Instead of me quoting the entire Tweakguides article where the methodology, reasoning and results are explained, how about I just provide with the link (again):

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

In brief, and at the risk of repeating this for the nth time, there will never be any definitive proof DRM caused or resulted in lost or increased sales. What you can try to see however, is what happens with DRM free games, where most of the excuses for people magically to want to buy the game instead of getting it for free are squashed - i.e. low price, tiny indie studio, excellent reviews and available on Steam and GoG, and observing a rampant piracy rate, contradicting the seemingly common belief that piracy is the result of DRM. Furthermore, you can also see trends of DRM heavy/laden games having lower piracy rates than DRM light/free games, further reinforcing this view.

So trying to prevent zero-day sales which many of these DRMs are, IMHO, designed to do in the first place, and preventing some casual sharing (pretty ineffective for the non-always-online DRM) is more than a valid reason from a producer's point of view to purchase a ready-made, readily supported product for that. Considering the fact that zero-day sales are crucial for the success and future of a developer. They might also gain some satisfaction in eliminating the second-hand sales market, as it only means lost sales for the developer (the guys who actually made the game), even with a recent ruling in the EU that nobody can stop you from selling your purchased goods (if my interpretation of copyright law is correct).

Regarding always-online DRM: I think most people have already accepted this as the way things have had to evolve in the face of rampant piracy. Diablo 3 is one of the most succesful games of all time already, and though most people would have bought the game probably for twice that money and twice the level of DRM (if possible) it is also the example with the most draconian DRM imaginable, even worse than UbiDRM, as there is no offline at all for single-players. I think publishers have noted how effective tying features server side can be, like with Anno, and others are implementing it like EA with SimCity 5. Having a decent net connection (whilst purchasing the game digitally) is becoming more and more of a moot point, especially in 2012.

Intellectual Monopoly: You've unfortunately twisted my words there a little. Regardless, this anarchistic view that copyrights and patents should not exist is quite utopian, and if we are discussing the pros and cons of PC gaming DRM in 2012, on planet Earth, in this particular universe, seems a bit irrelevant. Add to that the fact that PC gamers hate to pay for their products, all that would happen is pirates getting more products (many inferior quality) initially, then most of them go bust except the quality producers, at which point the whole cycle starts again (bigger investment risk, need to protect their product from theft).

Amusing little utopia though, I should also add Star Trek's version to it - get rid of money. Everyone works only due to altruism.

I might or might not address the rest of your post later, but I've decided to humor you and read the article in full in bits of spare time. So far I've read the first four pages. Two issues I've observed:

First (major):

The assertion regarding DRM-laden games having lower piracy rates than DRM-free or DRM-light games relies on statistics concerning several Steam titles and the author's repeatedly-inferred view that Steam is not DRM. Steam is not only DRM but particularly hated DRM to some people and groups.

Edit: Six pages in now. Oddly the author mentions Steam as something he will discuss later in a section about copy protection and DRM... which causes me to wonder why he would reference certain games as examples of DRM-free games being heavily pirated if he acknowledges Steam as DRM. Strange considering he describes the Orange Box as "distributed via Steam with no intrusive DRM" (a contradiction in terms) and World of Goo as "selling for less than $20 on Steam, it has no intrusive DRM" (again, a contradiction).

Even placing that major problem aside, there is a considerable leap in associating piracy rates with DRM or lack thereof. I might touch more on this later, but I want to see where the article goes before delving further.

Second:

The author states:

"The key point then is to consider a range of factors when examining global piracy rates: local software prices, local salaries, general cost of living, and the timely availability of software. In other words when examining piracy by region it's wholly inaccurate to simply calculate that a pirated copy of a PC game in China or India equates to the same potential loss in income as a pirated copy of a PC game in the US or Europe for example."

However, when examining piracy statistics for individual titles (torrent stats), statistics are not cited by region. The scale of the actual problem (significant economic loss) as denoted by these figures could be vastly overstated if the majority of piracy is among poor or limited-access regions (as indicated by the more general figures earlier in the article). This does not excuse piracy as a problem, but it does question conclusions concerning the scope of the economic effects of piracy based on these statistics.

Edit: Six pages in now. I find the estimate of PC install base vs. console install base to be haphazard. Rough figures of add-in graphics card sales are not a strong indication of how many people are actually using the PC as a gaming platform to any significant degree. In contrast, all consoles sold are being primarily used for gaming. Because a similar install base (and the obviously subjective opinions of certain game developers) is the crux of the argument concerning piracy causing the PC platform to be much less profitable than the console market rather than console gamers simply outnumbering PC gamers by a substantial margin (at least in regards to those playing new release games, the subject with which this part of the discussion of piracy is primarily concerned), the two pages discussing this more-or-less fall flat.

On a more subjective note: My personal experience is that console gamers far outnumber PC gamers; I meet console gamers *all* the time, and the few PC gamers playing newer PC titles that I meet seem to be primarily interested in MMOs. This is obviously not any kind of objective argument, but I can't help but be skeptical about the author's estimates.

2nd edit: Seven pages in now. The author's bias towards much of the subject is starting to irk me.

"For example the PCGA reported that PC gaming was a $10.7 billion USD industry in 2007, yet they neglected to highlight the fact that around one fifth of that entire figure can be attributed to a single game: World of Warcraft (WoW); it and its expansions regularly take out the top spots on the PC game sales charts by a very wide margin."

He links to a short source article about the study which claims that online PC gaming (including WoW) constituted $4.8 billion of the total. Interesting, but the casual dismissal of the other $5.9 billion is striking.

And:

"The best way to demonstrate the direct causal link between piracy and the shifting of business models is to examine the increasing presence of online activation/verification in successful games."

What a leap! Perhaps this bit is explained in the following section, but the author seems to be in the habit of inferring causal links whenever it suits his purpose but lambasting anti-DRM arguments for the same.

Taking a break from the article until tomorrow or later. The tone of the article doesn't accord with its stated goal of objectivity and is starting to annoy me, which is causing me to begin skimming rather than reading for depth. Time to stop for now.

---

This made me smile as it reminds me of a friend's critique of various libertarian ideas that I have discussed with him. I'll point out that I was reasoning within an obviously capitalist framework, and that copyright is not integral to capitalism, and leave it at that. ;-)

@ddmuse: Good job going through the article. Hope it proves educational.

Regarding your comments.

1. Steam - the author does not state it is DRM free, clearing that contradiction. It is however, by his definition (and most of the world's) not considered intrusive DRM, especially since there seems to a workaround to even access games completely offline (yikes). Also, having internet for someone who bought their game from a digital distributor seems a bit of a moot point.

2. Regional piracy rates vs economic loss - Even if you skimmed the article, you must have noticed his considerable critical objections on past attempts on quantifying economic loss due to piracy. In fact, there are whole paragraphs devoted to it. Hence, why you seem to think he even attemps to do this, is beyond me. Once again, he looks at piracy rates, not economic loss, clearly demonstrated in even your quote. The differences between regions is always reflected in the pricing of the game, which is why a game in Thailand costs a fraction of the same game in the US, and the excuse of third-world country citizens not being able to afford a game like Crysis, is refuted by the simple fact that they must have a PC gaming rig capable of playing it in the first place. Like you said, it does not excuse piracy, and in no way affects looking at trends of piracy rates for similar games (as the methodology and basis of comparison remains the same for all his games).

3. Console vs PC gaming piracy: You seemed to have not considered the main point of his analysis - even the upper bound of his estimates from multiple sources of the number of PC gamers vs number of console gamers, does not even come close to explaining how there is a 5:1 or 4:1 ratio of games sold on consoles vs the PC, like Witcher 2. Not even close. Thus, there must be another reason. Could it be price (the author goes on to argue, as you are well aware)? Nope, in fact, console games cost 10 dollars more usually on the consoles compared to the PC. Etc etc, he goes on, until he looks at piracy. Eureka.

4. Changing business models: Wow (no pun intended). You seem to enjoy cherry-picking and missing the point of his analysis. He is arguing how the business model of PC gaming has changed towards online only. Not that there is a fraction of PC gaming still going the single-player route, but that how much more succesful the online seems to be, especially as the growth in 2009 in the PC gaming industry was due to online-based avenues, only (I'm sure if you read the page, you will find the reference). Not offline, single-player games. That fact right there is quite striking - the online gaming is keeping the PC gaming industry alive (no growth as you may know, is a slow and painful death to most businesses, or an instant one to some).

5. Cherry-picked reference, that you misrepresent, regarding looking at online activation/verification and its link to piracy. If you had been playing PC games (single-player) you must have noticed a trend like this yourself? Single-player games constantly tying a bunch of functionality server-side, with no apparent reason than to clearly serve as DRM?

For what other reason would single-player games do this?

Having said that - Ghazi seems to imply a little (but not state) that businesses looked to online only business models due to piracy as a driving force. Whilst this maybe true for any game that is single-player mostly, it is of course completely not true for MMOs for instance, where social, multiplayer aspect is inherently the reason why WoW works so well. So I am with you on that, his tone (but not his assertions) overstates the importance of piracy prevention in the success of WoW's business model. However, if you keep reading, his main point is that online verification is implemented in an ever more increasing fashion, even in single-player game, where clearly the only reason to do that would be to serve as DRM. Hence, changing business models due to piracy.

Again, he does never state, but just in case you, or anyone else seem to think so, I also do not see Blizzard having implemented online-only in WOW mostly due to piracy. Diablo 3 is another story, that we can speculate for paragraphs on.

Tbh, no, it hasn't been much of an educational experience. The data and inferred causal links aren't solid enough to have much persuasive power, tho there have been a few interesting bits and valid points here and there.

Steam users (and there a lot of them, yes) accept Steam and regard it as more-or-less non-intrusive. That doesn't say anything of value to the point; it's akin to saying to saying that Christians accept the Bible and proceeding to draw conclusions about the Bible itself from that acceptance. The opinion of Steam users, who are purchasing their games via Steam, isn't the relevant opinion. Rather, it is the opinion of those who regard Steam as intrusive DRM that matters here, for it is that group that might be pirating games requiring Steam based on their evaluation of it. As I'm sure you are well aware, many physical disk retail games now *require* Steam, meaning that the scope of the matter is not limited to digital distribution. You are also no doubt aware that Steam is intrusive in ways other than online activation, and that offline mode requires preknowledge of network outage or unavailability and is repeatedly reported as unreliable by some users.

I'm not interested in detailed debate concerning how intrusive Steam is or is not. You have only to hang out on these forums for a while to see that some users completely reject Steam, or perform a web search and read any number of such discussions. What matters here is that Steam games are rather clearly not valid or useful examples of "DRM-free or DRM-light" games suffering piracy.

Actually, the author himself makes the point that price has not been historically proportionate to differences in regional economies, and that disparity still exists today. And while he does avoid quantifying economic loss due to piracy, he attempts to present the magnitude of the problem piracy actually poses based on torrent statistics, which is rather meaningless without knowledge of actual economic loss due to piracy.

Again, inferring causal links based on haphazard data and flippantly disregarding other possible factors.

Perhaps you didn't understand (or I did not adequately explain) my objection to his estimate. The "5:1 or 4:1 ratio of games sold on consoles vs the PC" could be easily explained by a substantial difference in the numbers of gamers actually interested in playing those games on each platform. The author attempts to disregard this as a factor entirely by estimating the number of PC gamers being roughly equal to the number of console gamers based on estimates of the number of graphics cards sold and assuming a roughly equal distribution of preference of games between the two types of platform.

This is an unreliable estimate: The number of graphics cards sold tells us virtually nothing about the PC gamer base for any particular title. It fails to account for users interested primarily in only MMOs (this number could well be huge as his own later appraisals of the popularity of MMOs indicate), users playing primarily only older games (such as those purchased from GOG), users who utilize their PC for multimedia purposes other than gaming, users having consoles in addition to PC and preferring to play certain games on console, bulk purchases by governments and other organizations, etc, etc, etc.

A bit of humor (remembering that CoD 4 is the author's primary example here): Is it that hard to believe that there are a lot more CoD 4 fans among console gamers than PC gamers? ;-)

Edit: Thinking about that joke brought a question to mind: Does the author build his ratio case on just that one example (CoD 4)? That's all I recall atm aside from a developer or publisher quote about Crysis games (surprise: another shooter). A greater number and diversity of case studies (here and in the rest of the piece) would go a long way towards improving the persuasiveness of the article.

Again, inferring causal links and flippantly disregarding other possibilities. If you want to demonstrate that single player PC gaming is becoming less and less viable, isolate the figures pertaining to such games and show me that sales are decreasing substantially. Instead, the author says, "Look, this new online gaming thing is popular and growing, and making a shitload of money because it's designed to continually generate revenue each month, thus single player gaming on the PC is dead because of piracy!" Perhaps the single player PC gamer base itself isn't growing much (perhaps because the average casual gamer prefers the preconfigured ease of console gaming). (To be fair, I was getting a bit irritated with the author and sleepy, and approaching the end of a slow work day, so perhaps I'll reread that section when I resume reading the article.)

Yes, of course developers and publishers implement online-DRM due in part to a perception of piracy as a major issue (a web search should reveal plenty of discussion pertaining to the cycle of piracy and DRM). That is not what I disputed. The "leap" I referred to was associating success with presence of online-DRM:

"... the increasing presence of online activation/verification in successful games."

Perhaps he goes on to explain this in further detail (several pages to read yet), but this seems yet another case of "This must cause this, disregard all other factors based on my selected examples and unreliable data."

---

It's my Friday (the beginning of my days off work, during which time I'm almost never on here), and I'm starting vacation anyway (10 days of no work, no Internet, no worries!!! lol), so it'll likely be a while before I get back to this topic (and that's assuming I remember and am in the mood to continue when I get back).

Whilst you accuse Ghazi of not being objective, you might also want to look in the mirror. Are you just cherry-picking his massive article with points to discredit him and disregarding all the information and analysis of his, or are you truly just shining a constructive critical light on his article? Seeing as, some of the points below (that you have addressed yet again) are fairly clear, I am starting to wonder. But let's try again (in fact, Ghazi himself refutes or explains all of these points).

1. Steam - agreed then that the author never states Steam is DRM free (considering there is a whole section on Steam under "Copyright & DRM". What you fail to realise is that in his examples, regarding Witcher 2, World of Goo and Machinarium for instance, these were all considered DRM free or having non-intrusive DRM because they were available on GOG. Thus, when considering how no DRM or low DRM affects piracy rates (considering the common excuse for piracy is its DRM) it matters not what you think about the intrusiveness of Steam's DRM (the lowest intrusiveness of all DRM , hence by definition, non-intrusive) as his point still stands. DRM does not seem to increase piracy.

2. Piracy rates vs economic loss - Of course we both understand why when investigating piracy, the author attempts to circumvent the issue of estimating economic loss or economic gain (he explains it himself): You will never have definitive proof that DRM resulted in lost or gained sales. But you have yet to explain, why you think economic loss due to piracy would influence his arguments regarding piracy rates with various examples, especially regarding how having no DRM seems not to result in lower piracy rates at all (in fact the contrary)? I mean, this is his entire argument regarding his analysis - if you cannot understand it, and have severe objections to it (due to some unspecified reason) you should not even read the entire section on piracy. To me, you still have not explained this point, that why quantifying economic loss due to piracy pertains to the points he makes, seeing as his basis of comparison (his methodology) remains the same.

3. Console vs PC gaming piracy - Again, I understand your objection (that the 5:1 sales ratio with various games like Fallout 3, COD 4 and a smaller ratio for Witcher 2) can be explained due to there being five times more console gamers (interested in that particular title) than PC gamers. The author's point is, and he argues this with the use of several sources, like the estimates from the JPR research group, Geforce active users above a certain performance level (capable of playing COD4) and ATI sales statistics, and comes up with a vast range of an estimate of 80-200 million PC gamers, for different titles. Now, if we include Wii, there are 76 million console gamers out there. And we obviously do not include Wii for most games, such as the aforementioned examples so you can half that number (apparently 36 million Wii users).

In no realistic way, are the five times more console gamers than PC ones, especially for a title like Fallout 3. In fact, it looks like it is at worst a 1:1 ratio, but probably PC gamers in fact outnumbering console ones.

Thus, we are stil left with the question, of why this is so? We all know if you release a multi-platform game, even with no DRM on the PC and free additional content, like the Witcher 2, or Fallout 3 providing a better, cheaper experience on the PC, it will sell many times more more on consoles (even though it is an inferior version on the console, and cheaper on the PC). Pray tell, why this is so? Ghazi argues this obviously, but you seem to have an objection and a better handle of why it might be happening? Subjective comments like, " I seem to have more friends consoling than PCing" aside.

4. Changing business models: The research showing how all the PC games industry growth in 2009 was due to online-based gaming only, does not suffice as evidence of how the industry is being being kept alive by online business models? For anyone with some economics background, that thing right there is huge. No growth in product A vs significant growth in product B? Yikes, let's change it up.

5. The imaginary leap The leap you are having issues with, does in fact not not exist. He is looking at how piracy has affected companies business models. He asserts that probably the best way to look at, is to find succesful games, and to see trends in increased online verification and activation (seeing as the only reason for such a thing is to prevent piracy), and if this trend exists, then you can argue that piracy changed the business model of this game. Not that online-DRM made the game succesful. Huge difference, please do not mispresent his words.

Yes, that's because I am not trying to justify piracy or the effectiveness of DRM for firms profits. I'm trying to justify people copying a work and then improving on it in whatever way their creative minds can imagine. It'd be many small improvements over time. It is important to note that copyright infringement and plagiarism are not the same thing. I'm not advocating plagiarism. I believe that intellectual property/monopoly rights can be detrimental to society as a whole. Getting rid of it (or at least greatly reducing compulsory licensing rates while expanding fair use rights) would open up more market opportunities. Maybe it would not open up very much for large firms to create higher profits for them (which is the main goal I'm interpreting from what I've read of those references), but for small business or self-employed people. Piracy would just be a side effect of doing away with IP and I don't believe it would be much of an issue.

I do not think doing away with IP would prevent a company like EA from being able to make profit either, but that others could make profit too. This seems to be a major sore spot in IP for some reason, that no one else should be able to profit from a work. I don't see Stihl complaining when I make profit using their products I bought. Stihl also doesn't complain if I sell products I bought of theirs to someone else (probably because I'll use some of that money to buy newer products of theirs). Stihl doesn't try to tell me what I can do with my products once I buy them either. Are there any other products that a company can tell me what I can do with that product once I purchase it? I do believe that this has been the main goal of packaging DRM with products that people buy, to stop people from reselling. It's possible that because fundamental property principles of being able to resell is why consoles have become so dominant over PC gaming.

We don't need IP. We need regular property principles that will apply to copies of ideas the same way they do to every other product.

Yes, I would like that better. I would like to be able to pay a modder to make the armor I really want for Skyrim if I don't like any of the DLC options. How about adding a family crest to a banner in a home? Or hiring a modder to customize Skyrim to exactly the way I want it (probably more of a Robinson's Requiem-esque survival and exploration game, I didn't like vanilla Skyrim very much). I can do this by hiring a mechanic or auto-body technician after I purchase a car and then possibly sell the car for a higher price (although not likely after figuring the technicians price). I can hire a tailor for $40 to alter a $30 pair of jeans to a custom fit for me so that they will fit just as well as a $200 pair of jeans (and if a $200 pair of jeans doesn't fit perfectly off the rack, you're getting screwed). I'd imagine that game developers heads would explode if modders were able to charge more for some custom work than what a boxed game cost, even though that can happen with a mechanic shop or tailor.

It also doesn't matter if you want to see 20 different Geralts or not. That's like telling people what they can like or not like. There would be much more content created than that I believe, most of which I would never see. If someone wants to modify their game, why not? The only person it affects is the person playing the modified game. You could choose whatever Geralt you like best without affecting anybody else.

If many are inferior, so be it. It doesn't bother me that some people can afford cheap shoes rather than go without while I purchase $350 hand-assembled leather work boots that will last me 5 years (and I'm very hard on boots).



To conclude, I don't mind DRM when it's used for an account for a service or subscription I am willing to pay for. This could help reduce fraud. When I hate it is when it is packaged with a product I buy so that a firm can tell me what I can or can't do with it and so that I can't resell it. If Steam didn't take any cut of a game sale, but offered a $5-10 additional fee to add that game to a Steam account to receive their service, I could choose whether I want it or not and which games I want it for. Or perhaps there could just be a flat subscription fee.

Lastly, I saw some comments about utopia, altruism, and anarchy in later posts. I'm just stating how most industries already function with private property principles and competition. They don't do it for altruism. Still, I find it kind of humorous sometimes how "anarchy" is often portrayed as two extremes. On the one extreme, it's total chaos while everyone's blowing each other up, like Somalia or something. On the other, it's a Utopian dream.

You...do realise this is a thread called "The case for and against DRM"...right?

Just checking. Because intellectual rights monopoly and its potential impact seems awfully off-topic.

To humor you (mostly due to the complete lack of rational and robust anti-DRM arguments on this board it seems), sure let's play.

My main comment regarding lax/free intellectual rights and patents is my worry for the "inventor". You seem to be only focusing on the artistic industry, with intellectual property over a creative invention, but you seem to neglect completely the scientific industry. Inventors, even in our so called enlightened-capitalist-leaning-towards-democracy-yet-heavily-dependent-on-government-intervention system, are already the underdogs. Imagine an inventor who spends years/their entire life coming up with an invention, only to be snubbed by patent and copyright laws because he had a poor lawyer or did not have the foresight to invest more into it. This investor then loses the patent battle, or is forced to completely sell out his idea. Then imagine the same inventor, inventing the whole concept, entering the market with his initial concept moderately succesfully, and then having every company in the industry steal his idea (except of course, in that parallel universe, it is not stealing because there is no intellectual rights). Which one benefits the society more? What incentive is there for highly talented and creative inventors to invent in such a society, if all their ideas are shared with no reward for themselves? Altruism? I think that misconception is easily disproven for humankind, unless they magically mutate their brain and develop a lobe increasing altruism. Sort of like X-men. The true Al-man. The al-True-rine. Yeah.

I've yet to see anything that can demonstate how no intellectual rights and patents would advance our society as a whole and lead to increased social welfare. One could even argue, it has been the reason for such technological advancement in the past century or two, i.e. the possibility of success and other rewards for inventions (and with patents, the fear of them not being stolen). Otherwise these inventors would only work due altruism, and as we saw with communism, it does not tap into the base human nature. Which heavily involves greed.

If anything, there is a short-term benefit to pirates, because they would be the only ones benefiting from 20 Geralt copies walking around (whilst those studios go bankrupt).


You really have no basis to make that assertation. Piracy is incredibly rampant on the PC, most games being pirated 90%, so to dismiss it offhand seems absurd. What makes you think that it would not be an issue, only because you would have multiple versions of the same game? If anything it would increase exponentially, as PC gamers now can hardly pay for one Witcher 2, nevermind two different ones.

The used games market clearly diminishes the profits for the developer, even with the effect of added "free publicity", there is no disputing this. If the makers want to limit this, or to shut this loophole industry, then it should be their right to do so. However, it is completely unfounded to believe that the reason why console gaming is a larger industry than the PC gaming one, or more specifically why most games sell 4 or 5 times more copies on a console, is due to the used games market. If anything, it shows the people are willing to buy the game new, instead of clicking on a link on a torrent website.

To put this clearly off-topic discussion into focus in this thread, we could try to somehow tie it into PC gaming.

Imagine the already present risks involved with AAA titles? Now multiply that risk because you will be competing with 20 other similar products on a market where 90% of your product is stolen (if there is only one such product on the market, probably way higher with many products)? Suddenly all investment and credit dries up, and what happens is the bigger succesful companies cannibalise the smaller ones after they prove succesful. After all, there is no fear of copyright infringement. Not sure how this helps innovation in the industry as a whole, if anything, inventors would be wary of inventing and implementing their inventions due to such a huge risk.

Of course, none of this pertains to the case for and agains DRM. With the anti-DRM arguments being particularly meagre.

All right then. My case is against DRM when it is used to control a product that is available for purchase after it is purchased. When there is not intellectual monopoly rights with heavy government intervention, DRM could not be used to control what I can or can't do with a product I purchase and it can't be used to stop me from reselling a product I purchase. If DRM is still packaged with a product that is first to market even in a market without intellectual monopoly rights, perhaps to help stop day-one piracy as much as possible (since if it isn't published yet, no one should have access to the product yet unless pirates hacked into their system, which I would call theft), it would not be possible to try to use a bludgeon like state force to try to keep people from circumventing and stripping out unwanted DRM once they purchase a product.

So my case is against DRM when used to control a product after purchase because this is an extension of intellectual monopoly rights, which I find are detrimental to society. Doing away with intellectual monopoly rights would get rid of DRM that is used this way. When DRM is used for an account for a service or subscription with a firm, this doesn't bother me as much because I am subscribing to their service using resources that they own. Then they are protecting their property.

I disagree with your assessment of how industries would function with real property principles and competition instead of monopoly rights. The book I linked to earlier does an excellent job of explaining my position. The book also references how some forms of socialism or communism were soul crushing and why property and competition is a much better system.

I also wonder what is the criteria for qualifying for a monopoly right. Why isn't every useful idea I come up with protected this way? Hell, why not even my bad ideas? Mathematical, philosophical, or scientific truths and equations are not eligible for monopoly rights and yet people still try to improve in these areas. Inventions would not happen without these. How about a business plan? Why shouldn't I be able to keep other people from copying my business plan/model or pay me if they do use it? I don't want to anyway since I find it detrimental (maybe immoral) but I just wonder what qualifies and why.

I've yet to see anything that demonstrates how intellectual rights has anything to do with progress of society. IMO, it has just slowed it down. I'd argue that Innovation took off with easier spread of knowledge and information that ignited people's minds with the help of tools like the printing press, sound recorders, cameras, video cameras, telephones, telegraph, radio, internet, etc. Who should the burden of proof be on though? I think it should be on anyone who tries to use a bludgeon to enforce a monopoly right. Even then, using a bludgeon is not a good way to go about convincing people.

IMO, competition would try to convert pirates into customers by offering something they want. Maybe offer some custom modding or entry fees into tournaments or something. Some people seem to actually like Steam and are willing to pay for their service (I'm not totally anti-Steam, I'm anti-Steam packaged with the game I bought in order to restrict the game). I really don't know what people would do to convert pirates and it's not my interest to figure it out for them. How to do it is up to whoever wants to try to cash in on that market opportunity.

Copies cost resources to produce. Even if pirates still can't afford to be customers, free riding isn't much of a problem in this regard because pirates are using their own resources to make copies. The only way to know what they're doing is spying on them. It really doesn't seem much different to me than people growing their own food and sharing it with neighbors, and trying to force people to stop doing that for the benefit of Monsanto is only creating artificial scarcity, not creating any wealth. A good way to try to convert people who are growing their own food into customers is to offer something like a delicious apple pie. Maybe the people growing their own food would rather buy it then spend the time and resources to bake it themselves.

Unless the situation is pirates hacking into a firms system to copy, which I would then consider theft and invasion of privacy. That is something I would agree should be cracked down hard on but IP rights are not needed for this. Real property rights suffice just fine.

It should never be anyone's right to keep me from reselling or giving away something I bought. This is a basic property principle. One thing to consider as well is that reselling a game recoups some money for the original buyer to buy a newer product.

And with that, I'm probably done responding. I don't think we'll agree on much (especially after the "complete lack of rational and robust anti-DRM arguments on this board it seems" comment), but I will admit that your references gave me something to think about and did have some informative points to them.