Piracy part 2 - Spotify and other possible solutions

You thought I was talking about me? Sheesh, I don't pirate - I was playing devil's advocate.

From a pirate's perspective (ie, not me), this is the problem. That's why I don't think things like Spotify will work to any significant degree.
 
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I think you oversimplify pirates' point of view though. Being a pirate myself (and calm down, I buy most of my games and most of the music I listen to even though I can listen to it for free on Spotify) I can tell you that there's more going on in our games than "woho, free games!". Pirates aren't all pepole who think about one and only one thing (themselves). They aren't buying a lot of games because said games are too expensive for them to feel it's worth buying it. If "buying them" is payed for by putting up with a little commercials then they're all of a sudden gonna think it is worth "buying".

Pirates are using Spotify even though they have to put up with commercials.

Übereil
 
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If you buy most games and music you play and listen you aren't a pirate. A pirate find plenty good reason to not buy most games he plays to give himself "solid" arguing to moralize its behavior at his eyes.

Pirates arguing on forums are so clear it's weird most can't decipher their own behaviors, only few are quite cynical but that's a position that cannot find any justification it's just obvious and accepted (by pirate himself) parasite behavior.

But the economic point of view is a very solid arguing going through sort of communism approach and it's hard make it felt… but the truth behind is most often quite different because most of those same people:
  • Buy a new computer every 2 years,
  • pay monthly fee for cells,
  • buy cars at a rate quite higher than what they really need,
  • pay Night club fee and expensive alcohol multiple time per week,
  • and many more.
No surprise they don't have any money after to buy any game or music but very very few.

For the good reason of not paying a game you can invent ton of them, few classical example:
  • I should not have bought Drakensang, the replay value is weak.
  • I should not have bought DAO, I don't want support DLC system.
  • I should not have bought any EA game the company don't need my money to roll on gold.
  • I should not have bought Eschalon Book I the game is a lot too short.
  • And I can find plenty good reason to not have buy a single game of all games I bought.

For me pirating isn't an economic problem it's only a morale problem but the solution will hardly be a morale one but more an economical one. That said there's no real economic problem for gaming, not yet.
 
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If you buy most games and music you play and listen you aren't a pirate. A pirate find plenty good reason to not buy most games he plays to give himself "solid" arguing to moralize its behavior at his eyes.

Part-pirate then, I guess.

Pirates arguing on forums are so clear it's weird most can't decipher their own behaviors, only few are quite cynical but that's a position that cannot find any justification it's just obvious and accepted (by pirate himself) parasite behavior.

I wouldn't say that, Ethical Egoism is suprizingly widespread...

Übereil
 
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Part-pirate isn't at all the majority but that's clearly a significant number of fans of something. They aren't a problem as they end put much more money in their passion than ever did older generation at same age.

Ethical Egoism is just another scientific name for ultra liberalism, nothing new here, and nothing related to pirates.
 
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Part-pirate isn't at all the majority but that's clearly a significant number of fans of something. They aren't a problem as they end put much more money in their passion than ever did older generation at same age.

Not in Sweden, I'd say.

Ethical Egoism is just another scientific name for ultra liberalism, nothing new here, and nothing related to pirates.

It's not a scientific. It sprung from philosophy, not science. And it's not related to any political ideology. To take ultra liberalism as an example: acording to Ethical Egoism pepole who don't like/earn on ultra-liberalism (for instance: me, since I'm a socialist who gets uncomfortable if I have too much freedom/options) shouldn't promote it. The same goes for every other political ideology out there.

Übereil
 
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I admit to downloading some stuff. I've also bought games, music, audiobooks and movies online. To me, it mostly comes down to convenience.

If you can get x easier than y, than most of the time, you will go for x. So, yeah, I fancy those pay-by-month services, because I'm not one of those people that wants to collect. I want to hear and experience everything… at least once! So instead of an LP on the wall or in a rack, I could go for a digital download, *especially* if it gave me access to the complete libary. That's just like being in a candystore for me. I would pay for that.

As long as it's easier and more fun to pirate, people will pirate. When the people selling content actually provide more value to their customers, they can compete. Up until now, they're still catching up (but getting there).
 
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Not in Sweden, I'd say.
Are you sure? During the 70's a teen interested in music, had a huge vinyl collection if during all his teen he collected 50 vinyls. I don't remember a single friend during all my teen that had more than 50 vinyls.

It's not a scientific?
I forgot the smiley but I I don't see any link with pirating anyway.
 
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I admit to downloading some stuff. I've also bought games, music, audiobooks and movies online. To me, it mostly comes down to convenience.

If you can get x easier than y, than most of the time, you will go for x. So, yeah, I fancy those pay-by-month services, because I'm not one of those people that wants to collect. I want to hear and experience everything… at least once! So instead of an LP on the wall or in a rack, I could go for a digital download, *especially* if it gave me access to the complete libary. That's just like being in a candystore for me. I would pay for that.

As long as it's easier and more fun to pirate, people will pirate. When the people selling content actually provide more value to their customers, they can compete. Up until now, they're still catching up (but getting there).

Yes that's exactly where it goes, it's not at all a morale problem, it's just normal to steal non physical stuff. For older people like me it's not really like that but younger people all end like that, no morale link with stealing digital stuff, I want it I get it and that's it.

I totally agree with your analysis, I doubt there's will be no other general way to do it and I also doubt that try put people uncomfortable with morale stuff will work, only older people are still somehow sensible to that but younger will never make steps back on this. So as older generation slowly disappear less and less people will be sensible to the morale argument when it's about stealing digital. Other way have to be find on a pure practical point of view. But that's also why there's DRM, laws against digital distributing and stealing and more, it's tiny attempts to make less comfortable the digital stealing.
 
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Are you sure? During the 70's a teen interested in music, had a huge vinyl collection if during all his teen he collected 50 vinyls. I don't remember a single friend during all my teen that had more than 50 vinyls.

I can't say anything about that since CD's became popular when my brother was 10 and I was 3. My brother certanly had more than 50 CD's though.

Games, on the other hand… He did not buy all that many of his Amiga games… :D

I forgot the smiley but I I don't see any link with pirating anyway.

If you want to pirate and you can get away with it, then it's ok to pirate, according to Ethical Egoists.

I totally agree with your analysis, I doubt there's will be no other general way to do it and I also doubt that try put people uncomfortable with morale stuff will work, only older people are still somehow sensible to that but younger will never make steps back on this.

"It's theft!" isn't going to work, no, but "you won't get any good games!" or "game designers needs to eat too!" might have at least limited success.

Übereil
 
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"It's theft!" isn't going to work, no, but "you won't get any good games!" or "game designers needs to eat too!" might have at least limited success.
Yes buy game for charity, currently video game market seems quite enough opulent to not care of this. I have seen it a little for music but not much for video games but few indies stuff.

Why some people pirate instead of buying a game? Well no the question is why people buy a game?
 
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I think you oversimplify pirates' point of view though. Being a pirate myself (and calm down, I buy most of my games and most of the music I listen to even though I can listen to it for free on Spotify) I can tell you that there's more going on in our games than "woho, free games!". Pirates aren't all pepole who think about one and only one thing (themselves). They aren't buying a lot of games because said games are too expensive for them to feel it's worth buying it. If "buying them" is payed for by putting up with a little commercials then they're all of a sudden gonna think it is worth "buying".

Pirates are using Spotify even though they have to put up with commercials.

Übereil

No, I think you overcomplicate it. Pirates aren't only thinking for themselves? So, they're thinking of the common good? Please, that's ridiculous.

Games are de-valued in pirate's minds because piracy provides a free option. It's pretty easy to decide something isn't worth it when it's so easy to get it for free. While that's an unavoidable reality, it doesn't change the fact that this is false justification.
 
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No, I think you overcomplicate it. Pirates aren't only thinking for themselves? So, they're thinking of the common good?

To an extent far less than most of us, but they still do it to an extent.

Games are de-valued in pirate's minds because piracy provides a free option. It's pretty easy to decide something isn't worth it when it's so easy to get it for free. While that's an unavoidable reality, it doesn't change the fact that this is false justification.

Agreed there. That doesn't mean pirates never think it's worth it. For instance, if instead of $50 (or whatever games costs in the states) they have to pay by staying online while playing and have to put up with the occasional commercial then I believe there's far less pepole who'd think it's not worth it.

Übereil
 
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Because spotify is darned good, first of all you can use one interface to find all the music, second of all it is streaming so you never have to wait before you play the music, it has built in ratings, toplists, raido, find other music you will like share with friends....... I know pirates who stopped pirating and started spotifying for any number of these reasons!
 
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I use the premium version of Spotify which costs about$ $15 per month. I can listen to all the music I want without ads. My Itunes is feeling lonely these days. There are drawbacks though, since big bands like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin etc don't want to be a part of the fun. If you don't care about those old dinosaurs then its a great experience. I've found heaps of new bands that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise (through their fabulous Related Artists feature).

I'm hoping something like this comes along for television series and films. Paying a fixed sum per month for this seems reasonable to me and would elimate a lot of piracy I would think.

I think it could work for games too.
 
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