This is where you are wrong. The people *ARE* in a position to decide how and for how much a product is distributed for. Trust me, "pirates" don't mind the insults the sanctimonious throw their way.

And the worldwide market already has switched to this format. It happened the day the first Mp3 went online.

Sooner or later (due to human stupidity, more probably later) IP laws restricting copying will be repealed, and copying will be perfectly legal.

And people will still voluntarily support their favourite artists of whatever variety, simply for the appreciation of the art and desire to get more of it made.

I do not not know anyone that buys copiable stuff because of laws; everyone I knows pays for it because they want to support the creator.

Where did I write this? Read again and you will see that I never said anything about people's fault.
I also believed in Utopia but then I watched Blade Runner. ;)

I didn't say they're not in a position to do that, I said they can't handle that position. Obviously, since 99% don't pay for the product and then say how incredibly awesome it was.

Yes, I am sure Microsoft would survive that way. And don't you dare pulling open-source, there's a massive quality gap. Nowadays, people only think about how to save money and people are selfish bastards. And the only reason so many buy games is because a big ammount of them don't know how to pirate a game or crack it. Take that away and you cut ammount of people paying for software to at least a half.

For the purposes of this discussion, "lost sales" is a term that is used to describe losses incurred on publishers by someone else, i.e. pirates. You say that if a publisher gives their customers such a poor experience that people don't want to buy their products, it's fine to call it "lost sales". No publisher ever said "we estimate that last quarter we had $4 million worth of lost sales because we suck at customer relations". However, they are fond of saying "we estimate that last quarter we had $4 million worth of lost sales because filthy pirates stole our products, that each and every one of them would otherwise have paid full price for". That last bit they don't usually say, they just assume that's the case in their calculations.

If you think something isn't worth the asking price, don't buy it.
If you don't like the terms of an agreement, don't "sign it".

We are talking about entertainment here: not air, not food, not water, not a roof over your head. There are no "rights" involved, there isn't even any "need" just desire. You have a choice.

Yes, there are other market models available now and they may or may not work - but they all depend on the producers getting something in return from enough of the consumer or the producer starves.

A significant portion of people are selfish and greedy and will always try and get something for nothing. If you are a "pirate" then you have aligned yourself with that group.

In my mind pirates fall into three groups:
- selfish gits
- don't know better, all their friends are doing it
- those who mistakenly, but probably genuinely, believe they are "fighting a cause"

The last group probably only covers a tiny fraction of the total (less than 1%). They are simply a vocal minority - the other two groups either don't want to be noticed, or don't even know there is an issue.

There is also a fourth group drawn from the first two - the ones that get found out and try to justify their actions by claiming to be in the third group.

Yep, well done. I don't think I see any points that I even find arguable.

I agree with most of what you said, but there are in between groups as well.

In the early days, the net wasn't available in a www flavor for the masses, and software producers used shareware/demos to market their software electronically to potential consumers, via local bulletin board systems.

I used to be a system operator of one, and had all kinds of stuff in shareware, demo, and freeware flavors that people used to call in to get, as well as message boards and 'door' games they could mess around with when they weren't downloading/uploading.

This worked quite well, but then there would be things without a demo/trial, and a few users would go to their local stores and blindly buy it; needless to say, that did not always end well. Things would be of crap quality, not work on their machines, or just might not be what they wanted after taking it home. Items one and two struck a chord with me, and soon hidden directories and message areas were incorporated, where a group could 'try before they buy' and discuss their experiences.

Pirating without the intent to steal, in the hopes of not taking one up the rear by expending capital on a greatly marketed, but shoddy product.

My usage of the stuff was limited to opening them up, making sure the archive was intact without viruses or trojans, and popping them up for a select group of users. If something caught my interest, I'd check it out and buy/recommend buying the thing. Pirating, yes, but without the intent of making a buck or depriving a worthy product of its rightful revenue.

What others do is up to them, but there were a good number of us who were product creators/programmers ourselves, and even had MY flagship product uploaded to me as something I ought to check out :-) I guess some fortune 100 companies have some adherents of the 'try before you buy' philosophy too (I only had my product in one corporation at the time, at multiple sites.)

In any event, pirating will always go on, the reasons as diverse as people are, and you must build that potentiality into your pricing schemes, just as with any other product.

Edit to add: Thieves will always be thieves, and you're never going to sell them anything anyway. As for pricing, it depends on what your model is. For a large corporation, it may be every cent that you can extract from a product, at the lowest expenditure. For me, it was a bit below the fair market value, as I just had to live, not satisfy a litany of investors.

This whole "pirate the game and give the developers money if you think they deserve it" business sounds very well and good, but has anyone considered what the consequences might be if it got out of hand? I.e, nobody will be willing to back a game with any substantial amount of money, for fear that the fickle public will deem it unworthy and they won't see ANY return. Theoretically that's possible now, but there's at least the cushion that some players will pay money BEFORE trying the game. If everything went completely "pay what you want," they might not see any money period.

If you believe in your product, transparency is not a bad thing.

If you are playing sleight of hand games, I can understand avoiding the scrutiny, just look at all of the 'broken' stuff that is released now. A model where broken product is brought to market, then fix it up to what it should be, on consumer revenues. A smart tactic, but pisses people off too.

All of this sounds quite reasonable and balanced. But it still boils down to using, and making available to others, software for which you have not sought the permission of the owner. Theft, albeit temporary theft.

The companies, or individuals, making the products took the decision not to make it available in a "try before you buy" format. That was their decision to make for good or ill.

All purchases are a risk to varying degrees. I personally don't think it is a valid risk-avoidance technique to steal things to ensure they are good enough before I buy them. I'll gather information from the sources available then decide if the risk is worth taking - if I sometimes get burned then tough - welcome to life.

That may sound very black and white but it's the way I am made. Not claiming to be perfect - not even claiming that I stick to my principles 100% of the time - but I try.

Agree completely.

Argument was presented not as justification for the pirating, but to indicate more than 3 categories can/do exist.

Edit for typo.

Well, the days of the BBS are gone, but I'm sure many of those who got used to the old model, are still following it today; as are the thieves.

It is understandable to try and maximize profit, but I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I'm in the driver's seat , as I can choose to purchase or not purchase.

None of their offerings, in any arena, are absolutely essential to me, and I spend where I like the model.

Personal choice, and my meager expenditures aren't going to make or break anyone, but I do support places like this, over many larger/more profitable models.

I'm not really thinking of it from a "how things should be" point of view... more like a "how things WILL be" point of view. As an indie developer, I'm perfectly fine with trusting my players to pay me if they think my stuff is good (although that hasn't exactly worked out well so far). I think most indie developers will be fine with it. But publishers don't think that way. And with good reason, since they're dealing in potentially millions of dollars lost or gained. They'll see the increase in consumer power as a bad thing. And when publishers get scared, they stop funding things. And sure, I'm as happy as anyone to see a decrease in multi million dollar blockbusters like Call of Duty flooding the market. But any developer that isn't inde will be harmed. Not just the big ones. In fact, arguably it could result in an INCREASE of generic "play it safe" games.

And then, after a few years have passed, people will get jaded and they'll stop giving money to the remaining indie developers as well. As a whole, people do not do very well at this sort of thing. You get enough consumers saying "oh, well it's only $5. They won't miss it," or "I really can't afford to pay for this, so I won't," and pretty soon nobody is getting money for their work. In other words, complete industry collapse.

This is a pretty extreme case, granted, but I think that it's worth thinking about.