Piracy Poll

[revlazaro]

I plead the 5th.






MMMmmm Rum.

[tibbon]

I think it really varies by medium. I really like Larry Lesig's paper on "Free Culture" and it seems to make sense. Here's my spin.

I generally try not to pirate music. I used to, but I got really fed up with low quality, poor encodes, stuff having random noise, and the fear of getting a letter from the RIAA/MPAA (one of my friends got a letter after downloading literally a single TV show, not cool and not worth it). I have been a musician on some level (even as my primary income source on occasion) for quite a while and I take it very seriously. I understand the music business better than 99% of the population, as well as copyright law. With all of this in place, I almost always put out my music as Creative Commons NC-BY-SA. I don't want companies taking my music and making a mint from it, but I have no problems with consumers taking it and doing as they like. I'd rather have more ears than dollars on that basis. Yes, i've made a decent amount of money over the years from either being a live/studio musician, doing things for major movies, or working as a recording engineer or composer.

I don't endorse mass downloading of music, as I really think you should pay for the stuff when possible. Yet sometimes it simply doesn't make sense. I feel weird throwing down money for a Beatles album knowing that 99% of the money is going to record companies, Michael Jackson and Yoko Ono. It feels even odder, because I already have every Beatles album as vinyl. I feel really mixed about having to pay to 'upgrade' my music collection with every format that comes out. Vinyl, 8-track, CD, Cassette, Minidisc, SA-CD, DVD-Audio, Mp3 download, AAC download, OGG download, etc. Does it make sense to pay 10 times for the same album? I have a collection of over 200 CDs and 700 vinyl albums. Nearly every single song on my computer I either ripped from vinyl, CD or downloaded from the iTunes store.

While the concept of just ripping the album to MP3 or whatever sounds basic, keep in mind that the RIAA did think that cassette tapes were going to bring down the industry and didn't want people transferring between mediums at all. The MPAA had the whole DVD DeCSS debacle. They don't want you backing up or transferring your media. They do want you to have to buy it new every time they come out with a new format.

Some professional musicians such as Trent Reznor have gotten fed up with this, even instructing people at their concerts to outright go and pirate the music (after the record companies in Austriallia were charging over $30 for his album vs $11.99 in the US).

What I feel best about doing is finding musicians like Jonathan Coulton and downloading all of their music via Bittorrent and then sending him $20 via Paypal. That's more cash than he'd get from a record company paying him for the albums, and it feels only right.

Everyone also likely has music on their computer that they wouldn't otherwise have if they didn't pirate it. You wouldn't likely have bought that Madonna CD, but it was on your friend's computer or in a large torrent of 80's music... so you got it. I'm not sure if this does harm, as you likely aren't even playing it. I have over 5,000 songs in my playlist and only about 500 of them get played. A pay-for-play mechanisim however has yet to be worked out.

For movies: Again, I don't really pirate movies because generally it takes too long (time is money for me) and the quality is too low. I'd rather just put it on my Netflix list for a DVD or BluRay and wait a day. Music easier and no legal letters from the RIAA.

As for pirating software and games, I guess everyone's done it once or twice. I'd honestly rather just pay for the game. I do dislike paying for bad games, but then again I don't generally play bad games when I can help it. Just buy the software. Software developers aren't all rich. If they wanted to do something for free they'd make Open Source Software. They need to live too.

Overall blatent, "Screw the man" piracy isn't good and doesn't show well on your character. Its likely because you feel some entitlement that you "deserve" the music or movie and its rather immature. The "I'm Broke" arguement doesn't hold water with me. When I was a kid I worked my ass off mowing lawns so I could buy albums and CDs.

However I feel that the copyright term should be shortened to a more reasonable term. Perhaps after 30 years all rights should be released, but after 5-10 years of release all things go Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. That way consumers can have the benefits, but there are still movie licensing opportunities, etc. It keeps us innovating, remixing and moving on.

[DarthSirov]

I do have some pirated stuffs... though at most, I try to limit buying them (as then I would normally get them over the net)

[Techcore]

When it comes to games, I'd rather purchase the game itself. Something about the fresh smell of game-celophane and the clean feel of a legitimate game in my hand makes me tingle...

[Lani]

All my games are legit at the moment. There's a few for which I found No-cd cracks and I got an illegal version of Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire in addition to a legal one because the original CD was partially eaten by one of my drives at one time. I also have an illegal copy of PaintShop Pro 7 which I use along with GIMP in stead of the PSP 10 I paid for.

I used to be one of those "I want to try before I buy" arguers on both the music/DVD movie and Game-software end of things, but at some point I realized there was a lot of stuff I was "trying" and enjoying for months or years even, without ever buying. Or buying by the time it was in the bargain bin for €5,- That realisation made me feel like a hypocrite. So now I wait until DVD's end up in the bargain bins before even seeing the movies, I more or less stopped buying music completely and make do with the radio and buy every game I play and some I don't.

To be honest, the try before you buy concept, especially as a "Right" is a bit odd when you think of it. Outside of cars and clothing there aren't much products where you can try before you buy. A test-drive or a fitting is actually less informative than most game demo's are. Music is really the only product where you try before you (legally) buy by listening to the radio or watching the music channels on tv and you pay for that indirectly as well.
Sometimes there's free samples of food, true.
So why do we have this expectation that it is our right to try (actually completely utterly consume) a product, a game, before deciding if we're willing to buy it? I for one am someone who values the game somewhat higher while in the thick of it, compared to when I got tired of it. Funny how I never considered buying while in the heat of it though. I have lots of friends with the Try before I Buy attitude who are yet to buy those records they copied from me in the nineties.

Yes, some games are crap. I'm still pissed as hell that I didn't research games like Two Worlds or Space Siege more properly before paying for them. But it's my fault. I easily could have gotten enough information by researching the products to tell me they were crap, I mean, not for me :-)
I've also bought clothes that were, on reflection or after a first washing, not 'me' either. Or anyone for that matter. Again, I see that as my bad. I don't expect to be allowed to try my new sweater for a month or longer before paying for it.

I think, if you can't determine whether you'll enjoy a game enough before buying it without "trying" it for a month or so, it says something about you and your willingness to think about what you're buying and not about the developer or publisher who's provided the world with information about their product and allowed people to pre/review their product, often indeed do provide a demo of the game.

And yes, every now and then a game comes along where all the advertisement and whatnot leads you down the wrong path of expectation. Games can disappoint just as much as any other product. The lesson to learn from that isn't to pirate any and every game henceforth. It's to be more conscientious about what you really want/need and temper your own expectations a bit. Pirating's a big reason why studio's are more and more moving away from the PC platform towards Consoles. It's not the sole reason, but rampant Piracy is a major factor.
The result is fewer fun games on the PC platform with more heinous invasions of privacy to combat piracy. Sometimes though I wonder at this privacy thing. People get so upset about it, then five minutes later go spill all their details on some social network site. There's some oddly askew perceptions on privacy vs piracy these days. What's the holy grail one moment, gets tossed out into the gutter the next.

[Mia]

Originally Posted by Roxianna

I saw this thread on a Gamespot forum. The results shocked me. So I thought I duplicate here and see what this community has to say. I phrased the answers the same as the original.

The poll answers will be anonymous.

So Roxi, what did the original poll show?

[Jodou]

I support piracy (shocking I know!) simply because of how I use it. I also support developers/artists by purchasing games/movies/music they 'earned' the money for. In other words, I use piracy to preview their work and decide if it warrants owning. I have very loose morals, which allows this mindset but it's my way of voting who should keep up the good work and who wouldn't be missed after going out of business.

FYI, Spore did not earn my money and DRM had nothing to do with it.

[Pwnererer]

When I had no job, and lived in my parents basement (not saying I dont not live in my parents basement still... sigh), I downloaded lots of games. Now that I have a job, and am contributing to society, I pay for most of my games.

Basically I download games for two reasons: A) Im not sure about the quality of a game, as Im continually let down by a $70 purchase, or B) Im pirating a game I paid for in the past but have lost (Deus Ex, Alpha Centauri, Panzer General 2 most recently, etc).

I think the smart thing to do as an industry is to embrace downloadable games. Instead of fighting online distribution, like the music industry did, companies like EA and Activision Blizzard should actively promote downloadable games.

A perfect example of why this is a good idea is Steam. I can purchase a game online through the steam store from the comfort at my own home. Not only am I free from the hassle of going to a mall to pick up a game, but Im also provided a reasonable price for the game.

[Grimwood]

i dont have any pirated games, but lord knows theres a few that shouldnt have to be paid for lol

[Pocketwolf]

Piracy has always been a huge issue for me. I wrote an experience about it, since what I had to say is lengthy, and I didn't want to clog up this thread, but for those who want to read it: http://www.gamerdna.com/rails/profil...erience/piracy.

I apologise for the caps emphasis, but I couldn't work out how to emphasise stuff with bold/italics (apparently the HTML tags for those don't work? - or is it strong/em instead of b/i?) - I will edit it if I work out how to fix that.