Videogames piracy - Why so much hate?

[Napoléon]

Some real studies done by real scientists ...

Yeah, nice try. Nowhere in that entire article does it actually prove with any empirical data that I'm wrong. It's a good article, but ultimately fiddles with sources and numbers to support a pre-made conclusion. Yet again, it's all conjecture, conjecture based on a fucking questionnaire of all things.

Also, the "scientists" (researchers would be a more suitable word IMO) in that article are quoted and given a spin from the guy who wrote the page. Many of the sources he quotes fly in the face of what he's actually saying, but he tries to give excuses as to why they're wrong.

A guy in the comments did a pretty good dismantling job of the finer points and sources on that page, so I'll just quote that.

*sigh*

The problem with surveys is that people lie. And reading through just the first six pages of the IFPI is their foregone conclusion that P2P is to blame for being available to people. They directly asked these people if P2P wasn’t available, would they still buy music? 33% said yes. And yet… How are they supposed to do that? What does the music landscape look like? What is available from 2005 to now, that could increase sales? Hint: the music landscape is pretty sparse

… (reading all 27 pages)

“Economics predicts the decisions whether to acquire
music illegally (participation decision) and how much
(activity decision) will depend on access to relevant
resources including computers and broadband. It
will also depend on the legal sanctions for piracy and
preferences or attitudes to criminal behaviour.”

HA! That’s certainly not biased…

“Pi = p*s
Where,
Pi = expected sanction (price of illegal downloading
or piracy)
p = probability of being caught
s = the sanction”

Nowhere does it talk about legal availability of a good or anything else… And what is it about a consumer surplus over a good that seems to be such a taboo subject?

[tangent]Reading this, I’m reminded of the Dictator Experiment:
It shows one side of an experiment without really going into all parts. At first, the experiment seems to show the altruistic side of people. But the devil is in the details. The Foundations of Human Sociality shows that people will give. The experiments ran and showed that people would give every time. Enter John List who showed the fallacy of the research.

What I’m critical about is the selection bias that’s inherent in just the first link. Like John List, if you have someone scrutinizing your actions, it’s going to weigh the data considerably in the wrong direction. Merely asking people “would you download if only legal options were available”, and someone taking your answer is NOT the way you can prove the data. Unfortunately, most of John List’s data was from interviews but I’ll put down some of the data here.

When running the Dictator experiment changed variables:
Classic game – Decide to give people some, all, or none of your cash. Result – 70% of people gave some money to another and the average donation was ~ 25%

2nd version – variable the same, but you can take $1 from second person. Result- 35% gave in second experiment, 45% didn’t give a penny and the remaining 20% took $1 from second person.

3rd version – Person A given same amount of money as person B. Options – Person A can steal B’s paycheck or give B a portion of her own money. Result – 10% give B money, 60% took from Person B and more than 40% took all of Person B’s money.

4th version – Identical to the third but one twist – Both players had to work for the money. Now, only 28% took from Person B. 2/3 of the people neither gave nor took a penny.[/tangent]

What the very first link shows is a selectional bias that I doubt anyone notices. You have a questionnaire and that’s it. What the cross sectional analysis shows, I doubt is the entire procedure. Most people try music before they buy, that’s been true since Napster. What isn’t coming up is what other music purchases people are doing instead? The entire project assumes that the ones that get free music would rather have spent their money on CDs or downloading elsewhere.

And this:

“The Industry Canada commissioned 2005 survey thus clearly supports the view that stronger copyright laws that effectively reduce and deter free P2P music file-sharing would tend to increase music purchasing and music industry sales and, by implication, increase artist revenues and industry employment and contribute to both economic growth and higher government tax revenues. Whereas weaker copyright laws reduce music purchases, music industry sales, artist revenues, industry employment, GDP and government tax revenues.

Is easily refuted. I won’t doubt that some people stopped purchasing music and now have the music that they want on mp3. But this absolutely ignores transformative use of music, and the music industry in general. Yes, you can tax the daylights out of an mp3 and create a black market. But nowadays, there’s more ways to make money, which this report absolutely ignores. Could it be that some of these people have done other things with their money, say… College students and concerts or kids buying guitars, that are really hard to track. And of course, I’d really love to see the music industry saying that the money they’ve gotten has increased. That’d really put this report to bed.

I'd also like to point out, your article refers entirely to the music industry, which is another ball game to the gaming industry. Going back to what I said earlier, your view is too simplistic. There's different factors involved in the different entertainment mediums.

Also, this post was made by a guy who runs the "copyright alliance". I question how unbiased this source can really be. Looking at the whole thing, seems to me they've played with the 'numbers' just as much as they say others have. This is a guy who supports SOPA btw.

Lastly, it's funny how he quotes so many sources to back up what he's saying throughout (which seem painfully skewed in my opinion, but I don't have the time to assess each individual one), but the most crucial point he makes, has no information at all?

This seems like common sense if you think about it: if you can “sample” an entire work, over and over again, whenever and wherever you want, why would you ever buy it? Never mind that if piracy’s positive benefits were greater than the negative effects, we wouldn’t be having this debate, since creators and media industries would be doing better rather than worse after a decade of file-sharing.

For one, where is the evidence to show that people would definitely not buy something just because they can get it for free? There isn't any. In fact, the articles I quoted earlier show the exact opposite of what Terry here suggests.

Second, "We wouldn't be having this debate..." You're not taking into account other factors pal. That's why your conclusion is so painfully skewed. That's why people like you have a hard on for blaming all the industry's problems on piracy. I've said it before, I'll say it again, your views are too simplistic and narrow. Clear case of 'correlation means causation' to me. He's looked at the state of the music industry, looked at the rise of piracy over the last few years, and gone "AHA!", that's what's caused it. When in actuality, he hasn't taken into account the great many other factors that have led to the decline of the industry (at least in physical copies anyway).

But despite all the evidence about the harms of online piracy, there will still be those who keep believing it is not harming creators and the media industries that invest in them. New research and studies will continue to be ignored or distorted. Alternative theories about piracy will be made that may sound nice, but without evidence to substantiate them, they are mere speculation.

The irony is, there's plenty of evidence out there to directly contradict what this guy is saying. Just look at the articles I quoted several posts ago. Just look at how you yourself have completely skipped over what has been presented in those articles. You say no evidence substantiates the "alternative theories", but the reverse is actually true.

the total music spending by “music pirates” is less than the total of “music buyers” (and every other segment surveyed).

I'll finish with this little gem that points out just how idiotic the guy who wrote that page is.

If you can't see the stupidity in the above quote then there's no point us discussing any more.

Ofcourse the total music spending by "music buyers" is going to be more than the spending of "music pirates". It would be absurd if it were any different. Why? 100% of "music buyers", buy fucking music. By definition that's what they do. The percentage of music buyers who are also pirates is completely unknown however. You don't know what kind of overlap there is. How then, can we make any conclusion at all about the importance of this? It's completely meaningless. Yet again, what we're talking about is conjecture. We're trying to predict, or say that pirates would otherwise buy music, or that they definitely won't now that they've pirated. We're trying to give the argument that pirates == lost sales. For the last damn time, that assertion has no evidence to support it. It's not true. It's bullshit.

It would be nice to see you spend even half the time I just did looking at the articles I quoted earlier, but I doubt anyone who has your preconceived notion really wants to do that.