CNN:Lawsuit filed to prohibit copyright protection of software

[angel]

I was intrigued by the title, then I read it was filled in San Fran. I can actually see this pass in San Fran where anti-capitalism, anti-individual judges want to try to keep protecting people from themselves. This trend is spreading like wildfire.

I do hope a judge with some common sense will throw the case. Man I need to stop watching all court tv. ;)

[Frank Lake]

I happen to agree with the article.

The existing laws should be further defined for software and such things as Valves user online confimation and Microsofts(and others) click agreements should be ruled invalid for any and agreement/contract/protection purposes.

Now if we can just get the DMA negated....... :hmm:

[mummey]

I happen to agree with the article.

The existing laws should be further defined for software and such things as Valves user online confimation and Microsofts(and others) click agreements should be ruled invalid for any and agreement/contract/protection purposes.

Now if we can just get the DMA negated....... :hmm:
I think you missed the point of the article. The plaintiff wants to see Software patents as the protection. Under his interpretation, all software should use patents as their protection method.

Under this idea, MS Office could be the ONLY office suite, 3dsmax could be the ONLY 3dmodeler, and Windows the ONLY operating system.

Not to mention the other half of this. This man wants to invalidate all software copyrights. This would mean I would never be able to collect royaltes from any software I create. How would YOU like it if you found out one day you are no longer able to make money off your art!?!

[Gentle Fury]

I dont really understand how these companys are coming to a $6.5 billion loss due to piracy.....doesn't a loss indicate that the money was there to begin with. They honestly believe that they would have made an addition $6.5 billion dollars had people not been able to pirate software??? No, all that would have happened would be those millions of people not willing to pay for it......wouldn't be using it!

There are 2 reasons people pirate software:

1: They can't afford the real thing.
2: They are a hobbiest and don't want to spend thousands on something they are only interested in playing with and have no intent to make a profit off of.

This is the reason so many software developers such as Maya have started offering fully functioning free learner editions.

Now if they are referring mainly to game pirates....once again, there are 2 reasons to pirate games.

1: They can't afford it....thus would not have purchased it anyway.
2: They are not really sure if the game would be worth shelling out 50 bucks for!! Games are ridiculously over priced....and that is def something that contributes to the piracy problem! I personally will only buy a game or a cd or dvd if it is at a reasonable price.

Game: =/- $25
DVD: =/- $15
CD: =/- $10

Seriously should any of these forms of entertainment that cost next to nothing to mass produce cost more than this??

If a DVD sells 3 billion copys, cost 32 cents to package in a plant, about $2 for the store to buy, should they have the right to charge $25??? This is a movie!! True most movies don't see profit in theaters, but the price of a dvd is so insane that they make a killing when it hits the home market!

Game prices used to be understandable. Back in tha day, games were made of so much plastic and silicon. A NEO GEO game cost something like $20 just to produce those boards. And the industry was small, so it was important to charge enough to make a profit. Now, the game industry is stronger than the movie industry, and all games are on little shiny discs that cost about 2 cents a piece. Who would have thought when they started selling games at $50 a title, just to break even that that would become completely standard even when most of the big companys could easily charge $15-$20 a title and still make a killing (come on does EA REALLY need to charge people $50+ a year for their silly sports titles that only change graphically once every 3 years?).

I do think however that game developers should have the same creative copyright protection over content as everyone else.....then they should be allowed patents over their code....the system is fine in that sense. It would be nice if everything was open source, as it would cause drastic improvements that much faster....but if you spent all that time producing an engine, another company shouldnt be able to just copy/paste the code and sell it.

So, this is a very fine line. I think companys should have protection from each other. But I just wish they would stop blaming piracy...while it is not something i advocate it is not something I think is as grand a problem as they like to think. I wish these companys going after piracy would start taking some responsibility on their own shoulders and realize if they weren't screwing the consumers this wouldnt be as much a problem!

And once again....If you go in a store and steal a game....that is theft, product is missing....money is lost. If you go online and download a game is anything actually lost?

They are once again missing the point of it all....companies attempting to assume control of the industry! They always wanna blame the consumers....but its all about the companies like MS and MAC and EA.....they want to hold the market in an iron grip.

Wonder how long until EA holds exclusive rights to all sports related games.

[Zarf]

It is very obvious that the person who filed the lawsuit is, quite frankly, an idiot. I am pretty confident the courts will see it the same way. I don't like to say things like that but I can think of no other explanation. Nothing to see here...

Cheers,
Zarf

[jeffthomann]

There are 2 reasons people pirate software:

1: They can't afford the real thing.
If they can't afford it they shouldn't be allowed to have it... I can't afford a BMW - but that doesn't mean that I'm going to go and steal one or buy a bunch of cheap parts to make the body of my Ford Tempo look like one...


2: They are a hobbiest and don't want to spend thousands on something they are only interested in playing with and have no intent to make a profit off of.
Those same hobbyiest learn the programs and then do start making profits off ot them... It REALLY PISSES ME OFF TO KNOW THAT I SPENT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON THE SOFTWARE SITTING ON MY COMPUTER AT HOME WHEN SOME 12-15 YEAR OLD COMPUTER DORK/GEEK HAS THE SAME STUFF SITTING ON HIS COMPUTER FROM PIRACY AND THAT THAT LITTLE DORK IS GOING TO BE TAKING THE JOB FROM THOSE OF US THAT SPENT HARD EARNED CASH ON THE PROGRAMS IN A COUPLE OF YEARS...


This is the reason so many software developers such as Maya have started offering fully functioning free learner editions.
That's right... so if the free legal stuff is out there, why the heck would anyone want/need to pirate the not so free stuff?



Now if they are referring mainly to game pirates....once again, there are 2 reasons to pirate games.

1: They can't afford it....thus would not have purchased it anyway.
2: They are not really sure if the game would be worth shelling out 50 bucks for!! Games are ridiculously over priced....and that is def something that contributes to the piracy problem! I personally will only buy a game or a cd or dvd if it is at a reasonable price.

Game: =/- $25
DVD: =/- $15
CD: =/- $10
yes... some things are a bit pricey... BUT, think about the thousands of man hours that went in to putting those games/movies/dvds together...


Seriously should any of these forms of entertainment that cost next to nothing to mass produce cost more than this??
What do you consider next to nothing??? Covers have to be made, printed marketing and game rules material have to be made... for mmorpg's people have server costs to cover as well as ongoing programmer costs...


If a DVD sells 3 billion copys, cost 32 cents to package in a plant, about $2 for the store to buy, should they have the right to charge $25??? This is a movie!! True most movies don't see profit in theaters, but the price of a dvd is so insane that they make a killing when it hits the home market!
That's why movie rental places and dvrs exist...


Game prices used to be understandable. Back in tha day, games were made of so much plastic and silicon. A NEO GEO game cost something like $20 just to produce those boards. And the industry was small, so it was important to charge enough to make a profit. Now, the game industry is stronger than the movie industry, and all games are on little shiny discs that cost about 2 cents a piece.
Where are you doing your shopping? The cheapest blank dvds that I can find run at a minumum $1.00-$2.00 a piece... yes, the mass markets probably have some deals, but when you consider the dvd+the cost of the special paper that the image on the cover+the ink that goes in to that+any printed material in the package+cost of security stipes... it adds up quick...

Who would have thought when they started selling games at $50 a title, just to break even that that would become completely standard even when most of the big companys could easily charge $15-$20 a title and still make a killing (come on does EA REALLY need to charge people $50+ a year for their silly sports titles that only change graphically once every 3 years?).
at most markets that I've been too, it seems the prices do reach 15-20 after the game or movie's been on the market about a year... If you want to be bleeding edge top of the line getting every game on the market as it comes out, of course you're going to be paying more because money has to go in to the marketing hype and that money has to come from somewhere...


I do think however that game developers should have the same creative copyright protection over content as everyone else.....then they should be allowed patents over their code....the system is fine in that sense. It would be nice if everything was open source, as it would cause drastic improvements that much faster....but if you spent all that time producing an engine, another company shouldnt be able to just copy/paste the code and sell it.
Huh??? You want everything to be open source but don't want others to be allowed to use the source code from that open sourced stuff???

So, this is a very fine line. I think companys should have protection from each other. But I just wish they would stop blaming piracy...while it is not something i advocate it is not something I think is as grand a problem as they like to think. I wish these companys going after piracy would start taking some responsibility on their own shoulders and realize if they weren't screwing the consumers this wouldnt be as much a problem!
Companies exist to make money - always have, always will... If you don't like the cost of games like WOW, Halo 2, etc. you can always choose not to buy them... plain and simple... you don't like the price, don't get it... that's the way things have worked in the past, and it's the same as the way that it should work on games, etc. I can't afford that BMW, so I am not going to have one...


And once again....If you go in a store and steal a game....that is theft, product is missing....money is lost. If you go online and download a game is anything actually lost?
Yes it is! The actual product is being used by someone who's not authorized to use it... someone who more than likely checked the ok I agree box on the eula on install but didn't actually agree to it... someone who is in short, stealing a product, using it for his/her own greedy purposes, and is doing so in breech of copyright laws and the contractual agreement known as the end user license agreement... if you don't agree with an agreement, then do like the eula says, and don't install the product...


They are once again missing the point of it all....companies attempting to assume control of the industry! They always wanna blame the consumers....but its all about the companies like MS and MAC and EA.....they want to hold the market in an iron grip.
Don't know if you've noticed this, but COMPANIES DO CONTROL THE INDUSTRY... the industry would not exist without them... plain and simple truth. If all the companies stopped making games, etc. people would then be wondering, why doesn't company so and so still make those games that they used to, etc., and then all the moaners and groaners out there would go on about their business and find something else to bitch about like the always do...

[Cman]

@jeffthomann (member.php?u=107770)
People also always seem to miss the point that the retail price they complain about is set by the retail outlet, usually 200-300% markup as I understand. This is why a store can eventually discount the item by 50% and still make money or break even.


People who complain about the cost of items should complain to the retail outlet, not the studios and manufacturers.

Or go buy stuff at Walmart, where they pay their employees barely over minimum wage (which would put a family of four in poverty) so you can get your low low prices.

[percydaman]

Gentle Fury, there is a "person" you failed to add to those that pirate. Those that CAN afford the software, DO feel the game or software is worth the money so to speak, but are just plain greedy and lazy.

I use to be that person. I use to download oodles of pirated games, knowing full well that I could afford them, and wanting them bad enough that I believed they were worth the price. Its just that downloading was so easy. I have since then completely stopped that practice and now just wait until a game's price is lowered before going out and buying it. And I feel alot better about myself.

Anyways, as long as there are those that WILL download pirated software and use it to make money, it severely hampers those that will buy the software and still have to try and be competitive pricewise.

[stupidkiwi]

Gentle Fury

You are right on the money! I could not have said it better myself.



jeffthomann

You seem a little scared of the future. I spent a large chunk of my time learning computer graphics when they were in their infancy. I taught myself how to hand code in hex well enough to be able to swap the colour palette on the fly in an animation. There were no tools for it. I did things the hard way. I spent stupid amounts on computer equipment long before it dropped in price for the average user. I have seen people equal me because equipment is now cheap and software does all the hard parts for you. Yes the 12 year olds are going to nip at your heels just like they did mine. You will find that the 12 year olds do not use any powerful tools in a pirate copy of Maya. They will be payed by their daddies who own companies do do training videos. This will theoretically take a tiny part of your market, though these business owners would normally never create a 3D training video. The animation by these 12 year olds will be crude, and would be close to the same quality if it is produced on a free program. In fact I would argue that if they used a less intuitive program and had to find workarounds they would end up better modelers and animators for it.

In fact I would like to see Alias create a $250 hobbiest license. A full version of Maya. But they would own all that was produced by the copy until such time as the artist/animator payed for a full license upgrade. This would give hobbiests a way to get their feet wet legally with no creative limitations. Only a couple of percent of these people would have the ability and determination to produce anything commercially valuable. These hobbiests would have valuable work they could then sell off, but sell it with Alias involved in the loop. Alias takes the full amount for the license in the deal giving the content creator the legal right to sell it or license it.

I can dream about such a license, but I do know that the best way to combat piracy is to draw people into the fold. The PLE for Maya has too many restrictions for someone wanting to build a ten minute short and put it to tape.

Now on to your assertion that it costs a lot to produce a shiny disk... I have produced CDs for retail through the company I own. I know the actual figures. It costs a pathetic amount to produce the CD/DVD, the packaging and the printing. If it needs to go into a big glossy cardboard box to garner attention on a shelf that will cost more than the rest of the CD/DVD production and packaging put together. I also know the cost of printing manuals and covers as I have worked as a printer. The cost of content production varies a lot, but again it is nowhere near the cost the studios claim. If by chance there is at least one honest software company that is accurately quoting the content production costs, their shareholders need to dump the management for wasting their money.

[Gentle Fury]

I understand all points on the issue...and all are valid. Like I said, I don't advocate piracy....This is why I only purchased used entertainment now. You can get used CDs, DVDs, and Games now for half the price of retail (aka....the appropriate price).

As to cost vs. revenue......you are dead wrong if you think these companys are suffering. Sure they pay their artists crap wages and blame it on kids pirating the end-product....but again that is merely passing the buck. Were these products affordable, or done in a way that was convinient for the consumer there would be much more money to be made....but the entertainment industry is GREEDY! Most high-end games go into profit almost immediatly. Was there a load of advertising for Half-Life 2 and Halo 2? No, there was just major anticipation. The pre-sale figures of both of those games show that they would have made a profit if they sold them for $20 at release.

Do I feel sorry for the sad entertainment industry "losing" $6 billion annually?? No. If they never had it, they never lost it!

It is 100% their fault for any degree of loss.

Oh yeah, one more thing.

Where are you doing your shopping? The cheapest blank dvds that I can find run at a minumum $1.00-$2.00 a piece... yes, the mass markets probably have some deals, but when you consider the dvd+the cost of the special paper that the image on the cover+the ink that goes in to that+any printed material in the package+cost of security stipes... it adds up quick...
When's the last time you looked into investing in a 200 million pack of dvds???

[Frank Lake]

Mummey,

I don't disagree with you that peoples hardwork shouldn't be protected and thier ownership to what they made should stay intact, but really lets face it neither protection works and it's leading to widespread corporate and legal abuse because of the politics involved. The fines mean nothing because they are not correctly scaled to the offender.

[Lyr]

I dont really understand how these companys are coming to a $6.5 billion loss due to piracy.....doesn't a loss indicate that the money was there to begin with. They honestly believe that they would have made an addition $6.5 billion dollars had people not been able to pirate software??? No, all that would have happened would be those millions of people not willing to pay for it......wouldn't be using it!


There is always a loser. If someone pirates Maya Unlimited it is rarely Alias that is losing the money, but rather it is companies like Avid and Hash who lose, since they offer products at an affordable price point that aren't bieng purchased by potential customers who would rather just steal to get what they want. If you pirate software you just may be helping to build a monopoly by depriving the market of capital.

[Tirjasdyn]

"Losses" in Coporate America work like this:


At the beginning of the fiscal year(varies from company to company) the company says: We will make this much next year.

At the end of the year they look at what they made. then subtract their projections from their acutall.

So say the company says they will make $100.(Projection) Then they actually make $80.

The company will report that they lost $20.

Did they make a profit: Yes.
Did loose real money: No.

If the company were comprised of idiots then they spent the $100.00. Most aren't. Most budget with money they set asisde from the previous year.

Why do they do this? For blackmailing, for tax breaks for political sway.

How do I know this? I check those numbers for a living for a corporation. Edit: And part of those numbers for 5 other corporations.

So every time you hear: We lost money, laugh. You can loose money that doesn't exist.

[ewdean]

Seriously should any of these forms of entertainment that cost next to nothing to mass produce cost more than this??

A CD or DVD is not a form of entertainment. It's a distribution device. You're not paying for that device, you're paying for the intellectual property contained on that device. I think you're confused about the difference there.

[Tirjasdyn]

A CD or DVD is not a form of entertainment. It's a distribution device. You're not paying for that device, you're paying for the intellectual property contained on that device. I think you're confused about the difference there.
You are right and you are wrong:

Cost:
Materials to create
Materials to distribute
Labor to create
Labor to market
Labor to distribute
Executive Costs
Mark up for creator
Mark up for distributor
Mark up for retailer

These are the factors of cost. It is possible to eliminate some of these but not all. If you can eliminate the distributor then the price can be lowered, but most companys can't...either because of the goverment(some products HAVE to be distributed through a 3rd party), or costs of creating the infrastructure. Ususally the savings is minamal. In the cases where it is not than a company generally will not let go of the increased profits.

Reducing labor, which computers do, is another way. Many companies WILL lower price over this. Take netflix. As they grow in customer base they can lower prices, and have...they did this when they hit the two million mark.

Nixing the retailer is really the big way. If you buy direct from the company you are almost guaranteed a lower price than through a retailer. In retail the price is generally 300% higher than cost the retailer paid the distributor or manufactuar. 300% is just an average, it can be lower or higher depending on the retailer. Think Target vs. Walmart.

Cost is raised because a company wants to make a profit. The cost of the materials raise for the same reason, the cost of labor raises because the laborers need to make enought to buy the stuff. It is the viscious cycle of capitalism. Greed will eventually undo it as it does all governmental systems.

[stupidkiwi]

There is always a loser. If someone pirates Maya Unlimited it is rarely Alias that is losing the money, but rather it is companies like Avid and Hash who lose, since they offer products at an affordable price point that aren't bieng purchased by potential customers who would rather just steal to get what they want. If you pirate software you just may be helping to build a monopoly by depriving the market of capital.

Though I would disagree that there is "always" a looser, the rest of the point is well taken. Very insightfull point and I am embarrassed that I had not considerd it myself.

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