Things that should be done to break the piracy debate.

[bluestarultor]

Okay, so we've talked about piracy, and had a thread locked asking if we pirated, so this is a place to suggest what could be done to fix, de-criminalize, or actually discourage piracy.


This is NOT a place to suggest pirating, provide ways of pirating, etc. This is taking the problem and finding a give-and-take solution that makes sense for both sides.



I'm going to start off with a favored topic of mine: abandonware. There is legal abandonware, and then there are illegal oldwarez. If a company is not gaining anything from a property and has no plans to do so, I think it's easier to release it, rather than try to fight to protect it and wasting time, energy, and money. Or better yet, continue to sell it for a nominal fee, like 3D Realms. Digital distribution is removing barriers to cost like packaging and CD printing. After that point, any amount you charge is pure profit, minus hosting. And if you can still gain profits from a 20-year-old game, it means that people get the game they want for cheap, you get money you didn't even know you wanted for profit, and nobody has any reason to complain.

In terms of DRM, keep it in the medium the game takes place in. If you have it on CD, do a CD key or CD check. If it's digital, a key should be fine on its own. If the game is offline, keep the security offline. You can put a certain amount of security on a game to deter casual piracy, which is really all you can hope for, without hurting the consumer.




Anyone else have ideas?



EDIT: Fuck, I made this in the wrong forum. Move plz?

[krogothwolf]

First, I'd like to say that I was extremely disappointed Seil was talking about pirating digital crap and not awesome pirates in movie/tv history. Or being a seafaring pirate yourself. I was extremely sad by that fact.

I personally would love to see more old games be sold for cheap. Steam and GOG.Com are great for me because I get old classics I love to play. I disagree with pirating because it really doesn't hurt the company at all that much and would more then anything hurt the people working on their project because their worth seems based on whether the thing sells or not. I have no problem paying money for a game thats worth it. If it isn't worth it I wont buy it, and if it has stupid DRM that's idiotic then I wont buy it either. It's consumer choice man! Piracy will never be stopped, people will always get free stuff because they don't want to spend money or are cheap. The whole I pirate because of DRM just seems to me to be a cop out to make them feel better. I do agree with what SMB said though, sometimes Pirating gets you a superior product and I wish it wasn't the case. But even so I wont do it, it's bad for my mojo!

I really wish DUngeon keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 would get resold. God I loved those games

[Osterbaum]

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

I disagree with pirating because it really doesn't hurt the company at all that much and would more then anything hurt the people working on their project because their worth seems based on whether the thing sells or not.

I really don't see people buying all the stuff they download. People pirate a lot because it's FREE. If it wasn't, people most certainly wouldn't buy all the stuff they're now pirating.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I really don't see people buying all the stuff they download. People pirate a lot because it's FREE. If it wasn't, people most certainly wouldn't buy all the stuff they're now pirating.

Counterpoint: if there's less DRM, there's less reason to take it as a challenge and therefore make the software available to pirates. In the absence of backlash, many people will feel better about supporting the companies making the games because they won't have the self-righteous feeling doing it because there won't be bad press. Yes, people may eventually get the game for free, but the crack team of hackers won't be there tirelessly working on it for them, so it will take much longer and may suffer in quality. Many more people will buy a good game they agree with to get it earlier than will wait longer for a game everyone else has already played just because they don't want to pay for it. Humans work much better in the concrete present than the abstract future. Piracy may even become a stigma in that climate because people will wait around to get a pirate copy of a game others have already beaten, leaving pirates "behind" on the information front, which is seen as less socially acceptable. It will also highlight the illegality of it in concrete terms, because the people who wait around for a crack will be seen as hard-headed and unreasonable, removing much of their justification.

See where I'm going with this?

[Amake]

My solution is to wait for the market to self-destruct and better alternatives to be invented. Preferably something based on non-commercialism. I believe the greatest art will made by those who don't need to sell it to make a living.

On a sidenote, remember World of Goo? It had no copy protection whatsoever, but it did include a simple online component that let the designer say with some authority a few weeks after launch that 90% of the players had not paid for it. Then he was all "Whatevs it sold a lot anyway." I wouldn't mind if certain bigass corporations could show the same confidence as this lone starving artist.

[Seil]

Originally Posted by Alan Smithee

First, I'd like to say that I was extremely disappointed Seil was talking about pirating digital crap and not awesome pirates in movie/tv history. Or being a seafaring pirate yourself. I was extremely sad by that fact.

Arrr?

You could still probably do that, if you want. Anyways, as I PM'd Synk,

Originally Posted by Seil

Eh, it was more in the vein of continuing discussions from the former pirating thread then anything else. I was curious as to what people on NPF meant when they say "I understand pirating is wrong."

I was wondering what parameters forumites were establishing when talk about pirating, because it seems like most people have a situational feel about it, and I was hoping to have people expand on that...

So yeah.

Originally Posted by IQ

On a sidenote, remember World of Goo? It had no copy protection whatsoever, but it did include a simple online component that let the designer say with some authority a few weeks after launch that 90% of the players had not paid for it. Then he was all "Whatevs it sold a lot anyway." I wouldn't mind if certain bigass corporations could show the same confidence as this lone starving artist.

Most people don't like starving, that's the thing.

[bluestarultor]

I'm surprised that nobody's jumped onto using that simple online component to actually, y'know, track piracy numbers. If it's in World of Goo, it can't be that hard to do, no offense to the creator, given that big companies have a teensy bit more than one guy working on coding a given project. You'd think developers would be on that like white on rice.

[synkr0nized]

Oh, this is a good place for me to ask you, Blues, since I didn't want to tard up that other thread with this discussion.

Do you have references - that aren't Abandonia's pages - that prove the legality of "abandonware"? I found none today when I went poking about, and most of what I came across affirmed the illegality of it regardless of the very positive and good intentions of the people running such sites. I ask this not to argue with you, but because I really want to know what legal standing these sites are sitting on.

I saw provisions for public/library archives and free reign for software that has fallen out of copyright, but for most software it appears that the copyright should still be protecting it. Not being able to purchase something and/or lack of action on the part of the copyright holders wasn't meant to be construed as a green light to go.

Here's some stuff I came across:

Gamespot article that interviews game developers, abandonware site owners, and some gamers

US copyright law allows an exemption for places, such as the Internet Archive [who pushed for this], to have non-infringing uses of such software to be able to preserve software without the copy protection schemes it may have once had (eg: requiring a dongle to be attached to the machine, obsolete source media). This is not claiming it is OK for users to download free copies of the software.

On the other hand, the Orphan Works Act of 2006 seems to provide provisions for "infringers" to be fine if they conduct a "reasonable search" for the correct information and original copyright holder, etc. Technically speaking, though I am no lawyer, it doesn't appear to count "hey we can't buy this in a store" as a reasonable search.

more info overall, including the 2008 update to the same act; not much different



e: I forgot to note that I agree with you that it's much easier, on all sides, to recognize that people like older software and to release it in some fashion, either as a free download [hey, some companies are doing this -- see our C&C discussion, Sim City, etc.] or, like you suggested, for some nominal fee. The legal fees and unnecessary trouble of going through the rig-amoral is likely one of the reasons abandonware sites don't get bugged too much, especially when the original software company doesn't exist any more.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Oh, this is a good place for me to ask you, Blues, since I didn't want to tard up that other thread with this discussion.

Do you have references - that aren't Abandonia's pages - that prove the legality of "abandonware"? I found none today when I went poking about, and most of what I came across affirmed the illegality of it regardless of the very positive and good intentions of the people running such sites. I ask this not to argue with you, but because I really want to know what legal standing these sites are sitting on.

I saw provisions for public/library archives and free reign for software that has fallen out of copyright, but for most software it appears that the copyright should still be protecting it. Not being able to purchase something and/or lack of action on the part of the copyright holders wasn't meant to be construed as a green light to go.

Here's some stuff I came across:

Gamespot article that interviews game developers, abandonware site owners, and some gamers

US copyright law allows an exemption for places, such as the Internet Archive [who pushed for this], to have non-infringing uses of such software to be able to preserve software without the copy protection schemes it may have once had (eg: requiring a dongle to be attached to the machine, obsolete source media). This is not claiming it is OK for users to download free copies of the software.

On the other hand, the Orphan Works Act of 2006 seems to provide provisions for "infringers" to be fine if they conduct a "reasonable search" for the correct information and original copyright holder, etc. Technically speaking, though I am no lawyer, it doesn't appear to count "hey we can't buy this in a store" as a reasonable search.

more info overall, including the 2008 update to the same act; not much different



e: I forgot to note that I agree with you that it's much easier, on all sides, to recognize that people like older software and to release it in some fashion, either as a free download [hey, some companies are doing this -- see our C&C discussion, Sim City, etc.] or, like you suggested, for some nominal fee. The legal fees and unnecessary trouble of going through the rig-amoral is likely one of the reasons abandonware sites don't get bugged too much, especially when the original software company doesn't exist any more.

Well, it's a lot more complicated than "not being able to buy it." See, abandonware, in the definition I'm most familiar with and personally use, is software which has been either intentionally abandoned by the parent or which doesn't fall under any other legal ownership. This is software which no longer has any existing rights-holders, including an absence of an existing parent company, ESA protection, and inherited owner of the property. If ANYONE owns rights to it, it's not abandonware, and actual abandonware sites will conduct research, in some cases above and beyond simply "reasonable," to make sure they can't find anyone who can speak for it legally. The one I frequent even has a policy whereby contact from an previously unknown rights-holder means an instant removal of the download. The problem with abandonware is that there's currently no law regulating it, which means business sources want to be able to make it off limits for obvious business reasons. It's the difference between legalization and decriminalization. Abandonware has no legal protections one way or another.

Now, a lot of "abandonware" is what's more appropriately termed "oldwarez," where the game is old and not being sold anymore, or in some cases IS still being sold, but still has someone to legally speak for it despite its age. THAT is illegal, because it's still under protection. I personally do not deal in oldwarez and do not support them or anyone connected to them. This is where the term "abandonware" is either intentionally or unintentionally fuzzed, and where businesses like to put their focus to blanket real abandonware with it.

There actually HAS been legal action against sites with oldwarez claiming to be abandonware sites, for instance, Home of the Underdogs, which instituted policy changes to ensure the reputable sites stay within the law. So it's not that the sites haven't been bugged as much as they have and have fixed themselves. They're not doing anything wrong at this point and businesses, if they wanted to delve into the legal gray area, have infinitely better resources and could easily clean house if there were a solid case for it. Most abandonware sites struggle to scrape by on page ads and donations, and like HOTU, sometimes just can't stay afloat WITHOUT the threat of legal action piling on. On the other hand, delving into that legal gray area would set a precedent, which no one seems to have done yet. If there were a solid case against abandonware, places like Abandonia would be squashed like bugs, and businesses have shown this on oldwarez sites previously.


For an incredibly generalist and slightly business-skewed view, Wikipedia has an article, in which you can see bits and pieces of the definition Abandonia uses and which I hold to. HOTU had a similar policy to Abandonia after its legal action to the point Abandonia considered them equivocal, but with the dissolution and multiple rebirths, I can't be sure on the policies any of them use anymore. The stance could technically be considered a combination of orphaned works and a lack of legislation or legal precedent concerning the matter, with a healthy dose of being willing to work with anyone who comes to challenge it so as to stay within the law.

Really, finding any sources on abandonware's legality outside of abandonware sites without a business bias is pretty much impossible because there aren't any laws regulating it as of yet. So you have abandonware sites' words against businesses' in that regard. There isn't a legal concept of abandonware as of yet, which is why there's a question of whether or not it's actually legal. That's why I stick to Abandonia, because they have a policy closest in line with current law, i.e. orphaned works.





TL;DR: Abandonware by the definition I use and am most familiar with is legal because it relies on orphaned works law as the closest legal precedent, but you have a lot of definitions bumping around and detractors like to latch onto the worst of them. This may all change with future legislation or legal precedent, but companies don't seem to be in a hurry to try to squash abandonware sites like bugs because of the legal gray area.

[Jagos]

Shamus Young is our friend. And I'm sure that our friends in Brazil can attest to what happens when copyright is too strong.

Let's not forget, when a server is shut down there's even more to complain to people about. Who has control of your game if they're no longer supported? These are the type of questions people should be asking when a game can just shut down without any way to enjoy a game you want to play.