Well, you lost me when you compared The Pirate Bay kids to slave owners. That’s absurdity.

I wasn’t. I was comparing the practice of profiting from pirated goods to slavery. Slave labor profited the slave owners at the expense of the slaves. Today, groups that profit from pirated goods do so at the expense of those who produce those goods. So no, they are no where near as bad as slave owners in practice, but in principle it’s the same.

And slavery wasn’t always about profit. House slaves existed to make life comfortable for their owners. Your philosophy isn’t much different. What you want is for a bunch of people to expend their resources in order to produce digital goods for you to consume without any cost to you. That’s absurdity.

It’s also contradictory. Why aren’t you out there demanding that your food be free? Or your furniture? Or your car? All of those are produced by the corporations that you consider corrupt and evil. Why is it that it’s OK for a corporation to charge money for the physical version of the Monopoly board game, but the PC version should be given away for free? This is why I say the whole movement you represent is just an excuse to justify getting free stuff so that you don’t feel guilty about it. Because otherwise, it makes no sense.

Free software -will- change the world if it isn’t stomped out

Free software has changed the world and will continue to do so. There will always be a place for it. Conversely, there will always be a place for non-free software. Freedom to choose is a good thing. The system you propose takes that away.

As I said in my last comment, the right to choose a business model lies with the producer. There will always be people selling things and others giving stuff away. That means you will always have a choice to either pay for the commercial stuff or take the free stuff. What would be evil is if we were all locked in to one or the other.

As an example, consider Operating Systems. Right now, you have the choice to use Windows or Mac OS X for a price, or to use Linux, Open Solaris, or one of the BSDs for no cost. You don’t like Microsoft? Fine. Don’t buy Windows. No one is forcing you to buy it. Personally, until Ubuntu came along, I found Linux to be a pain in the ass and was quite happy that I had Windows.

That’s how you change the world. You stop buying products from businesses you morally object to and look for alternatives. Buy from small, independent businesses. Make donations to freeware and Free Software developers to support them in their efforts. That is more likely to bring about the very change you want to see. Piracy is exactly the thing you should not be doing. As companies try to minimize the impact of piracy, the freedom of consumers will be further restricted than it is now.

Furthermore, if people who pirate software really were doing it because they hate the big corporations, then why the hell do they pirate Indie games, too? Until people stop pirating the products of indies, it’s hard to take the anti-corporation rant seriously.

You are coming across not as someone who is anti-corporation, but anti-business. Do you find it immoral for anyone to want to make money selling the goods they produce? I hear Marx had some ideas you might find interesting.

Free software -will- change the world if it isn’t stomped out by its out-right enemies (like Microsoft) and its middle-of-the-road enemies like yourself, who would prefer to tinker with an absolutely monstrous system that seeks to privatize everything from ideas to algorithms to food to water and so on. The Latin American left is showing a better way for society to be run and part of that includes free software video games (Cuba just released one) as well as free software -everything-, as they’ve mandated that all government and state-owned firms must migrate and support free software.

That’s the kind of change that will get something done. What you’re talking about is the kind of moderate mediocrity which won’t get anyone anywhere.

Again, viva.

First of all, most of the people who downloaded the pirated version probably would have never paid for it to begin with.

You have no way of proving that. Sure, a percentage of pirates are hardcore, like you I assume, who think paying for a TV is just fine, but paying for digital goods is somehow immoral. The bigger concern are the casual pirates, those who don’t have any philosophical reason to steal. Many of them are potential customers. They get stuff free simply because they can. We can both spout off which group we believe to be the majority, but there’s no way to know for sure.

Second, I don’t have much sympathy for companies who don’t try an open source business model.

Fine, that’s your right. And you can exercise that right, as you do, by not buying software from the companies you don’t want to support. But that does not give you the right, under the law, to take those same products for free. Software developers have every right to decide if their products should be commercial or freeware, open or closed source. Which business model to use is 100% their decision, just as it is for a company that sells physical goods. It is not up to the consumer.

Your decision as a consumer is which of those products you want to use. You vote with your wallet. Companies whose products don’t sell will do what they need to survive or go under. But the law protects the producer’s right to sell, as it should. It does not protect your imaginary right to steal, nor should it.

I fully expect that piracy will force gaming companies to go open source

Free Software and piracy have nothing to do with each other. This is an idealistic dream that has no chance of coming true. There will always be Free Software and people willing to sacrifice their time to create it. But there will also always be closed source developers who actually want to make a living from their software. And they will resort to whatever measures that protect their right to profit from their work.

Open source works for some markets. MYSQL, RedHat, Ubuntu and other major open source software developers make their money from support contracts. That’s not a viable model for the gaming industry, nor for many other kinds of desktop applications that don’t have huge markets or long-term support needs. Rare is the project that can survive from donations alone. And with the spread of ad blocking software, models that depend on ad revenue are going to eventually take a hit.

Whether you like it or not, money is a necessity to keep a roof over your head and food on your table. And no matter how much you would like it to be true, software developers do not exist solely to provide you with entertainment at their own expense.

You know why big gaming companies make millions of dollars and indie gamers don’t?

Yes. It’s because big gaming companies have massive advertising budgets and mass market appeal. Indie games often target niche markets and have smaller marketing budgets. Shelf-space in brick and mortar stores is limited, but there have been several indie games boxed and released in stores over the years through publishing deals.

But that’s irrelevant now. Most indie developers distribute online exclusively. There are several online publishers and services that provide more exposure than any indie could have imagined five years ago. But that doesn’t change the fact that the majority of indie games have a small market and often take a long time to break even, if they ever do. There are many reasons for that, but corporate corruption is not one of them.

And while we’re on the subject, the majority of mainstream games actually lose money for the publishers. Each major game publisher relies on a few hit franchises, like the Sims or Madden Football, for their profits. Many games never even recoup development costs. The system is broken. And that’s exactly why the indie market is able to exist. It’s a great alternative for talented developers. But it’s piracy that’s going to kill them.

Piracy, played out to it’s end game, has the potential to DESTROY these cartels and the way that business is done. Free software can destroy this corrupt system that keeps indie gamers down.

Yes, it can destroy the big corporations and change the landscape. But the indies are going to go down with the ship. Many of them already have. Free Software isn’t going to save anyone.

You should be ashamed that you cheer these kids being sent to prison and losing their personal freedom for a year when the real problem are the scumbags who are at the top of every consolidated industry.

Did you even read my last comment? I don’t support sending people to jail for file sharing. That’s not a criminal offense, nor should it be. The Pirate Bay people absolutely deserve to go to jail. They were profiting from their facilitation of piracy. That is a criminal offense and absolutely should be. In no way, shape, or form is it ethical to profit off of other people’s hard work while depriving them of the same. Slavery was abolished in the US 150 years ago.

People like that are the real scumbags.

More and more people are getting this while people like you are becoming extinct.

What people are going to get if they continue this nonsense is less freedom and stricter penalties. That benefits no one. I’m pissed off not because my options as a developer are being limited by pirating scumbags, but because my freedom as a consumer ultimately will be. What you support, your little Revolution, is absolutely counter productive. It is working to destroy the very ideals you claim to be fighting for. And people like you are too blinded with righteous zealotry to see it.

“The popular indie game World of Goo, created by a 2-man team, suffers from a 90% pirate rate. ”

I have no doubt — and what do they expect? Regardless, I stand by my claim that piracy isn’t what really hurts these companies.

Nonetheless, let’s look at some obvious facts:

First of all, most of the people who downloaded the pirated version probably would have never paid for it to begin with.

Second, I don’t have much sympathy for companies who don’t try an open source business model. If you want to model your company after Microsoft and have a closed, proprietary software company, then you should fully expect that teenagers are going to pirate your game. They’ve been doing it since closed source products were put on the market and there’s nothing that anybody’s going to do to stop it. That’s reality.

In other words, it’s hard to take some geeks whining about their more-than-likely sub-par video game that they expect people to pay for when MySQL has been giving away an enterprise-class relational database for years. Their reward for that? A $1 BILLION buy-out. I imagine the people trying to sell “Dork Wars IV” for $50 must wonder if being part of the solution (i.e. contributing to the commons) is, in the long-term, more profitable than the closed-source route they chose for their business.

“Talk to me again in 10 years, when you can’t use one of your favorite pieces of software, which you paid for, because the company went under…”

Again, you are missing the point. I don’t have to wait 10 years for free software to be everything I need to be productive on my computer. That’s happening today. And I fully expect that piracy will force gaming companies to go open source, just like operating systems have, just like office suites have, just like video conferencing tools have, and so on. And, I expect more and more companies to figure out ways to make profit while still contributing to the Public Commons.

Which brings me back to my original point — which is that software cartels are who is really hurting the indie gamer. You know why big gaming companies make millions of dollars and indie gamers don’t? It isn’t because of privacy. It’s because of corruption. It’s because the big companies have their games for sale in Best Buy and K-Mart and Wal-Mart and CompUSA and so on. And how do indie companies get distribution deals like that? They don’t. That’s because of corruption. The industry cartels for software are just like the industry cartels for music are just like the industry cartels for food and pharmaceuticals and everything else you can think of that human beings want or need. They consolidate and they use monopoly tactics in order to dominate the market. The last thing these huge companies want is a democratized industry.

Piracy, played out to it’s end game, has the potential to DESTROY these cartels and the way that business is done. Free software can destroy this corrupt system that keeps indie gamers down.

So come on, wise up. It isn’t a 13-year-old kid who bittorrents some indie game who is the real enemy here. It’s the millionaires who rig the system through corrupt distribution deals and corrupt consolidation deals. Copyright reform does NOTHING to fix that problem. A thriving public commons DOES.

You know what drove Encarta out of business? Wikipedia.
You know what is killing Internet Explorer? Firefox.

Are you getting it yet? You should be ashamed that you cheer these kids being sent to prison and losing their personal freedom for a year when the real problem are the scumbags who are at the top of every consolidated industry.

Luckily, a lot of people are starting to get this. More and more people are getting this while people like you are becoming extinct. It’s why the entire continent of Latin America is switching to free software, and contributing back to the commons.

Viva la revolucion.

The independent programmer is not hurt by The Pirate Bay. The indie musician is not hurt by The Pirate Bay.

The popular indie game World of Goo, created by a 2-man team, suffers from a 90% pirate rate. Recently, when Stardock launched Demigod, their servers were crushed by 140,000 concurrent connections. Of those, only 18,000 were legitimate customers.

Piracy absolutely is harming indies. Hit games can still turn a profit, in spite of all of the freeloaders. But that’s not going to last forever. As entire generations grow up with the attitude that anything in digital format is theirs for the taking, the number of paying customers is going to dwindle. Ultimately, it’s going to be non-profitable to put out single player games, or any software that doesn’t require an internet connection to use. Talk to me again in 10 years, when you can’t use one of your favorite pieces of software, which you paid for, because the company went under and you can no longer contact their servers. That’s the situation we are going to find ourselves in as more and more companies look for ways to offset the impact of freetards.

And that’s why so many indie programmers, free software programmers, indie musicians and so on support efforts like The Pirate Bay.

Interesting comment. I’d love you to introduce me to some indie developers who are, you know, trying to run a business while actively supporting efforts to undermine their business.

And those who intend to destroy the RIAA and cartels like it are the people who are un-rigging this game. That’s what you need to get.

No, no, no. The ones doing the most damage right now, even if it isn’t immediately obvious, are those who think they are somehow in the right for promoting the sharing of other people’s hard work. You are doing more damage than you know.

Making little changes to copyright law isn’t going to do it. It is the most meager reformism I’ve ever heard of.

Meager? You call reversing decades of corporate influence on copyright law meager? Reverting the copyright law to its original intent is good for all parties involved. Continuing to pirate only hurts everyone in the long run.

You are obviously caught up in the righteousness of the movement, too blinded by it to see reality. I challenge you to become a member of an indie game development online community and lurk on the forums for a year or two. See if you still feel the same way after you’ve seen several semi-successful developers debating whether or not to spend a few thousand dollars on another game, when 90% of the people playing their current games didn’t feel the need to pay. Tell me then how the big corporations, with whom these indies have no relationship, are hurting them more than a bunch of thieves who have no qualms about taking away their livelihood.

All of these individuals are hurt by the system that The Pirate Bay — and other efforts like it — intend to subvert. And that’s why so many indie programmers, free software programmers, indie musicians and so on support efforts like The Pirate Bay.

The game is rigged. The game is rigged by the RIAA and by similar organizations that “make or break” programmers, musicians, and so on. The only way that there can be a chance that independent anyones will be able to have a chance is to un-rig this game. And those who intend to destroy the RIAA and cartels like it are the people who are un-rigging this game. That’s what you need to get.

Making little changes to copyright law isn’t going to do it. It is the most meager reformism I’ve ever heard of. Creating a vibrant, rich and diverse commons that REPLACES all the rigged games in our lives is what’s going to make it possible for people to live lives doing what they enjoy doing and doing it comfortably. If that’s really your end goal, changing a word here or there in copyright law isn’t going to do it. An army of lawyers is just waiting to exploit that to their own ends. What is required is a massive overhaul and that massive overhaul will happen when the public commons becomes the place people go for software, for music, for art, for food, for health, and etc.

You need to see the bigger picture.

If the independent game programmer doesn’t care about money, then the game programmer would release his game as free software, right? It is logically inconsistent to say that a person who doesn’t care about making money provides justification for laws which are solely designed to preserve a programmer’s right to make money.

You seem to have missed the point completely. I said, “not because he wants to get rich”. I did’t say they don’t care about money. Every serious indie game programmer knows going into the business that they aren’t going to get rich. Of course they care about making money, otherwise they wouldn’t be running a business. That’s why I mentioned all that stuff about a full-time job.

The whole point of this post is that it’s often the “greedy corporations” who are held up as examples of why copyright law is bad and why piracy is good. I’m saying that’s not the whole picture. There are thousands of individuals out there who want to be able to do what they love full time, i.e. get paid to do it. They do it not for the sole purpose of making money, but because they are passionate about it. If they are unable to make money doing it, then they are going to be inhibited in how much content they can produce since they’ll need a job to keep food on the table. Copyright law is intended to allow them to produce as much content as they want for profit, freeing them from such inhibitions.

The real enemy of these passionate artists are the ruthless cartels like the RIAA who have made dozens of fortunes ripping off artists.

There’s no doubt that organizations like the RIAA, and the corporate entities they represent, are not working in the interest of the artists. But you have, again, missed the point. You are falling into the trap of focusing solely on the evil corporations, while ignoring the countless musicians who record and produce their own albums for online distribution, independent of any record labels. Their music is pirated as well. Piracy is the biggest threat to independent artists, not the evil corporations.

I think you’ve tried to use the “struggling artist” as justification for people to be thrown in prison when, in fact, nothing would help artists more than the destruction of the stranglehold that the very few hold over information, news and art for their own selfish benefit.

Copyright law is a civil law, not a criminal law. It only becomes criminal when you are distributing, or enabling the distribution of, copyrighted works for profit and have made a certain amount in the process. I don’t advocate throwing people in jail for sharing music. I don’t even agree with the RIAA’s heavy-handed tactic of suing everyone they can.

What I want is to see copyright law overhauled to be truer to its original intent, protecting the interests of content creators while guaranteeing that their works ultimately end up in the public domain. The original copyright law in the U.S. granted protection for 14 years, with the right to renew for another 14 at the end. Once the copyright holder failed to renew, for whatever reason, the copyright was lost. Today, the period of protection is life plus 75 years. That is well beyond the original intent of the law and, IMO, completely unreasonable. And you can bet that once Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse nears the end, they will once again strongly lobby Congress to extend the period another 25 or 50 years. What we need is to overhaul the period to something more reasonable. I would advocate for something like 25 or 50 years, with no right to renew.

Don’t be blinded by the whole “evil corporation” bit. Copyright law isn’t inherently evil. In it’s intended form, everyone ultimately benefits from it. We need to be working to make sure that can happen, rather than working against it. In the end, piracy will do more harm than good. The idea of sharing all creative works is a noble one, but you can bet that piracy will eventually create an environment where we have less freedom than we do now as corporations adapt their business models to reduce its impact.