There's no independent study done on the numbers yet as far as I know, but I do regularly see articles about these matters: http://www.1up.com/news/games-market-defrauding-industry-claims http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/26/bungie-game-companies-should-pocket-money-from-used-sales/ http://boards.ign.com/tiger_woods_golf/b6470/191889962/r191898696/ If I remember correctly, in Australia they already introduced a resale royalty on paintings: http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CFMQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.unimelb.edu.au%2FCMCL%2Fmalr%2F8-4-3%2520Lewis%2520Article%2520Formatted%2520for%2520web.pdf&rct=j&q=australia%20copyright%20paintings%20selling&ei=jVRpTO7mDsn-OeWljLkF&usg=AFQjCNHcvE-SgYsNg5mNT1i7qzbHjkkUBw&sig2=qXQFyA4C9JbO4_QDTLYmCQ&cad=rja As for your last statement, I would agree, but it's not easy to find political arguments against it as long as the purpose of copyright is seen as the profit maximization of producers rather than a necessary evil to the progress of science, culture, and art to the benefit of society. The Americans have the purpose of copyright locked in their constitution; in Europe, there IS no such purpose written into law, so no standard to hold new legislation to. As such, copyright gets defined by the strongest lobby campaign, and by sneaky secret agreements like ACTA, rather than being based on proper economic arguments. Don't be surprised if the EU soon introduces a resale royalty for all copyrighted works. With MEPs like Janelly Fourtou, wife of Vivendi CEO Jean-René Fourtou, in charge of copyright reform, this is hardly unthinkable.
Well do have some common ground. I agree, and have said all along, that copyright laws need revising and bringing into the 21st century. The laws currently in place cause confusion at best, and over-restriction at worst. Along with these revisions, I think that the penalties for non-commercial piracy also need reworking. If there was a shift towards it becoming a criminal activity, with criminal penalties, I would honestly welcome it. My reasons for this are twofold. First it would give a clear message to the general public that piracy is definitely an act that is frowned upon. I think this is important, and essential. As it is now, piracy is seen as a victimless "crime", much the same as shoplifting is. The laws surrounding shoplifting do not deter many people from doing so, but they do know it is both socially unacceptable, and they will face punishment as soon as they are detected to have committed the act. Secondly, as the copyright laws stand now, it is on the onus of the publisher/owner of copyrighted material to take proceedings against those who infringe copyright. As you and one or two others rightly pointed out, the small guys in the game cannot do this, both for economic and time restrictions. So the little guys are not being afforded the same protection that a media mogul has. I think this is a sorry state of affairs, and it rankles me every time someone brings up the piracy debate. We could introduce sensible penalties, that would befit the "crime" much better. You alluded to this somewhat in one of your previous posts. Basically, we would do away with 6 or 7 figure compensation orders awarded to the media moguls, and introduce more fitting penalties, like restriction of internet usage etc. This could only happen once guilt proven beyond all reasonable doubt had been established though. Basically there are a multitude of options available to the government, ignorance isn't one I would suggest or recommend. EDIT: I would also introduce safeguards where there would have been a system of warnings before ANY legal action was taken, with the accused having the option to challenge these warnings. I forgot to add that.
Right, I've skipped the last 2 pages of this debate, due to "Modern Warfare 2" syndrome. They're exactly the same as the 5 that came before them, and add nothing. Now, here's an interesting scenario for you boys and girls to argue over: If I go into HMV, pick up the greatest hits of Winger, take it out of the box, put it in my laptop, rip the tracks, then put the disc back in the box and nick off, what crime/crimes (aside from hideous ones against music) have I committed? I know 1 download doesn't equal one lost sale, but the people who paid good money for the software/music etc in the beginning are in an identical position to the pirates - they have their working copy of a piece of software X. The only difference being they paid for it. Those people would feel like they'd wasted £60 on X if Little Jonny down the road has it for free. It's my personal opinion that pirating music and games is a crime akin to theft. You're getting something with a price tag attached, for free. If I choose to pirate Starcraft 2 when Game has 50 copies in the window, Game will still have 50 copies in the window once I'm done. I can waffle on about how I wouldn't have bought the game, and how it's broken, without features, and only a third of the campaign, but the fact remains I've sought out that game, and invested time, effort and bandwidth in to getting it. I MUST have wanted it. Maybe not at Blizzard's price, but I definitely wanted it. Now, with that off my chest, I'm off to visit ShakeyJake's blog, ask him if I can listen to some of his tracks, find out if/when his band's playing again, and go buy the dude a pint.
Of course the fun part with making non-commercial copyright infringement a crime is that it's still impossible to enforce it. It'll be just like the situation today, just with the deck chairs on the Titanic shuffled about a bit. There's no doubt in my mind that people will continue to indulge in copyright infringement as long as it feels right to them, despite harsher punishments. Heck, people happily keep killing each other in the US and other countries with capital punishment in place. As a deterrence it fails, and there we're talking about killing people. Some people seem to think that copyright infringement for non-commercial purpose is a heinous crime, worthy of a hefty fine and a long jail sentence. They ignore that the only independent studies suggest a neutral or positive effect of non-commercial copyright infringement on sales. Just look at music sales, box office sales, video game sales, they're through the roof, even with a bloody economic recession just behind us. What loss of income or revenue? What loss of sales? Show me the numbers and then we can maybe agree there's an issue. Until then non-commercial copyright infringement is as harmless as a soft, fluffy kitten.
We certainly have some common ground. Before proceeding on making copyright reform plans however I would propose a social and economic study to the various forms of copyright protection, and whether or not they are beneficial or harmful. I would also like to know the impact of the various activities like infringement, used sales, etc. before making any plans. We might find out that it's best to legalize some forms of what currently would be considered infringement, perhaps in return for a levy or tax system. It's not that much different from what we did for television and radio rights in the Netherlands, which are currently paid for from the general taxes, but which used to be a separate tax on the possession of a tv and/or radio. I'm also highly against criminalizing copyright infringement. As a rights holder, I'll determine whether or not I will press charges. It's not up to the government to decide that for me. What might help however if the prevailing party gets reimbursed for the procedural cost, but I do feel that rights holders should face a penalty for false claims (like false DMCA claims) as well. Otherwise these laws are bound to be abused (as they currently often are).
Like stuartpb, and everyone else, you're entitled to your own opinions, but I do take offense to you redefining legal terms to give power to your argument. Copyright infringement is a serious offense, and carries a severe penalty (much higher than theft actually), but it is not nor is it ever likely to become akin to theft. If you can't tell the difference, I'll happily let you copy my car if in return I can steal yours. I don't however believe in price as an excuse for copyright infringement; at best it's a possible explanation. Fast forward a few hundred years into the future, and consider the Star Trek replicator technology (we're slowly getting there with 3D-printing). If houses, cars, food, musical instruments, etc. all become available at the cost of the materials, should we protect builders and cooks, and if so: how? Do we as a society get to benefit from the advancement of technology, or do we protect the winners of today at the expense of the possible winners of tomorrow? When the car was invented, should we have protected the horse and wagon/buggy industry? When the computer was invented, should we have protected the type writer industry? In all honesty, I truly believe that these decisions should be made based on proper social and economic research rather than the cry stories of an industry who's made these complaints since the invention of the pianola and the radio. They have been wrong at every occasion, with new technology bringing them higher profits when they finally adjusted to it, and considering the record earnings of last year I honestly believe they're wrong once again.
I agree. I disagree. Piracy has the potential to be a problem; we can know that simply by logic and reason. Bunch of people who would otherwise purchase the product pirate it instead = loss of sales. The debate (the point which can only be resolved by hard data) is how many current pirates would otherwise purchase.
I'm not 100% sure about that to be honest. People can only spend their money once, which means if they spend it on this movie, they can't spend it on the other. It's quite possible that the whole thing is a zero sum game, where the only effect of copyright infringement turns out to be that more people get to enjoy the works with the same amount of profits.
So we should scrap the law that says it's illegal to kill because there is a minority who refuse to abide by the law? I suppose the same logic would apply to drugs, and every other criminal activity out there. Of course our laws aren't going to stop people offending, but the law clearly defines what is lawful behaviour and what is not, something the current copyright fiasco does not. We see a certain large section of people downloading now, who almost certainly wouldn't if it was a criminal offence to do so. It's common sense really. If you are aiming this sentence at me, you are being overly dramatic here, and exaggerating too. I have said all along that any punishment should be fitting to the crime. I would even welcome something as simple as forcing someone who has pirated to pay for the original they pirated, plus a nominal charge (like an admin fee). Obviously, any penalties would have to be scaled up for the seriousness of the crime, or repeat offending. For example, those who pirate for financial gain should face stiffer sentences. Pretty common sense really, and no mention of throwing the book at non-commercial pirates. Changing the laws to ensure copyright protection is afforded to all yes, giving piracy the legitimacy some want it to have no. Show me one piece of academic study that can be referenced correctly, and have the data it contains verified independantly, and I will be the first to sit up and take notice. It is nothing to do with ignoring these "independant studies", it's more to do with the fact that there simply isn't enough evidence available on both sides of the coin at this time. That is why I am stating my opinions only and not claiming to have solid facts. However, I do also have commercial experience of the problems piracy can cause for retailers, and I am also basing my opinions on this too. I also disagree with this statement, and again I find it disturbing that a software developer such as yourself can have such a flippant attitude as yours towards piracy. I honestly am beginning to hope your marketing strategy DOES come back to bite you on the bum for being so arrogant over it, and I will be here with the big slice of "told you so"
Elledan, can I ask how many titles you currently have on the open market, and how you market these titles? I'm genuinely curious.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/study-p2p-music-downloads-increase-music-cd-sales-2287/ http://files.publico.es/resources/archivos/2007/11/6/1194346400418informep2p.pdf http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/02/8813.ars http://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/vaneijk/Ups_And_Downs_authorised_translation.pdf
the problem is really the casual pirate.. they make up the botnet and are general toolbags but that's besides the point
Do you understand the term akin? Just curious. It doesn't mean it is. It means it is like, and why would you take such offense to him posting what he even states as his own opinion? Just because you're car directly involves you, and not a corporate company doesn't mean it has an effect on the company. You're looking at what happens to you, and not those who actually do get affected by someone copying their work.
I don't have a problem with his own opinion; I just have a problem with people redefining terms like "piracy" and "theft" to give their argument power. It shows a lack of arguments for one's position, and since I refuse to stoop to that level it makes my work as a copyright consultant all the more difficult. Before I can even start my political argument, I first have to explain that I'm against copyright infringement. That's the result of decades of indoctrine by the RIAA/MPAA lobbyists who believe that copyright should last forever, that a kid downloading a song is equal to someone robbing a store, and who have redefined legal terms to foul up the political debate on copyright. My car, my software, my music; take it any way you want it. If you honestly believe that copyright infringement = theft, then you can copy my work if in return I can steal yours. The two simply cannot be considered equal, neither legally nor morally. Did I mention that I'm a professional ASIC designer, and an amateur software programmer and musician? To me, copyright is VERY important, but the limitless expansion in scope and duration of the last decades has eroded people's respect for it. Since most of us still live in a democracy, that's a VERY bad thing. So let's get back to the basics, and argue these matters without redefining terms, and without relying on completely made up numbers by the RIAA/MPAA, and in stead use proper independent studies into the matter to see how we can solve these issues. If I hear one more RIAA/MPAA report on how "piracy" has increased, because the number they made up this year is higher than the one they made up last year (this is actually true!), I'm ready to quit buying music and movies alltogether.
Just took my dogs for a walk; I feel much calmer now. Let me close up for the night by stating that I don't use any illegal software/games still available for purchase, and that despite downloading music and film being legal in the Netherlands I spend over 500 Euro/year purchasing new disks. I wonder how many of you can claim the same.
For christ sake, he never said Copyright infringement IS theft. He said it is akin, he said it is sort of related to theft. He never redefined the term piracy to theft at all. I even gave you an explanation to the term "akin".
Well I have pirated before, and frequently too, in my past. There was no blinding flash of light to convert me, or any eureka moment, I just had much more disposable income at that time, and started to enjoy buying more than I did pirating. I also began to appreciate more the value of objects we obtain. So now I am 100% legitimate when it comes to digital media, and have been for a good while now. I spend a hell of a lot of cash, both on stuff for my business (with software licensing costs running a very high bill indeed), and for my personal use. I have to say I do feel much better for it too, but that's my personal feelings.
And I don't agree at all, precisely because of cases like myself. I should pay fines and go to prison for trying things and then legally buying them afterwards? ********.
Why not? You're still breaking copyright by not following the copyright laws because of your "legitimate" reason.
