Piracy Vs. Alternative Entertainment:Which is the 'true' threat to the industry?

[Seanny]

SOPA.

PIPA.

CISPA.

All claim to be responding to the threat of piracy to our entertainment industry: however, 2 of the 3 imposed bills (not sure about CISPA's implications fully.) Would have resulted in potentially harming a lot of social media outlets such as youtube.

As we all know, piracy has been an issue for 20+ years: Movies have dealt with hard copy bootlegs floating around cities, Music has dealt with the 'tape recorder' and even before streaming became so common place... people were still burning CDs for their friends.

By some miracle, these two industries survived the years, but why has it become a bigger concern than ever in recent years for them? 2 things have changed in a major way since then: One being that streaming such materials has become easier, the other is the uprising of media by the common people: Youtube and various other websites. Talented people getting recognition without the approval of TV and spreading by word of mouth, online and off.



Let's look at the case for piracy: Everyday people are in fact getting what should be paid for, for free: but truthfully; how many are doing so? More importantly; how many of these people would have actually bought these products if the online source was not available? How many of these pirates actually had the money to spend to improve the said companies' bottom line? How many of them still, possibly have a local friend with a hard copy of their desired music/movie they could simply burn/rip a copy from anyway to avoid buying after all?

Now, my point is NOT that it should be okay for people to pirate: my point is... is the online stream factor TRULY responsible for any drop in revenue SO extreme that it JUSTIFIES bills that threaten the very freedom of speech that the people of America pride themselves on? Let's focus on those with the financial capability and desire to afford the products who pirate solely because the option is there.

What are the deterrents from piracy? Now, the biggest is the risk of mistakenly downloading a virus usually. Movies, you run the risk of wasting your time with a horrible quality bootleg, even online.

With games: you risk wasting your time with a bad crack: Enjoy your pokemon not getting exp ever. Now, most of these anti piracy measures can be beat: it just takes time... time the pirate is stuck waiting and falling behind waiting for AND trying to find while legit buyers get to have fun with right away. I actually like clever anti piracy methods such as these, that don't just stop a pirate from playing a game, but go as far as to WASTE their time before they're even fully realized to be playing a bad copy. Earthbound erased the players game at the VERY END. Batman: Arkham Asylum intentionally broke the glide mechanic if piracy was detected. Its a good practice, making the hunt for a good pirated copy, combined with the risk of virus, a huge waste of time can make a difference for those who can afford them and avoid the headache. It should be continued.

With the risk of bad quality and viruses in mind for pirates: lets look at the convenience factor. Something i thought about from reading Valve's well known Statements.

Steam offers a wide range of great games at low prices, and being fully digital minimizes costs for even better profitability. Netflix offers the same for movies. And for those who don't have such great connections... Redbox exists... both of which, might I add... really demolished store chains such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. If piracy really was such a huge threat... then one would assume that Blockbuster would have fallen maybe a few years sooner, when piracy became commonplace online. However, it took until 2010 for Blockbuster to finally declare bankruptcy. 3 years after Redbox had expanded and years after Netflix turned to streaming as well. The fact that blockbuster lasted so long until these two companies rose up seems to support the arguement of convenience over piracy harming existing industries.

In the music industry, we have itunes servicing songs all over. Convenience is powerful; not just to 'get what you want' quicker, but to pay for as much or as little as you need.

So we have a bit of evidence, 4 successful companies thriving by catering to convenience even in the face of piracy: So tell me... what else could be hurting the pockets of big media business?

Let's look at alternative Entertainment.

Let's be forward, people only have so much free time. you can make as much money as you can in life, but no matter what: you only have 24 hours.

Newgrounds series, Cracked articles, Homestuck and other webcomics, Youtube musicians, comedic series, animators, and many more: with access to so much online... how much time do you take out for those big names: let alone watching TV to benefit the Nielsen ratings? Movies? Music? Games?

Why worry about not being able to see X movie or playing Y game when so many great experiences are more easily accessed online? Newgrounds alone is a treasure trove: has tons of good games available to play, videos to watch and even musical talent. Deviantart can lead you to some amazing stuff. Why watch bob ross when Youtube has speedpaintings of sooo many talented people and lots more variety?

There seems to be little credit for how big of a slice we really take from the industry with our social media. Whether we notice or not, when we're bored these days... we're less likely to dig up some change for a movie to watch when there's such a huge variety of content right at our disposal. Perhaps everyone online has taken that from the bigger entertainment industry: I alone, when i visit certain relatives... when I was younger, we usually did find a good movie worth watching ... but now. I realized my visits have more become a challenge to see who's found better stuff to show the others online.

Has your habits changed in the last 5 years or so? Does Facebook keep you faced away from the TV? Could alternatives... competition... to big name entertainment actually have done more damage to the bottom line than even piracy?

I was kinda long winded. but here's my question. in a nutshell... are you not listening to

This....

Spoiler

Because of this?

Spoiler

[Untradeable]

I think your right in some sense. With all that is available now a days, We have more options to entertain ourselves than we had in the past 5 years. I can remember when I would spend hours watching TV, while nothing interesting was on, simply because I had nothing else to do (inb4 go outside etc hurr), Now, you can pretty much watch any movie/tv show any time you want for a minimal cost. Its the fact that people are willing to pay for the convience that allows us these options. But some of the industry leaders are feeling that the progress is hurting their money piles so they decided to use "Piracy" as a launching board to attempt to take back the profits they once had. Piracy isnt as big a deal as people think it is. If you have someone pirate a game and they really enjoy it, They will be more inclined to give favorable opinions to their friends/facebookers, some of which might actually buy the game and make the developers/publishers more money. The problem I think is that Publishers think that even if 1 person pirates their game, That they assume that they are losing massive profits when in fact, pirates might help in some fashion. Valve and other companies have come up with creative ways of combatting piracy in recent years, and its been fairly effective; Yes it inconveinces some people with the amount of DRM in some games, But overall I haven't seen a game fail just because it had annoying DRM.

[KhainiWest]

I haven't bought a ps3 game in about 6 months. I haven't purchased a pc game in a decade, excluding skyrim. Seriously, in a decade I purchased 1 pc game. The game's today are low quality and have no balance whats so ever. It's either heavily dependent on online, which is majority, or the first person is so stale and only offers a story mode that you get bored.

I would argue 90% of the games are just downloadable content quality. Seriously call of duty/battlefield? They didn't revolutionalize anything. They made it multiplayer only, no solo content, besides a goddamn story, with no more depth but a story with small details changed. HELL THE GAMES ARENT EVEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME TO EVEN PUT THE EFFORT TO PIRATE. That's terrible.

[Exidous]

Piracy matters the same way a competitor matters from the perspective of a company. It's another entity that provides a substitute (in this case, often identical) product. It hurts the bottom line the same way Coke's bottom line is hurt every time you buy Pepsi "instead". The difference in this analogy is that there is basically no marginal cost to make another unit of the good, unlike the cost to make a can of Pepsi. But the same is true for our "Coke", they don't pay anything either for one more DVD.

Coke made a serious matter out of people asking for a coke at restaurants and being served Pepsi. They would actually threaten to sue any establishment caught doing that. That's why you hear "is Pepsi ok?" now. What was Coke's case based on? Intellectual property. The name Coke, and presumably all the advertising and work done by Coca-Cola Inc was actually selling a competitor's product. But working things through, how should a court decide the damages that Coke should be awarded? Based on the advertising money they spent with no guarantee it would translate into sales? Or based on the cost of the substituted products? Returning to the analogy, if it's the former, granny gets sued for $300,000 per song downloaded. If it's the latter, then only pirates who sell others' intellectual property are subject to damages.

My stand is that there is a categorical difference between goods with inherent cost and goods with no inherent cost. Copying digital information has no cost besides the trivial, it should not be afforded the same protections as something with tangible value.

There isn't really a credible argument to be made that piracy is a particular threat "now" as opposed to previously. Media owners instead recognize that whenever there is a technology shift, they have a new opportunity to keep it on their terms, usually through legislation. They went after the VCR, they went after p2p, they're going after streaming.

Watch the next format war to understand how crucial these companies view technology shifts.

Certainly there are more things competing for people's attention, however I'd say media that can be digitized is a more significant aspect of human culture now than at any point in the past. Whether a bit in question is owned by an existing large media company is more or less immaterial to the change.

[Chew]

I would argue 90% of the games are just downloadable content quality. Seriously call of duty/battlefield? They didn't revolutionalize anything. They made it multiplayer only, no solo content, besides a goddamn story, with no more depth but a story with small details changed. HELL THE GAMES ARENT EVEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME TO EVEN PUT THE EFFORT TO PIRATE. That's terrible.

While I believe you are right that those games didn't revolutionalize anything at all... is there anything to rev anyway?
I'm not excusing those games for being sh'itty games, but the sole argument of revolutionlize I think is not valid anymore 'cuz is really hard to achieve that for game devs nowadays (See kinect).

[KhainiWest]

While I believe you are right that those games didn't revolutionalize anything at all... is there anything to rev anyway?
I'm not excusing those games for being sh'itty games, but the sole argument of revolutionlize I think is not valid anymore 'cuz is really hard to achieve that for game devs nowadays (See kinect).

That's probably the wrong word I want to use. I'm tired of them rehashing the same game every year or two. Mario galaxy was amazing, even with the same generic story line. It's that creativity we're missing right now.