David, I completely disagree with your statement. You are basicly saying that it''s not that someone''s rights are being violated that is wrong, but that someone gains something for nothing! Jealousy!
Copyright in itself was instated to protect creators from the monetary losses that copying can bring. If it wasn''t for those losses there would not be a need for copyright and all copying would be legal.
Henry
illegal software copies
If you make a game only playable on the Internet - Isn''t it possible to allow only ONE game with serial nr X at the same time? It wouldn''t be perfect, but if you buy a game you''ll think twice before copying it for some else!
The next step for software developers must be to start publishing their games/applications on DVD''s.
Just make sure that its too big for a CD and you''ll be safe for the next many years as DVD Recorders are still REALLY expensive.
Regards
nicba
Just make sure that its too big for a CD and you''ll be safe for the next many years as DVD Recorders are still REALLY expensive.
Regards
nicba
No it is not jealousy. I could I suppose if I wanted copy other people''s CDs or download them warez things, but I don''t want to. I want to appreciate someone''s hard work by actually paying for it. Developers don''t spend years on a game just so it can be thrown around the internet as freeware. It''s disrespecting their work, saying that the game isn''t worth paying for.
"Wash away us all....Take us with the Floods..."
"Wash away us all....Take us with the Floods..."
What I''ve noticed in a lot of people I''ve talked to about software (and music) piracy is that they are very self-centered in their thinking. Basically, what I mean is that they think of it as "These companies are making millions of money off of all the originals they are selling, so if I just copy a $15 CD/$50 game/etc. then it''s not even going to dent their income." There are two flaws in this thinking: first of all, the developers/musicians are NOT making very much money at all off of the originals. Most of the money goes to the publishers/recording companies, advertising, and other bussiness stuff. Very little actually reaches the band/development team. Also, the idea that "if I just copy ONE CD/game, it won''t hurt them" could actually be logically defended if it weren''t for one aspect of this problem: How many other people have your same idea about the same game? Sure, $15 that some kid didn''t spend on a game might not hurt, but what if 1000 kids didn''t spend $15 on the game? I''d be pretty angry if I was getting ripped off by $15000 because 1000 kids didn''t want to pay a lousy $15 for my game.
I can understand what is being said here to some extent. Yes, in order to make any good game, you really have to enjoy your job developing it. But, here''s the flaw in your thinking: game development isn''t a loosely bound group of hackers doing what they love anymore. It''s an industry, consisting mostly of professionals. Yes, we do still have the independant game developers, who perhaps have an outside source of income and do it as a hobby--and if they make any money is an added bonus, perhaps. But mostly, the industry is run by people who depend on the profits on these games to eat. And, no, these aren''t usually the guys working at big development corporations like Sierra or Eidos, they''re people working in smaller companies, like the former Looking Glass, or Valve. And these companies depend on the revenues from the games to stay in bussiness. Every person that gets an illeagle copy of a game is one less copy sold by the publisher. These figures matter when a company is deciding whether or not to publish/invest in your next game.
Okay, I''ll get off my soap box now, so everyone that disagrees with me can beat me to death with herrings.
P h a n t a s m
"Through dreams I control mankind."
--Legend
quote:One painful part of developing a game is that you must really enjoy creating a game, and be able to accept that the only benefits it may offer is enjoyment for other people. If you are making a game only for money then there is something very wrong with your intentions, and you probably won''t be sucessful.
I can understand what is being said here to some extent. Yes, in order to make any good game, you really have to enjoy your job developing it. But, here''s the flaw in your thinking: game development isn''t a loosely bound group of hackers doing what they love anymore. It''s an industry, consisting mostly of professionals. Yes, we do still have the independant game developers, who perhaps have an outside source of income and do it as a hobby--and if they make any money is an added bonus, perhaps. But mostly, the industry is run by people who depend on the profits on these games to eat. And, no, these aren''t usually the guys working at big development corporations like Sierra or Eidos, they''re people working in smaller companies, like the former Looking Glass, or Valve. And these companies depend on the revenues from the games to stay in bussiness. Every person that gets an illeagle copy of a game is one less copy sold by the publisher. These figures matter when a company is deciding whether or not to publish/invest in your next game.
Okay, I''ll get off my soap box now, so everyone that disagrees with me can beat me to death with herrings.
P h a n t a s m
"Through dreams I control mankind."
--Legend
Nicba: it''s a sad fact that not everyone yet has dvd players (like me...)
About the rest... remember with diskettes, they used to have these copy protection things at the beginning of the game, and you''d have to look up a picture in the manual and say what page it was on, or some such similar thing?
Well, we have the internet, and with modern technology, surely it couldn''t be too hard to get some kinda system, by which you have to register your product, which sends in the serial code and returns a program that will unlock your game, thus allowing you access. Now that serial code is stored as used, and so if anyone else tries to register the same serial code to unlock their product, it won''t work. However, a couple of pitfalls exist, firstly crackers... well we''ve had a whole thread about this, so I wont divulge on the subject, but the second problem: what if you want to lend the game to a friend or something(Is this legal)? You could make it possible to unlock the serial number, locking your copy of it, in such a way that someone else may use it...
That of course is just an idea, but surely, it can''t be too difficult to protect your property?
J2xC (J. Connolly)
You were expecting something funny, weren't you!
About the rest... remember with diskettes, they used to have these copy protection things at the beginning of the game, and you''d have to look up a picture in the manual and say what page it was on, or some such similar thing?
Well, we have the internet, and with modern technology, surely it couldn''t be too hard to get some kinda system, by which you have to register your product, which sends in the serial code and returns a program that will unlock your game, thus allowing you access. Now that serial code is stored as used, and so if anyone else tries to register the same serial code to unlock their product, it won''t work. However, a couple of pitfalls exist, firstly crackers... well we''ve had a whole thread about this, so I wont divulge on the subject, but the second problem: what if you want to lend the game to a friend or something(Is this legal)? You could make it possible to unlock the serial number, locking your copy of it, in such a way that someone else may use it...
That of course is just an idea, but surely, it can''t be too difficult to protect your property?
J2xC (J. Connolly)
You were expecting something funny, weren't you!
quote:Original post by J2xC
Well, we have the internet, and with modern technology, surely it couldn''t be too hard to get some kinda system, by which you have to register your product, which sends in the serial code and returns a program that will unlock your game, thus allowing you access. Now that serial code is stored as used, and so if anyone else tries to register the same serial code to unlock their product, it won''t work. However, a couple of pitfalls exist, firstly crackers... well we''ve had a whole thread about this, so I wont divulge on the subject, but the second problem: what if you want to lend the game to a friend or something(Is this legal)? You could make it possible to unlock the serial number, locking your copy of it, in such a way that someone else may use it...
Hello!
A anti-piracy system would make something like you said, but to non-online programs it would be very easy crackable (well, as easy as it is today to crack programs that need serial code or "the third word on the fifth page of your manual"). Thats because the decryption algorithm (sp? sp?) is inside the program, while if you have something online-only like Ultima Online, or Everquest, the server is the one who checks if your serial code is valid or not, so the only way to crack the game is to find out the encryption algorithm (could take months/years, or seconds) and then make serial codes to be able to login on the server.
If your program/game is not online-only, its probably very easily crackeable, so this kind of protection affects only a small percentage of games/programs around (I heard Microsoft was planning to do something like this, like a rental of MS Office via Internet, so they could earn more money by avoiding piracy, heh).
Those are my cents on this subject, cya,
-RoTTer
Phantasm wrote: >> Every person that gets an illeagle copy of a game is one less copy sold by the publisher. >>
This is false, period. Look at the kind of volumes of MP3 songs and games that people keep on their harddrives. Many would not be able to afford those songs legally if they spent all the money they had on them. Do you think Photoshop would still be the leading graphics application if everyone had to pay the price they charge for it? No, most non-professionals would choose other products (and the professionals really make up a quite small part of all the people who uses graphics applications). Has the record sales gone down since people started using MP3? No. Just because people copy something does not mean that they would buy it if they could not copy it.
Like I said before, illegal copying is theft when it hurts the authors economically but not all illegal copying is theft (it''s still illegal but maybe not quite so immoral).
Henry
This is false, period. Look at the kind of volumes of MP3 songs and games that people keep on their harddrives. Many would not be able to afford those songs legally if they spent all the money they had on them. Do you think Photoshop would still be the leading graphics application if everyone had to pay the price they charge for it? No, most non-professionals would choose other products (and the professionals really make up a quite small part of all the people who uses graphics applications). Has the record sales gone down since people started using MP3? No. Just because people copy something does not mean that they would buy it if they could not copy it.
Like I said before, illegal copying is theft when it hurts the authors economically but not all illegal copying is theft (it''s still illegal but maybe not quite so immoral).
Henry
quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Phantasm wrote: >> Every person that gets an illeagle copy of a game is one less copy sold by the publisher. >>
This is false, period. Look at the kind of volumes of MP3 songs and games that people keep on their harddrives. Many would not be able to afford those songs legally if they spent all the money they had on them. Do you think Photoshop would still be the leading graphics application if everyone had to pay the price they charge for it? No, most non-professionals would choose other products (and the professionals really make up a quite small part of all the people who uses graphics applications). Has the record sales gone down since people started using MP3? No. Just because people copy something does not mean that they would buy it if they could not copy it.
Like I said before, illegal copying is theft when it hurts the authors economically but not all illegal copying is theft (it''s still illegal but maybe not quite so immoral).
Henry
Hey.
Uhm, nah, I disagree. They wouldnt have the money, but if they keep checking every day the home page of that game checking screenshots, he would certainly start saving money to buy that game, or maybe steal from people in street to buy that game (heeh), but no. He doesnt steal from people in the streets but steals the game that is in the shelf of the shop (by pirating) cause its almost riskless, while stealing from people in streets if highly risky.
Thats just setting priorities :
1) "I want game X. I dont have $. I steal game X." or
2) "I want game X. I dont have $. I steal $. I buy game X.".
Everybody seems to pick "1)", sadly for the developers (and us), cause its much harder to arrest someone for doing 1). Actually, you dont get arrested (at least here in Brazil) for doing 1) (meaning steal as pirate), you have to pay a fee of, as far as I remember, 3000x the price of the "game X" - Thats 3000 * 50 = 150.000 dollars, which is probably less than the fee to get out of jail if you steal 50 dollars from someone in the street. But, again, its almost impossible to get caught pirating the game.
Oh well, those are my cents. Cya,
-RoTTer
>> Uhm, nah, I disagree. They wouldnt have the money, but if they keep checking every day the home page of that game checking screenshots, he would certainly start saving money to buy that game, or maybe steal from people in street to buy that game (heeh), but no. >>
That''s true but most of the piracy doesn''t work that way. It works by someone copying a CD with 15 games and maybe playing one of them (that''s changing as games are becoming bigger and bigger). The same thing with non-game software. Most of the illegal copies exist in these batches of games and are not carefully sought out targets of pirates. Most illegally copied software for private use would not be bought if copying was not possible (many computers would not have been bought either if that was the case but that''s a different issue).
Still, that does not contradict anything I''ve said before. It''s theft if the developers are losing money from the copying, otherwise you can only label it ''illegal copying'' (labeling it theft would really trivialize the concept of theft since nothing is being stolen).
Henry
That''s true but most of the piracy doesn''t work that way. It works by someone copying a CD with 15 games and maybe playing one of them (that''s changing as games are becoming bigger and bigger). The same thing with non-game software. Most of the illegal copies exist in these batches of games and are not carefully sought out targets of pirates. Most illegally copied software for private use would not be bought if copying was not possible (many computers would not have been bought either if that was the case but that''s a different issue).
Still, that does not contradict anything I''ve said before. It''s theft if the developers are losing money from the copying, otherwise you can only label it ''illegal copying'' (labeling it theft would really trivialize the concept of theft since nothing is being stolen).
Henry
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