Piracy (copyright infringement)

[Vestras]

What is your opinion on it? Is it wrong or is it right? For who is right? For who is wrong? Are there any situations in which it's good? Who are to blame for the existance of it? The copyright owners or the community? Or is it maybe because of bad ways of purchasing items? Too high prices?

Wiki on copyright infringement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
Discuss.

 

[NightShade]

I was under the impression that piracy is where people will copy your stuff and sell it for money.
copyright infringement is much broader and can be much more harmless, like in the case of nigahiga's music rant.

assuming that this is about piracy I would say that it's benefits are outweighed by it's failures.

 

[ElderKingpin]

its illegal. but so many people do it, almost no one cares.

If i like a song, ill buy it, legally. If everybody pirated everything, artists would lose a lot of money.

 

[punwisp]

I believe it only becomes illegal once you make copies of it (Such as if you have it on your PC, and you put it on CDS or a flashstick) Any kind of distribution, its illegal. Personal use I believe is ok. However when you Download movies, they are distributing, thus you are committing a crime, by downloading it.

Either way.. Who cares? Just because I have dozens of hot porn and will Ferrel movies on my computer, doesn't mean cops will come to my house.

Brb someones knocking on my door

 

[tooltiperror]

I think it is highly overrated. There are enough technically retarded people who can't download movies for artists and producers to make barrels and barrels of cash.

 

[ElderKingpin]

that is fast changing, many kids born in in the 1980s+ are more technically sound that their parents.

The more recent they are born, the better they are technically.

 

[Lambda_drive]

For every 1 person that knows how to successfully download content there are 10 people that don't know how to download things off the internet.

Sure there are a lot of people that use kazaa and limewire to download music, but all those people are idiots and they're just asking to get their computers loaded with malicious content.

 

[punwisp]

So are people who watch porn. Whats your point?

 

[InstilledBee]

What is your opinion on it? Is it wrong or is it right? For who is right? For who is wrong? Are there any situations in which it's good? Who are to blame for the existance of it? The copyright owners or the community? Or is it maybe because of bad ways of purchasing items? Too high prices?

Discuss.

Why do people get and distribute stuff on the Internets illegally? Mostly because they can't afford the real stuff in the first place.

Why is this stuff expensive? Because companies put a lot of effort making their companies large, without factoring in the end consumer into the process of selling their wares. I mean, they always factor things like shipping costs, manufacturing costs, maintenance, licensing, etc. But this stuff would barely benefit the actual people who'd buy the things they're selling. Heck, it benefits nothing but their own pockets.

What companies are doing right now is backfiring-- implementing anti-piracy methods that do nothing but further motivate (can't think of a good term) and lets pirates look for more complex methods to circumvent the protective methods.

Instead of companies blaming the masses for "losses" due to piracy, why not make both ends meet? I mean, they have the producing power here. If they'd cut costs and weed out what both the company and the public won't need, prices would drop down considerably and pirates would eventually be erased from the equation.

In fact, they should have a program wherein people who report piracy are reward nicely.

Look at indie producers. Their stuff is, while sometimes still have a price tag associated, are definitely not as massively priced as their non-indie counterparts. They've eliminated (some, if not all) of licensing and distributing burdens and take it upon themselves to worry about that stuff. It's the producers who should shoulder these kinds of problems and not the consumer via elevated prices.

Heck, indie stuff is sometimes better than non-indie stuff anyways. Look at successful indie music acts, indie video games, indie films, and free software. Surely you have heard a story or two of successful indie projects that became a huge hit. Some are free, some aren't. But see, even the priced ones are rarely pirated.

I actually see some indie bands distribute their music via BitTorrent. Isn't that nice? I also see some good free apps at iTunes. If some people can make free stuff, why can't everyone else? If not free, at least cut costs that cut the pirates out.

Also, let me squeeze this in: I don't believe that you have to pay for software. Donations are okay, but paying thousands of $$$$ for a bunch of 1's and 0's is highway robbery in my opinion. So excuse me if you see me downloading software for free on the internets.

tl;dr - Production costs and methods, which the burden is passed to the public consumers as huge price tags, are the fuel for piracy.

 

[PureOwnage]

Well as I look at my area and the Apple app store, I find that people Jailbreak only to install (insert illegal program here) to download free apps. The reason? Many people do not feel that they should pay 1.99$ per app or even more. Also, DLC is now being circulated for these apps because many apps these days are being ruined in my opinion by in app purchases which froce users to buy another segment of the game. On top of that, they have already paid for that app which makes them spend another 1.99$ or more on 1 app.

 

[thewrongvine]

So far no one has answered the question.

~Hai-Bye-Vine~

 

[ElderKingpin]

"Well as I look at my area and the Apple app store, I find that people Jailbreak only to install (insert illegal program here) to download free apps. The reason? Many people do not feel that they should pay 1.99$ per app or even more. Also, DLC is now being circulated for these apps because many apps these days are being ruined in my opinion by in app purchases which froce users to buy another segment of the game. On top of that, they have already paid for that app which makes them spend another 1.99$ or more on 1 app."

That program called [censored] is now illegal, and even the creator has stopped producing it because he didnt want to sell something illegal.

I myself have a jailbroken iphone, but im not doing anything illegal. Jailbreaking isnt piracy. It just allows you to do illegal things, it itself isnt illegal.

Its called freeappaday.com people.

 

[13lade619]

http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software-piracy/616033-1.html

i thought you guys might want to read that..

Indonesia and Vietnam, each with piracy rates of 98 percent, are this year's "one-copy" countries, where virtually a single legitimate copy of software could be reproduced to satisfy the entire country's demand.

 

[ElderKingpin]

-sigh- at the latter country... strange piracy is high in under-developed countries.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Piracy is like having many Robin Hoods snatching golds from the riches and give them to the poor and alike.

Who could blame poverty and greed?

 

[13lade619]

more like extremely high demand, but unreachable prices...

seriously... software is extremely overpriced, IMO.

 

[Lambda_drive]

more like extremely high demand, but unreachable prices...

seriously... software is extremely overpriced, IMO.

Look at it from a developers point of view.

Software doesn't just come out of nowhere and employees don't work for free. Plus the developers need to make a profit from all the hard work. If they don't make money then they can't keep the lights on, and without electricity you can't make software.

There are some companies though that charge way too much for their software, and most people would rather deal with keygens and cracked serials than paying for the software. If companies lowered their prices they might actually make more money because people will see the price and think, that price isn't too bad, I guess I'll just buy the software instead of dealing with keygens.

Also the way I see it, when you buy software you're not paying for worthless one's and zero's, you're paying for the "Intellectual Property". Just like when you buy a painting, you're paying for the intellectual property called "ART", your not paying for the paints that were used to make the painting. I hope that made sense.

 

[tooltiperror]

See, people say that if companies lowered their prices they would get more money, but there have been plenty of studies showing that, even though there would be an increase in purchases, the lowered price would make it so that it wouldn't even make a difference.

 

[Lambda_drive]

See, people say that if companies lowered their prices they would get more money, but there have been plenty of studies showing that, even though there would be an increase in purchases, the lowered price would make it so that it wouldn't even make a difference.

You have a point there, but you forgot something that's almost as important as profits which is User Base. Would you rather have a small user base or a large user base?

The more people that you have your product means the more people that will buy your future products which will give you a nice steady flow of money.

 

[ElderKingpin]

adobe has super expensive software, but its good quality, so people still buy it, probably not updates, but they buy the base products :/