Depends on the media, if we're talking movies then yes, they probably have made a profit from it via pirate DVD manufacture as well as uploading it for free on the internet. If we're talking games... some people just like the challenge of breaking anti-piracy measures, it's excellent practice for people who are interested in reverse-engineering as well as simply being an interesting part of programming in general. Same reason people create viruses, they don't actually care about whose data gets wiped, they just want to see how successfully they can write a program that'll dodge the many lasers of the anti-virus battalion. If you want to fight for rights and whatnot there are better ways to do it, and far more important causes to stand up for.
If someone developes a program for 2 years, funds everything by himself on his own sparetime.. Yada yada yada.. When the program is finished and released he slabs a priceticket on it becouse he wants to make money out of this thing - He loves cash and is a greedy dude, in fact the price is outreageuosly superhigh. If someone download and use that program without paying him for it, how can that not be stealing? Please explain it easy so i get it.
Because pirates are just irresponsible. They don't have conscience of the harm they are doing to the dev. And as there is no real representation of this harm in front of their eyes, they will clearly refuse to try to understand it. They just don't care, life goes on, as when they heard from TV that some people are dying at war in another country. It's not their problem. Piracy is like a child throwing a little stone at you : One stone does not hurt, and you don't care. 100 childs throwing 100 stones at you, and you're on the ground. On a sidenote, I would be very interested in any other stats or article about Appstore piracy.
Paraphrasing, but I think that is all that is necessary. Indeed, I think there is a distinction here. I DO have a problem with a pirate site that is generating ad revenue by sharing links to files or hosting the files themselves. They are gaining profit while the devs are not. I don't have a problem with my game being shared within a household. I know it happens- a husband and wife may share the same files across devices. Although I would appreciate it if they bought two different copies, I'm not going to enforce it. Now I am going to state something that I don't think anyone else has really discussed in terms of anti-piracy measures, and that includes individual account logins. A login would be required to retrieve saved games, achievements and status, and of course, to play the online portion of the game. The game should be playable without a login as well, except the above will be disabled, possibly including the online portion (a special server could be set up for no login) No, this isn't cheap to set up, and it isn't free to maintain. If a system like OpenFeint was used, it would help offset those costs, generate a standard system and make it much more pleasing to implement.
That solution is the best against piracy, for sure. But this would force honest players to have a wifi connection. It's unfair.
I don't think it is unfair, considering Wifi is widely available and free in many locations. You could even log in on another device, or even from Windows, MacOS or Linux if those builds were available. True cross-platform capability. This is what I want. Most games wouldn't need the online player aspect, just a simple login to retrieve your account. If you delete the game, or get a new device, your account holds everything remotely.
Still, your solution does impose a burden on the honest user who has done nothing wrong, it takes a lot of work to implement, and will probably be cracked out of your game anyway. You can't stop piracy or devise a solution that prevents it. All we're trying to do to raise awareness to the more reasonable people out there who might just consider buying their next app rather than stealing it.
Except that being black or Catholic isn't a sin or inherently immoral. Piracy is. It's an action, not a state of being. Stop the action, and life becomes that much better for the commonweal. I mean, my God, do you realise what you're saying in this ill-conceived analogy? I almost half-expected you to trot out Martin Luther King Jr saying, "I have a jailbroken iPhone!".
"File sharing" for non-commercial reasons is still a violation of copyright, however. The right to copy (hence, copyright) entitles the holder of that right to have exclusive rights over the copying and distribution of said copies. That's what gives that right so much power. In it's original intention, it was enacted to protect the IP of writers. And, in fact, the most ardent supporters of copyright are...writers. They're entire "chip" at the bargaining table is tied around copyright over their work. So "file sharing" via massively redistributable digital code available on the 'net is, in fact, violating that very right of the copyright holder. Whether for profit or not, it is still WRONG. The fact is no one has any issue with you sharing a unique and individual copy that you bought with a friend or family member. The issue is making a digital copy of the work and putting it up to be downloaded by a larger mass of people. If you share that one book you bought at Barnes&Noble, it's not much of an issue as it's a SINGLE copy being loaned at a time. And sharing that unique individual copy you bought is well within your rights as a consumer. With digital "file sharing" however, it's really more than one "copy" being made. Sure, you upload one single copy, and that is the copy downloaded, but it's being downloaded multiple times by multiple users at once. That tramples right over copyright, and it does NOT fall into the realm of consumer rights AT ALL. And, on a personal note, I'd like to add: You don't have thousands of friends. Most likely you don't have a hundred either. So putting up a file to "share" with a multitude of people you don't friggin' know falls into that sketchy realm of pure B.S. You have a friend or family member that wants to borrow a book you bought? Or a game? Or a movie? Hand them the copy that you bought by hand. If you have other friends that wanna borrow it, tell 'em to wait until that first friend is done. If they don't have the patience, tell 'em to buy their own goddamn book/game/movie. Oh, and if it's a paid for digital copy, ala the app store games, know that you can share...if they're under your account, and even if not there are ways to share without having to upload the game so hundreds if not thousands of other people have access.
i understand why some of you would want to quote me and attempt to rebuttal my arguments and your more then welcome to try in whatever way you feel is important/necessary. however i would much rather read your own opinions on piracy not your opinions on my opinion like spiffy he just made a great thoughtful post and i would love to see more posts like that here in this thread be they positive or negative on the issue of piracy not just "this is what i think and the people who dont think like this or do what i think is not right are blah" that kind of post is not thoughtful, insightful nor inspiring at all, its more like a sound bite you are echoing i dont want to hear you echo a sound bite i want to hear your personal thoughts from your heart. @flicketty i personally think a cross platform game with an online infrastructure to facilitate saved game data in the clouds is a wonderful idea btw oh and don't worry im not going to "rant" or argue anymore even though theres a couple of posts i would love to argue with but im not cuz squirt told me to shut up and i agreed i would and again i do NOT pirate iphone apps/games, i dont even have a jailbroken iphone nor do i intend on jailbreaking my iphone anytime soon.
Well if you're asking for general thoughts on the subject I have one in particular I'll share now. I really do not like the stigma associated with jailbreaking and cracking apps. They are two different things. Yes you need to be jailbroken to pirate. But just because you are jailbroken doesn't intrinsically imply that you do. I really, really don't like when people automatically lump them in the same bucket. That's my rant, thanks.
You're right but maybe 90% of people with JB iPhones use pirate apps. I dislike when someone lump people in the same bucket too but that's same like if you have bag full of rotten potatoes, you surely won't be sorting one good from 50 shitty ones
I don't have a problem with Jailbreaking. I'm a developer, and I have a jailbroken phone. It makes development for my own game much easier (I use Windows). I've never pirated an iPhone App, and I know there are a few others out there like me.
Hi, Not sure where you get that statistic but it just sounds high, really high. I am jail broke and have never considered using pirated apps. also know several others who are the same. People can spout stats and make anything look bad but the sources for those stats sometimes are not accurate. Whether your source is accurate, I do not know but it feels off, from my experiences and knowledge. David
I think in some way you were trying to agree with me, but honestly it's comments just like this, that I do not like. Where do you get 90%? Source please. Your analogy is flawed- it is too simple to compare to jailbreaking/piracy. There are a huge number of variables involved in whether people who jailbreak pirate. Age, income, educational level, profession, knowledge of the issue, morals, resources, etc. The potatoes are all rotten because they are of the same age, in the same bag, and once one goes bad they all do. If a person who pirates touches my arm I'm not suddenly going to turn into a pirate myself. I understand why people lump them together, I just don't like it and I really don't like when mis-information is spread around.
No idea how many jailbreakers are pirates. One thing I`m sure about is that 100% of the AppStore pirates are jailbreakers
I don't mean to point out the obvious, but how does making a 'group' at T.A. help in any way whatsoever to stop App Store piracy?
Already answered innumerable times in this thread only. Again. It`s just to show the devs that the members of TA dont support Piracy and understand how much it hurts them. Hopefully those who pirate these games and still are here at TA will get the message also and atleast give a thought about not continuing what they`ve been doing till now. We cant stop piracy but the least we could do is try and convert the pirates here at TA
