Wanted to know what all your thoughts were on buying pirate material or using p2p/torrent software to illegally download films/music/software. If yes then maybe a few suggestions on what could be done (if anything) to limit this kind of piracy? If no then why not? It is afterall illegal. I know this topic is nothing new but I'd like to know anyway!

For the record: This thread is in no way meant to condone the use of p2p or other file sharing software nor is this a thread to compare or enquire about said applications. So if you mods are out there reading this (and I know you are :-) ) please dont delete this thread.

I think there's a large, ethical difference between buying/selling copied CDs or DVDs and merely downloading them off file sharing networks. The former means the criminals earn money from illegal activity whereas the latter doesn't really affect anyone unless the downloader would otherwise have bought whatever he/she had downloaded (e.g. a music single).

i also dont mind free downloading, copying.but dont really like people selling cds...dvds etc

If someone downloads a piece of software that I've written, then uses it, I lose money.

Doesn't matter whether they copy the CD, share it on a P2P network. I still lose money.

Therefore I'd be a bloody idiot to support piracy, wouldn't I?

Oddly enough I also write copyleft and Open Source materials which gets around some of the problems. The arguments often taken are the :

Only the fat cats lose money and they can afford it. (More and more small media companies are producing music CDs, MP3s and films / videos. These people are not fat cats, are often the future of the business, and can't absorb the costs of getting ripped off)
I'll download it, see what I think of it and then if I want to use it get a legal copy (Yeah, right.... :) )

And don't even get me started on the funding of terrorism, drugs, organised crime, money laundering, etc. issues.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
If someone downloads a piece of software that I've written, then uses it, I lose money.

Doesn't matter whether they copy the CD, share it on a P2P network. I still lose money.



Only if they would've bought it anyway would you lose revenue though.

I tend to avoid Piracy wherever possible, which is part of the reason I don't buy Sony branded game consoles, cos the games are too easily Pirate-able, it'd just be a case of rent a PS2 game from the video shop, copy it to a blank CD or DVD and take it straight back...

I have bought Pirate DVDs in the past though when they used to have them at the monthly computer fairs at Don Valley, and I used to Pirate Spectrum games in the 80s...

Yes Kirky I know that makes me a bit hypocritical for telling you off for Pirating but it was a long time ago mate :D

Originally posted by Rich
I tend to avoid Piracy wherever possible, which is part of the reason I don't buy Sony branded game consoles, cos the games are too easily Pirate-able, it'd just be a case of rent a PS2 game from the video shop, copy it to a blank CD or DVD and take it straight back...

I have bought Pirate DVDs in the past though when they used to have them at the monthly computer fairs at Don Valley, and I used to Pirate Spectrum games in the 80s...

Yes Kirky I know that makes me a bit hypocritical for telling you off for Pirating but it was a long time ago mate :D

hang on hang on......you dont buy sony machines cos you can pirate the games?
nobodys forcing you to pirate them lol, you can still buy the originals instead :)

Originally posted by melthebell
hang on hang on......you dont buy sony machines cos you can pirate the games?
nobodys forcing you to pirate them lol, you can still buy the originals instead :)
then again i dont care, i dont buy sony, im a nintendo head, real games for real gamers :)

Originally posted by Rich
I tend to avoid Piracy wherever possible, which is part of the reason I don't buy Sony branded game consoles, cos the games are too easily Pirate-able, it'd just be a case of rent a PS2 game from the video shop, copy it to a blank CD or DVD and take it straight back...



So you cant do exactly the same thing with Xbox games then? Only the Gamecube has anything thats particularly difficult to get copies of, but now theres a mod chip for it and replacement cases to allow the use of full size discs instead of those mini things, even thats getting easier.

Originally posted by slh73
So you cant do exactly the same thing with Xbox games then? Only the Gamecube has anything thats particularly difficult to get copies of, but now theres a mod chip for it and replacement cases to allow the use of full size discs instead of those mini things, even thats getting easier.

really? where can i get those? :D

Qoobchip (http://www.mrmodchips.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=167&osCsid=dbf3da2100024ee6749de735649cdbee)

Replacement case (http://www.mrmodchips.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=35&products_id=162&osCsid=dbf3da2100024ee6749de735649cdbee)

DISCLAIMER: I personally have never used the retailer I linked to, I simply linked to it because they have the items I was talking about. Other people on another forum have used them, and reccomend them, but not me.

Ah my favourite subject has reared up again!

I think many people on this forum know my particular stance in this argument.. if you have not seen my older posts then you know I am all in favour of piracy.

I do not wish to go out to the shops and purchase the latest DVD for £15 when I can get it cheaper for say £4/£5 a time from a computer fair or some dodgy bloke down the pub.

I do not wish to go to UGC and watch War Of The Worlds and be interupted by chavs ******* about with their mobiles and talking and the like, I prefer to sit at home in comfort watching it on a pirate-copy bought for £4 on my home entertainment system, sure the quality is not perfect, but hey, a least I dont have the chav experience and also the high cinema going charges thrown in.

I will not pay £35+ for a PS2 game that after renting it, I find is utter cack.. I prefer to hand over cash to someone to get the game for me. For example: Gta San Andreas.

Many people paid £30+ for this on PS2 when it came out, it cost me £5.. and its exactly the same copy you all own now.

Dont get me wrong, I will occasionally buy an original of something if its fantastic, I bought the PC version of GTA San Andreas because its superb, likewise with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Soaked and Battlefield 2 because they deserve to be bought!

PS2's are more popular than Xbox and Gamecube for the simple reason.. you can pirate the media on them, also you can mod them to your hearts content like I have done with mine.. you havent played a PS2 game until you run it from a PS2 HardDrive.. its the mutts nuts.

Xbox is now moddable and you can apparently backup the discs according to some sites on the tinternet.. thats why the gamecube is dying a death- because you cant make a backup of the media without a great deal of hard work beforehand.

The PSP that sony has now brought out, has been hacked and people are already creating the roms that can be successfully played on the unit.. so it begins again.

Originally posted by t020
Only if they would've bought it anyway would you lose revenue though.

Well, if they've copied my software and are using it in their business or home, as far as I'm concerned they SHOULD have bought it. :)

With software it's the 'added value' that people get when they rip it off. It's the money that it saves or makes their business. It's like I did some work for them and they chose not to pay me.

Joe

I was trying to think of ways that you could prevent piracy of PC Applications and I cant think of a really bonafide protection that would stop anyone pirating and sharing your created application.

The nearest I've come upto is- selling the program online with a unique key issued to each purchased bit of software, with a program checking each key to its owner at the companys site.

Originally posted by ANGELUS

Xbox is now moddable and you can apparently backup the discs according to some sites on the tinternet.. thats why the gamecube is dying a death- because you cant make a backup of the media without a great deal of hard work beforehand.



no, the gamecube is dying a death because of idiots who buy into the whole fashion rather than good games business :(

Originally posted by JoePritchard
Well, if they've copied my software and are using it in their business or home, as far as I'm concerned they SHOULD have bought it. :)

With software it's the 'added value' that people get when they rip it off. It's the money that it saves or makes their business. It's like I did some work for them and they chose not to pay me.

Joe

In many ways I'm in the same boat as you Joe. If I develop software and people copy it, I am only loosing out if they'd have bought it the first place.

I think the challange for software developers is to understand the mechanics of software piracy, and not fight it, but run with it and turn it to your own advantage.

For example:

It is possible to protect your software such that, it is crackable, and will seem to work (on the surface). Do this, then encourage as many people as possible, to use your software and distribute it to their friends etc.

Or even go to the lengths of presenting yourself as a pirate, and completely flood the 'scene' with a 'cracked' version of your very own software yourself.

Anyway, once everyone is using a 'cracked copy' of your software, it will become aparent after some time, that the software is not working correctly in some small but vital ways (the cracked version you supplied isn't fully cracked).

If you have played your cards right, you will now have a large user base or people who have a dependency on your software (and will *need* go out and buy a legit copy).

I believe in most cases this is a good stratagy for software developers in the 'fight' against piracy. I would be very suprised if the larger software corporations don't already do this.

Further more, this has the additional value that the 'scene' is flooded with a 'supposedly' cracked version (or several versions would be a good idea) of your software, so it would be way harder for people to find a genuinely cracked copy! (and prob confuse the pirates too ... f**k em I say).

Originally posted by ANGELUS
I was trying to think of ways that you could prevent piracy of PC Applications and I cant think of a really bonafide protection that would stop anyone pirating and sharing your created application.

The nearest I've come upto is- selling the program online with a unique key issued to each purchased bit of software, with a program checking each key to its owner at the companys site.

That's more of an option nowdays; there are a number of commercially available tools that allow you to do this. However, they usually increase the price of the software.

The way that Open Source reduces the risk is that you get people to pay for support, enhancements, etc. and even gve the source code away. However, it makes it more difficult to 'commoditise' software and have software that isn't dependent upon you to support. So you probably charge a higher than you might expect rate for support.

Joe

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JoePritchard
[B]If someone downloads a piece of software that I've written, then uses it, I lose money.

Doesn't matter whether they copy the CD, share it on a P2P network. I still lose money.



Just had a thought...surely the only way they can download it from you is on a p2p software programme, therefore your probably downloading somebody else's stuff any way.

So what do you do for a living Angelus? I'm sure we could find a piracy analogy where we take money from you and excuse it by a similar line of argument :)

Let's face it, most arguments in favour of piracy boil down to "I can do it, I can get away with it and it's anonymous". Rent the game before buying it to try it out, wait for a movie to come out at Blockbuster and rent it there, etc. At the very least show some initiative and download it yourself rather than spending a fiver on it and subsidising some dodgy bloke's dodgy behaviour!

Better lines of argument would come down to the pricing imho. I've found myself buying a lot more dvds recently now that you can pick them up for say five, six, seven quid - yes, it's made me buy ones I could easily have downloaded. Software costing a few hundred pounds is rather more difficult to afford, but that is neither as widespread or seen in as negative a light by the writers.

Jamie - Goldenhawk tried the fear approach with cdrwin (a cd burning program), which used to flash up a message on loading about how known blacklisted serial numbers would introduce subtle errors on writing discs. Didn't stop pretty much everyone I knew having a pirate copy... The "scene" works downwards from some very talented people, and p2p is not where the cracked versions start from! Strangely enough the best way to keep something from being copy-able seems to be to keep it unpopular so that the people who really know what they are doing don't bother to crack it!

A few rather rambling paragraphs presenting a few random points there, I think it's a little early for reasoned arguments! :)


ps. Which cinemas does anyone go to that have issues with people's behaviour? I've been to the UGC at Centertainment a few times in the last two months and not noticed any problems at all...

Originally posted by trentboy2
[QUOTE]Originally posted by JoeP
[B]If someone downloads a piece of software that I've written, then uses it, I lose money.

Doesn't matter whether they copy the CD, share it on a P2P network. I still lose money.



Just had a thought...surely the only way they can download it from you is on a p2p software programme, therefore your probably downloading somebody else's stuff any way.

Sunshine, be VERY careful what you say here 'cos you're just this side of libelling me.

I have NEVER used P2P software for downloading; I don't have any installed on any of the PCs on my network. I write software and sell CDs or allow paid for downloads from a web site. If someone then gets that software and puts it on a P2P network then there is f**k all I can do about it.

Now, I use my real name on here, and being accused of pirating software could damage my reputation and professional standing, so an apology would be really nice.

Thanks,

Joe

Piracy as a whole is bad, but I think people are driven to it, especally in the case of media, music etc. The CD's are way to expensive. £15 for an album with say 11 songs on it in highstreet shops. Its a lot of money, big wadge for the government, about 50p at the most for the making of the cd/covers, then a small percentage for the making/recording/production. Then a nice fat wadge for the record fat cats, with very litte actually geting to the artists. same for the film industry, they usually make the cost of making the film back durning the cinema screening time, so why are DVD's £20?

From a developer point of view, software I write is all one off stuff, and I usually let it go cheap, because I can make more on a support contract for it, which is the way a lot of people go when it comes to custom software. I also write/help out on a lot of Open Source stuff, so in that regards, I'm quite happy to let people do what they want with it, but i can still earn money if someone wants a specific feature adding, then with their ok, it gets introduced into the main project.

I do use P2P stuff for music and software, but for a reason. I dont like not trying out software before I buy it. Prime example was Traktor and SAM3 which I wanted to trial for use on my radio show, They both had "trials" but were somehow crippled, so really neither showed me what they could do. So I fired up a P2P program, got a full version of both, tryed em, and ended up buying a copy of both. Its the same with music, if I like a band, I'll often downlaod a few tracks off an album, see what they are like, if its good, I'll order it from play.com, else I'll delete them.

Its pretty certain that a lot of Piracy is coming about because of greed from both the vendor, and the consumer. The vendor wants to charge over inflated prices, the consumer wants to pay less, and I side with the consumer. £15 for a CD, £200 for what is a basically incomplete OS (I dont see people buying cars without doors, dealer saying "Yeh, there is a security issue with the car, we'll let you have the doors when we have actually made them", Yeh, great idea!

I agree, media is overpriced by far, also, some of the biggest downloading sites are registering over 1.6 million downloads of a certain P2P program a week, every week! This is a problem that will be far too big to conquer easily. When they tried to shut down bittorrent, within a week there were reports of new sites popping up, this is definetley a large issue, and there is no simple answer to it. I just feel that as long as the "supplier" isn't making money it isnt too bad, i know some people lose money but this is a fact of life in business. I have a friend who works as a secuirity guard in HMV, and if someone tries to steal CD's, as long as they are caught, and the total is no ore tyhan £100, they will be let off. If they make it out of the shop then they will not be chased. It's almost the same, almost.

Originally posted by JoeP
Sunshine, be VERY careful what you say here 'cos you're just this side of libelling me.

I have NEVER used P2P software for downloading; I don't have any installed on any of the PCs on my network. I write software and sell CDs or allow paid for downloads from a web site. If someone then gets that software and puts it on a P2P network then there is f**k all I can do about it.

Now, I use my real name on here, and being accused of pirating software could damage my reputation and professional standing, so an apology would be really nice.

Thanks,

JoeP

Calm down big man I was only speaking theoretically. You made your opinions on piracy quite clear.

Originally posted by trentboy2
Calm down big man I was only speaking theoretically. You made your opinions on piracy quite clear.

Yes, I made them VERY clear, but I still don't see an apology. But, I'm nice and will let you off.

Joe

Sorry big man but i wont apologise for being objective. Don't take it so personally I'm interested in both sides of the discussion.

Originally posted by trentboy2
Sorry big man but i wont apologise for being objective. Don't take it so personally I'm interested in both sides of the discussion.

But what you said was libellous towards me - if you'd wanted a 'both sides' of the argument debate why explicitly quote me?

Just be careful - there are people on here who will take you VERY much to task for such statements!

Anyway, enough. Don't want to have to ban myself for carrying on a discussion on a thread.

Joe

Originally posted by Joelc
Piracy as a whole is bad, but I think people are driven to it, especally in the case of media, music etc. The CD's are way to expensive. £15 for an album with say 11 songs on it in highstreet shops. Its a lot of money, big wadge for the government, about 50p at the most for the making of the cd/covers, then a small percentage for the making/recording/production. Then a nice fat wadge for the record fat cats, with very litte actually geting to the artists. same for the film industry, they usually make the cost of making the film back durning the cinema screening time, so why are DVD's £20?



Most films actually make more money from the DVD / Video / TV rights rather than cinema release.

A lot of film comanies make a VERY fine living out of 'straight to video' entertainment. Probably a more business like proposition than going for a movie release. Main reason for small films to get cinema release is publicity and a shot at a few awards.

Joe

I will be picking out other people's thread as well, yours was just the first I got round to doing.

Personally I think your your arguement is sound and agree that small buisness' should not have to suffer the publics greed.

I'm all for small independent buisness because I've worked for a few myself, there the future of what consumerism should be all about. It's far to easy to use a giant corp's that hide behind faceless and impersonisled branding.

This doesn't mean that I entirely disagree with file sharing but I do have my scrupples and limitations.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes Joe.

Originally posted by rich951
So what do you do for a living Angelus? I'm sure we could find a piracy analogy where we take money from you and excuse it by a similar line of argument :)

Let's face it, most arguments in favour of piracy boil down to "I can do it, I can get away with it and it's anonymous". Rent the game before buying it to try it out, wait for a movie to come out at Blockbuster and rent it there, etc. At the very least show some initiative and download it yourself rather than spending a fiver on it and subsidising some dodgy bloke's dodgy behaviour!

Better lines of argument would come down to the pricing imho. I've found myself buying a lot more dvds recently now that you can pick them up for say five, six, seven quid - yes, it's made me buy ones I could easily have downloaded. Software costing a few hundred pounds is rather more difficult to afford, but that is neither as widespread or seen in as negative a light by the writers.

Jamie - Goldenhawk tried the fear approach with cdrwin (a cd burning program), which used to flash up a message on loading about how known blacklisted serial numbers would introduce subtle errors on writing discs. Didn't stop pretty much everyone I knew having a pirate copy... The "scene" works downwards from some very talented people, and p2p is not where the cracked versions start from! Strangely enough the best way to keep something from being copy-able seems to be to keep it unpopular so that the people who really know what they are doing don't bother to crack it!

A few rather rambling paragraphs presenting a few random points there, I think it's a little early for reasoned arguments! :)


ps. Which cinemas does anyone go to that have issues with people's behaviour? I've been to the UGC at Centertainment a few times in the last two months and not noticed any problems at all...

Just to answer your reply to my earlier post.

It all basically comes down to whether or not you want to pay £30 per PS2 game or £25/£30 per PC game.. if you wish to do this, then well done for you.. I dont like to do this unless the game is something that really catches my eye and thats why I have a very large varied media collection which I have collected on the cheap instead of paying an extreme amount of money out like most people.

I know the people who I buy my media from personally so I know what they are like in the real world- and they are not terrorists, or do not fund terrorism or the other crap excuses that people give for not funding pirates- they are simply feeding their families, booze and fag habits.

And every time I go to a cinema, which now is very rare, I find these occurences:

1* Chavs using mobiles when told to turn them off
2* People eating popcorn/crisps too loudly
3* People talking through the film
4* People copping off on the backseats
5* People arriving late into the film

Take your pick from any of the above that ****** me off, also the fact that the cinema is getting more and more expensive, so I'd rather get the releases on DVD instead of the cinema.

everthing is to exspensive nowadays:mad:

I opinion is of them who pirate the DVDs the games and music is they just wont to bypass the middleman (i.e cinimas,shops)them who put the whopping price tags on and shaft you good and proper.So i would buy the cheaper option everytime if i new how to get from the source i would.

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

The MPAA will not stop the Downloads there are just too many corners to cover,if they shut torrent sites as you all saw they where back up within 24hrs under a diffent name,Now if that worked for the MPAA the torrents would go back into the irc rooms and there is no controll there at all so they would loose again.

as for kazza, limewire and other p2p file sharing programes they can be shut down a bit more easy than torrents but it takes time.

The Best way to stop it is,

Stop making and selling blank disks.

Simple

Question: Do the people whom argue that cds/dvds/games are too expensive shop at high street shops ie HMV, Virgin, Woolworths, Game etc?

If so have you tried shopping around? Why not try independent shops where the prices are much cheaper such as fopp or gamestation. Shops like this always have cheaper goods.

Personally I wont pay more than £10 for a cd or dvd and no more than £20 for a pc game and this isn't hard to do if your prepared to use you head and shop around a little.

High street shops, like supermarkets, are there to convince us that what they're giving us a good deal but they're not. Again I'm not saying I dont use p2p software, I do. But only to download music that I know I couldn't possibly find elseware, I mean can anyone here tell me a shop that sells Mietek Szczesniak or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band? :-)

Originally posted by trentboy2
Question: Do the people whom argue that cds/dvds/games are too expensive shop at high street shops ie HMV, Virgin, Woolworths, Game etc?

If so have you tried shopping around? Why not try independent shops where the prices are much cheaper such as fopp or gamestation. Shops like this always have cheaper goods.

Personally I wont pay more than £10 for a cd or dvd and no more than £20 for a pc game and this isn't hard to do if your prepared to use you head and shop around a little.

High street shops, like supermarkets, are there to convince us that what they're giving us a good deal but they're not. Again I'm not saying I dont use p2p software, I do. But only to download music that I know I couldn't possibly find elseware, I mean can anyone here tell me a shop that sells Mietek Szczesniak or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band? :-)

I do shop @ the shops you mention but I dont want to wait for months for the prices to come down on the latest games and DVD's so I turn to the pirates, as I dont have the time normally to go shopping around for items.

I use P2P software all the time namely Limewire for everything really, I wont beat about the bush about it, but also I subscribe to Napster just so Im doing my bit for the music industry.. I still feel napster is ripping people off by charging people to download a song and then you have to pay to burn it as well!!

Rip off... but there are ways around that if you look hard enough on the internet.

Originally posted by simpleton
The Best way to stop it is,

Stop making and selling blank disks.

Simple

My thoughts exactly!

Its the big name companies who invented the DVD-R and CD-R machines by the way.. so in part they are helping piracy along nicely.

I appirciate your 'not beating around the bush' attitude but using excuses like 'I dont have time to shop around' or 'I cant be bothered to wait for the prices to come down' is pretty weak. If you're going to be honest go the whole hog and admit:

I use p2p software because I have no problem with breaking copywrite laws, and the fat cats and artists can all go kiss my law breaking a**e.

I dont critise what you do because that would make me a hypocrite just lets not hide behind half hearted excuses.

:-)

The web belongs to us and it us who will deicde what we do with it.

Originally posted by trentboy2
I appirciate your 'not beating around the bush' attitude but using excuses like 'I dont have time to shop around' or 'I cant be bothered to wait for the prices to come down' is pretty weak. If you're going to be honest go the whole hog and admit:

I use p2p software because I have no problem with breaking copywrite laws, and the fat cats and artists can all go kiss my law breaking a**e.

Hear hear :) I haven't heard a convincing argument yet, all most of you have said boils down to "I can do it and they can't stop me, so I will". Presumably everyone admits that the game/movie/album wouldn't exist if nobody bought it, so effectively you're ripping off the people who are prepared to pay as much as the companies. Would you like it if for example I tapped into the feed from your Sky box? After all, it's not depriving the company or you of any physical product, so why don't I just let you pay for my subscription?

Food for thought: as time goes on, more and more people in this country are going to be prosecuted. Using bittorrent makes it very easy to track offenders because of the way the technology works, and ISPs in this country have started taking action - this will only increase as it has been doing in the US. Most other technologies such as kazaa are equally transparent. You may be being watched as we speak! :)

Perhaps a better poll would be "How cheap would an album/movie have to be for you to pay for it rather than download it?"

So you want me to publicly come out onto a forum where anybody could be reading to admit I may OR may not be a pirate??
It wouldnt be the smartest thing to do would it.

But you are right what you said about P2P.

The web does not belong to us unfortunately, only a small part of it does due to all the governing and regulations placed upon it.

And my view on not shopping around/waiting is not weak at all, in fact it could be a valid point.

If the movie companies released a film in the cinema and then a week or two released the same film on DVD there would be no problem.. its just the 6 months wait you get for the newest Star Wars on DVD that also help piracy as well.

You cant get cheaper than a pirate.. there aint no comparisons anywhere unless they fall off the back of a lorry so the excuse about not shopping around is still valid in my eyes.

I'm sure the delay helps sell pirate copies (assuming you're happy with a mediocre TS which is all most films produce until fairly close to dvd retail date), but I suspect his argument is more along the lines of "so what makes you physically incapable of waiting a few months? Do you have the moral right to own everything you want just because you want it?". Again it boils down to "I can and so I will"... A more productive question might be whether you would buy a retail copy as well as your pirate one when it finally comes out, and what would make you do so if the answer is no? More special features? Lower price? Less time between cinema and retail dvd?

...and of course there's always itunes.

I use itunes to buy new music I'm interested in, just this week I bought a couple of tracks from the new Royksopp album (which for the record is bloody brilliant), and at only around 79p for new tracks it beats pay £2.99 for a single in HMV.

This is a fantastic alternative to high street shopping because you still get the buzz fo downloading new music, it's easy to use with an astonishing database of music, and there's none of this 'cant be arsed woth going to the shop'.

itunes is by no means perfect but it's getting better all the time, there current version is perhaps the best music storage programme thats commercially avaible to the mass market and best of all it's free.

And to Angelus: That's excatly what I want you to do mate, come out publically and admit what you do, I have several times already on this thread because if you truely believe your doing no wrong then have the curage of you convictions and just say your a priate and you dont see what's wrong with.

As for delay between Cinema showings and DVD relese dates delays your not wrong there, a waiting time of six months is very annoying. For me however watching poor quality pirate copies just isn't worth it. When it comes to film I need the best I can get and for now anyway that mean buying from shops. But thats just me.

Lets all try it together:

WE ARE PIRATES AND WE ARE NOT ASHAMED! :-)

Originally posted by Jamie
In many ways I'm in the same boat as you Joe. If I develop software and people copy it, I am only loosing out if they'd have bought it the first place.

I think the challange for software developers is to understand the mechanics of software piracy, and not fight it, but run with it and turn it to your own advantage.

For example:

It is possible to protect your software such that, it is crackable, and will seem to work (on the surface). Do this, then encourage as many people as possible, to use your software and distribute it to their friends etc.

Or even go to the lengths of presenting yourself as a pirate, and completely flood the 'scene' with a 'cracked' version of your very own software yourself.

Anyway, once everyone is using a 'cracked copy' of your software, it will become aparent after some time, that the software is not working correctly in some small but vital ways (the cracked version you supplied isn't fully cracked).

If you have played your cards right, you will now have a large user base or people who have a dependency on your software (and will *need* go out and buy a legit copy).

I believe in most cases this is a good stratagy for software developers in the 'fight' against piracy. I would be very suprised if the larger software corporations don't already do this.


Doesnt that sound reminiscent of what Microsoft did and look where they are now and where it is getting them. :D

As a freelance researcher writer I wouldnt tolerate my work being plagiarised; I therefore see software developers have similar entitlements to protect their intellectual property. Quite how they do so is an entirely different matter.

Incidentally an Italian Judge set an interesting legal precedent recently in deciding companies using under-licensed software, ie too many copies per machine for the license agreement is not the same as software piracy/hardloading and therefore did not grant the manufacturer damages.

Cant remember all of the issues or legal arguments of this decision other than that the software publisher was apparently none too happy; if you'd like to read up on it, the International Law Office report should be easy enough to find.
Just found the link:
http://www.internationallawoffice.com/ld.cfm?r=10477&i=1063155

Originally posted by rich951
Food for thought: as time goes on, more and more people in this country are going to be prosecuted. Using bittorrent makes it very easy to track offenders because of the way the technology works, and ISPs in this country have started taking action - this will only increase as it has been doing in the US. Most other technologies such as kazaa are equally transparent. You may be being watched as we speak! :)

Perhaps a better poll would be "How cheap would an album/movie have to be for you to pay for it rather than download it?" The more and more people in this country would NOT get prosecuted if they went onto the net and found how to download stuff without getting caught.. and Im thinking most people dont realize that kazaa was polluted with spyware from the word go.. and thats why people have been caught.

Because they dont know they are being watched or monitored and they should be made aware of this.

I dont use bittorrents at all as Im aware they are not secure, nor do I use anything that can leave anything trackable back to what I've downloaded from the net.

You just need to be more secure and study reviews and peoples observations on things before you do them in this day and age online.

I do think CDs and their ilk are mostly overpriced, but with a bit of eBaying and Amazon Marketplacing you can usually get what you want really cheap. Getting music and films from P2P is not something I do, mainly because most people can't seem to rip things at a decent quality and also the punishments for being caught are rather severe.

Software's a different matter. If you use a piece of software commercially or professionally then you should buy it, no two ways about it, and there's no excuse for not buying cheap software. I can sympathise with casual users downloading expensive packages to play around with, then again I'm not in the business of selling expensive software packages and if I was I would probably have a different opinion. I don't think anyone buys programs costing many thousands on a whim though!

I also don't buy music from iTunes and friends, as they insist on locking the music files with many restrictions which gets in the way of me using something I bought! Why would I buy something that's difficult to use when I can get the same thing with no restrictions for free?

Originally posted by trentboy2
This is a fantastic alternative to high street shopping because you still get the buzz fo downloading new music, it's easy to use with an astonishing database of music, and there's none of this 'cant be arsed woth going to the shop'.
I agree totally - apart from Napster screws you out of £10 a month to download what you like, and then screws you again by charging you £10 to burn the finished album... which I get round by using a certain bit of knowledge gleamed from the web which I'll not repeat on here because I dont want to be warned and banned.

And to Angelus: That's excatly what I want you to do mate, come out publically and admit what you do, I have several times already on this thread because if you truely believe your doing no wrong then have the curage of you convictions and just say your a priate and you dont see what's wrong with.

As for delay between Cinema showings and DVD relese dates delays your not wrong there, a waiting time of six months is very annoying. For me however watching poor quality pirate copies just isn't worth it. When it comes to film I need the best I can get and for now anyway that mean buying from shops. But thats just me.

Lets all try it together:

WE ARE PIRATES AND WE ARE NOT ASHAMED! :-)

And that last sentence is what will land you in prison my love.. the sheffield forum could be watched by many people including the police and other agencies from the UK.

Its not wise to be honest in this day and age unfortunately, especially when your IP address could be given to be tracked by the authorities.

All I will say is that I agree with what pirates are doing, I know a lot of them, and they are genuinly nice people and yes I do work for a crew and have designed a website for them, that does not mean however I am one myself.

The big picture in all of this is: piracy will never be stopped.
EVER- you just cant stop all of the pirates.
For every one that you cage up.. another one or two pops up somewhere... its like a virus.

The cinema issue for me still stands, I'd rather get hold of a decent copy of say- War Of The Worlds and be able to watch it now rather than go to the cinema, the copy would keep me amused until the real version shows up for me to get from my crew. So there again... saves me a lot of cash to spend on my fiancee, house, Alton Towers or whatever other thing takes my fancy.

EDIT:
Just noticed the poll % has gone in favour again of the pirates as it has done on many occasions where I have discussed this topic.. so I make it 3-0 to the pirates!!

Originally posted by md25
I also don't buy music from iTunes and friends, as they insist on locking the music files with many restrictions which gets in the way of me using something I bought! Why would I buy something that's difficult to use when I can get the same thing with no restrictions for free?
How about the fact that if you get it for free, the artist doesn't get paid? I realise that would be a much better argument if they actually got a decent cut though! :) I'm actually curious as to what the Apple DRMd files don't let you do that you want to - I heard vague stories about how restrictive they were but when I looked into it I was surprised, it seems pretty reasonable to me.

It will be genuinely interesting to see what happens to the music and movie industries. There is no feasible technical solution I can see happening, so are we going to go down the road of throwing bigger and bigger fines at people in the hope of providing real deterrents? (if you're not aware, ordinary people in the States have been sued for thousands of pounds *per shared track*) Maybe this is the best way, then their legal recompense revenue will negate the need to actually release music!

Having just said that, the movie industry has made some progress with basic security - for example, a decent dvd screener is pretty rare these days apart from immediately before the oscars, and even a watchable TS takes a lot longer to appear than it used to. Personally, I'd rather go out and spend a fiver on the whole cinema experience even though I could easily get hold of whatever downloads I want. And I suspect there is the crux - in my opinion they have to make visiting a cinema a more viable option, whether it be financially or emotionally (making managers of cinemas enforce better behaviour). Unfortunately I can't see that happening any time soon!

One final point for debate - iMovies anyone? Would you pay for a downloadable movie? The technology exists to protect video files on a pc already (and there are formats which have not been cracked - probably because it's not been worth the effort yet!), and so when everything is internet-based then a dvd player could include this. Having said that, PPV satellite/cable hasn't really taken off that well... But to be able to watch something as a good-quality cinema alternative, before it's available to buy on dvd?

Originally posted by simpleton

The Best way to stop it is,

Stop making and selling blank disks.

Simple

Yeh, and just penilize people who use them for legitimate purposes. Plus, people will just trade stuff in MP3 format over LANs, removable HDD's, Pen Drives. Stopping selling bland disks wont really make much of a difference, it'll just mean piracy is harder to track. No busting illegal market traders, they'll just get shared around by other means. Plus i very much doubt that most of the compnaies making blank CD's would be too happy about giving up a good revinue stream such as that

Joel

The blank media issue is one that has been tried in certain countries (notably Canada and somewhere in Europe I think - slightly vague, sorry! :)), where a form of tax is added on to the cost of the discs, as they assume you will be using them to infringe copyright. I *think* that in those countries, downloading music is then legal, but someone may correct me.

It would be totally ludicrous to ban their sale completely. Or should I not be able to back up my work data (and a million and one other purposes) to stop me copying audio cds - which I don't do anyway. Maybe I should forget backing up my tens of gigabytes of photos onto dvds, and use floppies instead? (actually, I couldn't do that at the moment if i wanted to, the floppy drives have disappeared from both my computers and I honestly couldn't say where they are! :))

Well said Rich, I think you've hit the nail on the proverbial head.

There is a simple way to beat piracy But I doubt any of the music or software companies would go for it.

If all cd albums, DVD's and games were sold for a very low amount (say £2-3), piracy would surely be made less attractive and virtually wiped out. If you had a choice of paying £2 for a genuine copy complete with artwork and booklet or downloading it free, I think the majority of downloaders would stop. The companies would sell many more copies which would compensate for the lower price. (They could also try paying artists/actors less to help with the costs!)

Maybe I'm being dim here....and apologies if someone else has suggested this....but....

What about looking at bandwidth usage?

It's always been known that the vast majority of bandwidth is used by a small number of people on with ISPs. This was the case years ago and is more so today. I do a lot of web development work, work from home, listen to the radio online, moderate here, whatever.....and my bandwidth usage is probably average, and low compared to people who are downloading a lot of stuff or running in P2P networks.

So, why not put a steep charge on bandwidth use above a certain level and pay it to the copyright holders? It would take a little effort to work out some of the technical details, but we can look at packets between certain IP addresses - like the BBC or legal download sites - and exclude those fom the charging regime. Everything else - you pay the tax on.

It's not 100% fair but it would be an interesting start!

Joe

Joe raises an interesting point - I've been assuming for a couple of years now that ISPs in this country will start charging a lot more for bandwidth sometime soon. I wish I could remember the stats about what percentage of users use what percentage of bandwidth - it's probably a lot more than the classic 20%/80% figure!

I'm not sure I'd agree with assuming that anything outside a specific ip range was illegal though! :) (very simple example, people sending large files to work on a daily basis) However, if you had to pay a considerable amount to be able to download more than a gigabyte per day (figure pulled out of thin air), then how many people would bother to use that service? What are piracy figures like in for example Australia or New Zealand, where broadband has pretty low download limits? Technology is probably going in the opposite direction though - networking infrastructure is increasing all the time, and the data size of a music track is getting pretty miniscule in comparison!

Of course this would be fantastic for your car boot dvd sellers, and these are the pirates that a lot of people want to get rid of - interestingly, public opinion seems to be against those guys, industry opinion seems to be to stop casual downloading at home.

I can easily use 60gb a month, without downloading any pirate material. I backup a lot of stuff to a remote London based site. So really thats not fair on users like me, who use a lot of bandwidth, but not for illegal activity.

Bandwidth is getting increadably cheap, and now its possible to download film trailers, and watch basic web TV and things like that, limiting bandwidth is not a good idea, especally with media rich sites now.

I think the industry are after the big pirates, but are trying to make an example of some of the home users, before they make a big push towards them.

Also, the tax is on CD Writers in some countries, rather then the discs.

Joel

Originally posted by Scutts
There is a simple way to beat piracy But I doubt any of the music or software companies would go for it.

If all cd albums, DVD's and games were sold for a very low amount (say £2-3), piracy would surely be made less attractive and virtually wiped out. If you had a choice of paying £2 for a genuine copy complete with artwork and booklet or downloading it free, I think the majority of downloaders would stop. The companies would sell many more copies which would compensate for the lower price. (They could also try paying artists/actors less to help with the costs!)

Think that would resolve the problem and loads of others as well but realistically cant see that happening, unfortunately. :(

If piracy is going to be stopped on a mass scale, it would be far less taxing, and more rewarding in the long term to catch the seeders(people who put the files up for downloading in the first place) as there are far less of them and if you stop the source of a problem it will take much longer to come back, or if properly monitored almost stopped. Going for downloaders makes the prosecutors money and makes the people who made the software/music happy. But it doesn’t stop the problem. IMO the only way to stop piracy is to stop seeders. Even if blank discs were stopped, people can still transfer the data via removable hard drive/flash disk. Plus the fact that people who download music may not even put it on a cd, rather just store it on the HD and transfer it to their MP3 player, which is far more widely used than the old CD walkmans. Granted that stopping blank discs will slow the problem, but not stop it. It returns to the seeders, if they are willing to take so many risks to make money, they will definitely find a way round the CD problem.

I don't think the bandwidth charging idea is a good one. There are plenty of legitimate applications which use a lot of bandwidth (for example remote backup as pointed out by Joelc) and more will arise as bandwidth becomes cheaper: what about video-on-demand? Presumably under Joe's system we will pay for this twice, once to the content-owners and once to the bandwidth-provider.

Stopping the seeders: I think this is probably the best solution, and I think that it's starting to happen - now that the music industry are getting heavy with file sharers, and visibly so, it is starting to make people think a lot harder before sharing files.

Interesting side-note: what should we do when copyright advocates break copyright law (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/15/215232&from=rss)? String 'em up, I say!

is piracy a bad thing? Arr, now there be a question. Avast ye landlubbers while I think on.

Seriously the term is stupid. Piracy is to do with boats, raping pillaging and plundering, it should never have been used to refer to copying a cd.

I am a software developer, and believe that we are rapidly approaching a point where the desktop can't get any better, and the code will be free and in say 100 years we will all be using some standard code base with standard tools, and these will all have been provided by the free software community. People like me will have to make bespoke software or find something else to do. Here in britain we also have a problem in that mandy of the developing countries of the world are churning out programmers so I may have to find something else to do in the fullness of time anyway.

As far as music is concerned then I don't see why we should pay for a recording. I think that a musician should make their money by performing live. Which is why I will go to 2+ music festivals a year and go to some gigs and things. I dont understand why Elvis' songs can still be copyrighted to allow the record execs to make money from the recordings. Another point is that because Elvis was so good then his recordings have been well preserved and updated and when his copyright eventually expires and his works enter the public domain to enrich all our lives, then we will get good quality stuff. But all his contemporaries who were not so successful will have been forgotten. Had the stuff gone into the public domain when it stopped selling then that might not have happened.

Copyright was not initially introduced as a form of money making by the way. The purpose of copyright when it was set up was to do with ensuring that once a book was written the authors views could not be changed in reprints thus distorting an authors written works.

Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent there. I think that record companies should get paid less, they do not make new music and nor do they encourage the new talent through, as I have known plenty of musically talented people who have wanted that contract and all they get offered is a pile of stinking poo instead of a decent contract.

I believe that if we were to all pirate CD's and not pay for them anymore the record industry would collapse. Then the people who actually like music would try and carry on making a living performing and selling it. I think that the whole culture of music listening would change, for the better, very quickly. The the musicians would have a much better platform for promoting their wares and making a living.

There was some debate recently about the music being given away by news papers, devaluing music in the eyes of the consumers. Just a side note...

Is breaking coptyright laws wrong? No. Is stealing things wrong? Yes - but copying is not stealing. I am quite happy for someone to come to my house with a piece of wood and some tools and 'copy' my chair and take the copy away as I will still have my chair.

Originally posted by richard
I am a software developer, and believe that we are rapidly approaching a point where the desktop can't get any better, and the code will be free and in say 100 years we will all be using some standard code base with standard tools, and these will all have been provided by the free software community.
I think that would be true if the hardware and interfaces (and "desktop") remained static, but if you think slightly beyond the "keyboard, box, monitor" model then there is still a good 100 years' progress to be made. For example, read Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340649305/sumptionorg-21), with its talk of wall-sized displays, input via speech and movement, and computers which can monitor your posture and facial expressions, in the same way that humans do, and realise whether you really mean what you are saying or are just resorting to sarcasm after trying the same command a dozen times and failing frustratingly. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks computers are close to perfect at the moment, and that means that software (and hardware) development still has a long way to go.

Originally posted by DanSumption
I think that would be true if the hardware and interfaces (and "desktop") remained static, but if you think slightly beyond the "keyboard, box, monitor" model then there is still a good 100 years' progress to be made. For example, read Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340649305/sumptionorg-21), with its talk of wall-sized displays, input via speech and movement, and computers which can monitor your posture and facial expressions, in the same way that humans do, and realise whether you really mean what you are saying or are just resorting to sarcasm after trying the same command a dozen times and failing frustratingly. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks computers are close to perfect at the moment, and that means that software (and hardware) development still has a long way to go.

This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen! I can only imagine my frustration as the computer states I didnt really mean to go to the bbc news wensite and redirects me elsewhere...

Theres a post above this one stating discussion of P2P software is forbidden. :huh: I am now confused!

Well, you can get the latest comment from negativland:
In the wake of the extremely stupid June 27, 2005 Supreme Court P2P decision in the MGM vs Grokster case (a decision that states that P2P software manufacturers can be held liable for the infringing activities of people who use their software), please enjoy this brand new "NO BUSINESS" P2P video response from Negativland. This five minute long 200 MB video is made available to you using P2P as a distribution mechanism for this new work (new work that is, ironically enough, made almost entirely from other peoples old work.)

Get the very funny video here (200mb) http://tinyurl.com/78mov
(requires a bit torrent client)

Originally posted by nightrider
This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen! I can only imagine my frustration as the computer states I didnt really mean to go to the bbc news wensite and redirects me elsewhere...
Hmm, an autistic computer. Well, couldn't possibly be much more autistic than the present generation.

I was drawn to this forum by this interesting subject.

Hmm...I'm a bit ambivalent.

Software:
The software I write is given to the end user for free by content providers, it is the content providers who pay us for it (I write J2ME games). So there isn't a lot of need for piracy by the end user and a content provider wouldn't dare I don't think.

At home I am in the process of legalizing...slowly...mainly by moving all my usage over to GNU/Linux based systems where the software is largely free so no need to pirate (if there was a bandwidth fee for heavy downloaders this legal process would be halted).

But I do and have used software that I haven't paid for. Mainly because there is no way I could afford much of it. The producer isn't losing a sale because I wouldn't be able to buy it anyway but I know that doesn't make it right...hence the legalizing process. That and the fact that once I have a piece of GNU/Linux software I can add the bits I want to make it better...Windows based software...well you can ask I suppose?

I don't and wouldn't buy software from a pirate. I have only ever downloaded it.
Why? Well two main reasons. 1) I don't know where the money is going 2) The same reason as I don't buy weed from people who walk up in the street offering it. It could be a trap and I don't want to openly break the law in front of people and cameras.

If more games were available in a GNU/Linux compatible format I would have moved over long ago...and development tools that are compatible with .Net (luckily mono is getting there so I can soon be rid of ALL of the software I haven't paid for).

Music/Movies:
The average price of an album on CD in, for example, Germany is £7 UK £14 (average I know some sell it cheaper) the price I pay for blank CDs 15p each. The same sort of figures are true for DVDs too.
The UK pays more for the exact same CD/DVD than the rest of Europe and the medium we pay 15p for will be sold much cheaper in bulk to the producers of albums and movies.
Why are we paying so much. Of course I know we are not just paying for the medium but why are 12 songs in Germany worth less than the same songs over here?

If the government stopped taxing so heavily and the industry stopped being so greedy I would pay for my music and DVDs. If I could buy direct from the artist I would. I'd much rather have the fancy looking legit version with the extras and better quality picture etc. than an mpeg/mp3 but I object to being penalised for living in the UK.

I know it's wrong from the artists point of view (well most of them anyway..."Steal this Album" System of a Down...anyone?)
and I do genuinely buy the ones I really like but for a bit of background music or trying something new...sorry but if I don't DL then I wouldn't hear it 'cos I'm not affluent enough to spend regular amounts on overpriced stuff.

I am of course totally a hypocrite :D ;) I wouldn't want people nicking anything I've written but software-wise I would charge a fair price rather than several grand and the stories that I write...they can be sold on any of the ebook sites for a few pence so there's no real need to nick it.