What's the best way to reduce piracy?

[Yankyal]

until every dlc and every patch is free i refuse to waste $60 on a game and find out i can't even access all of its content until i shell out more money.


if music artists were the one receiving most of the profit, and not labels more people would buy music.


i'm poor so i will pirate regardless but this is for people who have the option to buy it. no one will care about pirating if it's only hurting huge greedy companies like EA.

[HeroicHero]

Not really a practical solution, but I think fixing the economy would get more people to purchase downloads instead of pirating them. There is some correlation between a rise in theft and the downturn of the economy. If there is more prosperity in  a country and more people have jobs and that extra money to spend on things like entertainment, more and more people will purchase instead of resorting to piracy.

But I don't think piracy will ever die. People love "free" stuff.

[Scotty]

Its hard to give those kinds specifics. I don't think any of us here have the business experience to give or a digital media company to test what parts of "Streamline", and "Reduce prices" work. And its hard for real business to do so also because messing up could mean going out of business. And what works for music may not work for video.

It isn't a matter of knowledge of economics, or understanding marketing, it's the fact that the RIAA for the first time ever is acknowledging that there is a problem, and that instead of legislation, innovation may be the answer.  Throwing your hands up and saying "I dunno, someone else who's more qualified to answer the question should speak up" is not going to yield any results.  That's like saying "I hate the President, he's a load of crap and shouldn't get a second term", and then not voting because you don't know any of the politics of the opposing side, or are just too lazy to do the research to find your answer.  I addressed his answer with broad questions because he was very general in his response, and if he can refine it down to simple-to-understand concept(s), it may be easier to build off of, which he did.  Wanna complain?  Better have a proposal for a solution.  That's my general thinking behind problems.  If people wanna bitch and demand change, they best have a good idea of what it is they wanna change and how they should go about doing it.  Simply playing ignorance will get you absolutely no where and you'll continue to bitch until you educate yourself and work on coming up with a reasonable solution.

I'll give you a better reply when I get home from work, but I think at the most basic level, it means companies need to start trying to help the customer rather than milk them for all their worth. Steam is a huge example of that. When I buy a game and get a great discount, I feel like they're helping me out, not nickel and diming me. Download speeds are quick, games are competitively priced, and I can install them on multiple computers. I can tell they're trying to create a great experience for the consumer. Netflix is another great example of doing things right. Sure they jacked up the prices recently, but how can you beat unlimited streaming of movies and tv shows for like 8 dollars a month. It's way easier to go on netflix and watch a couple episodes of how I met your mother then it is to pirate them and have to wait.

I like the concept of Netflix, and don't even necessarily find the price hikes very relevant given the topic of piracy, but there is still the underlying flaw of Netflix.  They are at the mercy of the media industry.  They don't have free reign to host any ol' shows, and Hollywood would rather suck-start a .45 before handing over all of their films.  They lose money, thus the majority of what you find on Netflix is either old, B-rated, or were just a plain flop in box office that they can't go anywhere but up.  Netflix fights tooth and nail to get content, and the media industry would much rather we go out and fork over the $20 dollars to get the blu-ray than give them a fraction of a $10-$15 dollar monthly subscription price.  Essentially, they're being really effin' greedy.  Heck, I remember (don't quote me exactly on this) reading a while back that streaming is on the rise, and video piracy is on the decline.  The main contributor to this effect is believed to be Netflix and other media streaming services.  Hollywood must have completely ignored this statistic and decided they'd rather just continue to have the RIAA do all the bitch work and sue the asses off the people who pirate their stuff rather than feed into the rising demand for streaming content.  It's the most greedy, selfish BS I've heard of.  They would rather lose money than pay into services like Netflix where they're guaranteed to at least get some money from those who would otherwise pirate their content without second thought.

Not really a practical solution, but I think fixing the economy would get more people to purchase downloads instead of pirating them. There is some correlation between a rise in theft and the downturn of the economy. If there is more prosperity in  a country and more people have jobs and that extra money to spend on things like entertainment, more and more people will purchase instead of resorting to piracy.

But I don't think piracy will ever die. People love "free" stuff.

I agree entirely.  A lot of people plain cannot afford to purchase all of the stuff they pirate, even if they would want to fork over the cash.  Heck, people have to cut back on hobbies and make drastic lifestyle changes.  While they sit at home as opposed to going out and having fun, they might as well get some movies or music to help pass the time while they wallow in the world's crap economy.  It makes perfect sense.  In an ideal economy there would be plenty of people who wouldn't mind paying for the movies, music, and games, but unfortunately a lot of people are having hard times even holding down jobs, let alone spending their money on luxuries they could otherwise "acquire".

[ARTgames]

Scotty that is not what I meant, but anyway I think this post will better fit why you made this topic.

To reduce piracy we need to try make it easier to buy than to steal. One of those factors being price, its hard to compete with the free price of privacy but if we (the company) don't try to gouge out every cent than we have a better time getting at piracy.

This section is more about video
=======================
Make it possible for the consumer to buy a la carte:
Don't get me wrong this is actually happening on many digatal stores but what I'm particularly getting at is cable TV. Many people I speak to who pirate tv content do it because they don't want to pay for all the crap channels and only pay for a few that they really want. Let them do that and some money is better than no money as they turn to the internet.

Put your content everywhere and get it there fast:
Have a stander paid online service that gets the content out faster than the pirates can. If I can go online and stream the video live at the same time it airs on tv than that's more appealing to me than having to weight for the pirates to encode it + the time for me to download it. Taking a week or even a year or maybe even never to put out the episodes online will just make copying it seem worth it to people.

Stop forcing people into old business practices:
This is more for movies. Movie theaters are nice but having that be the only way to get new movies seems old fashioned. They also charge so much to see it its almost worth it to just buy it later on. But if you can get the new hot movie online for a reasonably price that would make it more worth whiled. There would still be a reason to go for the big screen but for the people who don't care about the big screen, don't like the theaters, cant afford the theaters this is the way you can get them.

If you don't put it online, pirates will:
If you have anything worth while to put online it will make its way there. You (the company) have a advantage over the pirates, you can release something faster than them and get the word out fast. And never putting it there is not smart. Your missing out on a opportunity that others will do for you that you will not benefit from.

This is more about music
==================
This one seems hard. We can get music easy and buy only what we like. But yet many people still pirate it. The best thing i can think of is paid streaming services. We have those also. You can really find any song on you tube for example. I guess just put ads on those videos. Which they do.

Probably a bad idea but I think a good idea would be to use music to attack people to buy other products. But i don't want music to turn into just ads also. But having something like that plays music for free but also shows you other things maybe related to the song for purchase would help.

Also something I think would interest people to make good word of mouth about you is to start releasing music at least at CD quality. I can get most music online but its lossy compressed stuff. But if there was a services out there that could give all CD stuff i would like to buy that. But i dont think most people care so i dont think that can really be a fix.

Video games
==========
Game demos (with limits)
I know you can get reviews for any game but no one is a better at making a review for a game than will fit me as one i make myself. Paying $60 for a game and it sucks is not fun. I think giving a piece of the game for free online, and single player is the best way to make someone want to buy the game. Now this is kinda a moot point because they do this. But i don't think nearly enough.

Cashops that if offer things the players can get without paying should do little to nothing to effect game play, and if it does effect game play make it possible for normal people to get it. But this is nothing new.

This is about piracy in general
=====================
Free and work in some places, dont be too greedy
As I said in my fist post i think free can work in some cases. I don't think everything should be free. In music sometimes for new people it's better just heard and known. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium . Its hard to get those people you know will never pay and will just download. I think the best you can do is maybe at some point give your old stuff away for free but with ads or use it to attack people to your other never products. Now it depends on your products off course.

Stop with the piracy tax
I know on AAA title video games there is a piracy tax on those games. But i'm also talking about DRM. Newsflash almost everything you put DRM on has failed and people can just go get a copy someplace else for free and without it. DRM is like going to a crime sean and putting handcuffs on the victim as the criminal escapes. It devalues your product and costs you to developed it and maintain it with little to almost no stop to the problem. "but if we don't have it, it would me it too easy for people to copy" well i see some truth in that, and maybe in that case some sort of system maybe a layman cant get passed. But all and all its already super easy to copy and there is nothing you can do about it.

Its getting late and i cant think too well right now. So ill stop there. If i should expand on something tell me.

[Scotty]

Thanks for the elaborate explanation.

I think music is going to be one of the hardest, because so much effort has gone into providing numerous avenues of purchasing music.  Oddly enough, I think it's too early to call it a lost cause.  Google Play isn't even a year old, Amazon's MP3 cloud service isn't much older, iTunes is... Well... Not sure how to argue in support of them since they've been around, but I think that maybe what it's coming down to is availability (see my first example).  I agree that lossless quality music would be nice, but I don't think there is much of a demand for it.  Most people who own digital media devices don't yet have unlimited storage to store 20k songs in FLAC (or whatever other lossless format) files.  I personally would like it, but I'm not sold that such a solution would do a whole lot.

Some of your video recommendations never occurred to me, and I think you make some very valid points.  Movie theaters are old.  Very old.  It's been well over a year since I set foot inside of one, and it's not because I'm not interested in movies that are coming out.  If there was a way to sit at home or some other alternative means to stream box office releases, I'm certain that there would be a LOT more money made.

The a la carte concept is definitely one that people have been screaming for over the last couple of years, and I'm honestly shocked that almost nothing has been done about it (when it comes to cable TV).  A prime example is Game of Thrones.  People have been pleading for HBO Go to remove their cable dependencies in order to subscribe to it.  I wish there was a way to see how many people pirated the series versus how many bought it when it came out.  It wasn't out for very long before they had to drop the prices drastically, so I'm guessing that means many didn't buy it since many already downloaded it.  It's a shame, even more so because HBO could have made a substantial profit if they allowed people to subscribe to their online service without having to have a cable subscription to the channel.

I take back what I said about music being the hardest.  I think games are going to be the hardest, because it is hard to justify spending half a hundred bucks on a game we aren't even sure if we're going to enjoy.  My main concern with video games is flat out quality.  Like I said before, when I would purchase SNES games, I paid the same price as what I pay for games today, and never once did I have an SNES game that had a bug that would prevent me from finishing the game.  I didn't once have to "update" my game before I played it because it was released unfinished.  It seriously seems like since video games took off, profit became more important than pride.  The industry rushes to release content because they want money more than they want a polished, finished product.  At this point, there's so many avenues to get great deals on games, the most overwhelming reason I hear from people as for why they pirate is flat out quality.  If the game was glued together with spit and ear-wax, who on earth would want to fork over $50+ dollars for it.

[DarkTrinity]

until every dlc and every patch is free i refuse to waste $60 on a game and find out i can't even access all of its content until i shell out more money.


if music artists were the one receiving most of the profit, and not labels more people would buy music.


i'm poor so i will pirate regardless but this is for people who have the option to buy it. no one will care about pirating if it's only hurting huge greedy companies like EA.

This and Chaos' post reminded me of the DLC for Alice:Madness Returns. Well first off they advertised saying you'd get the "re-enhanced" version of the first Alice game with purchasing the second game. Come to find out, it was only if you bought the game online, not in the stores.
Secondly, they had a special dress pack that you got if you pre-ordered the game. Which they also had a lot of problems with. And they wouldn't let you purchase the DLC separately from then on, even though many people wanted it. Well the smarties at EA apparently thought consumers were too dumb to figure out that the DLC is already programmed into the game and all you had to do was go into the coding, change one word, and BAM... you got all the special dresses. So after I found that out I posted it all over their forums, they deleted my posts, and I'd repost it. :D
EA: Ruin Everything.

More on topic... what Chaos was talking about, GOG, I think that's a really cool idea. I like that the games are connected with your account so if you lose everything (and I've had that happen twice), you can easily get it back. I think one of the problems is that not many people know about it; I've never heard of it until now. I think if they got bigger it could help. 

[ARTgames]

Something I thought of for video games is video game rental. I know for example steam can have a game out that people can use for a while and then they take it away for demos. Most of the time it is just the multiplayer they have out for obvious reasons. But they could maybe do a rental services for pcs. If i could maybe pay a small fee and get some time to see if i like it that would be nice. I think this may work out because games that tend to have a short single player have a large multiplayer. And games with little to no multiplayer have really long single player. And indie or small games tend to be cheaper so I don't mind just buying it. But for the games that take longer to beat or have a large multiplayer and if person really likes that game they will feel compelled to buy the game so they can have the time to beat it or to play it later on without a time limit. And if the games sucks or its not your thing you did not play the full price for it. And the company still gets some money from both those people.

Now I think I heard that the news with the new PlayStation and Xbox is that they want to cut out used games and rentals by tying new games to user accounts. But maybe they could also have a online rental system and cut out the middle man that they feel is taking there money. It hurts those others but its better than the only way to get a game is to pay for it new.

IDK if book piracy is a big thing also.

[Chaos]

@DT: Well, until recently, all the games on there have been games that were released 'back in the day'.  I didn't make an account until, like, 2 weeks ago, when Snakeman told me they were giving away Fallout 1 for free for that weekend.  I had already heard about them before (they've been around for a while), but hadn't a reason to make an account til now, and I really want to support them and let them get more widespread, which is why I'm telling everyone I know about it. :3

Also, another method to reduce piracy:

Endear yourself to your consumers.  People are a lot less likely to feel okay pirating from you if they actually feel like you're on their side.  For an example of what NOT to do, see "EA".

It's part of the reason Indie games are starting to thrive.  Indie studios are making games they actually care about, and actually communicate with their fanbase.  They AREN'T a faceless, soulless machine, churning out cash-grab slop.

EDIT:  Along with that, Indie games are, as the name implies, independent, which means they don't have incompetent asshole publishers meddling in the game creation, a place they have NO business being.

Another thing they can do to reduce piracy is STOP SPENDING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON EVERY GAME YOU MAKE.  Games NEVER cost this much to make back in the day, and can we honestly say games are better now?  Sure, graphics are prettier, but the games aren't any more fun.  Every game doesn't need to be a samey FPS with 'realistic' graphics.  Every game doesn't need to be 3D.  Mix it up!  Be creative!  Stop wasting so much god damn money on every game you make that's preventing the industry from TAKING RISKS and BEING CREATIVE.

EDIT:  I wasn't so clear in my conclusion, now that I look at it.  This will reduce prices because the COST is reduced, and it will let games actually be INTERESTING again.  With interesting games that are cheaper, people are less likely to pirate it because they feel they are getting their money's worth.

Or, hell, keep doing it this way, and let the Indie studios take over.  I'm okay with that outcome, actually.


Adding on to something you said, Art:

The game demos.  YES.  In a day and age where good game reviews are essentially bought and paid for, we NEED game demos back.  No one can trust game reviews these days.  Anyone remember the "Kane & Lynch" debacle on GameSpot?

[Scotty]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/cispa-veto-recommended-by-white-house-bills-authors-defend-it.ars

[MorganEarlJones]

Want to stop piracy for real? Enhance naval defense.

If you happen to be confusing piracy with the act of illegally obtaining intellectual property without purchase, you may also be confusing intellectual property with physical property. While intellectual property may exist in-law, it directly undermines physical property by inhibiting how it is used. If you have ownership of a computer, and all of the parts that make it up, then surely you are in ownership of all of the bits on your HDD/SSD/CD/DVD/B-RD/, and are rightfully in control of the orientation of those bits. To say that any set of states for the bits on the storage medium that you are the rightful owner of not be allowed because someone else claimed ownership of that arrangement, and has not given permission for use of that arrangement(through purchase or otherwise), is to say that you do not have full control of that storage medium; which is to say that you do not have full ownership of that storage medium. This same logic also applies to all mediums of data transfer, to which the author of the "intellectual property" is presumably not party to, or owner of.

I've not covered all other applications of intellectual property, but here's a clip of a somewhat relevant hour-and-a-half long lecture :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_PVI6V6o-4

[Jake]

Want to stop piracy for real? Enhance naval defense.

If you happen to be confusing piracy with the act of illegally obtaining intellectual property without purchase, you may also be confusing intellectual property with physical property. While intellectual property may exist in-law, it directly undermines physical property by inhibiting how it is used. If you have ownership of a computer, and all of the parts that make it up, then surely you are in ownership of all of the bits on your HDD/SSD/CD/DVD/B-RD/, and are rightfully in control of the orientation of those bits. To say that any set of states for the bits on the storage medium that you are the rightful owner of not be allowed because someone else claimed ownership of that arrangement, and has not given permission for use of that arrangement(through purchase or otherwise), is to say that you do not have full control of that storage medium; which is to say that you do not have full ownership of that storage medium. This same logic also applies to all mediums of data transfer, to which the author of the "intellectual property" is presumably not party to, or owner of.

I've not covered all other applications of intellectual property, but here's a clip of a somewhat relevant hour-and-a-half long lecture :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_PVI6V6o-4

That, to me anyway, is a good point. People are literally telling me that I cannot use my computer, which I own in full, to create certain combinations of magnetic switches on the HDD. That's almost like someone telling us that we can't store food in the fridge a certain way because other people have done so already. On top of that, how close does a program have to be to another program to be considered copyright infringement? If it's 1 bit off, 2 bits off, etc. What if someone tried to sell "hello world" tutorials for all the different languages and sued the people that made them? How unique does a program have to be before it can obtain copyrights?

[Lingus]

Well hold on. Here's the thing though. If you were able to come up with that exact same arrangement of bits on your hard drive by chance then I would agree. The problem is how you came across that specific arrangement. You didn't program the bits yourself, you went online and downloaded it from someone else. It's about context. No one would reasonably agree that you were able to obtain the exact same copy of a program (or music or whatever IP you're talking about) without using some method of "piracy" (or whatever term you want to call it "downloading without owner's consent".)

Let's compare this to music. Let's say someone comes out with a song. They write it, record it, put it out in stores and start selling copies. Then someone comes along who has a copy of this song who has not paid. Would you assume that A) by chance, without ever hearing the original, they happen to write the exact same song, and record it in the exact same way with the same voices, tones, and every quality of the song that the original copy has, or B) that they, by chance, again without ever hearing the original, happened to code bits of data in the precise arrangement that would replicate in every way the original recorded song, or C) they freaking pirated it.

You do see how ridiculous your claim is. Just because someone owns the phyiscal equipment that allows them to pirate something doesn't give them the right to use that equipment however they want. That's basically an argument for allowing hackers or spammers to do what they want. What about credit card fraud? There's no physical property being stolen. Someone went on their computer and arranged some bits and happened to use your credit card to purchase something. They own the computer, so there's nothing stopping them from using however they want right?

Come on...

[Mr Pwnage]

Couldn't I just make the argument all physical things are made of atoms like software is made of bits...so if I went into court for stealing a toothbrush...I would just plea that all of the atoms in the toothbrush were arranged by me so therefore I didn't steal it? Yeah, I really don't see any good basis for this method of thinking...

[Jake]

Well hold on. Here's the thing though. If you were able to come up with that exact same arrangement of bits on your hard drive by chance then I would agree. The problem is how you came across that specific arrangement. You didn't program the bits yourself, you went online and downloaded it from someone else. It's about context. No one would reasonably agree that you were able to obtain the exact same copy of a program (or music or whatever IP you're talking about) without using some method of "piracy" (or whatever term you want to call it "downloading without owner's consent".)

Let's compare this to music. Let's say someone comes out with a song. They write it, record it, put it out in stores and start selling copies. Then someone comes along who has a copy of this song who has not paid. Would you assume that A) by chance, without ever hearing the original, they happen to write the exact same song, and record it in the exact same way with the same voices, tones, and every quality of the song that the original copy has, or B) that they, by chance, again without ever hearing the original, happened to code bits of data in the precise arrangement that would replicate in every way the original recorded song, or C) they freaking pirated it.

You do see how ridiculous your claim is. Just because someone owns the phyiscal equipment that allows them to pirate something doesn't give them the right to use that equipment however they want. That's basically an argument for allowing hackers or spammers to do what they want. What about credit card fraud? There's no physical property being stolen. Someone went on their computer and arranged some bits and happened to use your credit card to purchase something. They own the computer, so there's nothing stopping them from using however they want right?

Come on...

For me, it's not really about how the data was obtained. It's about how the data exists. Putting artificial limits on data seems so extremely silly. It's the same as if I bought a recipe, but wasn't allowed to share the recipe with my friends unless I payed the original chef. Putting those kinds of artificial limits on things that are obviously meant and designed to be free is something that I will never grasp. I will never buy a song and say to myself "The maker of this song is supplying me a service right now". No, I will say "I own this song, it exists on my hard drive, and I will do with it's 1's and 0's as I please". it's not pretty, it creates all kinds of problems for business and individuals alike, but that's the hard truth. Data is meant to be free, so it's up to businesses to find business practices that allow them to make money. I no longer pirate, but I will do what I see fit with software and applications that I buy.

The credit card analogy differs in a few ways. One, it's real money that he's stealing, not just a potential sale. Two, he's not just copying 1's and 0's, but rather specifically using 1's and 0's to act in a malicious way. It's the same as if somebody used a computer to launch a missile. The action has real, tangible implications. When I copy a song and give it to a friend, there is no way to measure real world implications. One can argue a potential sale is lost, but one can also argue a potential sale is lost when I hand my used game over to a friend. Both have the same impact on the creator, but one is illegal because it's "copyright infringement".

Couldn't I just make the argument all physical things are made of atoms like software is made of bits...so if I went into court for stealing a toothbrush...I would just plea that all of the atoms in the toothbrush were arranged by me so therefore I didn't steal it? Yeah, I really don't see any good basis for this method of thinking...

A better analogy would be owning a machine with the ability to copy atoms to make something like a tooth brush and then keeping it. The creator of the toothbrush could argue that he lost a potential sale because you would have bought the toothbrush if you couldn't have copied it, but then I would argue that he still has the original toothbrush, so no harm no foul. This is why businesses that make intangible goods call them services, because you can't get away with charging for a good that has unlimited supply. I understand completely why they do this, but I will never buy into the fact that I am simply getting a service when I play a game or listen to music that quite literally exists on my computer.

[ARTgames]

Some of this is just arbitrary rules we have evolved into to keep people happy. And the new possibilities with new technologies is causing ripples in the system. I feel we should discuss why people sell things.