Today (August 24) the imfamous torrent site The Pirate Bay has been shut down by order of a Swedish court after several large companies, which have constantly tried to take down the website, pressured to the court to do so. The staff of the Pirate Bay have said they are looking for a new host for their site, so we may not have seen the last of them. A company has also proposed buying the site, and adding legal copies of software and movies, and charging a monthly fee.
Pirate Bay was one of the most groundbreaking sites created. It helped start the whole piracy thing, and the controversy following it. Many people will miss it, whether it becomes a pay for site or gone for good. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Edit: Pirate Bay is back. They just won't give up, now will they?
You misunderstood my comment. I say no one gives a shit about the rich. But I do not mean that entitles us to rip them off. read the full post please.
I want to recommend an awesome science fiction movie:
The Man from Earth (2007)
Even though it's a science fiction movie, it doesn't have spaceships or aliens inside. It's not even in the future and the most sophisticated technology featured is an ipod or something. No time travel or dimension portals anywhere. There are no action scenes at all. There isn't even an antagonist here. No conspiracies or exotic locations either: The whole movie mainly plays in one single room.
And the plot?
Well, one man decides to move away and his academic colleages decide to pay him a visit. Then they sit in the nearly stripped living room of his house and talk. The end.
And yet the movie is stunning, exciting, surprising and enlightening ... one of the best science fiction movies ever.
But from the description you might already guess that this film was no big commercial success ... stuff like that simply can't compete with pocorn movies like Saw, Star Wars/Trek/Whatever and other blockbusters.
Anyway, thanks to illegal file sharing the movie gained popularity as an insider tip, raising it's profile far beyond anything the producer expected. In an unprecedented move, said producer Eric Wilkinson officially thanked the file-sharing community for distributing (and liking) his film.
Apart from telling us that you don't need to waste 100 million dollars to produce a good movie, we see beneficial effects of file sharing as well - especially for those whose works would simply be swept away in the wake of the marketing wave of richer, bloated, vengeful studios.
Sure, mostly only the sharers benefit from sharing. But hey, going as far as fining people for singing "Happy Birthday" in public is ridiculous.
And now go get the movie I was talking about (Buy the DVD right after previewing the pirated version)!
This is exactly what many people never even think about, it's almost as if they fear the possibility that artists and other creative people could use piracy to their advantage. Besides, I've never seen a study that actually says that piracy damages markets or right holders (other than the ones funded by RIAA or somesuch organisation or wasn't discredited for some other reason), on the other hand, I've seen studies about how pirates purchase more stuff than the average consumer, and how piracy might actually be beneficial for creative people.
So many people approach this issue with their feelings rather than their brains, and so they are blinded to the bigger picture.
Oh, and I just bought that movie, thanks for the tip Aroddo.
Oh, I'm sure that filesharing hurts the copyright owners to some extent - although not as much as they claim.
Just because a game gets downloaded a million time doesn't mean that these million people would have bought the game otherwise. A small percentage, perhaps, but not all.
Mostly filesharing enables people to enjoy a product they'd never have considered otherwise.
..and people won't buy it unless they know they'll enjoy it. Catch 22?
Dude, that's what TRAILERS are for!
Trust the marketing department!
Hahaha funny man
Actually (bit offtopic) trailers are starting to annoy me more and more. Back in the old days when you downloaded a trailer you actually saw something of the game. Nowadays you only get CGI enhanced heart attack inducing promo shots accompanied by terms like "photo realism" and "ground breaking gameplay" and "innovative" without acually showing you any of it.
Same with movie trailers, especially comedies. You watch a trailer full of jokes and think "hey, that was funny, I should watch this movie for 1,5 hours of good fun" and when you do you find out that the jokes in the trailer were actually all jokes of the entire movie and the rest of the movie is just random boring shit in between of the jokes you already saw in the trailer.
Does this post make me sound like I'm bitter?
To be fair, a company has to be terminally stupid to make a trailer that looks like shit. And some trailers are actually awesome and close to the original - like the Team Fortress 2 - Meet the Team trailers.
Trusting that people download something to try and then buy it to support the people who created it is putting faith in humanity that the internet demonstrates should never be placed. Sorry, I believe most people who search out file sharing netwroks get what they can get for free - the 'honest pirates', usually the people who create the original ISO/Rip/whatever, make up a small number of the user base of file sharing networks.
Hmm perhaps. Most people I talk to about it are the honest kind though, as am I believe it or not, but then again the "ZOMG i leeeeched 2TB!!1!one today 4 frEe pwnzorz!!" are usually not the kind to go into discussion about it
Or at least, most of the people you talk to say they're the honest kind.
Well they are my friends and I can actually look at their shelve to see the games they own. Ironically the ones that have an Xbox actually buy most of their games for the console, not for the PC.
Ahh, my apoligies. I thought you were referring to discussing on forums.
np, I know people on the internet usually aren't that honest. For instance, I know you're not really a water melon.
Whoa, wait - Melon... you... you're not a water melon? You lied to me!
I'm starting to get surprised how many conversations I have about my SN
But yes, I'm afraid I've led you all astray.
But buying a game is putting faith in humanity, too ! You give your money to the company in hopes of getting more support, patches, paying for loan they may have taken to finish the game and some extra so developers can live decently. Unfortunately, when you purchase a game you're often actually paying for a sequel ! Paying for a game is a misnomer. Yes, you're paying for a game, but not the one you think !
Selling virtual goods is awfully poor and wasteful business model. Do you think copyright royalties make content authors' lives great now ? According to wikipedia...
It is common in the UK for example, for authors to receive a 10% royalty on book sales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalties#Approaches_to_royalty_rate:_intellectual_property
10 percent. And this is about books - unpirated area, because there are still no convenient ways to read a book outside of paper. Some books are copied illegally, but reading them on a typical LCD or CRT screen is just awful. No wonder first advice given to aspiring authors is usually "Don't quit your day job".
I won't post rates for music because I can't find anything reasonable right now. Bottom line: it is theoretically possible to give artists/authors more money while paying less for products. Who says CD's are the perfect business model for music ? Perfect for authors, I mean ?
For music I'm thinking cut out the middle man almost entirely. Now employees in the music business will argue that record lables are needed to pay for recording and marketing. While that may be true, if you cut them out what will remain are bands with nothing, except potential to grow. What is the positive side to all this? Only bands that are truly good get the mouth-to-mouth PR they need to grow, expand, become known world-wide (and filthy rich ). That means only music we like becomes big, not the artist the record lable desides to promote and market till 12 year old girls buy their ringtones without actually knowing what the singer is singing about (yes, disney singers ftl).
You mean only bands that are truly mainstream? I trust the average joe to pick good music about as much as I trust my toaster oven to provide company while I'm in the bath.
The term good is subjective and useless. The average joe or jane will pick the music he or she likes and screw anyone else who doesn't like it. Music snobbery is right up there with everything else snobs feel the need to force down other people's throats.
Well with good I obviously mean music that people like because they truly enjoy it, not becaues they are made to believe they should like it because MTV says it's the next big pop diva or whatever.
Mainstream isnt' a bad thing per sé. If it's mainstream because a lot of people genuinely like it then there's nothing bad about it. If it's mainstream because it's the same as all the other music around, then probably it is a bad thing, but that's a case of semantics.
I do not fear for "mainstream" in the bad sense for one bit, if people can make their own choices. All my friends have wildly varying music interests. I myself enjoy opera, classical, jazz, 70s/80s classics, 90s dance, trance, (symphonic) metal, hell even some pop songs, and probably some other genres I forgot. What is there not to trust? Music is very personal, but it only takes a moment to find people that enjoy the same music as you do.
You mean only bands that are truly mainstream? I trust the average joe to pick good music about as much as I trust my toaster oven to provide company while I'm in the bath.The term good is subjective and useless. The average joe or jane will pick the music he or she likes and screw anyone else who doesn't like it. Music snobbery is right up there with everything else snobs feel the need to force down other people's throats.
I'm pretty sure you just proved my point as to why this is a terrible idea.
The problem here is that allowing the number of musical of artists to drop by no means guaruntees quality. Rather, it lowers the chance that any given person can find music that he or she likes, as there is a smaller pool to sift through. All the 'niche' sounds out there would be quite likely to disappear, as the heavy investment on the part of the group in question would have a larger risk and a smaller profit. Record labels, by producing a wide variety of CD's, actually help the industry.
Nope, didn't prove your point at all as my point had nothing to do with distribution methods and everything to do with the idea that some people have that their tastes some how trumps others. I call that snobbery.
the lack of respect for the mods in this offtopic section is disgusting.....
i wont be visiting off topic much from now on....will probably see less faces too i hope.
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