[Intrepid Homoludens]

Xbox mod shop owner sentenced | BBC News
16 September 2005

The owner of Pandora's Cube, a Washington DC-based seller of pirated games and modified Xboxes, has been convicted for violating copyright laws.

Biren Amin was sentenced to five months in prison, and three years of supervised release, including five months of home confinement.

He was also fined $247,237.05. Amin was the fourth Pandora employee convicted.

The US software association said the sentence was a stern warning to others involves in piracy or console modding.

Downloadable games market on rise | BBC News
16 September 2005

Digital distribution of games is set to grow according to research firm Screen Digest.
It predicts that the market for downloading and streaming of PC games and console add-on content will be worth ÂŁ222m by 2010.

More premium and up-to-date PC titles are becoming available via downloads.

While Microsoft and Sony have ruled out the idea of offering full game downloads, add-on content is predicted to increase dramatically next year.

[vazel]

omg that is such bs. there is no proof that warez hurts profits. most people wouldn't even be able to afford or even if they could they wouldn't buy most of what they download. and you end up buying the games you want to play online anyway since there are no cracks for unique online game ids. and to top it all off the big corps are manipulating warez popularity for powerplay with drm crap, justifying their greed by raising prices, and now the riaa and mpaa is involved in internet2.

[Tramboi]

This is a good start.
Now adventure game abandonwarez downloaders should have one arm cut, to restore order and peace.

[Tanukitsune]

Since I'm practically the only "legal" person in a country where piracy is out of control, I merely tolerate people who download games illegaly, anything I else I did would be futile...

But I simply loath and abhor people who actually sell pirated software...

Just a sample of how out of control the situation is, I recently put some DVD for sale on Ebay, and my Inbox is flooded with emails asking me if the copies are legal or if they "rip" is a good quality one...

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by vazel

omg that is such bs. there is no proof that warez hurts profits. most people wouldn't even be able to afford or even if they could they wouldn't buy most of what they download. and you end up buying the games you want to play online anyway since there are no cracks for unique online game ids. and to top it all off the big corps are manipulating warez popularity for powerplay with drm crap, justifying their greed by raising prices, and now the riaa and mpaa is involved in internet2.

Wow, what a load of bullcrap. The only things you need to know that warez is hurting profits A LOT are eyes, ears and common sense. It's just a bloody fact. I know plenty of people who never buy a game anymore and would regularly buy one if they couldn't download everything they wanted. I'm sure your 'most people' are just a small minority.

[mag]

Originally Posted by vazel

omg that is such bs. there is no proof that warez hurts profits. most people wouldn't even be able to afford or even if they could they wouldn't buy most of what they download. and you end up buying the games you want to play online anyway since there are no cracks for unique online game ids. and to top it all off the big corps are manipulating warez popularity for powerplay with drm crap, justifying their greed by raising prices, and now the riaa and mpaa is involved in internet2.

Careful, man. Don't disagree with Trep about software piracy, or he'll close the thread.

mag

[Aj_]

My Xecuter 2.6 CE Lite I ordered last week is illegal? haha.

Originally Posted by Phantom

The only things you need to know that warez is hurting profits A LOT are eyes, ears and common sense.

And if you used your brain instead of seeing and listening to a load of bullshit propaganda you wouldn't be such a tool.

He's in the minority? Where's your proof?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

If you're gonna stoop down to name calling and personal insults, I'm going to close this thread.

[Tanukitsune]

Aj_ is right about the minority thing at least, I mean I'm the only guy I know who actually bought his own copy of Office and XP...

But of course we aren't taking in consideration the country each other lives in, some country have more piracy than other, most 3rd world countries ONLY have illegal software....

[mag]

Originally Posted by Phantom

The only things you need to know that warez is hurting profits A LOT are eyes, ears and common sense.

It may be common sense, but that's not the same as proof, which is what vazel said. Common sense is very often dead wrong.

As far as I know, he's right. There is no proof that the video game industry's profits have been hurt by piracy.

mag

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Tanukitsune

Aj_ is right about the minority thing at least, I mean I'm the only guy I know who actually bought his own copy of Office and XP...

No, you're actually saying I am right and he's wrong .

Defending such hilarious statements as "warez doesn't hurt profits"... how can you take that seriously? I can name 20 people who have warezed a game they would've bought otherwise, so that's 1000$ of lost profits right there. There's some proof.

The question is not if it does hurt sales, because it obviously does. The question is how much. THAT is much harder to prove. But I'm pretty sure the industry has conducted plenty of large-scale anonymous inquiries to get an idea of the amount of games pirated. They don't make up those numbers out of thin air you know? I don't see what advantage they'd get out of exaggerating the amount of pirated games anyway.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Aj_

And if you used your brain instead of seeing and listening to a load of bullshit propaganda you wouldn't be such a tool.

PROPAGANDA? What on earth are you talking about? Are you saying that pirating should be okay, that we shouldn't listen to those evil lawmakers with their dark schemes who decided that stealing stuff is bad and try to brainwash us into accepting this silly idea?

Tell me: what exactly are they trying to convince me of with their bullshit propaganda? I'd love to know.

[Tanukitsune]

Originally Posted by Phantom

No, you're actually saying I am right and he's wrong .

Defending such hilarious statements as "warez doesn't hurt profits"... how can you take that seriously? I can name 20 people who have warezed a game they would've bought otherwise, so that's 1000$ of lost profits right there. There's some proof.

The question is not if it does hurt sales, because it obviously does. The question is how much. THAT is much harder to prove. But I'm pretty sure the industry has conducted plenty of large-scale anonymous inquiries to get an idea of the amount of games pirated. They don't make up those numbers out of thin air you know? I don't see what advantage they'd get out of exaggerating the amount of pirated games anyway.

Don't think for a second I'm defending them!

I hate piracy as much as you probably more!

But when you live in a country were all your friends would rather download a movie or game than buy them and you can't take a step without bumping into an immigrant selling illegal copies of movies, games or music...

You just have to face the facts, in Spain, I AM the minority!

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by Phantom

PROPAGANDA? What on earth are you talking about? Are you saying that pirating should be okay, that we shouldn't listen to those evil lawmakers with their dark schemes who decided that stealing stuff is bad and try to brainwash us into accepting this silly idea?

The only reason you think it hurts the industry is because they spread lies that it does, a.k.a propaganda.

The only reason why you call it pirating is because they took a term used for what the distributers were doing to the creators, the only pirates in this equation are the publishers.

Those "evil" lawmakers are making laws for the distributers.

Stealing implies you take something with the purpose of denying that something to the rightful owner.

They have already brainwashed you.

The silly idea is that of Copyright Law, anyone can see that it's broken, anyone can see that it doesn't serve the purpose it was created for.

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

If you're gonna stoop down to name calling and personal insults, I'm going to close this thread.

Where?

[Tanukitsune]

Originally Posted by Aj_

The only reason you think it hurts the industry is because they spread lies that it does, a.k.a propaganda.

The only reason why you call it pirating is because they took a term used for what the distributers were doing to the creators, the only pirates in this equation are the publishers.

Those "evil" lawmakers are making laws for the distributers.

They have already brainwashed you.

The silly idea is that of Copyright Law, anyone can see that it's broken, anyone can see that it doesn't serve the purpose it was created for.

They don't hurt anyone? Tell that to Madrid Rock, the biggest music store franchise in Spain, that is now DEAD thanks to piracy!

[mag]

Originally Posted by Phantom

Defending such hilarious statements as "warez doesn't hurt profits"... how can you take that seriously? I can name 20 people who have warezed a game they would've bought otherwise, so that's 1000$ of lost profits right there. There's some proof.

The question is not if it does hurt sales, because it obviously does. The question is how much. THAT is much harder to prove. But I'm pretty sure the industry has conducted plenty of large-scale anonymous inquiries to get an idea of the amount of games pirated. They don't make up those numbers out of thin air you know? I don't see what advantage they'd get out of exaggerating the amount of pirated games anyway.

First of all, the video game industry is hardly an objective third party.

Secondly, they and you aren't looking at lost profits. You're only counting the absolute number of games pirated. You're assuming that every pirated game is a lost profit. This is simply not the case.

The music industry made a similar assumption to justify cracking down on people sharing MP3s. But an empricial analysis of the effect of file sharing on record sales (pdf) found that, "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales."

mag

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by Tanukitsune

They don't hurt anyone? Tell that to Madrid Rock, the biggest music store franchise in Spain, that is now DEAD thanks to piracy!

Of course that was the reason...

Originally Posted by vazel

omg that is such bs. there is no proof that warez hurts profits. most people wouldn't even be able to afford or even if they could they wouldn't buy most of what they download. and you end up buying the games you want to play online anyway since there are no cracks for unique online game ids. and to top it all off the big corps are manipulating warez popularity for powerplay with drm crap, justifying their greed by raising prices, and now the riaa and mpaa is involved in internet2.

You win the prize.

[Tanukitsune]

Originally Posted by Aj_

Of course that was the reason...

It wasn't the competition, becuase they DIDN'T have any!

It was practically the only place to buy music, at least.. legally that is...

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by Tanukitsune

It wasn't the competition, becuase they DIDN'T have any!

I don't even live in Spain... but I hear differently.