Piracy (online piracy) a paper tiger?

[Kanaric]

It seems strange to me that the FBI and governments like the French are trying to crack down HEAVY on online piracy. I keep seeing things like movies breaking boxoffice records for money earned. If piracy was really such a problem, for the movie industry in particular, why are they making record profits? I don't see how they can justify any argument that piracy is harmful to them or worth spending the money to stop. They would probably make more money not pursuing pirates and having the government go after them, it IS expensive to do this. Though I guess logic doesn't exist to these people, that usually seems to be the truth with companies in general over the years. I remember when they were going over the VHS and tape recorders for music and bootlegs of concerts (which is still a problem but nobody cares about that anymore, strange since they are better than ever just as good as those produced by the bands themselves.).

I think the government pursuing this is a waste of taxpayer money, an EXTREME waste. The FBI pursuing who leaked that X-Men movie is extremely idiotic especially since it was incomplete and people who watched it probably went to see the movie anyways. To further look at the stupidity of this and the threat of piracy take the X-Men series as an example. That movie probably will make more money than any of the other X-Men movies, each sequel brought in more than the last for that series so far which further contradicts that piracy is getting worse as time goes on as they claim.

Seems music piracy has taken a backseat now, i never hear about cases involving this anymore. I guess they realized that they were making more money than ever as well due to things like Itunes and Napster.

Game piracy is also going to solve its self due to companies switching, and eventually only going to offer, digital methods of retrieving games and playing them.

If the movie industry is so fearful of piracy they need to adapt like the other groups or just simply take their record profits and be happy.

[Central Asian Qaghan]

I totally agree. There is no way they can regulate this. In Karachi alone, I have been too and bought a 1000+ PS2 games, etc etc from the stalls. They will never end it. Piracy will always exist. In light companies should be more suited to build better games so people would want to buy it, but if this is not done, countries like Pakistan and China and others and its citiziens will continue to support it. Even in India the Bollywood is continually plagued by piracy but even they aren't able to stop it.

[IrishHitman]

The efforts by the French recently failed.

Only the Americans and a couple of European lobbyists give two .

[Sevasti]

I don't think it's as much about lost profit as it is about the changes that need to be made in order to keep up with the market. Rental movies, movie theaters and record stores have been the natural habitat of the industry but the market is about to move on to the internet and the medias digital form. I think it's the consumer wanted changeover of the distribution that is the problem and the industry is not ready or willing to move on. It's funny how such a technical oriented industry can be so hostile towards the evolution of media distribution. But when someone beat you to it, made a better technical solution and offered it for free I'd bet you'd be pretty pissed too.

Not that I side with the media companies though, they need to go with the technical innovations instead of trying to work against them otherwise they will never get to the roots of the media piracy problem. That and reworking their copyright rules.

[Lovejoy]

I agree with Sevasti, mostly. Piracy will be stop easily when the media companies start to understand the Internet. Why would anyone download anything from a site like the pirate bay, (and risk bad quality, spyware or worse) if the companies themselves offered the cinemas online? They could add some commercials at the start and the end and no one would care. They could probably take a small fee and ask for some donations.

Wake up.

[bushbush]

actually fighting it still produces results. I remember the difference between 8 years ago and 3 years ago in my hometown. in 2000 there were open markets of pirate versions of tv shows, games and etc, in 2005 it was all forced underground and you have to know the shop owners before they show you the goods (fear of cops). And they have to sell genuine versions up front. This combined with a reduction of price of genuine versions ( i think games costing 150rmb back in 2000 now costs around 50rmb) really substantially reduced piracy in china, at least from what i see.

[IrishHitman]

actually fighting it still produces results. I remember the difference between 8 years ago and 3 years ago in my hometown. in 2000 there were open markets of pirate versions of tv shows, games and etc, in 2005 it was all forced underground and you have to know the shop owners before they show you the goods (fear of cops). And they have to sell genuine versions up front. This combined with a reduction of price of genuine versions ( i think games costing 150rmb back in 2000 now costs around 50rmb) really substantially reduced piracy in china, at least from what i see.

I think all your example proves is that it would take an authoritarian state to defeat it.
Westerners wouldn't be and are not content with such an authoritarian regime in their countries.

[bushbush]

I think all your example proves is that it would take an authoritarian state to defeat it.
Westerners wouldn't be and are not content with such an authoritarian regime in their countries.

what? I don't think police investigating piracy = authoritarian tactic. I mean it's pretty easy to stop a shop owner openly selling pirated goods. The problem with chinese cop in the past was they are too corrupt to actually do their job as police.

this has nothing to do with political system lmao.

[IrishHitman]

I don't think police investigating piracy = authoritarian tactic.

There's the problem.

Police putting their noses into private businesses and private households on nothing but a whim is a massive invasion of privacy.

Of course, in the West, piracy is based on the internet.
Which means it wouldn't be cops, it would be private companies, who have even less authority to snoop onto our privacy.

[bushbush]

There's the problem.

Police putting their noses into private businesses and private households on nothing but a whim is a massive invasion of privacy.

what the hell are you talking about? investigating business crime = invading privacy? When you put up a shop in the market place, it's public space. You are liable to prosecution if you break the law that protects intellectual property. lmao

Which means it wouldn't be cops, it would be private companies, who have even less authority to snoop onto our privacy.

why can't they do that if you are technically stealing their products?

I wouldn't mind CA snooping around and reporting their games being stolen online. It's their right to protect their intellectual property.

[danzig]

I think all your example proves is that it would take an authoritarian state to defeat it.
Westerners wouldn't be and are not content with such an authoritarian regime in their countries.

Since when is stopping an illegal act (whether agree with it or not is irrelevant) authoritarian?

[Fishy]

Since when is stopping an illegal act (whether agree with it or not is irrelevant) authoritarian?

Depends on your definition of illegal... Hitler thought hiding Jews was illegal, or letting them go to parks... Or oyu know not killing them.

Anyways let's not get into that you can't really compare these things.

Anyway every fair test ever done on things like this shows that software/music/games released with protection or without protection has pretty much the same sale rate. Unless the companies leak that a piece of software is released with protection nobody can break, if the news then picks up on it sales actually go up a slight bit.

Some people have argued that this is just because the media hype about the software however and not because of better protection.

A real big down side however is that right now people release more sequels of lesser quality, look at the gaming industry there are three ways to make your game sell like mad.

1.) Create a hype, but you need a big name for this. Possibly a known producer or a movie name.
2.) Create a sequal
3.) Create a game that's so damned good that everybody will want to buy it.

Of those three options, number 3 is actually the one with the smallest guarentee for success. I don't know if this is because of piracy alone, but I think it does play it's part. Because even if it has very little effect on the actual sales, producers and designers will still think it does and as a result try to market the game as good as possible instead of creating a game that is as good as possible.

[Homeros]

Downloading, copying copyright protected material is illegal (in most countries). But here's the thing:

I've quite a DVD collection, I've payed a lot of money to acquire the rights of the content on those DVDs. This allows me to play DVDs at home, but its not allowed to 'share' the content with others (using the internet or making hardcopies). So far so good.

Now the Bluray-discs have arrived, but when I want to buy the same stuff (bluray) I already posses (DVD) I again have to pay for those rights. Since most money being payed is to acquire the rights (I already posses) I should get a huge discount, right?

Wrong, you're ed by the big corporations.

[Lovejoy]

A real big down side however is that right now people release more sequels of lesser quality, look at the gaming industry there are three ways to make your game sell like mad.

1.) Create a hype, but you need a big name for this. Possibly a known producer or a movie name.
2.) Create a sequal
3.) Create a game that's so damned good that everybody will want to buy it.

Of those three options, number 3 is actually the one with the smallest guarentee for success. I don't know if this is because of piracy alone, but I think it does play it's part. Because even if it has very little effect on the actual sales, producers and designers will still think it does and as a result try to market the game as good as possible instead of creating a game that is as good as possible.

Piracy in games is only a problem for pc-developers, at least in the "western world". And they are adapting quickly, look at Steam, "The Hunter" and World of Warcraft. Three great exempels of how the gaming industry is adapting, while the music and movie industry isn't.

I do not fear piracy will kill the gaming industry. Gaming has never been better.

May I recommend Spotify. The music indutry is finaly picking up.

[IrishHitman]

Since when is stopping an illegal act (whether agree with it or not is irrelevant) authoritarian?

Stopping the act itself isn't the problem.
How you do stop it, is very important.

To stop copyright violation, you need to breach basic rights of citizens, mostly innocent citizens.
The method to stopping it means monitoring the activities of large numbers of citizens regardless of suspicion or privacy.

[danzig]

Stopping the act itself isn't the problem.
How you do stop it, is very important.

To stop copyright violation, you need to breach basic rights of citizens, mostly innocent citizens.
The method to stopping it means monitoring the activities of large numbers of citizens regardless of suspicion or privacy.

Yes but the example stated above to which my post was a reply to was basically cops or whoever going into markets looking for people OPENLY selling this material. There isnt anything wrong about that, from what op said their presences has driven them further under ground and hence harder to find. That is proper law enforcement.

You dont have to violate civil rights to combat it anymore then you have to do for drug enforcement, child porn or any other under the radar type of activity. Piracy is so public and out there atm all you have to do is walk into a doctor's office, which I did recently and there was this indian lady selling dvd's of movies...right in the frigging office.

[Central Asian Qaghan]

actually fighting it still produces results. I remember the difference between 8 years ago and 3 years ago in my hometown. in 2000 there were open markets of pirate versions of tv shows, games and etc, in 2005 it was all forced underground and you have to know the shop owners before they show you the goods (fear of cops). And they have to sell genuine versions up front. This combined with a reduction of price of genuine versions ( i think games costing 150rmb back in 2000 now costs around 50rmb) really substantially reduced piracy in china, at least from what i see.

I'm actually suprised. Here most of the Pirated versions of TV shows etc come from China. I know this because, what I assume is Chinese, is written on the plastic covers. I wasn't sure if it was reduced or not, but appearently it isn't stopped from going to other countries. I bet its in partly because of the Chinese community here in Karachi.

I would hazzard a guess of 60% in country piracy and 40% Chinese piracy.

[Admiral Piett]

I really think it shows the tactics of not just one, but all corporations when evolution of the market occurs but they aren't ready. The same especially goes for the car industry. Foreign cars are providing us with more reliable cars for better prices in example. It shows a lack of innovation and a lack of providing the consumer their demands.

[C-Rob]

I took huge issue with this:

Game piracy is also going to solve its self due to companies switching, and eventually only going to offer, digital methods of retrieving games and playing them.

That will ruin games as we know them.

I guess you have no problem with not materially owning any of your entertainment.

[IrishHitman]

I took huge issue with this:
That will ruin games as we know them.
I guess you have no problem with not materially owning any of your entertainment.

I take issue with the whole damn thing.