The piracy issue...

[Guest]

aloha said :

"...copied a friends record, or borrowed a friends video or book. "

nullThese are not the same. A copy is illegal, borrowing to view or read is not.

It is not illegal to borrow a CD from a friend and even making a copy won't break the law.

The EU currently decides over new laws effecting IP, but the former won't be changed.

[Guest]

At the moment all the media giants try desperately to find a good copy protection and I do believe it is their right as they are the first to distribute the product and they want to make as much money as they can.

Unfortunately they use illegal procedures:

1. Music-CDs very often can't be played back on normal CD players, because the company changed the format. The CDs are actually not CD-standard any more, though they still carry a CD-labelling.

2. Software is copyprotected, although it is every customers' right to have one copy. If the CD is copyprotected the company is forced by law to supply the customer with an extra CD, yet most companies refuse to, arguing it's not necessary and the customer would give the CD to a friend anyway.

[Guest]

To aloha:

Furthermore I respect everyone making a descent living, especially musicians. But even without protecting IP they can make enough money, as reality shows they own the best distribution places plus they have a time advantage, simply because they release the product first (Which allows them to sell their product more than once).

Laws are also on their side, but (and here I'd like to link to the comparison with prostitution) times change. For instance Germany recently turned prostitution into a legal profession, including every connected business like what pimps do.

I think it will take some time until people understand, that IP only exists until you make it public.

[Ashman]

How did American Budweiser get away with copying the name of a fine Czech beer and produce a lower standard version?

I think the energy drink 'Red Bull' has been copied aswel. I met a guy who worked for the US based Red Bull company who said they just changed a small detail in the design of the label and the original co gets no royalties.

[SoiledCowboy]

Maybe I should elaborate, as yet again, with all the problems in the world, I cannot quite come to grips with the front-page (large corporate driven?), so important issue of digital information piracy and how it affects the man in the street. When I said software authors, hey, let's not get legalistically pedandtic - whoever owns and offers for sale the stuff is what I was trying to convey. Someone please answer the question posed - how can you expect, realistically, ever, to have your software or music or data creation properly protected in the digital world! Can't really be done with any great success, can it? With all the pontificating from software designers/marketers/licencing bodies etc to date, they fail, deliberately, to accept that their product can ever be offered protection from unauthorised duplication and distribution. And NO, I am not therefore advocating the mass duplication and distribution of software or other digital media. Just trying to address some facts. Maybe therefore, if your game is at all related to digital media, then you would be wholesalely unrealistic to expect that some or all of it would ever be "secure" from unauthorised distribution. A bit like selling a book or magazine with software-like licencing in the purchase - wouldn't work would it! Wouldn't make any sense. So maybe current software licencing is legally water-tight, but in the real-world somewhat impossible to enforce.

Maybe the software industry should consult the book publishing industry for better common-sense approaches to licencing and revenue protection for their product.

As an aside, in my local newspaper and the prominent national computer magazine, Microsoft places ads endeavouring people to contact them an "dob-in" a piracy cheat. Yes, become Microsoft's policeman for them! Hey, and I always thought that the law was enforced by the governmental system.

[SoiledCowboy]

Oh, and by the way, the last post by me is copywrited and can only be re-produced by obtaining for a reasonable fee, a proper Licence from me.

Yes, very silly I know, but how could/should I ever expect in the real-world that with the means available to all to do just as they please with my product/intellectual property, that anyone would ever comply. I can rave and rant all I like about it but ultimately, if I publish to a digital outlet then once it is out of my hands I have lost control over it.

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[adikgede]

quote:

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Originally posted by SoiledCowboy:

Oh, and by the way, the last post by me is copywrited and can only be re-produced by obtaining for a reasonable fee, a proper Licence from me.

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Well this is interesting what happens when the fair market value is less than an unauthorised copy?

A pirated AOL coaster would make an amusing addition to my collection of oddities.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by SoiledCowboy:

Someone please answer the question posed - how can you expect, realistically, ever, to have your software or music or data creation properly protected in the

digital

world! Can't really be done with any great success, can it?

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You are absolutely correct. Technologically it is not even possible, because pirates can always come up with a way to get around protections. (Except in special case like online games, where users pay a monthly service fee and use the services of a remote computer - hard to get around that.)

Public attitude against pirates is about the only way to control it. Or massive enforcement. Forget about any of this happening in thailand. Even if for some reason Purichai decided stopping pirates was a policy priority, and Pantip, etc. were shut down tomorrow, it would just go more underground and you might have to 'know someone'. The economics are just too powerful.

I was in Pantip plaza yesterday, and I noticed that a lot of legit game software is sold quite a bit cheaper than in the States. 300-400B. Most of it clearly specially made for the Thai market, some titles labeled "For Sale in Thailand Only". Clearly some companies get that then can lower their prices in different markets.

I belive intellectual property rights. I make my living from developing and selling my intellectual property. But I also belive in the slogan "Information WANTS to be free". It's really kind of natural. It's not like other commodities that are scarce. You can make a zillion copies and it still maintains it's value (not talking about monetary value here). One of the modern world's paradoxes.

This is actually a facinating debate IMO, though nanaplaza is probably not the place for it. If all intellectual property rights were stripped, would the world be a better place to live? Anybody could use any software, music, manufacture and sell any pharmaceutical, rather that the 'owner' holding a monopoly? Would creativity and capital formation necessary for large projects be so devistated that innovation would halt? Or would it contiunue in a new (maybe non-corporate) form, where everybody, rich and poor alike benefit?

[jingjoh]

It was my understanding that the Thai versions of all the current games available here are written in Thai, and there is no English manual in the box, although the vendors have told me there is English in the online manual or the manual on the CD rom. So if you can be bothered to print out the manual from the CD or read it this way then the games do represent good value at up to 500 baht or so each.