Don't Worry About Copy Write Protection!

[David E. Gervais]

I'm sorry, but this thread boarders on a piracy discussion and I have some strong feelings,.. "The problem is not with the Software Industry. (ie Developers, Publishers, Distributors) The problem Is now and 'Always' has been due to flooding the market with the 'Hardware' needed to do the copying and making 'duplications for backup purposes'. The fact that for $60 (cdn) The price of many games (some are even higher now) I can buy a CD Burner and a pack of 25 Blank CD's is the MAIN REASON Piracy has become rampid.

I equate the selling of 'Extremely' low cost duplication technology in the same vein as selling radar detectors.. (ie You can Sell/Buy them legally but it is against the law to use them.)

Note: My solution may seem drastic, but it is the 'Only' solution that will ever have a chance to slow the progress of Piracy. Make the 'Duplication Hardware' more expensive, 'AND' make the cost of blank CD's much higher. (ie $250/burner and at least $5-$10 per CD (like 49.95 for a 10 pack) and to further encourage the sales of 'official' copies lower the selling price of the originals.)

Some of you will think this idea is outrageous but I for one believe that persons and or companies could afford to pay the extra money to backup their legitimate data. There could even be a tax credit for businesses who buy the hardware and blank CD's just like some other business expenses are eligable for tax credits.

Note: this would not affect the cost of 'Mass-Duplication machines/CD's just the ones available through retail. In fact this could be solved by placing a hefty retail tax in the 'recording media and hardware'. Priced for pre-recorded media that cannot be overwritten would not be affected. One of the main reasons that DVD took off so fast (replacing VHS) in Video store rentals is that the stores had to pay a hefty tax on the purchase of 'videos' they rented. (I have a friend who is a manager at Blockbuster and he told me the VHS versions of the movies often cost him $100-$130 per unit. When the DVD's came out,.. (because the DVD is not a 'recordable' Media) only Cost him $30-$50. Needless to say he is making much more money now, and that has in turn allowd many new promotions and 'Rent for 5 days type things without affecting the bottom line.

To sum up, As long as it costs 50 cents to make a copy of a game that sells for $19-$89 there will be piracy. No If And Or's about it. Pirates are not idiots, they just take advantage of how things work. When the system favors piracy to an extreme (like software piracy) then it thrives.

Nuf said, Cheers!

P.S. Software 'Protections' do not prohibit piracy, They like a challenge. Only by making it more costly and or less profitable will piracy finally be slowed to a crawl and let the PC Software industry florish again.

Sorry for the rant,.. but every discussion I see about piracy makes me think the world is full of idiots. It's like people argue about which ongions to put in Apple pie, when there is no ongions in apple pie.

[Atrocities]

My first CD burner cost me $200.00 US and it worked like crap. The CD's cost about $2.00 each and they most always were bad.


DVD burner - $50.00
A pack of DVD disks - $10.00
Pack of jewel cases - $10.00
10 assorted newer PC Games - $550.00

Feeling one gets from making multiple copies of non copy protected games and then selling hundreds of boot leg copies to tourist at the flea market ... Pricless.

And they do........... I can get a complete version of Vista Beta for around $12.00 US. (Or at least I think that is what the guy said it cost... I could not understand him, he spoke very bad english.)

Calling the police and reporting this activity is pointless as they never come. They have far more important things to do such as setting up speed traps, protecting the local Krispy Cream, and flirting with the hookers to be bother by something as simple as an illegal boot leg operations. The feds are even less interested the local PD so again, no one gives a rats *** and no one can do anything to stop it.

The police NEVER come and the sales continue.

[Suicide Junkie]

*SJ makes a note to not bother looking for a good price on pens & paper from DG's store.

I for one like to be able to restore my system from a disk image on CD.
And putting stuff on 700mb CDs is a huge bonus when my Lappy's hard disk totals 2 Gb.

[NullAshton]

As the rest of that guy's post said, which was in response to Starforce's mods posting a link to a warez site on their fourms, they didn't place copy protection on their game because they thought it was useless. The people who pirate the game is not going to buy the game if they can't pirate it. And often, people find ways to get around copy-protection. So copy-protection only serves to annoy, not to discourage piracy effectively.

[Captain Kwok]

David, you must have been one of those guys who thought the additional tax on recordable media here was a good idea - even though it did nothing to stem falling music sales and the extra money went to record companies and not the artists...

A large percentage of pirates would never buy the game under most any circumstance anyway, so it doesn't make sense to punish people who have very legimate reasons for using recordable CDs, DVDS, etc. That's like assuming everyone is guilty and is contrary to our legal system.

[Phoenix-D]

Ah yes, the attitude that "Everyone's guilty, so everyone should pay". Sorry David, that's not really a good idea..and it wouldn't slow piracy much anyway. Unless you also want to tax internet connections..

Oh and you better tax those mass duplication machines as well..because there's a good chunk of the pirating right there.

[Atrocities]

I have spent over $10,000.00 on music since 1990. Easily. I just bought two new CD's the other day, well used via Amazon, but still new to me.

The appeal of downloading music is a simple one, availablity. You can often find the songs, albums, or whatever it is that you are specifically looking for without having to endure all the crap that you don't want to hear.

But nothing compares to having it on CD, authentic real Music CD from the stores.

[Azselendor]

DEG's method would go a long way to help curb piracy. But it won't stop, as fyron said, people with virtual drives. However, if you tax media duplication devices, office theft of blank cd's would rise and shoplifting as pirates aren't detered by taxation.

Here's what I'd do.

1.) Have ISP's block ports used by peer-to-peer systems and ones that can be used.
2.) Require all servers to have a domain name if it is accessable to the web. This allows pirates to be hunted down and found. Domains can only be registered to valid mail addresses, no po boxes (but I'd allow an exemption for rural locations by means of a special application).
3.) Sites containing porn must use a .XXX extention as proposed. Many warez sites have prono advertisers and we can force them into the .xxx domain type and then use ISP's to lock them out.
4.) Levy taxes against companies that manufacture recordable media software, hardware, and media. Individuals that make the software can be made liable for infringment suits if their software is involved in piracy.
5.) Create a system of financial rewards for the successful capture and conviction of pirates. This will seriously harm flea-market pirates.
6.) Make piracy penalties involve a mandatory prison sentance and fine, not one or the other and up to limits.
7.) Require pirates to register in a national database distributed to computer companies and retailers when caught. Much like how sex offenders can't work or live near children, we want to make sure pirates are run out of computing for good.

Now that won't stop pirates, just really give them a bad day. We need to combat this on the industry level as piracy is rampant in price-senstive nations and areas where $50+ price tags on software is insane.

[Fyron]

Sorry David, but your solution is not even close to solving the problem. With the advent of virtual CD drives, physical media are no longer relevant for piracy. All you have to do is download a CD image, mount it up, and you are good to go. No burning to CD is required. As long as the media can be read by a computer, any copy protection will be hacked. There are a lot of sick bastards out there that like to break copy protection schemes. Your solution does nothing more to stop "casual" piracy than CD copy protection measures already polluting the games market, and those do nothing to stop determined pirates.

Hefty media taxes will only hurt legitimate customers. Want to make a mix CD to listen to on your hour long commute to work? Well now it will cost you $10 above and beyond the cost of the music CDs you purchased in the first place... And then the ludicrous cost of backing up data this would impose...

Oh and you better tax those mass duplication machines as well..because there's a good chunk of the pirating right there.

Exactly... the people making money off of piracy have mass duplication machines at their disposal. It just isn't efficient if it is taking you 4-6 minutes to burn each CD, one by one. Not that this is an argument in favor of taxing them...

Look at VHS tapes. Content providers cried foul over how piracy on tape would ruin their industries. What really happened? A huge new industry of video tape sales and rental sprung up, creating a huge cash cow for them... Same thing with cassette tapes.