#104856 - keldon - Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:20 am
Hmmm, this is a touchy subject, and being locked isn't a problem, in fact I think it would be best if it was locked. But long story short, in my quest to find the cheapest legal mp3 download site (that I can trust to not be a credit card scam) I found this news report that I found interesting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4718249.stm
I've always wondered what research could be done and what it would find, and although I expected it to raise awareness, I did not expect the people who downloaded illegally to be the ones who spent more.
Please do not bring the ethics, right/wrong into this otherwise it will immediately become a lockable topic.
#104861 - tepples - Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:52 pm
| keldon wrote: |
| Hmmm, this is a touchy subject, and being locked isn't a problem, in fact I think it would be best if it was locked. But long story short, in my quest to find the cheapest legal mp3 download site |
If by "legal" you mean legal in the United States of America, try emusic.com.
If by "legal" you mean legal in the Russian Federation, try allofmp3.com.
I don't know of any such sites headquartered in the United Kingdom or the European mainland.
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#104875 - Lynx - Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:12 pm
Now.. I know there is a lot of information available on the net, and most of your actions are trackable.. but to say that you can directly link illegal downloaders to the money they spend on music is complete BS.
What would be fun to see, is comparisons to the music industrys "complaints" before and after the mp3 encoding was developed.. Because they have always had something to complain about.
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#104888 - keldon - Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:50 pm
| Quote: |
| Now.. I know there is a lot of information available on the net, and most of your actions are trackable.. but to say that you can directly link illegal downloaders to the money they spend on music is complete BS. |
Well this is coming from the BBC, and they - as the primary government funded channel, and first channel in England - must retain their credibility.
It does not take much to conduct a confidential survey asking about their illegal download activities and their spending activities. To say that this is impossible to attain implies that questionnaires have no reliability, implying that nearly all of the statistics we have are 'BS'.
There are plenty of legal download sites. Wippit, ipod and a whole range. I know about allofmp3, but it is not really legal over here, or in most places in the world.
#104951 - sgeos - Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:03 pm
| keldon wrote: |
| Well this is coming from the BBC, and they - as the primary government funded channel, and first channel in England - must retain their credibility. |
This really doesn't mean much. Credibility in whose eyes? Even if they are not slanted, how do I know that this particular BBC team is compentent? Just being generally cynical.
| keldon wrote: |
| It does not take much to conduct a confidential survey asking about their illegal download activities and their spending activities. To say that this is impossible to attain implies that questionnaires have no reliability, implying that nearly all of the statistics we have are 'BS'. |
All statistics are 'BS'. 100% of them. (That 100% is 'BS' =)
As the one man said, "There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."
| keldon wrote: |
| There are plenty of legal download sites. Wippit, ipod and a whole range. I know about allofmp3, but it is not really legal over here, or in most places in the world. |
Is it generally legal to rip your own MP3s if you the original item? (Certainly under the radar.)
-Brendan
#104990 - keldon - Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:18 pm
| Quote: |
| how do I know that this particular BBC team is compentent? Just being generally cynical. |
How do you know anything? BBC is britains longest running tv company, they are not so stupid as to quote, "The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) welcomed the findings but added a note of caution." without the BPI saying so. Sure there is cynicism, but then there is going too far as to ask how we can be sure that the world isn't flat.
| Quote: |
| All statistics are 'BS'. 100% of them. (That 100% is 'BS' =) |
Hmmm; I'm sure you are only joking. But jokes asside, statistics may not be 100% correct, but they can quite easily identify trends and get very usable data. If I put out a survey on sex and style of music, it would be very reliable due to its simplicity; how can you get your age, sex and musical preference wrong?
| Quote: |
| Is it generally legal to rip your own MP3s if you the original item? (Certainly under the radar.) |
Now how many mp3's are you going to buy that you will then later want to pay for the download ^_^ I was looking for something completely legit. Kazaa is supposed to be, but I wanted to find cheaper alternatives, especially since I doubt that I would spend more than ?10 a month (or whatever it charges).
#105030 - sgeos - Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:40 am
| keldon wrote: |
| How do you know anything? |
I don't, and that's why I'm wary.
| keldon wrote: |
| BBC is britains longest running tv company, they are not so stupid as to quote, "The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) welcomed the findings but added a note of caution." without the BPI saying so. Sure there is cynicism, but then there is going too far as to ask how we can be sure that the world isn't flat. |
I trust that they are not biased. I don't know enough about their data collection procedure to know if can be trusted.
| Quote: |
| Quote: | | All statistics are 'BS'. 100% of them. (That 100% is 'BS' =) |
Hmmm; I'm sure you are only joking. |
I'm actually only half joking.
| Quote: |
| But jokes asside, statistics may not be 100% correct, |
Many statistics are intentionally misleading. OK, misleading is a bad word. They are just intentionally leading. At times leading can be misleading. Anyone wanting to support a point can find statistics that support that point. If the statistics were made to support a particular point, there is good chance they are moot. Especially if the person funding or carrying out the data collection has a (hidden) agenda.
| Quote: |
| but they can quite easily identify trends and get very usable data. |
I'll admit that I'd rather base my decisions on something rather than nothing. Good data collection can be done. I've seen it done. Not everyone does good data collection. (For what it's worth, I trust that the BBC does, or at least tries to do good data collection.)
| Quote: |
| If I put out a survey on sex and style of music, it would be very reliable due to its simplicity; how can you get your age, sex and musical preference wrong? |
Your results might not paint the complete picture- assuming you want the complete picture. Where do you get your sample? How can you assure me that your sample isn't biased. I worked on one survey where apartments were under represented the first time around. They had to go back and fix that.
| Quote: |
| Now how many mp3's are you going to buy that you will then later want to pay for the download ^_^ |
I'm confused by this statement.
| Quote: |
| I was looking for something completely legit. Kazaa is supposed to be, but I wanted to find cheaper alternatives, especially since I doubt that I would spend more than ?10 a month (or whatever it charges). |
Can't you create MP3s from cd tracks with winamp? (Programs have become very fancy.) That is probably the least amout of trouble. It sounds like you are optimizing for cost though.
-Brendan
#105034 - theDJ - Thu Oct 05, 2006 11:34 am
| Quote: |
| Can't you create MP3s from cd tracks with winamp? (Programs have become very fancy.) That is probably the least amout of trouble. It sounds like you are optimizing for cost though. |
You can create MP3s from cd tracks with hundreds of programs..... Windows Media Player, iTunes, and Winamp just to name a few of the mroe popular.
#105037 - keldon - Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:12 pm
Copy protected CD's don't allow you to rip all tracks so easily. My Joss Stone album allows you to copy some tracks but not all - and I have no idea how it works. In nero some of the tracks appear, but some don't.
| Quote: |
| I'm confused by this statement. |
What I meant there is that you wouldn't buy a CD for $10, and then pay $10 to download it; you would most likely not have purhcased the CD if you were downloading it from a place where you could only download legally if you owned the CD.
| Quote: |
| Many statistics are intentionally misleading. OK, misleading is a bad word. They are just intentionally leading. At times leading can be misleading. Anyone wanting to support a point can find statistics that support that point. If the statistics were made to support a particular point, there is good chance they are moot. Especially if the person funding or carrying out the data collection has a (hidden) agenda. |
| Quote: |
The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) welcomed the findings but added a note of caution.
"It's encouraging that many illegal file-sharers are starting to use legal services," said BPI spokesman Matt Philips.
"But our concern is that file-sharers' expenditure on music overall is down, a fact borne out by study after study.
"The consensus among independent research is that a third of illegal file-sharers may buy more music and around two thirds buy less.
"That two-thirds tends to include people who were the heaviest buyers which is why we need to continue our carrot and stick approach to the problem of illegal file-sharing," he said. |
Well I think that there may be something misleading about the study. Even if the statistics are 100% accurate for the entire world, the BPI gives the impression that the reason for this figure is that the people who download are the people who were already paying for their music. But adding the opinions of critics who say that the quality of good music has dropped, and that a lot of artists are releasing tracks for figures and not for the good of music is also another candidate for the drop. I myself do not want to pay $15 for 4 tracks in an album. I bought the obie trice album when it came out and it was ok, but I was bitterly disappointed. What I have found is that I tend to make my own playlists and cd collections using tracks I like, which is most likely what downloaders are doing.
Hmmmmmm, I think there is a good way, but technology needs to catch up. Enough of hte technology required exists so maybe it can be done.
#105042 - kusma - Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:53 pm
[link removed] has some interresting stuff wrt swedish copyright law. and it's fun reading ;)
Mod Note: no it doesn't and it adds nothing to this discussion
#105064 - keldon - Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:06 pm
| kusma wrote: |
Mod Note: no it doesn't and it adds nothing to this discussion |
It all depends if we wanted to branch out into international law, differences of ethical views and how the legal system has caught up with digital media.
#105066 - thegamefreak0134 - Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:12 pm
| Quote: |
| It all depends if we wanted to branch out into international law, differences of ethical views and how the legal system has caught up with digital media. |
Except that he said in post one that he did not want the topic going there.
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#105073 - keldon - Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:04 pm
| thegamefreak0134 wrote: |
| Quote: | | It all depends if we wanted to branch out into international law, differences of ethical views and how the legal system has caught up with digital media. |
Except that he said in post one that he did not want the topic going there. |
Oh yes I did, good thinking.
So does anyone have any idea what research the BPI spokesman was speaking of? His comments suggest a contradiction between previous research and what the BBC had found.
"But our concern is that file-sharers' expenditure on music overall is down, a fact borne out by study after study". This, I believe implies that file-sharers spend less, although it could also be interpreted as "file sharers spend less than they did before file-sharing".
#105142 - sgeos - Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:32 am
| keldon wrote: |
| So does anyone have any idea what research the BPI spokesman was speaking of? |
Are the references/studies used listed? If not, can you call and find out what they are?
| Quote: |
| Mod Note: no it doesn't and it adds nothing to this discussion |
Makes me curious what was linked to. =)
-Brendan
#105147 - kusma - Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:26 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
Makes me curious what was linked to. =)
|
It was a link to the legal-section of a swedish torrent tracker website with loads of yarr-ware. And no, it wasn't really on topic, and I was foolish to forget about the strict anti-piracy rules at this forum.
#105160 - wintermute - Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:42 pm
legal section is a bit of a stretch really.
This Report gives some interesting data on the impact of file sharing on music sales. I've been unsuccessfully looking for another report I found some time ago which correlated several characteristics of p2p users with music piracy. That report showed no overall impact in the general case but when several other variables such as technical ability and access to broadband then a significant reduction in spending on music was found.
There are also some other reports which suggest that the revenue share of music is dropping because consumers are spending their money on other things such as DVDs - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5281272.stm
Personally I find DRM to be a complete pain in the neck. My girlfriend is quite fond of her Zen Micro and I usually rip our CD collection for tracks she wants to listen to on the move. We've looked at legal download sites and purchased some tracks from Tesco's portal but found that the licensing then prevented us from copying said tracks to the Zen Micro :/ I'm pretty sure that I did something wrong when activating the license but I was definitely put off purchasing more by the experience.
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#105167 - keldon - Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:05 pm
| Quote: |
| Personally I find DRM to be a complete pain in the neck |
There are going to be two things to change that. Firstly there will be a site that allows completely free mp3 downloads via advertising, and [possibly if memory serves right] an alternative to i-tunes that allows mp3 downloads.
| Quote: |
| Makes me curious what was linked to. =) |
I knew it would have some relation to **dare I say it**; and that would have opened up a whole can of worms in this discussion.
| Quote: |
| There are also some other reports which suggest that the revenue share of music is dropping because consumers are spending their money on other things such as DVDs |
Well that's another question on its own. What effect has the internet had on music from all angles? File sharing has made music more accessible to some, given others much more recognition thab they would have had, but could also have the knock on effect of reducing sales. This is where I think we would find nothing conclusive - there is no way to measure this. There were plenty of other things that were going on at the same time, and the costs of other media, increase in music channels, quality of digital television, availability of internet radio and poor quality of albums could all have contributed much more than piracy. And I always think of pokemon, vs the dreamcast. Did the dreamcast fail due to its lineup (no way), advertising (doubtful), sony (very likely), or piracy (the #1 culprit)? Was pokemon successful because it was anime (quite possibly), it had 'cute' animals (quite possibly), because it was the most distributed pirate game gaining recognition (maybe, just maybe), marketting (very likely), or gameplay (very likely).
I would like to go do research myself, but I feel that there is simply not enough evidence, and you would have to do toooooooo much to have anything near worthy of a conclusion.
#105172 - Joe_Sextus - Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:42 pm
| wintermute wrote: |
| ... licensing then prevented us from copying said tracks to the Zen Micro ... |
Depending on the file format, it may be possible to remove the DRM out of the file, or you could use the burn and rip method.
#105203 - kusma - Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:33 pm
what the movie and record industry seems to forget is that it's _their_ job to make being a paying customer more attractive than the alternatives. blaming technology instead of embracing it is just plain silly IMO. DRM makes being a customer painful - a downloaded album is already stripped of copying protection whereas a paid for is some times tricky to rip. if i pay for an album, i want to be able to play it back on my own terms.
#105204 - keldon - Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:37 pm
| kusma wrote: |
| what the movie and record industry seems to forget is that it's _their_ job to make being a paying customer more attractive than the alternatives. blaming technology instead of embracing it is just plain silly IMO. DRM makes being a customer painful - a downloaded album is already stripped of copying protection whereas a paid for is some times tricky to rip. if i pay for an album, i want to be able to play it back on my own terms. |
Do you want to know something funny? I have sky movies, which that I can download ANY film that has ever shown on sky movies for FREE by bit torrent on the SkyByBroadband network. But guess where I'd rather download my movie from (well actually I don't even download it there)? I haven't watched the DVD's I got for my birthday(in March), so I'm certainly not going to watch some film I downloaded within 30 days either.
#105206 - sgeos - Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:38 pm
| keldon wrote: |
| And I always think of pokemon, vs the dreamcast. Did the dreamcast fail due to its lineup (no way), advertising (doubtful), sony (very likely), or piracy (the #1 culprit)? Was pokemon successful because it was anime (quite possibly), it had 'cute' animals (quite possibly), because it was the most distributed pirate game gaining recognition (maybe, just maybe), marketting (very likely), or gameplay (very likely). |
Combinations of factors can work magic.
Let's say I'm playing a board game with my friends. I spend basically everything to get a nifty upgrade. Somebody hits me with something. Not very damaging, but given that I just got a nifty upgrade I can't really cope very well. On my turn I draw something particularly unlucky that puts me out of the game. I could have survived two out three, but not all three. =)
-Brendan
#105275 - Dracker - Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:58 am
I know personally several pirates who also buy a lot of stuff. You can't judge a book by its cover, really. It's kind of ironic how some download music so they don't have to deal with DRM (but still buy lots of CDs!), some download TV shows so they don't have to deal with commercials - but still buy seasons worth of media on DVD.
Are the industries bringing piracy upon themselves, I wonder?
#105288 - sgeos - Sat Oct 07, 2006 11:20 am
| Dracker wrote: |
| some download music so they don't have to deal with DRM |
DRM is not a feature for the end user. It's a feature for publishers. With DRM, publishers can believe that dirty pirates can't steal their stuff. Therefore people who try to bypass are cheaters. =)
| Dracker wrote: |
| some download TV shows so they don't have to deal with commercials |
"Normal" commercial TV channels exist to show people commercials. The TV shows are just a means to that end. If you really want to avoid the commercial, you can buy the DVD. Clearly people who download TV programs to avoid the commercials is thieves. =)
| Dracker wrote: |
| Are the industries bringing piracy upon themselves, I wonder? |
You could argue that. The industries certain won't listen though.
The "industries" employ features that are not meant for (ie, not being sold to) the end users, so certain end users remove those features. I think that makes sense. The "industries" are still going to be upset by the removal of those features.
I have no sympathy for pirates that live in rich countries. If you live in a country where you only make a dollar a day, piracy makes a lot of sense. You couldn't really buy those products even if you wanted to. If you live in a country where you can make seven dollars an hour, there are very few products you can't save up for and buy. If you make more than that, all the less reason for you to be involved in piracy.
-Brendan
#105297 - wintermute - Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:42 pm
Heh,
I'd like to live in a country where you can earn $7 an hour, pay your rent & bills, eat properly and still manage to save up for luxury items.
The minimum wage here in the UK is around $9 an hour and, believe me, it's a stretch to get by here working a standard 40hour week on that kind of money.
You still living with your parents or something?
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#105300 - zzo38computer - Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:42 pm
| kusma wrote: |
| what the movie and record industry seems to forget is that it's _their_ job to make being a paying customer more attractive than the alternatives. blaming technology instead of embracing it is just plain silly IMO. DRM makes being a customer painful - a downloaded album is already stripped of copying protection whereas a paid for is some times tricky to rip. if i pay for an album, i want to be able to play it back on my own terms. |
(This is the real first note: Probably the industries are making many people not want to pay, because of DRM and other stuff.)
(Even before first note: Why not do both? Pay for and download the same album? If you get the CD and then give it back to the person who made that album without asking for any money back, it not only increases revenues but also reduces expenses because they don't have to make so many CDs, and of course it will also prevent you from having to deal with DRM! (Just don't tell anyone))
(First note: I agree with that, and Nintendo Wii Virtual Console also uses DRM (Digital Rights Management, but a more accurate name would be Digital Restrictions Management, because it manages restrictions, not rights) and probably doesn't even have everything that I may want. Anyways, $5.00 is a good price for a NES game (is this United States money? If I am Canadian do I need to convert to Canadian?) but I don't want the DRM version. Of course, I probably also cannot play homebrew or Japanese games using that (of course, it is even less likely to run European games, which uses PAL, on a NTSC TV) (which is one reason I don't like the Virtual Console), that is why I am making my own game system (you can use homebrew NES/GB/GBC/GBA game on Linux, as well as any other software specifically designed for that system) (I already started building the controller!))
(Another note: I have played one PAL homebrew game (The Masmix), it asks you to set your emulator in PAL mode before it starts, but all that it does if set to PAL mode is it runs too slow), so I keep it in NTSC mode (and I cannot see my score very well in NTSC mode, but the game works fine other than that).)
(Even more note: I am not paying for TV service, but I still get full TV service half the time (but only on one TV, not both), which is probably a problem with the service provider, does that make me a thief? You can also record a show and then fast-forward or delete the commercials (there is a software to automatically delete commercials before playing it back, look at PC Magazine for details), does that make you a thief?)
(Another even more note: Is it possible to live in a country where you can earn $7 an hour, pay your rent & bills, eat properly and still manage to save up for luxury items? How much does the rent and stuff cost? I still live with my parents because I don't want to pay for a new house, to me it is unnecessary to pay that much for a new house. Or do people that make DRM also attempt you to be forced to buy a new house?)
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#105302 - tepples - Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:54 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
| Dracker wrote: | | some download music so they don't have to deal with DRM |
DRM is not a feature for the end user. It's a feature for publishers. |
Publishers would claim that it's a feature for end users because it's a feature for publishers. Like copyright itself, DRM makes publishing more attractive to publishers, that a work published in a DRM format is better for customers than that work not published at all.
| Quote: |
| If you really want to avoid the commercial, you can buy the DVD. |
So why is there such a long lead time between the airing of part of a TV season and its first publication on DVD? And why are some TV seasons not published on DVD at all in major international markets?
| Quote: |
| I have no sympathy for pirates that live in rich countries. If you live in a country where you only make a dollar a day, piracy makes a lot of sense. |
As I understand it, this includes minors in the United States, who are prohibited by law from working, even on summer break, other than token jobs for relatives. High school students age 16 or 17 can work with a work permit in most states, but a high school principal may deny a work permit for any reason.
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#105349 - keldon - Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:28 am
Hmmmm. I was just thinking about pirate albums and DVD's. They sell pretty well, and that says a lot. It means that people are willing to pay for DVD's (at the cost of quality) for a reduced price. If retail stores had the same price then pirates would have less ground to stand on whatever price they offered.
A song in the UK topped the charts with its download sales alone, so the legal download market is really picking up. But they need to take their figures and make sense of it. If downloaders are spending ?5 a month on music media, and those who don't spend ?2, then maybe you can bridge the gap and have a service like KaZaa for ?5 a month. It's cheap, but if it can capture the rest then maybe it will work.
Maybe there is technology to be developed that can cater for it. I think that a combination of p2p, internet radio, and customer profiling will form part of tomorrows technology. But how it will all glue together will be what detirmines how successful it is.
#105363 - Lynx - Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:33 am
Funny.. So, piracy for some is ok.. but others.. it's not.. Hmm.. very interesting.
Your broke and you pirate.. your a theif. Your rich and you pirate.. your a theif. Either way.. your a theif.. If you want to discuss when being a theif is more "ok" then other, forget about music.. forget about DVDs.. NONE OF THAT STUFF MATTERS! There is NEVER an "ok" time to be a theif when it comes to luxury items. Do you need music or movies to survive? HELL NO!
So, when it is "ok" to be a theif? When you or your children are starving.. When you've done everything you can do to feed them and it's not working out.. When you've tried every possible means to feed them legally and your on your last leg.. Then, and only then, does it even closely become "ok" to be a theif.
EDIT: Where have the morals went?
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#105364 - sgeos - Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:36 am
| wintermute wrote: |
| You still living with your parents or something? |
Have you been to a place like India? (If India is too wild for you, go to China instead.) I'm not talking about pictures. Go for just one month. The UK is rich.
| wintermute wrote: |
| I'd like to live in a country where you can earn $7 an hour, pay your rent & bills, eat properly and still manage to save up for luxury items. |
Eat properly? At minimum wage, sacrafices must be made to save up for luxury items. =) Privacy (roommates) and food come to mind first.
If you can pay your rent, bills and eat properly at minimum wage, you can find a way to save up for something that costs $30. I'll even go out on a limb and say that you could probably do that every month. I'm fairly sure that most people spend this much on nonsense anyways.
My point is that, in a country like the UK, you should be able to figure out how to save up for what you want to buy if you have to be creative. If you live in an incredibly poor county, you either don't have that option, or creative == piracy.
| wintermute wrote: |
| The minimum wage here in the UK is around $9 an hour and, believe me, it's a stretch to get by here working a standard 40hour week on that kind of money. |
Can most people find full time work? I've lived in places where full time work is hard to find, and 35 hour weeks are considered full time. (21 hours a month are a lot to lose.)
| tepples wrote: |
| Publishers would claim that it's a feature for end users because it's a feature for publishers. |
I think that DRM is hilarious. The whole thing strikes me as a way to scam publishers out of money. Too bad DRM is a hard business to get into. =)
| tepples wrote: |
| Like copyright itself, DRM makes publishing more attractive to publishers, that a work published in a DRM format is better for customers than that work not published at all. |
Clearly we're all vultures waiting to steal their precious precious intellectual property. =) Again, I think that this attitude is hilarious.
| tepples wrote: |
| So why is there such a long lead time between the airing of part of a TV season and its first publication on DVD? |
They haven't made enough in commercials yet.
| tepples wrote: |
| And why are some TV seasons not published on DVD at all in major international markets? |
They didn't sell enough commercials. Clearly nobody wants to see those programs. Or, there is some other reason to believe that there isn't a market for the product. Or, the localization/marketing budget could be better spent somewhere else. In other words, those programs didn't pull enough commercials in said markets. (For obvious reasons, this explanation ignores the existance of incompentant people. =)
| tepples wrote: |
| As I understand it, this includes minors in the United States, who are prohibited by law from working, even on summer break, other than token jobs for relatives. |
Right. Certain (less than working age) year olds download a lot of things they couldn't buy even if they wanted to. That makes sense. I think that the child labor laws in the US are silly. If I were to pretend that I didn't think they were silly, I'd argue that children who have time to muck around with piracy should spend more time studying.
| tepples wrote: |
| High school students age 16 or 17 can work with a work permit in most states, but a high school principal may deny a work permit for any reason. |
Do you know anyone who has been denied? What was the reason? I think the hoops are silly, but in my experience the high school students who really want jobs seem to find them. Many of the high school students I've worked with would rather go home early than earn money. I think their parents want them to have a job. Either that or they want money and don't enjoy work.
I know at least one student who claims to want a job, but doesn't like any of the jobs available to students. This person can't be bothered to look for a job because "none of the jobs are real jobs". Needless to say, when this person complains about wanting money, I'm not inclined to feel sympathetic.
-Brendan
#105381 - keldon - Sun Oct 08, 2006 9:18 am
| Lynx wrote: |
Funny.. So, piracy for some is ok.. but others.. it's not.. Hmm.. very interesting.
Your broke and you pirate.. your a theif. Your rich and you pirate.. your a theif. Either way.. your a theif.. If you want to discuss when being a theif is more "ok" then other, forget about music.. forget about DVDs.. NONE OF THAT STUFF MATTERS! There is NEVER an "ok" time to be a theif when it comes to luxury items. Do you need music or movies to survive? HELL NO!
So, when it is "ok" to be a theif? When you or your children are starving.. When you've done everything you can do to feed them and it's not working out.. When you've tried every possible means to feed them legally and your on your last leg.. Then, and only then, does it even closely become "ok" to be a theif.
EDIT: Where have the morals went? |
Let's not turn this into a debate about morals and the blah blah blah, otherwise it just tempts a lock.
#105459 - Lynx - Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:47 pm
The topic has become pointless and deserves a lock.. There is no time when piracy of luxery items is "ok".. that was my point.
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#105464 - keldon - Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:58 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
| The topic has become pointless and deserves a lock.. There is no time when piracy of luxery items is "ok".. that was my point. |
I think you are missing the point of the topic. In the original topic I said I did not want it to turn into a debate on morals, ethics, right/wrong as that encourages a lock. As the title suggests: "research ... on piracy".
Are you not a little curious about he effect it may or may not have had? I think that the research is much more interesting than debate of morals and ethics as we have had that countless times and although it can be interesting, we've heard it all before.
#105520 - sgeos - Mon Oct 09, 2006 5:33 am
| keldon wrote: |
| Are you not a little curious about he effect it may or may not have had? |
Do you want to talk about if or how piracy helps sales? Piracy helps sales. It also doesn't affect sales. It alse hurts sales. All at the same time. There are different types of pirates with different reasons for stealing. The relative proportions of each determine the overall effect. Knowing why people commit piracy and how these groups interact can help you figure out what to do about it (if you care).
I think that the results of any study are going to be very region specific. Does this matter?
| Lynx wrote: |
| There is no time when piracy of luxery items is "ok".. that was my point. |
I agree with you completely. My point is that I understand why certain people are pirates and I don't understand why other people are pirates.
Does piracy help sales? I think before this can be answered, two questions have to be answered. What causes piracy? What causes sales?
What causes piracy? I can think of six types of pirates. Commercial pirates. Providers. Experimenters and crackers. Unable to pay. Unwilling to pay.
Clearly commercial piracy hurts sales, and the motivation is obvious. The damage is double when customers think they have real products. Commercial pirates steal sales.
Providers. People with download servers. People who give CDs to their friends. Motivations vary. Are sales lost? Certainly. To what extent? Depends on who the products/data are given to. Publishers hate illegal distributors.
Experimenters and crackers. These people may have no interest in the product itself or they may already own the product. This category probably applies more to software than music at this point, but when new formats are released, these people pop up. They want to see if they can copy something, or if the encryption can be broken, so they try. They may be working with somebody who has other motivations (like commercial pirates). They might know that they are doing something wrong. They might justify what they are doing. They may not actually be doing anything illegal, but they certainly pave the way for everyone else. This category probably has a small direct impact on sales, but a huge indirect one.
Unable to pay. Will this person ever be able to pay? If not, no sales will be generated. Ever. If so, the next question is, is this person willing to pay? If so, sales are generated. If not...
Unwilling to pay. People have all sorts of reasons. Less cut and dry, I think that this is the category to talk about. Why are they unwilling to pay, and what would make them willing to pay?
For example, pack rats. Some people collect pirated material for the sake of collecting. They probably won't buy something they already have. If they can't get it anywhere else, they might buy it for the sake of having it. Some of people just enjoy doing illegal things and probably enjoy bragging about the value of pirated material they have. (No sales. Ever.) If they don't give it away and they don't do anything with it and they never would have bought it, then they are harmless (but odd).
What causes sales? Exposure certainly causes sales. Piracy increases exposure to something. So does the radio. Both are forms of free marketing. The difference is that after you listen to the radio, the music is gone.
-Brendan
#105527 - keldon - Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:06 am
Interesting categorisation. When I was first introduced to internet piracy, it was when kazaa was new. First people just downloaded comedic clips, there was no mention of music. Then people started floating around music of people I never heard of, papoose, 50 cent (before aftermath), unreleased material, and were introducing us to new music.
My first introduction to fat joe (and his twin brother) was a tape my cousin recorded (before the downloading days). My reintroduction to him was a guy in college who gave me a copy of one of his albums - and that *honestly* got me into hip hop more seriously. So some motivations for people sharing is simply ..... sharing. Later a friend of the guy gave me a list of artists I never heard of, artists that you will never hear about in shops, artists who probably cannot distribute their music. So I was puzzled, how do I get this, and he pointed me to kazaa. I had a modem so I never bothered, but in those days most peoples gateway to kazaa (that I knew of) was like that.
Pokemon was the same. Before it was released my friend with broadband introduced me to emulation. I'd go to his house after school, play playstation, and then we'd play pokemon. This eventually led me to delve into homebrew ^_^
And DRM is a scam to publishers - with music anyway. You cannot stop film or music piracy, it is impossible without introducing 24/7 surveillance in peoples homes. And you can bypass the anti copying technology quite easily, some devices by default filter out those lines anyway [for some reason].
But with the figures showing that pirates spend more, it makes you rethink how everything effects everything else. Internet piracy is just a new form of piracy. High speed dubbing, minidisks and cd writers were around long before everyone had p2p and broadband - and records can be easily bootlegged. Half of the music I had as a kid were copies of stuff my friend bought, high speed dubbing allowed us to share music and hear something we had never heard before. I'm sure that whenever something that is not highly publicised will have their own set of 'promoting' providers who want to expose the track for any reason - be it to simply share your experience, or to identify yourself as the latest source. I remember my aunt recording Destiny's Child's 'bills' from the TV and watching it non stop before my uncle bought her the CD. That [until the CD was bought] was ancient piracy.
#105541 - kusma - Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:53 pm
What is okay and not okay to do is usually a question of law and moral. No one has denied the legal barriers in theft. I always enjoy when people come around and define moral for me. I'm not saying piracy is okay, but I don't think the picture is as black and white as Mr Lynx here is painting it. No, it's never legal to steal, but in some situations to some people it might be morally acceptable. And I don't think there's much difference between luxury items and other items in this respect either, it's up to the person doing an act to decide if his or her moral finds it to be right or not. Moral depends on many factors, and there is no definite answer.
#105545 - zzo38computer - Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:24 pm
Anything about these types of piracy? You missed them.
- Doesn't like DRM
- Product has been discontinued
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#105597 - Lynx - Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:44 am
| Quote: |
| imes and although it can be interesting, we've heard it all before. |
As with morals, ethics, etc.. All the effects of piracy have been heard before.. I stick with "this is a useless topic" and you won't learn anything from it that you can't read in any of the other piracy topics.
But what the heck.. let's keep kicking a dead horse, cause it doesn't really matter anyway.
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#105602 - keldon - Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:07 am
I think that morals and ethics have been spoken much more than anything that research has covered up. Sure it gets mentioned, but only for means of justification. Your previous post indicates [to me] some sort of resentment to anything pro piracy, and is likely to cloud your perception on the direction of any topic on it. If it matters not, then read/reply not.
Here the boss of napster speaks about the topic and raises some issues. He says that "the consumer got caught buying CDs which only had one good song" and that the apple boss has "tricked people into buying a hardware trap" with the ipod.
Here is another interesting read about peoples attitudes, and here is one about dissatisfaction with the current services for legal downloads.
I would love to be the guy who created the end-all solution. He is going to be rich.
#105615 - sgeos - Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:21 am
| keldon wrote: |
| So some motivations for people sharing is simply ..... sharing. |
Sharing is probably the most common case. To split the costs of a CD, you have to either have some or sort of ownership arrangement or copy the CD.
I'm not convinced that sharing is the only reason, especially for people with download servers. I think that ego extension can be a factor. I'm also sure that some people who run download servers are collecting money from ads and affiliate programs (ie, quasi-commercial).
| kusma wrote: |
| And I don't think there's much difference between luxury items and other items in this respect either |
The difference is that people can live without luxury items.
| kusma wrote: |
| Moral depends on many factors |
Different people have different values. That discussion belongs in another thread.
| zzo38computer wrote: |
| Doesn't like DRM |
This falls into unwilling to pay.
| zzo38computer wrote: |
| Product has been discontinued |
This falls into unable to pay, and I had not considered this. If the product is produced again later, it can be purchased and may generate more sales. If it is never recontinued, it will not generate any more legitimate sales. Obvious, given a discontinued product. =P
| Lynx wrote: |
| But what the heck.. let's keep kicking a dead horse, cause it doesn't really matter anyway. |
Nobody is forcing you to read this thread. If the discussion is boring, don't participate.
| keldon wrote: |
| I would love to be the guy who created the end-all solution. He is going to be rich. |
The guy who creates and sells DRM that works is going to be a complete idiot.
| lawyer joke wrote: |
A young attorney who had taken over his father's practice rushed home elated one night.
"Dad, listen," he shouted, "I've finally settled that old McKinney suit."
"Settled it!" cried his astonished father. "Why, you idiot! We have been living off of that money for five years!" |
Nobody wants to sell DRM that works. How could you keep selling it? =)
-Brendan
#105721 - kusma - Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:39 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
The difference is that people can live without luxury items.
|
Yes, but it's still a question of values. I would assume that 99% of all breaches of "common moral standards" is not a question of life or death. Atleast in western countries.
| Quote: |
Different people have different values. That discussion belongs in another thread.
|
I completely agree, I just don't think that the entire topic can be diregarded as invalid just because Lynx assume everyone to share his moral standards.
[edit: fixed some bad spelling]
Last edited by kusma on Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
#105727 - keldon - Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:11 pm
Forget about whether or not we will all adhere to the same beliefs, let's just keep the topic away from morals completely. What interests me is the research.
| Quote: |
| The guy who creates and sells DRM that works is going to be a complete idiot. |
I wasn't talking about an end-all solution that makes piracy impossible, but the end-all solution that provides a complete system for accessing money for a fee.
I think that the ideal solution will involve some sort of profiling that takes into account what you listen to, what type of person you are and who you are likely to share interests with. The complete solution will also identify those who tend to hear the music first to quickly spot the latest tracks that would be of interest to a particular group. Songs can then be presented to the user in some sort of *spanking new music* fashion along with some mechanism for knowing whether or not they like the track - possibly by either an immediate rating that benefits the user by automatically managing the playlist.
But there is more technology to come, technology to allow mobile phones and mp3 players to be constantly connected to a wireless internet connection, which will make this much more fesible and effective. The research can tell you whether or not there is any point in going into a system like this.
We already have a portable system with fairly good battery life (the DS) that can be connected to wireless internet access points (I believe) that could eventually benefit from such a system. So this discussion can be more relevant to US than we might first have thought. It does not just stop at music, what about films and games? We all want to make money, and we need to know what effect piracy has, what attitudes these people have to paying, and how we can benefit from the knowledge that these bodies have researched.
EDIT: And it appears that kazaa has a similar mechanism, well that is how I interpreted his statement - although he could have just been speaking about what would be good and not necessarily anything that was or may be implemented in kazaa's system.
#105820 - Lynx - Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:09 am
Maybe if you reread THIS THREAD you might get my point.. This has been beaten to death.. :) 6 pages that will say the exact same thing you are talking about now.. the effects of piracy on the market from both sides, blah blah blah.. I can't think you forgot about that thread, did you?
| Quote: |
| just because Lynx assume everyone to share his moral standards. |
Heh.. if that were the case, we wouldn't be having this topic, nor anyone know what warez are.. :) And games would probably only cost $5 each. When I was posting that reply, the topic started to lean toward "When is stealing OK."... That was my answer.. I'd give the same (or very simulare) answer to this question:
"When is it OK for our MARIED president to have his way with an intern?".. the answer? NEVER! But, it reminds me of why we don't have any morals left.
| Quote: |
| that makes piracy impossible |
There is no such thing.. For every 1 coder creating something to block, there are 100 or 1000x more coders trying to crack it. Even though we haven't cracked the NiFI RSA, other means have defeated it.[/quote]
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#105823 - keldon - Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:54 am
| Quote: |
| Heh.. if that were the case, we wouldn't be having this topic, nor anyone know what warez are.. :) And games would probably only cost $5 each. When I was posting that reply, the topic started to lean toward "When is stealing OK."... That was my answer.. I'd give the same (or very simulare) answer to this question: |
Which is why I said you have COMPLETELY missed the point of the topic. Some aspects have been mentioned in the other therad, but the thread was only using it as a means of justification. And I believe you view against piracy is clouding your mind and making you think of only that and nothing else, like the post above yours. I am not trying to debate that side, nor argue about it so let us completely end the debate relating to morals and this part of [arguing] the conversation otherwise I can only assume you are trying to get this thread locked.
#105887 - Lynx - Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:45 pm
Ok.. so can you clearly post in quotes exactly what you want to discuss if it has nothing to do with morals (aka: is stealing ok?), has nothing to do with piracy on the market, as that topic has been beat to hell in the other post, with plenty of "research" provided for both sides of the issue. We've all heard the "Pirates buy games" and "Developers need to get paid".. what is left? I think YOU are completely missing my point as to why this topic is useless.. Is it because you don't want to reread the thread I linked?
Do you have a question or idea that hasn't been covered in that thread? Do you have any points you would like to discuss specifically? Because if you look that the first post of this thread you are only stating that you don't believe that pirates are the ones spending more money.. And rightly so.. as it is complete BS.
So, then is should this topic not really be about piracy, but how opinion polls are taken, the methods used to "force" people to answer a question the way YOU want them to answer it? I can give you an example..
Did you beat your wife today?
If you answer yes, you are a wife beater. If you answer no, it indicates that you may have beat your wife in the past. Or, how about just comments:
Johny was sober at work today.
Hmm. what does that say? Johny is normally not sober at work? As, everyone should be sober at work every day.
Get my point yet? If you can clearly define exactly what you want to "debate" then it will make it a lot easier for others to discuss with you. Better if you can give bullet points to discuss.
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#105896 - keldon - Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:23 pm
Maybe I have integrated my links to loosely in my text, as I have provided many links. Like my post above says, we may be able to learn/benefit from understanding the system better.
In regards to what this was originally about, I simply come across the article while searching for legal mp3 download sites. Now that I have found it, I think that understanding piracy, and seeing how it can be tackled could do quite a lot for us. We live by the premise that we can never make money from our homebrew work, but I believe we are wrong for believing that. I think we are wrong for believing pirates don't want to pay for their media, I just think we go about the wrong way of presenting it to them. They do pay for it, they do pay for pirate DVD's so what are the rest of us doing wrong? It's not just down to price, pirate DVD's aren't much cheaper than retail DVD's, or the old CD-WOW.
I know how you can encourage results, and I doubt that the British Broadcasting Channel (with their 50 years of experience, and the other body mentioned in the article) would be stupid enough to not know that.
| Quote: |
| Get my point yet? If you can clearly define exactly what you want to "debate" then it will make it a lot easier for others to discuss with you. Better if you can give bullet points to discuss. |
Maybe I am overestimating everyone, I thought it was obvious. Research related to piracy. This is not an argument, this is not A vs B - that is half of the basis of this thread, the rest is down to productive discussion about what has been found, not destructive arguing and criticism of what has been previously said. And I don't mean that in an offensive way, that is just how I would prefer this topic to continue.
#105904 - wintermute - Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:41 pm
Given that
| keldon wrote: |
I found this news report that I found interesting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4718249.stm
I've always wondered what research could be done and what it would find, and although I expected it to raise awareness, I did not expect the people who downloaded illegally to be the ones who spent more.
Please do not bring the ethics, right/wrong into this otherwise it will immediately become a lockable topic. |
I would assume that the thread was meant to discuss interesting news reports and statistics relating to piracy as a marketing tool.
It has been suggested that some part of the success of the Pokemon phenomenon could be attributed to the widespread brand familiarity generated by piracy of the games.
In other places I've seen suggestions that the number of playstation and xbox consoles sold could be due in some small part to the ease of piracy and or modding on those platforms. The fate of the dreamcast would perhaps refute that theory but weren't there more Playstation games? Perhaps piracy on the Dreamcast was too easy.
The success or not of a console is probably due to many factors but probably relates most to publisher support. I know that some publishers basically pulled the carpet from under the ST and it's derivatives by deciding to put their money into Amiga games. There was one particular incident I remember well during an ST/Amiga project where the lead coder had written some specific STe optimisations which made the game faster on that particular platform. When the publisher discovered this we were forced to pull the code because the ST was a secondary platform and they didn't want to denigrate the Amiga version ( their words ).
In the "good old days" it was possible to build a reasonable income from games written in a back bedroom, selling tapes via small adverts in the magazines of the day. Some people even made their fortune back then, building some of the giants of today. With the advent of the internet and the widespread uptake of broadband some people predicted a return to those glory days where single programmers or even small groups could make a fortune cutting out the middle man with digital distribution and online payments. Since fast broadband and P2P services are now widespread it would seem that the majority of net savvy users are doing everything in their power to avoid paying for anything that can be distributed digitally it seems that the new digital economy thrives on providing services to those users and selling them things which are difficult to copy through affiliate links and pay per click advertising.
This all brings up quite a few questions -
- Are modern consumers honest enough to make software a viable market?
- Where do we find those consumers?
- How do we get them to buy our particular product?
- Can we make software cheap enough to be worth buying or should we be looking for alternative revenue sources to allow us to give away our software?
I can probably think of a few more but those are probably enough to generate an interesting thread for now.
As the maintainer of devkitARM I find that support questions and website maintainance suck more of my time. Personally I like the fact that devkitARM is probably one of the most widely used set of tools in the homebrew scene today. I even get a kick out of the great software are producing with the toolchain but it's rapidly becoming a victim of it's own success.
I find myself wondering if there is any way I could use the devkitpro.org traffic to build a reasonable income which would allow me to spend more time making it better. It would be great if I could generate enough revenue to pay people to take care of support requests and buy some decent prizes for a competition or two. Unfortunately adsense pulled my account for alleged click fraud so that's not an option. I know several other people with homebrew websites have experienced similar heavy handedness from google and I suspect that relatively low traffic combined with some users trying to "help out" by clicking multiple ads is probably the primary reason for setting off alarm bells at google.
If anyone has any experience with monetising websites I'd love to hear from you. I'd even be prepared to offer such a person a cut of any revenue that they could help generate.
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#105910 - Lynx - Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:59 am
Being that WinterMute has turned this thread in a productive direction.. Let's see what we can come up with.
| Quote: |
| # Are modern consumers honest enough to make software a viable market? |
Personally, unless it is sitting on the shelf at Best Buy or another store that sells software, I don't believe so. Being that it is just as easy to download pirate copies as clicking an order button on a web site.
| Quote: |
# How do we get them to buy our particular product?
# Can we make software cheap enough to be worth buying or should we be looking for alternative revenue sources to allow us to give away our software? |
I can't help but bring up Asheron's Call. Not only did consumers pay $10 per month to play a game they paid $20 (which should have been free), but the game was addictive enough for individuals to have 2 or 3 online accounts at $10 per month. Now that is just rediculous marketing skills right there. You want to make major money? That is it. Now, can a homebrewer do something like that? I think so.. but of course.. it wouldn't be something one person does or it happen overnight.
Now, the only ideas I can come up with on how to make the most popular dev kit for the DS profitable would be to branch off a "professional" version that you have to pay for. Negatives is that you have to manage two branches of the software.. OR, if you compare it to PHP Nuke.. It is free, but if you pay $10 you get the newest version, where for free, you can only get one version behind the latest. Being that $10 isn't much, more people are willing to do it. Now, if you can take the number of downloads you get per new version, multiply it by $10 each.. does that look pretty good? Of course, not everyone will purchase the newest version but it couldn't hurt. So, with that method, you could generate a few dollars and not have to manage branches..
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#129322 - keldon - Mon May 21, 2007 10:16 pm
# Are modern consumers honest enough to make software a viable market?
# Where do we find those consumers?
# How do we get them to buy our particular product?
# Can we make software cheap enough to be worth buying or should we be looking for alternative revenue sources to allow us to give away our software?
Not to bump; but to throw those questions at the community!
#129327 - Lick - Mon May 21, 2007 10:22 pm
I think any smart company wouldn't depend completely on their actual sales. If you really want to make money you have to explore other income streams as well.
But if sales are really important to you, then I would suggest offering them more than just a product. Give them full service and personal support if they need it. Having a community around your software does help.
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