Touch Arcaders Against Piracy

i jb my 3G once but it was broken (cracked screen & wifi chip rattling around inside the phone when you shake it) and i was planning on getting it upgraded anyways. however jb'ing the 3G was a horrible experience that took hours and hours and really came down to my unwavering commitment cuz apparently the firmware & the itunes i upgraded too put me in a weird spot where it wasn't easy at all by any means.

i will go out and say i do pirate media occasionally mostly TV shows as i live in a rural area and do not have access to broadband nor is there a clear line of site to a satellite for either of the sat TV companies because of all the trees. what i have here is crazy compressed IPTV pushed thru DSL lines and believe it or not streaming content from hulu has better quality then that (and fewer commercials as well) and i use hulu a LOT. i also use netflix (dont really order DVDs thru the mail just use if for the *watch instantly* and i wish there was new releases on there) and last but not least i hit up the itunes store a lot still even tho i pirate content occasionally.

Anyways when i jb my iphone i did it just to do it and i played around with a few settings and apps here and there but pirating iphone games/apps never crossed my mind even tho as i admitted above i do pirate content occasionally.......

however im sure that....
-there are people who jb just to pirate iphone apps
-like there are people who jb and never think about using cracked apps
-just like there are people who jb just to jb but later decide to use cracked apps

same thing for the PC......a lot of publishers/developers are slowly starting to neglect the PC as a viable gaming platform and going with consoles all the way because of all the piracy, but then again i dont have a PC capable of running such modern games (Pentium 4 w/on board graphics FTW) but i can tell you a lot of them are cracked and put up on torrent trackers/site day of launch or early the next morning. i see them all the time and even if i would have a modern PC (saving up for a new iMac) i wouldn't pirate those games either since i like the consoles and prefer playing games on them ever since i got the ps1 back in the day.

so yea.....

bottom line tho imo you can either have an open neutral network of internets with rampant piracy or you can have a controlled, tiered, filtered, monitored, and censored distribution platform with very little or no piracy at all.....

whats the lesser of two evils?

1) piracy that can be somewhat thwarted (but not entirely) by evolving business models and distribution?

2)or no internets? just a controlled distribution model w/ISP's in collusion w/big media companies being the gatekeepers of information? (im sure you guys are reading the big media companies solutions to piracy...right?)

also you cant stop piracy, you can't convince people that they shouldn't be able to share content freely between individuals p2p or exchange information publicly as a community

secondly the concept of copyright is flawed and can not scale and its mostly used today as an exploration of self interest rather then a fundamental system designed to protect the content creators (ex: Tim Langdell)

and last but not least media consolidation has created a monster where 6 companies (yea just 6) now own 98% of everything you read, watch, and listen to (excluding the internets of course) and historically (even without this insane media consolidation) big media companies have be able to come in control, monopolize and profit GREATLY from every technology that has evolved to allow us to communicate and share information more efficiently (printing press, radio, TV, physical media) sooo what makes you think they are not at this very moment trying to control, monopolize and profit GREATLY from the internets?

idk what they're excuses where in the past....maybe to build a better economic foundation? which you can argue has allowed big media companies to get BIGGER and the penetration of TV and radio to flourish but that pales in comparison to what the internets have accomplished thus far which for the most part is still open and neutral and should remain that way no matter what

i do know that they're main excuse to control the internet's is (guess what) piracy the evil piracy......

oh and dont forget the fact that ISP's/cable companies have a cozy oligopoly relationship with the government and each other (so free market capitalism doesn't really apply to them for the most part) so in theory they dont even have to make their customers happy go lucky because there really isnt that much competition to worry about (some areas there is NONE) and i doubt there will EVER be a startup capable of affording to stand toe to toe with the ISP's/cable companies anytime soon (they can on the internet tho but thats it) and thats all thanks to copyright laws, patent and licensing technology, with a little political voodoo magic thrown in to make sure the little guys who dare to create a better ISP/cable company have no chance in hell competing with the big dawgz who of course have cozy relationship with all of the 6 media companies.

and that brings me back to the monetary system being outdated and currently exploited with no end in site with a clear objective to forever perpetuate its relevancy and to continue the pyramid scheme as long as they can to keep us subservient.

i ask you how does freedom and liberty fit into that?

and i challenge you to find an issue in the world today (theres plenty of them) that isnt a symptom of the perpetuation of the monetary system.......

you know how the old saying goes......"money is the root of all evil" there's a reason someone coined that saying and I cant really explain it any better then that.

its not impossible there are already potential alternatives being discussed and a huge community of people behind it such as a resource based economy. (google "The Venus Project") Not to mention that Jacque Fresco (the founder) is in his 80's with PHD's in social engineering and industrial design.

luckily there is a lot of people and internet companies (start ups) who support net neutrality

and luckily there is somewhat "reasonable" copyright laws although there are a LOT of people who feel they are not

while i commend your effort on trying to support the devs (the small guys) but looking at the big picture i think its counter productive in the grand scheme of things

 

@cubytes

Cant you post anything which takes less than 5 minutes just to read (not to mention another 5 to understand)

 

hahaha my bust

 

Only to a Communist.

LACK of money is the root of all evil.

Also called "envy".

 

Money has never been the root of all evil, nor has anybody said it is. The love of money is the root of all evil.

 

Although if anyone wants to make the argument that evil is the root of all evil, I for one wouldn't disagree.

 

like i said before............and i will say it again

its kinda hard to argue that the people *should* have the right to share information freely between individuals and publicly as a community (which kinda sounds like a natural extension of free-speech to data imo), when the same people also depend on earning wages from creating, manipulating, changing, updating, personalizing, and distributing/redistributing said information......

@fe1 i dont quite fully understand the ideals and concepts behind communism to understand the context of your statement can you please enlighten me?

afiak communism is all about enforcing a classless society? but at the cost of forfeiting the power of the people and openness, freedoms, liberties, rights and so on in the process by giving the government total control in the interest of enforcing "equal-ness" which seems kinda pointless since the economic system is still driven by currency anyways (right?) and giving any form of government complete control over the people for any reason whatsoever is never a good idea........

ahhh but your right i guess the emergence of communism isnt a direct symptom of the perpetuation of the monetary system or is it? since the monetary system is in a way enforcing a class based society and the drive to want to develop a classless society (probably originally conceived as a way to peacefully convince the people to be subservient to totalitarian control basically give up all of their power) can sorta be contributed to the perpetuation of the monetary system not really but yea..

hahaha i guess you kinda got me there. what should Fe1 get for winning the challenge?

but i was talking about issues like poverty/crime, war, the energy crisis, pollution, false scarcity (diamonds) so on and so on........

i also disagree with the assessment that money isnt the "evil" but greediness or the "love" of money is......

the whole concept of currency is outdated and should not be relevant given the level of technology today. imo theres no reason goods and services should be rendered by trade/transaction of an object with arbitrary value attributed to it or just the trade/transaction of the idea that there is imaginary value going from one place (account) to another (account). it all seems rather pointless since the value in question that gets attributed to currency is not representative of anything physical (or backed and/or redeemable by anything) and in essence is basically created out of thin air by logically creating value or deflating value by circulating more or less currency all of which is controlled by a single privately owned entity, one in which our own government has to actually borrow our own currency from (with interest of course)

to explain it further if you were a rich person and got standard on an island with a briefcase filled with a million dollars and cut off from the rest of the world that money would be meaningless to you, you could probably make a nice bonfire (if you purchased a lighter of course) but the money itself and the acquisition of that wealth would not improve your chances of survival on that island. what would improve your chances would be technology, resources (food freshwater shelter) knowledge of survival ect.......

so in the grand scheme of things dont you think the intelligent management of the worlds resources would be a central concern for the sustainability of our species? or how to produce the necessities of life in the most efficient and abundant ways possible by the humane application of technology? dont you think the acquisition of knowledge history art and culture and the openness to be able to learn anything you want without having to pay for it should be more important then the arbitrary acquisition of wealth and property?

anyways currency is a tool used to implement a well designed system for social control conceived from the fallacy that people need *incentive* to reach their fullest potential and contribute to society in which there is no evidence or data to prove that claim........

 

LOL, No, currency is just a way for me to avoid having to bring 200 cows and 3 chickens with me to the Toyota dealership when I need a new car!

You have really gone to great extent to justify the ability to take whatever 'information' you want.

I would love to live in the world you describe *after* humanity has created near infinite power for free, food replicators, everyone has free housing and teleportation devices, etc but right now, please don't steal!

 

I said I'd check back in a while; it's been a month and still I see not even the slightest hint of action being taken by anyone in this group to combat piracy. Heck, I don't even see any 'raised voices' either.

 

What kind of action did u expect. Or hope for. No one said anyone of us could do anything to stop piracy. Ever heard the word awareness

That's all what could be done here. And I think almost every one here at TA is now aware of the fact that piracy DOES harm these devs.


What I can't understand is why would anyone have any problem with such a group

 

Funny, because what I can't understand is how you think being a member of an anti-piracy group at TA will have any effect whatsoever on App Store piracy. As if the mere existence of the group were enough. I mean, if that's all it takes, why not create a group called "Touch Arcaders for Winning the Lottery" ... ? It would probably have exactly as much influence on your chances of winning the lottery as this group has on combating piracy. That is to say, none at all.

Anyway, this back-and-forth is really quite boring - I'll check back again later to see if anyone in this group has done anything whatsoever to combat App Store piracy. Until then, cheers!

 

I hope you never check back. You took one month and still cant grasp the simple idea behind the this group, then you cant understand it ever. Maybe a couple of years down the line once you break into your teens you might understand. But until then, dont bother.

 

Uh? I just found out that they connected all AppStores by now.

A game, that wasn't available in germany but in the US, made the german Appstore connect to the US so that I can download that game.

 

I hate to break it to you, but I'm probably old enough to be your father. I guess that explains why you feel the need to resort to personal attacks, whereas I do not. Of course, it also makes your juvenile attempt at a clever, witty 'put-down' highly ironic. Thanks for the laugh!

 

ImNoSuperMan: I just want you to know I literally laughed out loud hysterically when I read "I hope you never check back". LOL! Like it's so wrong for a group of people to voice their opinions about something. Kind of like "shut up and don't question this b/c you can't do anything about it". As a science major, I find that kind of rationale and thinking to be quite hilarious...

 

Too lazy to read all the replies so I'll just answer instead.

Let's imagine people download pirated games. Games developers start thinking they're making bad games since no one buys them and in the end they can't afford to make any games.
This is how small game companies go down and we're stuck with only EA and similar ones. Imagine having to play your umpteenth NHL game just because there's no other games available.

 

I just recently got an itouch 3G a few weeks ago and while I've never wanted to jailbreak or get cracked games before, I actually find when I try a lite version of something and I'm digging it, I want to pay for the game. Indie devs have it hard enough. I know there's a tiny minority that jailbreak to customize their device and not steal apps but I'm someone that's quite alright with the factory settings just as they're given to me. Doesn't work for everyone but that's my two cents.

 

I wonder what this discussion is all about?

Piracy is simply said: stealing, so when you feel fine to steal something, it is your conscience to deal with.

Oh, forgot: remember "You shall not steal." from the ten commandments? If you steal, you'll burn in hell for sure. Unless you are an atheist.