Gameguru Mania

gx-x · Elite Member Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 2545

What I mean is, I thought it was clear but, that today, if you download a movie of a torrent, you pay nothing. You watch the movie, don't sell it, don't make money of it but you are a pirate according to companies. Even worse, if you get caught you are treated almost the same as the guy who downloaded it, burned it to a disk and sold it.

It is beyond me who gets in the chain that I mentioned first. Some warez group may or may not pay someone to bring them a copy of the game. Maybe even legit original copy. Then they crack it for their pleasure, it get's up on torrents. No one is making money.

Csimbi · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:01 am Post subject:

Oh, ok. So, we are clear on that individual downloads are not piracy, only the giants are trying to make it happen.

On that second part.
You have to separate the Scene from warez. The Scene is all about a race - who beats the other group in making a better demo in smaller size, who cracks a protection faster, rips a movie or does it even better in smaller size. Basically, "whatever" means to prove that my group is superior to yours. Unfortunately, there is no other way to prove that you won the race than uploading the content somewhere. Make no mistake, that 'somewhere' is very well protected, none of us will ever get even close to one of those.
The warez comes into play when they tap into a source that has access to these well-protected sources - using money, bribe, whatever means. And, from that point on, it is beyond the Scene; there is nothing they can do. Technically speaking, someone "stole their work". It gets distributed via various channels until it ends up on public torrent sites - nearly everyone making money in the process except the majority of the industry (I believe some industry members make money on that, too).
So, Scene is not evil at all - unlike the picture they like to paint about it. Individual downloads are not good for the industry, but not as evil as they describe it to be. Warez is. These are the guys that actually make money in the process and help distributing the illegitimate material.
What would happen if you took warez (including all pay-sites alike) out of the equation? Without funding, a lot of these sites would die after a while and access to the downloads would be very very limited - and number of downloads would go back to a fraction of what they are.
Problem is, the warez scene (like every other shady business) has ties in the media giants, military, government and other places as well. That's the reason why they are going after the little guy instead of the real root cause (which is the warez scene). Nobody bites the hand that feeds; you can't blame them. The longer they can milk the cow, the better. Nice villas, cars, high-class hookers, whatever you want. I know I would not want to give that up; would you? The little man - who can't do anything - plays for it all...

gx-x · Elite Member Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 2545

you can get access to the second hand. You have to pay. All that content is there is maybe hours behind the scene release. Google for the news servers and presto. I will never pay to download "pirated" content so that's about it for me.

Piracy also makes a lot of money for legit companies. HDDs, Internet providers, hosting companies etc. Rapidshare lives off of piracy. I could be wrong but I doubt it. How about hardware manufacturers? Console manufacturers would be happy if PC just died. Nvidia, AMD, intel and others, not so much.

Also, I think you are wrong about Warez. kill one site, two more emerge. I do agree that paying them is wrong but some people are just lazy or greedy so they pay them. Those that take money for pirated content ARE criminals. Not thieves, but criminals non the less. Maybe even thieves, I don't know, I don't care. They can make from ads or page hits/clicks etc. They don't have to charge access.

Csimbi · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:09 am Post subject:

Sure, I might be wrong, but that does not change the fact that it is not the little man that should be punished - especially not when hackers made a zombie out of a PC and use it to transfer illegal content without the owner ever knowing...

gx-x · Elite Member Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 2545

Csimbi · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:57 am Post subject:

There. Now they're going after the right audience. Those guys got rich on serving illegitimate content publicly for millions...

gx-x · Elite Member Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 2545

where is rapidshare? Don't tell me that people buy premium accounts to host their pictures from the prom night.

as far as I can tell, only companies based in USA will be closed or screwed in some way. What they are actually doing is punishing average american that may or may not have used one of those sites for warez. Piracy will not decrease by much, if at all. This thing may just have the opposite effect all over the states.

Csimbi · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:00 am Post subject:

I guess it's a work-in-progress kinda thing.