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When getting new software is as easy as finding a friend to hit "copy" > "paste", it will always be like this. Further, even when they make it difficult with ke

When getting new software is as easy as finding a friend to hit "copy" > "paste", it will always be like this. Further, even when they make it difficult with keys and what not, there is almost always a way to break it. If that fails, there is always an alternative. If we look at morals... I always enjoyed the story in the bible where Jesus broke several loaves bread and a few fish and shared it with a massive crowd. No one cared about the poor fishermen or farmers. Why then is it morally objectionable to share software in the same manner? In other words, unless people fine it morally reprehensible we will always have something like this going on.

x1798DE 12y ago
To be fair, in the parable of the loaves and fishes, Jesus was providing the largest value added, not the farmers/bakers or fishermen, since only he was able to multiply those things; as the marginal producer of the wealth, it's not unreasonable to assign that property right to him.
radisb 12y ago
Jesus didn't steal anything, he copied something that he originally had created, something that he had donated to the fishermen in the first place. He created (well, his father) the fish on the 5th (or 6th I dont remember) day of the creation, remember?
- passwordreset 12y ago
  That sure sounds like bread and fish piracy to me. We better lock this guy up. You say his name is Jesus. Is he Mexican, or is that an alias? (BTW, Jesus is dead, his father was some schmuck who knocked up some girl that we now call "Mary" for some reason, and there is no God.)
walru 12y ago
You mean something like little Johnny Gamedesigner who decides to break free and go independent after 10 years of AAA studio life? His first game is featured all over, but released to a 95% piracy rate. Pulling in barely $20k after 6 months of work his dev team quits. He tries to stick with it, developing things on his own, but large software projects take multiple disciplines and his projects suffer. Not able to stick by him in his defeats, his girlfriend leaves, takes his corgi. Less than two years later, when no developers are willing to bring Johnny on staff because he's now 36 and has been nuked, he goes homeless. There will never be a parable that makes people care about piracy.
- zanny 12y ago
  If you can't profit off a business model then you picked the wrong business model. Today there really is no excuse. If you are a game dev looking to break into the industry, you do need a lead - something good to show off what you can do - but really all you need is a demo of your capabilities, and with something like Unity you can get something out the door really quick. You just need to demonstrate competency. And you should probably give that one away. Then if you actually intend to make a legitimate project, of scale, with huge developer costs et al, go kickstart it. If you don't have the finances to gamble on if or if not enough people will voluntarily give you an arbitrary amount of money effectively as a donation for making the game after the fact, find out if they are willing to give you a fraction of it beforehand. If not, your game would not have sold anyway. And if you say something along the lines of "they have no audience, how can they kickstart?" then I ask you how they can sell their game in the first place, if they have no audience. For better or worse most digital media sales are not about quality or effort but are about publicity and consistency. Fundamentally piracy does not mean you would have or not had a succesful launch - the pirates are just users who mostly would not have paid at all, and you won't get an order of magnitude more sales from somehow making it so you cannot transmit data online freely anymore.
  - walru 12y ago
    I agree with all you've said, but my independent charade started in 2009 - IAP was not yet a function of Apple libraries. Once better tools became available for us to monetize as originally planned, my team was already well dispersed. The entire story of my independent career would take much longer to describe than is profitable for either of us. Evolve or die, as it were, and since I'm not yet gone I am in yet another stage. One where I've whittled own the number of people, and disciplines, I need complete my endeavor. That's not to say it's easy. Talent of a measurable worth is not always ready to go when you are.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  Today, there are ways to get around this. You can kickstart a project - decide on how much money you want, ask for it, and if you don't get it, go do something else that people will pay you for. Not that piracy is OK in my eyes, but failing to protect oneself from it is outright ridiculous.

x1798DE 12y ago

To be fair, in the parable of the loaves and fishes, Jesus was providing the largest value added, not the farmers/bakers or fishermen, since only he was able to multiply those things; as the marginal producer of the wealth, it's not unreasonable to assign that property right to him.

radisb 12y ago

Jesus didn't steal anything, he copied something that he originally had created, something that he had donated to the fishermen in the first place. He created (well, his father) the fish on the 5th (or 6th I dont remember) day of the creation, remember?

passwordreset 12y ago
That sure sounds like bread and fish piracy to me. We better lock this guy up. You say his name is Jesus. Is he Mexican, or is that an alias? (BTW, Jesus is dead, his father was some schmuck who knocked up some girl that we now call "Mary" for some reason, and there is no God.)

walru 12y ago

You mean something like little Johnny Gamedesigner who decides to break free and go independent after 10 years of AAA studio life? His first game is featured all over, but released to a 95% piracy rate. Pulling in barely $20k after 6 months of work his dev team quits. He tries to stick with it, developing things on his own, but large software projects take multiple disciplines and his projects suffer. Not able to stick by him in his defeats, his girlfriend leaves, takes his corgi. Less than two years later, when no developers are willing to bring Johnny on staff because he's now 36 and has been nuked, he goes homeless. There will never be a parable that makes people care about piracy.

zanny 12y ago
If you can't profit off a business model then you picked the wrong business model. Today there really is no excuse. If you are a game dev looking to break into the industry, you do need a lead - something good to show off what you can do - but really all you need is a demo of your capabilities, and with something like Unity you can get something out the door really quick. You just need to demonstrate competency. And you should probably give that one away. Then if you actually intend to make a legitimate project, of scale, with huge developer costs et al, go kickstart it. If you don't have the finances to gamble on if or if not enough people will voluntarily give you an arbitrary amount of money effectively as a donation for making the game after the fact, find out if they are willing to give you a fraction of it beforehand. If not, your game would not have sold anyway. And if you say something along the lines of "they have no audience, how can they kickstart?" then I ask you how they can sell their game in the first place, if they have no audience. For better or worse most digital media sales are not about quality or effort but are about publicity and consistency. Fundamentally piracy does not mean you would have or not had a succesful launch - the pirates are just users who mostly would not have paid at all, and you won't get an order of magnitude more sales from somehow making it so you cannot transmit data online freely anymore.
- walru 12y ago
  I agree with all you've said, but my independent charade started in 2009 - IAP was not yet a function of Apple libraries. Once better tools became available for us to monetize as originally planned, my team was already well dispersed. The entire story of my independent career would take much longer to describe than is profitable for either of us. Evolve or die, as it were, and since I'm not yet gone I am in yet another stage. One where I've whittled own the number of people, and disciplines, I need complete my endeavor. That's not to say it's easy. Talent of a measurable worth is not always ready to go when you are.
vertex-four 12y ago
Today, there are ways to get around this. You can kickstart a project - decide on how much money you want, ask for it, and if you don't get it, go do something else that people will pay you for. Not that piracy is OK in my eyes, but failing to protect oneself from it is outright ridiculous.