Piracy Discussion - Discuss!

[taxalot]

I seriously cannot blame the moderators and I think I deserve that, but how the hell wam I supposed to go out there and advertise it ? Hint : I can't, in fact, without spending a shitload of money or being an annoying bastard.

You advertise your writing with your (other) writing. Get used to write and publish for free, until (if) you get a wide enough fan base.

I already do. That's how I got those three sales.

 

[Alchemist]

Well, I wouldn't. But there's a reason 'starving artist' is a well known phrase. Many creative people create things because they feel compelled to do so, regardless of compensation. I suppose if I were absolutely driven, I'd go as far living in prison to say, write a book, if I had no other choice. Though it never really comes down to that. If you enjoy writing or drawing or whatever, it's something you do as a hobby. There's plenty of people who work full time jobs to make a living, and then spend 20+ hours a week on top of that writing fanfic or drawing art or comics or making music or whatever the fuck.

I'm well acquainted with that mindset - since I do both (creative day job + personal creative projects during free time). I deeply understand the drive to create because it's my life. I'm not sure I'd willingly live in prison for the sake of my art though. But are you saying you'd be fine if creative industries didn't exist - and creative people should just work mundane jobs, and do creative works on the side? We would only have indie-level games in that case. Codexian favorites like Fallout, Planescape and Arcanum would have never been made. Or if they were made it would take like 17+ years.

Kickstarter is a prime example of how things should ideally work though. The majority of funding for most kickstarters doesn't come from basic purchase level donations, but from the big spenders who are donating a ton of money because they have the disposable income and want to give an artist who's work they appreciate the freedom to spend more time on what is essentially a hobby. Other stuff like webcomics or streamers on twitch.tv work the same way. I threw some money at webcomics I liked back when I had money to spare, and I'd certainly be willing to do it again once my situation improves.

I agree there fully - platforms like Kickstarter, the emerging "pay what you want" trend, bundles and more artist-direct digital distribution (bandcamp, etc) are positive directions for sustainable creative works to be produced. Especially with Kickstarter - the whole issue of piracy is greatly reduced. If a project is planned well - all the production costs (and salaries for creatives) are covered up front by pledges.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Hey taxalot, show us your tits book. Promise I will pirate it if you want.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't do any advertising on the Codex yet. Even I did that and my book is German. That's probably the main reason I already got over 20 online sales. I also sold a lot of books to my friends, and generally advertise my book among people I know and also new people I meet. I made some sales that way, too.

It really shouldn't be *that* hard to get sales this way. Well, it's probably harder for an ebook than an actual printed book I guess. Is yours published in print or only as an ebook?

 

[baturinsky]

I seriously cannot blame the moderators and I think I deserve that, but how the hell wam I supposed to go out there and advertise it ? Hint : I can't, in fact, without spending a shitload of money or being an annoying bastard.

You advertise your writing with your (other) writing. Get used to write and publish for free, until (if) you get a wide enough fan base.

I already do. That's how I got those three sales.

Emphasis on "wide enough fan base"

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

How can you live with that sort of view?

If you were a developer, would you not wish to be paid for your craft? Do you truly expect to keep getting good games when the developers do not get their due?


I will tell you what would happen if there was no copyright. The only games you'd get would be on par with freeware; you could forget about getting the next big RPG and you can bury this hobby forever because you will never again get any decent games.

I am a game developer/musician/graphical artist when I have free time and I don't give a crap if anyone downloads my stuff, because I don't force them to pay for it or anything, though I'm trying to do my best when I do shit. And unless I feel that I'd like to pay for the shit I've done - I won't charge for it.

 

[evdk]

I also sold a lot of books to my friends, and generally advertise my book among people I know and also new people I meet. I made some sales that way, too.

 

[Waterd]

This was a joke post i made in another thread, and somehow a mod created a thread out of it? funny and interesting.

I do not even believe intellectual property is a desirable concept for humanity.

 

[baturinsky]

Codexian favorites like Fallout, Planescape and Arcanum would have never been made. Or if they were made it would take like 17+ years.

Or we could have Kickstarted 15 years earlier and by now have a fully grown infrastructure of open source games, based on highly reusable code and assets.

For many games (Minecraft, NWN, GTA, TES...), amount of mods that people made for free is rivaling size of core game itself. But it will mostly go to trash, because rotten DRM core is not long-living. What if all that energy was used on making content that is not tainted by DRM dependencies?

 

[Shadowfang]

You are not alone Waterd, the reds got your back.

Developing technology is expensive. To face those expenses you either sell it to another company or you introduce it to the market yourself.
If you have no way of protecting your intellectual property, your competition will take advantage of your new technology even do they
contributed nothing to it.
Do you wish to reward those who work and invested or those who stayed idle?
Do you want to promote invention and innovation or none at all because it inst profitable?

Can you imagine the automobile industry without it?
Car companies waiting, with their arms folded, for one of them to risk investing on new tech, keeping it all hush-hush and praying that the others don't find about it
and reverse-engineer it.

Some Intellectual Property laws aren't perfect in many aspects, but are a necessity.
Those who dislike it, have no ideas of their own and wish to leach from others.

 

[Grim Monk]

Keep in mind that Culture/IP created for a Prepackaged Mass Consumption is a relatively new trend.
Before that most culture was created under the “Patronage System”.

Some Examples:

Renaissance Painters, Sculptors, and Architects were sponsored by the rich Merchants/Nobles of the Italian City States.

Dutch Golden Age Artists sponsored by the Wealthy Burger Class.

Shakespeare sponsored by Queen Elizabeth.

Most of the Classical Composers depended on patronage from court, church, or aristocracy.


The institution of Copyright as a means to “assure” private profits only tentatively dates to the late 1700s...

 

[evdk]

You are not alone Waterd, the reds got your back.

Developing technology is expensive. To face those expenses you either sell it to another company or you introduce it to the market yourself.
If you have no way of protecting your intellectual property, your competition will take advantage of your new technology even do they
contributed nothing to it.
Do you wish to reward those who work and invested or those who stayed idle?
Do you want to promote invention and innovation or none at all because it inst profitable?

Can you imagine the automobile industry without it?
Car companies waiting, with their arms folded, for one of them to risk investing on new tech, keeping it all hush-hush and praying that the others don't find about it
and reverse-engineer it.

Some Intellectual Property laws aren't perfect in many aspects, but are a necessity.
Those who dislike it, have no ideas of their own and wish to leach from others.

Shrug already.

 

[Waterd]

I'm the opposite of a red, unless with red you mean anarchist. Do we want to have a philosophical/economy/philosophy discussion in RPG codex here? I do not mind at all, is just that people generall get pissed off, but everyone is ok I can, because that is the only thing that can come from me answering this.

 

[Metro]

Better dead than red. Also the irony of 'I pirate shitty AAA games because they aren't worth money' is overwhelming. Yeah this game is so fucking shitty... I still wanted to play it. Just outing yourself as having poor taste in games~

 

[Waterd]

A similar argument I can see valid is "This game seems shitty but i want to try it" To be honest 95% of AAA games, I drop after a couple of hours in disgust, if i had to pay for them I would be pissed off. But demos and what not now a days are super short, I think just to prevent you to see how bad they actually are.

 

[Shadowfang]

I don't think Anarchy means what you think it means.
It does not mean a society absent of laws, if that's what you think it means.

 

[Waterd]

It's a society absent of state.

 

[MetalCraze]

I pirate games because I can.

 

[Metro]

It's too bad JarlFrank didn't grab 500 'copies' of MMX for us while he was at Gamescom.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh, I got a copy for free. That's even better than piracy.

 

[Metro]

Now you're just like an EVUL KORPERASHUN withholding this boon of society from the rest of us! Hope you can sleep at night!

 

[FeelTheRads]

Now you're just like an EVUL KORPERASHUN

Myeah, you should probably take your head out of Skyway's ass.

Case in point:

Better dead than red.

 

[baturinsky]

State is a corporation. Corporation is a state.

 

[Metro]

Myeah, you should probably take your head out of Skyway's ass.

I'll do it when you take yours out of your own ass. Deal?

 

[Alchemist]

Keep in mind that Culture/IP created for a Prepackaged Mass Consumption is a relatively new trend.
Before that most culture was created under the “Patronage System”.

Some Examples:

Renaissance Painters, Sculptors, and Architects were sponsored by the rich Merchants/Nobles of the Italian City States.

Dutch Golden Age Artists sponsored by the Wealthy Burger Class.

Shakespeare sponsored by Queen Elizabeth.

Most of the Classical Composers depended on patronage from court, church, or aristocracy.


The institution of Copyright as a means to “assure” private profits only tentatively dates to the late 1700s...

That's the nice thing about Kickstarter - it's the patronage system evolved into the internet age, yet also made accessible to the common folk. The really high-end pledge levels some Kickstarters have especially remind me of rich merchants / nobles sponsoring creative works.

Hopefully as Kickstarter evolves and produces tangible results, outdated notions and laws regarding copyright will evolve / improve along with it.