4 ms·

The section on piracy is insightful: > The effect is not black and white. One pirate will not bring the industry crashing down. Even widespread piracy will not

The section on piracy is insightful: > The effect is not black and white. One pirate will not bring the industry crashing down. Even widespread piracy will not kill the industry. Widespread piracy will have four effects: First, software will be more expensive because software sellers will try to recover their costs on fewer sales with higher prices. Second, software will be more expensive because software sellers will burden it with a variety of anti-piracy devices. You the consumer will pay for these protection schemes. Third, software will be less usable and enjoyable because the protection schemes used will probably interfere with the operation and use of the game. Fourth, fewer games will be available because fewer authors will be motivated to write programs when they cannot earn a good return for their efforts. In general, I am just amazed at how much commonality in discourse and medium we're seeing from a 1981 computer magazine. The Wolfenstein ad made me briefly reconsider when 3D games became a thing, until I realised that Wolfenstein had a 2D era. Magazines are priceless historical artifacts. Everything from the ads to the language points to something that has passed (and that still is).

indigochill 3y ago
> Fourth, fewer games will be available because fewer authors will be motivated to write programs when they cannot earn a good return for their efforts. Most of the points are spot on in terms of the AAA response to piracy, but this one has been proven to be hilariously off-base. The open availability of professional-grade game development tools has lead to an explosion in games being developed (even if _far_ more are developed than are commercially viable). I wonder if this observation can be extrapolated to hand-wringing over copyright in other industries...
- instagraham 3y ago
  I think if we see it in terms of "if something is data, it can be pirated and it should be pirated", we get a lot of comparisons between not-equally monetisable industries. Like journalism is innately piratable - the sourcing of facts can cost money, but once out, it's copied and replicated for free. But journalism, unlike videogames, is not inherantly monetisable, and only a handful of subscription-based outlets survive - and even those are beaten on this site by archive links. Hyperlocal journalism and investigative journalism are both seemingly dying in absence of money. The free open-sharing market is not the most altruistic in how it shares resources.
  - indigochill 3y ago
    Yeah, I majored in journalism and this was a constant topic of discussion through the whole program. I do think the traditional business model is probably done-for in a digital environment. Never mind that piracy is technically illegal. News rooms, unlike large music/film publishers, don't have the budget to go after pirates (besides which the journalists I studied with at least were largely ideologically pro-spread-of-information so this would put them in a weird spot). I posit two alternative models that might have legs (though I haven't tried them myself, so buyer beware): 1. Source the funding for the story in advance. Fewer stories get written, but IMO that's fine. We don't need a constant stream of content (a lot of journalism done is just frankly not necessary even though overall journalism is essential), but some stories are worth paying for if they're well-researched and well-reported. This could be funded by grants and/or crowdfunding. 2. As far as I know industry reporting doesn't have this problem, at least to the extent that mainstream journalism does. For example, Janes. Which would make sense since groups pay for this information with the expectation that leveraging the knowledge will pay for its acquisition. This is similar in that there are patrons interested in the information and that interest translates into willingness to pay for it, just with an industrial flavor rather than a cultural flavor.
    - instagraham 3y ago
      Thanks for the thought-out reply! I am very interested in alternative models. For lack of a better rationale, I feel like journalism is a space with many problems, and as-yet unexecuted solutions, making it ripe for a good ole disruption. Easier said than done, surely. I feel like its fundamentals just need to be translated. I like the idea of crowdsourcing - I personally think more newsrooms should crowdsource editorial, ask the reader what they want to read about and do a damn good job of writing it. This doesn't have to mean you will pander, or that you will be dumb. It just negates the problem of being a 'gatekeeper' of information, a problem so many people take issue with despite misunderstanding the fundamental nature of information creating

indigochill 3y ago

> Fourth, fewer games will be available because fewer authors will be motivated to write programs when they cannot earn a good return for their efforts. Most of the points are spot on in terms of the AAA response to piracy, but this one has been proven to be hilariously off-base. The open availability of professional-grade game development tools has lead to an explosion in games being developed (even if _far_ more are developed than are commercially viable). I wonder if this observation can be extrapolated to hand-wringing over copyright in other industries...

instagraham 3y ago
I think if we see it in terms of "if something is data, it can be pirated and it should be pirated", we get a lot of comparisons between not-equally monetisable industries. Like journalism is innately piratable - the sourcing of facts can cost money, but once out, it's copied and replicated for free. But journalism, unlike videogames, is not inherantly monetisable, and only a handful of subscription-based outlets survive - and even those are beaten on this site by archive links. Hyperlocal journalism and investigative journalism are both seemingly dying in absence of money. The free open-sharing market is not the most altruistic in how it shares resources.
- indigochill 3y ago
  Yeah, I majored in journalism and this was a constant topic of discussion through the whole program. I do think the traditional business model is probably done-for in a digital environment. Never mind that piracy is technically illegal. News rooms, unlike large music/film publishers, don't have the budget to go after pirates (besides which the journalists I studied with at least were largely ideologically pro-spread-of-information so this would put them in a weird spot). I posit two alternative models that might have legs (though I haven't tried them myself, so buyer beware): 1. Source the funding for the story in advance. Fewer stories get written, but IMO that's fine. We don't need a constant stream of content (a lot of journalism done is just frankly not necessary even though overall journalism is essential), but some stories are worth paying for if they're well-researched and well-reported. This could be funded by grants and/or crowdfunding. 2. As far as I know industry reporting doesn't have this problem, at least to the extent that mainstream journalism does. For example, Janes. Which would make sense since groups pay for this information with the expectation that leveraging the knowledge will pay for its acquisition. This is similar in that there are patrons interested in the information and that interest translates into willingness to pay for it, just with an industrial flavor rather than a cultural flavor.
  - instagraham 3y ago
    Thanks for the thought-out reply! I am very interested in alternative models. For lack of a better rationale, I feel like journalism is a space with many problems, and as-yet unexecuted solutions, making it ripe for a good ole disruption. Easier said than done, surely. I feel like its fundamentals just need to be translated. I like the idea of crowdsourcing - I personally think more newsrooms should crowdsource editorial, ask the reader what they want to read about and do a damn good job of writing it. This doesn't have to mean you will pander, or that you will be dumb. It just negates the problem of being a 'gatekeeper' of information, a problem so many people take issue with despite misunderstanding the fundamental nature of information creating