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EDIT: It was rightly pointed out that I directed my comments to music whereas the topic was games. My thoughts drifted due to the more common association with p

EDIT: It was rightly pointed out that I directed my comments to music whereas the topic was games. My thoughts drifted due to the more common association with piracy. Everything I said still applies though. To have a fair discussion, we need to be clear on who is screwing whom and how. And we need to be clear on how they can stop, and whether it is actually within their power to stop. Original post follows: Who should stop screwing the customer? And how should they stop? Any discussion of fixing the music (EDIT: or gaming) industry or stopping piracy needs answers to these questions. One of the advantages of piracy, one of its conveniences, is that you can get anything you want in one place. But no one is in a position to provide this legally. Spotify (and others (EDIT: such as Steam for games)) would like to, but they can only legally provide what record companies (EDIT: or gaming companies... I think I can stop with the line by line clarifying now; the point is that this applies to all pirated digital content) will provide to them. And they will only provide what it is cost-effective for them to acquire and license. They aren't going to have truly independent artists, because dealing with artists rather than labels isn't cost effective on such a large scale. The only way to overcome this I can think of is a compulsory license for distributing music, akin to the compulsory license for playing covers. But there's no way I can foresee the unintended consequences of such a fundamental change in how copyright is understood. But whether or not such a compulsory license is a good idea is not the point. The point is that "stop screwing the customer" is vague to the point of meaninglessness.

LarrySDonald 15y ago
There is no law against making your catalog widely available. Yes, currently they seem unable to do so. That isn't the consumers problem (quite literally). Very few things are so awesome that you'll have people begging you to take their money (and root access on their box, the right to revoke the product at any time, etc), so few in fact that the publishers should firmly assume they are not it. If they can't sort that out between themselves, tough shit - customers/pirates/in-betweens will not care. The ball is not in their court and it will be extremely hard to put it there by force.
jamesgeck0 15y ago
But we're not talking about music piracy. :) Steam is missing a few major titles (mostly from EA and Blizzard), but it's one of the most complete digital download services. It also seems to be rather indie friendly.
- DanielStraight 15y ago
  Thank you for pointing out my mental lapse. I've edited the post to clarify. I still think the questions are important though.
- officemonkey 15y ago
  >But we're not talking about music piracy. But all types of digital piracy are connected by similar economical choices of the consumer. Valve, iTunes, Spotify, Hulu, and Netflix all combat piracy by being more convenient than the alternative. I'd much rather use those services to get what I want. However, if content is not readily available digitally, then plenty of people have no problem getting that content via piracy. And the reason they do that is simple: the risk of getting caught and punished is vanishingly small. Even when the RIAA was at it's most aggressive, the number of people sued was trivial compared to the people who were file-sharing. I think it boils down to this: if you are not in the marketplace, your stuff will be pirated. So get in the digital marketplace and "close the buggy-whip factory" already.
- seabee 15y ago
  Steam missing EA's titles is a recent development caused by EA starting their own competitor, Origin. It remains to be seen whether Origin can gain any traction as a (currently) single publisher platform, but it is required by their new releases, just like Steam back at Half-Life 2's release.
wccrawford 15y ago
Who should stop screwing the customer? I thought I was clear on that. When 90% of the world gets the game in January, and you get the game in July, you feel pretty screwed. Everyone has already explored and spoiled everything. There's very few people left to have a discussion about anything, because they already know. You get to watch everyone else play the game, wishing you could. That's assuming the game EVER comes to your country. It might not. And you'll probably pay more for the privilege, even though the game is worth less, for the reasons stated above. That is, unless you pirate it.

LarrySDonald 15y ago

There is no law against making your catalog widely available. Yes, currently they seem unable to do so. That isn't the consumers problem (quite literally). Very few things are so awesome that you'll have people begging you to take their money (and root access on their box, the right to revoke the product at any time, etc), so few in fact that the publishers should firmly assume they are not it. If they can't sort that out between themselves, tough shit - customers/pirates/in-betweens will not care. The ball is not in their court and it will be extremely hard to put it there by force.

jamesgeck0 15y ago

But we're not talking about music piracy. :) Steam is missing a few major titles (mostly from EA and Blizzard), but it's one of the most complete digital download services. It also seems to be rather indie friendly.

DanielStraight 15y ago
Thank you for pointing out my mental lapse. I've edited the post to clarify. I still think the questions are important though.
officemonkey 15y ago
>But we're not talking about music piracy. But all types of digital piracy are connected by similar economical choices of the consumer. Valve, iTunes, Spotify, Hulu, and Netflix all combat piracy by being more convenient than the alternative. I'd much rather use those services to get what I want. However, if content is not readily available digitally, then plenty of people have no problem getting that content via piracy. And the reason they do that is simple: the risk of getting caught and punished is vanishingly small. Even when the RIAA was at it's most aggressive, the number of people sued was trivial compared to the people who were file-sharing. I think it boils down to this: if you are not in the marketplace, your stuff will be pirated. So get in the digital marketplace and "close the buggy-whip factory" already.
seabee 15y ago
Steam missing EA's titles is a recent development caused by EA starting their own competitor, Origin. It remains to be seen whether Origin can gain any traction as a (currently) single publisher platform, but it is required by their new releases, just like Steam back at Half-Life 2's release.

wccrawford 15y ago

Who should stop screwing the customer? I thought I was clear on that. When 90% of the world gets the game in January, and you get the game in July, you feel pretty screwed. Everyone has already explored and spoiled everything. There's very few people left to have a discussion about anything, because they already know. You get to watch everyone else play the game, wishing you could. That's assuming the game EVER comes to your country. It might not. And you'll probably pay more for the privilege, even though the game is worth less, for the reasons stated above. That is, unless you pirate it.