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On August 08 2012 13:05 Critter wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:57 ampson wrote: It'd be nice if the people who pirate would at least acknowledge that it is morally wrong, but they ignore that because they don't want to pay for things. Trying to justify taking something for free that someone else made to sell for profit is just kind of futile. I've already stated that I pirate when something I want to support gives me no simple way to do it. IE: HBO forcing me to buy ~$120 worth of cable to watch one show. I would love to be able to buy the episodes as they come out, or purchase a subscription to just HBOGO (which will hopefully be allowed before S3 comes out) but they don't give me those option. I'm excited about their product, I want to watch it when it comes out, I WANT to be a paying customer but they give me no viable options to do it. So I pirate it and 10 months later I buy the blu-ray box set to support the show.
Your dedication to supporting the content producers is admirable.
I fear that most pirates do not share your honesty.
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On August 08 2012 12:54 overt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:23 Chocolate wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. What about the people who were going to buy the DVD, but then decide not to because their friend, who has unlimited copies of every DVD ever, offered to lend it to them? Personally, I take issue with piracy because you are using a product (game, song, book, etc.) for free, although the creator would not like you to. Sure, the publishing company/record company/steam is going to take their cut, but if the creator didn't want the consumer to use those, they wouldn't have made deals with them in the first place. Validating piracy because they take their cut is like not paying taxes because you dislike the principle of welfare. When you go to your friends house to play a video game with him you are playing it for free. Without giving the developer who made it any money. I think that in some cases piracy can actually help the entertainment industry. For example, in lots of countries there are services that are unavailable to them (like Netflix) or entire television shows or films unavailable to them. Piracy eliminates that problem. And, in fact, piracy likely leads to sales by consumers that would never have been interested in a television show or a movie or a band before. Going back to the example of a lent DVD, you might not have had any interest in it or any plans to purchase it. But upon watching it you really enjoyed it and you go out and buy it. Or after playing a game at a friend's house you go out and buy said game. This was basically my childhood. And there are countless things I wasn't interested in that I torrented and ended up purchasing later. As I said earlier, I don't pirate that often. Pretty much only if I can't easily access media through legal means. I think that the entertainment industry should continue to expand on things like Hulu into new regions instead of throwing their money into a giant pit to lobby against piracy. Yes when you go to your friends house you can play a game for free, but it's really not the same thing (I guess the whole DVD camparison isn't either). When you go to your friend's house, you don't possess the actual game. You are borrowing for a very short while it, and piracy is not borrowing. It is copying.
Sure piracy can be good. But if the producer of content doesn't approve of piracy of his or her products, then it's wrong (and illegal) to pirate that person's material. If material is seriously unavailable, as in, you can't buy it, you can't watch it on the web, and you can't rent it, then I guess piracy isn't hurting anyone, but the vast majority of pirated content surely isn't pirated under those circumstances.
As for buying something after pirating it, I would say that this is a frequently touted statement, but in all honesty do you think this is common? If someone is willing to pirate content, then why would they pay for something that they already have because they liked it? I could see this happening to access multiplayer features, but this can't be common.
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On August 08 2012 13:03 NEOtheONE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:55 rd wrote:On August 08 2012 12:48 NEOtheONE wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. Quoted for truth. Last I checked you can still record live TV and that's not illegal, you can lend it to a friend, and that's not illegal, your friend can watch it and that's not illegal, but because you downloaded it from some random third party instead of borrowing it from a friend, it suddenly becomes illegal. uploaded it to* Theres a difference between lending it to one friend, and uploading it to a website to distribute it to (potentially) millions of people. It's not really a valid comparison. Okay then why are video rentals legal? It's lending copies of a product for their own profit to millions of people everywhere. So it's okay for a company to buy a product in bulk and charge a fee to rent it out to people (even in digital download format), but it's not okay for a site to allow people to download the same product for free even if the people who are running/uploading to the site actually paid for a copy or the original source material?
Maybe the video rental people have some sort of a special license that lets them lend out the movies?
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I only download anime and manga anyway.
Meh. :[
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On August 08 2012 12:55 Divergence wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:42 StarStrider wrote:On August 08 2012 12:09 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 08 2012 11:57 StarStrider wrote: My two cents on the pirating debate: I'm of the opinion that if the art is good enough, the revenue will follow, even if you use a pay-what-you-want model. Forcing people to pay a premium exorbitant price for art is the true robbery. I don't believe art should be free for the sake of being art, but true artists will strive to make it accessible to all, as that is the true purpose: enjoyment by the most number that can appreciate it. If it is out of reach of lower incomes, it simply won't be purchased...then what was the point to begin with? If you say profits, I don't believe you have a true appreciation for art. Art producers should strive to make their work available and free as possible while still able to fund the project and future projects. Forcing people to pay exorbitant prices for pure shit, and also exorbitant prices for gems, cheapens the intrinsic value of art of that particular genre, and also makes investing in a piece of art risky since you cannot 'return' it once you have it. Letting people decide what they think it is worth, even if there will be people that abuse that model, is still the best way to respect art. I am of the opinion that any other argument is just supporting extortive corporatism and consumerism, devaluing the art and the customer, and making something that should reflect the creativity and fluidity displayed by the art itself into something systematic and dull. Artists shouldn't have to starve, but it speaks to the fact that our art distribution system is fucked up that when you 'make it', as an artist, you are suddenly in the elite income bracket, and a hummer limousine with hot tub, and private learjet are suddenly nothing to you.
There is no robbery involved and even as an expression that's silly. If you don't want to want to pay for it, then don't pay for it? No one is forcing anything here. Extortion is a form of robbery though, but I didn't intend on that figure of speech being taken literally, just saying that if either side is more like stealing, it would be the corporations charging a flat 25$ for a DVD and 80$ for a game... This price model goes WAAYY beyond just compensation for services rendered, and into the realm of profiteering. I am being forced to pay these prices for mainstream art as there is no other choice for me.. If I could pay what I want, I would pay for it based on the quality or enjoyment I would expect out of it. As is, the only alternative to paying exorbitant prices is to pirate it. You cannot honestly argue that the net worth of these artists and companies reflects 'fair' pricing can you? I like the analogy of the friend letting his buddy borrow a DVD. I guess we should prosecute them by record company standards. How is it different? And how would they see an increase in profits if we did prosecute them? If anything, encouraging sharing is free advertising... if the content is good enough to make a new fan consider buying it, who otherwise would never consider spending on their 'product', I think it is a great thing. The wise companies are the ones who respect their art and the art appreciaters by making it as available as possible, then the profits come after that. Wow you really are an entitled person. There is another choice, as with everything else, you don't buy it if you can't afford it. Someone is not extorting you because they are charging you for a sandwich and by the same reasoning they are not extorting you by charging you for a movie.
You're being disengenuous when you use the word charging. Something a bit stronger is in order. Let's go with raking over the coals. 12 dollar movie tickets are profiteering not compensating, and that's not even considering their projected profits on the same product by repackaging it into a dvd or digital copy. No other discussion neccessary.
Yes, I buy sandwiches for money. Why don't I have a problem with that? Because there is always a cheaper and cheaper alternative based on quality. The exorbitant sandwich shops don't get my business unless I think they warrant it based on something unique, and they don't run inexpensive alternatives out of town. But I really don't have alternatives when it comes to media do I?
The media holding companies have created a system such that in order to sell your 'sandwich' (record), the only way is to use their system, which does, in fact, extort consumers. There is no cheaper alternative without going 'indy', which goes back to the starving artists example. There is no moderate system for moderate profits and moderate compensation....it's all taken to the extremes because of corporate greed.
There are a multitude of problems in your analogy with comparing sandwiches and songs. One fills a basic human need of hunger, and the other fills just a 'want' of entertainment. I admit that it is a 'take it or leave it' scenario for whether or not I want to buy it, but it shouldn't be, and if piracy poses a threat demands change to the profiteering than I support it. Also, you can't share a sandwich without reducing your own serving size like you can with a movie, a comparison can't be made between the products, so sandwich shops don't have a problem with so called 'theft' of sharing. Also, you're not addressing the question of whether art is just a product like a sandwich, or maybe something deeper like a shared expression of humanity, which time after time gains more mass appeal when it is most accessible.
Turning art into a business is lucrative for businessmen. And they share that wealth with a select few to keep the product (creative content) machine generating content (+ crazy high profits). Appealing to feelings of sympathy for the lot worker in Hollywood is ignoring the root of the problem. If people are freely sharing something because they can't afford to buy it, and ridiculous profits aren't being made, then yes, the joe schmoe is the first one hit, but honestly maybe they should have never been employed in the first place if the movie needs to sell for 12bucks a seat and 25bucks a dvd in order to justify his employment...changes would be made to make it more affordable if more people pirated because it is out of reach, that's the nature of the free market.....if it was this unreasonably priced because of that guy, then he needs to go, in order to make the project more accessible. But we all know it's not the reason.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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On August 08 2012 13:12 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:54 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:23 Chocolate wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. What about the people who were going to buy the DVD, but then decide not to because their friend, who has unlimited copies of every DVD ever, offered to lend it to them? Personally, I take issue with piracy because you are using a product (game, song, book, etc.) for free, although the creator would not like you to. Sure, the publishing company/record company/steam is going to take their cut, but if the creator didn't want the consumer to use those, they wouldn't have made deals with them in the first place. Validating piracy because they take their cut is like not paying taxes because you dislike the principle of welfare. When you go to your friends house to play a video game with him you are playing it for free. Without giving the developer who made it any money. I think that in some cases piracy can actually help the entertainment industry. For example, in lots of countries there are services that are unavailable to them (like Netflix) or entire television shows or films unavailable to them. Piracy eliminates that problem. And, in fact, piracy likely leads to sales by consumers that would never have been interested in a television show or a movie or a band before. Going back to the example of a lent DVD, you might not have had any interest in it or any plans to purchase it. But upon watching it you really enjoyed it and you go out and buy it. Or after playing a game at a friend's house you go out and buy said game. This was basically my childhood. And there are countless things I wasn't interested in that I torrented and ended up purchasing later. As I said earlier, I don't pirate that often. Pretty much only if I can't easily access media through legal means. I think that the entertainment industry should continue to expand on things like Hulu into new regions instead of throwing their money into a giant pit to lobby against piracy. Yes when you go to your friends house you can play a game for free, but it's really not the same thing (I guess the whole DVD camparison isn't either). When you go to your friend's house, you don't possess the actual game. You are borrowing for a very short while it, and piracy is not borrowing. It is copying. Sure piracy can be good. But if the producer of content doesn't approve of piracy of his or her products, then it's wrong (and illegal) to pirate that person's material. If material is seriously unavailable, as in, you can't buy it, you can't watch it on the web, and you can't rent it, then I guess piracy isn't hurting anyone, but the vast majority of pirated content surely isn't pirated under those circumstances. As for buying something after pirating it, I would say that this is a frequently touted statement, but in all honesty do you think this is common? If someone is willing to pirate content, then why would they pay for something that they already have because they liked it? I could see this happening to access multiplayer features, but this can't be common.
I will only respond to the bolded part and your final paragraph. In response to your bolded part, go look at piracy rates. They are not very high in the US. The majority of piracy happens in areas where lots of media is not available. I'd say that at least half of piracy is probably being done by people who don't have access to the media they're pirating anyways.
As for the final paragraph, yes, I believe that most pirates in the US do support content providers with their wallet. The ones who don't are typically people who can't afford to purchase what they're pirating anyway. Source: movie theaters are constantly crowded, Kanye West is a millionaire, and video games are sure as hell not hurting.
edit: I believe that people who are firmly against piracy have this concept of people who pirate media as people who just want everything for free. I believe that those people are in the minority and are so cheap they probably wouldn't pay for films/music/games if piracy didn't exist.
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The government might be led by some stupid people. But their decision to shut down Demonoid was far from a simple and quick decision. Every action taken in politics gets so scrutenized down to the last detail, that nothing much ever gets done.
Most likely, media corporations got on the government's ass to do something about all the copyright infringements. So the government was forced to deliver SOMETHING to them, since everything political nowadays is largely funded by media corporations, etc.
Just another instance of capitalism in effect. Corporations who own the copyrights can basically force government to take action against infringement, no matter how futile the action really is.
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i downloaded something like 2TB in the last two months but I still buy music and blu rays for stuff that I like, e.g. games of throne seasons.
My itune receipts totaled like $400 in 2011-2012
Piracy gave me choice, half the shows that i like and downloaded I can't even buy from the local stores.
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I would love to support the content producers in a more direct way. Without supporting an elite extravagant lifestyle for the truly 'entitled' (as peer to peer users are labeled). This is why I love to support sites such as Hulu and Spotify, and I always buy records or movies that I download if I can find a deal on them and they're good, or in some cases I'll reluctantly pay retail if they're really really good... even though I may be in the minority on this. I try my best in the case of music to order directly from the artist as twofold, the support for them is much greater, and the support for the greedy handlers is less. The problem is the greedy corporations set the price point in the classic sales model and won't budge, and are reluctant to embrace new less profitable models and compromise with sites like Hulu (severely limit content [clips only sometimes] or refuse to partner). It's a market of extremes where there is no moderate vision for accessibility, it's all about dat money.
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The issue is that the music and movie industries are trying to cling onto their old ways of business that are lucrative top end for the big fat cats up there. People will continue to pirate because they find it ridiculous to pay the prices that they are when other forms of media (gaming in particular, a more interactive type of media) have demonstrated different types of payment (F2P, Trials, etc. etc.) and have been quite successful. League of Legends of course is the poster child of a non-corporate type of payment structure; the customer only pays for what he really wants, not all the extraneous marked up bullshit.
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On August 08 2012 13:03 NEOtheONE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:55 rd wrote:On August 08 2012 12:48 NEOtheONE wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. Quoted for truth. Last I checked you can still record live TV and that's not illegal, you can lend it to a friend, and that's not illegal, your friend can watch it and that's not illegal, but because you downloaded it from some random third party instead of borrowing it from a friend, it suddenly becomes illegal. uploaded it to* Theres a difference between lending it to one friend, and uploading it to a website to distribute it to (potentially) millions of people. It's not really a valid comparison. Okay then why are video rentals legal? It's lending copies of a product for their own profit to millions of people everywhere. So it's okay for a company to buy a product in bulk and charge a fee to rent it out to people (even in digital download format), but it's not okay for a site to allow people to download the same product for free even if the people who are running/uploading to the site actually paid for a copy or the original source material?
Are you actually going to try and debate this? First of all, I pointed out the invalidity of the comparison I quoted. You jump inbetween and toss out another comparison that has little to do with my point. Second of all, video/game rental stores pay large flat fees to the publisher for renting rights. The publishers gave them permission in exchange for money. So yeah, it's okay for a company to go to the publisher and pay them for the right to do it.
On August 08 2012 13:12 Divergence wrote: Maybe the video rental people have some sort of a special license that lets them lend out the movies?
Sort of. Theres multiple models, but in the specific case of video rentals, they buy copies of DVD's and pay a larger flat price than normal retail per copy for the right to rent that copy indefinitely.
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On August 08 2012 13:23 StarStrider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:55 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 12:42 StarStrider wrote:On August 08 2012 12:09 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 08 2012 11:57 StarStrider wrote: My two cents on the pirating debate: I'm of the opinion that if the art is good enough, the revenue will follow, even if you use a pay-what-you-want model. Forcing people to pay a premium exorbitant price for art is the true robbery. I don't believe art should be free for the sake of being art, but true artists will strive to make it accessible to all, as that is the true purpose: enjoyment by the most number that can appreciate it. If it is out of reach of lower incomes, it simply won't be purchased...then what was the point to begin with? If you say profits, I don't believe you have a true appreciation for art. Art producers should strive to make their work available and free as possible while still able to fund the project and future projects. Forcing people to pay exorbitant prices for pure shit, and also exorbitant prices for gems, cheapens the intrinsic value of art of that particular genre, and also makes investing in a piece of art risky since you cannot 'return' it once you have it. Letting people decide what they think it is worth, even if there will be people that abuse that model, is still the best way to respect art. I am of the opinion that any other argument is just supporting extortive corporatism and consumerism, devaluing the art and the customer, and making something that should reflect the creativity and fluidity displayed by the art itself into something systematic and dull. Artists shouldn't have to starve, but it speaks to the fact that our art distribution system is fucked up that when you 'make it', as an artist, you are suddenly in the elite income bracket, and a hummer limousine with hot tub, and private learjet are suddenly nothing to you.
There is no robbery involved and even as an expression that's silly. If you don't want to want to pay for it, then don't pay for it? No one is forcing anything here. Extortion is a form of robbery though, but I didn't intend on that figure of speech being taken literally, just saying that if either side is more like stealing, it would be the corporations charging a flat 25$ for a DVD and 80$ for a game... This price model goes WAAYY beyond just compensation for services rendered, and into the realm of profiteering. I am being forced to pay these prices for mainstream art as there is no other choice for me.. If I could pay what I want, I would pay for it based on the quality or enjoyment I would expect out of it. As is, the only alternative to paying exorbitant prices is to pirate it. You cannot honestly argue that the net worth of these artists and companies reflects 'fair' pricing can you? I like the analogy of the friend letting his buddy borrow a DVD. I guess we should prosecute them by record company standards. How is it different? And how would they see an increase in profits if we did prosecute them? If anything, encouraging sharing is free advertising... if the content is good enough to make a new fan consider buying it, who otherwise would never consider spending on their 'product', I think it is a great thing. The wise companies are the ones who respect their art and the art appreciaters by making it as available as possible, then the profits come after that. Wow you really are an entitled person. There is another choice, as with everything else, you don't buy it if you can't afford it. Someone is not extorting you because they are charging you for a sandwich and by the same reasoning they are not extorting you by charging you for a movie. You're being disengenuous when you use the word charging. Something a bit stronger is in order. Let's go with raking over the coals. 12 dollar movie tickets are profiteering not compensating, and that's not even considering their projected profits on the same product by repackaging it into a dvd or digital copy. No other discussion neccessary. Yes, I buy sandwiches for money. Why don't I have a problem with that? Because there is always a cheaper and cheaper alternative based on quality. The exorbitant sandwich shops don't get my business unless I think they warrant it based on something unique, and they don't run inexpensive alternatives out of town. But I really don't have alternatives when it comes to media do I? The media holding companies have created a system such that in order to sell your 'sandwich' (record), the only way is to use their system, which does, in fact, extort consumers. There is no cheaper alternative without going 'indy', which goes back to the starving artists example. There is no moderate system for moderate profits and moderate compensation....it's all taken to the extremes because of corporate greed. There are a multitude of problems in your analogy with comparing sandwiches and songs. One fills a basic human need of hunger, and the other fills just a 'want' of entertainment. I admit that it is a 'take it or leave it' scenario for whether or not I want to buy it, but it shouldn't be, and if piracy poses a threat demands change to the profiteering than I support it. Also, you can't share a sandwich without reducing your own serving size like you can with a movie, a comparison can't be made between the products, so sandwich shops don't have a problem with so called 'theft' of sharing. Also, you're not addressing the question of whether art is just a product like a sandwich, or maybe something deeper like a shared expression of humanity, which time after time gains more mass appeal when it is most accessible. Turning art into a business is lucrative for businessmen. And they share that wealth with a select few to keep the product (creative content) machine generating content (+ crazy high profits). Appealing to feelings of sympathy for the lot worker in Hollywood is ignoring the root of the problem. If people are freely sharing something because they can't afford to buy it, and ridiculous profits aren't being made, then yes, the joe schmoe is the first one hit, but honestly maybe they should have never been employed in the first place if the movie needs to sell for 12bucks a seat and 25bucks a dvd in order to justify his employment...changes would be made to make it more affordable if more people pirated because it is out of reach, that's the nature of the free market.....if it was this unreasonably priced because of that guy, then he needs to go, in order to make the project more accessible. But we all know it's not the reason.
You have alternatives for media. Netflix is inexpensive and it may not have what you want but it is nevertheless an alternative.
If you believe people should not be allowed to profit off of art then you are entitled to that opinion, but just know that such a rule will undoubtedly have an effect on the quantity and quality of work produced (and I expect this effect to be negative).
I would respond in greater detail but I am on my mobile.
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This is the end of the world!
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On August 08 2012 13:56 yOngKIN wrote: This is the end of the world!
are you actually from North Korea? ^^ Because I doubt this is the end of the world for you lol
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On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place.
This is going on the massively fallacious assessment considering I'd say a majority of people who have pirated something would have paid for many of the items otherwise, if not at a later time at a discounted price.
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On August 08 2012 13:09 Divergence wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 13:03 Ryuu314 wrote:On August 08 2012 12:26 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. How can you say you were never going to pay for the movie? If everyone pirated movies there is no way the studio could cover their costs. This isn't exactly true. Studios cover the costs for making movies via ticket sales in the box office. Every successful movie will always cover the cost of making the movie and then some purely from the box office. Well that's quite good to hear actually (assuming it's true). As long as illegal pirate theatres don't become widespread then I can feel confident that high quality movies will continue to be made. What about TV shows though? Eventually people will stop subscribing to cable stations and advertisers will realise that their ads are not being seen due to everyone having a DVR. Then who will pay for the TV shows to be made? Most network TV shows are funded by advertisements. Some are funded in other ways like HBO shows.
I don't know the specifics, but generally, ad time on air is extremely expensive so networks make a TON of money from it. They also make a lot of money in other ways such as through deals with cable companies. Also, I don't have numbers on hand, but I can almost guarantee you that the vast majority of ad revenue for TV shows come from prime time. Which tends to be news, sports, or extremely high popularity shows like CSI. Prime time programming is DVR'd and such, but generally, due to the time slot, it's easy for a lot of people to tune in and watch live.
That being said, even if people watching programs live decreases significantly, networks still gauge popularity of their shows and gain ad revenue in other ways. Hulu and Netflix for example pay a good chunk of money to networks in order to stream their shows online. They, in turn, recoup their costs via online ads. Even TV show ratings like Nielson aren't purely based on live viewers anymore. They definitely factor in the amount of online viewers, as well. In general, if a show has a high Nielson rating, it generates high amounts of ad revenue in some way shape or form.
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On August 08 2012 13:47 Divergence wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 13:23 StarStrider wrote:On August 08 2012 12:55 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 12:42 StarStrider wrote:On August 08 2012 12:09 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 08 2012 11:57 StarStrider wrote: My two cents on the pirating debate: I'm of the opinion that if the art is good enough, the revenue will follow, even if you use a pay-what-you-want model. Forcing people to pay a premium exorbitant price for art is the true robbery. I don't believe art should be free for the sake of being art, but true artists will strive to make it accessible to all, as that is the true purpose: enjoyment by the most number that can appreciate it. If it is out of reach of lower incomes, it simply won't be purchased...then what was the point to begin with? If you say profits, I don't believe you have a true appreciation for art. Art producers should strive to make their work available and free as possible while still able to fund the project and future projects. Forcing people to pay exorbitant prices for pure shit, and also exorbitant prices for gems, cheapens the intrinsic value of art of that particular genre, and also makes investing in a piece of art risky since you cannot 'return' it once you have it. Letting people decide what they think it is worth, even if there will be people that abuse that model, is still the best way to respect art. I am of the opinion that any other argument is just supporting extortive corporatism and consumerism, devaluing the art and the customer, and making something that should reflect the creativity and fluidity displayed by the art itself into something systematic and dull. Artists shouldn't have to starve, but it speaks to the fact that our art distribution system is fucked up that when you 'make it', as an artist, you are suddenly in the elite income bracket, and a hummer limousine with hot tub, and private learjet are suddenly nothing to you.
There is no robbery involved and even as an expression that's silly. If you don't want to want to pay for it, then don't pay for it? No one is forcing anything here. Extortion is a form of robbery though, but I didn't intend on that figure of speech being taken literally, just saying that if either side is more like stealing, it would be the corporations charging a flat 25$ for a DVD and 80$ for a game... This price model goes WAAYY beyond just compensation for services rendered, and into the realm of profiteering. I am being forced to pay these prices for mainstream art as there is no other choice for me.. If I could pay what I want, I would pay for it based on the quality or enjoyment I would expect out of it. As is, the only alternative to paying exorbitant prices is to pirate it. You cannot honestly argue that the net worth of these artists and companies reflects 'fair' pricing can you? I like the analogy of the friend letting his buddy borrow a DVD. I guess we should prosecute them by record company standards. How is it different? And how would they see an increase in profits if we did prosecute them? If anything, encouraging sharing is free advertising... if the content is good enough to make a new fan consider buying it, who otherwise would never consider spending on their 'product', I think it is a great thing. The wise companies are the ones who respect their art and the art appreciaters by making it as available as possible, then the profits come after that. Wow you really are an entitled person. There is another choice, as with everything else, you don't buy it if you can't afford it. Someone is not extorting you because they are charging you for a sandwich and by the same reasoning they are not extorting you by charging you for a movie. You're being disengenuous when you use the word charging. Something a bit stronger is in order. Let's go with raking over the coals. 12 dollar movie tickets are profiteering not compensating, and that's not even considering their projected profits on the same product by repackaging it into a dvd or digital copy. No other discussion neccessary. Yes, I buy sandwiches for money. Why don't I have a problem with that? Because there is always a cheaper and cheaper alternative based on quality. The exorbitant sandwich shops don't get my business unless I think they warrant it based on something unique, and they don't run inexpensive alternatives out of town. But I really don't have alternatives when it comes to media do I? The media holding companies have created a system such that in order to sell your 'sandwich' (record), the only way is to use their system, which does, in fact, extort consumers. There is no cheaper alternative without going 'indy', which goes back to the starving artists example. There is no moderate system for moderate profits and moderate compensation....it's all taken to the extremes because of corporate greed. There are a multitude of problems in your analogy with comparing sandwiches and songs. One fills a basic human need of hunger, and the other fills just a 'want' of entertainment. I admit that it is a 'take it or leave it' scenario for whether or not I want to buy it, but it shouldn't be, and if piracy poses a threat demands change to the profiteering than I support it. Also, you can't share a sandwich without reducing your own serving size like you can with a movie, a comparison can't be made between the products, so sandwich shops don't have a problem with so called 'theft' of sharing. Also, you're not addressing the question of whether art is just a product like a sandwich, or maybe something deeper like a shared expression of humanity, which time after time gains more mass appeal when it is most accessible. Turning art into a business is lucrative for businessmen. And they share that wealth with a select few to keep the product (creative content) machine generating content (+ crazy high profits). Appealing to feelings of sympathy for the lot worker in Hollywood is ignoring the root of the problem. If people are freely sharing something because they can't afford to buy it, and ridiculous profits aren't being made, then yes, the joe schmoe is the first one hit, but honestly maybe they should have never been employed in the first place if the movie needs to sell for 12bucks a seat and 25bucks a dvd in order to justify his employment...changes would be made to make it more affordable if more people pirated because it is out of reach, that's the nature of the free market.....if it was this unreasonably priced because of that guy, then he needs to go, in order to make the project more accessible. But we all know it's not the reason. You have alternatives for media. Netflix is inexpensive and it may not have what you want but it is nevertheless an alternative. If you believe people should not be allowed to profit off of art then you are entitled to that opinion, but just know that such a rule will undoubtedly have an effect on the quantity and quality of work produced (and I expect this effect to be negative). I would respond in greater detail but I am on my mobile.
That's ok. Your point is still received. And I respect it and see it.
But we don't agree on how much letting piracy continue unhindered would really harm the art industry. I would make the case that the free market principles would find a way to produce the same quality at lower costs and lower profits, in order to maintain viewership. And that is if piracy even affected profits significantly which they don't. Assertions that piracy laws and raids are justified are usually just propaganda for greed to continue to ever increase profits, or by governement agendas in the name of copyright law enforcement to further overturn privacy laws, to allow them to track your every move online, a far greater potential threat than the enforcement of greed.
EDIT: And I love things like Netflix. What I don't love is how limited they are, which is a sort of appeasement instead of a real solution. If services like Netflix and Hulu were really as good as they used to be/should be and companies didn't quit backing off of them because of lower profits and getting greedy by only offering traditional media for certain content, I would be far less likely to pirate. In fact, my pirating was reduced to almost nill back in the glory days of Netflix and Hulu a few years ago, just as my music pirating is almost nill now due to Internet Radio, Spotify, etc.
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On August 08 2012 13:09 Divergence wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2012 13:03 Ryuu314 wrote:On August 08 2012 12:26 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 12:19 overt wrote:On August 08 2012 12:14 Divergence wrote:On August 08 2012 09:04 1Eris1 wrote: Try to remember that the average worker in Corporate America is not a CEO, and when profits slip it's their jobs and wages that go to the chopping block. This is very true. Piracy will hurt the low-level guys first and the fat cats last, but most pirates don't give a shit because they don't have morals. But it is amusing how they try to defend what they're doing as "right". Piracy "hurts" no one. It hurts theoretical profits but there is no loss of goods from the media provider. It's literally no different than your friend lending you a DVD and letting you watch it. You were never going to buy that DVD yet you got to watch it for free. It's not like the movie company that made the DVD can claim that you caused them to lose revenue because you were never going to pay for their film in the first place. How can you say you were never going to pay for the movie? If everyone pirated movies there is no way the studio could cover their costs. This isn't exactly true. Studios cover the costs for making movies via ticket sales in the box office. Every successful movie will always cover the cost of making the movie and then some purely from the box office. Well that's quite good to hear actually (assuming it's true). As long as illegal pirate theatres don't become widespread then I can feel confident that high quality movies will continue to be made. What about TV shows though? Eventually people will stop subscribing to cable stations and advertisers will realise that their ads are not being seen due to everyone having a DVR. Then who will pay for the TV shows to be made?
HBO makes money hand over fist, and their shows are among the most pirated in the world.
Do you think for one second that Game of Thrones would be as big as it is without piracy? Do you think they'd sell as many DVD box sets if people who aren't HBO subscribers weren't familiar with the show thanks to torrents?
I own a crapton of TV shows on DVD. Good ones, that I want to support and keep for my own.
If you want to stop me torrenting TV shows, get rid of region blocking and let me watch them on ABC/CBS/Hulu/whatever, and show me some ads.
If you expect me to wait a year or more and watch them on local TV at a specific time on a specific day, enjoy pretending you're still in the 20th century.
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