Viewing Thread:
"help us to cheaper games (please contribute)"

Internet piracy one of the most common subjects of chat around but how do the companys even begin to tackle it for instance you can get any film game or song of kazaa . com (i.e my friend has xXx and signs already) simply dial up log on and download but why shouldnt we when you consider that companys charge about £3-4 for a single cd when i can make one for 10p what idiot would pay that when pirate copys are so much cheaper.The prime example of this is the fact that a dvd burining program (all you need is a cd and a cd-rw) costs about £8 off the net (www.321studios.com). so why do the companys make cdrw's and dvd burners were bound to copy.

keep our freedom and put a memo at the bottom if you support:)

Well Mr happy i was really referring to software when i was talking about quality.

I can't be bothered to download movies, it takes far too long, and I'm not much of a movie person anyway, pirate games for PC aren't exactly hard to come by now, but many games have the old CD keys and stuff to try and stop you, and I rarely buy PC games anymore anyway (our PC is too old to play most new stuff) so when I do occasionaly get a game I generally don't mind paying full price or waiting a few months for the game to go down (PC games go down in price pretty sharpish usually).

Music I like to support artists. I don't like to support stupid retailers that rip me off. So I try to buy cheap off the net, ie. from record labels, direct from the band, etc. or maybe get the CD off Ebay (second hand or the 'promo' CDs that have a hole punch or something similar through the barcode, so they're pretty much put on Ebay for wholesale prices).

Anyway, I don't like copying CDs... You don't have the real packaging, and it doen't make me feel good. I got a CD ages ago based on one song off a compilation, and didn't like it much... I copied the CD and took it back. Now I like the album a lot more than back then and I regret that I traded it back, I wish I had the real thing. I spose I could always buy the CD again, but in honesty there's no point when I could get new music... spose I could buy one of their other albums... we'll wait and see.

Unless you have a really top-notch hi-fi, the difference between a copied cd and a normal cd is negligble. If you've copied the cd using downloaded mp3's then yes the sound is a bit flatter, but only if you go for 128kb/s mp3's.

The reason I buy cds is because I want to have the box, the packaging and maybe the lyrics too. Having 300 identical transparent cases and identical cds with different music on really doesn't feel right. I mean, I've downloaded whole albums and listened to them on cd, before going out and buying the original, partly because I want to support that artist, and partly because I want an original, shiny new copy.

Despite the hoo-ha over napster, mp3's are pretty inoffensive and I don't think they've damaged music sales at all.. well the only people who have lost out are the bands who have one good track per album and then the rest made up of filler songs.

The major piracy concern should be PC games and software. Serial numbers are widely available on the internet and anyone with kazaa or i-mesh and a little bit of imagination can track down games and software easily. Anyhow, the games companies are getting wise to ways to beat the pirates. The answer is simply to give consumers an incentive to buy the product rater than download it. And that is to restrict on-line multiplayer access to those without a unique serial number or cd in the drive. People want to play the multiplayer and so they buy the game.

Software companies don't have so much of a problem. Adobe Premiere costs a hell of a lot. People who buy Adobe premiere are generally going to be professionals or industry types, who buy multiple licenses and don't cause a problem. People who download warez versions are the type of people who wouldn't have been able to afford the product in the first place, so it's not affecting the core market. However, some software companies are getting pretty vexed with piracy. One company that makes a titling and transition plug-in/stand-alone program required you to plug something called a "dongle" into your parallel port in order to use the product. People downloaded it off the net, but very few people beat the need for a dongle.

What I'm trying to say is that piracy of software, both apps and games, is a bad thing, but with the rise of advanced protection methods (ie activation on new MS products) and incentives to actually buy a copy, it's probably at its peak right now. Music is an inoffensive form of piracy, currently being made the scape goat for industry inefficiency and excess.

And as for films...

I'd rather pay to go to the cinema or for a DVD than to download a crappy version off the internet. Computer viewing of films won't take off until we have wide-screen plasma monitors...

There are a few problems. Piracy is illegal. Copies are often of questionable quality. Where games are concerned the lack of an instruction manual is very disorientating.

Internet piracy one of the most common subjects of chat around but how do the companys even begin to tackle it for instance you can get any film game or song of kazaa . com (i.e my friend has xXx and signs already) simply dial up log on and download but why shouldnt we when you consider that companys charge about £3-4 for a single cd when i can make one for 10p what idiot would pay that when pirate copys are so much cheaper.The prime example of this is the fact that a dvd burining program (all you need is a cd and a cd-rw) costs about £8 off the net (www.321studios.com). so why do the companys make cdrw's and dvd burners were bound to copy.

keep our freedom and put a memo at the bottom if you support:)