Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

If you do find that one out then please let me know - I'd love to work on just the stuff I felt like doing too. Funny how people forget the investment in skills and experience!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I applaud your conviction in resigning and going somewhere else, that is a great sentiment to hold to convictions like that.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Why is it lacking in empathy to provide something in return for services rendered? This is basically how the world owrks when there are specialist. If not then everyone would be responsible for grown and harvesting their own food, providing for other creature comforts too and this debate wouldn't be happening in the first place.

If you want something then either provide it for yourself or recompense someone that has provided that service for you. I'm not saying that you can't innovate yourself but respect the wishes of the originator in the first place. If their work isn't worth the price they charge then it won't sell, simple.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Let's not mix the terms 'business model' and 'copyright' here. There are plenty of open source developers who are paid full-time to work on Free software (for example most linux kernel developers). Whether a project is Open Source has no bearing on piracy/copyright - Free software would not exist without the same rules that make commercial software possible, it's just that developers making a living from them employ different business models depending whether it's OSS or a classic commercial app. The question is whether you play by the rules or you don't (=act first, rationalize later, regardless of agreements, laws, etc). Open Source does NOT change that in any way. It is just as illegal (even if it's rarely called piracy) for a company or other people to use Open Source Software in ways not compliant with their licenses.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Well, you can applaude twice, because I did that twice.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I still don't see why I am supposed to give away for free something I worked on hard to create.

I could give it away, and that is fine. Or I could charge for it, and that is fine too. It is my decision, and the decision of the people that decide to use or not use my software.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I am a technical director of, amongst other things, a reasonably sized games company (80+ employees) so I think I know what is involved in the production. I also have another company producing commerical software. The aspects that are often not understood by the larger world is the QA and interaction requirements of commercial software - if your game crashes then you are rightly annoyed, but if your commercial software crashes and you loose business then the results are more important to you.

Commercial software requires graphic artists too if they have a GUI and also a serious amount of 'storyboarding' around the typical use of an application by end users.

Game software can also often get away with unsupported techniques (banging the metal) when commercial software has to play nicely and also work with upgrades in the underlying operating system too. game software also tends to be single use and then a sequel carries forward only library code if relevant. Backwards compatibility with the previous incarnation is not expected - would you expect to load the saved game file from a previous release? All of these issues have to be accoutned for.

Re: Angry Birds Levelpack back in OVI-Store (Edit: and now not, again...)
 

The charge is for the implimentation of the protocol. If you find a free alternate that does the same thing then you are free to use it. The creation of the implimentation is not always a simple thing and takes time. You are paying for the skills and experience of the developers involved in doing this.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

This might work for software that is a service model such as OS but not for applications that are one off hits. If it did then the commercial model would have shifted already. I would have loved to move to a peruse or subscription model years ago but I can't guarrantee that I would get payment as so many people are after getting something for free.

the other point you are missing here is that I can't see the average user in the street paying for a support contract for all software that they want to use. If you can find a method for ensuring that then I suspect the entire software development community would be beating a path to your door for the solution (which you would obviously provide for free)

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Heh, somehow that reminds me of Trumpet Winsock.
Back then, network stack was peddled as shareware...

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I wanted to buy angry birds to support the developer. i played level 1. The (insert random sware word) Ovi store would not let me purchase the level packs.

I turned away... I am not going to pirate this game but I lost interest. I am not going out of my way to pay someone 3 Euros ?!? where Nokia would then take one of it.

Piracy is GOOD for developers. I work for a software company - when I found out that someone in Russia cracked our licensing system I was smiling. This was free advertising in Russia for us. Eventually our developers closed the gap and the Russians are working on the next crack ;)

Not every pirated copy is a lost sale

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The question though is whether these are 'loss leaders' supported by other arms of the commercial enterprise. Unless the entire revenue stream is funded in this way then it can't be entirely held but the point is still valid generally.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Which is all fine and dandy.. you still haven't addressed my original question.

Why can I find (1000's arguably) excellent open source variants to "commercial" software... but maybe 10, if I'm lucky, proper and decent Open Sourced 3D games?

There's the difference. Difficulty be damned ( I don't want to get into a pissing match between cultures here.. personal bias and/or emotions are not the way to discuss something ) - what matters is what the end user can get.

I can get OSS that will replace my commercial needs... I can't get OSS software to replace my gaming needs.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The hardest for most developers to understand is that you have more choices than just those two. Sure, they are the simplest and most straightforward, but there are many many other business models to choose from.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

So if your company spent a large amount of time closing the gap and not working on something more innovative then that was good for the company? I really hope that you have a long hard think about this thought process if you ever make it into business yourself.

RE: The OVI store - Nokia provide a service for the developer (or not as it happens) so why should they not receive something? The amount is something for the publisher and Nokia to debate though. The point is though that Rovio are able to provide the software directly to you if they so wished.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I could give away a core of the software and charge for the premiums.
I could make it work at SaaS.
I could make it work in a client-server configuration, you needing to be connected to my net.
I could give it away and charge for the support.
I could make it transparent and sell it attached to a service/device, etc

Many options, but once again, if you develop something, isn't it yours to decide what to do with it?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I am in Software Sales.
I have the data - The crack helped us gain more business in Russia - significantly more.

"f your company spent a large amount of time closing the gap and not working on something more innovative"

no large amount of time was necessary - i would of kept the hole open if it was my decision but the techies were eager to prove they are better then the hackers. we will see what comes out of it.

Don't make assumptions about other people or companies if you don't have the data.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Lets look at the support center of any major business.

How many users call Dell technical support with their computer? Now.. that's not the *only* method Dell uses to make money, since Dell charged you for the computer too, but they do make a *substantial* amount of money just from their technical support division.

What about Adobe? Don't they have a support division as well? Don't they sell support?

Companies will always like to pay other companies to do what they could hire someone to do themselves. That's just the way it is.. and the reason why I hate working as an SA at so many companies. "Did you open a ticket?".. WTF? Why am I here then? Get a damned high-schooler to sit at your desk here and phone Microsoft every time a blip appears on the screen if that's what you want. Don't pay me silly amounts of money to be a messenger boy to Microsoft's support. Etc.

But.. companies do. That's how they work. And a good number of users do.. however, when money is involved - users are more picky about it. Many users will instead grab their Linux-using relative to come fix their computer :D.

Unless you're just such an *awesome* developer that the software you write works 100% of the time in *all* environments without tweaking.. in which I applaud you tremendously... there is money to be made in support.

The question is - is it enough money for you? Most businesses don't settle for enough to live on and keep the business running.. they want as much money as possible with the least amount of work.. so they over-charge, and then triple-charge for the same thing, just because they can. I personally think that's ridiculous. I don't mind people making money.. I do mind people taking advantage of other people just because they can.

That's why I'll support Red Hat over Microsoft. I hated when Red Hat dropped their official "free" operating system because I felt it wasn't in the spirit of what linux represents. Over time I've grown less zealotry.. they do work with CentOS, which provides a free alternative to their main enterprise system - and they also do a lot of work with Fedora - which is free.. so they made up for it in alternative ways.

Microsoft on the other hand wants you to pay, and then pay again, and then pay some more.. and oh wait - did you pay last minute? Cuz.. it's a new minute.. you need to pay again..

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

the point I was answering (as quoted) was that commercial software takes as long to develop and you were therefore saying that one should be compensated and not the other.

Part of the problem with games is that there are licencing costs and protection requirements involved. These are for games that are based on other media spins offs etceteras.

The other reason for not producing 3D games on an open source basis is possibly the lack of interest by developers. The other point is that most popular gaming platforms (volume) are not open sourced either as far as I am aware.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

So feel free to share your ideas with us. I would love to find somethign that paid my bills but no one has shown me a viable method so far.

The original debate though is not whether one model should be adopted or not, it is about whether it is ever justified to break the intent of the payment model.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Well you did this by stating earlier that piracy is good for developers!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Absolutely, it's just that when you say 'charge for it' most people will make the pay X$ -> get Y.exe connection and not consider the very valid alternatives you listed - which may or may not be better for a particular application/service. This is especially important for the N900 as it has no DRM -> the alternative business models are MUCH more appealing than the classic store one. This also one of the problems with Ovi and the N900. It was conceived as an AppStore alternative and has little to no support for alternative business models which COULD be clean and viable. No subscriptions, no service-based payments, no donations, no support payments, etc.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Piracy CAN be good for developers - I apologise

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

So this would work for games and the odd simple application too would it? Not to mention the overhead in creating and running a support centre?

The point of this thread is whether or not by passing the model of paid for software was ever justified though. can we please get back on topic?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I'm sorry, someone just gotta say this..

In Soviet Russia, Piracy helps sale!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Just like shoplifting can be good for stores. I mean if someone steals something then it lets the store know that that is a popular item right? They can then use that metric to stock more of that particular product.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Point noted - Unfortunately there is no thanks button here!

However, surely it would be better for the company if they didn't need to bother with protection mechanisms in the first place and just concentrated on the innvoative points of development though?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

It's not about the price per se, but a consequence of respecting the freedom of your users. You may or may not believe that people have a right to study, modify and share software, but some people do. Software freedom is like freedom of speech; you can't take it away from people by contract just because it's convenient for you to do so.


That's a perfectly valid point of view. But it's not the only point of view. Clearly, there are a lot of people that don't, in practice, support it.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Actually, the russian case above I think works like a sale\discount of some sort:

The company still looks legal because they purchase a number of licenses from the official vendor, but in reality they may be using 10x as many licenses in the field running the cracked apps.

The correct way to do this is just by offering an official discount to find the sweet spot for pricing when you're entering new market.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

@ewan: I'd like to see you sing and yell inside a cinema and try to stay inside by evoking your freedom of speech ;)

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

In that case I'll go away again.

A coherent, legitimate discussion I'll participate in. (difference in pay models, what developers should or shouldn't or could or couldn't do, etc).

Fruitless bantering I won't.

You aren't going to stop hackers from cracking DRM, or pirating software, by ranting on a backwater nobody forum. Even if this were somehow an official Pirate, or Anti-pirate forum where it was on topic and noticed by people that actually maybe could potentially almost make a difference... it won't.

And to just up and quit software development because you finally realized that you won't stop piracy is equally silly... you know there are pirates - you know your software will be pirated.. just like as an SA I know my systems can be hacked.. and if I'm popular enough are likely to get hacked eventually.

The effort then is damage mitigation.. whether you can make enough money off the people that do pay vs those that don't for you sleep happily at night.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

If they agree to the contract up front then why not? They have a freedom to choose another option so it is not a case of respecting their freedom at all. They are free to express their views as in free speech by choosing to not support or even to criticise the work, not to copy it directly without permission.

There is also a point of view that bashing people over the head and taking their goods and money is reasonable too but not one that I feel most people would claim as morally supportable.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Please feel free to start a new thread non that but this one has a specific title.

As an SA you are, I assume, paid for the work that you contribute to your clients. If your income was based on whether your systems sold to the general public that would be another matter.

I never said I was quitting software development. As a company however we will not be commercially supporting development on Maemo at present as we don't have a way of recouping substantial costs for development. We will simply persue other platforms as we have in the past to cover our investments.

As for knowing your systems can be hacked - All software can be broken eventually but I would hope you are doing due dilligence and trying to avoid that possibility unless he systems in question have no reason to be protected in the first place in which case is it really hacking?

The point though is not whether you can stay ahead in the 'game' but whether or not you should be having to do it in the first place!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I respect your right of opening or closing your software, so I also expect you respect my right of opening or closing sourcing mine. This mutual respect of what I don't see happening in the software world.

My point is: is we are talking about freedom, then I am free to do with my software whatever I want with it, like making it fully propietary or making it fully GPL compliant.

Since I am not coercing people into using my software, the only thing I would ask from them is to respect the rules by which I release my software, being them open or closed.

The problem here, is that many people use the argument of freedom to not respect such rules. There is, off course, people that use the propietary system to preserve knowledge secret, when it would benefit more people if it was shared.

I think there is where the patent system was supposed to help: you work hard, you get a breakthrough, and you get to enjoy the perks of it (propietary), and after some time, you are supposed to release the advancement for the common good (open).

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

That's a dreamworld right there. The honor system doesn't actually work.. you know ;).

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The trouble with arguing based on what 'most people' think is that an awful lot of people are completely fine with the idea of 'pirating' software, which is why it happens so much and so casually.

People like to share, to support each other, and we generally teach children that sharing what they have is the good and right thing to do. There's certainly an economic case to be made that government imposed restrictions on sharing are a necessary evil to promote useful creative work, but it's much harder to claim that preventing sharing is an abstract moral good.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The point exactly I was trying to make and I suppose the whole point of why this thread started in the first place!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I thought we also taught them to pay for what they use and that reward for effort expended is reasonable too?

the debate over release model is defiantely one that is worthy of attention but I thought the title of the thread implied that given a specific model had been chosen, was it right to by pass the given agreement.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Just to put more logs on the fire as this thread has entertained me today...

Google released chrome a while back accidentally left some verbiage in the EULA that essentially said absolutely everything you viewed or did through their browser became the property of google.

Now.. google did get a lot of flack for that and they fixed it.. and google would never dream of actually using that in a practical world.. but I just wanted to make sure that you are ok with the fact that I can write a browser.. distribute it and in a very lengthy and wordy EULA that nobody reads anyway say that any and all materials, and sub-materials, and any related materials - to any web page or access done through my browser.. is owned from that point forward, by me.

So all those people that don't read the EULA.. and download and use my browser, and then access their bank page (sending me all their information).. and via wordage in my EULA.. essentially turned over their bank accounts to me..

And I am now legally rich.. because hey - I can release my software under any aspect I deem necessary. A lot of people will complain I'm sure eventually.. but unlike Google I'm not interested in being nice.. so I'll continue to offer my browser, with that EULA, for download to everyone who doesn't read EULA's or google search.

I'm liking you...

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Well obviously they would have to own the rights to be able to grant that too you in the first place so there might be a few issues there! But i do like the business model! :D

As for turning over the bank account, mmm, no, they would potentially give you access to their security information as the bank account is a seperate entity.

Does make a sensible point about the daft language needed in the first place to make things work for the lawyers. Does however come back to the point that if people didn't try to copy software in the first place these things wouldn't be needed in the first place!

Ooh - maybe this is an arguement for the Hollywood buffs - DRM is only there because of the pirates! LOL (No, I am not serious about this!)