Shamus Young Vs. The Pirates
Shamus Young, anti-DRM crusader as he is, has a now THREE part article about piracy. And fighting piracy. Without DRM that cripples the customer. Here it is:

The Publishers Vs. The Pirates, Part 1

Five Ways to Fight Piracy: The Publishers Vs. The Pirates, Part 2

The Publishers Vs. The Pirates, Part 3

What I particularly enjoyed from this series is that it comes from the customer perspective. One which I totally sympathize with, as I've been a customer for a lot longer than I've been a developer. And I remember with the day I downloaded a crack for Wing Commander, because I had decided to re-install it YET AGAIN - an exercise I performed about every six months - and I could not find my documentation.

I found the docs later that afternoon, but by that time, I was hooked on the crack. :) Because I suddenly amazed at the relief I felt NOT having to hunt through the documentation for the copy-protection question every time I started the game! And then I realized that the pirates had a superior version of the game.

I find it amusing to see the shock and disbelief people express when seeing anecdotal numbers as to how rampant piracy really is - mainly because I remember feeling exactly the same way.

It should be clear to anybody not in the throes of self-delusion and justification that piracy is a problem. The question is that of magnitude. On an immediate scale, Russell Carroll's recent analysis revealed that while casual piracy was clearly excessive, the direct relationship between piracy rates and actual lost sales is ... complicated. In a longer term - the societal effects on the de-valuation of intellectual property due to unchecked piracy - I think the consequences may be more dire, but we're definitely in the realm of speculation here.

Shamus's articles address the issue from the standpoint of a customer, offering his suggestions as one of the (increasingly scarce?) people who actually expects to pay for his games, and who expects to NOT be treated like a criminal for doing so.

In my opinion, most of his suggestions come down to publishers getting with the 21st century, which is where the pirates AND their customers are now.

Incidentally, GBGames has another very well thought-out post on piracy with plenty of links, though I do take issue with some of his opinions: Music, Video Games, and the Supposed Problem of Piracy.

Labels: Biz

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:04 AM (Permalink)