go surf the top ten movie torrents and then try that line again. Face facts. piracy hurts the USA more than anyone, because they produce more digital content than anyone. At least, more content in very high demand.
"There's plenty of evidence that people will happily pay for things they think are worth paying for"
does it not occur to you, that basic pyschology dictates that 'worth paying for' can become extremely flexible the minute you give people the option of NOT paying? To prove this, try getting a cinema to open for free and ask for donations at the end of the movie. I bet a billion dollars that the takings go down, with everything else unchanged. Try and argue with a straight face that this isn't the case.
This study keeps talking about DUTCH prosperity and the positive effects. Please note that hollywood is in the USA. If none of the businesses that are affected by piracy are in your nation, then you dont need a phd to realise that your countries prosperity is affected differently to the countries actually making the content. Not suprised to see slashdot stories glossing over this with a YAY FILESHARING IS GOOD spin.
Generally the poeple who hate copyright infringement being treated as theft are people who don't lose out any income due to copyright infringement. In fact, it's often people who benefit from it by torrenting stuff. If you run a live music venue and people constantly sneak in without paying, you lose money, you might make a loss, and lose your business. If you run a store that sells Cds and people shoplift, you lose money, you might make a loss and lose your business. If you make software or music and people downlaod it for free rather than buying, you might...
Why is it that it's ok to sympathise with the middle guy, but the other two guys can basically stfu and stop whining?
"3) People who pay for some stuff, but don't have enough money for everything they want."
This is a horrible justification for piracy. I work damned hard to earn money so I can buy the stuff I want. If this kind of reasoning goes unchalleneged and becomes the norm, we will have a whole generation of kids who don't study and dont get jobs, because they have no need for money. They can just take everything they want for free because "they dont have enough money". As more and more stuff becomes digital and copyable, this problem will get worse. Tip for people who cant afford everything they want: Get a better job, or learn to accept the fact that not everyone on earth can have everything they want all of the time.
I've bought tons of games because the demos kicked ass. I got cossacks because of the demo, and ended up buying the whole series and the demos for battlefield 2 and castle wolfenstein also got me to buy. I think if you are developing a game and are concerned that people playing the demo won't buy it, you need to put more effort into the game.
As a developer, I can see how someone could show statistical evidence persuading me that no demos means more sales, but I still wouldn't do it. I'd rather my sales be a bit lower overall than thinking I'd 'tricked' people into buying a game they didn't like, and field lots of angry emails from people who feel let down. As a gamer, I hate it when games have no demos. As a game developer, it's almost good news for me, because there is less competition for my demos, and it also helps set me out as being a company that always has a release-day demo available.
Ricardo will be remembered as a great and dignified actor that added serious weight to any lineup of a movie. Shatner will be remembered as a guy who eeked out a career longer than it should have been by hamming it up and making a fool of himself.
I know which one I'd rather be. I bought ST-II at Christmas and watched it recently. It still stands up even now. He will be missed.
looks like the pro-piracy dorks are out in force with their mod points. *rolls eyes* keep justifying your actions kids. If it helps you sleep at night. Just dont expect any fucking sympathy when the software company you work for lays you off...
your wasting your time at slashdot. this is just a place where people who pirate stuff slap each other on the back and convince each other its just fine because the people losing out aren't them. Sad isn't it?
I've had the test too, years ago and it was trivial to give the right answers and pass them. They seem to be more basic IQ tests than actual personality tests. God forbid they try and use this crap on someone like Derren Brown, or anyone whose familiar with NLP. You can make the interviewer feel any way you want them to, if you know enough about body language and word selection.
it won't save money. in the UK we have wasted billions and billions we could not afford on expensive NHS IT projects that went massively over budget and in the end were literally unusable. Money in the health care budget is WAY better spent on doctors, hospitals and drugs. Spending it on impressive sounding databases rarely achieves equivalent results.
Governments are crap at big IT projects. Nobody knows why, they just are.
the demos end when they have given you a taste of the full game. It not some evil conspiracy to trick people.
You are fully aware there was a demo, and that it is illegal to take the full version, and yet you just blatantly ignored this and did it anyway. The arrogance is staggering. You then come here and brag about it, in an attempt to justify it.
Do you shoplift and then go brag about it to the store owner too?
so what do you recommend? social solutions? how do they work. Show me where people refused to copy something because the author behaved nicely?
Its all very well telling people who are losing money that they shouldn't act to defend their business in a certain way, but people have to defend their livelihood. I wouldn't stoop to this either, but I would feel a lot of sympathy for people who do find themselves tempted to do so.
I never get this. Pirates would be totally untouched if they were a tiny minority. Why the insane evangelism to persuade everyone around you to pirate? Its actually totally illogical. piracy is only possible due to the free-rider problem, and the fact that everyone else is paying for the content to get made. You would think any pirate with brain cells would STFU about how they get their entertainment.
Errr... you think there is no evidence that advertising works? If advertising can influence behaviour, and its a passive medium, explain how the interactive medium of gaming cannot?
advertising 100% works. I know this from my own stats, let alone the intuition that companies spend billions on it.
I sympathise with you 100%, although I think the answer you are looking for, is there is a non-zero chance you will screw up the PC of a legit buyer who lost their installer file, the CD got scratched, etc etc.
A lot of people think it's ok to use torrents as demos. they are totally and utterly wrong an unjustified in doing this, but the fact remains some people who will buy your software still do it. As a result, its commercially a bad idea to do this, I'd never do it and neither should you.
That's not to say that you have to ignore the torrent problem. Nobody will stop you uploading a demo of your software to a torrent site, and of course the less bastard-righteous torrent sites actually abide by the DMCA and will remove content when asked. These are far better routes than what you suggest. The ideal is to get people to like you company and support the software you make, not consider you the enemy.
But I sympathise massively. I have to spend maybe 30 minutes a week sending out DMCA notices because people think they are entitled to my work for free. Both me and my customers would prefer that time was spent making better games...
simply advertising that you might have some information someone might want?
So I can run a website saying I am making heroin, illegal firearms and small children available for purchase, and that's fine right up until the money changes hands? Is that how US law works? I would have thought that conspiracy to commit a crime was punishable too no?
guns are indeed much more dangerous than anything in the toolkit. If this was not true, then armies would fight each other with screwdrivers. You only need to leave the gun not locked up once to have an accident that a family will regret forever. Everyone forgets to lock up at some point.
Actually the blame is more complex. I agree that bad parenting is normally the main cause in cases where behaviour gets blamed on video games. But that doesn't mean games are blameless. I think almost everyone here would agree that advertsising works. If it didn't, why the hell do people waste billions on it? I've been reading 'the advertised mind' which is a book on how advertising works at the brain chemistry level. it's fascinating stuff. Basically you have zero defence against ads, because the information from ads already registers in your brain and strengthens certain synapses long before the higher areas of your brain decide not to pay it attention. Essentially, you just don't have the option to reject what you see, because the emotional fear-response 'early warning' section of your brain already kicks in first to check its not something urgent. Anyway, what I'm getting at, is that everything you see and hear affects you. If you see certain activities portrayed on a regular basis, and do not get a corresponding physical pain response, then your brain cannot help but normalise those activities at a subconscious level. As n urban westerner, I don't get scared when I see tigers and bears, because those are things that I just see on Tv or in cartoon, but it's a different story if you are a kid in Nepal thats run like fuck from a real tiger.
My (somewhat strange) point, is that a six year old kid hasn't been in a car crash, he hasn't been hurt in a car, he hasnt seen a car crash or know anyone thats been in one. His only knowledge about car crashes is they are fun things that happen when he plays a game. Because he doesn't have the experience of the real world phenomena, he is in no position to develop a sensible approach to his actions here.
So the ultimate blame is dumbass parents that let a six year old kid play a game like GTA, but lets not kid ourselves that video games don't affect them. All video games affect everyone who play them. They change our behaviour and our attitudes. The older you are, the more real-life experience you have, the less pronounced this behavioural change will be (your behaviours are already more established). But young kids playing violent video games is not a good idea.
The problem with wifi health scares is the same as with nuclear health scares. Regardless of whether the pro-wifi and pro-nuclear groups are right or wrong, they are terrible at public relations. In both cases, the default response to public health concern is a derisory snort and the tendency to talk down to the people raising the concern as though they are idiots. People who do not work as engineers or biologists are not idiots, as you find out when you have to employ said people for more money than you earn to fix your plumbing or do your accounts. They are just not privy to the same understanding of the relevant issue as you are.
The same problem occurred big time in the UK with the MMR injections. The state talked down to concerned parents and treated them like idiots, the net result of which was to make them even more determined that there must be a scandal and a cover-up. Talk sensibly about the health risks of wifi (such that they exist) and show how such things have been tested independently and shown to be of no concern, and you will win-out. Laughing at anyone who raises concerns may make geeks feel smug, but it's a losing strategy and always will be.
Slashdot Mirror
go surf the top ten movie torrents and then try that line again.
Face facts. piracy hurts the USA more than anyone, because they produce more digital content than anyone. At least, more content in very high demand.
"There's plenty of evidence that people will happily pay for things they think are worth paying for"
does it not occur to you, that basic pyschology dictates that 'worth paying for' can become extremely flexible the minute you give people the option of NOT paying?
To prove this, try getting a cinema to open for free and ask for donations at the end of the movie. I bet a billion dollars that the takings go down, with everything else unchanged.
Try and argue with a straight face that this isn't the case.
no danger of anything intelligent coming from your mouth is there you little coward?
sigh...
This study keeps talking about DUTCH prosperity and the positive effects. Please note that hollywood is in the USA. If none of the businesses that are affected by piracy are in your nation, then you dont need a phd to realise that your countries prosperity is affected differently to the countries actually making the content.
Not suprised to see slashdot stories glossing over this with a YAY FILESHARING IS GOOD spin.
Generally the poeple who hate copyright infringement being treated as theft are people who don't lose out any income due to copyright infringement. In fact, it's often people who benefit from it by torrenting stuff.
If you run a live music venue and people constantly sneak in without paying, you lose money, you might make a loss, and lose your business.
If you run a store that sells Cds and people shoplift, you lose money, you might make a loss and lose your business.
If you make software or music and people downlaod it for free rather than buying, you might...
Why is it that it's ok to sympathise with the middle guy, but the other two guys can basically stfu and stop whining?
"3) People who pay for some stuff, but don't have enough money for everything they want."
This is a horrible justification for piracy. I work damned hard to earn money so I can buy the stuff I want. If this kind of reasoning goes unchalleneged and becomes the norm, we will have a whole generation of kids who don't study and dont get jobs, because they have no need for money. They can just take everything they want for free because "they dont have enough money". As more and more stuff becomes digital and copyable, this problem will get worse.
Tip for people who cant afford everything they want: Get a better job, or learn to accept the fact that not everyone on earth can have everything they want all of the time.
I've bought tons of games because the demos kicked ass. I got cossacks because of the demo, and ended up buying the whole series and the demos for battlefield 2 and castle wolfenstein also got me to buy.
I think if you are developing a game and are concerned that people playing the demo won't buy it, you need to put more effort into the game.
As a developer, I can see how someone could show statistical evidence persuading me that no demos means more sales, but I still wouldn't do it. I'd rather my sales be a bit lower overall than thinking I'd 'tricked' people into buying a game they didn't like, and field lots of angry emails from people who feel let down.
As a gamer, I hate it when games have no demos. As a game developer, it's almost good news for me, because there is less competition for my demos, and it also helps set me out as being a company that always has a release-day demo available.
Ricardo will be remembered as a great and dignified actor that added serious weight to any lineup of a movie. Shatner will be remembered as a guy who eeked out a career longer than it should have been by hamming it up and making a fool of himself.
I know which one I'd rather be.
I bought ST-II at Christmas and watched it recently. It still stands up even now. He will be missed.
looks like the pro-piracy dorks are out in force with their mod points. *rolls eyes*
keep justifying your actions kids. If it helps you sleep at night. Just dont expect any fucking sympathy when the software company you work for lays you off...
your wasting your time at slashdot. this is just a place where people who pirate stuff slap each other on the back and convince each other its just fine because the people losing out aren't them.
Sad isn't it?
a lot of people would be wasting their lives doing calculations, rather than the likely more worthwhile jobs they do now.
I've had the test too, years ago and it was trivial to give the right answers and pass them. They seem to be more basic IQ tests than actual personality tests.
God forbid they try and use this crap on someone like Derren Brown, or anyone whose familiar with NLP. You can make the interviewer feel any way you want them to, if you know enough about body language and word selection.
it won't save money. in the UK we have wasted billions and billions we could not afford on expensive NHS IT projects that went massively over budget and in the end were literally unusable.
Money in the health care budget is WAY better spent on doctors, hospitals and drugs. Spending it on impressive sounding databases rarely achieves equivalent results.
Governments are crap at big IT projects. Nobody knows why, they just are.
the demos end when they have given you a taste of the full game. It not some evil conspiracy to trick people.
You are fully aware there was a demo, and that it is illegal to take the full version, and yet you just blatantly ignored this and did it anyway. The arrogance is staggering. You then come here and brag about it, in an attempt to justify it.
Do you shoplift and then go brag about it to the store owner too?
so what do you recommend? social solutions? how do they work. Show me where people refused to copy something because the author behaved nicely?
Its all very well telling people who are losing money that they shouldn't act to defend their business in a certain way, but people have to defend their livelihood. I wouldn't stoop to this either, but I would feel a lot of sympathy for people who do find themselves tempted to do so.
or better still, actually... I dunno... buy the product you are so desperate to use, and then get a valid key?
I never get this. Pirates would be totally untouched if they were a tiny minority. Why the insane evangelism to persuade everyone around you to pirate?
Its actually totally illogical. piracy is only possible due to the free-rider problem, and the fact that everyone else is paying for the content to get made. You would think any pirate with brain cells would STFU about how they get their entertainment.
Errr... you think there is no evidence that advertising works? If advertising can influence behaviour, and its a passive medium, explain how the interactive medium of gaming cannot?
advertising 100% works. I know this from my own stats, let alone the intuition that companies spend billions on it.
Wow, people belirve that shit?
TPB believes in generating advertising revenue. Everything else is bullshit. You really think they are about freedom?
I sympathise with you 100%, although I think the answer you are looking for, is there is a non-zero chance you will screw up the PC of a legit buyer who lost their installer file, the CD got scratched, etc etc.
A lot of people think it's ok to use torrents as demos. they are totally and utterly wrong an unjustified in doing this, but the fact remains some people who will buy your software still do it.
As a result, its commercially a bad idea to do this, I'd never do it and neither should you.
That's not to say that you have to ignore the torrent problem. Nobody will stop you uploading a demo of your software to a torrent site, and of course the less bastard-righteous torrent sites actually abide by the DMCA and will remove content when asked. These are far better routes than what you suggest. The ideal is to get people to like you company and support the software you make, not consider you the enemy.
But I sympathise massively. I have to spend maybe 30 minutes a week sending out DMCA notices because people think they are entitled to my work for free. Both me and my customers would prefer that time was spent making better games...
simply advertising that you might have some information someone might want?
So I can run a website saying I am making heroin, illegal firearms and small children available for purchase, and that's fine right up until the money changes hands?
Is that how US law works?
I would have thought that conspiracy to commit a crime was punishable too no?
guns are indeed much more dangerous than anything in the toolkit. If this was not true, then armies would fight each other with screwdrivers.
You only need to leave the gun not locked up once to have an accident that a family will regret forever. Everyone forgets to lock up at some point.
Actually the blame is more complex. I agree that bad parenting is normally the main cause in cases where behaviour gets blamed on video games. But that doesn't mean games are blameless. I think almost everyone here would agree that advertsising works. If it didn't, why the hell do people waste billions on it? I've been reading 'the advertised mind' which is a book on how advertising works at the brain chemistry level. it's fascinating stuff. Basically you have zero defence against ads, because the information from ads already registers in your brain and strengthens certain synapses long before the higher areas of your brain decide not to pay it attention. Essentially, you just don't have the option to reject what you see, because the emotional fear-response 'early warning' section of your brain already kicks in first to check its not something urgent.
Anyway, what I'm getting at, is that everything you see and hear affects you. If you see certain activities portrayed on a regular basis, and do not get a corresponding physical pain response, then your brain cannot help but normalise those activities at a subconscious level. As n urban westerner, I don't get scared when I see tigers and bears, because those are things that I just see on Tv or in cartoon, but it's a different story if you are a kid in Nepal thats run like fuck from a real tiger.
My (somewhat strange) point, is that a six year old kid hasn't been in a car crash, he hasn't been hurt in a car, he hasnt seen a car crash or know anyone thats been in one. His only knowledge about car crashes is they are fun things that happen when he plays a game. Because he doesn't have the experience of the real world phenomena, he is in no position to develop a sensible approach to his actions here.
So the ultimate blame is dumbass parents that let a six year old kid play a game like GTA, but lets not kid ourselves that video games don't affect them. All video games affect everyone who play them. They change our behaviour and our attitudes. The older you are, the more real-life experience you have, the less pronounced this behavioural change will be (your behaviours are already more established). But young kids playing violent video games is not a good idea.
The problem with wifi health scares is the same as with nuclear health scares. Regardless of whether the pro-wifi and pro-nuclear groups are right or wrong, they are terrible at public relations. In both cases, the default response to public health concern is a derisory snort and the tendency to talk down to the people raising the concern as though they are idiots. People who do not work as engineers or biologists are not idiots, as you find out when you have to employ said people for more money than you earn to fix your plumbing or do your accounts. They are just not privy to the same understanding of the relevant issue as you are.
The same problem occurred big time in the UK with the MMR injections. The state talked down to concerned parents and treated them like idiots, the net result of which was to make them even more determined that there must be a scandal and a cover-up. Talk sensibly about the health risks of wifi (such that they exist) and show how such things have been tested independently and shown to be of no concern, and you will win-out. Laughing at anyone who raises concerns may make geeks feel smug, but it's a losing strategy and always will be.
I thought you couldn't actually sell the community games? and even if you can, good old Microsoft will be taking their big fat cut of your game.