5 ms·

I don't really like though how we justify piracy by saying people wouldn't have brought it anyway. Isn't that how our economy works? You either have the money f

• barrkel 17y ago
  The article isn't about morality, it's about economics. The article didn't justify piracy in a moral sense by talking about people who wouldn't have bought it. He was trying to build an argument by saying most pirates wouldn't buy the games in any case, so that describing pirates as potential customers is erroneous, and therefore high piracy rates are not necessarily the cause of poor performance in the market. The example of the iPhone was particularly good, I thought. From the numbers, it seems self-evident that app piracy isn't actually a big problem, even when most apps are pirated. And for what it's worth, fairness has little to do with anything outside of childhood; there's no daddy you can go running to saying "it's not fair!", only economics, courts and politics, each with its own dynamics, but mostly coming down to power in bargaining.
  • gyardley 17y ago
    Well, it's a problem when application developers operate a backend server to support their game - which isn't the most common thing to do, but it does happen. I've seen cases where piracy cut the developer's profits considerably because of this.
    • naz 17y ago
      The solution to this is to give each copy a cryptographic key which you then verify with the server. Unfortunately this isn't possible for iPhone games.
      • teamonkey 17y ago
        Until the cracked version appears, that is.
        • naz 17y ago
          But that's the point, the server can simply refuse to serve someone without a valid key.
          • robryan 17y ago
            Doesn't that go back to the roots of a lot of computer software privacy, keygens?
• derefr 17y ago
  Why does it matter if it's "fair?" Our economy is based on value propositions—that's why we can charge 100x the price for a box labelled "enterprise edition" that contains a stream of bits no different than the one labelled "home edition." The enterprise values the software 100x as much, so we make one exchange of value with them, and then make another value exchange with (presumably a larger number of) home users for a smaller price. For some people, the value proposition you exchange with them simply is "zero dollars per license." Also, > Isn't that how our economy works? You either have the money for something and you buy it or you don't have to money so you don't get it. No, that's how a scarcity economy works; the people who don't pay don't get an X so there are Xs left over for the people who do want them. An information economy works completely differently: the best possible "solution" to distributing an information product is to have everyone in the world owning it at the maximum price they're willing to pay, on a value gradient all the way from $billions to $0.
  • AlisdairO 17y ago
    True - the issue being that the fact that people pirate information is likely to affect the maximum price that others are willing to pay.
    • deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
  • rick888 17y ago
    "Why does it matter if it's "fair?" Our economy is based on value propositions—that's why we can charge 100x the price for a box labelled "enterprise edition" that contains a stream of bits no different than the one labelled "home edition." Using this comparison, one piece of fine art is no different in value than the other because the value of the paint used to create each is the same. "that's how a scarcity economy works; " I keep hearing this argument and it's just wrong. Just like art, the scarcity isn't in the bits that you can copy. It's in the talent, time, and energy used to arrange those bits on a higher level. When anyone can create (not copy) Photoshop CS5 in a few hours on their computer, you might have a point. "An information economy works completely differently" I like how software, music, and movies are called "information" only to make the argument that it should be free. "the best possible "solution" to distributing an information product is to have everyone in the world owning it at the maximum price they're willing to pay, on a value gradient all the way from $billions to $0." If you want to make a living, this doesn't work. If people are given the choice of paying $100 or $0, most will pay $0. This is why business doesn't work on the basis of donations.
• michaelfairley 17y ago
  In non-intellectual property domains though, the creator of the good is actually deprived of something (the something itself) when it is taken without payment (one party loses, the other gains). With digital goods, copying is essentially free, so the creator doesn't lose anything, so one party gains while the other neither loses nor gains.
  • rick888 17y ago
    "With digital goods, copying is essentially free, so the creator doesn't lose anything, so one party gains while the other neither loses nor gains." This isn't true. When you steal physical goods..the original owner loses just the cost of the physical item. It doesn't change the value. Digital goods are different. As more and more people pirate it, the perceived value approaches $0, which has the potential to destroy a business. Even worse than this, if it's not stopped, more and more people will just start assuming that software is free (and will not want to pay for it). Piracy hasn't just destroyed a business, it's destroying many industries. You may be fine with this. However, it will just result in more forms of DRM and an increase in services where you don't get to install it on your computer. I don't see the people bitching about DRM offering any kind of alternative. Most people, like you, won't even admit there is a problem with piracy. You also can't say that the owner doesn't lose anything. I have been involved with too many businesses that have seen piracy directly effect their business. With my own business, my sales dropped 40% when there were cracks readily available. When I disabled the cracks, sales went back up to normal.
    • Gormo 17y ago
      While piracy may influence the perceived value of the good (although this is _very_ arguable) so does almost everything else. What competing products are on the market, and what are their price points? What are the trends in consumer preferences? What do the macroeconomic indicators look like this week/day/hour, and how are they influencing buying habits? "Will customers buy my product, and if so, at what price?" is an enormously non-trivial question, and the entire discipline of marketing revolves around trying to answer it. How much weight would you give to piracy against all of the other relevant variables in assessing the potential market value of a product?
• dagw 17y ago
  "Isn't that how our economy works? You either have the money for something and you buy it or you don't have to money so you don't get it." Or you find a way to get it cheaper. Countless innovations throughout history have their roots in someone wanting something, but not being able to afford it. Piracy is just an unfortunate side-effect of this driving urge.
  • _delirium 17y ago
    Unfortunate by some measures, but it seems to fit the basic template of overcoming scarcity through progress. What is the ideal way to get around the "want X, but can't afford to buy it from someone" problem? An amazing technological innovation that lets you magically duplicate your own copy of it, without having to buy theirs. Like, say, being able to get a copy of your neighbor's tomatoes without them losing their own tomatoes!
    • robryan 17y ago
      It's great right now, big budget productions for free. What happens though when enough people creating the content can't make the economic model work no more? I think the result will be drastically lower budgets to the point where someone can make a dollar selling the content for a dollar or putting ads around/before it online. It's just a matter of whether we can accept that, it may be a good thing? The budget models for movies right now does seem to be a bit out of whack.
• Tichy 17y ago
  I don't think justifying piracy is the issue. Rather, the (or one of the) issue is the justification of DRM. DRM costs money and makes the lives of honest buyers miserable.
  • robryan 17y ago
    If effective DRM could be developed that didn't make life worse for the buyer I'd support it. Anything less though (everything we have currently) and DRM is an issue.
    • Tichy 17y ago
      Never say never, but how could any DRM be not annoying? Perhaps if you could sell your DRMed things, it might be an advantage?
      • MetricMike 17y ago
        For example, I really enjoy the solutions that Valve/Steam and Blizzard/Battle.net came up with. I give them a CD Key and they give me unlimited opportunity to download and install the game that key goes to. Steam even goes one step further and ensures that it's updated. More importantly, neither of them require online interaction - you can set Steam to an "Offline Mode" in case I want to go an airplane or my Internet connection isn't doing so well. On top of that, I regularly max out my downloading speed when moving games around on Steam. In Steam's case it's much more convenient than pirating (don't have to check for quality, no cracks to apply) and adds even more value (checks for updates automatically) to the game. On the flipside, it's exceptionally difficult to bundle up games shared from Steam - but the gifting codes are just as easy as buying the original game. Blizzard hasn't yet made it too difficult to bundle, share, and upload a downloaded game (other than multiplayer not working due to CD-Key issues), but I find a lot of my value in the multiplayer component. That kind of direction, where DRM adds value to the game rather than adding layers of complexity, is the direction I wish DRM would go in.
        • Tichy 17y ago