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Why I Pirate - An Open Letter to Content Creators

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wraith808:
https://www.insightcommunity.com/step2/311/why-i-pirate-an-open-letter-to-content-creators

One 'pirate' explains why he downloads for free, and how to get his money.

Reading this, I saw echoes of my experience.  When I was a teen with no money, I obtained cracks and warez off BBSes, and distributed it through sneaker-net to my friends.  As I grew older and left college and got a job, I stopped, and started buying to support the industry, because I liked the games they were putting out.

Then it all started to go to crap, as the industry became larger and more exposed to those that wanted to make money and didn't care about games.  I still don't pirate out of principle, but it is very rare that I'll buy new games now.  One, I have a large backlog.  But that's not the real reason.  The game industry itself has made me not buy new titles off the shelf.  For one, there is a lot of signal to noise, especially with the pressure to release on a certain date rather than complete a good game.  For two, because the fact that most games aren't finished and aren't good, they go down in price really quickly.  And for three, because they have started to really overprice games, just for the sake of all of them being at the same price point, and, in the name of one game exec, "because they can".  As the writer points out, the internet took that away- they have to convince the consumers to buy, because their content is not held and their leisure.  I hope that the game industry can learn easier than the movie and recording industries because of the difference in the structure of the industry (i.e. no MPAA/RIAA to tell them that they're right and everyone else is wrong).  But I have my doubts.

One final thing I wanted to highlight, and it echoes something Renegade has been saying for a while:

I will still give you my money if you make me happy. The sad part is there are still times where I would gladly pay for something but the content creator has left me no choice but to download it. Techdirt seems to post a story like that once a week. I'm not going to deny myself the enjoyment of your creation just because you haven't figured out how to collect.

--- End quote ---

rgdot:
Before I comment, I want to say that this thread - along with its title - will bring more interesting search queries to DC  ;)

Be back after I read it fully.

wraith808:
The tl;dr version - basically:


* Give your customers the opportunity to try your product in full
* Make it available unrestricted
* Make it available to all markets at once
* Price it realistically
* Cut out any unnecessary steps between loading the product and watching/listening/playing it
* Be honest to your customers (both in terms of trailers & PR)
* Add value not blockages
* Make it as easy to buy as it is to pirate.
And accept that not everyone will buy a copy but more will buy it than would have under your current tactics.

rgdot:
Living in a society/system where in some jurisdictions public companies are required by law to maximize profits it is almost naive to expect less from them. They will suffer some of the consequences - it is irrelevant how much those consequences are exaggerated by them - but will not stop, guaranteed.

wraith808:
Living in a society/system where in some jurisdictions public companies are required by law to maximize profits it is almost naive to expect less from them. They will suffer some of the consequences - it is irrelevant how much those consequences are exaggerated by them - but will not stop, guaranteed.
-rgdot (March 08, 2012, 02:00 PM)
--- End quote ---

But I've heard it's insanity to continue to do the same things and get the same (or worse) results.  Their current tactics are *not* resulting in increased profits.  The amount they spend on lobbyists and the amount of ill-will they create far outweigh the few results they do get.

Even when shown the truth, they still fight against it.  Case in point- Apple wanted to increase the length of the samples available in iTunes because research had shown that this increased purchases. [1], [2]

Even given this, the music industry fought against it, first saying no, then attempting to get performance rights for a 60-90 second clip.  Greed is the only explanation for something that's better for the consumers and the publishers to be held for ransom like this.

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