Pirates...

[evilneko]

Hey, somebody gets it:

 

Michael Geist, who teaches Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, recently detailed a pioneering, six-year study of piracy in six emerging economies--including Brazil and India—that ultimately concludes that "piracy is chiefly a product of a market failure, not a legal one."

 

From http://www.informationweek.com/articles/229401628

 

In short: piracy is a symptom, not the disease.

 

So let's report pirates to the content makers instead of law enforcement, who can then maybe learn something from them ("Why did you pirate this?") and adjust their marketing accordingly and have a bigger impact than legal action ever could.

 

And all we'd need to do that is an email address, which every user provides when they register. :thumbsup:

 

Unfortunately most probably won't be as clued in as this.

[ginnyfizz]

And I can just imagine the answer

 

"Because I am too much of a tightwad/too poor boohoo but I still must have it now, and I don't care a jot about the fact that me and all the rest of the pirates are probably jacking up future prices for the poor saps who pay, believing that they are supporting game/music/whatever development. Yah boo, ya suckers!"

 

Make them walk the plank. Keel haul them. There is an analogous situation going on here in the UK with motor insurance, which is compulsory. There is a two fold problem. First - the folks who seem not to think that this requirement applies to them, who drive without insurance, cause accidents meaning that a combination of the Motor Insurers Bureau and the victims insurers have to pay out, and skyward go the premiums. Second, the combination of ambulance chasing lawyers and people who don't mind making dubious accident claims, insurers are paying out and up go the premiums. Result - motor insurance is now rocketing so high that soon motoring is going to be beyond the reach of Mr and Ms Average and Law Abiding. I have had no claims in about 15 years but mine went up by £200 per year.

 

Pirating games/music/video is exactly the same, it's all part of the "me, me, me and stuff the rest of you", amoral attitude that is so prevalent today.

[DeTomaso]

You'll probably find none of the illegals unless he reveals himself. And then a report by us is already again useless.

Oh well, you could denunciate the wrong half of the members. But is that really what you want?

[ginnyfizz]

We are talking about people who we have got bang to rights, it's a fair cop guv, caught red handed. In the UK at least, the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the standard of proof in a criminal trial is "beyond reasonable doubt". And it would not be that hard to get evidence, judging by the number of pirates that condemn themselves out of their own mouths on this site alone very day, and knowing how easy it is to track IP addresses. True, Britain's ISP's resisted a move to routinely monitor their customers' downloading habits. However, if a person is already under investigation (for whatever crime) by the police it is commonplace to seize PC's. Therefore if the crime involved downloads of anything illegal, the traces would be there.

 

There is always the chance of getting the wrong person, but where cyber stuff is concerned, the proof is relatively easy to get. Look how promptly Dark0ne got hold of (warmly, by the throat I hope...)the miserable little worm who made the DDoS on this site.

[grannywils]

And I can just imagine the answer

 

"Because I am too much of a tightwad/too poor boohoo but I still must have it now, and I don't care a jot about the fact that me and all the rest of the pirates are probably jacking up future prices for the poor saps who pay, believing that they are supporting game/music/whatever development. Yah boo, ya suckers!"

 

Make them walk the plank. Keel haul them. There is an analogous situation going on here in the UK with motor insurance, which is compulsory. There is a two fold problem. First - the folks who seem not to think that this requirement applies to them, who drive without insurance, cause accidents meaning that a combination of the Motor Insurers Bureau and the victims insurers have to pay out, and skyward go the premiums. Second, the combination of ambulance chasing lawyers and people who don't mind making dubious accident claims, insurers are paying out and up go the premiums. Result - motor insurance is now rocketing so high that soon motoring is going to be beyond the reach of Mr and Ms Average and Law Abiding. I have had no claims in about 15 years but mine went up by £200 per year.

 

Pirating games/music/video is exactly the same, it's all part of the "me, me, me and stuff the rest of you", amoral attitude that is so prevalent today.

 

Ginny,oh how I have missed you!!!!

[DeTomaso]

There is always the chance of getting the wrong person, but where cyber stuff is concerned, the proof is relatively easy to get. Look how promptly Dark0ne got hold of (warmly, by the throat I hope...)the miserable little worm who made the DDoS on this site.

 

Well, I hear no voices from on high, as such I don't know if you are a legal one or a pirate and high probably never will. And what goes for you goes for the vast majority of all members that produce nothing, This is no multiplayer forum with direct interaction of players in game. All we know is that already statistically seen many of the members are illegal. I still believe that the eschewal of inoffical installation support (btw totally unasked by the game publishers) is the only key to dry out the phenomenon, at least on the forums.

Any alternative?

Edited April 18, 2011 by DeTomaso

[ginnyfizz]

Good grief, who said anything about reporting them to authorities THAT high? Voices from on high - I'd be a little concerned if you were hearing many of those. I was thinking of reporting them to whatever regulatory body applies, or their ISP, not God and the Chorus Angelorum.

 

From what I remember when the government in the UK here came up with the jolly wheeze of trying to make ISP's police downloading activity (in their usual half assed way), it wasn't that there was much difficulty in proving who was downloading stuff that they shouldn't, so much as the sheer volume of the stuff involved and that the ISP's would have been forced to cut off half of their customers, and hence a great deal of their revenue from telephone and internet packages. Not to mention the ethics of routine monitoring of the law abiding.

 

Personally I can think of a punishment for these pirates that would be much funnier. They should be made to have a camera installed in order to film the inevitable moment when they download a cracked version of something, and they cop a download that contains more than they bargained for, something nasty I mean, especially if it is of the hard drive eating kind. And it should then be posted on YouTube so that we can all have a giggle at their expense. (That's tongue in cheek... :tongue: )

[marharth]

Good grief, who said anything about reporting them to authorities THAT high? Voices from on high - I'd be a little concerned if you were hearing many of those. I was thinking of reporting them to whatever regulatory body applies, or their ISP, not God and the Chorus Angelorum.

 

From what I remember when the government in the UK here came up with the jolly wheeze of trying to make ISP's police downloading activity (in their usual half assed way), it wasn't that there was much difficulty in proving who was downloading stuff that they shouldn't, so much as the sheer volume of the stuff involved and that the ISP's would have been forced to cut off half of their customers, and hence a great deal of their revenue from telephone and internet packages. Not to mention the ethics of routine monitoring of the law abiding.

 

Personally I can think of a punishment for these pirates that would be much funnier. They should be made to have a camera installed in order to film the inevitable moment when they download a cracked version of something, and they cop a download that contains more than they bargained for, something nasty I mean, especially if it is of the hard drive eating kind. And it should then be posted on YouTube so that we can all have a giggle at their expense. (That's tongue in cheek... :tongue: )

I would like to make the point that if your stupid enough to tell millions of people you did a large crime, it is also likely your too stupid to be able to tell if a file has a virus or not.

 

I think its likely a lot of pirates do get their computers f***ed up by viruses, especially the super dumb ones.

 

 

I think piracy works itself out own its own without much law enforcement.

 

Many people don't do it for moral reasons, other people fear getting caught.

 

The people who do it will likely get a virus at some point.

 

Anyways more pirates would buy the game if they made special online features that would be impossible to access without buying a official account, like in minecraft.

 

I would say a good percentage of people with a minecraft account pirated it first and decided it would be a lot better with online features.

 

If companies want to avoid piracy it would be best for them to develop new software to counter it, and by software I do not mean secruity software.

[Halororor]

No, simply because trying to track down millions of people is futile. Wanna fight piracy? Make games cheaper. $60 a new game is ridiculous. Make it $20, more people are willing and able to pay it, so you make more money.

[LHammonds]

I would say a good percentage of people with a minecraft account pirated it first and decided it would be a lot better with online features.

Seriously? Where do you get that idea? There is a free-to-play classic version right on his main page. If you play that, you will get a good feel for what it is like...minus the creatures and crafting.