I don't like piracy -- I buy music at iTunes for 99 cents and own almost every game I have -- so I'll just mention that first, but at the same time I view corporations as terribly inept so I find this ironic.
The Setup
I'm sure a lot of people remember Mame.dk, the site that had ROMs for the MAME arcade game emulator. Not actually legal to download a ROM for a arcade machine you don't own (and who owns one?? heh) but the games weren't for sale either so who are you hurting?
Consequently Midway or someone sells those for $19.99 and includes a joystick.
But the point is, someone owned the rights to the games but didn't do anything with it, people said "hey, it's dead let's share it", but it was technically illegal and I guess Nintendo or someone eventually put MAME.DK out of business because Nintendo wanted to protect their right to sit on their hands and not sell their own games.
And, another example was Napster where they got shut down for sharing music -- which they shouldn't have been doing --- but at the same time music companies weren't interested in selling music on the internet either.
And a 3rd example would be Home of the Underdogs, the site that has copies of games that aren't sold anywhere available in torrent form. Only hosts abandonware, but technically that is probably illegal.
I'm not arguing the rightness or wrongness of any of this, but I guess if you treat what you "own" like an abandoned house and neglect it, a certain number of people will say "well, it isn't hurting anyone IF"
I think the moral of the story is that if you own the rights to sell a product, maybe you ought to *gee* SELL THE PRODUCT!
If you don't care to sell your product, others will assume that you have no interest in selling the product and will give it away for free. Kind of like how if you park your car somewhere and leave it for a month, the police are going to assume you abandoned it and tow it away.
The Pirate Party in Sweden
http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pira...hanged-sweden/
I find this interesting because I view the above as an economic supply/demand counter-force to corporations doing a terrible job of selling their own products.
I expect that the what will happen in the next few years is that countries will start to change laws saying if you don't sell what you have copyright to, you lose it.
I just mention this because an good example, something I saw at the qw.nu forum, was someone wanted to buy a Quake T-Shirt, but they aren't sold and making your own is illegal and someone selling them would be illegal too, but yet they aren't sold.
Anyway, I just thought this was weird. I find it annoying how many things you can't actually buy, but you shouldn't steal it but you can't buy it either (old Quake add-ons and such, model editors and that kind of thing come to mind).
In the mainstream population, after a while of that, "piracy" becomes commonplace as a necessity and then it spreads to include even products still available for sale.
The Setup
I'm sure a lot of people remember Mame.dk, the site that had ROMs for the MAME arcade game emulator. Not actually legal to download a ROM for a arcade machine you don't own (and who owns one?? heh) but the games weren't for sale either so who are you hurting?
Consequently Midway or someone sells those for $19.99 and includes a joystick.
But the point is, someone owned the rights to the games but didn't do anything with it, people said "hey, it's dead let's share it", but it was technically illegal and I guess Nintendo or someone eventually put MAME.DK out of business because Nintendo wanted to protect their right to sit on their hands and not sell their own games.
And, another example was Napster where they got shut down for sharing music -- which they shouldn't have been doing --- but at the same time music companies weren't interested in selling music on the internet either.
And a 3rd example would be Home of the Underdogs, the site that has copies of games that aren't sold anywhere available in torrent form. Only hosts abandonware, but technically that is probably illegal.
I'm not arguing the rightness or wrongness of any of this, but I guess if you treat what you "own" like an abandoned house and neglect it, a certain number of people will say "well, it isn't hurting anyone IF"
I think the moral of the story is that if you own the rights to sell a product, maybe you ought to *gee* SELL THE PRODUCT!
If you don't care to sell your product, others will assume that you have no interest in selling the product and will give it away for free. Kind of like how if you park your car somewhere and leave it for a month, the police are going to assume you abandoned it and tow it away.
The Pirate Party in Sweden
the Pirate Party had already existed for about half a year, but all this attention also gave wings in their sails, and they had thousands of new members in a matter of weeks. Suddenly, they had transformed into the largest party without parliament seats. In Sweden, you get seats in the parliament if you get four percent of the votes. As we speak, the Pirate Party has almost as many members as the Green Party, which is a party that supports the current government, and without them, the current government can’t maintain their majority This leads the Pirate Party to believe that if they get into the parliament they can fill such a vital role, and thereby make a big difference. Worth noting is that some unofficial gallups from various sources indicate that the Pirate Party is the most likely party for a Swedish first-time voter to choose on election day.
I find this interesting because I view the above as an economic supply/demand counter-force to corporations doing a terrible job of selling their own products.
I expect that the what will happen in the next few years is that countries will start to change laws saying if you don't sell what you have copyright to, you lose it.
I just mention this because an good example, something I saw at the qw.nu forum, was someone wanted to buy a Quake T-Shirt, but they aren't sold and making your own is illegal and someone selling them would be illegal too, but yet they aren't sold.
Anyway, I just thought this was weird. I find it annoying how many things you can't actually buy, but you shouldn't steal it but you can't buy it either (old Quake add-ons and such, model editors and that kind of thing come to mind).
In the mainstream population, after a while of that, "piracy" becomes commonplace as a necessity and then it spreads to include even products still available for sale.
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