Not sure this is true. I recently tried to find a copy of Warmachine Prime MK II in Australia. The two biggest FLGS with an online presence in Australia no longer carry any Privateer Press stock and the only way I could get a local copy was through a guy who ran a gaming distribution shop out of the back of his shed. Couldn't order internationally from Privateer Press' website (they have a big sign saying that they don't know how to calculate international shipping) - and can't get the book directly from Amazon (though you can through 3rd party resellers). All of which you used to be able to do in the past - I have pretty much every Privateer Press book (Hordes/Iron Kingdoms and so on) - and this stuff used to be easy to get - from Amazon, from my FLGS.
If I have to spend 45 minutes figuring out how to buy your game online (versus about 30 seconds when I see something cool mentioned from Catalyst Game Labs or Fantasy Flight Games) - your company is probably not long for this world.
Settlers 7 has worked *every time* for me. Not a problem. Same as C&C 4. Both require you be online during play.
DRM is the last bastion for big game companies before they give up on publishing on the PC platform forever. A choice between DRM and trying to play settlers on a console because it won't be released on the PC? I'll take DRM. Game companies see the writing on the wall - and that is a generation of 'net literate people who will be as willing to pay for games as they are to pay for online television shows (go read the comments anytime Hulu whispers about maybe possibly charging a subscription rate).
Given that 800 new books are published *every day* - it is fair to say that copyright does entice people to produce.
The "there is not such thing as imaginary property" crowd haven't come anywhere near proving that a system without copyright would generate anywhere near this amount of new content (which, because of copyright, isn't just rehashes and remixes of existing copyrighted material).
Is dismantling a system that entices authors in English speaking countries to publish 800 new books *every day* worth risking so that less-than-original works based on existing concepts can exist?
You do realize that given the way that publishing agreements work, even if the ebook didn't have DRM - you will would not have been able to buy it in your region. You still would have resorted to finding an illegitimate copy. Not having DRM doesn't make regional publishing agreements go away - and if you ask a lot of authors (Scalzi, Stross and so on) - they want regional agreements.
So best advocate for free market capitalism is the one that imposes the most regulation on the free market?
Isn't that a regulated market rather than a free market?
Cognitive Dissonance Error.
Bono is at the extreme end of the curve when it comes to compensation for artistic output. He gets attention with what he says because of that. Someone who was in the middle of the artistic compensation curve was complaining about their work being pirated wouldn't be newsworthy (or would be newsworthy in a "streisand effect" way by which people would pirate their stuff to find out who the heck they were to be complaining about piracy in the first place)
Google is a disproof of the old saying that the "Internet Routes Around Censorship".
For most people Google *is* the Internet.
Unless Google's search algorithm becomes open source, we will never know what is getting hidden from us.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure this is true. I recently tried to find a copy of Warmachine Prime MK II in Australia. The two biggest FLGS with an online presence in Australia no longer carry any Privateer Press stock and the only way I could get a local copy was through a guy who ran a gaming distribution shop out of the back of his shed. Couldn't order internationally from Privateer Press' website (they have a big sign saying that they don't know how to calculate international shipping) - and can't get the book directly from Amazon (though you can through 3rd party resellers). All of which you used to be able to do in the past - I have pretty much every Privateer Press book (Hordes/Iron Kingdoms and so on) - and this stuff used to be easy to get - from Amazon, from my FLGS. If I have to spend 45 minutes figuring out how to buy your game online (versus about 30 seconds when I see something cool mentioned from Catalyst Game Labs or Fantasy Flight Games) - your company is probably not long for this world.
Settlers 7 has worked *every time* for me. Not a problem. Same as C&C 4. Both require you be online during play. DRM is the last bastion for big game companies before they give up on publishing on the PC platform forever. A choice between DRM and trying to play settlers on a console because it won't be released on the PC? I'll take DRM. Game companies see the writing on the wall - and that is a generation of 'net literate people who will be as willing to pay for games as they are to pay for online television shows (go read the comments anytime Hulu whispers about maybe possibly charging a subscription rate).
Microsoft 1990's bad behavior. Slashdot 2010 "Microsoft evil kill". Google mid 2000's bad behavior. Slashdot 2010 "oh that's in the past"
You are not a customer. You are a parasite.
Given that 800 new books are published *every day* - it is fair to say that copyright does entice people to produce. The "there is not such thing as imaginary property" crowd haven't come anywhere near proving that a system without copyright would generate anywhere near this amount of new content (which, because of copyright, isn't just rehashes and remixes of existing copyrighted material). Is dismantling a system that entices authors in English speaking countries to publish 800 new books *every day* worth risking so that less-than-original works based on existing concepts can exist?
You do realize that given the way that publishing agreements work, even if the ebook didn't have DRM - you will would not have been able to buy it in your region. You still would have resorted to finding an illegitimate copy. Not having DRM doesn't make regional publishing agreements go away - and if you ask a lot of authors (Scalzi, Stross and so on) - they want regional agreements.
Apple's ePub books are not DRM free.
So best advocate for free market capitalism is the one that imposes the most regulation on the free market? Isn't that a regulated market rather than a free market? Cognitive Dissonance Error.
Bono is at the extreme end of the curve when it comes to compensation for artistic output. He gets attention with what he says because of that. Someone who was in the middle of the artistic compensation curve was complaining about their work being pirated wouldn't be newsworthy (or would be newsworthy in a "streisand effect" way by which people would pirate their stuff to find out who the heck they were to be complaining about piracy in the first place)
Google is a disproof of the old saying that the "Internet Routes Around Censorship". For most people Google *is* the Internet. Unless Google's search algorithm becomes open source, we will never know what is getting hidden from us.