[kasperl]

ok, i've got to give a lecture for school on the subject of warez, especailly music, but software is ok to. the two main subjects i want to focus on are why people donwload/copy and what the indiustry is doing to trie and stop them.
i was jsut wondering if any of yu had any ideas or knew any articles on this. and as i said in the subject, i don't need any links to warez sites. just sites who are discussing warez.

[Stunaep]

Why I copy Warez:

Computer Games prices here begin at $70. The minimum wage is $150. Do the Maths.

I don't have a credit card, and no shop in Estonia sells Freespace 1. How do you expect me to get it.

As for movies, it's just like taping a movie and handing it to your friends, I just do it over KaZaA. I don't consider it wrong.

[Fineus]

Like Kas said, no links or funny stuff here please

Kas, you'd do well to look at the entire Napster/Music Community conflict I think - there's a lot of discussion there about whether the free distribution of music is legal or not.

Like Stu said, you can download movies - or tape them from any Sky/whatever channel. I don't consider that wrong, if it's available to copy legally from television then downloading it is merely a more selective process of the same thing. That can't be argued as stealing.

Whilst games are expensive, game developers see very little of the money that is bought in from sales, publishers see far more of that profit (and they shouldn't), thus if I enjoy a game enough then I'll purchase it. But I've no problem with using other means of obtaining and evaluating the game before I spend my hard-earned cash on a solid copy. Games aren't cheap, and I think if they were - game copying of the illegal nature would radically reduce in size overnight.

[Stunaep]

oh yes, I first bought FS2 as Warez, yet it didn't have music, videos or Petrarch.

So, I went out and bought the original, spending $5 plus the rightful price of $30.

[Ashrak]

well if no bad stuff lets say that im not rich enough to buy games music etc......as stu saied and since we do live in the same country do the maths

[kasperl]

here in holland, prices formusic CD's are around €25,- and games around €50 forpc and €80 for console. i also think that that's the main reason, but i'd like to see some different opinions too. and if anyone know a article on this,i'd be gratefull

[an0n]

I never buy a game before I've tried it, and there's no way I'm shelling out £4 at BlockBuster to play it for a single day.

I usually get the game warez, if it's friggin awesome I go out and buy it. If it's good, I wait till it goes down in price a bit then buy it. And if, after a week of playing, I decide it's garbage, I delete it.

The way I see it, warez is like getting a demo. It crashes all the time, you get no sound or movies and it's a ***** to install. But it lets you get a feel for the gameplay and lets you see if your machine can run it.

I got FS1 on warez about a month after it came out and didn't even know I had it until like 6 months later (it was on a compilation disk). About a week after finding and playing on it I decided it'd be worth trying out FS2, so I got a warez copy of it. About 2 weeks later, I went scouring my local stores and bought the double-pack.

The moral of the story: If it weren't for warez, I wouldn't have even heard about FS, let alone bought it. So in effect, one seedy little back-street store was more effective in getting me to buy FS2 than Interplay's entire marketting department.



Oh, and all this crap about pirates costing the gaming industry millions is bull****. Every single pirate I know (and that's like about 20) hardly make any cash from selling even the latest games. There was a guy who lived near me with like 400 different Playstation titles for sale and he told me at most he sold maybe two or three games a week and it was little more than a means to get some extra drinking money. Even the true pirates who spend 5 days a week at car-boot sales selling nothing but games rarely sell more than 20 games a week, even in the run-up to Christmas.

Generally, people want originals because they are simply better. The only people who buy warez purely as an alternative to buying originals are people who couldn't even afford originals anyway. So it's not like the companies would be losing any money anyway. All they're doing by stopping warez is depriving the poor of access to their games and trying to strengthen the monetary divide and out-right capitalism.


And on the subject of piracy; Regional coding. This is so blatantly a rip-off I don't know how they get away with it. Fair enough, some things run in PAL and some run in NTSC, but installing regional encoding on disks is so ****ing stupid. You might be able to get a DVD completely legally for like $5 from Japan, but simply because you live in America you have to pay $30. Where's the sense in that? It's just national discrimination.


Okay, I'm done.

[Ulundel]

Originally posted by Stunaep
oh yes, I first bought FS2 as Warez, yet it didn't have music, videos or Petrarch.

So, I went out and bought the original, spending $5 plus the rightful price of $30.

And don't forget that dear mr. plumber helped you out

[kode]

sure. I copy games. but I also buy games. especially for my gameboy advance (mostly because I haven't found a swedish retailer for flash advance that actually had them in stock. but it's hard to draw a line on how much a game should cost, and looking at how world economy has evolved, they don't really cost that much more than they did in the golden age of NES. console games back then cost 350 SEK, now they cost ~700 SEK (not handheld console games tho, they're at ~500 SEK). PC games are generally cheaper, between 400 and 500 SEK, usually.

A couple of years ago, a music CD would cost 150 SEK at most. now I can't find any new music CDs for less than 200 SEK... of course people copy.

[Levyathan]

With the minimum wage being $200, and a PS2 game costing $200, you can damn right bet I'm going for a $5 warez copy. It's not like there's any difference, they're console games anyway - you just put the disk there and play.

Computer games are a different matter, though. When I'm unable to buy original copies from local stores, I import them (and that's not cheap, with all the taxes and shipment).

[CP5670]

As far as games go, I pretty much have the same system as an0n; I get a warez copy as a demo and decide whether or not to get the game based on that. This has the advantage that some things that are ripped out in warez versions are included in the full thing (music, movies, etc.), and it is also sometimes the case that you cannot play warez games online or patch them due to the version incompatibility.

The professional productivity/development applications are a different matter altogether; I almost always get them off warez sites due to their absolutely ridiculous prices. (and if game companies can put much more work into a product costing a mere $50, there is no reason that these guys must charge $3000+ to make profits) What I find amusing though are these pathetic corporate attempts at copy protection with their programs. All it does is serve to annoy the "legitimate" customers (e.g. having to "register" online and type in cryptic codes after you have bought the program or it does not work) and even with the best protection known, someone on the internet will have already posted a crack online minutes after the software has been released on the market.

As for music, I am not really into any music aside from that in computer games, so I have never bought or downloaded any music.

[Galemp]

As far as music goes, I will always buy music from artists I respect because I want them to continue their work. Most people, I think, download music from Kazaa and co. because A) It's free and B) It's easier having 20 gigs of MP3s than it is carting your playlist of 50 CDs around.

What can the music industry do about this? Well, as I see it, it's a lot like Prohibition in the 1930s. That was when the American government banned the brewing, sale, and consumption of alcoholic drinks. As a result, the liquor industry went underground and gave rise to organized crime. I see the exact same thing happening here; after Napster got busted, those who were used to it turned to filesharing programs like Kazaa and Bearshare. These programs carry much more than just music; you can get all kinds of illegal professional software that costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in retail. Not only that, these programs are tremendous carriers for spyware, spam, and viruses. Driving the MP3 trading underground has caused more harm than good.

By now it's too late, of course. After Prohibition was repealed, the framework for organized crime and the Mafia was already in place and spread to more dangerous things. Now, Napster has been sold to a pornography company. And you used to be able to get anything on Napster; try finding some obscure classical music on Kazaa now.

[an0n]

Originally posted by CP5670
What I find amusing though are these pathetic corporate attempts at copy protection with their programs. All it does is serve to annoy the "legitimate" customers (e.g. having to "register" online and type in cryptic codes after you have bought the program or it does not work) and even with the best protection known, someone on the internet will have already posted a crack online minutes after the software has been released on the market.

Windows XP's 'uncrackable' copy-protection was actually broken about 4 times in the 5 months leading up to its release.

The Alpha versions were cracked. The Beta's were cracked. The Pre-releases were cracked. And the final version was cracked. All within hours of being distributed, or in the case of the final version, several weeks before it was released.

[beatspete]

I download music and never really think twice about it.  I tend to download new singles on the market, but i wouldnt buy them anyway if i couldnt download them. Singles dont mean much to me, unless they are by a band i really like, then i just collect them.
I dont download whole albums.  I dont see the point in this really, i like a hard copy then i make mp3s of it.  I've coppied a few albums off my friends, thought they usually just stay in mp3 format on my pc.  
Overall i do think that downloading a whole album is wrong, if you are that interested in an artist/band then you should bother to buy it.  Singles however arent a good value product to buy, you only get a few listens out of them before they are fairly worthless.

...I've had one copied game, Q2, but that was on loan from a friend and i wasnt going to buy it anyway.
Also, i downloaded Transport Tycoon Deluxe. I had TT and wanted TTD, but since the game is about 7 years old there wasnt much chance of finding it.

[Stryke 9]

I get warez when I need it (apps, mostly, or to get a game I actually bought functional because software companies put ****ty security routines in their progs that essentially make them useless uncracked), and buy when I can, mostly not out of any wierd sense of morality so much as that the legit version usually has stuff the warez one doesn't and all around works better, barring AWOL security subprograms.

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
As far as music goes, I will always buy music from artists I respect because I want them to continue their work. Most people, I think, download music from Kazaa and co. because A) It's free and B) It's easier having 20 gigs of MP3s than it is carting your playlist of 50 CDs around.

What can the music industry do about this? Well, as I see it, it's a lot like Prohibition in the 1930s. That was when the American government banned the brewing, sale, and consumption of alcoholic drinks. As a result, the liquor industry went underground and gave rise to organized crime. I see the exact same thing happening here; after Napster got busted, those who were used to it turned to filesharing programs like Kazaa and Bearshare. These programs carry much more than just music; you can get all kinds of illegal professional software that costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in retail. Not only that, these programs are tremendous carriers for spyware, spam, and viruses. Driving the MP3 trading underground has caused more harm than good.

By now it's too late, of course. After Prohibition was repealed, the framework for organized crime and the Mafia was already in place and spread to more dangerous things. Now, Napster has been sold to a pornography company.

And amen to that, I don't know where i'd be without organised crime. :wink:


Warez hmmm.. Thanks for the reminder. *turns on KaZaA*

I'm downloading The Godfather trilogy.. I would have shelled out money for a special dvd, but Best Buy didn't have any

Music? It's hard to find a time when I'm not downloading any. I don't really have any moral implications either, specially' when the bastards over charge everything the way they do. Besides, sometimes I love one song but think the cd is crap. Or its a really old song, from a movie or uh.. Christina Aguelera or something.

I do buy cds though, Because I'm too poor and lazy to buy an mp3 player, and cds I can bring around with me. That and some of it, like has been said, if it's really good, or I like the band, I buy it as a "show of support" if you will.

Warez games? I actually don't think I've ever got a warez game. None come to mind.

Warez programs are different. Few Dozen of those. Seriously, there's no way I'd pay $95 - $200 to learn to mess around with some 3d moddeling program. They for the most part work great too. Insert the cute little crack and voila.

Once again, no moral implications for me whatsoever.

[aldo_14]

I think warez is justified if it's a program that you can't realistically afford and which you are not using professionally.  But I wouldn't download or copy anything I can afford - I buy all my PC games (normally on special offer, though).  

I buy CDS, but I normally download a few tracks (or would, until WinMX went tits-up on me) beforehand to check it out - or I'll hear a good single and check out the artists other songs where possible.  But i always buy CDs, because I like the whole idea of physcially having a nice professional embossed case, etc, as oppossed to a blank CD-R.   Sometimes it's nice just to buy a record cold - no idea of what the actual songs on it sound like - and be surprised.

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by an0n
And on the subject of piracy; Regional coding. This is so blatantly a rip-off I don't know how they get away with it. Fair enough, some things run in PAL and some run in NTSC, but installing regional encoding on disks is so ****ing stupid. You might be able to get a DVD completely legally for like $5 from Japan, but simply because you live in America you have to pay $30. Where's the sense in that? It's just national discrimination.


Okay, I'm done.

You can bypass it anyway.... useless stuff.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]I buy a lot of stuff but generally only when it's on special offer. The exceptions are:

CD's that only have two or three good tracks and a lot of filler.

Stupidly priced 'professional' software especially modellers.

A certain unnamed operating system that you are required to update otherwise you can't run certain unnamed game libraries, newer programs etc. because a certain unnamed company cleverly leaves out backward compatability. Bastards.

Games that I know have major flaws but interesting aspects to them.

As for music CD's that I genuinely like, I'd far prefer to send the band/artist £10 direct for downloading/ripping their album than to give the cash to a distributer. The artist would probably make a lot more cash than they were making via the distributer/record company.

I got FS2 for £30 I think it was excellent value for money but I'd far prefer to get a game as warez, try it out and then decide if it's worth buying. I don't have cash that I can simply throw away.[/color]

[NeoHunter]

Warez...hmmm...quite sensitive I think. What if somebody from the outside reads this?

Anyway, I buy or download warez myself.

For example, games. If it is a great game from what I read in the previews in magazines and web sites, then I would buy the original. Warcraft 3 is one of which I own that is original. I plan to get the Frozen Throne original too.

Sometimes, I really have no choice but to get warez. 3D Studio Max is one very good example. You cannot find it anywhere in my country. If you were to buy from overseas, it would cost something in the 3 digit range. Adobe, Macromedia, discreet and Microsoft. All of them. I have seen how much Adobe Photoshop costs. About $500 over here.