Second hand sales vs. Piracy

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Vexx

These folks hate the concept of "right of first sale" ... they'd like to be able to deny you the right to resell your books, your DVDs, your (....whatever). That's what makes e-books a little bit e-vil. The consumer can't clean out his/her library and make a few bucks at the garage sale or second hand market anymore.

The problem with Don's remarks on software LICENSING... is that LICENSING means the company should be willing to replace the physical media for cost of media at most or "Free". When was the last time a game company jumped up to offer that to anyone? They want to be able to "sell" it to you as a license but also not have to provide you eternal access to the game via replacement of physical media.

When I licensed server OS systems and apps from Sequent or IBM.... the physical media was replaced on demand.

This is why services like Steam are actually kind of nice. I bought Fallout: New Vegas from GameStop, but the game is integrated into Steam. If my disc ever breaks, I can always just download the game from Steam if I need to reinstall it.

So Steam may take away your right of resale, but it also makes it easy to replace the software if it's lost, damaged or corrupted.

[Jan-Poo]

This is the result of the distorted mentality of the producers who think that "anything that hurts my profit must be illegal".

This is a faulty argument that it's quite easy to break down if you think about it. There are a lot of actions that are perfectly legal and that can hurt someone's sales as consequence.

For example if an influencial critic writes a bad review of a movie, that will definitely hurt the sales of that movie, but is that a bad thing? Should we ban critiques then?

Should we close up Wikipedia because it hurts the sales of the old encyclopedia in tomes?


Hurting someone's profit does not constitute a crime by itself.

and

Laws should be made with the public interest in mind and not to protect someone's revenue.


Because so far the so called anti-piracy propaganda has gone about ignoring this common sense and argumenting to great extent why file-sharing is evil because it badly hurt their profit, it's really not a surprise that they go to the "logical step" of accusing the second-hand sale market.

The next step is propose to put in jail whoever borrows a book, because "if they enjoy it they must pay it, if they enjoy it without paying it they are thieves". Even so this idea would have been preposterous before the internet era.


Personally I think it's absolutely wrong to lump up piracy and file-sharing. By accepting that file-sharing = piracy we are dancing in their hands. Piracy is a crime, equiparing file-sharing to piracy is a sure to way to get people to think file-sharing is a crime as well, and that's exactly what they want.
In truth, if you think about it, file-sharing is more akin to the common practive of borrowing and lending books than the criminal action of few individuals that falsify products thus earning money (key word here) that is meant to be delivered to someone else.

In the end even if file-sharing was banned altogether you could still use internet to create a vast community of people that lends and borrows copyrighted material, thus allowing a single individual to enjoy hundreds of products without paying for any of them. It woud be a lot harder, more costly, but still less costly than buying the products themselves and it would be still feasible. Hell this actually existed before the internet era! But now that internet exists you cannot prevent this from becoming a mass phenomenon, rather than remaining a small circle as it was in the past.

Until they decide to ban borrowing and lending as well.

[synaesthetic]

+1

You took the words right out of my mouth and said them better than I ever could.

Pretty soon individuals are going to have to start taking out business licenses and incorporate themselves just to get basic rights...

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Vexx

These folks hate the concept of "right of first sale" ... they'd like to be able to deny you the right to resell your books, your DVDs, your (....whatever). That's what makes e-books a little bit e-vil. The consumer can't clean out his/her library and make a few bucks at the garage sale or second hand market anymore.

The problem with Don's remarks on software LICENSING... is that LICENSING means the company should be willing to replace the physical media for cost of media at most or "Free". When was the last time a game company jumped up to offer that to anyone? They want to be able to "sell" it to you as a license but also not have to provide you eternal access to the game via replacement of physical media.

Actually I know a fair number of companies who will do exactly that, so long as you prove you purchased it and/or registered your copy with them beforehand. And with ebooks/digital downloads this will be standard. Any of the services similiar to steam (I personally don't like Steam for it's DRM), will also have this available.

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

Yes there is a big difference.

Can you say the COD1 can be sold by the same price you bought a few years ago? Of course not.
Owning a car doesn't give you value. You lose value. You buy a car for $10k. Then go for a 20k mile ride. Can you actually sell back the car for $10k?

We can't compare with manufacture because they are completely different things. I just used cars to point out the idea of same issue of selling 2nd hand cars if you don't count the issue of part selling for repairs. Anyway let this car compare die out. It wasn't a good choice to start with.

Yeah, it's not a good comparison, but you've made my point that intellectual property can't be compared to standard physical goods we are familiar with. We should not expect to treat them as such.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

This is the result of the distorted mentality of the producers who think that "anything that hurts my profit must be illegal".

No producers have said it's illegal, no producers are producing ads declaring it illegal. It's just certain companies saying it "hurts sales", which they may be right about. The legality of it is not in question in this thread. Just the ethics. It is absolutely legal. And no one is campaigning to make it illegal either, but companies are introducing measures to make it more difficult, and less appealing.

Personally I think it's absolutely wrong to lump up piracy and file-sharing. By accepting that file-sharing = piracy we are dancing in their hands. Piracy is a crime, equiparing file-sharing to piracy is a sure to way to get people to think file-sharing is a crime as well, and that's exactly what they want.
In truth, if you think about it, file-sharing is more akin to the common practive of borrowing and lending books than the criminal action of few individuals that falsify products thus earning money (key word here) that is meant to be delivered to someone else.

Not really, the difference is that when you borrow a book, there's only one copy. When filesharing you are literally copying it and giving it away illegally without paying royalties to the original author. There is a reason it's called COPYright. Some of the earliest instances of media piracy was the illegal copying of scores and perfomances of the Gilbert and Sullivan play "HMS Pinafore". Their next operetta "Pirates of Penzance" was apparently chosen purposelly to refer to these media pirates of the day. Famously America's copyright laws were very lax at the time and did not recognise foreigners copyrights, resulting in hundreds of unsanctioned performances.

In the end even if file-sharing was banned altogether you could still use internet to create a vast community of people that lends and borrows copyrighted material, thus allowing a single individual to enjoy hundreds of products without paying for any of them. It woud be a lot harder, more costly, but still less costly than buying the products themselves and it would be still feasible. Hell this actually existed before the internet era! But now that internet exists you cannot prevent this from becoming a mass phenomenon, rather than remaining a small circle as it was in the past.

Until they decide to ban borrowing and lending as well.

Whether you call it "borrowing" or whatever, the guys that develop these things have to get paid. Last time I checked most parts of the game industry weren't rolling dough, it's not like this is hollywood where they pay their actors absurd salaries. Games aren't cheap to develop, if no one pays, none get developed. The more money goes to your preferred developers the more games you'll get. This is particularly relevant when talking about the smaller more independent developers, not the EA/Activision juggernauts of this world. I'm all for you paying the least amount possible, but you may as well choose the method that guarantees the most you pay goes to them, and not to middlemen who add nothing to the process. In the case of second hand buying, you're paying for it, but the only reason you would actually pay for it isn't there, as the original company gets none of it.

I mean really, what is the point in buying second hand? If you're going to go for the cost argument you can just download it. And what's wrong with the developers getting money for what they make (if it's good...)? If you spent that much time and effort making something I'm sure you'd want to get paid to. And the more money they make the more money/time they can spend on their next game -> the better the next game should be. As a consumer you should want the maximum amount of the money you pay to go the original authors.

I don't support draconian punishments for filesharers, I think they should try and work around it, and produce a good enough product that people will want to pay, rather then wasting their resources suing potential customers. On the other hand, I don't think we should let it get into the heads of society as a whole that filesharing is A OK. Devs should maintain the precedent of opposing filesharing, while doing little about it in reality. And actually, I think that's exactly the approach the vast majority are taking, across the media industry.

[Vexx]

No producers have said it's illegal, no producers are producing ads declaring it illegal. It's just certain companies saying it "hurts sales", which they may be right about. The legality of it is not in question in this thread. Just the ethics. It is absolutely legal. And no one is campaigning to make it illegal either, but companies are introducing measures to make it more difficult, and less appealing.

Um, you need to pay more attention to what is actually being lobbied by these industry consortiums and their ilk - as well as what their heads and spokesman claim. They are going to take it as far as they can push it. Now I'm speaking mostly of "passive entertainment" (movies, music, etc) rather than "participative" entertainment. The game industry (being younger) seems to be more active in addressing the problem rather than shooting their customers in the kneecaps. The music and movie industry is driven by people who don't use computers, don't "get" the Internet, and may not even know anyone under the age of 25 I suppose I could dig up a dozen or so quotes from industry moguls but it happens often enough the ACLU and the EFF regularly publish them. "Pay per view" is their nirvana.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Um, you need to pay more attention to what is actually being lobbied by these industry consortiums and their ilk - as well as what their heads and spokesman claim. They are going to take it as far as they can push it.

This. They're trying to pass laws to make torrenting and streaming from unauthorized sources a criminal offense, not just a civil matter. So yes, they are trying to lobby their way to a legal "right to profit."

COICA/PROTECT IP and whatever else they call it next time the same law comes up would give the ability for any media conglomerate to play unfair and make false DMCA claims against independent artists who refuse to use traditional publishing methods... this has already been done on a small scale using the DMCA. With the DNS-banning crap they keep trying to get passed, entire websites can be brought to a screeching halt if even the suspicion of "piracy" is claimed.

Wouldn't that be a juicy target for the RIAA? A website that promotes indie music publication for artists who want to cut out the middlemen, shut down without even the slightest amount of investigation by a bogus claim of "infringement" even where none exists at all? If some user was misbehaving and uploaded a few ripped MP3s, the whole site goes down, even for those who weren't doing anything wrong other than DARING to challenge the mighty RIAA and publish their music themselves?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

This. They're trying to pass laws to make torrenting and streaming from unauthorized sources a criminal offense, not just a civil matter. So yes, they are trying to lobby their way to a legal "right to profit."

COICA/PROTECT IP and whatever else they call it next time the same law comes up would give the ability for any media conglomerate to play unfair and make false DMCA claims against independent artists who refuse to use traditional publishing methods... this has already been done on a small scale using the DMCA. With the DNS-banning crap they keep trying to get passed, entire websites can be brought to a screeching halt if even the suspicion of "piracy" is claimed.

Wouldn't that be a juicy target for the RIAA? A website that promotes indie music publication for artists who want to cut out the middlemen, shut down without even the slightest amount of investigation by a bogus claim of "infringement" even where none exists at all? If some user was misbehaving and uploaded a few ripped MP3s, the whole site goes down, even for those who weren't doing anything wrong other than DARING to challenge the mighty RIAA and publish their music themselves?

you mean employees of the RIAA.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

you mean employees of the RIAA.

I wouldn't be surprised if they planted evidence maliciously and then tried to claim infringement. I wouldn't be surprised by anything the RIAA and MPAA do at this point. They are terrified that the internet will end their reign as the sole proprietors of the entertainment industry, and scared people can do some amazingly facepalmy things.

[Random32]

Its odd that piracy which makes nobody money is illegal, while reselling which denies the creator multiple sales and makes the reselling facilitator profit. I would also expect reselling to lost sale ratio be significantly higher than torrent to lost sale ratio since the person is actually handing over money.

I would argue that piracy produces sales. Every single anime that I own was bought after pirating it. The vast majority of my games were also bought after pirating them.

I think more producers should allow free trials. This already happens for more expensive stuff. For example, enterprise software (ERP, etc) will often have people help set up a proof of concept for you to prove that their software is so much better than everything else. Games/etc don't exactly rake in the same amount of money with every single sale, but at least give us some form of trial before we are expected to buy. I propose (of course nobody is going to listen, but anyways) that game publishers give a 1 week trial of games. That is slightly longer than the period of time I generally am playing a game before I buy it, if I like it, sale, if I don't, well tough luck. If you didn't give me a free trial, I would pirated it, decided against buying, and you wouldn't have my money anyways. Maybe for movies, an on demand free watch, no trying to catch it on television/etc. I've bought movies since I have Netflixed them and wanted them for my own collection, Netflix has generated Hollywood a fairly large sum of money from me, there is no reason Hollywood can't do the same sans-Netflix.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

This is stupid. If you buy something, it belongs to YOU. What you do with it after buying it is up to you, NOT to the company that made it. Any laws that make this false are by definition fucking retarded and should be deleted.

According to them you bought a license to use their stuff. This works much better when you consider something like Steam rather discs from Game$top. If you get free physical media just in case you lost yours, that would make a much more convincing argument for the physical media people.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Random32

According to them you bought a license to use their stuff. This works much better when you consider something like Steam rather discs from Game$top. If you get free physical media just in case you lost yours, that would make a much more convincing argument for the physical media people.

Exactly, they want to shuffle in their favor both ways... except there's a lot of us out here who have actually worked with "software licensing" and aren't willing to let them have it both ways quietly.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Um, you need to pay more attention to what is actually being lobbied by these industry consortiums and their ilk - as well as what their heads and spokesman claim. They are going to take it as far as they can push it. Now I'm speaking mostly of "passive entertainment" (movies, music, etc) rather than "participative" entertainment. The game industry (being younger) seems to be more active in addressing the problem rather than shooting their customers in the kneecaps. The music and movie industry is driven by people who don't use computers, don't "get" the Internet, and may not even know anyone under the age of 25 I suppose I could dig up a dozen or so quotes from industry moguls but it happens often enough the ACLU and the EFF regularly publish them. "Pay per view" is their nirvana.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

This. They're trying to pass laws to make torrenting and streaming from unauthorized sources a criminal offense, not just a civil matter. So yes, they are trying to lobby their way to a legal "right to profit."

COICA/PROTECT IP and whatever else they call it next time the same law comes up would give the ability for any media conglomerate to play unfair and make false DMCA claims against independent artists who refuse to use traditional publishing methods... this has already been done on a small scale using the DMCA. With the DNS-banning crap they keep trying to get passed, entire websites can be brought to a screeching halt if even the suspicion of "piracy" is claimed.

Wouldn't that be a juicy target for the RIAA? A website that promotes indie music publication for artists who want to cut out the middlemen, shut down without even the slightest amount of investigation by a bogus claim of "infringement" even where none exists at all? If some user was misbehaving and uploaded a few ripped MP3s, the whole site goes down, even for those who weren't doing anything wrong other than DARING to challenge the mighty RIAA and publish their music themselves?

Guys, you're quoting me out of context. You're talking about industry wanting to clamp down on streaming and filesharing, and make them illegal. I'm talking about SECOND HAND SALES. I don't know of any industry body that has said that resale(of media and entertainment) is illegal, only that it damages sales-> profits. We have other threads to discuss illegal downloading and the RIAA etc., could we not stick to the resale issue?

I've said so earlier, but I think resale harms industry sales more then filesharing, as those are actual sales, whereas many of the people who fileshare would never have bought the product anyway. A second hand sale has a much higher probability of being an actual lost sale, then an illegal download.

And yet resale is legal, and filesharing is illegal. Consider which practices are most harmful to the producer, and which practice is most beneficial to the consumer, in practice. In practice resale may be more harmful to producers then filesharing. Meanwhile Filesharing is definetely more beneficial to the consumer then resale, as that allows the consumer to get the product for free.

So by this logic, filesharing is better then resale. Obviously I'm looking at this from a game perspective, but I think it also would apply to most other types of media. Previously resale was generally allowed as it benefited the consumer by increasing access to media. However filesharing also does this far more effectively as well...

I'd be interested in hearing if you guys think I'm using faulty logic

[Jan-Poo]

So by this logic, filesharing is better then resale

The problem is your standard to define what is "better".

Let's even suppose that second hand sales hurt the industries' profit more than file-sharing does (I haven't seen any actual reliable data so I'll take it with a grain of salt), you can obviously only conclude that file sharing is "better" using the logic of "what hurts my profit is bad" that I was mentioning before. Although I'm ready to bet that the industries involved wouldn't say "it's better" but rather "it's less bad".


However from a moral standpoint in my opinion there is absolutely no difference, there is no better or worse in those two cases. Whether it's done by file-sharing or second hand sales the effect is still that more people enjoy a copyright a product while the owner only gets paid once.

From a legal standpoint then, in many countries file-sharing would be worse simply because it is illegal while resale is not.

I don't know of any industry body that has said that resale(of media and entertainment) is illegal, only that it damages sales-> profits

They didn't say it's illegal simply because it's not! But when they say "it hurts my profit" you read it "we must make it illegal". You really need to better understand how their minds work. Rest assured that whoever raised this issue didn't do it just for sport.

Last time someone complained that 50 years aren't enough for a copyrighted material to become public doman, they raised it to 70 years. For no plausibly logical reason other than "we can milk the cow for 20 additional years".

[Random32]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

The problem is your standard to define what is "better".

Let's even suppose that second hand sales hurt the industries' profit more than file-sharing does (I haven't seen any actual reliable data so I'll take it with a grain of salt), you can obviously only conclude that file sharing is "better" using the logic of "what hurts my profit is bad" that I was mentioning before. Although I'm ready to bet that the industries involved wouldn't say "it's better" but rather "it's less bad".


However from a moral standpoint in my opinion there is absolutely no difference, there is no better or worse in those two cases. Whether it's done by file-sharing or second hand sales the effect is still that more people enjoy a copyright a product while the owner only gets paid once.

From a legal standpoint then, in many countries file-sharing would be worse simply because it is illegal while resale is not.

1. "Better is what hurts my profits less" Since second hand sales hurt profit more as the resale to lost sale ratio is undoubtedly more than piracy as it is an actual sale rather than something for free, filesharing is better than resales.

2. From a moral standpoint, I would say filesharing is better since no one profits off of it. The people that facilitate the reselling of used games make money off of denying sales from the creator. That is just as low as making copies and selling. Also, I would argue, that if you were willing to pay money for a resale, but not a new copy, the more morally correct way to obtain a copy would be to pirate a copy and send a random person on the dev team the amount that you were willing to pay for the used copy. Of course, moral viewpoints can differ, this is just from mine.

3. "Unjust laws should be disobeyed" Following that, assuming people share my moral viewpoint, everyone should pirate and send money to the dev team equivalent to what they would have spent on used games. I think the dev team would appreciate that more than buying things from a company that profits off of denying them sales.

[Nosauz]

DonQuigleone, actually the industry is using the false equivocation of detriment to sales to immoral or immorality, look at the countless developers harping over used game sales, the attacking of Gamestop(ps I still hate them but it's true) the continued shift to locking content behind one time use codes for games. The whole point of this strategy is to capture the profit loss when a used sale is made. Many publishers and developers have equated second hand sales as "theft" because they do not see any profit, sure it's a bad thing but to equate it to actual theft is absolutely wrong, does it mean it's theft when I over hear a song on someone's boombox? Is it theft when I talk about what happened in last nights game? The problem is these companies want the exposure of their products but also want to control every interaction with the consumer and they just haven't found away to control that, and here they are.

[risingstar3110]

I actually agree on Jan-Poo about whether it's "good" or "bad" when it comes to license/ second-hand sale, seems to be dictated by the level of profit loss by the corporation owner. And if the government follow that standard to pass on further law, then they are nothing more than corporation pawn.

Taking game for example, one of an advertising tactic is giving out trial, or promotion to get people hying on or hooking in the game, so they will buy the disk later. If by their definition, it would be a thief to participate in those because you did enjoy (more or less) a licensed media without paying. But it's marketing and everyone seems to be ok with that. This would be no difference with "illegal" downloading it and testing out but found it not excited enough to buy

[synaesthetic]

These assholes have some huge solid-steel balls to get up out there and openly claim that they have a legal right to profit.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

You can't own a game. It's like owning music. You don't "own" the music. Ownership implies you can do modify it and sell it to whoever you want. Resale is meaningful in the case of physical objects as in their case the object has physical value. The intellectual value of the care design is far less valuable then the car itself. And really, software has always been a "license" or "lease" system. Noone has ever owned their software as then you'd have permission to replicate it on masse. Ownership implies you can do what you want with it.

You own the media that it came on. Ethically speaking you should not duplicate it, nor should you modify it, but what's wrong with selling that media (and the license it comes with) to someone else?

The companies are just trying to find another way to create more customers. Cutting off second-hand sales is a potential way to do that.

[james0246]

I think the easiest way for game companies to recoup their losses from second hand selling is to publish more DLC. I bought a second hand copy of Dragon Ages: Origins (for about 20$ below retail price), but I liked the game so much I then shelled out another 40+ dollars on DLC (or however much all the DLC cost). So, no matter what the game company made money off of my purchase of their product, even if the product was bought second hand. Just looking at this upcoming year, I expect I will spend a large amount on DLC for Skyrim, Gears of War III, Resistance 3, etc, so even if I get these games from secondary sources (some of them I will, others I will want upon release), I will still end up giving money directly to their publishers when I purchase any DLC.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by james0246

I think the easiest way for game companies to recoup their losses from second hand selling is to publish more DLC. I bought a second hand copy of Dragon Ages: Origins (for about 20$ below retail price), but I liked the game so much I then shelled out another 40+ dollars on DLC (or however much all the DLC cost). So, no matter what the game company made money off of my purchase of their product, even if the product was bought second hand. Just looking at this upcoming year, I expect I will spend a large amount on DLC for Skyrim, Gears of War III, Resistance 3, etc, so even if I get these games from secondary sources (some of them I will, others I will want upon release), I will still end up giving money directly to their publishers when I purchase any DLC.

If it's like Horse armor, I'll pass, if it's like TF2's hats I'll pass, it just depends, I mean DLC has just taken the place of expansions but since they are a code that must be redeemed it takes away a lot of the "owner" or controlling of what you buy. It's just a very confusing topic due to developmental cycles, what is "dlc" is it anything after the games dev cycle or is things that are part of the dev cycle. The people who do it right, will continue to make money in theory, but if we look at the model, which is COD at 15dollars for 4 maps mostly reused, it doesn't bode well for the future.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by james0246

I think the easiest way for game companies to recoup their losses from second hand selling is to publish more DLC. I bought a second hand copy of Dragon Ages: Origins (for about 20$ below retail price), but I liked the game so much I then shelled out another 40+ dollars on DLC (or however much all the DLC cost). So, no matter what the game company made money off of my purchase of their product, even if the product was bought second hand. Just looking at this upcoming year, I expect I will spend a large amount on DLC for Skyrim, Gears of War III, Resistance 3, etc, so even if I get these games from secondary sources (some of them I will, others I will want upon release), I will still end up giving money directly to their publishers when I purchase any DLC.

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