Minecraft creator says "Piracy" isn't theft

[nalkin]

Originally Posted by Harrison [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...and he's stupid because you disagree? ...right.

Isn't this the only argument you've ever made on these forums?

[Hoggen]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...5000-fine.html

and

http://www.startribune.com/local/82453582.html

say he's stupid. Granted these two are being fined for "distributing,"not just piracy, but there are laws. You can philosophize all you want, but if the courts say you are breaking the law, and you insist you aren't, you will likely lose.

[Massive Marc]

Originally Posted by Hoggen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...5000-fine.html

and

http://www.startribune.com/local/82453582.html

say he's stupid. Granted these two are being fined for "distributing,"not just piracy, but there are laws. You can philosophize all you want, but if the courts say you are breaking the law, and you insist you aren't, you will likely lose.

1.9m for 30 songs. LOL.

[Messianic]

Originally Posted by Massive Marc [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

1.9m for 30 songs. LOL.

This is like people who grow their own weed being grouped with violent criminals.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Originally Posted by Messianic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If something can be replicated (after creation) at no cost, I have trouble seeing why it deserves protection, as long as the first generation audience/customers had to make a purchase to acquire it.

But i'm torn. These are just my thoughts, not necessarily my hardened view...

Put yourself in the shoes of the software developers...

Ever wonder why super-awesome big budget games like Mass Effect are so few and far between? Because there's a lot of cost put into making games like that, and if there's no guarantee on a return on investment because there are X number of first-generation customers that actually purchase it, and there are Y number of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc, etc generation customers getting the same enjoyment out of it without the same revenue generation...

... suddenly it becomes more difficult of a business decision to pump that much time and effort and money into producing a game.

And then you get shit games. Or buggy games that are unplayable until the 1.01 patch. And then games that cost $60 instead of $20 because the execs are figuring for every 1 game sold, 2 copies are going to be made for free, instead of 2 extra sales.

We brought this on ourselves.

If you decided to quit your job and work full time developing your own games which were distributed on some indie game site and the amount of $$$ you made was directly proportional to how many people clicked on your game and put in their credit card/pay pal info, you'd probably want some sort of protection against piracy too in order to maximize the number of people that had to click on "purchase" in order to enjoy what you just spent the last X number of months making.

I don't see what's so difficult to understand about this having adverse effects on the software industry. Unless you only look at it from the consumer's "i want as much shit as possible for free -- SUCK IT!!!!!!" side.

[moklianne]

Actually, I don't believe piracy is to blame for the sad state of computer gaming. Its because of compatibility.

Why is console gaming such a cash crop when the piracy levels are through the roof on them as well? More than half the people I know have modded xboxes, PSP's, DS's and PS3's. When you put a game in, it friggin works or it doesn't and you bring it back to the store.

With PC games there are tons of compatibility issues that can crop up when you don't have the specs that the game was designed on. Meaning, even having a decent video card these days isn't good enough since yours may have issues with specific games until they fix them in later driver releases. Not to mention possible chipset/cpu issues (look at the issues dual cores have with P1999 as an example).

The average non-technical computer gamer will try a game and when it becomes an issue to get it to run right or it doesn't look as good as on the box, they will give up on the game and return it if they can. Do you think they are going to try again anytime soon? They would rather get that PS3 game, because they don't want to be bothered. You don't have to install the game, no waiting, etc.

The issue with PC gaming is that there are too many different variations of hardware and the laziness of game developers to create their game to work correctly on as many as possible, instead of shooting for just the latest and greatest pieces of hardware/software.

This, in part comes from the gaming industry being governed by a select few that are massive and have strict deadlines. Remember when Vanguard came out? The release was horrendous because SOE pushed it out the door when it clearly wasn't ready. It could have been a great game with a huge population if they simply waited another 6 months. Its pretty much forgotten now.

Before PC's got really cheap, only people interested in them would buy them. They didn't mind futzing around with settings, drivers, etc for an hour to get something to work. For about a decade computers have been cheap enough that the average person could afford them. Unfortunately, they are the breed of people that want it to work the first time. Thus, the compatibility issue.

Sorry for the rant.
In short, too many people don't know enough about computers and have been burned before with a PC game. And Console games make it easy to actually 'play'. It either works or it doesn't. There's no need to worry about trying to make it work.

[JayDee]

Piracy derives from the word pirate and pirates are thieves.

See bros, I don't even have to have a well thought out argument or do any real research.

[moklianne]

Pirates these days are simply fishermen that don't like people in their waters.

[Japan]

the whole argument of whether or not it's theft will be moot relatively soon.

instead of developing a business model that actually works in the internet age, old-world IP owners are trying to use legal force to create an artificial marketplace. This strategy will only keep these garbage companies alive in the short term, until they innovate or innovators crush them. The only thing these businesses survive on is precedent from the long-gone days when IP was tied to a physical object. They'll die out and so will the luddite legislation that enforces their nonsense.

This business model is doomed to die, and "piracy" is guaranteed to continue flourishing. If ignoring the dark ages of post-industrial IP law and living in the future today makes you a criminal, I'm john fucking gotti and my grandma is tupac.

But really, why bother convincing people pirates aren't thieves? Evolution will take care of killing the last of the dinosaurs eventually, i'll take care of jerking off to "stolen" tranny porn right now

[YendorLootmonkey]

The model will be pay-to-play and you're running a game that's executed on a server somewhere... and sending updated images at 30-60 FPS to your TV/monitor while uploading your controller input back to the server all via broadband connection. There will be no compatibility issues, no hardware to buy, no ability to pirate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive