This needs to be said, let the downvotes begin!

madMadness · 4 months

yes, it is a problem, but like gabe newell said, a service problem. if they want to stop piracy dont come with stupid laws like this or DRM, that WONT stop piracy, having deals or support to the clients like steam has will.

xtra_life · 4 months

Yes copyright infringement is still a problem. I am a college student barely making it through "financially". I can barely afford tuition, let alone pay for cable television or the thousands of songs in my iTunes that I use for commuting. However wrong it may be to "pirate" I feel that if the artist is truly that good, if the movie is really that good, I will support them monetarily by going to see them in concert or seeing them on the big screen. However I think that the Stars are getting paid way to much, for way too long. All of the people that are working their shitty minimum wage jobs cannot even fathom having this money, let alone getting it so easy.

LeftLeaningBonobo · 4 months

In the current framework it does hurt some people. However, the old framework doesn't make sense. In music, for example, the production costs are now rapidly nearing 100% artist's labor. The other expenses that exist have been artificially maintained by the industry. Marketing, file hosting, payment processing, etc. have all become very, very close to free. The recording industry is a dying group performing an unnecessary function. Rather than reposition their business, they have fought progress for close to 15 years. Their market is gone.

EDIT: OP deserves more upvotes. This discussion needs to be had.

tolley · 4 months

The copyright laws in the US need reforming. Copyrights used to expire after about 14 years. This gave the copyright holder time to make money off their work. After it expired, the works would become public domain and anyone was able to use the IP for whatever they wanted.

Today, copyrights almost never expire, and when they do, they can be renewed. This isn't how our copyright system is supposed to work.

gagaoolala · 4 months

Piracy is certainly a problem, but the real question is how big of a problem it is. I've linked to articles discussing game piracy and entertainment piracy respectively (one from an indy dev and one from a conservative think tank). The real issue is how much does piracy hurt. The first article primarily argues that even though a large volume of content is pirated, very little of that content would be purchased -- in other words, a small group of savvy users pirates an enormous amount of content, but even if piracy were magically eliminated, these users would only purchase a tiny fraction of the content that they previously pirated. On a societal level, we mainly care that content creators are adequately compensated so that they continue to create content. The second article argues that this appears to be the case.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/internet-regulation-the-economics-of-piracy/

Gabe Newell of Valve has also provided a lot of insight into piracy in the gaming industry. Valve owns Steam, so they have much more real world data on gaming piracy than almost anyone else. Their position is that piracy is a distribution problem -- when people can't get their content conveniently and at a reasonable price, then they pirate; when they can, they're happy to purchase.

SkyNTP · 4 months

I hate to tell you this, but you are in a (hypocritical) obsolete industry with a dying business model. GTFO while you still can. There are plenty of ways of making a living as a content creator that do not involve copyright.

The internet represents progress and it should never be jeopardized for something as trivial as the inconvenience of changing jobs.

ZapActions-dower · 4 months

Ask for downvotes and you shall receive. Matter of principle.

Treva77 · 4 months

It is a problem yes, but making these crazy laws isn't the way to solve it also don't martyr yourself with the downvote shit. >_>

kragmoor · 4 months

screwing the customer is not the way to do it brother but i hear what you're saying

gamerlen · 4 months

Agreed. Piracy is a problem, but convincing people of this is also problematic.

These days I have a netflix account, buy my games mostly on Steam and amazon.com, and I use amazon.com to get my music as well. It occurred to me that since I begun doing this I've hardly bothered with emulation websites, filesharing websites, and so on unless there's a game or song I want that I simply can't find otherwise. The thing is that there are some people who'd still rather get something for nothing than get something legitimately and easily online.

Part of the problem is service-related, hard copies are rapidly becoming obsolete in a world where I can talk to someone on the other side of the globe with a simple click of a mouse, but there's also the problem that some people just want to get things for free whether it's legal or moral or not.

music4mic · 4 months

Here are the real effects of copyright infringement.

TL;DR Hollywood loses about as much as they made on Alvin and the Chipmunks because of piracy ($450 millionish.) But that doesn't even account for people who wouldn't have bought if piracy wasn't an option, so it's actually much less.

Fuck Hollywood- their profits are still rising. If the DOJ wants to go after sites that support piracy, allow them due process and shut them down, FINE. But what the MPAA and others (read: Lamar Smith) are saying about job losses and more are LIES.

Snip3d · 4 months

Piracy is bad. So is charging $60 for a game, or $20 for a blu-ray. Netflix is good, although creating your own service like netflix instead of joining them is bad. I could go on and on, it's a really simple problem to address, it just involves joining the rest of the world using the power of the internet.

Popbert · 4 months

I feel this too, mainly because copyright and intellectual property don't only have to do with downloading music and movies. As someone who has spent their entire life around the Graphic Design industry, I can say that these laws help to make the transaction of creative products much easier, as they help to protect both the artist and the client. But, that is a very direct and personal business relationship. The issue here imho, is the third party aspect, and all the vested interest in who gets to distribute, which is why we get SOPA. I feel that this lies in the difference between these intellectual products, graphic design services are for a narrowly defined client(s), music and movies are for everybody to access.

crapstone · 4 months

If the media that you have created has done well enough that masses are looking for it and finding it online, you probably aren't living on Ramen noodles.

Game Title	Torrent Downloads	Total PC sales	Ratio DL vs bought	Available on Steam?
Crysis 2	3,900,000	470,000	8.2:1	N
COD: Modern Warfare 3	3,600,000	920,000	3.9:1	Y
Battlefield 3	3,500,000	1,290,000	2.7:1	N
FIFA Soccer 12	3,300,000	240,000	13:1	N
Portal 2	3,200,000	510,000	6:1	Y

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