of these discussions (go ahead and point out the irony, pat yourself on the back, then move on). People almost never talk about the actual issues. They talk about how to talk about the issue. Then when that argument fails, they just go to extremes. It's just a mess.

 

[WolfThomas]

However, in the end, copyright infringement isn't that, it isn't theft, it's not even piracy, it's copyright infringement, and that's a bad thing, I hope we can all agree that much.

I agree, I hate it when copyright infringment is referred to as piracy, it's unnecessary hyperbole.

Spoiler: These are pirates

 

[MorganL4]

Um what you're describing is a monopoly on oranges. Just saying, people tend to not approve of monopolies for a reason, namely their utter control over the price of their product without competition.

yeah, but there is nothing stopping you from buying a seed planting it and nurturing it to grow, because that is what Guy X had to do to get his tree to grow... time effort and money, you can do the same, and if your oranges are just as good you can compete with Guy X ... it's not a monopoly unless Guy X buys every orchard and every orange seed in the country.