Internet Piracy

[Francisck]

This is really about Intellectual property rights, what are your thoughts?

Should people be allowed to freely trade any kind of digital media?

I believe so, I have a hard time accepting Intellectual property rights, I believe that companies should start thinking of creative ways of stopping piracy of their product other than using force.

Let me know!

[johnfromoz]

I said yes, but that depended on interpretations.

I accept intellectual property rights wholeheartedly. If you put in a day digging ditches but weren't paid because the ditches are for the common good, would you be out digging the next day? Maybe you would, up until you noticed other people sitting back and not digging. Would you spend time and money perfecting a medical procedure, a movie, or a novel, for nothing? How would you pay for food and shelter and (in the USA) health care?

I am not sure what you mean by "I believe that companies should start thinking of creative ways of stopping piracy of their product other than using force." Generally the force is an end-user licence, a copyright or whatever. The force happens if you are caught breaking those.

The force I don't much like, when I load a purchased DVD, is at the long anti-piracy video at the start, followed by an anti-piracy message, followed by a copyright notice, which in many cases you can't skip past. One popular anti-piracy message actually said "you wouldn't be seeing this message on a pirated DVD" and my reaction was, "Great, where can I buy one?" If it's not reaching the pirates, and irritating legitimate purchasers, why have it at all?

But I have a lot of DVDs, and only one is a copy, because it's out of publication and not likely to come back.

I also detest more recent software copy protection that only allows a few re-installations before I have to go online to get approval to re-install, or stuff that is in an over-engineered package that is so complex for a legal buyer, I start to think a hacked copy might be worth finding after all. In trying to punish pirates, some vendors just punish customers. Some software vendors have already lost my custom and I hope many other users register their views in the same way.

Abou here, we trail off into other questions. If all we were talking about was the knock-off movie DVDs you grab for a couple of bucks on your Asian holiday, I'd say nail the pirates to the wall. That's because behind that kind of large scale piracy are gangs, sometimes multi-national gangs. They get the big profit and use it in ways many of us won't like.

Then again, who has never, ever, copied a tape, CD, DVD, game, or downloaded similarly? I venture to suggest a lot of folk do it all the time without a thought, simply because they think ability equals right. I also think a lot of people do because they can't afford to pay.

Are we talking about degree? Is there a difference between the smug little poos who think they owe the artists, technicians and so forth nothing for their efforts and abilities, and those who grab a freebie once in a while because they are poor?

In my experience in a hobby gaming area where there's freeware just as good as some payware, and payware that someone has worked hard to perfect, some users have the arrogance to ask for hacked sources for quality payware online, and worse, to abuse the freeware designers for not giving them what they want, when they want it.

So as long as there are people who feel it's fine to take what they want, there will be pirates.

The question is, where do the proprietors draw their line in the sand between reasonable protection from most of the backyard pirates, and over-engineering something which discourages purchasers? So I voted yes, stop it, but not just by heavy security and heavy-handed laws. There must be a dollar break-even point between the cost of security and loss of some customers, and keeping products affordable and piracy to an economically bearable level.

[hank00001]

I said know but because i don't think Governments should be stopping it but it should be up to the owner of the intellectual property to enforce their rights just like with physical products.

[Computer_Head]

I personally feel that intellectual property rights should be observed.

[johnfromoz]

Interestingly, this issue has come to mind again recently. I just got a new PC setup and among other things I am reinstalling MS Flight Sim, together with various payware addons I have accumulated.

I live in a broadband 'black spot' so my only option is wireless, which has a far smaller download allowance per month.

Firstly, over half the payware expects me to convince the vendor I have not stolen it, by going online. Many of the products were purchased from an internet connected computer to install on a non-internet PC, which was effectively what I then had, since I couldn't hope to download the large files on my home dialup. But they just won't work in the new environment. One vendor even said, "Sorry, that installer had a use-by date we didn't know about at the time, you need to buy a new version" which, as it happened, was cheap enough and worth having - but they mailed it to me on discs with the old, expired installer!

I connected to wireless broadband yesterday and bought another addon from a highly respected designer, through an online store. After three attempts to download failing at 80%, I tried twice more. Each time it looked like I had a working product, but each time installation was interrupted by messages showing the file was corrupted. I asked the vendor if they would apply credit for the download purchase to a CD version and I would pay the difference, and they have not yet replied. Meanwhile I have used 3/4 of my download allocation on day one, have to wait 30 days to try again, and the downloads are only accessible for a limited time.

These kinds of experiences are pushing me into sympathy with pirates. I believe the designers deserve payment for their quality work, but they might like to think about who they use as selling agents. If the protection is so over-engineered it just punishes legal purchasers, if the vendors don't care if you get a bad copy, and if despite increasingly fancy security pirate sites still manage to offer cracked copies then (virus risks from torrents aside) the illegal becomes tempting.

There is one designer that has stormed into the Flight Sim community and impressed everyone, a crowd called Orbx. They have a simple password on their products, nothing fancy. They know pirates will grab what they can. The thing is that their many honest customers happily pay for the excellent product, and even often to contribute more cash for development if they catch a whiff of some new and wonderful product. I incline towards believing that precious security just discourages purchasers (once burned, they won't buy again) and challenges pirates. Simple protection geared to deter the merely lazy crackers will keep the honest customer happy and willing to support future products.

[hank00001]

I agree with you John. It amazes me that people continue to use products from companies like Microsoft, who make things so complicated just to protect their bottom line and dont give a hoot for the consumer.
I believe that if software retailers provide a quality product and good customer service then people will comeback knowing that they have peace of mind.

[johnfromoz]

Certainly. I vote with my feet regularly, and that applies to shops, services, or software purchased online. I have a short black list which is pretty much encased in concrete (it includes Telstra and Qantas near the top) but a few software vendors will never again get my dollar because they value profit (which is reasonable enough in business) but do not understand the value of happy customers. Their fancy product security becomes farcical if you do a search for it and their site's on about page three, after all the pirate sites.