On Brian's Thing On Piracy

[rpgdemon]

I kind of have to completely disagree. I personally know someone who has quit making stuff for the iPhone because, after any of his stuff would get popular, some pirate would crack it and sales would immediately cut out.

These are dollar or so apps that we're talking about, too. One would probably spend more time looking for the crack than they would going in to work and making a dollar.

Simmilarly, when the humble indie bundle ran, allowing people to choose their own price, a lot of the total downloads were pirated. I don't have exact numbers on it, but I just remember reading about it. These were prices that anyone could choose, the profits from which were going to charity.


In any case, piracy does hurt the artist, even when they make their works readily available. The Wells analog is a false one: The people buying the magazines and later the book were not part of the current culture of, "No one hurts if I steal a digital copy," and they were not consciously intending to steal Wells' work. Today, the people doing the pirating do so in a self entitled --even self righteous-- manner, and if you suggest that it's the wrong thing to do, they will scoff at you and say how they "rn't hrting anyone", and that you need to get off your high horse and be normal.

[Hatake Kakashi]

On the flipside, there are those of us who are getting so very, very tired of being burned by the utter torrent of shit that the industry insists on cramming down our throats, that we won't buy without hearing/testing the whole thing first. Take music for example. Simply put, I look for stuff that my entire family (including impressionable minors) can enjoy, and there's nothing worse than bringing home something that one would think completely harmless, like a new CD, only to have the artist go off the deep end once they're not on their radio tracks anymore, dropping expletives, derogatory messages about women, and other such load that I had absolutely no desire to pay for.

I don't know if you've ever brought home a new album to play for the family, but when that happens, it's embarrassing. And if I can't play the music in my entire family's presence? I really don't want it.

So here's how it works, at least in my case. I hear of some promising new work. I download it. I give it a listen. If I enjoy it and it is content that I would not be embarrassed to play in a family setting, I go out and buy a physical copy from the store. If I get one song that doesn't have to be bleeped and 9 others that do? It gets immediately deleted so I can waste my precious hard drive space on something else. Either way, the artist and record company gets the money that they're due. All or nothing.

The 14 albums I bought this year? Every last one of them, downloaded first. The several I didn't? Again, downloaded first. Then deleted. If it offends the artist and company that I wish to enact a state of "buyer beware" within my home, fuck them. On the internet, all kinds of colorful language is fine. In the context of my home with young ones? Not so much. I have one simple prerequisite that determines whether I'll pay for an album or product: make it "not shit."

[Fifthfiend]

I kind of have to completely disagree. I personally know someone who has quit making stuff for the iPhone because, after any of his stuff would get popular, some pirate would crack it and sales would immediately cut out.

I wasn't aware that the iPhone app market could be used to distribute pirated apps.

Simmilarly, when the humble indie bundle ran, allowing people to choose their own price, a lot of the total downloads were pirated. I don't have exact numbers on it, but I just remember reading about it. These were prices that anyone could choose, the profits from which were going to charity.

That piracy continues to exist isn't itself an argument for harm caused by piracy; it'd be more useful to look at how many downloads the indie bundle sold, compared with the costs involved in making these games and the creators' expectations of profitability/ what they would consider success in this context.

[rpgdemon]

I wasn't aware that the iPhone app market could be used to distribute pirated apps.

Jailbroken iPhones/iTouches, while awesome in many respects for allowing homebrew software on the iPhone, allow you to install whatever apps you want onto the iPhone, bypassing the app market. I don't have an iPhone, so I don't know what steps are required to jailbreak it, but it's a relatively simple process from what I hear, once the OS has been cracked.

[bluestarultor]

Normally, everyone would know what I'd be saying here, but you'll all surely be surprised to know I've had an epiphany recently and have changed my stance slightly. I've come to realize not all pirates can be painted with the same brush.

Pirates, in a way, can be compared to gamers, another paint bucket thrown at a crowd of random people. Some of the same logic can even be applied. You have casual pirates, hardcore pirates, collectors, testers, ones who do it because there's no other way of getting the product (such as ones that have gone out of print), people who bought a remake and got curious about the original, some who bought the game and then got the DRM-free version, and zillions of others.

With such a diverse population, I've finally realized that piracy isn't an act of entitlement so much as it's often just a thoughtless one. And there are ways to avoid it that really aren't all that hard. Demos, for one. Heck, there's the old DOS-era trick where the full game itself can act as a demo if you don't have a password or other sort of key. By putting part of your game out there for people to test, you avoid people playing through the whole game to see if they like it.

But to tear myself away from that topic change, long story short, my stance on pirates has softened a little. I still hate the everliving tar out of hardcore pirates, but I also realize that those people wouldn't be buying the game anyway.

Basically, to bring this around to the topic, I half-agree with Brian. I just think the creators need to step up and do the beneficial work the pirates are doing for them. The best way to limit piracy is to make it redundant. He's right in that trying to stop piracy is like trying to make the Earth spin retrograde. I just think it's the responsibility for producers, if they want to limit piracy, to dissuade the non-hardcore pirates, i.e. the ones who might actually pay for the product and/or care about the producer being able to produce more. The world is full of assholes, but to be honest, it's quite a bit more full of decent people. By winning those away from the ones conducting the war march, pretty much everyone wins.

[rpgdemon]

The problem that I have, I think, is that Brian seems to make the assumption that most pirates will buy your product if it's available and good, where for digital goods, at least, it seems that most will just go, "Well, me not buying it, but still playing it, doesn't hurt anyone, since I didn't take anything away from anyone."

I don't have anything against people who use it as a demo. Heck, for music, a lot of the time I'll go to Youtube and listen to stuff there before I buy albums, even of bands I know I like. Heck, I've been using Youtube as a music library recently because my old computer has everything on it, but I haven't had time to transfer it over to my new laptop. So, Youtube, and mostly Pandora/Grooveshark now.

My problem is with the analogy used, and that a lot of the time it doesn't end with demoing. In the analogy, the "pirates" were all a group of paying customers already, and the piracy showed a good product to a large group of people who were known to pay for literature already. It's not at all surprising then, that when the book became available bound together instead of in a bunch of periodicals, the group of people who pay for literature did their thing and paid for literature.

I agree though that Piracy isn't gonna go away, and restrictive DRM isn't gonna solve anything.

[Krylo]

My problem is with the analogy used, and that a lot of the time it doesn't end with demoing. In the analogy, the "pirates" were all a group of paying customers already, and the piracy showed a good product to a large group of people who were known to pay for literature already. It's not at all surprising then, that when the book became available bound together instead of in a bunch of periodicals, the group of people who pay for literature did their thing and paid for literature.

And if they hadn't been a group of people known for paying for literature, chances are they wouldn't have bought the book anyway, and, thus, no customers lost.

There's a good chance a lot of the people pirating your friend's applications wouldn't have ever bought it even if they hadn't pirated it. They just would have gone without, or found some free/cheaper equivalent.

Not every pirate who doesn't then buy the game is equal to a lost sale.

Like Fifth said, you have to look at how much profit is made off these things vs what they expect to make, etc. as opposed to just how many people pirated it, because there's probably a pretty big chunk of those people that would never have bought it anyway.

AND Piracy as a method of advertisement DOES work. See Steve Lieber (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/krylo/undergroundsales.jpg).

There's a pretty good chance that if we were to compare, somehow, the amount of pirates who paid vs those who didn't we'd still have a lot more that didn't, but that doesn't change the fact that BECAUSE it was pirated he got a lot more sales.

Which really just validates that even if it's not most pirates, or all pirates, there are plenty of pirates who would be willing to pay for things if it weren't such a pain in the ass.

[rpgdemon]

There's a good chance a lot of the people pirating your friend's applications wouldn't have ever bought it even if they hadn't pirated it. They just would have gone without, or found some free/cheaper equivalent.


This would be a valid argument if the sales hadn't been steadily increasing slowly up until the game was cracked, at which point they immediately cut down. It might be coincidence, but it's happened multiple times. In this case, it was that the projected profits/expectations all tanked once the piracy occurred.

And yeah, had they not been a group of people known to purchase literature, they wouldn't have bought it probably either way, but they wouldn't be pirating it either.

[Premmy]

This would be a valid argument if the sales hadn't been steadily increasing slowly up until the game was cracked, at which point they immediately cut down. It might be coincidence, but it's happened multiple times. In this case, it was that the projected profits/expectations all tanked once the piracy occurred.
I'm not 100% sure, but it'd seem to me like Every product has an initial "Get it while it's hot" sale increase, followed by a lull, and (hopefully) a steady "get it whenever" trickle..

[Jagos]

In any case, piracy does hurt the artist, even when they make their works readily available. The Wells analog is a false one: The people buying the magazines and later the book were not part of the current culture of, "No one hurts if I steal a digital copy," and they were not consciously intending to steal Wells' work. Today, the people doing the pirating do so in a self entitled --even self righteous-- manner, and if you suggest that it's the wrong thing to do, they will scoff at you and say how they "rn't hrting anyone", and that you need to get off your high horse and be normal.


...

Just sayin on the HIB...

They've done it a second time and they've made more money on the second go-around than they did the first.

That's with it being pirated.

[Doc ock rokc]

Ill admit to the fact that I know some pirates And they usually have 3 diffrent responces

1. They DL'd it to demo it. I find these people to be exactly like a Blockbuster customer. I am fine with it

2. They DL's it as protest. I am mixed on these pirates. These people download Photoshop cs5 because it's priced ridiculously high (seriously a extra 150$ for content aware fill and mixer brush!)...and these people download world of goo because they don't want to pay 15 bucks.

3. They DL's it so they can have it for free. Most of the time I see these people modify their xboxes and never go online again just so they can get the latest games early or free. To me it just seems like to much trouble and at times MORE expensive.

[pochercoaster]

If I had to pay for every single song in my music library I would be in debt. Even if I bought it off of iTunes which is cheaper than buying a physical copy. Seriously. Fault me for being a music junkie, I guess.

I don't torrent things, actually- I usually just hit "record" on audacity as soon as I hear a song I like on youtube. This is slightly more tedious than buying it off of iTunes but I seriously couldn't afford to pay for every single album I listen to because I'm freaking poor. Like I'd have to budget in an allowance for how much music I could purchase in one day. And if I wasn't able to get music for free I would be stuck listening to my paltry collection of CDs.

[Jagos]

Oh yeah...

That reminds me. Spotify can't come to the US because of the fact that record labels complain about the freemium model they have.

And they're damn near the dominant thing besides iTunes in the west.

[Kurosen]

Here's the thing:

You can't stop piracy. You have to accept that as a reality.

And then you have to find a way to survive it. I'm not saying authors should be thankful that their work is pirated, I'm only saying that it's going to happen and you can't stop it so getting worked up over it and fighting a battle you've already lost is just a lot of wasted effort.

The best you can do is make it desirable and easy for pirates to support the author. Some will, some won't. Those who don't were highly unlikely to ever do so if there was no piracy. You've lost nothing and gained some very loyal supporters from the former group.

Also, anyone blaming piracy for their own business failure is probably suffering from, among other misconceptions, confirmation bias. In the case of pirated iPhone apps, only ~10% are Jailbroken. It's statistically unlikely that "nearly all" of your friends' potential customers are all using Jailbroken phones.

If his sales dip down after an initial rush, it may simply be the life cycle of those apps.