it was just an observation of how this sort of thing could be tolerated by the copyright owners for a while

One with absolutely no relevance to the games market. If you can come up with an example of why a company selling games would benefit from piracy (viral marketing isn't it BTW) I might concede you have a point.

Ewan, what do software/music companies have if their Intellectual Property is stollen/abused to the point where the developers/musicians are not receiving a single penny from the sale of their creation?

Theft is theft, call it something else like… Eric, but it's still theft.

If there's no money in it why does a guy I know who is still in his 20's and writes games, have a massive house and two brand new posh cars? and from what I see, he does not appear to work that many hours, his wife does not work at all.

if it's all binary.
how can you copyright a series of 1s and 0s?

I've downloaded games for my kid's DS on occasion. He's also got about 30 bought games, which he hardly ever plays.
£30 a time for these crappy little games is ridiculous (definitely to me, who can't stand the waste of time that is "gaming"). If they were a tenner each, more would sell, less would be downloaded. (please don't try to tell me they would be cheaper if there was no piracy).
It's the nature of the whole Internet thing isn't it. Without the internet piracy would be minimal, but then so would the marketing (of all kinds) these things get.

I thought that Nintendo's model was to make money on the console/device and therefore didn't give two hoots over software protection – yet Sony and MS make it back on the license? Doesn't help the software house much I suppose.
—
I do think that torrents got too main stream. It became common place to hear people talking about the latest movie and downloading it before release (in Australia) so not bothering to go and watch it in the cinema. That's coming to a close though since folk have started to get desist emails from their ISPs 😯

I find it hard to get upset over people who download movies and music – it's not like those industries are dying off, movies are grossing as much as ever (Avatar anyone). Hard to get upset when the latest pop-star has to downgrade the level of private jet they fly. And as for the 'small groups are being hammered' scenario, well I'd put it that they either aren't going to be torrented as they're too small, or that extra exposure won't hurt them – their fan base will buy the music proper, and folk who ordinarily wouldn't listen to them will be trying out new (and maybe become a fan).

>If there's no money in it why does a guy I know who is still in his 20's

I know of one ex-colleague who's in that position – but I think the reality is the returns for most games developers (ie the engineers) are pretty average, salary wise. If a game does really well they'll get decent royalities from it, but for every game that is a hit, there's probably loads which aren't.

We've had several guys over the years that have joined our company, coming from game developers, and it certainly hasn't been for the money…

it's not like those industries are dying off

if you are looking at avatar and madonna as examples of people being effected by piracy you're looking in the wrong place. There are lots of income streams aside from direct sales for the big players (all sorts of broadcast, licencing and merchandising) Its smaller jobbing musicians and middle weight films that take the hit. Bands that could maybe have looked to sell tens of thousands of records (rather than hundreds of thousands) and could have made a living, rather than been 'stars' are the ones that get mullered. Same with films, I've worked on films that have been popular enough to make the top ten in the illegal download chart but barely made their (modest) budget back from sales. The result is the production company aren't in the position to make another film, even though there is a demonstrable market.

Ewan, what do software/music companies have if their Intellectual Property is stollen/abused to the point where the developers/musicians are not receiving a single penny from the sale of their creation?

Theft is theft, call it something else like… Eric, but it's still theft.

Admittedly it's not obvious why it's not theft until you think about for a bit. Probably easiest to understand by looking at an analogy:

If I have a car, and you take my car, I do not have a car any more. However if I have some software and you copy the software, we both have the software.

That's why it's copy right infringement not theft.

Ewan

How about I get a copy of the keys for your car and drive it around while you are still at work. I'll use your petrol but will always return it before 5:30.

I guess you will not mind as I haven't stolen the car and you can still use it the rest of the time?

Graham – I wasn't saying it wasn't wrong, I was just saying that it's not theft. That's a statement of fact. It's an entirely different offence so the comparisons with theft are not valid.

Besides, your analogy is still incorrect. A more accurate analogy would be if you looked at my car, carefully measured, replicated, and assembled every component, fueled it with your own petrol (electricity in the case of software), all whilst never actually touching my car or rendering it unavailable to me.

Ewan

It may not be theft but it's very close to it. I don't think your analogy is correct as although you own the car you didn't design it (mine was poor as well). Do you considerer intellectual property not to be property? Its difficult because while you are correct to say that in copying you don't deprive the owner of their copy but you are depriving the creator of their revenue.

I should say I'm not really happy about switching from an owner the a rights holder, I can always sell CD but I can't do the same with an eBook or an MP3

Personally I don't think all intellectual property should be classed as property – for example I struggle with the legitimacy of software patents. Music / software is more clear cut – however I do think that criminalising a large portion of the population is not a good solution. A change in business model is what's needed.

I think you are right to say that a change of business model is needed for music but I'm not so sure how it will work for software.

I think that the games developers will switch to more online content in the style of World of Warcraft and Second Life.

For other types of software I've noticed a trend towards free software but paid support.

@ skid artist. There's no correlation between few sales and lots of torrenting. This is bad regression analysis.
It's like saying "cool look Avatar's doing really well in the cinema so no one will torrent it." I suspect that's not going to be the case.
There's more to be said for financial climate, suitability for big screen, marketing, global releases at the same time, etc etc.
An example of this would be Harry Brown – good film (apparently) but not released in Aus. If I want to watch it and talk about it to friends in the UK I'll need to torrent it.
But, Iron Man, came out everywhere at the same time (I think), and although there's heaps of torrents about for it, it's something that a lot of folk I work with have gone to see, it's just a good film to watch in the cinema. And there's a heap who have bought the blu-ray disk too. That's not even easy to torrent it's so big…

The distribution company still takes the lions share for doing [pretty much] nothing

Presumably you do your work as a Satellite broadcaster for free then 😉

An example of this would be Harry Brown – good film (apparently) but not released in Aus. If I want to watch it and talk about it to friends in the UK I'll need to torrent it.

Or order it on-line and pay for it.

Presumably you do your work as a Satellite broadcaster for free then

Whoooooooooooooooooooosssssssshhhhhhhh………………….

No, but we get a lot less now than we used to for sat time as the technology has changed & more methods for distribution have become available
the music distributors still want the same cut however they deliver it, because it's easy for them to shaft the artist

It's not a great service, and it needs more games on it, but if you've got a Wii as well there is a "try-before-you-buy" facility where you can download a limited number of DS demos from the Nintendo channel.

Personally I don't think all intellectual property should be classed as property – for example I struggle with the legitimacy of software patents. Music / software is more clear cut – however I do think that criminalising a large portion of the population is not a good solution. A change in business model is what's needed.

maybe a change in thinking is needed.
without software patents those areas of business that rely on the copyright designs and patents act 1988 to enforce their intellectual property rights will cease to exist.
extensive pirating will mean less choice of software apart from open source stuff. i would rather pay for good software that works than steal free software that doesn't.

I've downloaded games for my kid's DS on occasion. He's also got about 30 bought games, which he hardly ever plays.
£30 a time for these crappy little games is ridiculous (definitely to me, who can't stand the waste of time that is "gaming").

So what you're saying is that you bought a load of bad games, at full price, without even finding out what they are about. And they should be cheaper.

Two things really

1) they are cheaper – only a sucker pays £30 for a game except for the latest big game on the day of release. Most of my games (except for Zelda etc. that I had to buy straight away) cost under £20. Mostly new, although I have picked up a few 2nd hand ones.

2) I think you don't appreciate how much work goes into some of these games – things like Zelda have teams of 50+ people working on them, the cost is well into the millions of pounds, and there's only so many games they can sell (about 50 million maximum currently), so for games like that £30 seems pretty fair really.

It is depressing how people can completely write off a whole genre of stuff just because they don't understand it though – if I said "I can't stand those crappy little movies", or "I hate those crappy little books", people would think I was pretty stupid no?

Piracy of software in general is big business, and not done by greasy hackers in their bedrooms anymore. This is a business more profitable than selling drugs, and funds organised crime.

It's done by groups, some of which have been around for years for a status thing. They release them for free on to torrent sites, they don't make any money it's against their 'code'.

the music distributors still want the same cut however they deliver it, because it's easy for them to shaft the artist

A big part of me agrees with that. I'm never going to pay £7 for MP3 when I can buy the CD for a few pounds more. However, you can see why they do it. If sales are down about 30% in a decade, I think they're just trying to maintain profit levels.

So what you're saying is that you bought a load of bad games, at full price, without even finding out what they are about. And they should be cheaper.

No, I've never bought him a game. The games he's got are the ones he's asked for from relatives etc.

It is depressing how people can completely write off a whole genre of stuff just because they don't understand it

joe. understand? Seriously? We are talking about playing games.

Dez, I think you're missing Joe's point.

Much like a film or book, games can tell stories, and engage the player on many levels, You can feel for the characters emotionally etc etc too. Why should they be any less valid a form of creative expression than films or books? Indeed they can be more engaging than the above, as one (or more) of the characters in the story is you, and you make their choices.

EDIT: assuming i'm not missing you're point, i took "playing games" to be meant in a condescending way, much like watching films could be just "staring blankly at flashing lights".

and funds organised crime.

I always love that comment. What exactly do you mean by organised crime? To me it always means things like importing drugs, prostitution, extortion rackets etc. But you must mean something totally different as none of those activities need funding by software piracy (or if the piracy is so lucrative why bother doing the other stuff?)