Solutions to Piracy

[Mylo]

I think it's safe to assume that everyone in the United States except for Lamar Smith and Hollywood is against SOPA and PIPA. Whether the bill passes or not, piracy (which seems to be the aspect of the law that is generating all the buzz) will still be a problem, due to the ease of circumventing the bill's penalties. Hollywood may be drastically overstating their claims as to the damage piracy has on the economy, but it is a problem. How do you think both the industry and/or lawmakers can fix the problem (or at least reduce its impact)?

[Kobuk]

Perhaps you can clarify something for me: Is this just a "continuation" of the SOPA topic which is here: http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42747.0
.......or is your thread here that much more specifically different than the other one?

[Mylo]

I assumed that thread pertained specifically to SOPA/PIPA. This thread is much more general and deals with discussing possible solutions to the piracy problem that would maximize benefits for both the content creator and consumer.

[furtopia02]

As far as music, expensive computer software, and movies go imo.. the ones downloading pirated copies likely wouldn't be purchasing it either if they couldn't get it for free - they'd just do without it for the most part. At least that's how it is for me. If I couldn't afford things and were pirating them, if I lost access to that I just would find something else that's free instead. *shrug* No doubt that there are many people who, if they lost all possible access to pirated goods (which likely couldn't be controlled enough to happen anyway), that might go purchase the goods instead but I think the ones doing most of the downloading are people who can't afford things in the quantity they are downloading them. Just look at Photoshop and the rest of the CS suites...

[aspect]

The music industry and movie industry occasionally fund studies of who actually commits piracy, and how much. These studies inevitably find that the people who pirate the most actually are some of the biggest spenders. Pirating leads to more interest in music (or movies) which leads eventually to purchases, whether those purchases are of CD's or t-shirts (or other merch).

Then of course the music industry doesn't publish these studies because they don't make pirates look bad. Eventually some of the scientists involved mention it and it somehow gets on Slashdot.

Software like Photoshop is of course in a different class of piracy, and these results probably aren't relevant. But for the entertainment industry, piracy is generating more sales than it is taking away.

[Yip]

The "solution" to piracy is in many cases to just embrace it as a fact of life. It's gonna happen. Instead the focus should be on making the content inexpensive and readily available.  So long as the content meets that criteria, then the "piracy" will work more like free advertising.

[Old Rabbit]

I think most people would rather own a item if they could afford it.  So
the entertainment industry should embrace making more by selling more,
and lower prices. 

This would do more to limit piracy than anything else.

High volume sales is a proven money maker.  Look at Walmarts.

[Kobuk]

The "solution" to piracy is in many cases to just embrace it as a fact of life. It's gonna happen. Instead the focus should be on making the content inexpensive and readily available.  So long as the content meets that criteria, then the "piracy" will work more like free advertising.

So you're saying that you "encourage" it?

[Dusty]

Piracy's gonna happen, there's no way around it because there's as many ingenious people cracking DRM and all that as there are developing copy protection. And copy protection is getting to the point where it is punishing consumers who legitimately obtain the product - I have a number of CDs that I can't play on my computer because of the copy protection on them, which is ridiculous. As Vararam said, piracy of software, music and films is inevitable in this day and age and rather than trying to take steps to protect their products via ridiculous measures it would probably be preferable to combat piracy by making their products accessible to more people, price-wise. I mean, look at how successful Apple is with their iTunes store - plenty of people don't seem to have a problem paying $0.99 for an mp3 if it's there for them to buy.

[aspect]

So you're saying that you "encourage" it?

I'll openly support piracy, if nobody else is gonna. Pirates are great. Several times in my life I've vaguely mentioned being interested in some movie only to have a pirate who I'd never met before track me down hours later and hand me a freshly-burned copy for free. Pirates with that sort of dedication are vigilantes for the freedom of information. And when I say information I mean any ones and zeros you can find.

Even when I think about how much work artists and engineers put into intellectual property, I have trouble supporting an economic system which stifles freedom of information.

Free  flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
 The once-chained people who's leaders at last lose their grip  on
 information  will  soon  burst with freedom and vitality, but the
 free nation gradually constricting its grip on  public  discourse
 has  begun  its  rapid  slide into despotism. Beware he who would
 deny you access to information, for in his heart he  dreams  him
 self your master.

...I mean, look at how successful Apple is with their iTunes store - plenty of people don't seem to have a problem paying $0.99 for an mp3 if it's there for them to buy.

I have the money to buy music from iTunes, but they use DRM so I don't. I'd prefer to actually own music. Apple controls the music you buy from them.

Buy the mp3's from Amazon instead if you can. They're DRM free and you can re-download them any time. Bandcamp is also a better place. Bandcamp is way cool.

[Kobuk]

It's a shame we're not living in a Star Trek type universe where life is good, your needs are provided for, etc., etc. If only life were that simple. But it's not.
Hate to say it, aspect, but as the old saying goes, "Nothing in life is ever free."
If people truly want something in life, whatever it may be, then they need to work for it. I'm quite content to keep on buying my movies and music, etc. from a store with the hard earned money I made from working at my job.

And another thing..........

Going to put in a Staff note for members to please be careful on discussions in this thread. Please keep in mind the following Furtopian rule:

3. This is a PG rated (Family Friendly) board. Topics that are NEVER allowed on ALL forums are:
......
c) The encouragement/advocation (Possession, Use, Sale, Distribution, Promotion, etc.) of drugs, alcohol, or other illegal substances/items, and the encouragement of acts (violent content, hacking, vandalism, etc.) which could harm a person’s health/safety and/or get them into trouble.
......

Piracy does fall within rule 3c. So no encouragement/advocation of it, please.

[Dusty]

I have the money to buy music from iTunes, but they use DRM so I don't. I'd prefer to actually own music. Apple controls the music you buy from them.

Buy the mp3's from Amazon instead if you can. They're DRM free and you can re-download them any time. Bandcamp is also a better place. Bandcamp is way cool.

Well whether Apple uses DRM is kind of irrelevant to the point I was making about people being willing to buy things if they're visible, easily accessible and affordable. I also do not think that piracy should be *encouraged*, especially if it has an impact on smaller businesses like one man music labels and distributions that are run by people who are mainly in it to support their local scene and the music they like.

[Yip]

Well whether Apple uses DRM is kind of irrelevant to the point I was making about people being willing to buy things if they're visible, easily accessible and affordable.

Another good example is Steam. Thanks to Steam, I have likely spent a lot more money on game then I used to simply because they make the games easy to acquire and very often extremely inexpensive.

So you're saying that you "encourage" it?

In cases where it's not causing loss of sales and such, yes. For example, I sometimes listen to music on Youtube. And this does not hurt music companies one single bit. In fact, this sort of thing helps them 'cause if I find something I really like, I'm much more likely to buy it. And I'm sure lots of people do the same thing.

[Narei Mooncatt]

I'm also of the belief that you'll never put an end to piracy. Kinda like how the old saying goes about wire tapping being around ever since there was a wire to tap, I think as long as there is a digital media that someone can get ahold of, there will be someone to crack any sort of DRM messure you can think of. I don't encourage it of course, but fighting it is getting to the point of hurting the legitimate consumer. CD's you can't play on your computer, HDMI connections that fail due to incompatible DRM stuff, SOPA, etc. I don't think I'd go so far as to say all media should be DRM free and all laws removed surrounding it, but I think we're to the point that more isn't better. I think looking at the little picture is the way things are going more. Single song digital sales for cheap vs. buying an expensive album for the one track. Free, advertising supported services such as Pandora where you can customize your listening preferences with unobtrusives ads (Heck, by using the wigit on my Android, I only hear the nearly rare video ads and don't see the ones in the full app).

If you're good enough, your music for example could be pirated yet spread your word so well that you start doing better at live events where you make a good deal off ticket and merch sales. I've seen several artists pretty much say they don't care how you get their music. Skrillex was the last one I saw, posting something to that effect on his Facebook page about a new song. Including pirating it, and he's pretty much a superstar in the electronic scene. So it's all about how you learn to work with what you have and the pitfalls of things like piracy that will determine how successful you are. On the other hand, I don't know if I really buy in to the idea of "hey, I found this cool pirated song so now I'm gonna go buy the rest of the artist work" type arguement. You mean to tell me that after listening to a song you love, you are now likely to go to the store and buy the album when you could go back to the same place you got the first one pirated in just a few mouse clicks for nothing? In the case of a small group where the fans are loyal, sure. But I doubt it in the majority of the pirates out there. There's a lot of them out there that don't even like the music they get. They just pirate everything they can get their hands on for no other reason than to say they could do it.

Personally, I think this is giong to be something that wont go away in our lifetime. It'll just be a constant game of cat and mouse.

[aspect]

It looks like if I quoted everything I wanted to reply to this post would get too huge and messy, so I'll go a looser route.

First off I'll say, it's sort of true that "nothing in life is ever free," but ever-improving technology is quickly driving down the price of everything yet many companies seem to think they have to keep that from happening in order to remain profitable. This is just like De Beers stockpiling diamonds in order to keep them expensive. My understanding of economics is that everyone benefits when artificial scarcities are removed; correct me if I'm wrong. So, I admit that holders of intellectual property have some rights which it's morally questionable and illegal to just circumvent; but 1) those rights aren't as far-reaching as the music industry would have you believe, and 2) it seems like we'd all be better off if those rights weren't used to produce artificial scarcity.

I guess I should also clarify that when I say information should be free, I'm saying free-as-in-speech. Nothing is free, but I can use my calories to communicate something that I know. Yet I'm not allowed to freely copy files off my computer onto yours. Naturally it's a good idea to obey the law, but seeing as I eventually want to have a directly computer-augmented brain I have a lot of trouble seeing the difference between these two things.

Currently, watching youtube videos of copyrighted music is not illegal, and provided SOPA/PIPA doesn't pass it will remain legal. Also for the time being it is legal to give someone else a book you've bought!! Some publishers have tried to make book and video game resale illegal. Exercise your rights while you've got 'em.

Oh, also I agree that some pirates collect media regardless of whether they like it. But I don't think that undermines the point that people are attracted to actually buying an artist's work after listening to a pirated copy. Because I've gone and purchased music for this very reason myself. (I didn't drag myself to a physical store of course. I purchased MP3's online.) If even a few people get interested in music this way, the artist benefits. This isn't a bulletproof argument, but like I've said before, any study I've ever heard of has concluded that artists gain more than they lose from piracy. One of the big reasons is probably that there will always be some little advantage of getting the tracks legitimately, like better sound quality or album art.

(When pirates also perform some service such as translation, or perhaps even coloring previously B&W work, this benefit can disappear. Hmm. Not sure what I think about that scenario!)

[Drake Blackpaw]

As others have said, no matter what safeguards or road blocks are put in place, people will find away around it and there will be piracy.  It's time for both the music industry and Hollywood to switch from how to stop piracy to how to make paying for music and movies more desirable.

If there is an easy, legal, and reasonably priced way to consume content I want, I will go that route instead of trying to find a pirated copy.  I subscribe to Spotify, which lets me listen to a ton of music whenever I want.  I'm also a big anime fan and have a subscription to the Funimation site (though there site is so slow sometimes it may drive me to turn to pirated alternatives).  Give people what they want at a reasonable price and a lot of people that would turn to pirated content will get it legally.  Figure out a way to give someone more value by obtaining it the legal route and you will even get more people moving away from piracy.

Give me a reason to pay, make the experience of paying better than that of getting something pirated.  That is the way to fight piracy, not trying to put a finger in the dam that has such a huge hole in it that it cannot be contained.

[Old Rabbit]

All this piracy protection does is make it difficult for john Q public
to make copies of media they like.  A pirate who wants to make
a copy will have one if they have access, even if they have to
create it second hand.

[aspect]

All this piracy protection does is make it difficult for john Q public
to make copies of media they like.  A pirate who wants to make
a copy will have one if they have access, even if they have to
create it second hand.

Right, the only way to make copying actually impossible is to not allow us to see the media in the first place. Watching it is a lot like copying it to our brains.

I have seen some vague arguments that foolproof copy protection will be possible on quantum computers... but only for the really 'quantum' parts of the data, so I don't know if it could apply to a video or book.

[Avor]

I bit late fore me to join in, but either way.

The best way to eleiminate piracy is to eliminate the need for it.

The first issue is price, If DVDs, music CDs, and video games were reasonalby priced, people would be more willing to part with their hard earned cash. Also it jist makes better bussiness sense, if your product costs $5 to make, it is better to sell two at $16 each, than one at $25.

The other problem is the manipulation in the product. Music for example, an artest puts out a new album, but on it is only one or two new tracks. Video Games often have very limited demos if at all, tricking rhe consimer into a bad investment, such a game that can be 100% completed in three hours. This kind of bussiness leaves a bad taste with the public, giveing the impression the stealing from them is ok, because they are the real crooks.


An odd point, personaly I pirated alot of suff, but I think it's a good thing. It's just the only wa of getting games, movies and music that's no longer made. Ahd it's the only way to filly try out something new before commiting to a purchass.

[redyoshi49q]

I have seen some vague arguments that foolproof copy protection will be possible on quantum computers... but only for the really 'quantum' parts of the data, so I don't know if it could apply to a video or book.

I haven't yet taken any courses on quantum computation.  Having said that, I doubt that this statement is true if for no other reason than the fact that data stored in quantum format still has to be rendered in a non-quantum format at least at the interface level.  If nothing else, you would be able to take a picture/video of your monitor.  More realistically, it might be possible for the output of quantum data at the transition from quantum computation to traditional computation to be split and sent to both a file and to its originally intended source (most likely the hardware).