miles0624 said:
Basically, they are one in the same. When you steal, you are effectively costing someone money. The difference you are describing is minimal at best. Even though pirating is not "stealing" they both are costing x amount of money. Taking 40 million candy bars or magically copying and ripping 40 million candy bars would still result in loss of x amount of money. It is for this reason that the comparison still stands
You're assuming that every person who 'steals' (clones) the CD would've bought it. A lot wouldn't have. In fact, if the cloning option hadn't been available, the douche in question might have very well taken the CD itself, which would've been even worse.
miles0624 said:
Actually no. In this case, buying it from the person would have been legal. You are mistaking something here. When it comes to video games, the company makes money off of what they sell to the store. The amount of copies sold from the store and demand makes the store buy more copies from the company. That is how the video games make money. In contrast, musicians directly are paid from the song as a royalty. Royalties are not given to video games. That is the difference. Otherwise, people would not legally be able to resale games.
Moreover, on your 3ds comment, Nintendo had already made x amount of money after selling it to the stores. However, lack of sales made the price drop in the store. Nintendo can suggest a price, but it will ultimately be left up to the stores that sale them.
Actually, yes. I found the game on eBay, not a second-hand video game store. The person selling the game was not affiliated with Nintendo in any way; he was just a greedy douche getting rid of his game. If I'd been stupid enough to pay him the $100 AUD he was asking for for an old N64 game, he would've gotten money, eBay would've gotten some money, and Nintendo would've gotten jack. Or, maybe they would've gotten... a few cents. So, I should've emptied my wallet on an unfair price for something just to give Nintendo a few cents? Right...
So, what you are saying is that the stores were able to lower the price of the 3DS by $100 and still make a profit? What does that tell you, miles0624? That they were charging far too much, just like industries always do. They're getting greedy, and piracy is making it harder for them to get away with it. This is a good thing, in my opinion. I mean, look at how much Hollywood actors and producers are making. It's ridiculous. I'm not for pirating small, independent movies that need the money, but Hollywood movies? Hell yeah. Not that they're worth it most of the time, but still.
miles0624 said:
The reason of this is that they are still a company. They just can't make exceptions for people because that leads to more lawsuits. If someone is left out of these "exceptions" the will fill their rights have been violated. This then leads to a whole can of worms that a company doesn't need to experience.
So what? That's their problem, not mine. Are you saying that, if it's not available in my country because the creators/distributes of it are too slow, I should just go without it? Ain't gonna happen, my friend.
miles0624 said:
This causes a loss of profit, which causes shareholders to be angry, which causes loss jobs, which causes annoyance, which then causes less games because less money is being brought in,which then causes less countries getting content on time, and that content being shipped out slower, which causes more people to be agitated, which then cause people to pirate things.
Shareholders will learn to live with it, just as actors and producers would learn to live with making less money if there was no other choice. See, capitalism means that, if an actor or producer doesn't feel like they're getting paid enough for one movie, they can just find another movie that will pay them more. Same with professional sports players. However, if all industries had to cut salaries, the actors and producers would have no other companies to jump to, and they'd just have to make do with what they were being offered. Sure, they'd whine a bit, but ultimately they'd get used to it.
Note: I'm not a communist. I know that society has to have low, middle and high in order to thrive. My problem is the gross disproportion of this, which is only getting larger. If piracy helps bridge that gap a little, I'm all for it.
miles0624 said:
On the second point, maybe they haven't reached your country yet. Take other tv shows. The Bold and the Beautiful shows current episodes in the U.S and Canada, however, the Netherlands are five years behind. At one time, it will be available in the country legally. That was the point being made.
Then I'll just wait the several months/years it'd take for the show to come to my country. ...Oh, wait. No, I won't, because that would be stupid.
miles0624 said:
Piracy would still continue even if that happened. Most people don't realize that piracy actually causes an increase in prices. Even in video games. That is the reason why xbox is moving to where one can only by the video games on the platform.
Of course it would. Piracy will never stop completely. However, it would go down. Digital sharing is the way of the future anyway. DVDs and physical copies of video games are becoming obsolete. This will cut distribution prices and labor at video game shops. It'll also cut jobs, but that's happened before, and society has recovered. For example, when machines took over workers in factories in the late eighteen hundreds (I believe), people eventually found new work because humanity is constantly evolving and inventing new things, needing new people to fill in the opening work slots.
Another defence against piracy I forgot in my last post: Piracy is a good way to 'test' and 'sample' things. You can argue that video game demos and trailers do that, but they don't give you the complete picture. Some video games, especially J-RPGs, which are about all I play, can take a very long time to get 'off the ground,' so to speak. Take the Nintendo Gamecube's Tales of Symphonia, for example. When it first came out, I borrowed it from a friend, and for the first fourth of the huge game (about 15 hours), I thought, "This game isn't that great. Why's it so overrated?" Then, as I got further in, I began to really love it, and by the end of the 60-hour experience, I was an avid fan of the entire Tales series. I returned the game to my friend and straight away rushed out to the store to buy myself a copy. A demo would not have sold me the way the actual game did (sure, I borrowed it from a friend rather than pirating it, but the result would've been exactly the same either way).
Video games and movies are not like food and drink: A lot of the time, you can't just take a few 'bites' and know if you'll love it or not. Often you have to experience the entire journey, or at least half of it. I don't see why people should pay full-price for something they didn't enjoy or something they're never going to use again. Oh, you can argue that the makers still deserve the money for their time and labor, and I agree, but that makes me circle back around to my previous argument of lowering prices. I'll pay $10 or so to play a video game I'm not sure I'll enjoy. If I don't like it, I'm not paying any more. If I do like it, I'll pay more. I'll also recommend the series to anyone I think will buy it, which will help sales as well. Watch: Anyone reading this, try and (if you like them) buy some Tales games. They're awesome.
If you enjoy the experience of a video game and movie but STILL don't pay for it, you're kind of a douche, I admit, and I never do that. If I enjoy something, I pay for it, even if it is overpriced. At the same time, I can understand why people don't. People who earn minimum wage can hardly afford to spend their money on such things. You might say, "Well, they should go without," but I say, "No, someone who works 40 hours a week should be able to afford entertainment without having to resort to piracy." But life isn't fair. People are paid crappy wages for working their asses off, and in turn those people pirate things. The world isn't perfect, my friend.
It's not always about business, either. A lot of the time, companies can just be greedy a-holes. I'll give you an example: The entire series of Cardcaptor Sakura on DVD was about $350 in Japan when it first came out. With English subtitles, it was $800. So... $450. For subtitles. Not even an uncut dub to go alongside it. Just subtitles. Meanwhile, the entire series of Dragon Ball (Z) Kai (98 episodes - Cardcaptor Sakura is 70 episodes, in case you're curious), in Japanese AND English (and English subtitles), is about $200 (not taking inflation into account). Hmmm... How 'bout that? It's almost as if the people who subtitled Cardcaptor Sakura were greedy pieces of crap who knew dedicated fans of the series were desperate for an uncut version of the series and so took advantage of them... Certainly, it's such a crime to cost people like that money, right?
) to CLONE a CD and then take the clone, the store owner would be left thinking, "Wow, that douche just got out of paying me for my CD by using his epic cloning powers. But I still have the CD, so I can sell it to someone less douchy. A douche like that probably wouldn't have paid me anyway." If, on the other hand, I take the CD itself, I am costing the guy money, because he'll have to replace the CD I stole. Stealing and costing someone money are two different things.