Poll: Thoughts on internet piracy?
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All of which applies equally to a huge swathe of things you can buy unsighted but are covered by consumer protection legislation, so why should digital products be any different? Ultimately the answer is that they shouldn't be different but for as long as they are, people will choose to employ their own protection rather than just miss out on an entire entertainment sector.
hands up everyone who voted No but doesnt pay for porn
Haha, good point!
I haven't voted yet btw, but I would be in the depends camp.
I don't pirate software (not since the C-64/Amiga days and they always said that would kill the games industry....hmmm...) especially since steam was introduced.
I do dl TV shows/Films. I pay for a Sky subscription so I don't see how my accessing a show early is costing the company any revenue.
I go to the cinema often, far more than average, to watch the films I'm really keen on seeing, the rest I dl and watch at home. I can see how that could affect revenue, but again, whats the difference (revenue wise) between watching it earlier or waiting for it to be broadcast free on Sky - like I used to have to wait for terrestial TV and record it on VHS.
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Soldato
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This is my view on the subject, give me a netflix type subscription (I pirate heavily and STILL have a netflix account), with access to anything and I will pay for it. I try before I buy on a lot of tv series, the ones that I enjoy I end up purchasing the box set of (West Wing, Spartacus, Battlestar Gallactica, Stargate etc). Would I have purchased the box sets without pirating and watching first? Absolutely not.
As for the small artist, I would not pirate their material, the huge stars I would have no issues with at all (but most of stuff released is 99% garbage anyway).
Soldato
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Sorry but this is complete rubbish, they have no problem with worldwide release dates on films, TV series is no different.
Soldato
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Exactly this. With all the YT "Let's play..." content available on or before release of a game; you can make a very good call on whether you'll like Game X.
Blu-Ray player in my house is 99% used as a convenient way to connect a USB stick full of family photos to the TV...
Soldato
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Music can now be streamed. A whole load of films seen for £8 a month on Netflix. Games can be purchased Much cheaper than they used to thanks to steam sales and CD key websites. I think access to digital media has got easier and cheaper especially compared to 5- 10 years ago so I think it is getting harder to justify piracy.
I don't have the circumstances right now to find out how many copies of my ebooks have been downloaded without my permission. About a year ago I did see it available on such sites, though, so it is or was certainly out there.
Removing any emotion from the discussion, it still disappoints me as my products are purposefully low-priced at £1.99 and £2.49 with the intention of allowing people to afford their purchases. They were hard work and took about a year of my spare time each, but they were also enjoyable in part and that enjoyment is something I like to pass on to others.
Indeed, to that end, I have given away 10,000 copies of these ebooks for free in the past. I've also given away my paperback for free and I have written copy and edited stuff for OcUK members on many occasions - also for free. Like Moses said above, though, the point is that the decision to forego fees and royalties is mine alone.
A child of the 80's I grew up with piracy, taped the radio and recorded the TV then kept it. Swapped tapes and CD's with friends and taped them.
My cousin copied friends ZX Spectrum games on his tape deck and later we would swap and copy Amiga games.
We also did our fair share of buying full price games and CDs. Later all of the films and music I had copied and loved I bought for myself once I got older and had money.
The internet is a different kettle of fish though because instead on one person buying something and 2 or 3 copying it, you only need 1 copy to go to thousands of people. It is the scale of return that differs and makes it worse.
Streaming needs to be the saviour...
My cousin copied friends ZX Spectrum games on his tape deck and later we would swap and copy Amiga games.
We also did our fair share of buying full price games and CDs. Later all of the films and music I had copied and loved I bought for myself once I got older and had money.
The internet is a different kettle of fish though because instead on one person buying something and 2 or 3 copying it, you only need 1 copy to go to thousands of people. It is the scale of return that differs and makes it worse.
Streaming needs to be the saviour...
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It's nice that you're perfect, but given the paid for reviews, and often release-day crippling bug/server errors that plague some games it's not always easy to tell, is it?
We're a long way off infrastructure that can support it as being a viable means for everyone though.
hands up everyone who voted No but doesnt pay for porn
Always got mine for free. You're just doing it wrong.
I voted no because I personally believe it's wrong but wouldn't be nessecary if they sorted their act out.
Although I do credit piracy with helping me get started in coding. If I couldn't pirate certain virtual programs I wouldn't have been able to learn ios/Mac coding without a substantial investment despite having paid for a legit OSX. Since earning money from it I have purchased a legitimate copy of the virtual machine program(despite still breaching apples EULA). Piracy has helped me purchase dreamweaver as well.
While I know people can't be trusted on the whole but if these companies had offered free(massively reduced) home licenses with a caveat to buy the full license upon using it for business use I wouldn't have had to turn to pirating.
You could argue that if I couldn't afford it I shouldn't have started although 9 months of having 'stole' a program it was turned into a sale which they otherwise wouldn't have had without piracy.
Although I do credit piracy with helping me get started in coding. If I couldn't pirate certain virtual programs I wouldn't have been able to learn ios/Mac coding without a substantial investment despite having paid for a legit OSX. Since earning money from it I have purchased a legitimate copy of the virtual machine program(despite still breaching apples EULA). Piracy has helped me purchase dreamweaver as well.
While I know people can't be trusted on the whole but if these companies had offered free(massively reduced) home licenses with a caveat to buy the full license upon using it for business use I wouldn't have had to turn to pirating.
You could argue that if I couldn't afford it I shouldn't have started although 9 months of having 'stole' a program it was turned into a sale which they otherwise wouldn't have had without piracy.
You wouldn't steal a car. Well, no you wouldn't(unless you're into some real life GTA). But if you could clone the car, leaving the original one intact(and with it's original owner), and the technology to do so was free to everyone maybe that's a different story?
"It depends"
I don't generally pirate. "abandonware" games is an exception, and I tend to play on websites now (apparently it's legally "lending")
Another exception is Box Office boxing fights. I'm not a Sky subscriber, as I don't watch TV generally. But when there's a major fight, I would happily pay the £15 fee to watch online.... but they offer no such service!
Similarly, I would occasionally want to watch more minor fights appearing on standard subscription channels (or not UK-broadcast at all), and would happily pay a smaller fee for those but, again, no such service exists.
TV companies need to offer a more tailored, on demand service. And I will pay for what I want to see.
I don't generally pirate. "abandonware" games is an exception, and I tend to play on websites now (apparently it's legally "lending")
Another exception is Box Office boxing fights. I'm not a Sky subscriber, as I don't watch TV generally. But when there's a major fight, I would happily pay the £15 fee to watch online.... but they offer no such service!
Similarly, I would occasionally want to watch more minor fights appearing on standard subscription channels (or not UK-broadcast at all), and would happily pay a smaller fee for those but, again, no such service exists.
TV companies need to offer a more tailored, on demand service. And I will pay for what I want to see.
What really annoys me is when it is only legally available with DRM. This almost always results in a scenario where pirates get a better product.
For example, I can't play my audible audiobooks in the player I want but people who pirate the same audiobooks and pay nothing can.
For example, I can't play my audible audiobooks in the player I want but people who pirate the same audiobooks and pay nothing can.
I suppose "demonstrate loss" extends to: do you think (is it possible to prove at all) that every person who downloaded your ebook illegally would otherwise be a paying customer? On the other hand we have many examples of art and work without label/releaser promotion that became popular due to second circulation popularity, in the long run bringing artist or author "fame and fortune".
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I'm not sure it really is worse now; When I was about 10, most of my friends had an Amiga or Atari ST (I was too poor, so had to settle for a C64) - only one of them (from a very straight laced family) had more than a handful of legitimate games, the others' game collections were mostly pirated copies. Atari ST in particular suffered; some developers refused to make games for the system because of it
Given the quality of new release games in this day and age;
- Unfinished and buggy
- Day one DLC that is on the disc
- No demo available
I admittedly have pirated some games. It's really unfair to have to spend £30-50 on a new release, play it for 5 mins, be disappointed with it, then be unable to get a refund because it's a digital code that has been used.
- Unfinished and buggy
- Day one DLC that is on the disc
- No demo available
I admittedly have pirated some games. It's really unfair to have to spend £30-50 on a new release, play it for 5 mins, be disappointed with it, then be unable to get a refund because it's a digital code that has been used.
Like many have said before we need some kind of "Spotify" for TV/Movies. Where i can pay $30 (or what ever) a month to stream/rent any show in the existence of mankind (except maybe whats on in the cinema, i go the cinema loads) @ a choice of 720/1080p 5.1 DTS and all that jazz..... (i have Foxtel by the way.. Sport/Movies... its the same as Sky)
Oh look, the new episode (S06E02) of "Justified" has just landed... see ya!
Oh look, the new episode (S06E02) of "Justified" has just landed... see ya!