[INTERESTING ARTICLE; See Page 8] Discussion: Thoughts on Piracy

[Gaviao]

I'm 100% against piracy.

i'm 100% for the piracy D=,i loooove to get everything for free,i don't care who made the games i just wanna play
me too i hate piracy =D

You really just need to stop posting.

okay, starting by now >.>

[Zaffre]

Only game I really pirated without buying it (and even now I've bought if afterward) is Spore because of the ridiculous DRM. You can't have an excuse for that in my honest opinion.

[Kreekakon]

I'm digging up this thread since I thought I'd show this article I found to all of you. It's VERY interesting.

http://piracy.americanassembly.org/where...come-from/

US P2P users have larger collections than non-P2P users (roughly 37% more). And predictably, most of the difference comes from higher levels of ‘downloading for free’ and ‘copying from friends/family.’

But some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than their non-P2P using peers–around 30% higher among US P2P users. Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous other studies: The biggest music pirates are also the biggest spenders on recorded music.

Our German results appear to confirm this finding–in fact, extravagantly so. German P2P users buy nearly 3 times as much digital music as their non-P2P using peers. We qualify this because the German results are based on too small a sample to be statistically reliable: only 4% of respondents (39 people) reported using P2P networks. Yet the results are consistent with our wider findings. German P2P use is mostly the province of digital music aficionados who download in large quantities and who also buy in much larger quantities than their non-P2P peers.

Read the full article for more. To me this study makes it seem like that the idea that piracy will damage profits is completely false, and that people who pirate music end up buying much more music in the end than their completely legal counterpart consumers.

What do you guys think about this? This study may mainly focus on music, but would it also work for other forms of media piracy?

[Googolplex]

I have to say for myself, I never buy music. But I always buy movies and games.
Music is, because I search for special tracks all around the world and I can't find them in a shop or I don't want to buy a CD only because of two tracks and where 80% of the others are crap.
I search in youtube for music and download my favorite tracks, I think, this is the normal way of the internet.
But I never wants to have a pirated game or movie, because I'm a collector and I always wants the original disc.
Good devs also needs to be supported, but the music industry has enough money, I'll never support them.
A shame enough, that a 16 year old Justin Bieber earned over 100 million dollars.

Before I came to here, I pirated Penumbra just to take a glance how good the game is, this was the first time I heared about this game (found it on youtube). The game was "as made by me" and I finally bought it many times. Two original retail CD's, and one digital download via Frictional Games store. And now, I understand that I always will buy games from Frictional Games by default.
The best developer in my opinion, who understand the true meaning of a game!

[bloogleford]

Bottom line for me, and I have felt this way since games became big enough to be pirated:

Software costs too much, that's it. A thing like a game should not cost 60$. I don't really care that much about the economic arguments related to it...as they are the same arguments that various industries have always made with technological advancement that allows. The truth is that it is so easy now, there is no returning to the previous way of doing things, companies will have to make their money on a different model I think.

Seriously, charge less for your stuff, don't have bloated budgets and put out garbage recycled products for 60$. Steam weekend sales probably do more to discourage piracy than any anti-piracy measure ever could. I really respect small devs because some put out exceptional products for a fraction of the money charged by larger companies..for this reason I have been happy to pay for Frictional stuff, Mount and Blade etc.

Think about stuff like Photoshop, music sequencing software is another.. how the hell can the cost be justified when you can get comparable freeware products?

Music is a complicated thing, while you could say the artist loses money by piracy, especially with lesser known artists the exposure through cost free downloads is worth it. Some of the more underground stuff I listen to, I know for a fact the artists don't mind their stuff being free, even though obviously they want you to pay if possible.

[eliasfrost]

I don't get how people think music is overpriced, it's not. A song cost like 1$, 2$ at most and that's not a high price concidering the work behind actually creating a song, believe me I'm a musician. And I also don't understand how it has become a standard to expect a musician to work for free, why would we work for free? we have bills to pay and mouths to feed just like everyone else, and you expect us to pour our souls into our craft for nothing? Music is entertainment just like any other and deserves some respect, not just from the industry to the consumer, but I demand some Fucking respect from the consumer, because they have no idea how much work goes into making music.

Rant over, Thanks.

[Kreekakon]

I would appreciate it if you all would take a look at the article I posted above.

Not all people who pirate are non-supporting douches, and the article I just posted shows that people who pirate actually end up spending more money than strictly legal users, which means piracy in a sense will help profits (As long as they have a proper mindset of course). At least for music anyways.

[Zaffre]

I just listen to FTL music 24/7 and I'm good.