Piracy in general

[jonotron]

After reading the thread about the guy after the manual I have a few thoughts:
I work as a high school teacher, and it's interesting to note the kids opinions on piracy. A kid that I would consider as being 'good' told me he downloaded 400 songs at the weekend. This is by no means the exception.
A lot of younger people have no concept of certain products ie software and particularly music as a saleable product or having any monetary value, and efforts must be made to address this misconception.
MOTU take note though, Apple do very good deals on Logic (express) on an educational discount, less than half the normal retail price. This is a very sensible move. Current pricing of decent music software is just a little bit ambitous. Anyone out there with plugins worth more than their computer?? Reality check is in order

[TheHopiWay]

my plugins probably total 3 or 4 times the current value of my CPU but I fail to see your point regarding that.
I'm happy to pay for niche products that increase my workflow and profit.

[jonotron]

Each to their own, I still find it strange that one single software peice can cost the same as the machine that runs it.
I look at it this way, if all my plugins were deleted and the discs fell down the toilet pan, i'd be rather annoyed!!
When my powerbook eventually dies it'll be like the loss of a good friend

[James Steele]

MOTU take note though, Apple do very good deals on Logic (express) on an educational discount, less than half the normal retail price. This is a very sensible move. Current pricing of decent music software is just a little bit ambitous. Anyone out there with plugins worth more than their computer?? Reality check is in order

Does MOTU not offer an educational discount? I would think they do. BTW, I have moved your thread to the proper forum.

[jonotron]

Oops i'm ranting in the wrong section.

To my knowledge MOTU only give 17.5% discount for education, apple give over 50%! No brainer really although i'd sooner use DP. Is the situation different in the US?

[James Steele]

Oops i'm ranting in the wrong section.

To my knowledge MOTU only give 17.5% discount for education, apple give over 50%! No brainer really although i'd sooner use DP. Is the situation different in the US?

That might all even out in the wash since a quick check of www.musiciansfriend.com shows Logic selling for $999

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=h ... id/705962/

And Digital Performer selling for $500 less at $499

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=h ... id/706435/

Doesn't seem like the pricing thing should be a big issue.

[James Steele]

Each to their own, I still find it strange that one single software peice can cost the same as the machine that runs it.
I look at it this way, if all my plugins were deleted and the discs fell down the toilet pan, i'd be rather annoyed!!
When my powerbook eventually dies it'll be like the loss of a good friend

Planning on deleting all your plugs and flushing your discs down the toilet? I guess I'm missing the point. Also, honestly the fact that software costs more than the machine that is running it is more the norm than the other way around. Just think of commercial enterprise software and specialty apps, etc. I own a teleprompting business and one copy of the software (with hardware dongle) was over $1000 running on a $700 Dell laptop.

This is really not very unusual at all. Audio and graphics pros especially will frequently have far more money invested in their software than the hardware. Consider this... without the software, just what can your computer do? Pretty much nothing.

[Spikey Horse]

A kid that I would consider as being 'good' told me he downloaded 400 songs at the weekend. This is by no means the exception.

I doubt that if downloading was not an option he would have gone out and bought those 400 songs instead. 400 songs? Well, what i'm thinking is after 200 downloads or so he may have got into some interesting sonic territory...

A lot of younger people have no concept of certain products ie software and particularly music as a saleable product or having any monetary value, and efforts must be made to address this misconception.

They probably do but they just don't lose any sleep over it that's all because they are young and have a lot of other stuff on their minds. When I taped music off the radio and using the occassional used copied games for my sinclair spectrum (they usually never loaded properly!) I knew what I was doing - but I was the same: sleep lost - very little.

I think making some kind of moral point about 'youth of today' is just a way of trying to justify your own greedy desires to get all this great stuff EVEN cheaper. And why not? as consumers we all want the same thing - more for less - -and in an ideal world if everyone payed for every app ever used we could share the cost and get this stuff cheaper. So why should 'they' 'get away with it' when I am paying for mine? etc etc

I'm not saying piracy is 'a good thing' - just that it's not a simple fight of good against evil either. I've always thought that most software developers must have some idea what they are doing re: software pricing combined with copy protection or even ease of 'availability'. I guess they must have to base their decisions on reality rather than some kind of ideal. And of course they are never going to admit if they've got the best balance for themselves.

Generally, for what it is, software is on the whole very cheap. And I think piracy is making people feel it is more expensive/ less value than it is. I often wonder why a simple rack mounting cymbal boom arm or similar piece of hardware has to cost £60 when it's a simple piece of metal!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

DP is a pro program, like ProTools. If you want pro features, you need a pro program. Your kids would do fine with Garage Band and you can get it cheap (or free with the OS) from Apple.

As for pirating music, regardless of what the little cherubs think, it is a crime. If you want to give them a reality check, show them the US Copyright Law and associated fines. Need more proof? Call a good intellectual property lawyer (I just happen to have one). Need more proof? Take a look at some of the lawsuits. What you won't find is the high number of settlements before trial for infringement. There is way more money in some instances than the works would earn on their own. 25G's for a minute or less of infringed music is not unheard of. In a trial, the same minute (or less) could net $150G's PER INFRINGEMENT. Let the theives (yes, they are theives) beware.

Of course, these kids don't have that kind of coin, and their too young to go to prison, so Juvie Hall might be in order. But I hear the food is pretty bad.

Now, should we talk about tagging?

[Jim]

A kid that I would consider as being 'good' told me he downloaded 400 songs at the weekend.

So, what's this kid's name? I'm sure the RIAA would be very interested.

[KarlSutton]

Jim, did you contact the kid's parents? If he told you he stole a car over the weekend would you have? 400 songs on itunes is $400! I'm sure that if he stole $400 cash from someone & told you about it you would contact his parents, right?

Parents need to take responsibility and educators are their partners. My kids are little now but I intend to know everything they have on their computers & where they got it from!

As it is we don't have $400 of stolen Elmo videos sitting around.

Geeez.

[studiodog]

I'll pose one for you guys to think about.
I meander through the UseNet newsgroups online occasionally looking for funny videos and sound clips and random crap.
People do a lot of pirate posting and serial code sharing in some groups of course. It's always stuff I wouldn't want or need even if I was in a pirating mood.
So one day I hit a Mac sound something group and someone had posted some kind of VI. It was one I'd never heard of so I thought what's the harm in checking it out. So I download it and install it on my old G4 that I use to surf and test things out on. Turns out it's a whole VI plugin with the code and serial numbers. Full working order, not a demo. Works in DP perfectly.
Now to me, this thing is worthless because I've put all my VI's to the side till I get a G5. I rarely even load up Mach V cause of latency.

I wonder what your opinions are on a situation like this. If you found 2 or 3 hundred dollars in the street, with no one to give it back to, would you keep it? I just found this thing sitting there, I wasn't looking to pirate anything. When I got it I didn't know if it was crap or a demo or what. It disappeared from the group in a couple of days and that group has been empty ever since as far as I know. It's been a couple of months since I've looked.

The 100% right thing to do, if I were to ever use it, would be to contact the manufacturer and offer to pay for it. Or don't use it and erase it.

As I stated, I'm not using it but when I get a G5 I might be tempted.

Just wondering what you guys think...

[mcrein]

as this thread shows, the whole issue of piracy and copyright is very complex. there are many sides to the story and attempting to simplify it into a concrete black and white, do or don't issue is disingenuous at best.

is piracy wrong? the simple answer is yes. it deprives the creator of income that he needs to survive. (though i don't buy the industry tagline that their declining profits are due entirely to downloading) there are whole-scale piracy outfits in certain parts of the world that reproduce and flood the market with millions of pirated CDs/DVDs etc. and of course, this 'robs' the economy of billions in revenue. but this would not exist if there wasn't a ready and willing populace eager to consume said goods. (which actually is the case in most illegal activities)

but the fact that so many people who would normally never dream of stealing something tangible are ambivalent about not paying for digital property shows that this is a deeper issue than just one of right and wrong. humans don't act in a vacuum. everybody justifies their behaviour in order to live with themselves. (see previous posts for some serious rationalization) and there are many reasons why individuals have no compunction about using pirated goods.

i.e. there's the issue of cost of course. sofware is hugely expensive and a professional could easily apend 3 - 4 times what eh paid for his computer in software. that's why there is so much pirated software out there.

there's the inflexibility of the whole way sofware is marketed and sold. there's no return policy, and much software is buggy and prone to problems.

fundamentally, this is an ethical issue and ethics cannot be imposed by law. they have to be taught. people need to understand that they are hurting themselves as much as the next person by pirating.

there are also big issues around copyright. it is not as cut and dried as some would have us believe. there are concerns of fair usage and of the free disemination of information, a process that all creativity and innovation in society depends on.

some random thoughts...

[KarlSutton]

mcrein,

you bring up some excellent points. I believe the software tools we use are more valuable than the computers we run them on. What good would a quad G5 be if the software companies didn't make cool stuff to run on them?

I do wish there were more VI's that had comprehensive demos like many plugins do. I have now bought a couple of VI's that I might of passed on if I had a chance to audition them first.

Some of the complaints I see on these & other discussion boards do amuse me though. Maybe I'm old school, but I think it is amazing the quality of recording equipment & software that can be purchased so reasonably now.

I guess this is more random rambling, sorry folks!

[mcrein]

hey karl
you wanna' talk about cost differential?

18 years ago i purchased a mac SE with a MIDI interface (can't remember the company) with a 4 track recorder and a reverb for more money than i just paid for a new G5 quad with a 30 "...

all the studios i worked in during the 70s and 80s had recorders that cost upwards of $60,000 dollars and boards that cost over $200,000. a roll of 2 inch tape cost over $150 and that was in real money! not this inflated stuff we use today.

today a person can own a state of the art digital studio for less money than a typical band session cost in the day. (including artifical motivators)

so it is funny to see people go to great lengths to obtain and run a kracked version of software that cost a few hundred dollars to buy.

so much gear in the hands of so many hacks!