Piracy

How many RTS games have you played released in the past year that have clan support and stat tracking?  How many of them charged for online service.

The simple answer to why they would not charge for it requires knowledge of economics.  If they charged for the service less people would buy the product after all why get this game that is pay to play when there is another for free.  They make enough money from sales and WoW to pay for all the BNet features they will ever need so there is no reason to alienate their buyer base.

In the case of Battle Net charging less can actually lead to more profits

 

blizzard would only implement a subscription service if they really really really had to, if they did put a subscription it would probably be around $20 a year for server maintanence.

 

An RTS charging a monthly fee would be heresy.

 

Yove got hell of a point there. Most of the groups I currently listen to I came to know about them through piracy. Im not the CD kind of man, but ive payed a lot to see like 20 bands in different concerts.

 

piracy is fine if you wouldn't have bought it anyways, even if the money for the thing just suddenly fell out of the sky.


to all who oppose piracy, name one bad thing about it, in the instance i just stated.

 

There's no way Blizzard would risk implementing a subscription service. For one, I won't buy the game simply out of principle (I know it's SC2, but come on).

Also, piracy is a loophole in the law right now that won't be closed for some time. Is it wrong? I don't think that's necessarily been determined yet. Of course the record labels are going to say it's wrong. Why would they want to come up with a new system?

The truth they need to face is that technology is rapidly growing out of anyone's control. Game makers are the leaders in keeping with it and they're not doing so hot themselves. Sometimes less than a year after a game comes out it's been cracked (Doom 3). Subscription services are a way to combat it, but they don't solve the solution. In fact, when you institute a subscription, it tends to increase piracy and non-central servers (people run their own). There was actually a lawsuit about this that the game company won.

Meanwhile, there is so much information out there and it's free! Some of it is higher quality than what you can buy in stores. I like to download music, but I don't do it very often. I use XM Radio online... it's free and I don't have to worry about it. But every so often I download the year's top 30 hits and delete the R&B. You end up with some good stuff.

 

It's not so much a loophole as it is just hard to enforce. It is wrong and has been illegal for a long time. Look at the FBI warning at the beginning of a movie. A while ago, it was people copying VHSs and selling them on the street. Now the problem has simply taken a new form. You can get arrested for uploading a ton of copyrighted material. They don't really go after downloaders so much.

 

Of course they're going to enforce copyrights. But it's not technically "illegal." The definition of illegal means it's against the LAW. Copyright technically isn't a criminal law so much as a civil definition of ownership.

The legislature has created laws for certain types of copyright that carry criminal charges for infringement, but that doesn't mean that you can be arrested for infringing on ANY copyright.

There's also a difference between distribution for profit and simple distribution.

Technically a copyright is meant to prohibit the reproduction and SALE of goods. Not the sharing of it. The definition of copyright has actually been changed in the past 10 years (rather recently) because it used to be that once you owned a CD, or VHS, etc. you could copy it for as many people as you liked so long as you didn't require payment for it. Now, is that wrong because those people aren't paying for that product? Maybe. But maybe not. That hasn't really "officially" been determined.

Intellectual property is a number of things, movies, music, art, and things like software can peripherally fall under this category. The laws that guard these properties are relatively undeveloped and new. Enforcement hasn't yet been perfected.

But yet again, in a society so governed by "morals" dictated by whatever you wish it to be: religion, etc... there's actually a lot of room for difference in perspective.

I mean think about it. $600 for certain programs for RECREATIONAL use? Is that program really worth that money? Sometimes. But most often not.

 

...you don't consider piracy to have to do with reproduction?

 

It's all in perspective. There's a difference between reproduction for sale and just plain reproduction. Technically, so long as you don't try to turn a profit from it, reproducing copies and giving them to friends is perfectly legal.

Who's to say when you share files or movies, etc. that you're not sharing it with a friend who happens to live halfway around the globe?

There needs to be a change in the industry to cope with the changes in technology.

Am I saying it's right to redistribute these works even without profit? Not really. I do believe people are entitled to be compensated for their work, of course, because I want to be compensated for mine.

But there is a need for a change in medium, or in the way the whole matter is approached. There is going to be compromise whether industrial leaders want it or not. The problem won't simply go away because they cry about it.

 

hmm regarding piracy,

certain things i would willingly pay for to get if it was feasable and i pirate those things, ex=office 07 $300 , FFVII $270 i would pay for them if they were you know... cheaper....

other things i pirate are like a couple of songs, in my life ive only dled like 20 different songs total so i guess thats not too big a deal, i pay for the rest.

3rd type of things ive pirated are things that you cant get anymore, like super nintendo games,
only dled 2 of them and for both i still own original copys, making it legal. ex=Breath of fire, legend of zelda a link to the past.

also my last type of piracy is the legal type,....ish....
like i got a image file of starcraft and broodwar, but ive bought the set at least 4 times. (gotta remember that cd key) also i have diablo 2 on here, also i own that have like 2 copys.

 

Well but what if I copy a version of the game for my friend, so he doesnt have to buy it? Thats also a loss for the company. Tho I dont care.

 

Wow, ive got like 5 GB of downloaded music, and I deleated half of it the other day cos I didnt listen too much to it. So I had 10 GB of ilegal material. Ima burn in hell.

 

I already covered that Lemmy. Technically, since you didn't ask your friend for money in return for your copy, you are within your rights. But that may soon change, and they already claim that is illegal.

 

You can get a new key from Blizzard provided you mail in your disk and $10 as profof you own the game and for shipping of the key and disc return

 

or.... i could go to my local convenence store and buy a brand new copy of starcraft for $8.99 + tax

 

I use RM5 per disk,so I don't think anyone here in this forum can get any cheaper than I do.

 

Damn that cheap now!! Actually I am not even sure if getting a Key costs the 10 bucks I just guessed that because they charge it for manual and disk replacement

 

Piracy feels good doesn't it?Good for me...

 

yeah untill u get a stupid web site adrress saying "your internet service pervider has detected you downloading copywrited materals, please delete them or be subject to fines" and it dont let u on internet....

happend to me before.