Retailer strong-arming: So what? Movie studios do this to theaters all the time. So what if Best Buy only sells Apple -- in essence becomes an Apple store -- like all the other exclusive Apple stores? There will still be many willing and able competitors who will employ their entrepreneurial savvy by seeing the market need in selling non-apple tablets and make good money fulfilling that need that Best Buy may have (stupidly) stopped serving.

I repeat: Natural monopolies don't exist. And if they come about, they end up very short-lived because the world is full of competitors and competitor-wannabe's who will rush to fill any perceived market needs.

Misinformation: You find your trusted sources. The government is not one of them, I assure you. I, for example, trust way more the "Non-GMO Project" or the "Berkeley Ecology Center" far more than I would trust any (former-lobbyist/government kleptocrat) FDA-crony. Both of these (and many other) non-governmental organizations would still exist without government and in fact would be able to do more without government limiting what they can study or not about the products they inspect.

Patents: No, nothing good will ever come out of patents. If you want I will point you to countless articles I've read which show this to be the case.

New Technology: You're discounting reverse engineering? Why? If what you claim was so, then innovators would not even bother to patent, because then they could keep the technology "secret" forever. Clearly this isn't so. But, they get patents because they know of reverse engineering and other ways that the technology would be copied if they don't get a patent. In fact, right now, they can keep it "secret" by not getting patent. For example, Coca Cola does not have a patent on its secret formula for that very reason. Look it up.

The marginal utility of R&D: This is the standard old argument for patents. But you can find creative ways to make the inventions pay off. Did the music industry disappear because of piracy? No, it is making record profits, actually! Some companies would not be as mega wealthy, perhaps. Bill Gates would still be mega rich, but maybe not as rich as he is now. But, here you are complaining about extreme "inequality" while supporting the very structures which generate it.

Ignorance may be bliss -- but thankfully, we don't all have to be as ignorant as the least informed among us.

I think this is old footage. I just read an article that says that piracy is way way WAY down.

All this patrolling is having an effect.

You are right to be mad.
However, there's also the question of actual revenue loss.

For example, if I download an mp3 of a song, does that mean if I hadn't had a link or way to download it, would I have actually spent money buying it?

Of course there is actual revenue loss from piracy, but Hollywood and the RIAA have taken the claim to moronic levels.

Yeah, but as someone who makes their living off digital content, it is quite annoying finding out your material has been pirated more times than someone has paid for it.

Worse, is knowing someone who stole your work is now profiting from your stolen work, and they're claiming they're doing a good deed for society. Yet, they're making millions and you're selling your house because you can't keep up with the level of piracy.

And they wonder why piracy is so strong. Cause they expect us to pay for this shit.

Yeah, I think if HBO opened HBO Go to people beyond people who have cable and HBO, and if they kept the fee reasonable, their subscriptions to HBO Go would go through the roof, piracy would go way down on their shows, and I don't think there would be any real long term impact on Blu-ray/DVD set sales. The combo pack at Walmart is $35 or something like that a season, not a bad deal, but the normal price elsewhere is a bit high.

Piracy is certainly a service problem.
I'd love to give HBO my money but if they make me wait one freaking year to do that, they'll loose. I'm still going to buy their BluRays but certainly not at full price. I can wait, I've already seen their shows.
I would actually pay for a subscription to HBO, if it was available here. It isn't.

That's why Game of Thrones tops the piracy charts. Because they make it harder to give them your money. I bought Hannibal on iTunes. Saw each episode 1 day after air date, what an awesome show.

Living in Thailand, most TV shows aren't available here until WAY after the Western airdate, if ever.

I live in a pretty small town. Western movies don't play here, and if I travel an hour or so to a town where they do, they do they are dubbed in Thai with no English subtitles. DVDs are readily available, but they are usually pirated cam copies burned to disc, and again dubbed in Thai.

Games? Not available in stores in my town. Bangkok, sure -- but again they are almost always pirated copies burned to disk. Console games are the same way and any shops selling the game will also chip the console to play pirated disks. I could, and admittedly probably SHOULD use steam for PC games.

Other software? Basically same story as games. If you go to a computer store here, advertising usually says that they are sold with Linux OS or bare drives. But, the shop will automatically put on a pirated Windows plus loads of software (office, Photoshop if you ask for it, etc.) upon purchasing the hardware. They are usually fairly inept at it, frequently have viruses or fail to actually activate the OS, etc. so I tell them to leave the drives bare and do all that stuff myself. But for 99% of people who buy a PC here, they will automatically get a pirated OS and software along with it.

Basically, my default mode of getting ANY media is piracy. Price (free versus not) is a part of that. Incomes are low here, but cost of living is comparatively even lower. Still, if media was fully available here but equal to the price in, say, the US the vast majority of people here don't have enough disposable income to afford much if any of it. A bigger issue for me personally is convenience. Piracy (torrents, etc.) as a distribution system is infinitely more convenient, easy, and "customer"-friendly than any more legitimate service. I get what I want very quickly, usually in multiple options for filesize vs quality on up to as-good-as-broadcast/blu-ray 1080p, with most everything available from a single source (isoHunt, kickass, PirateBay, take your pick). In terms of user experience, legitimate distribution can't even begin to compete with that -- and that is BEFORE considering price.

Instead, they exacerbate the difference by treating paying customers with open contempt. Pay for TV service? Enjoy 10 minutes of ads for every 12 minutes of show. Buy a DVD? Sit through un-skippable ads, dire piracy warnings, etc. before the show actually starts. Move or simply take the disk on vacation to another country and you will likely be screwed by region locking. Buy software? Get some DRM that slows things down or restricts fully NORMAL use of the software, nags you to register, etc. On the other hand, if you pirate stuff all of that goes away. No ads. Watch/use the media wherever you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want. Software DRM circumvented easily, usually hours after the first release if not *before*.

I honestly see it as a problem that I am not supporting the creators of the media that I enjoy. But, Pandora's box has been opened on this one. Generation X and Y learned to scoff at the idea of paying for music due to Napster. iTunes has been extremely lucky to turn that around even slightly, making lots of mistakes along the way (DRM and device-locking, etc.). Gen Y and beyond are going to have the same attitude towards piracy with regards to ALL MEDIA that we learned to have towards music. I don't think there is any getting around that.

For content creators, I think that funding via Label / Publisher / Network is going to die out. And soon. The good news is that something akin to an evolution of patronage of arts and creators can work even better than it did in the past. The Motzarts and Beethovens of the future don't need 1 rich duke or king to commision a work, they need 10,000 average Joes on kickstarter or the like. I see things trending more and more in that direction, and all the time. I think it is an exciting time -- unless you're an exec in one of the old dinosaur publishers/networks.

Unpopular opinion incoming!

First, full disclaimer: I am not a game developer, but I do write software for a living I'd prefer to be paid (and paid well) for my skills.

Ok, here's the thing. Sorry, but not your stuff. You didn't make it and you don't own it. You own a licence to use it. End of.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I believe not only is a certain amount of DRM acceptable, it's actually unfortunately necessary. I am possibly crazy, but I believe in paying the fucking writer.

Now DRM as it stands is fucking bullshit. *I* paid to watch this motherfucking movie. *i* paid to play this fucking game. Every time you cunts force me sit through a fucking anti -piracy message, it makes me more inclined to pirate your fucking content.

And I don't want to. If I'm buying your game/movie/book, I've already decided your artistic output is worth my time and energy that I put into working. Fuck it, I could have stayed at home and learned to play drums. I've wanted to do that for years, but I don't have the fucking TIME! So you get my time/work/energy.

How fucking dare you waste my precious free time on your sanctimonious fucking ads targeting the very people who don't give a shit about your message, and who, by some perverse twist of natural justice, don't have to put up with your bullshit.

That said.....

"wah, I don't like your DRM" is not a valid excuse to pirate content. If you don't like the way company X distributes your favourite book/game/movie/tv show.... don't consume that content.

No, seriously, (and I'm well aware I'm going to engender a lot of hate for this) if you feel you are entitled to the fruits of someone else's hard work because you don't agree with how it's distributed, then seriously, fuck you. Yeah, I'm not kidding. I don't care if it's WB or HBO or EA or whatever undeniably fucking idiotic big media conglomerate. At some point, a bunch of hard working, talented people created something you want to consume.

PAY THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE.

Or find another way to let those creators know you want their content but not as it's currently available.

If it's awesome, find a way to let them know. If it's shit, don't consume it.

So back to games and drm and copying.

It boils down to this. Buy the games you want. Support the people who are working their arses off because they love what their doing. If you think the new COD is shit (and you're in good company), then don't buy it, don't pirate it and for the love of FSM, don't play it. Your time is valuable. Buy a cheap PC and play FTL or Monaco or Fez or Walking Dead or Mark of the Ninja.... all great games, none of which need a "next gen" (aka 3 or 4 gens ago on the pc) console. Hell, go kickstart Star Citizen.

Fuck it, this is now so long I don't know where or why or how I started.*

Pay the people who make the things you love. They deserve it. They'll make more cool shit. Don't borrow it, don't pirate it. Just, pay them. They get fuck all enough as it is.

* kids! don't write posts drunk after midnight on Saturday after watching the All Blacks crush the French! You will write unpopular opinions and most likely excommunicate yourself from online communities you enjoy!

Its not really consoles fault that PCs are harder to develop for and suffer much higher piracy rates. It frustrates me when a console port is lazy on the fairly basic shit, like graphics, control and hud options but I don't really hate on developers for focusing their huge investment on the platform that'll give them the most return either. Some might see games like Skyrim as compromising their PC heritage for the console market, but I think you could also argue that the console market allowed a PC game to be mucher larger in scope than it would have been otherwise.

Personally I think PC gaming is in a pretty good place. My hope is that it won't be long before you can easily hook up the TV in your living room to the PC sitting in your study or bedroom or w/e and the PC can really compete against consoles on their territory. Valve has clearly set their sights on it, I think Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo should be worried.

@artician

One thing we're lucky for in Australia is mandatory warranty legislation can be interpreted beyond a year to reasonable expectations of lifetime for a product, so say claiming repair/replace costs after 3 years would not be unreasonable.

@Darkhand

Agreed, the obsessive level of detail on what you can and can't do really feeds into Yahtzee's whole thing about endless asterisks to playing a game.

For the first, I don't imagine it being a big factor in preventing piracy on a console and I struggle to see how forcing a connection feeds into a rationale of improving the bottom line. Surely all the multimedia features and TV integration that required internet access would be a sufficient draw to connect to the web already?

The second is pretty clear. The 30 day friend requirement is to prevent selling the game directly to a stranger thereby dis-intermediating the retailer. Limiting gifting to one and preventing you from passing a disc around is clearly to prevent a single-player game being bought by one and passed around to many. I can't imagine their loaning options when you become available being particularly generous. But it's interesting to see how MS appears to be concerned about catering to both retailers and distributors. Perhaps it gives them a rationale to charge higher licensing costs while also avoiding the direct blame for imposing limitations? Either way, pretty shameless.

Piracy is to large parts a service problem after all. Why do you think Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show? It wouldn't have been if it was available for purchase right after the broadcast.
I'm currently enjoying Hannibal on iTunes. I have to wait two or three days after an episode aired and I can download and watch it. I paid for it and I love it.
I like True Blood too. I really want to watch Season 6. There is no HBO available where I live. Do I wait till May next year, when it will be legally available for the first time? Do I?
Same here, people will pay if you let them. Not all but many.

EDIT: I'm very disappointed it's "sweat" and not "slut". I just like them very much.

If you are truly curious I hope you'll read everything.

TLDR Post Inc:

It's basically pragmatism and the slippery slope. You're making a registry of all the citizens who own guns. I mean have you ever applied for your firearms license before? Have you ever purchased a handgun? It's pretty crazy.

I wanted to purchase a handgun about 10 years ago after I got held up. It took me over 6 months to get my permit. Then it took me about another month to be able to purchase a handgun.

The Process:
In order to get your firearms id card you have to apply for it. Part of the process involved me having a sit down "evaluation" with a detective that was basically an interrogation for about 30 minutes.

Then once that detective says "this guys not crazy" He takes his form and all my information and mails it to the FBI. Then I had to wait about six months for the FBI to say "this guys not crazy and/or a terrorist.

When I have my Firearms ID card I can buy a shotgun or a rifle if I want that's no problem. But if I want to buy a handgun (which I did) I have to go back to get a handgun permit. Luckily since I was applying for my firearms permit they also gave me one (read one) permit to buy a handgun. I could buy one handgun; If I wanted more I had to apply for ANOTHER permit. Not another Firearms ID Card just another Handgun permit.

So I take my permit and I purchase said gun. I can't purchase the gun after 5:00 PM because the NIC office over at the FBI closes and they have to call it in. Even AFTER they call it in I still had to wait like 6 days before I could pick it up.

I receive a copy of the permit (and a receipt) , the dealer gets a copy, and the last part gets sent to the FBI. Once the FBI confirms they have a copy of the permit (which includes the serial # that is on multiple parts of the gun) then and only then am I allowed to pickup my firearm.

So even if I sold it to someone everyone would know know who it belonged to beforehand.

I'm not sure how much more gun control you can have. The "gun" that needs the most "control" are handguns because they are used in almost all gun related crimes if you look at the stats.

I wont' get into hypothetical situations about how citizens could perform those checks or whatever. I just want to show how regulated things are already. The idea that I could purchase like 10 handguns and then re-sell them all to someone else and NEVER have it traced back to me seems almost impossible. Heck I doubt I could even get approved to own that many handguns!

Also:

I'm not a "giant conspiracy" kind of person. But I feel like with the way government has been going with Guantanamo, stop and frisk, not really enforcing a lot of anti-trust laws, not really prosecuting some of the big banks responsible for what happened, etc etc etc I just feel like there really an upward swing for government control and collusion with protecting their own interests and not the interests of the people.

I don't see the government as an instrument of the people anymore it just seems to be wealthy people patting each other on the back.

What happened in Boston really upset me where people were just pulled out of there houses at gunpoint because there "could be" a terrorist nearby.

I believe that Obama has a good reason for trying to put these tools in place and he has no motive behind it he is just trying to protect the American People in his own way. But I don't believe gun control will help at all and all it will do is put more of a hindrance on law abiding citizens. I'd equate these laws to Anti-Piracy solutions? Ala Sims3 and Diablo etc etc. It just punishes the actual customer NOT the criminal.

If you told me there was a way to ensure program the registry of gun owners could only be searched if the striations from a bullet were scanned that was used in a crime or something like that I'd be fine with it. But there really is no way to do that.

Sorry it was long but it's not really something I can just say something short.

I'm sure people will says "Well what are your guns going to do against tanks and helicopters and xyz xyz". First I'll point to Iraq and Afghanistan and how well those "wars" went. Everyone can agree it was a disaster and we probably made a lot of terrorists by just killing people innocent or not. The same thing would happen here in America.

Would the government actually TRY to take over? I don't' believe so because it's not in our best financial interests. Everyone wants to stay wealthy and some sort of civil war would be horrible for our economy. But I believe over time constantly just eroding our rights will just lead to that. People got pulled out of their homes at gunpoint and screamed at by police in boston and they were just like "Well the police are just trying to keep us safe!" I just find that creepy.

There's a saying blah blah blah doesn't go out with a bang it happens with a whimper. I'm not going to make myself look smart by googling the quote.

Anyway that's my whole post sorry if it's long but I'm tired. I would have put it in the discussion section but I'm not at the appropriate star level.

this is why i don't preorder

and this is why i wait until most games goes on sale before I get them, I don't buy beta tests, want me to support a game at full retail, I want the full, functional game at retail, that's the video game developer's fault not mine

i'm more than happy to wait to the end of a game's life cycle if I actually get a fully functioning game (and with Simcity, with online DRM, maybe even then I wouldn't be getting the game if the servers going down meant my ability to play was going to dissappear)

for an INDUSTRY soooo concerned about piracy... they sure do EVERYTHING in their power to ensure that piracy is the most appealing option

EA lost me as a fan of some of the brands they own when they forced Origin on me as well... that was the first blatant, you can't ignore it any longer, slap in the face EA did in my opinion in regards to their profitability being ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more important than my enjoyment of their games, my bang for my dollar, and my value to them as a customer

If you're a fan of first-person shooters and haven't played Far Cry 3 yet, it's about as essential as breathing.
If you have qualms against installing shit, spyware services that fail at being steam equivalents, or pose as being anti-piracy (is there a difference?), don't play Far Cry 3.