The Many Faces of Piracy

Write protect tabs, the original DRM

Remember tape? You know, that cutting edge media format that played music? Come on you know, before we became entrenched in the land of handheld gigabyte warehouses? Tapes were the beginning of piracy. We all remember the awful VHS piracy warnings on rental videos, but it was the audio cassette that really started it all. As a child every piece of music I owned was pirated, from my brother or my father or a friend; it was “taped” from the original vinyl or taped from another tape. We didn’t burn a copy we taped one, it was all very innocent, in fact I had no idea that what I was doing was in fact a nefarious and illegal activity.

I may be teetering on the edge of glibness with my loaded statements regarding the triviality of piracy; certainly the prevalence of piracy has skyrocketed in tandem with the ease at which digital data is copied. I got my first PC right on the lip of a breaking wave caused by the Doom (the 1993 one) revolution. I was given a copy of the game, freshly zipped onto six 1.44 inch floppies, from a friend; without a second thought I installed it and started playing, and it was great. That was the first of many games that were copied, installed and played without even considering that what I was doing was wrong, or even illegal. The idea that data could be stolen through duplication was so foreign to me because just like music, data is intangible and therefore in a very real sense it doesn’t exist, at least not in a “holding in my hand” sort of way that a thirteen year old understands.

Today the amount of data accessible through torrents is unfathomable, sheer seas of content to wade through and I’m sure we’ve all taken a dip. Piracy is easy to justify when you’re young and have no money, and I’m hardly here to beat on a podium and soliloquise about the moral cesspool you’re splashing in. I, like many others, have pirated a veritable truckload digital material in my life: music, movies, TV shows, software, and of course games. Probably the best excuse I can put forth for my sordid history of game piracy is that it was just so easy. I’d go to a LAN party or a friend’s house and whether it was because the game in question was being played at the event or just because it was on offer, I’d copy the game.

Video games on vinyl, the future of DRM

The older I get the more responsible I have become; no doubt this comes in part as a result of a fatter wallet, but also a greater social conscience. It’s a theory that’s been tossed around for a few years, that with a lack of money and an abundance of free time, piracy becomes an attractive option. As with almost any piece of excrement even slightly resembling news, the media has run with the piracy story, encouraging all to jump on their fear mongering band wagon. We were led to believe that Napster was the end of the music recording industry, an impending audio apocalypse. Heaven forbid that the antique methods employed by the recording industry should be forced to evolve. If we view the world of piracy from a different angle the reality is that while piracy may damage industries, it can also be looked upon as a sort of un-sanctioned marketing. If I had no access to illegally copied games, I would never have become a fan of several franchises that I spend money on today. The industry has adopted new models for fighting piracy; if consumers prefer to download a game then let them, if they prefer to find media and consume it online, then let them pay for the right and make it a pleasure for them to do so.

Steam is in my eyes the industry standard, a gleaming example of what digital distribution should be. Steam is a service first and foremost, with a strong community element and ahead of the curve cloud computing options, not to mention the recent addition of cross platform play between Mac and PC. Steam does what so many others don’t (or was that Sega?), you purchase your games and whether you download them or not you now own them forever (or at least as long as the Steam service exists). You can re-download as many times as you like, and all your games, installed or not, will show up in your library; Its simple really but it’s amazing how so many other systems have neglected their customers in this way. Digital Rights Management or DRM is intrinsic to the Steam service, after all Steam is both an online store and a DRM system. This level of integration is never offensive and never intrudes on the player’s digital personal space, if anything it enhances the experience adding to the exclusivity of the closed platform nature of the service.

The size of the PS3 needed to play AC: Brotherhood on 45" is a theft deterrent in itself

Earlier this year iTunes became completely DRM free which was a huge deal for me and no doubt many others, because before this revelation iTunes (despite its popularity) was one of the worst offenders in terms of punishing DRM and customer frustration. The omission of a simple re-download feature crippled the iTunes service. I have more than one computer and as a result of the sheer gall I’d exhibited in purchasing multiple PC’s, I was punished by their archaic five permissions DRM method and “one download only” approach. Giving your customers a limited number of re-downloads and systems the media can inhabit is sneaky and callous, especially when other services have shown that there is a better way. Suffice to say I wasn’t a fan; luckily they listened to feedback and witnessed the competition stealing sales away from their locked down DRM encased digital music showroom. I suppose they went with the tides in what was surely an inevitable decision; after all they never forced this illogical methodology on their users in the App Store. Steam may be the innovator in this field but others are catching up; both Xbox Live and Playstation Network give their customers a similar level of functionality as Steam, with a few extra hoops to jump through perhaps. While piracy may be a problem for the consoles, it pales in comparison to the problems experienced on PC, and as such the digital distribution services present on these systems do not carry with them the same significance as Steam or iTunes.

This is quickly becoming a Steam love-in but it’s hard to overstate just how special it is; it’s gotten to the point where I will not buy a game unless it’s available on Steam. It’s the notion of having a digital collection that’s so appealing, the ability to bring up a list and say “I own all of these games”. Physical shelf real estate has been replaced by an intangible digital history museum of impulse buys and classic must haves. In the digital arena it’s all about the impulse buy (there’s even a Steam-clone service called Impulse), after all digital money isn’t real money, it’s only a bunch of numbers that say credit card next to them; it’s just so easy to forget about the real dollars exiting your account when you click “buy”.

Chests: Where real pirates keep their ill-gotten games

I still have albums upon albums of MP3’s that I have never paid for, many of which go back ten years. Several of these albums I’ve since purchased a legal copy of, but that still leaves a bevy of tunes that are just sitting there in my iTunes library glaring at me with their filthy illegality. Flip open Steam though and you’ll find a myriad of recent purchases and idiotic but legal financial decisions. This inequity is not based on my respect for games publishers over musicians and record labels, it’s simply because I saw iTunes in its pre DRM-free days to be a faulty service and perhaps more importantly Steams quality of service is unmatched. I did purchase music digitally from iTunes in the past and vowed to never do it again – but now that they have embraced the more logical and less tedious world of digital distribution I can definitely see myself opening the wallet yet again. The customer has the right to enjoy their purchases without being looked upon suspiciously as a potential thief. ITunes is not the only digital music store though; I have only ever heard praise for Amazons digital download service. Despite the fact that Amazons digital downloads are region locked it remains a powerful competitor to iTunes. The main folly of Amazons digital music store is the lack of interconnected software – a player and store client, a system that iTunes undeniably is.

There will always be piracy and software developers and publishers are always going to try and stamp it out. Inelegant methods of copy protection and digital rights management only serve to infuriate those that actually did buy the software; the pirates will download and circumvent any blockades while paying customers suffer. Not every pirate who plays a game or uses a piece of software illegally is a potential customer. If the software was not available to them for free then most of them would just go without, certainly this is the case with professional software suites. Expensive graphics or audio packages are pirated all the time; while a certain level of financial loss is experienced, the people who use the software seriously do so because they cannot afford the exorbitant asking price. In most cases the more professional and serious exponents of this behaviour will eventually purchase the software when they are able. Simply as a result of their use and understanding of the software in question, the value inherent in the toolset becomes starkly apparent.

In the case of the games industry it is the publisher’s folly that there is the assumption that everyone who plays their game would have bought it. In some cases this is no doubt true, with titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for PC, or Company of Heroes, if piracy wasn’t an option the number of units sold would be higher. This is certainly the case with Company of Heroes which is adopting a free-to-play model in an attempt to thwart the piracy problems with the game in the Chinese market. What publishers will eventually have to learn is that a game will sell when it meets a few basic criteria: 1) the game should be good and 2) the price should be reasonable and in line with its peers on the platform or in a particular field. A poorly developed game will sell more copies if it sells at a budget price; this has been proven time and time again. This is definitely the case with Steam (what does this guy work for Steam or something?).  The moment a game on Steam goes on sale, there’s a surge in revenue – it’s no surprise that people like a bargain.

As I develop a greater attachment to the media I consume, my feeling of responsibility and gratitude to the media creators grows. Publishers (of games, music and movies alike) need to throw consumers a bone; they can’t expect people not to pirate software based on the goodness in their heart. There needs to be a good enough reason for potential customers to view piracy in a negative light by making it the more difficult and annoying option. Give consumers a reason; don’t take them for fools – when you offer consumers a service that’s easy, attractive and budget conscious, the people will respond in-kind.

This article is a guest editorial created by Australian writer, Miles Philip. If you’ve enjoyed his writing, you can read more of his work over at his music review site MilesCosmo Music or say hello to him on Twitter.