Swedish ISP Disputes Weak Piracy Evidence
Written by Ernesto on July 15, 2009After receiving massive support from its customers through an online survey, the Swedish ISP Ephone has decided to appeal an earlier court decision ordering it to hand over subscribers’ details to a group of copyright holders. Ephone has labeled the evidence provided as ‘weak’ and has opted to protect the privacy of its customers.
The first court case testing Sweden’s new IPRED anti-piracy legislation is not going as smoothly as the anti-piracy lobby would have liked. The law’s purpose was to make it easier for copyright holders to obtain the personal details of alleged file-sharers from ISPs, but the reality is proving to be somewhat different.
This April five book publishers handed a request to a local court for information on the owner of an FTP-server that allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books. Although it was a private server and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the details of the person behind the IP address.
Ephone refused to comply, instead deciding to take the case to the Appeal Court. Interestingly, the company decided to follow up the case based on feedback from its customers through an online poll on its website.
In total, over 20,000 visitors voted on the question of whether or not the company should appeal or not. The results didn’t leave room for much doubt. A massive 99% of the respondents were in favor of appealing, and some even offered to cover a part of the court costs.
Ephone’s CEO Bo Wigstrand said the company’s management had discussed their options internally, but what they really needed was input from their customers. “That was what finally led to our decision,” Wigstrand explained.
Besides the support from customers and the public, Ephone’s appeal is also backed by Swedish Member of Parliament Karl Sigfrid, who previously asked his ISP to delete all personal information linked to his IP-address to prevent him being chased down by copyright holders.
According to Ephone the evidence that the copyright holders had presented in the book case was incomplete and insufficient. It mainly consisted of screenshots and log files, Ephone’s lawyer said. Weak evidence aside, CEO Bo Wigstrand said that his company has to do all it can to protect the privacy of its customers.
Previously: Internet Villain Mulls 3 Strikes For Australian Pirates
Next: Ex-Grokster CEO Teams With New Pirate Bay Owners
127 Responses
Very good news best of luck from here
if only my ISP ‘eircom’in ireland was like that!!!
Better then mine, good ole Comcast…I hate when a big ISP has a monopoly…
moving to ephone!
i like a company with principles
I like donuts. Not those fake cake ones, the fried ones. Got to be fried.
That’s rich, you know. You commit a crime online and don’t expect to be persecuted.
That guy can’t even hide behind the usual pirate BS that “storing links isn’t illegal, it’s what Google does”. He had a FTP server packed with unauthorized copies of copyrighted material, ready for distribution.
He SHOULD go to jail/pay up a big fine, if the Swedish legal system is anything to be respected.
@6
it was not available to the public, i have a seedbox/’ftp server’ now im a master criminal, who needs jail time? u just cant lock people up at the drop of a hat.
well bioshockert81
its obvious ur part and part of the demons of the industry .. what r u riaa . mpaa .. book luver anonomas??? as if we care
sharing is the right of any human its enshrined in the legal documents of human nature
if i pay for somthing its mine i do what i want with it .. other wise i dont buy nothing i loan or borrow somthing ,.
file sharing is NOT a crime . File sharing is NOT stealing as noting is phisically removed .. no money is lost as every download is not a sale
a book writer should welcome sharing … its the same concept as a library but this reaches a wider audience .. but i bet the books are c@@p so best go 2 plan B make up the loss on book sales coz teh books aint worth the paper they printed on and sue people 2 make up the shortfall
all we the file sharing community need now is the new answer to ” mininova and the pirate bay ” any suggestions any1 ???
@6:…did you even read the story?
“This April five book publishers handed a request to a local court for information on the owner of an FTP-server that allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books. Although it was a private server and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the details of the person behind the IP address.”
Numbnuts.
Anyway, best of luck to Ephone.
@Sendaii: Um… did YOU? Because it says right there in in your quote that it was in a private server. The fact that it was available to the general public or to a handful of individuals is only relevant as to what degree the copyright violation took place, not to whether it did or not.
Imagine I make photocopies of a book. That’s a copyright violation, regardless of whether I’m going to hand them out in front of my house to whoever passes by, or in a private cocktail party to a few VIPs.
@6, buddy get a life, you oviously did not read the article and BESIDES the server was not open to the public, If I legally obtained material and uploaded it to myserver for my own personal use, i’d be pissed off also. Its people like you with stupid two bit opinions that need to be locked up.
If the FTP serv was private.. how did they know about it?
Im glad they are disputing, but dont keep warez or copyrighted crap on a FTP server.. what is this 2003? Those days are over!
Share the wealth, share the files, share the burden, share the pain.
Isn’t our system wonderful? Ok, all child rapists are now free. Gotta make room for the Internet pirates. Little girls are no longer safe.
@6, the words persecuted and prosecuted have different definitions. I suggest you look them up before spouting off like that next time.
@BioShockerT81
yeah and your what they call a tro.ll.non profit copyright infrigement is not a crime and they shouldnt be bugging a guy for putting files on his own server after all the copyright industry does not own the internet. you know youve probably already commited infrigement just by surfing the internet [comp downloads websites and content into the cache].
@6
“You commit a crime online and don’t expect to be persecuted.”
I’m confused. Which crime was it that he commited?
IP addresses are not hard evidence of the activities of specific people. Wireless network WEP and WPA cracking is a reality. Big Media suing dead people and people without computers is a reality.
I’d view his actions as taking reasonable (and certainly entirely legal) precautions to prevent sensationalist tactics by media organisations who may wish to rattle politicians with muckraking.
The kind of man you want thrown in prison is the kind of man I want in power. Caution and possession of a grasp on reality are good qualities in a politician.
@BioShocker
Try reading more thuroughly
“This April five book publishers handed a request to a local court for information on the owner of an FTP-server that allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books. Although it was a private server and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the details of the person behind the IP address.”
@6 Yeah, no one acctually cares… Appealing is 100% the right thing to do.
@12
Just because something is not being shared does not mean the data can not be viewed. Honestly, they can go ahead and sue I encourage it! it’ll just push us to use more hidden methods that you will be unable to detect! Encryption, IP sharing its already out there just wait until the technology improves. Then they will be forced to change Americas Copyright laws.
Take the Wealth, Take our rights, Take our Freedom, We Take your heads!
Im not sure any swedish ISP would comply with court orders even in the face of conclusive evidence. Their just drunk on piracy and freeloading.
Given the rampant nature of piracy and implications, suspicious like these should be perfectly reasonable grounds to investigate. These suspicions aren’t probabaly just random guesses.
@BioShockerT81
For discussion on a problem purposes.
What do you think about 99% of 20K customers disagreeing with the court case and law that makes it possible?
Also it’s not a customer that is at fault here to go for appeal it is ISP decision based on what ISP customers want. If you had a choice to defend your customers(99% of those who voted which seems to be 18K of people) in court risking your money or not defending them and risking your customer base? What would you pick?
Also is law right if many people disagree with it or not for you? Just for case of using word “unlawful” in arguments.
You guys are trolls all of you, you all jump on these pages and leave your comments about who is right and who is wrong. You all jump on here and say this isnt illegal and this isnt illegal and at the end of the day it is except on some countries but the majority it is illegal as more and more sites are being shut down it just goes to show that you people who are claiming it not to be illegal are wrong and for those of you that site here and think they know the law better than the judges and lawyers who are fighting these cases why the hell dont you get off of your asses and do something about it. You tell us what the mpaa and riaa and any other group are wrong yu say the law is wrong you say the sentence is wrong. Well if you really know as much as you are claiming why are you not offering legal advice or council to the people that are getting screwed. Could it be because your full of shit and dont know the law? Could it be because you cant afford it or that doing something for free is a bad idea (yet you will say that all media should be free and taking other peoples hard work is a right?)
at the end of the day you guys know nothing and if you do prove it and do something that helps the downloading community instead of speaking shit
Interesting. So they appealing that there is no solid proofs to use IPRED in that case? Interesting move. Hope case will be taken by the court as in any case it will be interesting to hear both sides arguments and a judgment + public opinion on it.
Wow, what a hate wave. I guess I should expect, since I’m disagreeing with everyone. That’s what you’re supposed to do when somebody has a different view than yours after all.
@bleh: of all the possible flaws in my post, you chose to pick out a typo. I guess that shows a lot about the strength of your arguments, no?
@14: How do you know he didn’t profit from it? As far as anybody is concerned, he could as well be charging people to download from his private server. The point is, we don’t know, because we can’t investigate, because the ISP is refusing to provide the personal details which could had allowed the investigation.
@A B: Yes, I agree IP addresses shouldn’t be “hard evidence”, as in nobody should be convicted with IP evidence alone. But it does give a reasonable ground to request a deeper investigation. Which can’t be done because the ISP is refusing to cooperate.
@16: Yes, we don’t know if the person did or did not, in fact, commit a crime. We don’t know because we can’t investigate them because we don’t know who they are. Now, if the ISP had just handed over the information, an investigation could take place and determine if he did, or if did not, clear his name.
Oh hello, liar.
There’s currently no evidence whatsoever that the FTP server was available to other people. If you’re going to make things up, please do a better job of it. Slapping around industry trolls is no fun when it’s this easy :(
Uh oh! Then public libraries are guilty of facilitating copyright infringement, what with their photocopiers and all. Schools and universities, too.
If library staff and education faculty don’t go to jail/pay up a big fine for this gross violation of copyright, then THE LEGAL SYSTEM CAN’T BE RESPECTED!!1!!1
It should be expected because you’re spouting fallacious bullshit. To say that it’s because you’re “disagreeing with everyone” is a cowardly strawman.
@23: I’m sure he kept all the 2K copies in the server for his own personal backup use. That must be how the publishers got wind of it.
And even if that were the case, and he was genuinely within his rights, that is still suspicious enough to warrant an investigation.
And please, next time you quote me, quote at least the whole paragraph. For context, you see. Like the part when I say those things about DISTRIBUTING it.
@24: If what I’m saying is so obviously fallacious, then point out the flaws in it. Otherwise, you’re just making a meaningless ad hominem attack.
@22
You have the situation backwards. IPRED doesn’t exist so that identities may be demanded to enable an investigation. Rather, the investigation (and proof to a civil level) must come first, and only then can identities be demanded. Therefore ephone is quite right to challenge this if they feel there is insufficient proof.
Why must the law work this way around? Because if it were not, the door would be open to identities being demanded on a whim, and legal proceedings being started against private individuals who do not have the resources or inclination or even ability to clear their name. Just look at the ACS/Davenport issues for an example of that :)
As to whether someone might reasonably hold 2k audiobooks on a private server for backup. Well. I have about half a TB of legal media sitting on a backup server right now. Why should I, as a private individual, be assumed guilty by the Industry, have my identity forcibly disclosed by an ISP, and no doubt then receive ongoing threats and requirements of proof of ownership etc just becasue I’m doing something that looks dodgy? No. Investigation MUST come first.
Nope, in many countries including the U.S. there is limitations to copyright in the U.S. people call them “Fair Use” anybody knows the law of the land in Sweden?
And unless you have the law that he has broken you are just spreading FUD.
Besides copyright today is moronic, there is to much power on the hands of people who robbed, lied and cheated society first.
If copyright was only 2 years we would not be fighting LoL
@22
The problem here mate, is that you can’t violate someone’s privacy simply on hearsay. If there’s no proof that he broke copyright to begin with, why should his privacy be broken just to confirm speculation? It’s like the cops getting a warrant to your house simply cause someone says you have a nuke in the basement
There is a legitimate expectancy for the free use of cultural creations after a time have passed, in greedy and not wanting to deliver the industry and the artists(like bono) cheated humanity from what was paid for, robbed all of us from the culture we like and want know to label us criminals. The real criminals are people trying to enforce actual copyright laws that turn normal people into criminals trying to make us believe that we don’t deserve nothing for free when we us a society already paid for it.
at #6
the swedish legal system has already been proven to be biased by TPB spectrial. the original judge was linked to copy right groups and so was a member of the appeal judges. therefore their legal system must have lost any respect it previously had.
fight for the right! keep it up, dont let the industry take control of our lives :)
I already did, but you must have missed it. Hmm… I wonder how you can write comments when you’re illiterate?
I shouldn’t be mean, though. It’s not your fault your mother never taught you how to read. I’ll explain it again, but a little slower this time.
YOU SAY BAD MAN HOST AUDIOBOOKS ON FTP SERVER. YOU SAY PEOPLE COME TO SERVER, DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS!! THAT PIRACY! HE COMMIT CRIME! HE VERY BAD MAN!
BUT WAIT.
THERE NO EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO SERVER, DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE COMMIT CRIME. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE BAD MAN!
YOU BIG LIAR.
YOU MAKE UP STORY. YOU SAY MAYBE HE CHARGE PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS. MAYBE HE PROFIT! BUT NO EVIDENCE. YOU TALK BULLSHIT. YOU TRY TO JUSTIFY INVASION OF PRIVACY. YOU SAY ISP WRONG FOR OPPOSING WITCH-HUNT.
YOU BAD MAN.
Aww, how cute. That’s strawman #2.
Canada supports Ephone!
Sweden’s legal system is a joke because the people who are tasked with upholding the law lack conviction. The entire country lacks any sort of moral guidance and has been consumed by complete indifference towards the very notions of right and wrong. Their favorite things to seems to be stalling by making petty excuses.
The ISPs are the best example of this. I have watched them, time and time again, recklessly advocate their users’ privacy at the cost of what could the entire world. These swedish ISPs are very telling about the conditions that not only helped the pirate bay to exist, but also helped it grow into the world’s biggest online piracy hub. It is sweden’s “I dont care attitude” that fed The Pirate Bay.
50 bucks says that if you asked these people what “copyright” was you’d get blank look.
Fair use applies to things like quoting articles in your book, not audio books, movies, gamess, etc.
Read these
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
@3, I feel you pain. Comcast blows and so do monopolies :(
comcast has sent me two letters for downloading
@.neo.styles|nvDX
“Sweden’s legal system is a joke because the people who are tasked with upholding the law lack conviction.”
You’re right.
Instead of upholding the law, they’d rather kowtow to rich corporations and engage in corruption. Hence, the refusal to investigate the bribery of Jim Keyzer, the Spectrial verdict, and the biased judges scratching eachothers’ backs.
Fortunately, the people of Sweden have had enough. They’re putting their foot down on this joke of a legal system and the days when Swedish authorities do the bidding of record and film moguls are coming to a satisfying close.
if we could look ppl up that easily then we shouldnt have any problem instantly identifying the politicians that are violating copyright. as these are public figures they should be held to AT LEAST the same standards, lets do a friggan audit :D
[quote]THERE NO EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO SERVER, DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE COMMIT CRIME. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE BAD MAN![/quote]
By having unauthorized copies of the audiobooks, he was commiting a crime, regaedless if someone downloaded them or not.
@44
Not a crime, but civil infringement. America is just about alone in making zero damages copyright criminal. Most countries – including Sweden, I believe – have a threshold that requires either commercial exploitation or a value of loss *per infringement*.
i love it when neo.troll uses his own quotes to back up his “argument”… fascinating, from a clinical perspective..
42 Jul 16, 2009 at 05:49 by .neo.styles|nvDX
@.neo.styles|nvDX
“blah blah blah, copyright, blah blah, criminals blah blah.”
You’re right.
@45 : Actually all infringements in excess of $2000 constitute criminal offenses.
@42 : Do you know what the Berne convention was? As part of it, sweden has been bound by it for over 100 years. Also, as part of the international community, Sweden is obligated to uphold it’s agreement at said convention.
Sweden was unwilling to do anything agains the pirate bay on their own. We gave them their chance. For nearly a decade, we didn’t say anything while pirates caused multi billion dollar losses. Sweden needed a nudge in the right direction.
In fact, Sweden was cited by a recent senate report on countries that have poor copyright enforcement.
Getting people to pay for things has nothing to do with corruption or inane conspiracy theories. It’s the right thing.
Goo God i wish torrentfreak would ban neo.styles for trolling
@109
Meanwhile the files are still getting distributed and the pirate community is growing.
If you could show me a decrease in the illegal filesharing traffic or interest for filesharing, then I’d be inclined to agree with you.
Heck if you could even show a decrease in the growth of the filesharing community I’d be impressed.
But unfortunately for the industry their methods have proven unsuccessful and they’ve been unable to contain the “threat”. Hence why they’ve been pushing for 3 strike laws to be implemented all around the globe.
Sure we’ve seen some large trackers and index sites shut down in the last year. But considering how there’s more and larger fish in the pond than ever before it doesn’t surprise me that the catch has improved.
Last I checked the copyright industry was claiming that illegal filesharing was a growing threat to their existence, not diminishing or under control.
@50 woups wrong thread, please delete if possible.
The industry simply wants a private police force in the ISPs. Soon they’ll just be sending goons to our doors to take away our computers.
You know if we switched out the administration in the Homeland security and such and moved in the croonies from the MPAA and the RIAA and the like to do the jobs of hounding people until they said uncle, well we would have the world’s problems solved wouldn’t we? The lawyers working for the MPAA are in the wrong soup pot don’t you think?
“You commit a crime online and don’t expect to be persecuted.”
LOL. Well, this really is persecution!
“your”
You dumb nimwit American speakers should learn to distinguish between homonyms such as “your” and “you’re” & “their”, “there” and “they’re”, you stupid idiotic uneducated imbeciles!
@44 and @48
If you’re going to argue that something is illegal in Sweden, then maybe you should use Swedish law rather than American.
I’m not from Sweden either but in most European countries it’s perfectly fine to make a few unauthorised copies of copyrighted material for private use, use in the household or back-up purposes.
Without more detail, like if the audio books were digital or not, I’m not going to spend the time reading Swedish laws but I believe making the copies were legal.
There’s no reason to think less of the Swedish legal system for that.
The possible infringement lies in these copies being placed on a server and might be available to the public.
But even if the audio books were made available to the public, that’s not a criminal offence. And why should it be?
As for the Bern convention, well it doesn’t cover index sites such as TPB or prevents you from making back-up copies. Had the US senate agreed with you that they were breaking the Bern convention I’m pretty sure they’d have done more than write a report.
Finally I’d like to point out that there’s plenty of copyrighted Swedish material. Most copyrighted material sold in Sweden is in fact Swedish in origin. So the Swedish government has no reason not to enforce copyright laws, – it’s not like they are simply leeching on the rest of the world.
The Swedish copyright system is only slightly different from the American one, and before you criticize is you ought to read up on it.
I am a consumer of books. I used to buy a new paperback book every week and a further half dozen or so from my local second hand bookstore.
Then I discovered e-readers and e-books. A quick trip to kazaa and a weeks downloading netted me a library of over 150,000 titles.
I could argue that the books are out of print and aren’t available from the publishers hence they haven’t lost money by my downloading them, But that download was 2 years ago and I havent bought a single book since.
@neoMAFIAAtroll
Bribing corrupt politicians to violate the legal code of their own country isn’t a “nudge in the right direction”, dear.
@56 Jul 16, 2009 at 12:57 by Alun:
And your point was…???
@11: Although that may be a copyright violation, the fact that you are not handing them out means no one was hurt or lost money.
The police gets wind of an IP address that’s sharing child pornography. They ask the ISP for the personal data, go to the person’s house, and find tons of CP and evidence of a pedophile ring. They follow those evidences, and soon 200 pedophiles are arrested all around the globe. Everybody is happy, and no one is thinking that democracy is doomed.
Now switch “child pornography” with “copyrighted material”, and “pedophile” with “pirate”. Suddenly it’s the end of the world, and democracy is turning into a corporation dictatorship.
That’s a name for that, you know. TIP: it starts with “double” and ends with “standards”.
A crime is a crime, and the government should take all reasonable steps to eradicate it, whether it takes place on line or in the real world. You people seem to want for the internet to be a completely anonymous and lawless place. That’s BS. No place should be out of the scope of the law, and you should expect accountability for your actions EVERYWHERE. That’s not dictatorship, that’s just basic law & order.
@59
That’s absolutely ridiculous. The burden of proof, in any law, would be related to the criminal act. Copies of media may (or may not be) legal. Images of child pornography are not, ergo the burden of proof (i.e. that a crime has been committed) is absolute and so an investigation is warranted.
Good luck with the paedophile = filesharer argument though;
You wouldn’t steal a child…
@59 Jul 16, 2009 at 14:16 by BioShockerT81:
Hmmm…first to copyright exist you have to take away the peoples rights to ownership you see the dichotomy in there?
So for the creator to have a 100 years to make money out of somthing is like any service provider wanting to have a 100 years to deliver what they promised they would do see the double standard there?
About the allusion that copyright infringement is equal to child pornography lets see:
- Copyright infringement it is not a crime and that in most of the world except for some asian countries that I know of.
- Copyright infringement doesn’t bring direct body harm to no one and in most cases will not bring psychological scars for life to any creator have the number of musicians suicides climbed?.
- Copyright infringement not being criminal have to be dealt by the interested party that have a very strong bias in it self interests and will say anything to get or produce evidence to back up its claims being true or not and that can actually be proved see Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. for a sample and make some research into the times the industry tried to make their BS real and failed.
So although a crime is a crime, infringement it is not a crime and it does not deserve the same treatment. Besides that in many countries that think filesharing is copyright infringement are mistaken, that yet have to realize that people viewing TV or listening to radio are not pirates and doing it over the internet should not be viewed as illegal in any way or form.
By the way why the focus on the internet, don’t people download to put it on their iPods why don’t allow the police to stop anybody with a MP3 player and make them produced proof of ownership?
OH! I forgot that is what ACTA is all about. LoL
Filesharing is fair use. We don’t do it for profit, we do it with our friends, we do it for vanity to show other how cool we are and that is not a privilege the guys with privileges is creators who we as a society took pitty and let them have some cake too and now they are biting the hand that feeds them.
Lawrence Lessig, this guy will be regarded as a visionary in a time of darkness.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86657/are-hopeless-copyright-wars-against-p2p-our-new-prohibition/
LMAO @6 hey BioShockerT81, nice to see your true colors. you eventually get it right … they may be hope for you yet, i doubt it, but hey theres hope…the first step is always honesty and you have taken it – try the next and get rid of denial
lets all congratulate BioShockerT81
“you can do it”
@61: What you don’t seem to understand is that when you buy eg a song or a book, you’re not really buying the right to do whatever you want with it, you’re buying the right to USE it, under CERTAIN CONDITIONS. That’s it. That’s what you paid for, that’s what you’re getting. Now, if you want to get the right to freely distribute them, then buy that right from the proper owners. Otherwise, you’re effectively destroying that owners right to rightfully profit from their property (intellectual property IS still a property). Your analogy is therefore a moot point, because the owners never promised to to sell you the right of free distribution along with the book/CD/whatever, because otherwise they wold have charged you a whole lot more for it. Namely, how much profit they expect to earn with it in the future.
And no, if you listen to the radio or watch TV, you’re not pirating. That’s because the TV/radio stations PAID for the right of distributing the material. And they in turn earn revenue from advertising. THAT”S a viable business model. It rewards content producers and stimulates them to produce more. Piracy and freeloading is not, and does not.
Lawrence Lessig have very good point:
- Copyright as stands today is unenforceable.
- All counter measures to piracy failed to stopped it or even reduce it.
- The people behind copyright today cannot win.
- The actions of the copyright industry have encourage young generations to ignore the law creating a fertile ground for a new generation that will not grow up learning how to respect laws but to ignore them and just for these reason alone the government should thing very, very carefully on how it will respond to the people getting draconian will breed more discontent and make it impossible to have a future generation that can respect the state.
@63: Yeah, how nice. You’re not profiting from it, you’re just helping out your buddies. No harm done. Well, you ARE doing harm, and a lot of it for that matter. If people can get it for free, the sure as hell won’t be paying for it. And if they don’t pay for it, then the producers won’t get any money to pay for the cost and profit from it. Which means intellectual content producing will effectively become an unprofitable market, which means people will stop investing in it, which means it will stop being developed.
So you ARE doing harm, regardless of whether you profited from it or not, regardless whether you are doing it in good faith or not. Make no mistakes about that.
Well there is my problem, the “certain conditions” are getting thinner and thinner every year, and I do know that if the industry have its wishy’s granted we would be paying to stream the movie or music from the kitchen to the bedroom because the industry see this as a privilege and not a right.
And no you cannot prove that less rights for the creator equals less profits or do you have proof that the BS you are saying is true because I will be happy to show you the balance sheets of the own industry reports that says they had record profits in a recession even though in fact copyright had been diminished by the filesharing crowd.
So you see, you are not convincing anyone that the industry is loosing money when they are in fact making a big profit so big that their never ever had so much money in their pockets like now, please show me where filesharing that is like TV and Radio is in any way affecting how people commercialize this crap.
Please prove it, if that was true TV and Radio would have landed a lot of people in the poor house alreaady no?
How do you explain the growth in sales in the music and movie industries then?
Wow only a true idiot would try to associate child porn with file sharing..
There completely different in every single way.
The fact that you are trying to compare them just allows us to sign you off as a total retard.. thanks for your idiot comments but they are no longer needed.. please refrain from using this comment section and consider ending your life as you are very much a waste of oxygen.
Radio stations in the U.S. don’t even pay roylties LoL
Are they pirates too?
What I did see was to start ups that are using the fans to pay for recordings and marketing it cost them $50 grand and a lot of new artists already recorded their first albums and surprise fans get paid to discover the talents LoL
SliceThePie and SellABand go check it out.
Besides that people are making money out of liberal licences too like CC Commons and GPL how could that be people give things for free and still get paid? How is that possible?
And a funny history:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090715/0325115550.shtml
The U.S. ignored the WTO rule that ruled in favor of Antigua and is now letting Antigua violate U.S. I.P. property as a payback LoL
Time to set up mirror servers in Antigua people :)
@69: Just looking at the Pc gaming industry. Every year, less and less PC games exclusives are being released, while were getting more and more console exclusives. When we do get a PC game nowadays, it’s either a port or a title that has been developed with consoles in mind. Now why do you think that is? It’s because the piracy is so rampant in the PC market that console games became more profitable than PC games, EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE MANY MORE PC GAMERS. Now, I admit I don’t know much about movies and music market, but I do about games, and I can safely say that piracy is killing the PC game market.
@70: I have already explained why radio and Tv are a viable business model in my previous posts.
Man you are clueless aren’t you?
Red Hat gives software away there is even a exact copy of their flag product and they still get paid and they can’t sue the other guy because of the GPL license they choose it was a conscious choice and it didn’t matter.
Funny story:
French cultural minister wishes he could download more illegal stuff and had 2 connections just in case he was a third strike and be cut off.
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.numerama.com%2Fmagazine%2F13455-Quand-Frederic-Mitterrand-regrette-de-ne-pas-etre-assez-pirate.html&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0=
Radio stations for the last 80 years didn’t pay royalties for the music industry did you know that or you just make things up?
About the game industry, you gotta be kidding me right, you want to see so free great games?
http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/frontpage/landingPage
It is hilarious and it is free.
Hell even the auto industry launched sensational free racing games that have real physics just to promote their cars.
You want a list of great games that are free:
- Glest.
- FlightGear.
- Mania Drive.
- UFO AI.
- UltraStar Deluxe(singing game)
Besides that if you go to gamespot I don’t see the numbers of games reducing itself where did you get that impression?
Obviously you don’t play games or are into it or you would know otherwise.
20 Jul 16, 2009 at 00:42 by .neo.styles|nvDX
Im not sure any swedish ISP would comply with court orders even in the face of conclusive evidence. Their just drunk on piracy and freeloading.
Given the rampant nature of piracy and implications, suspicious like these should be perfectly reasonable grounds to investigate. These suspicions aren’t probabaly just random guesses.
Well given the rampant use of marijuana nowdays…you should investigated …surely as widespread as its use is…you have to be smoking…
I mean…these are the same argument you are using…right!
Here it is the volvo simulation race car that is free and it is used to promote their cars.
http://www.freewaregenius.com/2009/05/30/volvo-the-game-race-volvos-s60-concept-car-in-this-free-simulator/
There is another one to from mercedez I think and there is one called TrackMania Nations Forever, if people didn’t do it for profit they would do it for the fun.
Wow, that Bioshocker dude is doing a great job of facilitating discussion among the readers of this blog!
Granted, it’s not the discussion he would like to see. But I’m pretty happy to see so many people getting the arguments right, seems like our meme is spreading.
Bioshockers arguments furthermore are so damn fallicious.. it’s obvious he’s not a Techdirt reader, seeing as his arguments have been treated by Techdirt time and time again.
So thanks Bioshocker, I hope it was your goal to be ‘that guy’!
@#74 ..
Nope, it’s because the average console-user is to stupid to figure out how to use pirated games, unlike the average PC-user .
Anyway, who cares about the entertainment-industry’s profits ?
You know what, if you can afford to blow a couple million dollars on blow YOU ARE MAKING TO MUCH MONEY TO EASILY . Don’t come crying for sympathy, it ain’t “piracy” responsible for your inability to pay for your own private island ..
#75 The radio stations do pay the composers via ASCAP and BMI, roughly 3% of gross income. The performers don’t get paid for playing their recording as of now, but that is being debated in congress, especially after Internet radio has a $25K minmum bill paid to SoundExchange to be able to operate.
I actually did log a week of air play by hand back while I worked at a station while in college many years ago. Now most logs are automated so the air staff don’t have to deal with the logging.
The whole idea of artists not being paid was based on the promotional benefit they receive for air play. If the radio stations do end up paying a small amount (say another 3%) they will grumble but will continue. If it is anything like the amount Internet stations pay, on-air music broadcasting will stop (except for stations like Radio Disney where money will go to SoundExchange and then back to them).
Getting back on topic, ISPs should enforce the concept that evidence is adequate before handing over personal data. If the court says it is and the ISP still resists, then my support for their actions will evaporate.
AMEN!
@6, “ready for distribution” until the laws says that “attempted distribution is a felony”, no one, not even a fart like you could prosecute him!
All you have is furthered my point that piracy is negatively influencing the PC game industry. Nowadays, if you want to make a game, you either: -make it for consoles, and then maybe do a poorly implemented port for PC after a while
-make an ad-based online game
-make a promotional half-assed game which only works for cars
-insert inadequate ads on games (next weeks’ Discovery channel program sure as hell fits BF2142 atmosphere right?)
-and of course, NEVER, EVER make a niche game. Since the market is so small as it is, you have to dumb it down and mainstream it as much as possible
And the funny thing is, even the ad-based approach is beginning to fall down. Pirates have so little concern with rewarding developers that add-blocking software is becoming so widespread that it is effectively rendering the adds useless as revenue sources.
@Peter: So you think the game industry is making undue large profits eh? Well, I hate to bust your bubble, but it is not. Only around 5% of games that begin being produced turn out to be successful. That means that 5% of titles have to shoulder the costs of 95%, plus generate enough profits to please shareholders and ensure that they will have enough money in the future to continue investing. The sad fact is, most games are actually huge money blackholes. And the only thing piracy is doing is making the market even more risky for investors, as they not only have to think whether that particular game is going to be well received, but if it will manage to sell well. Because of piracy, those two things aren’t connected anymore.
@ BioShockerT81
“add-blocking software is becoming so widespread that it is effectively rendering the adds useless as revenue sources.”
Cart before horse surely. The truth is, people are quite rightly very suspicious of online advertising. This is why ad-blockers are so popular, along with the fact that we’re all completely sick of being bombarded with tired slogans for tired products in every facet of our waking life.
And as for flagging sales & a profit starved game industry…
http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/game-industry-rakes-in-more-than-20-billion-in-2008/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/nintendo-announces-record-sales-and-profits
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/game-posts-record-sales-and-profits
I could go on…
@84 Jul 16, 2009 at 18:15 by BioShockerT81:
Is this list of games for the PC Plataform seems like it is being affected by something?
http://pc.ign.com/index/release.html
This is the way a Telecom should behave — if an external corporation asks for your users personal information, you post an online poll regarding your action and get an overwhelming 99% reply saying to fight and appeal …
@86: Actually, yes. Most of those games are either console ports or small budget games. Also, that’s about half of the releases announced in 2007.
Yep and still in 2008 they got 61 Billion dollars which is more then the movie and music industry combined made LoL
@89: First of all, that’s the GROSS revenue of ALL the gaming industry, which includes consoles (which as I mentioned, is doing very well because of the smaller piracy rates). The NET revenue of the PC gaming industry is substantially smaller than that. And that is the net revenue of the successful titles only. It doesn’t include the costs incurred with the flops, and most of all, with the titles that were developed, costed a lot money, but didn’t get to see the light of day.
when will the movie & music industries take some advice from the pr0n industry???
it’s profits also outrank the hollywood & music industries combined, and has adapted it’s “business model” to facilitate the world of online content…
@88 Jul 16, 2009 at 19:10 by BioShockerT81
Let me tell you that I remember very vividly when hollywood looked at the game industry with disgust and they where no where near those numbers they have today so no my friend go tell your sad story to someone that hasn’t lived long enough to know when people try to mislead them.
FYI PC games never where considered prime target after the playstation era and that was well before the internet piracy thingy if you can recall.
PC where considered by the industry as impossible to corner the market, sony didn’t think it could do it so did microsoft and they pay millions to make games exclusively to their own plataforms it has nothing to do with piracy that it was well before the internet rampant as you can see the ads like “don’t copy that floppy” that make me laugh still after more then 20 years.
@BioShockerT81 & neo reasoned and whoever else.
Do you not realise that this site is pro file-sharing? Why the hell are you posting here? Seriously why are you here? Go somewhere else and spout your corporate bullshit. Again THIS SITE IS PRO FILE-SHARING. And no you are not entitled to give your anti file-sharing opinion here. So jog on!!!!
@93
because they’re insignificant twats who have nothing better to do than bother us with their poor grammar and weak allegories.
So although the game industry “suffer” from the piracy problem and if it is that rampant how could they still grow, market and make more games than ever before?
Simple, “piracy” it is not a real problem it can be free advertisement and a way for more people to go and buy a box, you see from them I would by something because they didn’t ever go after their costumers, they didn’t try to make us criminals yet and I have nothing but respect for them although they annoy me sometimes with all that DRM crap and the difference is that they tried all that stuff the entertaiment industry is now trying and failled but they didn’t go after people in forums to prosecute, they didn’t sue Joe because he was asking for a keygen as for artists I hope they starve.
@92: Yes, the PC has been lagging behind consoles for a long time. But my point is that it is slowing down, not just in relation to the consoles growth but also in relation to itself a few years back. And that while the numbers of PC gamers are increasing almost exponentially every year, and far more than the number of console gamers. And that can only be explained by the ridiculously huge piracy rates in the PC market.
@93: Yes, I do realize that this is a pro piracy site. But does that mean you are all fanatics that refuse to acknowledge facts that go against that without even considering the merits, and spewing hateful and spiteful offenses at anyone who dare to challenge that view? I’d rather think not, but I’m beginning to doubt it.
@94: The ironic thing is that this is coming from someone who doesn’t understand the concept of capitalization.
@96 Jul 16, 2009 at 19:53 by BioShockerT81:
Ok! so if it is true care to show us where are the data you derived your conclusions from?
“So although the game industry “suffer” from the piracy problem and if it is that rampant how could they still grow, market and make more games than ever before?”
As I said, the industry won’t disappear. But it WILL change into something that, IMO, is worse it it was, and definitely worse than it could have been.
“Simple, “piracy” it is not a real problem it can be free advertisement and a way for more people to go and buy a box, you see from them I would by something because they didn’t ever go after their costumers, they didn’t try to make us criminals yet and I have nothing but respect for them although they annoy me sometimes with all that DRM crap and the difference is that they tried all that stuff the entertaiment industry is now trying and failled but they didn’t go after people in forums to prosecute, they didn’t sue Joe because he was asking for a keygen as for artists I hope they starve.”
1: You may buy things from “nice” companies even though you can get for free, but then you’re definitely a minority. MOst people won’t.
2: You want to try a game before you buy it? Fair enough. That’s what demos are for. You don’t have to pirate a whole game so that, after you’ve already played all of it, you can decide if you will or not “trow a bone” at the developers.
3: I’m the first one to say DRM sucks. It pisses me off enourmously, and I’m also the one to point the fault of its existing at its due cause: the pirates. If there didn’t exist pirates, there would be no need for DRM. That’s one more reason I hate pirates: they’re not satisfied in leeching the industry, they also make things harder for people like me, who actually bother to pay for the things I use.
@@96 Jul 16, 2009 at 19:53 by BioShockerT81:
Here is an idea google docs have a spreadsheet that have a plugin that let you plot bubles and they move along it is great to see relations.
Get the data from the decline of PC games sales worldwide, get the data from console games sales, and get the data for the increase P2P networks worldwide if you do so what you probably see is 3 bubbles running along one declining(PC sales) just when the playstation was launched and in a suave decline as the other 2 bubbles rise with the console sales outpacing the growth of P2P networks.
@BioShockerT81
Look man, you can argue all you want that this is doing HARM to the industry.
But the fact is, it has NOT! there have been no record profit losses, in fact even during a recession the industry has still managed to bring in PROFITS.
How in the world has torrents P2P affected business.
You and your suporters make half assed assumptions how much content people downloaded, but you have no facts on whether that item was once purchased, unintentionally downloaded or the fact that they would just like to have a copy on the computer for personal use.
Unless I see the movie, music, or gaming industry begin to suffer profit losses from sharing files, Then I do not see a reason on why any of these law suits are valid.
The only thing I have truly seen its huge corporations going after individuals who half the time have shown that they buy more media than the average person. And if they want to lose there main customer base then they are suceeding.
Red Hat say that is not true people do buy their stuff even though they give it away and there is even a exact copy of their flagship product.
Care to see a list of commercial opensource enterprises? It is a long, long list.
Just the other day I saw people buying “SUSE” from Novell, it was in a nice box so people do buy free stuff and I bet the electronic store was paying to use the name SUSE and Novell even though you could download that stuff for free on the internet, and the differential was that people were buying it for the support.
The manager for Avril Lavigne is making tons of money and he doesn’t care about piracy he found a way around it and it is happy making money out of it.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1522669/20060127/index.jhtml
And games will have pretty soon some developments in the area of augmented reality go to youtube and see the games people are developing right now and are already possible using cellphones they are fantastic. I can see people using visual googles to interact in MMRPG online an paying for it to access the servers of the developers.
These comments suck bro. Why so many fools feeding the trolls?
@101: Look at Demigod for instance: it has no DRM, and out of 120K connections, only 20K were paid users. Piracy hit the serves so hard that it effectively acted as a DoS attack, actually preventing users from paying and critics decrying it for it’s poor performance: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815/
And yes, PC gaming won’t die. It will turn into a cesspool of low budget console ports and MMOGs.
@102: Am I a troll? Really? Just because I disagree with you? Wow, that tells a lot about pirates. I suppose the Kopimi lifestyle isn’t as freethinking, friendly and open minded as it purports itself to be.
@96 : Yep. Install bases for many games are very similar on the console and PC, except that in every case, the consoles always bring in much more profit. Numerous developers have announced that their games are rampantly pirated, even to the point where they are turning away from the PC and switching to consoles (this is what is ruining PC gaming as we know it.) The facts are blindly obvsious, pirates just feel like they can avoid them by sticking their fingers in their ears and going “la la la I can’t hear you you’re a troll”. They don’t seem to want to face the fact that they “hobby” has been responsible for extensive damages.
@103 Jul 16, 2009 at 21:09 by BioShockerT81:
Still 20K payers is better than 140K pirates(20% of paying costumers is a high number).
And they didn’t had the knowledge to make things smooth it happens the next time they will have all in place to cope with any situations.
The PC piracy argument is soo tired and completely unfounded.. you cant just look at statistics and make up a theory of why its happening..
THE FACT is.. the money is to be made with the majority.. AKA ‘The Cattle’ as people with money are too stupid to use a computer..
Ever notice how consoles are for noobs? YES yes.. STFU.. they always have been always will be.. period. I dont want to hear how you can ‘pwn in halo’.. sorry your AUTO AIM doesnt count idiot.
Noobs have mom and dads credit card to buy noob crap.. then you can charge for controllers and all that extra CRAP that people buy.. its all a big MONEY TRAP and its what you do to MAKE MONEY.
You can pirate consoles games too. PC Piracy is not killing PC gaming.. its just natural for them to focus on noob consoles to rake in the cash..
Plus dont count out the fact that PC games CAN have much more technical problems.. consoles are a FLAT platform that doesn’t change.
The reasons stack up for making games for Console VS PC.. and it all revolves around money..
Stop with the PC piracy BS.. its flat out retarded.
You be surprise to what happens when spaces open :)
@ BioShockerT81
I said Pro FILE-SHARING or can’t you read. Why do you come to this site?
Come on I am asking you a direct question. How about answering it!!!
@ BioShockerT81
Can you post some links of Anti file-sharing sites to me please. Not run by corporate cleggs, but by joe public. I would find that really interesting to see how many were out there, compared to how many pro file-sharing sites. Then we can use the statistics to point out how many folks agree with the principle, sharing is caring and if you like it, then buy it theory.
@105 & 106: I’m doing a study on the economy of Sweden for college (not related with piracy/copyright) and this site came up on Google.
And well, no, I don’t know any site particular devoted to anti-piracy (or filesharing, whatever). But I’d guess there aren’t many. Which is understandable, since piracy IS an extremely charming thing. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to have things without having to pay for them? It’s much more comfortable to say “sharing is caring” like a mantra than acknowledging the reality that the economy simply doesn’t work like that.
BioShockerT81 said: “As I said, the industry won’t disappear. But it WILL change into something that, IMO, is worse it it was, and definitely worse than it could have been.”
I agree with you that we will eventually see the gaming industry change. However I disagree that it will be worse. After all, how can any industry be bad if the only people still left in it are those motivated by passion rather than greed? Right now we see many developers repeatedly foisting crap on consumers in an effort to make a quick buck. Movies turned into video games (and vice versa) are a perfect example of this. Sorry but I’m not at all bothered by the possibility of greedy (not to mention arrogant) businesses like this going under, especially those that refuse to adapt to a clearly changing business climate. Consumers and pirates are one and the same. They are merely reminding companies who it is that has the real power, which is as it should be.
BioShockerT81 said: “So you ARE doing harm, regardless of whether you profited from it or not, regardless whether you are doing it in good faith or not. Make no mistakes about that.”
Sorry, but there is no conclusive evidence that piracy is harming any aspect of the entertainment industry, whether it be movies, music or video games. What we have seen is record profits each year. Remember, piracy has been around a lot longer than the internet. Hollywood truly believed that the VCR would put them out of business for example. Publishers were sure the photocopier would do the same to them. I ask you, if piracy really is the boogeyman you and the industry want us to believe it is, then why is that same industry still around? Going by their own estimations and predictions, the entire entertainment industry should have gone bankrupt a very long time ago. Yet we do not see any concrete evidence of this at all and they are, in fact, doing quite well. What we do see is a whole lot of FUD and propaganda. File sharing is a scapegoat so that a corrupt industry can get draconian laws passed. It is all about power and control, nothing else.
@Uncle Slam: Motivated by passion rather than greed? Sorry buddy, but it’s greed that makes the world go round, one way or the other. People have this romantic view that true artists must be hungry and poor, that the love for art is what drives them forward instead of money. But that’s not how things are in the real world. Just look at the Renaissance, the most prolific period for the European arts. The only reason art blossomed during that period was because of the patronage of the newly formed rich tradesmen. In other words, because they injected MONEY into the art business.
Now, piracy is doing exactly the opposite: it taking money away from the trade. Now tell me, how the hell are game makers supposed to finance research, development, pay competent people, etc, which in current games can easily get to millions of dollars, as well as cover the losses incurred with the flops and cut-down games, from passion alone?
Make no mistakes, the greasy greedy will continue in the market. Heck, they’ll quite likely be the only ones left. All the good, competent people are just going to leave and find a decent, well paid job somewhere else. The only ones left will be those exploiting the fad market of dumbed-down MMOGs.
And online piracy is much more different than conventional piracy, so don’t compare the two. There are no physical costs involved, much less risk of being caught, and can be made instantly and internationally by essentially anybody, not just by some shady character in a dark parking lot like VCR piracy was. It’s damagin potential is simply incomparable.
Yep greed it is a strong motivator but so is vanity and revenge. Those are very powerful feelings.
But piracy didn’t take away money, in any graphic that you plot you don’t see fantastic sharp declines from sales what you see is that when piracy climbs so do too the sales is that not odd? Why does sales go up when piracy go up?
Wow doing a study on the economy and you believe GREED is a good thing? You are absolutely delusional if not insane.
Dude seriously, GTFO.. YOU are what everyone here is working to destroy.
Nobody is listening, nobody cares, please stfu.
Why does media sales go up when piracy goes up?
@BioShockerT81
Look lets keep it simple, stop talking about profit losses. THERE ARE NO LOSSES NONE.
Im sick of you guys using this as a scape goat.
Show me ONE corporation that has went out of business because people were pirating material.(I don’t want hear about profit losses because people decided to pirate something instead of buying it, for all you know they would of never bought it in the first place)
What I mean is a company That has shown profit losses year after year because of the increased use of P2P software.
The fact of the matter is you can’t find a company that has any TRUE losses because there hasn’t been any, in fact there have been yearly INCREASES in the music, movie and gaming industry. AND WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION!
Look all these corporations and companies who are involved with trying to stop sharing, are the ones who are going to end up going out of business because you are just making us go to more advanced methods like encryption and if you really want to destroy yourselves thats fine, but digital technology is rapidly changing and there is millions of people who support this technology and will adapt it to suit them better. So either these companies better start adapting or prepare to be destroyed.
You know, when I was a kid I always remember music being about fight the man, or fight corporations and it seems the very people who distrubuted and help create this music are the very same people we should be fighting!
@BioShockerT81
Ive been reading through most of the comments here and the problem with you and some others is that YOU say that piracy is harming the industry but provide no conclusive evidence to the fact, but supporters of file-sharing and piracy have posted numerous articles and evidence to the fact how piracy exactly HAS NOT harmed the industry.
Another STUDY done by KTH (the royal technical institute of technology in stockholm/sweden ) has shown that clearly it is the other way around. File-sharers are the people who spend the most online for entertainment:
http://vestervik.haninge.kth.se/datateknik/sidor/Fildelning.pdf
and http://www.marcuswestberg.se/tag/fildelning/
both are in swedish but I am sure there is an english translation floating around. Furthermore the KTH professor Roger Wallis explained this and other myths during the spectrial..
So, please, why don’t you post some EVIDENCE on how piracy is harming the industry when there is enough to show it is not.
OS and FOOS (Open software and Free and open software) is very very successful and the ideas behind it make for a much more intuitive and creative software development, perhaps you should do some reading on it..Companies making money on what people need (support) when they need it..this gives much more happy customers who are willing to pay more and also a much wider user base..
Sadly you are right when you say greed makes the world go round..but there are enough people, with more joining all the time who are trying to break away from this, and in many cases successfully.
You say game developers are increasingly stopping pc development due to piracy..that is clearly bullshit and has also been linked to articles where devs have said it’s due to them making more money on consoles and spending less on development, not piracy…
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@36 “YOU SAY BAD MAN HOST AUDIOBOOKS ON FTP SERVER. YOU SAY PEOPLE COME TO SERVER, DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS!! THAT PIRACY! HE COMMIT CRIME! HE VERY BAD MAN!
BUT WAIT.
THERE NO EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO SERVER, DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE COMMIT CRIME. THERE NO EVIDENCE HE BAD MAN!
YOU BIG LIAR.
YOU MAKE UP STORY. YOU SAY MAYBE HE CHARGE PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD AUDIOBOOKS. MAYBE HE PROFIT! BUT NO EVIDENCE. YOU TALK BULLSHIT. YOU TRY TO JUSTIFY INVASION OF PRIVACY. YOU SAY ISP WRONG FOR OPPOSING WITCH-HUNT.
YOU BAD MAN.”
LOL!!! 9000 Internets for you!!!
@114: I’m not talking about motivation. I’m talking about money. Greed leads to accumulation of money, and money is necessary to development. Therefore, greed is necessary to development.
@115: The only thing that is delusional here is you how pirates managed to convince yourselves that reducing the costumer base and therefore reducing income, somehow isn’t damaging the market. Or how an industry which on most occasions incur such heavy losses, can somehow manage to break those losses even, pay for the huge development costs of the few actual successes, and generate profits, without people actually PAYING them for their work.
@116: Sales don’t go up when piracy goes up, it’s simply that piracy rates follow sales. Obviously, titles that are popular enough to generate sales will also prompt a similar high number of pirates wanting to freeload it.
@117: Maybe some of them wouldn’t buy them at the initial price. But maybe they would get a 2nd hand copy a few years later for a quarter of the price, or maybe buy a subsidized magazine edition. Most of them would pay SOMETHING at SOME POINT. But since they can get it for free, right now, they won’t anymore. Why would they? I just can’t believe how pirates cannot understand that. Even a little child could see it.
And well, even if you are right, and piracy indeed can’t be stopped. What then? Do you think you’ll just get yourselves a free pass for everything? Well, you won’t, because the industry just won’t be able to cope with that. Companies make games because they can make profit from it. If you prevent them from making profit from it, they won’t just start handling everything over for free, they’ll just stop making games. That’s not because they are evil, that’s just because they won’t be able to accumulate enough capital to keep their business going. That’s simple economics. The only things that are going to survive will be, as I said, dumbed down cheap MMOGs. Until of course add-blocking becomes widespread enough that advertising can no longer generate any profits. But that’s just everybody reaping what the pirates have sown.
I like this isp
@120
1. No, greed is not necessary for development, that’s nonsense.
While Greed does indeed lead to accumulation of money, that’s not healthy for the economy. Capitalism is not directly connected to greed, most economist agree that greed is one of the evils of capitalism. Greed is in fact what has lead to the current economic crisis.
Capitalism on the other hand is widely considered healthy for the economy and leads to development. The drive capitalism is, I suppose, taking advantage of can’t be written down as greed.
2. While piracy reduces the costumer base somewhat, it’s not proven to be a drastic reduction. Filesharing has often resulted in increased exposure of an artist, in turn helping that artist enter new markets.
Regarding the heavy losses and high development costs, you need to remember that we’re not talking about medicine, machines or inventions; we’re talking about “art”.
I might add that in some countries a chair or a music track is enjoying better protection from copyright laws than a new medical product does through a patent –strange isn’t it?
3. Wrong again, no direct connection has been proven.
Many movies that tanked at the cinema had high download numbers, numbers that would match the boxoffice kings. Likewise some material that did great at retail didn’t have high download numbers.
It’s true that “pirates” are likely to pirate what is popular and what they like, but that doesn’t mean that they’d pay for it (or didn’t pay for it).
4. Most wouldn’t pay more than they do now, before the internet people would share their CDs, VHS and cassette tapes (not as in copy, but as in lend) with friends and colleagues. Often their friends would return the material after a while and never buy it.
A pirated copy does not equal a lost sale.
Think about it average Joe Pirate has perhaps 3000 tracks, 20 movies and 3 TV shows; he acquired all this content in a year. How much would that cost him if he was to buy it in a store? Quite a lot. Could he afford it? Maybe. Would be able to justify the expense? Most certainly no, and therefore he wouldn’t buy a whole lot of it.
It’s no secret that I’m a pirate (even though I still buy copyrighted material every now and then), most of the tracks I’ve downloaded, I’ve heard around 3 times or less. But the CD’s I’ve bought, well they’ve been spinning on my stereo for 20+ times – in their full length.
Each year I spend more and more money on art and media, if I couldn’t downloads music I wouldn’t spend more than I am now, I just don’t have the money. I might even spend less as I wouldn’t know what to spend my money on without feeling cheated.
The copyright industries are not losing money, sure some studios shut down every now and then, but that’s the way it’s always been.
When you look at music, movie or game distributers there’s a lot of fluff that could be cut away if they were to rely on digital distribution. I don’t know if the market and technology is 100% ready for such a move, but it’s the future.
You claim the only PC games that’ll survive are MMOG’s.
Well I think that’s quite likely, mostly because gamers want interaction and internet connections are just about everywhere you look. Most games seem headed for the MMO “genre”.
I doubt that’ll result in dumbed down games though.
Sure they’ll be streamlined for the casual user, just like their consol counterparts, but look at the market, the only place MMO’s are making money at the moment is on the PC. Furthermore most good MMO’s seem rather free of pirates.
Also, even if the industries are dying then don’t you think it’s time for them to eveolve and try a different business model? Something most have been unwilling to do.
Yep greed is part but not all that leads to accumulation of money, there are other reasons that lead to it, but I will tell you, all the successuful people I work with don’t really mind the money they are more foccused on the job when people get greedy is when they start making mistakes and end up with nothing except in the case of banks those guys a greedy pro that squandered and made the world pay for it LoL
Seriously greedy is an component and should be included but it is not the only one and his role can be without context it doesn’t mean anything.
The copyright industry in the U.S. cannot compete with other nations, the bad thing about copyright is that let people expect they deserve things without working for it. The industrial park in the U.S. is in shambles and that is why their economy is going to the toilet. Copyright right now is a barrier that prevent people from using the intelectual resources of the country to produce something, other countries don’t have this problem as they don’t enforce this types of laws or don’t have the means to do it and they grow and expand like the japanese did, like the U.S. did and like all other countries did it before, little greedy people think they can sit on their asses and collect from the rest and force them to take it well we’ll see.
That is your interpretation, but the other way around is also true, one could argue that piracy increase exposure what leads to more sales and that is proven to be true with radio and I’m not talking about single sales but the overall number.
You see that expectative lead the copyright industry to think that 120 of copyright is fair, when it should be no more then 5 years and about sales, the pool of money inside a market it is limited if any one would do the basic math it wuold see that there is not enough money in the world to pay for all that it is consumed. The digital age brought light to the corner of the human behaviour that shows people sharing things with one another, and if we would see the numbers it clearly shows growth the industry is bigger then it was 20 years ago. What it is not enough to grow? They have to have it all?
You see trying to control something is easy up till a certain point after that that last mile becomes harder and harder and harder like just any complex system, to make things with 1 meter(3 foots) clearence is easy to make things with 1 nanometer clearence is incredible hard. This people should be greatfull that there is still people willing to pay for something and that they did find a market, people when they first start looking for a job are greatful just to find one, after a while they start to think it is boring or that they deserve more and they start poisoning themselves and end up without it. Be greatfull for what you have and acomplished be proud of it and don’t keep feeling sorry for yourself for what you think you could have.
@120 Jul 17, 2009 at 12:27 by BioShockerT81:
People like you cry about the 120K users that didn’t pay, but forget to be grateful to those 20K that did pay for it and will bring in 200K-400k per month in revenue.
There are lines in society that you don’t cross, stupid people will try to do it and they will be reminded of why they shouldn’t, like the music industry that is now suing people without fanfare because their campaign to “educate” people tanked their sales in 2008 in more than 50% they did a better job and making people stop paying than the pirates ever did.
For discussion on a problem purposes.
What do you think about 99% of 20K customers disagreeing with the court case and law that makes it possible?
Also it’s not a customer that is at fault here to go for appeal it is ISP decision based on what ISP customers want. If you had a choice to defend your customers(99% of those who voted which seems to be 18K of people) in court risking your money or not defending them and risking your customer base? What would you pick?
Also is law right if many people disagree with it or not for you? Just for case of using word “unlawful” in arguments.
http://www.englishrussia.org
I think RIAA and every other anti-piracy organisation should focus on the people who put the content out there, not the ones who download it. Take away the source, no one downloads and people are forced to buy. If you put a candy bar infront of a child and say “take it”, he/she will take it.
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