War on piracy

[weasel fierce]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/technology/07piracy.html?_r=1

Rather interesting story today about the war on piracy.

So, can companies win this?
Is it doomed, like the war on drugs seems to have been?

If they can't win, where is proprietary PC software and gaming headed?

[Goldfissh]

PC software and gaming will probably just keep coming up with anti piracy measures, or try and work alongside piracy somehow. That would be cool.

[Oxwivi]

They can't. Simply can't, it's too deep-rooted.

But, even if they can't win, paid-for softwares aren't disappearing any time soon, the legit customers are large. Look at Microsoft, despite such piracy, it's still alive and profiting (at least before the recession).

And no matter what, nonfree proprietary softwares are not going anywhere.

[t0p]

Why would anyone want to buy counterfeit Microsoft products when they can get the real thing for free over bittorrent? :confused:

[Oxwivi]

Why would anyone want to buy counterfeit Microsoft products when they can get the real thing for free over bittorrent? :confused:
AFAIK, not everyone knows about that possibility. In the Indian Subcontinent, they still buy it. And of course, the price is less than 5% of the genuine stuff.

[Goldfissh]

The one thing which stops me actually BUYING things is the price tag. Games retail at an insane price, why on earth would you want to spend so much money on them?

[ivanovnegro]

Im so happy that I dont need Microsoft products and games, as it is expensive and I have no interest in gaming.
But some people do, and I really dont want to use pirate software with malware and viruses. You have three options: use proprietary software, in this case of Adobe and Microsoft, that has an unbelievable price, so you support this companies or you can use pirate products and you will support criminal structures or you simply use Opensource and everything related with this, you will be more free, have less costs and just feel superior :). Its very idealistic, I know.
I hope one time there will be more games and hard working software stuff suites for Linux and maybe than more people will change their mind and open it for projects like Ubuntu etc.

[fatality_uk]

"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!"
Except possibly in limited strategic circumstances.

[Oxwivi]

No, it's more root level - it's the disputes that are good for nothing. But informed debates are quite enlightening.

[Grenage]

The one thing which stops me actually BUYING things is the price tag. Games retail at an insane price, why on earth would you want to spend so much money on them?

Console games especially, but I've noticed a trend of crappy PC ports that were going for £40; it makes me laugh. Personally, I just buy Steam games on special offer - you can get some amazing games for < £5. Yeah, they might be one or two years old, but the content is the same.

[Oxwivi]

Console games especially, but I've noticed a trend of crappy PC ports that were going for £40; it makes me laugh. Personally, I just buy Steam games on special offer - you can get some amazing games for < £5. Yeah, they might be one or two years old, but the content is the same.
By that time, you'd be the only one in gamer circles. Personally, I've never bought any genuine games yet, offer or not, I just can't play games on a P4 system now. I did play some pirated RTS games ages ago. And I'm not too satisfied with pirated stuff, I prefer genuine.

[Grenage]

By that time, you'd be the only one in gamer circles. Personally, I've never bought any genuine games yet, offer or not, I just can't play games on a P4 system now. I did play some pirated RTS games ages ago. And I'm not too satisfied with pirated stuff, I prefer genuine.

That's not true, there are millions of people playing older games. Hell, there are even great FREE games available these days. Track Mania Nations, Lord or the Rings Online, etc.

[Oxwivi]

Okay, I admit I don't know much about late buyers. But the free ones online and not always as appealing. However, I do play RuneScape from time to time, it's the only online game I truly like.

[theraje]

It's a shame. The only thing the war on piracy has really brought is punishment upon the "legitimate" consumer, in the form of higher prices and ridiculous protection schemes (DRM, Sony's rootkits, etc.).

Personally, I think there's plenty of blame to be shared between the pirates *and* the companies. Both have their good points, both have their bad points.

For example, companies can threaten consumers not to use their goods in an "undesirable" (yet otherwise completely lawful) manner, and add "protection" mechanisms to their products. On the other hand, some other companies are more "prudent" about how they handle such matters, and tend to treat the consumer more fairly. The latter tend not to be so rampantly attacked by the piracy crowd.

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast "right" answers (or if there are, they sure are hard to come by!). Thus, the war shall continue between all those with their own "right" answers.

[Grenage]

It's a shame. The only thing the war on piracy has really brought is punishment upon the "legitimate" consumer, in the form of higher prices and ridiculous protection schemes (DRM, Sony's rootkits, etc.).

Personally, I think there's plenty of blame to be shared between the pirates *and* the companies. Both have their good points, both have their bad points.

For example, companies can threaten consumers not to use their goods in an "undesirable" (yet otherwise completely lawful) manner, and add "protection" mechanisms to their products. On the other hand, some other companies are more "prudent" about how they handle such matters, and tend to treat the consumer more fairly. The latter tend not to be so rampantly attacked by the piracy crowd.

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast "right" answers (or if there are, they sure are hard to come by!). Thus, the war shall continue between all those with their own "right" answers.

I actually blame the consumer, and only the consumer. These are, for the most part, luxury items; if people refused to purchase them, the companies would change their system.

[theraje]

I actually blame the consumer, and only the consumer. These are, for the most part, luxury items; if people refused to purchase them, the companies would change their system.

That is a good point. I'm mainly thinking of products that are less "luxury" (things someone might actually *need* to some extent), but for things like entertainment media, I completely agree with you.

It's just too bad that the average consumer is oblivious to these issues. A lot of people have had their systems trashed because they wanted to play a music CD in their computer. It was through no direct fault of their own (i.e. they weren't trying to pirate anything, nor use something illegally) that they were subjected to such lunacy.

I'm sure if they had known beforehand, they would have avoided those companies' products. That's what I do - I avoid certain products like the plague because of these things, and use alternatives - products that cost less, show more good faith, and are just as good as the product of the company that spent more money coming up with their protection schemes than developing their product.

I don't pirate - I protest by putting my money into the other guys' wallets instead.

[kaldor]

It's a crime that's unstoppable. It's no surprise that Adobe CS is so commonly pirated considering it has a pricetag of nearly 2000 dollars (http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/). I'd have no problem paying for software if the prices were reasonable. So, I took the legal way out. I use FOSS instead of proprietary so that I am not a prisoner with my own stuff and so that I don't need to pay a load of money for software. FOSS fits almost all of my needs.

I have nothing against proprietary software (PhotoShop beats GIMP... hands down) apart from SOME company's license agreements and policies. Remember when Spore came out? My friend's computer crashed a few times and now he can't play a game he paid 80 dollars for because the serial ran out. Useless.

[jcolyn]

The one thing which stops me actually BUYING things is the price tag. Games retail at an insane price, why on earth would you want to spend so much money on them?

It's called demand.

Enough people want and are willing to pay the price they can charge what they want to.

[Grenage]

It's just too bad that the average consumer is oblivious to these issues. A lot of people have had their systems trashed because they wanted to play a music CD in their computer. It was through no direct fault of their own (i.e. they weren't trying to pirate anything, nor use something illegally) that they were subjected to such lunacy.

Absolutely. I think people either do not care enough about the issue (fair enough), or don't consider that they make a statement buy not buying. Short of an organised purchase freeze, it could take a decade or more for things to change.

Life is too short, at least for most.

[Sporkman]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40030700

[Grenage]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40030700

You have to laugh; I bet she wishes she'd paid the few dollars it would have taken to buy the tracks.

She's being fined a ridiculous amount, but for a genuine crime.

[3Miro]

How are they going to fight piracy anyway. There is no way to stop people of cracking any defense they can think of, for every person thinking about DRM protections, there are 100 people thinking how to crack it. They will simply end up hurting a bunch of legitimate clients.

[Gremlinzzz]

With there over pricing who's the real Pirate?

[Sporkman]

How are they going to fight piracy anyway. There is no way to stop people of cracking any defense they can think of, for every person thinking about DRM protections, there are 100 people thinking how to crack it. They will simply end up hurting a bunch of legitimate clients.

If they can financially destroy enough regular people in a high profile way, it would at least push the activity to the criminal fringes & prevent piracy from achieving mainstream acceptance (and would minimize their losses to piracy).

[_outlawed_]

Piracy is too much intertwined into our society today, that it is basically unstoppable.

What these corporations like the MPAA/RIAA (as an example) don't understand is the REASON why people pirate their stuff.

In today's economy with higher prices and lower incomes, why would ANYONE pay $20 for a music CD with only 1 good song on it.

They spend billions of dollars a year to counter piracy, but yet they could just simply produce better cheaper products.

Also most people turn to piracy as they are in an extremely low income bracket and can't afford anything that these money-hungry corporations push out.


and would minimize their losses to piracy

Laughable statement at best. Last I checked, there was over 100 million people torrenting pirated software. And guess what? The corporations are still bringing in billions of dollars of revenue each year and most of their employees live like gods.

[NightwishFan]

I am less interested in media piracy than software piracy though I do not agree with either.

I do not like the lock and key ways of proprietary software, and thus am glad folks crack it, though I do want them to have a valid license to use the software. For media, people run rampant sharing files. I do not agree with that. Though I think it is getting to be a little much when you can punish for listening to the music in a certain way. I will never follow such laws, especially if I paid for my media.

[P4man]

I seriously doubt if MS would not be able to stop piracy almost completely if they really wanted to. They have enough market clout to impose almost any measure, including hardware locks (for instance, requiring a sim like "licence" card in your pc).

I think MS would much rather see people pirate windows and their apps than see them explore the alternatives. If some day MS would really release a water proof anti piracy system, tens or hundreds of millions of people will start looking at linux, openoffice etc. Thats a lot worse for them than missing a few sales on those pirates who would actually pay the full price if they couldnt pirate it. Im pretty sure thats a small minority of pirates.

[Reokie]

We live in a world where items like programs have an infinate population and can be reproduced for literally nothing. Piracy cannot be stopped, but it can be undercut. By offering a better, company-side product, such as support, and serverside extensions to the program, (Both that I belive cannot be supplied better than the company itself.) you give users a reason to NEED the ledgit copy. Then again, ignorance is also a good tool

[Johnsie]

Microsoft do not care too much about Piracy. They practically give most of their products away at many levels. Students often get free Windows and Visual Studio, small busineses can get VS2010 professional for free, people in poor countries get Windows for next to nothing.

Microsoft only chase up piracy to try and encourage businesses to go legit and make a bit of money. Yes they do a little fearmongering to get honest people to pay up, but they are not really in the business of chasing people. They want to remain the dominant platform.

[weasel fierce]

Part of the problem as far as I understand it, is that in places like India, charging say, 300 dollars for windows means nobody can afford it.
But if you charged 50, it'd get sold online to western buyers, and unlike consoles, there's no region locks.


As far as prevalence, this is anecdotal evidence of course, but I dont know a single person who doesn't currently have pirated software whether a bootleg copy of windows, apps (office seems the big one) or games.
The exception is myself and one or two other people using linux purely.

Even when I ran windows, I wasn't a pirate, though I can't claim innocence as I copied tons of games back in my amiga days :mad:

[Grenage]

Part of the problem as far as I understand it, is that in places like India, charging say, 300 dollars for windows means nobody can afford it.
But if you charged 50, it'd get sold online to western buyers, and unlike consoles, there's no region locks.

I think MS do this already (correction wanting). Ultimately if one of these copies is sold to someone in London, and the license restricts usage to random_country, they might as well just download a torrent. Both are violations.

[weasel fierce]

I think MS do this already (correction wanting). Ultimately if one of these copies is sold to someone in London, and the license restricts usage to random_country, they might as well just download a torrent. Both are violations.

ah, this is true. I was more thinking of hardware limitations like the region locks on DVDs

[3Miro]

If they can financially destroy enough regular people in a high profile way, it would at least push the activity to the criminal fringes & prevent piracy from achieving mainstream acceptance (and would minimize their losses to piracy).

In which country. In US maybe, however, look at eastern Europe. There is almost no licensed software there and everyone is running Windows 7 Ultimate or XP Pro, latest office and so on. They will have to go after 100% of the users.

[lancest]

Bring on the real draconian IP enforcement worldwide.

It will only help Linux.

MS knows this.

[detroit/zero]

"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!"
Except possibly in limited strategic circumstances.

Say it again.

[aysiu]

The alliance defends its numbers, and Mr. Finn at Microsoft says the group’s figures are accurate. He plays down the central accusation that Microsoft would face less of a piracy threat if it just lowered prices. “We have seen no connection between piracy rates and price,” he says, citing the company’s own pricing experiments. “I think it’s a canard.” I have to call BS on this. I know there are some people who will always pirate no matter what, but in my circle of friends, we all pirated music when we felt the prices outrageous (US$17 for one CD that may have only one or two songs we actually like). Once iTunes and Amazon started selling AACs and MP3s for $.89 or $.99 per song, we all stopped pirating music.

I also know people who pirate Adobe Creative Suite, because it's thousands of dollars otherwise, but they buy legitimate copies of iWork or other cheaper software.

Again, I'm not saying this applies to everyone who pirates. Some people, as I said before, will always pirate regardless of price. But there is a solid contingent of folks who pirate only when the original price is outrageously high.

[Dustin2128]

Life is too short, at least for most.
Pfft. I'm immortal.

Info leaks aside, I think this'll turn out just like the war on drugs- a dismal failure costing billions and changing nothing.

[NightwishFan]

If less people pirated photo shop, gimp might have more hobbiests to make it better.

[czr114]

I have to call BS on this. I know there are some people who will always pirate no matter what, but in my circle of friends, we all pirated music when we felt the prices outrageous (US$17 for one CD that may have only one or two songs we actually like). Once iTunes and Amazon started selling AACs and MP3s for $.89 or $.99 per song, we all stopped pirating music.

I also know people who pirate Adobe Creative Suite, because it's thousands of dollars otherwise, but they buy legitimate copies of iWork or other cheaper software.

Again, I'm not saying this applies to everyone who pirates. Some people, as I said before, will always pirate regardless of price. But there is a solid contingent of folks who pirate only when the original price is outrageously high.

There is a third group of pirates who pirate for the sake of convenience, whether it be software, movies, music, or something else. This group seeks out the unchained pirate product, rather than the official product, which is often crippled with annoying activation, intrusive hardware snooping, locked-in client software, OS restrictions, etc.

There is a thread floating around here about Netflix and Ubuntu which is a prime example. Many of the people who might otherwise be okay with the price detest having to boot to Windows and install Silverlight, seeing as Silverlight's supposed anti-piracy features were required by the studios (as if there weren't already enough pirate movies floating around torrent sites and Usenet).

I know one person who paid for her Windows on principle, then pirated the ISO so she wouldn't have to be bothered calling Microsoft and pleading with a rep every time she put new components in the PC.

Some music stores lock people into crippled formats with limited exportability, often times with low bit rates (just to save on bandwidth). Some people will instead head over to that bay of pirates for all the uncrippled FLAC rips they want.

The Sony/BMG rootkit fiasco was another huge boost for piracy. Paying customers got infected with a rootkit from audio CDs. Pirates got CD quality rips free of malware.

I saw this years ago and it seemed appropriate here:

http://i53.tinypic.com/2jblk4j.jpg

This "war" on piracy will continue to be lost as long as people perceive the pirate product as higher quality, whether they're right or wrong in doing so.

Over the years, legitimate users have suffered much collateral damage in the "war" on piracy. I've seen it convert people who are tired of the headaches and hassles over to free software, once they realized they wouldn't have to put up with intrusive activation, lost serial numbers, or damaged media, on top of all the other benefits from FOSS products.

[MasterNetra]

It's a crime that's unstoppable. It's no surprise that Adobe CS is so commonly pirated considering it has a pricetag of nearly 2000 dollars (http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/). I'd have no problem paying for software if the prices were reasonable. So, I took the legal way out. I use FOSS instead of proprietary so that I am not a prisoner with my own stuff and so that I don't need to pay a load of money for software. FOSS fits almost all of my needs.

I have nothing against proprietary software (PhotoShop beats GIMP... hands down) apart from SOME company's license agreements and policies. Remember when Spore came out? My friend's computer crashed a few times and now he can't play a game he paid 80 dollars for because the serial ran out. Useless.

+1 thank hackers for foss goods.


If less people pirated photo shop, gimp might have more hobbiests to make it better.

If less people needed photoshop for work there will be less people pirating it and more hobbiest to make gimp better. Adobe Stuff tends to be various industries standard tools.

[theraje]

Adobe Stuff tends to be various industries standard tools.

This. Try getting a graphic designer job without intimate knowledge of Photoshop. It's nearly impossible.

[solitaire]

"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!"
Except possibly in limited strategic circumstances.

Unless your an arms dealer then its GREAT for your bottom line....:guitar:

[qamelian]

The one thing which stops me actually BUYING things is the price tag. Games retail at an insane price, why on earth would you want to spend so much money on them?
I love when people say this. When I look at the prices for new PC games in the local shops, the prices are pretty much exactly the same as they were when I was buying games for my Atari ST 20 years ago. If prices of computer games had increased the same way that the price of a bottle of Pepsi, for example, has increased, we'd be paying about $180 per game. I rarely see a PC game exceed the $60 mark. All things considered, games are sold at a bargain price!

[Khakilang]

Proprietary software that monopolize the market set the price sky high and it is beyond reach to certain users. And their lack of security and sluggish performance makes it not worthwhile to buy originals. So hence the piracy. This war is totally loss. So they might as well give up and join FOSS.

[weasel fierce]

I have to call BS on this. I know there are some people who will always pirate no matter what, but in my circle of friends, we all pirated music when we felt the prices outrageous (US$17 for one CD that may have only one or two songs we actually like). Once iTunes and Amazon started selling AACs and MP3s for $.89 or $.99 per song, we all stopped pirating music.

I also know people who pirate Adobe Creative Suite, because it's thousands of dollars otherwise, but they buy legitimate copies of iWork or other cheaper software.

Again, I'm not saying this applies to everyone who pirates. Some people, as I said before, will always pirate regardless of price. But there is a solid contingent of folks who pirate only when the original price is outrageously high.

I think it's probably safe to say that there's a few people who'll buy everything, a few people who'll pirate everything and most people will pirate some things.

[Oxwivi]

... people in poor countries get Windows for next to nothing.
Prove it.

[weasel fierce]

Prove it.

A bit of google suggests windows 7 home premium comes out to something like 150 dollars in India, according to one link, and a currency converter, while its currently 120 dollars from the microsoft website.

It could be that the former was a launch price but they don't seem to be getting much of a break

edit: 120 is the upgrade price. Its 200 otherwise, yikes

[Oxwivi]

Exactly. Getting Windows next to nothing? That'd be impossible for the most hardcore Windows supporter's *ehm* w*t dreams.

[lancest]

In case you didn't know.
Pirated software is sold as if genuine in many developing countries.
Out in public, in the open for around $7-$10 USD.
Counterfeit software so readily available- that it seems hard to find the genuine product. Like water, like Linux.
Yet in most places enforcement is a joke.
Everyone's in on taking the profits.