HardOCP News
[H] News
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Say what you want about piracy (either for or against) but you have to admit this guy has a point. Read this and I think you'll agree:
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Piracy Is Like People Lending Books
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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The difference is that authors aren't money hungry assholes who continually want more money. Instead we have multimillionaire musicians and actors who aren't happy with the millions that they have and refuse to change their business model to suit their customer's needs.
Incorrect. We have (mostly) man-in-the-middle people who go to the talent and say "You need us in order to succeed and promote your music". The problem? This man-in-the-middle approach is no longer necessary but by god will they try to keep that dead horse beat going.
Very rarely do we have the actual musicians bitching about money - and if they do it's retards like Lars Ulrich who have no clue about economics or how they even makes a paycheck.
LOL! This!!
Joe Average
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Bleh... Libraries are funded by my tax dollars, so I am "technically" a legal owner of every book, tape, videocassette, DVD, CD, etc they have, even if the actual percentage of ownership is down into the 10 places past the decimal point range.
His points are valid, and spot on. How many people actually go find "new" content just by walking around a store of any kind and just pick up a book, CD, or DVD and say "This is completely new to me, I have no idea what this is, but I'm gonna buy it just the same and see what happens."
Hell, 90% of the music on CDs since CDs came out are useless dreck - I only have a handful of CDs out of a collection of over 2,100 physical discs that I actually love the entire albums from start to finish, just as an example.
In a perfect world we could pay for exactly what we liked and nothing else... even though we can get snippets of content on iTunes and other such sources nowadays, a snippet is rarely enough for me to want to spend money on something: I need to hear/see/experience it fully before I decide "Ok, that's worth keeping" and then buying it outright.
This guy has a point... several, in fact.
His points are valid, and spot on. How many people actually go find "new" content just by walking around a store of any kind and just pick up a book, CD, or DVD and say "This is completely new to me, I have no idea what this is, but I'm gonna buy it just the same and see what happens."
Hell, 90% of the music on CDs since CDs came out are useless dreck - I only have a handful of CDs out of a collection of over 2,100 physical discs that I actually love the entire albums from start to finish, just as an example.
In a perfect world we could pay for exactly what we liked and nothing else... even though we can get snippets of content on iTunes and other such sources nowadays, a snippet is rarely enough for me to want to spend money on something: I need to hear/see/experience it fully before I decide "Ok, that's worth keeping" and then buying it outright.
This guy has a point... several, in fact.
Spare-Flair
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There are a lot of musicians, actors, and writers who are not millionaires...although I think that in this day and age, piracy actually is good publicity and a distribution medium for popularizing struggling artists.
Regarding the book analogy, it's slightly flawed and only applicable in a small way. Most people who discover a favorite author by being lent a book will go out and buy more books from that author. The same applies to music as they will go buy more material from a certain musician. Prices are relatively static and relatively cheap.
Games don't work that way. They are typically one-shots and sequels don't appear for years in franchises. Furthermore, applying the anology to games, a friend lending you a game is more like a friend photocopying a book for you as both of you can enjoy it at a same time.
If books cost $69.99, I'd just go back to my friend and ask to borrow/photocopy more books rather than buying them.
A gamer "lent" a game by their "friends" @ Skidrow or Razor 1911 is more likely to go back to Skidrow or Razor 1911 for more games rather than buy the real things.
Drawmonster
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I agree. It's funny actually. Do you see a lot of authors going to jail for cocaine possession, D.U.I., or prostitutes? You also don't see authors buying castles and million dollar cars, then failing to pay their taxes or writing porn stars $30k checks.
My point is that musicians and actors lifestyles cause them to be money hungry assholes. So their life's are nothing but a vicious cycle that ends up effecting us. While authors actually use their brain, thereby keeping the money they make.
I need to read more. Buying books is something I don't mind in the least, mainly because author's are generally deserving of my money.
Spare-Flair
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Lending a book means only the original copy and format exists and can be used by one person as the publisher intended.
Photocopying means you are making another copy of that book and more people can enjoy it at the same time.
Personal ownership and enjoyment of material goods at convenience is one of the main reasons why people buy things. Would you rather own your own can opener or would you want to have to borrow one from your neighbor everytime you wanted some Campbell's soup? Both of you probably only open one can a day. Heck, the entire neighborhood could share a single can opener and you could all save money.
Spare-Flair
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That is a huge and unfair generalization. The entertainment industry certainly puts the lives of entertainers in the spotlight but many are decent people. There are also many more writers than actors in this world and many of them have much more sordid and crazy lives whether they are successful or not. Being an actor/musician simply makes you more visible to the public. There are plenty of rich authors who lead playboy lives.
I was thinking the same thing. This analogy works better for used game sales imho.
Wouldn't that make piracy more equal to photocopying a book = bad thing?
I thought the exact same thing. When I read it I was thinking its complete rubbish and invalidates anything else he has to say.
Well you also need to be able to photocopy your entire book with a single click and all paper + ink is free. Also just about every needs to own one of these magical photocopiers.
Stardusted
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The truth is that in an ideal world piracy wouldn't even exist as a word.
When you go to a friend's house and watch a movie you don't own that's illegal
How many haven't done ? Same with music. We should take a few steps away and re-evaluate some of the terms we use in modern life.
When you go to a friend's house and watch a movie you don't own that's illegal
How many haven't done ? Same with music. We should take a few steps away and re-evaluate some of the terms we use in modern life.
ol1bit
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A book usually has 1 author, he gets paid only by what he writes and how good is sells...unless it's a special contract deal like the life of George Bush or something.
Games are developed by programmers who for the most part love games! The time effort that goes into today's games can take from10-200 people. They love making Games, but have to eat, plus all the marketing etc. That's the costs, and if the company want's to stay in business, well it needs to make great games that costs money.
Bottom line I buy 100% of my games. I have hundreds of them, if not 1000's of them I've purchased over the last 30 years.
Game developers deserve it! No if a game costs to much, then I wait, or buy it used. and for me that price is $59. I can swallow a $49, but not $59. LOL.
Games are developed by programmers who for the most part love games! The time effort that goes into today's games can take from10-200 people. They love making Games, but have to eat, plus all the marketing etc. That's the costs, and if the company want's to stay in business, well it needs to make great games that costs money.
Bottom line I buy 100% of my games. I have hundreds of them, if not 1000's of them I've purchased over the last 30 years.
Game developers deserve it! No if a game costs to much, then I wait, or buy it used. and for me that price is $59. I can swallow a $49, but not $59. LOL.
Stone Cold
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Benjamin Franklin was indeed an awesome man. One thing he did was create the first public library in America. In America, we celebrate his birthday on the third Monday of January (but, for some reason, his holiday pictures are in black face, with frizzy hair, I guess it's a lightning-related joke).
If Franklin lived today and started the first library today, he'd be branded a pirate.
If Franklin lived today and started the first library today, he'd be branded a pirate.
Outamyhead
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Not so much the musicians as the record label owners, and share holders. A prime example is Radiohead, they released their last album for nothing, for the first few weeks, the record label gave them a hard time about it.
motomonkey
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Typical BS excuse software pirates use.
when I lend a book, I can't read it. nor am I making hundreds of copies and giving them away on street corners. I have let people borrow a PC game before, with the original disk, which meant I could not play the same time it was lent out.
when I lend a book, I can't read it. nor am I making hundreds of copies and giving them away on street corners. I have let people borrow a PC game before, with the original disk, which meant I could not play the same time it was lent out.
Emission
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That's their problem not mine.
Emission
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That doesn't justify your argument, it's like saying the person who lent the book can't read out while it's lent out, sounds stupid right?
Emission
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can't read *it, damn edit.
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Think of the cost of paper and ink = your ISP bill you pay for. It is a medium that provides the result.
I am curious how many new gamers went out and bought a game cause they tried it at a friends place?
especially with many games not working for online play on good reliable servers.
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Good point, i do like people who ride the high horse yet i am sure they have listened to pirated music or a friends CD or as you said watched a movie at their house.
but i do think most laws tied to this say you can have a public showing or use it in public, so playing a movie in your home may fall under different terms of usage.
Spare-Flair
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$30 a month for a typical 250GB monthly download plan is equivalent to photocopying 54 million pages of paper and ink. That's like spending $1.35 million dollars at your $0.25 library photocopier.
Internet is a ridiculously cheap medium in the context of history.
Spare-Flair
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^^^ for all intents and purposes, it is practically free.
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Lending a book is a show of friendship, and the sharing of ideas through the recipient of the book reading it. Hopefully in the future, both friends can purchase the next book and lend those copies on. That generates sales and revenue for the author. It makes an intimate bond between the author and his readers. They are much more likely to purchase his works.
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Photocopying a book is taking a work and making more copies without the author's consent. He doesn't know if you decided to add to his story, change his story to put him a bad light, etc. Then you pass out those copies to others that may do the same. At no point does the author generate revenue. People by nature usually don't fall in love with counterfeit works. Thus the author doesn't generate a following either. I have never seen 2 women in a department store praising each other over how close their China ripoff Gucci looks like the original. I have seen two women almost come to blows because one was mocking the other's counterfeit style.
For example I have a MJ track I downloaded many years ago where someone "added" to the work by making detracting noises in the background. If I didn't know what the original sounded like, I'd never buy MJ's music again.
I hope that makes sense to you.
Huh really? Where do you come up with such a stupid statement? Anybody can create a library. There is a HUGE difference between lending a book to a friend and ripping a book to a torrent site.
I am not here to argue the merits of using pirated copies as a form of marketing but there is little to argue about stealing content imo. Any excuse used is just that, an excuse.
Umm what country do you live in? There is no such law preventing you from watching a friends movie. In fact your friend can go to any store, buy a movie/dvd/book and then proceed to rent it out.
Piracy is overused but lets be real. Piracy = downloading content you did not pay for on a torrent site/ripping content so that millions of other people can download for free.
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No he's saying that if Franklin invented the idea of a library today, it would be branded as a piracy operation. For example when Google started the digital library project they were and still are getting branded as pirates.
I mean what's the difference between Franklin's first library and Google's first digital library?
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No.. A local summer camp rented Herbie the Love Bug from the public library with the sole purpose of allowing the 8 kids and staff to view it. The staff member mentioned to the librarian that they were going to view it at camp.
The librarian called the state library commission in the capital, after renting the guy the movie. By the time he had driven back to the camp, the library, capital, and police called requesting that he return the movie asap. We were like damn; are the going to send SWAT to keep it from being viewed publicly?
And yes that's a true story. It happens.
So if the process of copying a book were free would it be okay to copy them?
These types of analogies and reasoning will get us nowhere. I think we need to approach piracy from a different perspective. Ask the question: will allowing sharing of <medium> improve the quality of <medium> in the long run?
For some medium (like books) the answer is clearly no. For other mediums (like music), I think allowing some sharing is actually good for artistic expression. If courts were to suddenly say tomorrow, "sharing a song with a friend for his personal use is not copyright infringement," I don't think artists would suddenly stop writing music.
The current system of Copyright as a single, all-encompassing, saleable token, the holder of which has absolute control over distribution and use of the associated work, has got to go. Middleman companies are abusing this system by purchasing all of the tokens and then restricting them in ways that stifle the artistic expression that the system was originally designed to encourage.
At the very least, we need to amend the laws so that these things don't happen:
Of course creating fictitious scenarios make sense.
While I like google (hopefully) storing titles that would have been lost for ever the issue was more complex than you make it sound. Its a complex situation where its not the same to buy a physical book and rent it out in a library and buy a book only to scan it and sell/rent it in digital form. In one case there is only 1 copy where the publisher/author has been compensated. In the digital scenario the original author should be compensated.
you mean like ebooks oh wait...
Whats your point. The original example that was said to be illegal is still incorrect. Dont get me wrong, its shitty but the law is pretty clear and you must be confused. The original example was a friend (personal non-public use). If your friend has a movie and you go over the watch it at his house...no problemo. Hell if your friend has a huge theater setup in his house and a bunch of friends come over...still no problemo. Once you take that move and show it in any setting outside of personal use, lets say summer camp or any commercial/public setting you must receive permission. I am not trying to support this law but lets at least get it correct before we start complaining.
Photocopying books is what makes the academic world in Third World countries "go around" so to speak (maybe over there too, but I wouldn't know for sure). The library in my university usually only has 1-2 copies, and in the whole country there would most probably be only 10 copies of it. So 10 imported books for an estimated college student population in the hundreds of thousands. It's a political science book, so it reduces the number, but still a 2,500 political science students estimate is reasonable, and they'll have to contend with 10 copies, all of which are in various libraries in various universities.
Even restricting it further to only one university, our department has around 600 students. If there are only 2 copies of that book in our library, and that book is needed for a class of 15 students, what would you say to the 13 students, "good luck, I mean sorry no more book for you, and don't photocopy it because it's 'evil' "?
Of course, no one would even dare to "add" or "change" the content of books like these.
But not all of our books get the same treatment. Our basic textbook, "Politics" by Andrew Heywood, is sold by the department at around $18 (converted from local currency). The department is the main source of the book in this country. There are some bookstores that sell it though, but the price of course is not subsidized: $90 (converted from local currency).