News Demigod has more pirates than customers

sometimes i think that all piracy debates resemble some kind of religion, like that time when a Jehovah witness called me a mass rapist because i was not a Jehovah witness, the next will be my last contribution for this thread, if you wish to continue this useless debate please create a thread in the serious debate part of the forum.

you know that for a fact? wasn't the original bought? i think it is kind of stupid for you and your release group to attract unwanted attention by stealing from a shop full of cameras and security equipment... but that's you and your MO, if you have a source to back that information please supply that information. as for the photo + universal copier, look at this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05KrEjHW6g

you talk as if you personally know my conversation with people, its amazing... by the way, please state what media company you work for so i can see if i already infringed its intellectual property and so i can boycott it in terms of future infringements and purchases, if you wish you can PM me and i will keep it a secret from everyone in this forum.

i think you missed the point entirely, your magazine tells me its an amazing game, the warez group tells me its an amazing game, the mate down the pub told me it was awesome, i go home, go to google, and download the game, try it for my self and observe that it is a complete amount of horse s***, i then decide to permanently delete it from my hard drive and don't seed it to at least 1, i trust no ones opinion on games and films, i see them for my self and then, if i like them, i purchase or go to the cinema, there are some things that are better being the original and thanks to the money i did not spend on lula 3D i can purchase call of duty 4.

you mean that if i purchase your media at full price i am not important? i am not a client? didnt i help pay your efforts? Again, i urge you to state your company so i can completely avoid such amount of idiocy.

the worse kind of business is when you call the people, that helped you pay your bills, names.
btw, i do have the right for a refund, it requires that i don't open the game and has a time limit.

you must be some kind of mind reader, that or you are like God, omni-present and all-knowing, you state without a shadow of a doubt that i never buy the things i like and you state that i encourage people to commit copyright infringement, congratulations, you just won a you-were-right-on-nothing award.

Just because you CAN X doesn't mean you SHOULD X.

this formula applies to about anything, example:

Just because you CAN procreate doesn't mean you SHOULD procreate.

Just because you CAN live doesn't mean you SHOULD live.

Just because you CAN call me a thief doesn't mean you SHOULD call me a thief.

etc....

IF i was to do exactly like you say, i would have much less original games than i have now, the game companies would not get my money and piracy would still be the scape goat, what the change positive?

AMAZING, somehow you somehow know what every single pirate does, and they all do the same thing! You must be God or something.

And with this last part you entered the realm of silliness, the realm from where flame baiting trolls come from, the same ones that appear all over message boards and forums to annoy and bait people into a completely pointless debate.

The similarities between intellectual property infraction and theft is that they are both crimes, the similarities end there, each has its own rules of approach and conduct in case of trial, each has its own different penalties, you do not put infractions in the same bag, even if they are similar.

I urge you to call things by their names, unless you like being called Salazar instead of your real name. (António de Oliveira Salazar was human, you are human, hence you are Salazar).

And to end my post: Piracy AKA intellectual property infraction is a crime, it is a crime that is punished by your local authority according to your laws.

if you want to put everything in the same bag please do like the Chinese do, put piracy in the same law group as murder and put a bullet in the head of every pirate you can find.

 

Sorry, but you are mistaken. All Stardock's games require activation (if you didn't notice your copy doing this, then I would suggest your online security needs revising).

While Stardock's system may at first glance seem more forgiving (no fixed install limits) in practice it has all the same perils and pitfalls as, say, SecuROM online: number of installs subject to Stardock's discretion; sig.bin keyfile locked to unspecified hardware/system details; users subject to changes in terms and conditions like re-activation fees (see section 3 of this thread), etc

And while Stardock does provide an email activation option, you'll likely regret using it. In my case, it took 3 weeks (and four attempts by Stardock Support) to get a working key and that doesn't seem to be a unique case (another example here).

Aside from repeating your incorrect piracy = theft assumption, there is another point to consider.

DRM has the possibility of making more money from legitimate purchasers. I've commented previously about online activation being used to kill off the second-hand market and the possibility of it being used to levy monthly fees. Another option (which is starting to happen) is the bundling (and required installation) of publishers' e-store software, which is then used to market further games directly to users.

Now if users install such software voluntarily and purchase through it, then that's not a problem. Enforced installation however results in users having multiple copies of similar programs running (EAStore, UbiStore, etc) wasting resources. It allows publishers to claim exaggerated audience sizes (which in turn can be used to negotiate higher royalty fees from developers). It encourages publishers to ignore user preferences (why bother providing an option to disable marketing popups if people have no choice but to run their software?) and can create a distribution monopoly ("No, you can't buy through Impulse or Steam or via a heavily discounted online store - you have to pay us full price instead").

This can certainly make publishers more money - but it will be the (unwary) legimate customer that bears the cost.

There is one way a truly customer-focused publisher can protect their content - look at the shareware market (GetRight, WinZip, WinRAR, Outpost Firewall, Total Uninstall, etc) as the ideal example. You register once to get a key which can then be used on any subsequent installations. Many programs display their registration details (giving legitimate users a greater sense of ownership and encouraging the less legitimate to register for themselves) and known "warez" keys can be disabled via a local blocklist, updated along with program upgrades.

It's not a perfect anti-piracy technique (warez users will be denied the latest versions only) but it has genuinely no impact for purchasers and avoids the expense (and significant additional support costs, which have to be paid for by higher prices) of third party or online activation systems.

 

I'm pretty pissed off i bought the German version of Bioshock and not the Austrian one...