Why do you pirate online?

I don't agree. Piracy will never be destroyed. You might be able to lessen piracy by pricing more reasonable, but you won't stop it altogether.
 
As Gabe Newell from Valve-fame says, piracy isn't so much a pricing issue, as it is a service issue. Make things easily accessible and convenient to use, and people will buy it as long as it is reasonably priced. If you charge R1000 for a game, people won't buy it. If you charge R50 for a game but the DRM is so disruptive that I can't play it, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm pirating it if I really want it. Odds are I simply won't bother with it at all, however.
 
Didn't say much.

Have a torrent or HTTP download site (the same as MegaUpload) with ads + charge a monthly fee ($5 - $10) and allow users to download any and all music they want.

If you get 10 000 000 users on the site you can have a steady cash flow that can make its way to the artists pockets but....... this won't work because most artists / celebs would want way more money than they would get from such a model.

They do after all not have any time for themselves and work longer hours than your average Joe..... ;)
 
I think for the most part it comes down to this: People can't always afford to financially justify buying all of it.

Some hypothetical examples:

Hypothetically speaking, say I were to be an avid gamer (single player), aged 15-17... say 10 games come out each year, at an average price of R350 a game.... that would be R3500 a year spent on games that one could possibly play for a week each. A lot of people can't justify spending that sort of money.

Taking series into example: The majority of us have DSTV. Prison Break (for example), airs once a week, at a bad time for us.
What do we do? We download the Prison Break series. Technically speaking we already pay to watch it, as it airs on DSTV. The time that it airs is difficult for us to stick to, so we watch the downloaded shows.

Music: I suppose that this once again comes down to a financial justification. The average album has 10 tracks, costs R160. That's R16 per track, half of which we might not like. There might be 10 albums released a year that you would like one or more songs from. That would be R1600 per year that you'd end up spending.

Movies.... probably the same justification, although I'm less inclined to agree.
 
The same guy saying Google search is dying now has credibility to talk about piracy?
 
....at the same time Steam does seems to have a working model, I buy crap there that I don't want all the time because of 50% - 90% discounts and then most of the time its games that I played many years back and will never play again but just feel I need to own it.
 
Nerfherder said:
You can stop it being a factor though... and I believe this can be done.
Click to expand...

Agreed - that is what I tried to say in the third sentence. But I believe that it won't stop altogether. Except perhaps if they clamp down hard on those distributing as well as downloading.

EXAMPLE: Look what happened on the in the PS3 hacking scene. $ony got the whole world including the FBI involved to help them stop hacking. They started targeting individuals in court cases and it turned out that it "stopped". There are no new releases of jailbreaking devices and since FW 3.55, the scene has had no new software developments to hack the PS3.

And they have started with file servers, taking them down to prevent people downloading pirated items. We'll see hoe this saga turns out.
 
Messugga said:
As Gabe Newell from Valve-fame says, piracy isn't so much a pricing issue, as it is a service issue. Make things easily accessible and convenient to use, and people will buy it as long as it is reasonably priced. If you charge R1000 for a game, people won't buy it. If you charge R50 for a game but the DRM is so disruptive that I can't play it, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm pirating it if I really want it. Odds are I simply won't bother with it at all, however.
Click to expand...

Yes. It's the convenience. I got some iTunes vouchers and boy did they go quickly on that store? It's just so easy and quick to buy high quality music, apps, books etc. Same with the Steam store and those cheap games.
 
I totally agree

Messugga said:
As Gabe Newell from Valve-fame says, piracy isn't so much a pricing issue, as it is a service issue. Make things easily accessible and convenient to use, and people will buy it as long as it is reasonably priced. If you charge R1000 for a game, people won't buy it. If you charge R50 for a game but the DRM is so disruptive that I can't play it, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm pirating it if I really want it. Odds are I simply won't bother with it at all, however.
Click to expand...

I so agree with you. For example, last year some time, I bought Mass Effect 2 - but with the second disc the installation failed and there was issues with the disc, even though it didn't have a scratch on it. After googling the problem, several other people also had the same issue.

I contacted EA, but never even go the decency of a response from said EVIL CORPORATION. In the end, to finally get the freaking game to work, I downloaded a full pirated version, but installed it with my legit key - what should have been a 30 or 40 minute install, turned into a week long nightmare. And the game isn't even that good GRRR!!

The point remains, if I am going to be paying for something, I expect to get a decent product and decent service if needed with that product. Since then, I've been buying most of my games via Steam - it's so convenient and the games always work without an issue. And the specials are awesome (Valve even mentioned that if they put a game on a 50% or 75% sale, they sell more copies and make more money than when the game is at the full retail price)!

Now if Steam only started selling movies, tv series and music, that would be great!
 
Napster?

Mr Masie must really be at the cutting edge...Napster?:D
 
froot said:
I think for the most part it comes down to this: People can't always afford to financially justify buying all of it.

Some hypothetical examples:

Hypothetically speaking, say I were to be an avid gamer (single player), aged 15-17... say 10 games come out each year, at an average price of R350 a game.... that would be R3500 a year spent on games that one could possibly play for a week each. A lot of people can't justify spending that sort of money.

Taking series into example: The majority of us have DSTV. Prison Break (for example), airs once a week, at a bad time for us.
What do we do? We download the Prison Break series. Technically speaking we already pay to watch it, as it airs on DSTV. The time that it airs is difficult for us to stick to, so we watch the downloaded shows.

Music: I suppose that this once again comes down to a financial justification. The average album has 10 tracks, costs R160. That's R16 per track, half of which we might not like. There might be 10 albums released a year that you would like one or more songs from. That would be R1600 per year that you'd end up spending.

Movies.... probably the same justification, although I'm less inclined to agree.
Click to expand...

I think with series there is the added thing that it costs us so much to download the file anyway... so its never free. The stuff is going to be on tv eventually... so i'm not too stressed about paying for it.
 
Messugga said:
As Gabe Newell from Valve-fame says, piracy isn't so much a pricing issue, as it is a service issue. Make things easily accessible and convenient to use, and people will buy it as long as it is reasonably priced.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I still *cough* download albums, but these days I buy a lot of singles too.

Was walking in a shop yesterday and heard a song I liked over the radio. Fired up Shazam, identified the song, clicked through to iTunes and downloaded the song for 99c - done before I left the shop. Accessible, convenient and reasonably priced.
 
Movies and series on TV - legal
Movies and series downloaded - illegal
Music on radio - legal
Music downloaded - illegal
I fail to see why.

Gaming is a different story, I always buy original... because there isn't a free option like there is with TV and series so it really is screwing the developer.

Music wise, they make their money off concerts, the day I hear Rick Ross rapping about rolling in the hood with a corolla I'll start buying his CD's.
 
The answer, at least in a South African context, is simple: there is no alternative. I pirate because I want to watch the latest shows and movies when they come out. I don't want to wait a year before they come out on Mnet.

If Netflix or Hulu was available legally in South Africa I would use it and be more than happy to pay for the content that I watch. But it isn't, so I don't.
 
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