Anti-Piracy US System Starting Next Week (Deep Packet Inspection)

[Rishwin]

Oh they have, without a doubt, lost money due to Piracy. They have lost billions. But it's nowhere near what they're claiming it is.

There are people who will only pirate and never purchase anything. The "industry" is assuming that everyone who pirates is one of those people. When in actuality they are a minority.

Not to mention many people will in fact go on to later purchase whatever it is they pirated, which the industry then counts as 1 lost sale and 1 gained sale. When in fact there was no lost sale and if they had not first downloaded and trialed the software, there may have never been a sale.

So the entire basis for how they get their figures for lost sales is ultimately flawed, but they still have lost alot of money which is understandably why they're going through so much trouble.

 

[343]

I agree with most of your post, though I still feel they haven't really "lost" anything IMO. It would be like me, creating a movie (as crappy as it would be LOL) and putting it on the interwebs, asking $1 from anyone who downloaded it. Even if NOBODY paid, would I really have "lost" anything, no... What's really funny is I know I have a long arse rant about this stuff somewhere else around RZ, and without getting too much in to it again; I just find it funny that I even have friends that are "in the industry" (musicians) that actually feel the same way I do. They make music and distribute it online for free, they rely on making their income from LIVE SHOWS... (I only have ONE musician friend who is like "no DL music is stealing" )... I know that just covers 'music' but it's still the same concept to me for everything. Movies, same thing, who cares who DL's what, make your money off of cinema andor live performances...

Though as with all, everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and opinions and whatnot (I'm not here to tell anyone else how to behave or think

What I really wanted to respond to out of your post was this part:

There are people who will only pirate and never purchase anything. The "industry" is assuming that everyone who pirates is one of those people. When in actuality they are a minority.

Not to mention many people will in fact go on to later purchase whatever it is they pirated, which the industry then counts as 1 lost sale and 1 gained sale. When in fact there was no lost sale and if they had not first downloaded and trialed the software, there may have never been a sale.

So the entire basis for how they get their figures for lost sales is ultimately flawed, but they still have lost alot of money which is understandably why they're going through so much trouble.

Are there people that never pay for anything media wise if they can help it, sure, but who cares really <.< Like you said, they are pretty much a minority, and I believe you to be correct on that one (because even I personally fall in to the next category).

The next category, people who may pirate poop, but then turn around to buy a 'legit' copy later on. This is a perfect description of myself. Maybe there's a "I want it now" factor, or a "I gotta test this factor", or "see if it's something I should 'waste' my money on" factor, whatever the reason. I do this a LOT. I downloaded a pirated copy of a game not that long ago, just to see if I'd like it. Well it didn't even work, come to find out (the problems had nothing to do with the fact that it was a "pirated" copy) people that actually PAID for and bought the game were having the SAME issues with it not working. DELETE. simple, and no money wasted (yet had I bought it and found this out the company would have told me to go pound sand)... Yet, I recall when one of those "sims" games came out. I "pirated" it (before it was even released at that), and I really liked it - so to put forth my contribution for a product that I actually liked, I ran to the local store and PURCHASED a 'legit copy'... Most people I know (personal friends and acquaintances) are actually like this. So whether "you just want some fancy artwork" or "you have morals", I really think most people will fall in to this category... One more perfect example: right now there's a TV show I like to watch, on a channel I don't get - so I DL it ("illegally" i'm sure) to watch it within about an hour after it airs. When the season is over I will (and have before) run out and purchase the DVD/BRD edition of it since I enjoy it so much...

So yes, they're certainly HIGHLY flawed, in whatever figures they always come up with. However it is IMO that they're really not "out" that money, or any money from people "downloading"... It would be different if we were talking about shoplifting the DVD from a store shelf, that's a tangible physical product, and that IS theft. It'd be like stealing a car, it's a physical item, that is no doubt a theft... But when you DL something, you're not really "taking" anything, you're making a copy (leaving another copy for the next person to take too)...

In the winds of change some people build shelter, while some people build kites
(Hollywood is taking shelter when they should have capitalized on this by building kites, they are fighting this as much as they fought VHS back in the day, well VHS prevailed, SO WILL THIS){something along those lines}

Yet at the same time on the other side of the fence I think you're right. In that, they (the "industry") IS losing money... Why though, not because people are DLing the content they've made (which they are, and people do) BUT, rather because now INDIVIDUALS (artists like you and I) can get their work "out there" via digital distribution, they don't "need" the industry, no managers and producers and distributors etc etc etc...

 

[Rishwin]

The problem is that many people pirate something INSTEAD of purchasing it. They were legitimately going to purchase it but instead decided to downloaded it for free. That's a lost sale, and should be the ONLY figure being used to calculate the "lost" revenue. But as there's no way of doing so, all they go off are the total downloads which is a heavily inflated figure.

But of course if they never had the intention of purchasing it in the first place then that's a different story. But again many people who don't have intention of buying it download instead, realize it's actually good software and based on that preview actually end up purchasing it after all. So in some situations it does actually help the industry.

 

[343]

All in all, I think I actually hope "the industry" does DIE once and for all. It's SERIOUSLY bassackwards that 'entertainers' make millions and billions of dollars and live in mansions n poop, while the people that really drive this world forward (DR's, fire fighters, police, etc etc etc...) live paycheck to paycheck. It is what it is, it's entertainment! Now that we have digital distribution any average Joe Schmoe can 'produce' on his/her own not needing any huge "label" or producers or distributors. So why does an 'industry' that's been putting out some pretty crap content as of late IMHO get to stay in business, when my 10 year old neighbor just made a better song in his bedroom than the jackasses sitting in Hollywood ...

So I guess in all honesty, I almost hope "the industry" does die...

Or at least "put in check"!

 

[Supicioso]

All in all, I think I actually hope "the industry" does DIE once and for all. It's SERIOUSLY bassackwards that 'entertainers' make millions and billions of dollars and live in mansions n poop, while the people that really drive this world forward (DR's, fire fighters, police, etc etc etc...) live paycheck to paycheck. It is what it is, it's entertainment! Now that we have digital distribution any average Joe Schmoe can 'produce' on his/her own not needing any huge "label" or producers or distributors. So why does an 'industry' that's been putting out some pretty crap content as of late IMHO get to stay in business, when my 10 year old neighbor just made a better song in his bedroom than the jackasses sitting in Hollywood ...

So I guess in all honesty, I almost hope "the industry" does die...

Or at least "put in check"!

Sorry to break it to you, but you're got it a little wrong. Money drives the world forward, and entertainment makes up a HUUUUUUUGE chunk of said money. Take that away and you'll slowly find everything else around you crumbling. Everything has a place in the world, even if you don't like it. It's necessary in it own right.

 

[343]

Sorry to break it to you, but you're got it a little wrong. Money drives the world forward, and entertainment makes up a HUUUUUUUGE chunk of said money. Take that away and you'll slowly find everything else around you crumbling. Everything has a place in the world, even if you don't like it. It's necessary in it own right.

Sure everything is necessary for it's exact opposite to exist. Without love there couldn't be hate, without dark there couldn't be light blah blah blah. But we do NOT "need" entertainment to live, last time I checked we need food, water, oxygen etc...

So, I hate to break it to you, but, as boring as life may be with no entertainment, we would still live on tt1:

Also,

Money drives the world forward

really!? So I can accredit this man made 'object' ("money") as the reason for all existence? If we took this "money" away, the earth would cease to spin? I would also have to ask, what did people do before money, or is this "money", is it what made the earth begin to spin in the first place?

Reminds me of this photo I've seen laying around the interwebs:

So, who exactly is the world in debt to? Planet earth owes pluto this "money"???

Sorry, I'm really not trying to be insulting, even though I could understand if that was your perception of what I've said. No, I'm only trying to trigger some further 'thinking' on the subject. I guess for some people "money can buy happiness" though, not me. If you had all the money in the world, but not a single friend, would you be happy? Some people may say yes, for whatever the reason, whether it's because they could "own" anything they want etc etc etc... I say, "no", I'm fine with living paycheck to paycheck myself, because while I may not have the best personal 'belongings' I have friends and family that care for me, and visa versa - and people that I would help in a heartbeat, and visa versa. That's more than any object, especially "money" can do for me...

In the end, we're all humans, and we cannot bring any of these 'belongings' or 'items' or 'objects' with us when we die. Money, cars, jewelry whatever - it's all only temporary. So I do suppose every individual should live their life exactly the way they want to and do or strive for whatever makes them "happy". Regardless of whether it's fame or money, or friendships and bonds with fellow humanity... Heck for all we know those are only temporary too, but then again they may not be (they at least have the possibility of extending beyond death) but lets not get that far off topic because then we'll have to open discussion on religion or spirituality... Though I will admit I am personally not a religious type, I still cannot deny that beyond death you cannot bring with money or houses or cars. The rest of any possible 'spirituality' is unknown, well at least I don't know anyone that's died for a significant enough amount of time to find out "what is on the other side" if anything, and came back to tell about it...

 

[Ron]

The 'world' is in debt because everyone borrows money from each other and never pays it back.

Moral of the story: don't borrow money. If you can't afford it, do without. If you can't do without, sell your luxuries to afford what you need. People don't understand you can't have luxury and needs if you have no money. You have to pick either what you need, or what you want.

We're fucked over so bad because too many people have no money and buy what they want, not what they need.

Here I am saying this with my sports car in my sig, but at least I can afford it. I'm not sitting here struggling to pay bills then bitching about not having any money. lol

Anyways, totally off-topic.

 

[343]

The 'world' is in debt because everyone borrows money from each other and never pays it back.

Moral of the story: don't borrow money. If you can't afford it, do without. If you can't do without, sell your luxuries to afford what you need. People don't understand you can't have luxury and needs if you have no money. You have to pick either what you need, or what you want.

We're fucked over so bad because too many people have no money and buy what they want, not what they need.

Here I am saying this with my sports car in my sig, but at least I can afford it. I'm not sitting here struggling to pay bills then bitching about not having any money. lol

Anyways, totally off-topic.

//offtop: Nice Mustang BTW! (and you're right, 'credit' is a big problem)

//ontop: The entertainment industry (as it once was anyway) is way too greedy. They expect too much for too little. IE: is it really worth it to go to the store, and pick up a DVD or BRD off the shelf and pay ~$50 for it, not really, but it's also not too bad either. Ok, so instead of getting pissed off that people are downloading for free (illegally) and pretty much demanding that people visit a local retailer to buy it for ~$50 "make the switch to digital distribution" because it IS the way of the future. The only problem is, they seem to think that no matter what that 'copy' of 'that movie' is worth $50, no matter how it's delivered. That's where the greed comes in. With how much larger their 'audience' can be with digital distribution they'd be continuing to profit exponentially if they were able to make $50 per download. The nice thing about digital distribution is how much wider of an 'audience' you can market to. With digital distribution you can almost market to everyone in the world, without having to worry which stores will or will not carry your 'product'... Thing is, I would NEVER pay $50 to download a digital copy of a movie (I'm hesitant enough to buy a DVD or BRD for that price sometimes)... Personally I'd say a 'legit' download would be ideally priced somewhere around $1 - $10, and I could almost guarantee they'd still be 'breaking even' with what they're 'used to making' if not still making more money in the end, just because of how many more people could now have access to their 'product'...

Also, will people STILL 'pirate'? Sure, no doubt, they will no matter what. That cannot ever be changed. So I also think it's asinine to waste money trying to thwart it. Technically that cuts in to their profit. I've always thought that way, since I'm an avid video gamer. I remember once upon a time video games didn't have any 'copy protection' what so ever. Then they (the 'industry') started to get pissed off that some people weren't buying their software. So they started working on 'copy protection'. I've almost always figured, if they're complaining about losing profit to those not paying for their copy, then why are they wasting any of the money they have made to fight it, now they're just making less money because they've had to hire attorneys to sue people, or hire a third party (or a new internal team) to 'invent' or 'implement' this "copy protection" etc... The whole idea just sounds kinda bassackwards to me. I guess it's my philosophy of cutting losses, being happy with what you have, and moving on... And seeing as we're talking about an industry that makes millions and billions of dollars annually, I'm sorry but, who cares if you made $200,000,000,000.00 instead of $275,000,000,000.00... Seriously, I call that GREED at it's best!!! Perhaps if you didn't waste so much effort on this "anti-piracy" shenanigans you would have made $225,000,000,000.00 :?: IDK...

I guess the moral of my story is that: "they" really need to stop wasting so much effort and/or time and/or money on this "anti-piracy" shenanigans, and flow with the winds of change instead of ducking under a table! After all, things usually change for the better, not for the worse... Instead of 'seeing' how good this change could be for them, they're only complaining about the down sides...

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!

It's really too bad too, because one may have thought that "they" may have learned their lesson when they fought BETA/VHS tooth and nail in the beginning, and then one day "saw the light". Right now they should be embracing this 'change', instead nope, it's the VCR days all over again... ... ...

 

[Rishwin]

You act like the entertainment industry is some new thing which just came out. It is the oldest industry in existence. We've been entertaining ourselves long before we did anything constructive for ourselves. Entertainment a few hundred years ago was a group of lower-class men battling to the death while the entire town cheered. Entertainment is the most lucrative industry because everyone wants to be entertained, and we do it at any cost.

It also costs more to create this entertainment than you think. They cost millions, and they calculate the costs according to how many they think they'll sell and how much they need to charge to get their money back & profit to make it worth the risk. With piracy increasing, so do prices because they need to account for less sales but still need to make back the same amount if not more.

 

[Supicioso]

Sure everything is necessary for it's exact opposite to exist. Without love there couldn't be hate, without dark there couldn't be light blah blah blah. But we do NOT "need" entertainment to live, last time I checked we need food, water, oxygen etc...

So, I hate to break it to you, but, as boring as life may be with no entertainment, we would still live on tt1:

Also, really!? So I can accredit this man made 'object' ("money") as the reason for all existence? If we took this "money" away, the earth would cease to spin? I would also have to ask, what did people do before money, or is this "money", is it what made the earth begin to spin in the first place?

Reminds me of this photo I've seen laying around the interwebs:

So, who exactly is the world in debt to? Planet earth owes pluto this "money"???

Sorry, I'm really not trying to be insulting, even though I could understand if that was your perception of what I've said. No, I'm only trying to trigger some further 'thinking' on the subject. I guess for some people "money can buy happiness" though, not me. If you had all the money in the world, but not a single friend, would you be happy? Some people may say yes, for whatever the reason, whether it's because they could "own" anything they want etc etc etc... I say, "no", I'm fine with living paycheck to paycheck myself, because while I may not have the best personal 'belongings' I have friends and family that care for me, and visa versa - and people that I would help in a heartbeat, and visa versa. That's more than any object, especially "money" can do for me...

In the end, we're all humans, and we cannot bring any of these 'belongings' or 'items' or 'objects' with us when we die. Money, cars, jewelry whatever - it's all only temporary. So I do suppose every individual should live their life exactly the way they want to and do or strive for whatever makes them "happy". Regardless of whether it's fame or money, or friendships and bonds with fellow humanity... Heck for all we know those are only temporary too, but then again they may not be (they at least have the possibility of extending beyond death) but lets not get that far off topic because then we'll have to open discussion on religion or spirituality... Though I will admit I am personally not a religious type, I still cannot deny that beyond death you cannot bring with money or houses or cars. The rest of any possible 'spirituality' is unknown, well at least I don't know anyone that's died for a significant enough amount of time to find out "what is on the other side" if anything, and came back to tell about it...

I'm not going to read that long essay, but yes, money does drive the world forward, and there's always been money since man started understanding give and take. It may not have been physical coins and bills, but it was still a FORM of money non-the-less. Sheep for this cow, etc. It's still a form of money. Take away money and everything comes to a grinding halt. I'd take a wild guess that people would start killing each other for what they want, which is still done today and could still be looked at as a form of currency.

Doesn't matter what you take or where you get it from. Someone had to lose something for you to gain it. Give and take. I.E money.

 

[343]

That post made much more sense, though a cow isn't money, nor is sheep - that was called the bartering system...

You act like the entertainment industry is some new thing which just came out. It is the oldest industry in existence. We've been entertaining ourselves long before we did anything constructive for ourselves. Entertainment a few hundred years ago was a group of lower-class men battling to the death while the entire town cheered. Entertainment is the most lucrative industry because everyone wants to be entertained, and we do it at any cost.

It also costs more to create this entertainment than you think. They cost millions, and they calculate the costs according to how many they think they'll sell and how much they need to charge to get their money back & profit to make it worth the risk. With piracy increasing, so do prices because they need to account for less sales but still need to make back the same amount if not more.

Yea yea yea, I know - it costs blah blah blah millions to produce movie X, meanwhile they've been putting out poop content as of late anyways. I'd rather see some low budget film by my neighbor (or a local school etc...), if it actually entertains me, opposed to the JUNK Hollywood has been putting out as of late <.<

Ou yay, this film cost 200 Million to produce,

//at the end of the movie

Holy poop that sucked !!!

The main point is still that they need to stop ducking under a desk, and flow with these winds of change

The bigger main point is that all this time/effort/money on this "anti-piracy" shenanigans is even more of a waste since the feasibility of anything good ever coming from it (like being able to actually stop it) is about 0%...

 

[Justice For All]

I'd rather see some low budget film by my neighbor (or a local school etc...), if it actually entertains me, opposed to the JUNK Hollywood has been putting out as of late <.<

Ou yay, this film cost 200 Million to produce,

//at the end of the movie

Holy poop that sucked !!!

While that is all based on opinion, you are not going to make a decent movie on a low budget, movies cost as much as they do to make due to many many reasons. You have an entire cast to pay, (not just the main actors either, that includes extras, stand ins, stunt doubles, background actors, etc etc, you know that long list of credits that take multiple minutes to scroll by? Pretty much every one of those people have to be paid, it's no different than a team of game developers like CoD, etc. has) directors, producers, sound guys, wardrobe, makeup, special effects, visual editors, audio editors, and that's not even the half of it. Then you have travel expenses, press/media expenses, material expenses such as houses, (while just like cars, houses can even more easily get up into the millions even just to rent and insure, for example when dealing with mansions, drug lord palaces etc) cars, (depending on the movie this can easily take up millions too, ie exotic cars, etc) props, video equipment, audio equipment, and the list goes on and on.

Making an 'actual' movie is far from a simple cheap walk in the park. If you knew what it takes to make movies that people generally like nowadays, that 200 million would seem a bit more understandable. So back to my point, that unless you are going to spend at least a couple million dollars, you are not going to make a movie that's even close to being up to par with current multi-million dollar movies.

 

[343]

While that's true too, what I was saying (or at least what I meant) was only that, just because the budget for a particular movie is 200 Million does not mean it will be a good movie. Meanwhile I've seen low budget films that (as 'cheesy' as they are) have been more entertaining on a couple thousand dollar budget and or made in somebody's basement than some of these movies produced in Hollywood on huge budgets...

Nonetheless that is all subjective, and even though it does distantly play a role in the main topic at hand, is technically off topic. On topic I'm just as against CAS/DPI as I am any other form of "anti-piracy", I think it's a wasted effort of time/effort/money... I cannot go into it any deeper than that without just stating that, that is my opinion (that is how I think/feel etc...), or straying further off topic again.

 

[RaptorJesus]

Casuals are shitting themselves because they can't pirate anymore. You knew the day would come.

 

[Supicioso]

Casuals are shitting themselves because they can't pirate anymore. You knew the day would come.

I've always personally thought people are penis riding this "privacy" shenanigans simply because it's a bandwagon to hop on. The internet has never been about privacy. No matter who or what tells you otherwise. A lot about you can be found out just be simply going through google. The government is taking away people's ease to steal what should be paid for, ergo. Jumping behind privacy to attempt and defend that.

 

[Hejula]

Casuals are shitting themselves because they can't pirate anymore. You knew the day would come.

You think this will end piracy? Haha.

 

[343]

You think this will end piracy? Haha.

The 100% truth is NOTHING will EVER 'end' piracy. Ever! They will keep 'inventing' new ways to 'slow it down' but they will never stop it...

 

[Rishwin]

The 100% truth is NOTHING will EVER 'end' piracy. Ever! They will keep 'inventing' new ways to 'slow it down' but they will never stop it...

That's not a good thing... Piracy is easily the worst thing to ever happen to the internet after child porn/snuff. You have such a smug outlook about piracy being such a great thing but it really is not.

You are accessing software which cost millions of dollars for absolutely free. You ARE stealing it, arguments aside If the internet was a brick & mortar store you are walking in, sticking it inside your jacket & walking out the door. You are stealing something by acquiring software people have paid money to create, and other people are paying money to acquire.

Piracy seems like such a great thing when you're a kid, but grow up & you'll see there's nothing awesome about bring ripped off by people stealing poop you spent years & millions of dollars creating. If there was no piracy, software would be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than it is today. That is an absolute fact. So it's great that you get it for "free" but at the end of the day it's the people who legitimately purchase it who are in fact "paying" for your free copy.

 

[343]

HA HA, sorry I cannot do anything except laugh extremely hard at your post (at least the beginning)!!! Seriously, comparing piracy to child porn Wow... You surely have some audacity...

Your little comparison of stealing from a brick and mortar store is a completely different argument, that IS stealing. If you take a car, or a compact disc, or a computer that is a (or any other) tangible item and IS plain and simply theft. When you 'copy' data you're not really depriving anyone else of it, you're not 'taking' it, therefore you're essentially not 'stealing' it.

Sure piracy seems like a great thing to kids, after all most of us teach our kids to 'share' right?? I know you're not telling me to "grow up" because I'm older than you are (if your age on your profile is accurate) BTW... "If there was no piracy", like I vaguely said in my previous post, nothing will ever stop piracy that's just a fact. Similarly how if you could 'wave a magic wand to eliminate all the firearms in the world'. guess what, crime would still not stop (people will just use other 'weapons')... So, moving on (I don't desire to go on too much of a tangent which I do have a habit of doing =\), you say "If there was no piracy" software would be cheaper than it is now. This could not possibly be any farther from the truth. At worst that is a myth, at best it is pure speculation (you certainly can not construe it as fact). Just as I speculate that 'software' would be just as expensive had 'piracy' not existed at all. My logic to back that assertion up is, technology is ever improving, not to mention normal rates of 'inflation', companies are constantly having to hire new and more talent to create these ever edge cutting 'games' and 'software', therefore naturally prices will always at least somewhat increase or rise... Therefore, naturally and obviously, games/software cost more now for example, opposed to what they cost in 1990! Then again, look how crappy a computer from 1990 would look and operate sitting next to a computer built just this week! This has nothing to do with 'piracy'... To me it looks like what (I believe) it IS, "normal inflation" and improvements in technology, which in turn produce a higher demand for 'better talent' in the industry...

Fact is, it's usually the people that complain the most about 'piracy' that are the most greedy people/companies etc... They always want more for less (ofc the same could be said about the very 'pirates' they complain about <.<). The 'figures' they spout out about their 'losses' "due to piracy" are NOWHERE near accurate (as pointed out earlier in this thread) as well. Also, like I've said before, I couldn't care less if a company made $200,000,000,000 instead of $275,000,000,000. I personally think they should be glad with ANY sales they do get seeing as technically 'everyone' "could" 'pirate'...

Also, I hate to burst your bubble but, I am not biased in this direction because I'm a 'pirate' but I'm actually a "content creator" myself... I just personally think that these types of 'data' SHOULD be freely shared. People and companies should only make money on either tangible products or services. IE: If I wrote a game, or a program, or a song, etc... I'd give it out for free. If I hosted a website for you, well that's a service, I'd charge... If I made an online game (IE an MMO), the 'client' (software) would be free, but I'd probably charge a usage fee for my 'services' of hosting the server (for the end user being able to play on the server that I HAVE to run for their playing to be possible). I for one am all for Open Source and

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(I'm also not against the concept of

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open source and even better if it's BOTH / all three)! I carry the same basic opinion toward just about any 'sector' of the 'entertainment industry' too, same concept applies to movies and music too. Movies, who cares if somebody downloads a movie without paying for it, they should really bank on cinema or live performances. Same for music, who care is people download songs without paying for them, musicians should rely on generating revenue via LIVE SHOWS (and it's kinda funny that [if you've read my other posts in this thread] I actually have plenty of musician friends that feel the SAME way {I only have ONE greedy butt friend who does not})... Hell, I'm not totally against 'asking' (or 'charging') for a SMALL/NOMINAL fee to be able to download these things either, though I still heavily feel that the main revenue stream for this 'industry' should be focused on tangibles, services, and LIVE shows/performances etc... Though I can safely bet you wont see 20th century fox offering movie downloads for $1/5/10 anytime soon if ever! Why, because they're too bloody greedy <.< They'd rather have 5,000,000 people buy it at $50 and COMPLAIN about the 20,000,000 that "illegally pirated it" than have 25,000,000 download it for $10! Which is actually another potential (hypothesis of mine). Who's to say that things wouldn't "balance out in the end" just like in my example. If they sold 5,000,000 copies @ $50, that == the same exact amount of money had they offered it for a $10 download and had 25,000,000 people download it (Also, do not over-analyze my example, I kept it short and to the point - I know there's much more involved in producing, marketing and selling poop!)... Still, that would not stop 'piracy', as I've already said nothing will ever stop piracy. People who do it will continue to do it for whatever their reason is... If anything the companies need to jump on this bandwagon and start offering "legit" downloads to people instead of basically demanding they go buy a physical copy from a store for like $50. If anything that in itself could push someone to piracy, the fact of "hmm, I can go buy this (and get a disc of it) for $50, or I can download it for free" hmm, what do a lot of people obviously choose. So again, I feel like a broken record here, the 'industry' needs to stop hiding under a table in these winds of change, they need to start flying a kite! Now is the time to take advantage of it, with digital distribution they can reach a MUCH wider audience too (therefore potentially drastically increasing overall revenue even if they dropped the product prices [as they should be since it's "digital" and nothing "tangible"]). Not to mention I'm 100% sure it would be cheaper to operate the servers to make these 'legit' downloads available than it would be to produce physical discs, all the printing for the box 'art', etc. then letting them sit on store shelves where they sometimes wont sell... If anything that business model is fail, because you're more likely to lose even MORE money if you produce and distribute a product that winds up collecting dust on some walmart shelf!

I could probably continue to go on and on and on, but I wont -- there's not much point as I think I've made my stance pretty clear. My goal isn't to tell you how to think or what to think or what stance to carry. My goal is to provide information from the other side of the fence, since there is always two sides to every fence... Quite a ways back (when I was a kid) I used to think just like you, in that, "piracy" drives prices up... Until I read more and more and spoke about the subject with people, even with complete strangers, just to get other perspectives for myself...

Fact is, things are (always) changing. Piracy will never change (as in piracy will never completely cease) the only thing that will change about piracy is "how" it's done... Did you know that BOOKS were initially viewed as being piracy!!?? Have you seen those movies, the "steal this film"'s that I linked earlier, if not you should really watch them (no matter what your standpoint is) They will "really make the wheels turn" in your head no matter which side of the fence you're on... Another 'fact' is that you need to go where your customers are. As much as I HATE facebook (and do not have a personal page/account) I still have a business 'page' or 'account' there, why - when I HATE it? Well, simple, it's a GOOD place to get or solicit 'customers' (it's "where the people are")... So, the 'industry' needs to go where it's customers are going, to digital content distribution, not letting their products rot and collect dust on store shelves! I think THAT would be an effective way to 'reduce' "piracy". Not trying to fight change. Furthermore that makes this current model of combating piracy a waste, why are they wasting so much trying to do it this way, when they could just stop fighting the changes that are inevitable! Surely you do know that 'the industry' is behind all this anti piracy BS, the

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music and movie studios etc... Surely it's not some random non profit organization saying "piracy needs to stop" when they would have NOTHING to gain OR lose from it either way! It's not the ISP's either, even though THIS example (CAS/DPI) may directly relate to them, who do you think is paying for it??? Surely they're not, "the industry" is! Which also leads me to wonder, why would you be so anti-piracy if you're not in (or somehow 'tied' to) "the industry", or are you??

 

[Mootie]

Not going to go through? Lul, Did you miss the part where it takes action next week? As in Monday ISPs will be putting it into place.
Also, if a device can connect to the internet in any way, shape or form it has a tracable ID, be it MAC or otherwise. If they want to find you, they'll find you.

MAC ID, lol'd.