oh be serious. its their work for fucks sake. im the only person with my dna. am i an evil dna monopolist? I think you need to look up monopoly in the dictionary.
The story is not nonsense, but if you would prefer to believe that because it makes you copying copyrighted content seem ok, then, yes you are just proving my point entirely.
what is this monopoly obsession about? There is no monopoly in the world of movies, music, software or games. Any dork can write software or games in his bedroom, I know, I did it, and yet people pirate my stuff, whilst whining about teh evil monopolies. How much sense does that make? How is a discussion of monopolies even vaguely relevant to a debate on piracy? Show me the monopoly.
You are right, a lot of products have no 'light' equivalent that people without enough cash should buy. why? all sorts of reasons, but partly due to a lack of perceived demand. The thing about buying stuff is that (as well as everything else) you become a signal in the marketplace. I know how well my games sell, and I do sequels to the popular ones, which makes sense. Now it really doesn't matter a fuck if game A is more *popular* than game B , if game B sells more. All those pirates clamouring for a sequel to game A are just out of luck. I do not even know they exist.
With widespread piracy of lightwave, releasing "lightwave lite" for $500 is going to generate very few sales. People will just pirate the full version like they do now. If you really value something, you absolutely should buy it, however easy it is to steal it. Buying sends a signal to the marketplace which says "we want stuff like this". It's ironic that its people who pirate stuff all the time who moan the most about the quality of the content people make. The content is not aimed at them, it's aimed at honest people, by dint of financial necessity. If for no other reason than self interest, people should not warez stuff.
Bullshit. My current PC has (legal) copies of photoshop, poser, windows vista, about 5 different games, paint shop pro, and they all seem to work fine for me. Somehow, the fact that you don't like a single sentence in the EULA does not affect photoshops floodfill, marquee selection, layer compositing or brush configuration. Nor does it affect posers rendering and animation features, or vistas file searching, device configuration or text rendering capabilities. the vast majority of us are using commercial software every day to carry out all kinds of amazing stuff all the time. stuff our parents never thought possible. And yet you think the whole software industry is somehow conning us all, and we must be stupid because you don't like a single piece of legalese in a text file. Get a grip.
I believe this to be wrong on two points. Firstly define 'wasn't going to purchase' for me. If I know absolutely 100% that I can not get a piece of software / movie / game for free, I am pretty sure I am much more likely to admit to myself and others that I want it, and will purchase it, than if I have a big demon sat on my shoulder whispering "don't be a mug, you can warez it!".
Most films have trailers, software has demo's (as do games), if you see the demo and wish to enjoy the product for longer, then its pretty hard to argue that you will be getting entertainment or use from it no? People can NEVER be honest about saying "I wouldn't have bought it" once they have the full thing for free. Our brains are great at backwards-justification. We can easily find all sorts of ways to make what we have done seem justified, we may well even delude ourselves. But that doesn't mean it's true. It's like telling yourself you would have resigned anyway if you get fired, or that she was a pain in the neck anyway when someone dumps you. Anything to make you feel like the good guy.
I spoke to a guy who does DRM for an online game publisher. Once, they rewrote their algorithm which instantly rendered all existing cracks for the games useless. Sales jumped by 40% that month. Why? surely none of those who cracked the stuff would have bought it anyway?
Secondly, your comparison is not accurate. A car is made for a single user, and priced accordingly. A movie, game or application is made with some estimation of sales, based upon the market size and product quality. Nobody makes Photoshop or Lightwave and expects to sell one copy. If you are in the target market, and get use from the product, yet you take it for free, then of course you are affecting the producer of the product. The fact that nothing physical was moved from a to b makes no difference.
People will make all kinds of rationalisation to justify taking other peoples work for free. The problem is, their philosophy never scales up to the whole of society. Why the fuck should I pay to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, it was made anyway, and I probably wouldn't have paid for it right? so what's the harm? Until everyone thinks that way, in which case the whole business model collapses. That's the problem with people who leech, it works out fine for them (in the short run) but they fuck things up for everyone else.
Smart Cars are great (a friend of mine had one), but to someone in the UK it's just funny to hear them described as bleeding edge, I'm sure we have had them over 5 years, if not more, maybe even 8 years? Smart cars are damned easy to park. With everyone rushing out to buy all terrain armoured cars for the school run, you often find parking spaces that most SUV drivers have to glide past that easily have room for 1 or even 2 smart cars. Small cars FTW.
on a wider issue, I tend to use a terrorism filter on pretty much everything news and entertainment related. If a game casts me as a 'special ops guy fighting middle east terrorists" then no sale. If a movie depicts an american hero fighting evil terrorists, I don't see it, ditto books, TV, etc etc. Any sci-fi author that jumps on the terrorism bandwagon will likely lose a lot of readers. It's as bad now with 'evil terrorists' as it was in the cold war with 'evil communists'.
"The real solution is, if you make music for a living, give up revenues other than from concerts and public appearances, and regard free distribution of music as low cost marketing for your primary product. You'll make a nice amount of money anyway and your mood will improve"
wow, nice solution. Of course, if you are seriously ill, or have other reasons why performing that music live is just not possible, you should just waste your musical talent entirely and go get another career, as should people who write books, make movies, software and games (all also copyable). I'm not sure how many people would pay money to see a 'live programming session' with will wright, but i'm sure its less than the amount who will play spore. This is the classic "We are taking your stuff for free anyway, just deal with it!" argument, that sounds less like it comes from a rational consumer, and more like a thug with a baseball bat. I also never hear it from people who *do* actually make creative works for a living.
Or in the case of games (what the author writes, and what I write to), stuff that the user may want to fiddle with. I've been using data driven code for a while, but after people were so keen to mod my last 2 games, my new one (www.rocklegendgame.com) had pretty much every notable variable placed in an external text file (a fully commented one called config.txt in the data dir) with the express purpose of letting the techy gamer play with it. Theres the usual discliamer that says the game has been balanced for the default variables, but if any piece of the gameplay code upsets you, all the numbers are there for you to fiddle with. Plus there are other benefits, it made playbalancing quicker and easier, with no recompiles, or worry about a type corrupting some code. It means I can do easier or harder builds for different publishers without recompiling the exe, and lets me toggle the game into certain cheat configs to check bugs without recompiling. External data files containing your config FTW.
Re:Please God, not another crappy video game movie
on
Halo, Nothing But Halo
·
· Score: 1
Even bungie agreed that Halo is a homage to and rip-off from, iain M Banks 'Consider Phlebas'. That is a great book, with a real story, real characters etc, not a video game. Why the fuck don't they film that instead?
Heck I agree with practically all of that. Corporate lobbying is a disaster, and should be entirely outlawed. DRM is a clumsy half-solution that causes mayhtm, but its the only way to prvent casual copyright infringement, so I'm not suprised people use it. What annoys me is when small companies who are not pulling any of the insane DRM stunts get put in the same bracket as bastards like Sony. I wish people who pushed for fair use and copyright reform (both of which I support 100%) would also take the time to differentiate when it came to the companies making digital content. We arent all anti-consumer bastards, but we all get treated the same by people who distribute copyrighted material. On the one hand there are evil people like sony, MPAA, RIAA, on the other hand are free-software zealots who crack my software along with everyone elses, and distribute it. Frankly, I hate both sides, but only the people distributing my stuff are actually costing me money.
You jest, I made a game where you can become an accountant: http://www.kudosgame.com/ It does really well. Maybe that's because you can also be a skateboarding molecular biologist who arrests street criminals using kung fu. Who knows?
You ranting about how much you hate microsoft does not change the facts. Both companies are huge, have made billions, and have huge market share. How on earth you think there is no way photoshop is worth $600 is beyond me. It's the market leading piece of software for designers. If I could purchase all the software I needed for my job for just $600 I would be very happy. A plumber has more than $600 of tools FFS. Some people, especially people who try and shoehorn a dig at the RIAA into every post, are never happy unless all software is free. Something tells me that Microsoft and Adobe are more profitable than anyone releasing free software.
google isnt the government, its a privte company, they can deal with who they want to. I'm not forced to sell my products or services to anyone I don't want to, neither are google. What annoys me is they dont give a damn about *where* they advertise. If I find a dubious website that resells copyrighted software I worked on without a licence, and is part funded by google adsense, they don't give a damn, they are happy to advertise on any site on the web, regardless what kind of site it is. Their terms of service state otherwise, but in practice, they get ignored.
you won't be missed, because the gains they get from online registration in terms of reduction in casual piracy far outweighs the 0.01% of their audience who feel the way you do.
maybe they are better businessmen than you think. Its all very well saying "you sell more with a lower price" but thats schoolboy economics. its not that simple. Some products sell MORE at a higher price, as some people want the best, and associate high price with the best. perceived value is greater than actual value in purchasing decisions. Also, given the costs of support, 2 customers at $50 are worse than 1 at $100. Also, halving the price rarely doubles the sales, depending on the product.
At every single price point, a product is a bargian for some and overpriced for others, and in every single price point, there are people at both ends saying "why dont thsoe idiot businessmen realise that..." Theres a reason these people have huge successfull software businesses, they arent as stupid as people assume they are.
"If any of these kids use Photoshop professionally, they buy a real license"
I'd like to think that's true, but a very large number of people who make very good money using software like this (or 3D Studio MAX) never buy a legit copy, even when they can afford to.
oh god, do some people really make themselves believe this shit? Its like people who eat super-processed economy food, and say they can't afford to eat better, but they have satelite TV and the latest mobile phone. Unless you are literally existing on the poverty line (people buying new PCs aren't), then its not that you can't afford it, its a matter of your own priorities. I can't afford a new car, except actually, that's bullshit, I can, I just choose to spend the money some people would make on car payments on other things. The moment people think they can wave the magic "i couldnt afford it otherwise" card and get free stuff, people will dream up all kinds of shit they 'simply couldn't afford'. If you want it, buy it. If you can't afford it, you can't have it. That's capitalism. Other governmental systems also exist, see N Korea.
someone patenting a simple equation is indeed a bad idea, and should not be allowed. Same with genes etc etc. But expanding this definition to somehow find a justification for downloading the latest harry potter movie without paying for it, despite the fact that everyone involved is relying on income from that movie to pay their rent and food bills, seems a bit of a desperate stretch to me.
yes copyright terms should be shorter, fair use needs to be supported and defined clearly. intrusive rootkit DRM is a bad idea. All this is true. Its when people use these arguments to justify downloading the latest episode of LOST which was on TV last night that they kinda lose it.
not really. If you have an idea, and I know i can get it from bittorrent, I'll just sit back and eat cakes rather than bothering to come up with an idea of my own. I'll nab your idea between mouthfulls. CHeers for your hard work.
Slashdot Mirror
oh be serious. its their work for fucks sake. im the only person with my dna. am i an evil dna monopolist? I think you need to look up monopoly in the dictionary.
The story is not nonsense, but if you would prefer to believe that because it makes you copying copyrighted content seem ok, then, yes you are just proving my point entirely.
what is this monopoly obsession about? There is no monopoly in the world of movies, music, software or games. Any dork can write software or games in his bedroom, I know, I did it, and yet people pirate my stuff, whilst whining about teh evil monopolies. How much sense does that make?
How is a discussion of monopolies even vaguely relevant to a debate on piracy? Show me the monopoly.
You are right, a lot of products have no 'light' equivalent that people without enough cash should buy. why? all sorts of reasons, but partly due to a lack of perceived demand.
The thing about buying stuff is that (as well as everything else) you become a signal in the marketplace. I know how well my games sell, and I do sequels to the popular ones, which makes sense. Now it really doesn't matter a fuck if game A is more *popular* than game B , if game B sells more. All those pirates clamouring for a sequel to game A are just out of luck. I do not even know they exist.
With widespread piracy of lightwave, releasing "lightwave lite" for $500 is going to generate very few sales. People will just pirate the full version like they do now.
If you really value something, you absolutely should buy it, however easy it is to steal it. Buying sends a signal to the marketplace which says "we want stuff like this". It's ironic that its people who pirate stuff all the time who moan the most about the quality of the content people make. The content is not aimed at them, it's aimed at honest people, by dint of financial necessity. If for no other reason than self interest, people should not warez stuff.
Bullshit.
My current PC has (legal) copies of photoshop, poser, windows vista, about 5 different games, paint shop pro, and they all seem to work fine for me. Somehow, the fact that you don't like a single sentence in the EULA does not affect photoshops floodfill, marquee selection, layer compositing or brush configuration. Nor does it affect posers rendering and animation features, or vistas file searching, device configuration or text rendering capabilities.
the vast majority of us are using commercial software every day to carry out all kinds of amazing stuff all the time. stuff our parents never thought possible. And yet you think the whole software industry is somehow conning us all, and we must be stupid because you don't like a single piece of legalese in a text file.
Get a grip.
I believe this to be wrong on two points.
Firstly define 'wasn't going to purchase' for me. If I know absolutely 100% that I can not get a piece of software / movie / game for free, I am pretty sure I am much more likely to admit to myself and others that I want it, and will purchase it, than if I have a big demon sat on my shoulder whispering "don't be a mug, you can warez it!".
Most films have trailers, software has demo's (as do games), if you see the demo and wish to enjoy the product for longer, then its pretty hard to argue that you will be getting entertainment or use from it no?
People can NEVER be honest about saying "I wouldn't have bought it" once they have the full thing for free. Our brains are great at backwards-justification. We can easily find all sorts of ways to make what we have done seem justified, we may well even delude ourselves. But that doesn't mean it's true. It's like telling yourself you would have resigned anyway if you get fired, or that she was a pain in the neck anyway when someone dumps you. Anything to make you feel like the good guy.
I spoke to a guy who does DRM for an online game publisher. Once, they rewrote their algorithm which instantly rendered all existing cracks for the games useless. Sales jumped by 40% that month. Why? surely none of those who cracked the stuff would have bought it anyway?
Secondly, your comparison is not accurate. A car is made for a single user, and priced accordingly. A movie, game or application is made with some estimation of sales, based upon the market size and product quality. Nobody makes Photoshop or Lightwave and expects to sell one copy. If you are in the target market, and get use from the product, yet you take it for free, then of course you are affecting the producer of the product. The fact that nothing physical was moved from a to b makes no difference.
People will make all kinds of rationalisation to justify taking other peoples work for free. The problem is, their philosophy never scales up to the whole of society. Why the fuck should I pay to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, it was made anyway, and I probably wouldn't have paid for it right? so what's the harm?
Until everyone thinks that way, in which case the whole business model collapses. That's the problem with people who leech, it works out fine for them (in the short run) but they fuck things up for everyone else.
Smart Cars are great (a friend of mine had one), but to someone in the UK it's just funny to hear them described as bleeding edge, I'm sure we have had them over 5 years, if not more, maybe even 8 years?
Smart cars are damned easy to park. With everyone rushing out to buy all terrain armoured cars for the school run, you often find parking spaces that most SUV drivers have to glide past that easily have room for 1 or even 2 smart cars. Small cars FTW.
on a wider issue, I tend to use a terrorism filter on pretty much everything news and entertainment related. If a game casts me as a 'special ops guy fighting middle east terrorists" then no sale. If a movie depicts an american hero fighting evil terrorists, I don't see it, ditto books, TV, etc etc. Any sci-fi author that jumps on the terrorism bandwagon will likely lose a lot of readers.
It's as bad now with 'evil terrorists' as it was in the cold war with 'evil communists'.
"The real solution is, if you make music for a living, give up revenues other than from concerts and public appearances, and regard free distribution of music as low cost marketing for your primary product. You'll make a nice amount of money anyway and your mood will improve"
wow, nice solution. Of course, if you are seriously ill, or have other reasons why performing that music live is just not possible, you should just waste your musical talent entirely and go get another career, as should people who write books, make movies, software and games (all also copyable).
I'm not sure how many people would pay money to see a 'live programming session' with will wright, but i'm sure its less than the amount who will play spore.
This is the classic "We are taking your stuff for free anyway, just deal with it!" argument, that sounds less like it comes from a rational consumer, and more like a thug with a baseball bat. I also never hear it from people who *do* actually make creative works for a living.
its a singleplayer game. If people want to claim they had a higher score than normal, then they can go for it. In singleplayer games, who cares :D
screw em. Us in our late thirties have more disposable income.
Or in the case of games (what the author writes, and what I write to), stuff that the user may want to fiddle with. I've been using data driven code for a while, but after people were so keen to mod my last 2 games, my new one (www.rocklegendgame.com) had pretty much every notable variable placed in an external text file (a fully commented one called config.txt in the data dir) with the express purpose of letting the techy gamer play with it. Theres the usual discliamer that says the game has been balanced for the default variables, but if any piece of the gameplay code upsets you, all the numbers are there for you to fiddle with.
Plus there are other benefits, it made playbalancing quicker and easier, with no recompiles, or worry about a type corrupting some code. It means I can do easier or harder builds for different publishers without recompiling the exe, and lets me toggle the game into certain cheat configs to check bugs without recompiling.
External data files containing your config FTW.
Even bungie agreed that Halo is a homage to and rip-off from, iain M Banks 'Consider Phlebas'. That is a great book, with a real story, real characters etc, not a video game. Why the fuck don't they film that instead?
Heck I agree with practically all of that. Corporate lobbying is a disaster, and should be entirely outlawed. DRM is a clumsy half-solution that causes mayhtm, but its the only way to prvent casual copyright infringement, so I'm not suprised people use it.
What annoys me is when small companies who are not pulling any of the insane DRM stunts get put in the same bracket as bastards like Sony. I wish people who pushed for fair use and copyright reform (both of which I support 100%) would also take the time to differentiate when it came to the companies making digital content. We arent all anti-consumer bastards, but we all get treated the same by people who distribute copyrighted material.
On the one hand there are evil people like sony, MPAA, RIAA, on the other hand are free-software zealots who crack my software along with everyone elses, and distribute it. Frankly, I hate both sides, but only the people distributing my stuff are actually costing me money.
you want to go live in china because in the US they want you to pay for movies you download?
is this a joke?
You jest, I made a game where you can become an accountant:
http://www.kudosgame.com/
It does really well. Maybe that's because you can also be a skateboarding molecular biologist who arrests street criminals using kung fu. Who knows?
You ranting about how much you hate microsoft does not change the facts. Both companies are huge, have made billions, and have huge market share. How on earth you think there is no way photoshop is worth $600 is beyond me. It's the market leading piece of software for designers. If I could purchase all the software I needed for my job for just $600 I would be very happy. A plumber has more than $600 of tools FFS.
Some people, especially people who try and shoehorn a dig at the RIAA into every post, are never happy unless all software is free. Something tells me that Microsoft and Adobe are more profitable than anyone releasing free software.
google isnt the government, its a privte company, they can deal with who they want to. I'm not forced to sell my products or services to anyone I don't want to, neither are google.
What annoys me is they dont give a damn about *where* they advertise. If I find a dubious website that resells copyrighted software I worked on without a licence, and is part funded by google adsense, they don't give a damn, they are happy to advertise on any site on the web, regardless what kind of site it is. Their terms of service state otherwise, but in practice, they get ignored.
you won't be missed, because the gains they get from online registration in terms of reduction in casual piracy far outweighs the 0.01% of their audience who feel the way you do.
maybe they are better businessmen than you think. Its all very well saying "you sell more with a lower price" but thats schoolboy economics. its not that simple. Some products sell MORE at a higher price, as some people want the best, and associate high price with the best. perceived value is greater than actual value in purchasing decisions. Also, given the costs of support, 2 customers at $50 are worse than 1 at $100. Also, halving the price rarely doubles the sales, depending on the product.
At every single price point, a product is a bargian for some and overpriced for others, and in every single price point, there are people at both ends saying "why dont thsoe idiot businessmen realise that..."
Theres a reason these people have huge successfull software businesses, they arent as stupid as people assume they are.
"If any of these kids use Photoshop professionally, they buy a real license"
I'd like to think that's true, but a very large number of people who make very good money using software like this (or 3D Studio MAX) never buy a legit copy, even when they can afford to.
oh god, do some people really make themselves believe this shit? Its like people who eat super-processed economy food, and say they can't afford to eat better, but they have satelite TV and the latest mobile phone. Unless you are literally existing on the poverty line (people buying new PCs aren't), then its not that you can't afford it, its a matter of your own priorities. I can't afford a new car, except actually, that's bullshit, I can, I just choose to spend the money some people would make on car payments on other things. The moment people think they can wave the magic "i couldnt afford it otherwise" card and get free stuff, people will dream up all kinds of shit they 'simply couldn't afford'.
If you want it, buy it. If you can't afford it, you can't have it. That's capitalism. Other governmental systems also exist, see N Korea.
someone patenting a simple equation is indeed a bad idea, and should not be allowed. Same with genes etc etc. But expanding this definition to somehow find a justification for downloading the latest harry potter movie without paying for it, despite the fact that everyone involved is relying on income from that movie to pay their rent and food bills, seems a bit of a desperate stretch to me.
yes copyright terms should be shorter, fair use needs to be supported and defined clearly. intrusive rootkit DRM is a bad idea. All this is true. Its when people use these arguments to justify downloading the latest episode of LOST which was on TV last night that they kinda lose it.
not really. If you have an idea, and I know i can get it from bittorrent, I'll just sit back and eat cakes rather than bothering to come up with an idea of my own. I'll nab your idea between mouthfulls. CHeers for your hard work.
i'm sure thats an over simplification, or is this the new home of child pr0n? Of course there will be some censorship.