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[Leroy Frederick]

Here's what I found, anyway:
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-has-become-mainstream-studies-show-090313/

I would be very skeptical of any survey conducted online. Online surveys are notorious for having very low response rates, compared to telephone surveys, and are therefore prone to being very inaccurate. Either way, the poll asked whether or not piracy should be punishable, not whether it was moral.

I'm afraid I don't understand the opposition to Cliffski's actions. The only people he's inconveniencing are pirates who would not have purchased his game anyways. It's the equivalent of installing a burglar alarm.

Ditto

[mewse]

the pirates aren't actively trying to dick developers around by pirating their stuff

 

[Craig Stern]

Well, here's another way to fight piracy I suppose:

Just minutes ago the verdict in the case of The Pirate Bay Four was announced. All four defendants were accused of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’. Peter Sunde: Guilty. Fredrik Neij: Guilty. Gottfrid Svartholm: Guilty. Carl Lundström: Guilty. The four receive 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I heard about that case. I think TPB would have been alright legally if it removed infringing material on request (the way Google does with YouTube etc.) instead of reposting requests in a mocking fashion.

[Craig Stern]

Under Swedish law, you mean? I can't comment on that, since I don't know what Sweden's statutes look like, but in the U.S., the following facts might well have put them on the hook for damages due to vicarious infringement:

In a statement, prosecutor Hakan Roswall said the site produces about $4 million in revenue annually.

"The operation of The Pirate Bay is financed through advertising revenues. In that way, it commercially exploits copyright-protected work and performances," he said.

As far as criminal liability goes, they would have been in pretty deep doo-doo under the Copyright Act:

17 U.S.C. 5
§ 506. Criminal offenses

(a) Criminal Infringement. —

(1) In general. — Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed —

(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;

(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or

(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yes, but so does YouTube. YouTube gets advertising money (it has ads) and it makes a significant part of that from infringing content (there's a huge number of TV series or music albums etc. just uploaded directly to YouTube).

[undertech]

Youtube has about 10348 more lawyers plus the veneer of legitimacy that enables them to eventually strike deals with the copyright holders.

Good luck to the boys at TPB.

[Craig Stern]

Paul, I think the difference in terms of criminal law is the "willful infringement" part. I think it's kind of hard to claim that you're not willfully infringing when the name of your site is The Pirate Bay, even if you do act expeditiously to remove infringing content. (But who knows, it could help them to have done that in our hypothetical U.S. law scenario.)

As for civil liability, there are safe harbor provisions under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that might apply to Youtube, since under Sec. 512(c)(1), "upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, [Youtube] acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material."

I say "might," though, because it's debatable whether they received a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringement. If they did, the safe harbor provision would not apply. Youtube has been sued several times for copyright violations, and each time they've relied on the DMCA safe harbor provisions. I don't know if any of those cases ever made it to trial, though, or if Google decided to avoid the considerable risk of an unfavorable interpretation of the DMCA, and simply settled them. E.G. 1 E.G. 2 E.G. 3

[Craig Stern]

Ace Team's approach: starting at 24:30, check out Rock Paper Shotgun's Podcast #16.

Here is a screenie of the Mininova post:



What do you think of this? Also, what do you think of Introversion's approach with Defcon, mentioned at 26:45?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think that's a good idea, The Path has the same thing on its torrent, I've seen it a few times. I doubt it helps too much, since I can't see most people who pirate caring how big the team is, but it couldn't hurt.

(Although I notice that it uses "it's" for "its". What is it with contractions and people not knowing them? The most common grammar/spelling mistakes I see online in English are all contractions: your vs. you're, their/there vs. they're, and it's vs. its.)

[Craig Stern]

Ace Team is composed of Brazilians, isn't it? I'm willing to cut them a little slack in the English grammar department.

[agj]

No, Chileans. But it's the same thing.

[Yellowboy]

I say that combating piracy should be a group effort; Give rewards to people who DO buy your game!


Team up with independent musicians by offering discounted live tickets when they purchase your game.

You can also see if another indie developer can have a demo to go with your game as a temporary exclusive.

Independent movie makers can also team up, have them offer ten minutes of their movie for free as an addition, so that they get attention, too.

Regular artists can also have discounted coupon numbers available for their products. T-Shirts and swag can be discounted, too. Art show tickets!



I feel that fans of independent games should take the liberty to search for torrented games and help take them down. It's asking a lot from people, but that's a LOT of people cutting down on piracy.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

most of the things you mention can also easily be pirated, or even packaged with the pirated game.

besides, i thought "the game" was actually supposed to be the reward for the people who do buy the game?

and the problem with "taking torrents down" is that the sites that host the torrents refuse. if they refuse large corporations, you think they're going to listen to a few dozens fans of some obscure game?

[ortoslon]

I really wanted to pirate Immortal Defense when v1.1 came out, but all that I found was v1.0. I have an unhealthy obsession for recent versions, so I decided to wait until someone uploads full 1.1. Then I signed up for TIGForums and things started to change. Now I read about 20 Paul's posts a day (I'm subscribed to his LJ too), and I would feel very uncomfortable pirating anything from him because I know (and meet, in the virtual sense) him too much.

Summary: Paul's (unintentional?) way to fight piracy is by posting

(Yup, I read Radical Honesty)

EDIT: this post was a lie

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

haha, i don't think i post 20 posts a day here (at least i hope not).

if you liked radical honesty you'll probably also like u.g. krishnamurti, they talk about a lot of the same things (particularly distrust of abstractions, conceptual thought, belief systems, and illusions). but if you've been reading my lj for a while you probably have heard of him.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

related: http://studioeres.com/games/content/history-conversion-rate-immortal-defense

there was a discussion in the indiegames blog about the lack of data regarding the effects of piracy on sales, so i thought i'd put up my own data.

[Craig Stern]

Paul, thanks for posting that data. Assuming that there were no other significant changes during February 2009 that you left out, that demonstrates one of two things:

1) a depressingly strong correlation between the availability of a torrent and the willingness of people to buy a game;

or

2) that the drop-off in sales that occurs a few months after you first release a game will occur again in a similar way a few months after a price drop (in both instances, it seems you benefited from strong conversion rates accompanied by positive press about the game).

I don't know which of these is correct. Bearing in mind that correlation does not mean causation, the timing of the second drop-off seems awfully convenient, and I believe the torrent probably played some role at the very least.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i also thought of 2) after posting that entry (but didn't mention it in the entry itself) -- may go back and edit it later

[Yellowboy]

most of the things you mention can also easily be pirated, or even packaged with the pirated game.

Sure, but the content still has to be purchased, first. Perhaps developers could include weekly additions of optional, free content? Maybe that isn't fair for fans (though I doubt they would mind), but pirates who wanted the extra additions would have to repurchase the entire game.

besides, i thought "the game" was actually supposed to be the reward for the people who do buy the game?

That's true, but when the method of obtaining the reward is void, we have to introduce another reason for going through the means, and that could mean offering extra rewards. I think that it's kind of been proven that the reliance on people to simply ignore the "free" method of obtaining games has been taken too many times.

and the problem with "taking torrents down" is that the sites that host the torrents refuse. if they refuse large corporations, you think they're going to listen to a few dozens fans of some obscure game?

They won't listen to the producers of the game, they probably won't listen to pleas of the fans, so it comes down to threats of sending the RIAA (along with other organizations that combat piracy) against them. I've (very) recently started up a group that has its members search for pirated copies of a single game per week, report the pirated copies with threats of the RIAA (these reports are supposedly recorded with date, time, information like this to send to the RIAA for their use).