US senators propose new anti-piracy law

I agree somewhat with their proposal - piracy is a huge problem and is also a loss of revenue. Though I'm sure a lot of piracy is caused more due to lack of affordability rather than actively living a life of an online pirate through choice. That's just my guess/assumption.

What the law says to me more than anything else, though, is:

'We want to make more money so we can roll in it. This'll help us do it. Cha-ching!'

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Lawrence Makin on 21st September 2010 12:19pm

Posted:2 years ago

I knew as soon as I saw that picture on the front page that Alec had written this. :D

Posted:2 years ago

@Lawrence:

Why is it bad for a company to profit from something that they have made? Without profit, how can big companies expect to progress in their future and expand to new ventures? Realtime Worlds' recent downfall emphasizes the risks that a developer can have when creating a game. With development and production costs being so high, it is vital that a game succeeds for the sake of the company that is making it. Piracy severly affects profit which drives companies to make up for this loss, which is what pushes prices up.

I agree that prices are pretty high and I know that it drives people to become 'pirates'. I just wouldn't be to quick to judge the big companies that make all of this entertainment happen.

Posted:2 years ago

The big thing with this (as far as i understand the proposal) is that US interests are given by US lawmakers the ability to censor the internet. Sites such as wikileaks would have even less protection against strong-arming from the political structure of the USA... it's not just about piracy but what is considered piracy and 'IP'.

I can't see any other government acquiescing to such demands.... it could lead to a fractured internet.... or removal of the USA as the primary holder of domain resolution and registration.

Posted:2 years ago

Piracy has being getting out of hand in those last years. Hope this bill will help to address this issue.

Posted:2 years ago

I think this is a bad idea, anyone who thinks it isn't, obviously has looked into this subject deeply enough.

(Now my comments below are about copyright control in general and not just about this particular thread.)

Don't get me wrong, I believe a person or organisation should be paid for their work, you can't create a sustainable business if individuals prefer to get hold of software, music, or film etc for free. (I certainly couldn't have bought a house and live the pretty comfortable life I do if everyone did this. I for one don't want to lose my job.) But this is not the way to go about ensuring financial stability.

Just because an individual or organisation creates something, doesn't automatically mean that they are entitled to get X amount of money for it; the market decides it's worth. I wouldn't pay for a shoddy paint or plastering job, just as people won't pay full price for a bad product whatever that is.

Someone in a different country is unlikely to spend the equivalent of 6 months+ wages on a piece of software, it's obvious that they will find other means of getting hold of it. Microsoft discovered this very quickly. This goes the same for teenagers/college/university/students/low wage earners in general the world over. How many of you when you were younger paid full price for a copy of Photoshop or Office? I'd be willing to bet very few.

I'll state the obvious again, most people don't have unlimited funds, I'll do my best to get the best price for any product. If I'm unsure then I'll try it out, whether that is by renting, getting a free demo, or a free sample.

I think it is a bad idea to censor these websites, at least we know they are there, where they can be monitored. Take them down and they will pop back up again somewhere else, but this time the creator will be a little wiser. Have we learnt nothing from The Pirate Bay? Last time I checked it was still there and if Pirate Party do take control of it, it gain diplomatic immunity.

Maybe companies should be learning how to make money from these sites rather than banning them outright. Surely a little money is better than none, surely people using your products is better than pricing them out permanently? Most people stick to the familiar, and are more likely to pay simply to keep using a product I know to be reliable, even if they did not a first.

Sharing ideas is absolutely essential to creativity. Remixing, recutting, repackaging what someone else has already produced. Imagine if copyright restrictions were so tight, that gaming genres were locked down? A company releases a racing game and then from then on they were the only organisation that can release a racing game. What if that particular game wasn't very good?

What I'm trying to get at that is that they way things are going, it's lose for everyone. Including those at the top. And this is not about one particular industry, but the way copyright is being used in general, to lock away ideas, in essence, forever.
Just look at what the invention of the internet has done for us, how many companies now exist which didn't 10 years ago. How many things have you personally discovered because of it, be it games, tv shows, music and ideas.

If companies keep an iron grip on everything, they may help ensure profits in the short to medium term, but in truth they are shutting out potential lines of revenue and stifling innovation.

I want to keep my job, but things are being taken too far. We need to find a balance that benefits everyone.

Posted:2 years ago

This bill is noble, but I'm uncomfortable with the scope of it. C+Ds to foreign businesses aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and making the devices used for piracy illegal - such as R4s - has proven to be a rocky road in the United States. Furthermore, what defines a pirate site? Is it going to be enforced like the DMCA? Where you can overburden ISPs with bollocks notifications of things that just piss you off? We've seen time and time again that the DMCA is easy to abuse. And will this be expanded to take care of just simply sites that inconvenience others, much the same way America's Homeland Security department has? Warrantless wiretaps were supposed to be used to counter terrorists, but instead were used willy-nilly on people who had no suspicions placed on them whatsoever.

I refuse to be put into the "yay piracy!" camp by putting forth my disagreements. But this is going to end up a very far reaching, misused law. I am against any law that can be used to restrict the freedom of Americans in the name of something else, and this qualifies.

One more note: This was not a bill made by Democrats and Republicans alike. It was sponsored by a bunch of Democrats and one Republican.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Christopher Bowen on 21st September 2010 4:39pm

Posted:2 years ago

Pity they dont even attempt to provide a legal way to obtain files. Look at the Mp3 issue, barely anyone apart from Apple (iTunes) tried to provide decent content at a reasonable price. They are trying to push content with a technology that was up-to-date 10 years ago, yet people are gradually away from physical media (some completely)... Yet there is only HDCP, CSS protecting discs, but no distribution services. Yes, there are a few. But how many of those services are actually available outside of US ? How many of those are usable by people with a computer which isn't running the latest Windows OS ? As long as the distribution system is not open standard, there will be "piracy".
As with most people in the creative industry, i pretty much aware of the problem piracy means, but before criminalizing a huge amount of people, maybe they should at least attempt to provide an alternative first ?

Posted:2 years ago

@ Ben Davis - We've already seen that copyright/patent restriction in the game industry. An example of this is the patent that covers minigames during loading screens owned by, if i'm not mistaken, Namco.

Now, i think many developers would start putting these sorts of things in their games.... but they don't and likely won't in many games until the patent runs out sometime around 2015.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 21st September 2010 7:24pm

Posted:2 years ago

About time.

All those people who claim it's about affortability or some such nonsense and therefore it justifies them getting it illegally are wrong.

I want a Ferrari, it doesn't mean if I can't afford I can just go out and steal one.

If someone doesn't want to pay for Office or Windows etc there's plenty of free alternative and even if there wasn't then too bad.

Posted:2 years ago

I find it funny to see how marketing spams all sorts of "must have" and "can't miss" stuff, and then other departments get all upset because the resulting greed (most notably in younger people imho) cannot be converted integrally into money.

I agree with the fact that, one way or the other, low wage categories won't be able to spend money on more than a limited quantity of games. End of the story. The weakest, crushed by advertisements and magazine reviews, will find a way to put their hands on what they wish, either by downloading or by other means (is the story of teenagers buying tenths of euros worth of rare Magic cards with money taken from their mom's wallet familiar to anyone?)

@John: if car manufacturers started sponsoring funny cars with "gotta catch 'em all" slogans, I guess theft would know a peak. All in all, even now would you feel at ease leaving your Ferrari parked in a random street for more than a while?

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Michele Santullo on 22nd September 2010 9:27am

Posted:2 years ago

@Michele:

Couple years ago, buying games were packaged in nice boxes, had manuals - i've felt that i bought something valuable. In order to keep production costs down, now we only get a disc in a DVD case, hardly any support after purchase, or in case of digital distribution, just a code. It just devaluated software to a point when you dont feel that you bought something worth any money. Its easier to pirate something which does not seem to have a real value...
Plus the pirated version does not have a buggy DRM system.

Posted:2 years ago

It's not quite the same as stealing a Ferrari. If you could walk up to your friend's Ferrari and make an exact copy of it for free with little effort, you'd seriously consider it wouldn't you? Even though the designers and workers at Ferrari would get nothing from it?

I also disagree about games having no real value any more. I spend more on Steam than any other platform. Digital Distribution has made gaming more convenient than piracy.

Posted:2 years ago

@ John, I really don't see it as the same as not being able to buy a Ferrari.

You don't need to buy a Ferrari to drive on the road. Just like you don't need Windows to use a computer, but you do need Windows to run a large number of applications, like computer games. Ok you could use Wine through Linux but this is still very buggy and most games don't work.

Paint.Net, Gimp etc are fairly good image editors but they are not the same as Photoshop or Illustrator (which don't run on Linux).

Edited 3 times. Last edit by Ben Davis on 28th September 2010 11:08am

Posted:2 years ago

John Owens, imagine that you live in Central Europe, imagine that average salary in your country is 704euro/moth(944USD), imagine that minimum wage is 295euro/month(395USD).
now imagine that steam is charging you 49,99euro(67USD) for game which cost 49.99USD.
[link url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/22380/?cc=us
]http://store.steampowered.com/app/22380/...[/link]
[link url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/22380/?cc=sk
]http://store.steampowered.com/app/22380/...[/link]
thats unfair and barely affortable for most people.
not everything is black/white. unless companies re-think their pricing(for example 1:1 price of boxed version vs digital version + 1:1 EUR:USD) piracy will not stop. in Central+Eastern Europe at least..

Posted:2 years ago