Second hand sales vs. Piracy

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

basically you are encouraging the game companies to produce incomplete games.

This. DLC is good in some contexts--adding additional content later on, for a lower price than a full-blown expansion pack. That's good. DLC means games get more stuff without having to wait a year for a full-blown $40 expansion pack.

Fallout: New Vegas is a very good example of DLC done right. It was launched last year a complete game. Then several months later, a DLC "Dead Money" was released that added new areas, quests, items and other additional content. Now, "Honest Hearts" was released, adding more good stuff. Soon, two more DLCs will come out adding the same thing.

This is a good use of DLC. They're basically mini-expansions for $10 each. I have no problem with that at all; in fact, I think it's a great idea. These four DLC put together gives us an expansion pack's worth of added content for $40, and you don't have to buy it all at once, or you can pick and choose which ones you want and which you don't.

What I do not like is day-one DLC. That is just blantant publishers trying to jack up the price of a new game by $10. It's already gone up from $50 in the early 2000s and the 90s to $60 now for a new game. I was upset with Bioware for launching DA2 and "The Exiled Prince" DLC simultaneously. Yes, I realize that preorders got the DLC for free, but those who did not preorder (and those who bought the game on Steam) did not get the DLC.

It's not too terrible, because it's just an extra NPC and his related quests. I would be more annoyed if something like FONV's DLCs were day-one DLCs. The FO3/NV DLCs are a lot more than just an hour or two of content. I remember spending close to seven hours completing "Point Lookout" and about four hours on "The Pitt" when playing Fallout 3. That's a significant amount of content that should be included with the game for no additional cost if it's done when the game is done.

If it comes out later, that's the difference though. The developers can later package all the DLC with the original game and re-release at full price, which I think is a splendid idea.

Last year I bought Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition for $50, shortly after it came out. The Ultimate Edition includes all of the DLC and the expansion pack. A great deal for both the devs and the consumer. It's a good way for the devs to keep making money off a game even when the game's a year or two old.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

basically you are encouraging the game companies to produce incomplete games.

If the DLC is done right, i.e extra ideas that can be implemented but incomplete during launch day, they can be consistently good for sales.

An example of a DLC done WRONG is the US version of Chou Jigen Game Neptune (the first one, the second one will be released this August), where the extra character Nippon Ichi has to be DOWNLOADED as a DLC, instead of being one of the characters like the JP version - most people buy the game anyway because we have problems reading Japanese.

[synaesthetic]

DLC is a good way of extending the life of a game and continually providing a revenue stream for the devs. Day-one DLC is the bad mojo, and I hope it dies in an apiary fire.

[erneiz_hyde]

On the topic of Games,
DLC is developer's abuse of the old term "expansions". Long ago, expansions are justified because they actually add value to the already completed product. Now, some developers found that they can purposely sell incomplete games using the DLC system. with the DLC system, they can also sell expansions little by little as opposed to sell it whole as a new product. Of course, the whole system actually looks good and ideal in this internet age, if they sell them at the appropriate prices. However now I feel the DLC system is only an excuse to sell a game more expensive than they worth. Actually I don't have problem with the DLC system itself, but the fact that they sell the initial incomplete product with full prices.

On the thread topic,
Before the internet, access to foreign musics, movies, whatever is difficult, and tad expensive if there aren't any local company localizing them. Even after the internet and online shopping, buying these foreign items is still rather expensive because of shipment and other fees. Personally 'piracy' is justified in countries that still don't have license to localize a certain material product.

However, if it is possible to buy those products online in the form of data, thus eliminating the need to import them, then I feel piracy is no longer as justified. Musics, movies. manga, anime industry all cry "piracy! piracy!" because these industry have not yet able to shift fully to the internet. Game industry is on the lead in this, look at Steam.

Now here's the thing. Sharing books didn't really got much attention because no matter how many people they share, there is still only one copy of the book. Data sharing on the other hand, will result in as many copies as there are people involved on the sharing, with each potentially open a whole new circle of sharing as large as the original. I understand the need to limit sharing data products because this issue just spell doom to developers.

Thing is, not everyone feels justified in buying their games if they feel unsatisfied. Games are entertainment afterall. The only way I can see to solve this is for the developers to release a free short demo online first. This demo must not suffer any degrade of quality and must have all the features in it demonstrated properly (no disabling any of the ingame features). Satisfying those conditions, it is understandable to make the demo as short as possible.

I don't understand why developers don't do this more often. A free demo can only potentially increase sales for the full products and only a little extra work compared to the whole game.

[synaesthetic]

I'll never concede any part of this debate to the content gatekeepers until they agree to limit copyright terms to the old 14 years. The current limit of 72 years after the creator's death is just fucking disgusting.

It's better that stuff enters the public domain faster. Without the ability to sit on a single IP for decades, innovation and creativity will be the name of the game, not simply buying up the rights to all the popular IPs.

Edit: Also more software needs to be published under the GPL. I can haz source code?

[Nightbat®]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'll never concede any part of this debate to the content gatekeepers until they agree to limit copyright terms to the old 14 years. The current limit of 72 years after the creator's death is just fucking disgusting.

It's better that stuff enters the public domain faster. Without the ability to sit on a single IP for decades, innovation and creativity will be the name of the game, not simply buying up the rights to all the popular IPs.

Edit: Also more software needs to be published under the GPL. I can haz source code?

very much agree

a manufacturer of a product must put in a great amount of time/money in R&D, patents, prototyping, testing, tooling, materials, before it's even able to be distributed
and 15 years later see everyone run off with his/her hard work

If you write a catchy song and it scores, you and your childen and your grandchildren can sit on your asses untill the end of your life, or better said: those that own the 'rights'

[synaesthetic]

Yeah not a fan of how patents are shafted compared to copyright. It should be the same for both--20 years, with a possible 20 year extension in extraordinary circumstances.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Yeah not a fan of how patents are shafted compared to copyright. It should be the same for both--20 years, with a possible 20 year extension in extraordinary circumstances.

From an economic POV, it would be due to "value to society". Some patents are hoarded when they could serve society better than just a single company (i.e cancer drugs), whereas copyrights, which are protection to just non-physical expression of ideas (i.e thin air), so the reason why patents are shafted are pretty much substantiated for.

That being said, expression of ideas don't have much utility other than their informative value - the copyright law simply allows the creator to earn royalties until the end-term because ideas generated from research are not easy to come by. The real problem with it is that it stretched to cover entertainment media too; which is significantly more worthless than analyses written by researchers which copyright is originally supposed to protect.

Copyright laws are quite okay actually across the world (other than in China and certain parts of the world where nobody gives a shit about it), it is just that it is repeatedly abused by corporations with lousy marketing departments for extreme profit motives.

[Nosauz]

There is nothing inherently wrong with Patent, because Patents are a recognition of the cost and unique abilities of an individual or group to come up with something through skill and ingenuity, the problem is the manipulation of patent and patent law to preserve power in those that initially create, and on top of that they compound the advantage (say those that have had government subsidies or monopolies in place) they already have, or they copyright/patent things that where once common domain say Disney. Again it is the powers that are the lobbying arm of these corporations that pervert the law intended to protect creativity, ingenuity, instead they become the pillars of stifiling the creative.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

There is nothing inherently wrong with Patent, because Patents are a recognition of the cost and unique abilities of an individual or group to come up with something through skill and ingenuity, the problem is the manipulation of patent and patent law to preserve power in those that initially create, and on top of that they compound the advantage (say those that have had government subsidies or monopolies in place) they already have, or they copyright/patent things that where once common domain say Disney. Again it is the powers that are the lobbying arm of these corporations that pervert the law intended to protect creativity, ingenuity, instead they become the pillars of stifiling the creative.

Those rules are explicitly written to protect profits, not creativity. There is always a premise for creativity because doing what you like gives more emotional satisfaction than the monetary satisfaction it comes with. And most artistes do it for the emotional satisfaction rather than the monetary one, and the former makes better music and shows than those after the latter.

If they wanted to protect creativity, they would have attacked censorship laws instead.

[Vexx]

Getting back to the "original topic" though... "second hand sales" are firmly established under "right of first sale" doctrine as affirmed by courts.
Example: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200...05496397.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/fo...9/crm01854.htm

What the entertainment industry is trying to do is obliterate this anchorstone of copyright limitations. It should be noted that the EU has a less stringent version of "first sale" rights in that the creator may get a cut of subsequent sales of a particular copy. I'm using the term "creator" because I have a real philosophical issue with the notion of "assigning the rights of creation" away.

As for "patent and copyright"... those are *relatively recent* notions in human history. Before... any idea instantly entered the "public domain and Creative Commons" (yet people innovated anyway). Patent and copyright law evolved to give creators *TEMPORARY* protection to recover their costs and make a bit of money. The current situation is so far tilted that it stifles innovation in favor of protecting a few gatekeepers hoarding existing materials to the detriment of society as a whole. The inevitable result is a corrosion of respect for law as the majority of society becomes scofflaws (aka Prohibition).

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

As for "patent and copyright"... those are *relatively recent* notions in human history. Before... any idea instantly entered the "public domain and Creative Commons" (yet people innovated anyway). Patent and copyright law evolved to give creators *TEMPORARY* protection to recover their costs and make a bit of money. The current situation is so far tilted that it stifles innovation in favor of protecting a few gatekeepers hoarding existing materials to the detriment of society as a whole. The inevitable result is a corrosion of respect for law as the majority of society becomes scofflaws (aka Prohibition).

Coupled with recent economic events, I think US will see another Great Depression before a war with the Middle East.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Coupled with recent economic events, I think US will see another Great Depression before a war with the Middle East.

Yes, I think the house of cards has been set up outside and the wind is changing

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Those rules are explicitly written to protect profits, not creativity. There is always a premise for creativity because doing what you like gives more emotional satisfaction than the monetary satisfaction it comes with. And most artistes do it for the emotional satisfaction rather than the monetary one, and the former makes better music and shows than those after the latter.

If they wanted to protect creativity, they would have attacked censorship laws instead.

That's the assumption that the creative process is solely of an individual, in that case yes copyright would be more to then the monetary benefit, but with our current economic structure, the creative process is no longer dictated by the individual, it is those with capital that incentivize the process of being creative and with the exchange of money they accumulate the rights, the risk is greater to some extent but patent and copyright law if done in a fair manner isn't bad, it just recognoizes the risk. If you take medical research for instance, it's quite understandable why these patents would be valueable, because research isn't cheap, the funds required to get a lab going, to hire the right people, to invest in the right tests, etc, all cost money and if everything entered public domain, then there would be pause to just going on researching, because research would be much less valueable than production of a synthetic material or even just raising the animals necessary for research.

@Vexx, yep it is the erosion of the consumers rights, is the just merely a step to elevate the corporations above humans.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Getting back to the "original topic" though... "second hand sales" are firmly established under "right of first sale" doctrine as affirmed by courts.
Example: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200...05496397.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/fo...9/crm01854.htm

What the entertainment industry is trying to do is obliterate this anchorstone of copyright limitations. It should be noted that the EU has a less stringent version of "first sale" rights in that the creator may get a cut of subsequent sales of a particular copy. I'm using the term "creator" because I have a real philosophical issue with the notion of "assigning the rights of creation" away.

As for "patent and copyright"... those are *relatively recent* notions in human history. Before... any idea instantly entered the "public domain and Creative Commons" (yet people innovated anyway). Patent and copyright law evolved to give creators *TEMPORARY* protection to recover their costs and make a bit of money. The current situation is so far tilted that it stifles innovation in favor of protecting a few gatekeepers hoarding existing materials to the detriment of society as a whole. The inevitable result is a corrosion of respect for law as the majority of society becomes scofflaws (aka Prohibition).

The law is the law, but the law, in this respect, was formulated in a time when all goods were physical. Where the physical production was a real element of the cost. To do a print run of books in the 15 century would have cost far more then the effort of actually writing one, and it's been like this right up to the 20th century. And it wasn't simply the raw printing costs, but the distribution network as well. So to have second hand sales makes sense in such a context. The physical object itself had value. There were only so many printed copies of a given book.

But this doesn't work when we start talking about disks. Your game disk is worth at most a single dollar. Practically speaking it's worthless. The entire value of your disk is in the information. Information can no longer be driven by "economies of scarcity", now infinite copies exist. So as I see it, there's only one reason to pay for information any more. Not for pragmatic reasons, but for ethical reasons. The ethical reason is to compensate the producer and by extension the next generation of products they will produce. Under this ethical imperative, buying your goods second hand is pointless. If you really wanted to save money you could just do things illegally. Buying second hand may be legal, but that's not a justifiable reason to do so, as the law is only supposed to be the law because it's ethically right. When the law no longer aligns with popular ethics then it will invariably have to be discarded. In this case I see no ethical reason for allowing resale of media. Your entertainment is not like your washing machine. There is no waste if you throw it out, because it does not really exist.

In this respect copyright law will have to change. There will come a stage where no jury that they can assemble will convict filesharers. At this point the judiciary will have to change the law.

As for the business model of media producers, I can convince it will become something like "busking" but on a larger scale. That's how most media producers were compensated in the past, and that's how it will probably be in the future. Games will be payed for by donation.

As for copyright generally, that's a ripe discussion that could probably take place in another thread. I will say that exists for a good reason, but personally I don't see why it extends past the death of it's holder. But with the internet being the way it is, there is no longer any inherent profit in distributing intellectual property. Copyright is going to have to shift in form.

[synaesthetic]

It doesn't really affect me since I'm a PC gamer, and nobody buys used PC games anyway. But I would immediately stop paying and start torrenting everything if they passed a law to make reselling media illegal.

If I'm going to get fucked, I'm going to fuck back.

[Vexx]

But there is an established right to "transfer a license". The industry dropped the ball here by trying to have it both ways ("license" vs "sale"). The consumer get the worst parts of either concept in their perfect world. A subscription fee to use the material should have been an early standard.... a "membership" if you like. One that could be dropped but not subleased. The "infinite copy" issue would have been muted to some extent.

There will always be a "patron class" and a "peanut gallery" ... entertainment's objective is to please the patron class enough to warrant their support ($$). Badgering the peanut gallery is a dead-end.

[Jaden]

I'll buy the game if there is

1) Value in the license you couldn't get with a pirated copy. This goes for most console games, PC games with online authentication, monthly fees, some good premium DLC or the like.

and/or 2) I can afford it and just want to support the devs. This goes for indie games and some good developers that aren't worried about piracy. Obviously I wouldn't then buy second hand.

I don't think we need tighter laws against piracy or second hand sales, there are ways of putting value in the product and getting it sold regardless. Currently most gamers prefer going out to shops to purchase games, which gives Gamestop etc. the power to perpetrate second hand sales. They might in the future go out of business in favour of digital distribution, which will also be the end of second hand sales. I wouldn't miss either thing.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

It doesn't really affect me since I'm a PC gamer, and nobody buys used PC games anyway. But I would immediately stop paying and start torrenting everything if they passed a law to make reselling media illegal.

If I'm going to get fucked, I'm going to fuck back.

That's not going to happen. Game makers aren't trying to make resale illegal. For one thing it's pointless and an expensive thing to do. What they are doing is making resale less and less attractive by using DLC and online distribution. For instance on the new playstation Vita it will be physically impossible to buy second hand as the entire distribution is online. The DLC thing is more contraversial. I preferred the model of "big" expansion packs. DLCs often feel too small. Though in itself the concept isn't bad. I have had good experience with the dowloadable expansion packs Paradox puts out.

Originally Posted by Vexx

But there is an established right to "transfer a license". The industry dropped the ball here by trying to have it both ways ("license" vs "sale"). The consumer get the worst parts of either concept in their perfect world. A subscription fee to use the material should have been an early standard.... a "membership" if you like. One that could be dropped but not subleased. The "infinite copy" issue would have been muted to some extent.

This is not always so, for instance Autocad does not allow license transferals. It really depends on software and the contract. When you buy software you are undertaking a contract with the producer. They are providing access in return for your payment. It's within their right to put whatever stipulations they like on it. It's their software. And if you don't like it, you don't have to buy it. Entertainment in particular is a luxury, so I see nothing wrong with producers using stringent licenses, so long as you're not being bound to 12 month payment plans.

There will always be a "patron class" and a "peanut gallery" ... entertainment's objective is to please the patron class enough to warrant their support ($$). Badgering the peanut gallery is a dead-end.

That analogy works for the opera and theatre, but modern media (and games in particular) are popular forms of entertainment. The vast majority of their funding comes from sales. In fact if there is an influential group it's the "hardcore" gamers. Who aren't really a patron class, just vocal. Generally speaking the game industry is very intune with the desires of it's audience (probably because most of the programmers are drawn from it). Their only source of revenue is the peanut gallery, as the patrons think it's beneath them(they've all gone to see Imeneo).

And before you think that game publishers and developers are entrenched elites immune to failure, just bear Interplay in mind. I really loved a lot of Interplay's games.

[Nosauz]

Interplay is nothing like the big multiplat publishers of today, they were the kings of the wild wild west of video gaming but much like Lucas Arts they had not secured the power of console gaming and the casual market that games currently cover. The market at that time was even less mature, and you sure as hell couldn't sustain yourself with movie tie in games that could keep you a float if you only published like 10 games a year. Currently though EA, Activision, Ubisoft all want to rape the consumer, on top of their triple A titles they have a lot of filler that continues to make them money mind you the quality or lack of consumer rights these products have, hell Square Enix still pumps out crap ff sequel after ff sequel, my point is Interplay and the current generation of Devs are highly different, their business model is highly different. From a PC gamers perspective the lack of second hand sales isn't that big of a deal, but when it comes to funding my console gaming habit, second hand sales is what makes me buy games, I just can't see paying for single player games especially for full retail after a year and a half after they have come out, and on top of that if i buy used i have to shill out another 20-30 bucks for dlc that would have probably made the game the disc.

Also your comment about gamers and "hardcore gamers" is absolutely wrong, these companies listen to where the money is, and the money is not in the hardcore gaming sector. Why? Because hardcore gamers buy less games, buy better games, expect better games, and overall are much harder to please. Your anual spiderman crapfest game is not going to appeal to the hardcore, maybe something that is well done like Spiderman II but then again thats about the hardcore, they expect good games. If any business took on the model to appeal to the "hardcore" or the "elite" we wouldn't see garbage like transformers at the box office.