
Piracy is Theft? Ridiculous. Lost Sales? They Don’t Exist - Uncle_Sam
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-theft-ridiculous-lost-sales-they-dont-exist-says-minecraft-creator-110303/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29
======
greyman
It's difficult to say regarding the lost sales. In relation with every pirated
book, there are several groups of people:

A) Got the pirated version, but wouldn't buy it if they couldn't get it free

B) Got the pirated version, and therefore didn't pay for it

C) Learned about the book because it was pirated, and then bought it.

I don't have the statistics, but my guess is that most of the people are in
the group A). Now the question is, which group is bigger, B or C. I don't know
myself, and it probably depends on the book itself. But as I have seen, most
anti-piracy proponents include the group A) into the lost sales category,
while it clearly doesn't belong there.

~~~
cemerick
Just about the only lick of sense in this discussion.

I'm surprised that so many here, a community where lots of people are engaged
in entrepreneurial ventures and where many _donate to the unpaid author of
widely-pirated shareware_ [1], would appear to be so laissez-faire on this
issue. Whether you call it _theft_ or _breach of contract_ , piracy is wrong
and not good.

I suspect you would have a better sense of perspective if people could create
and use "paid" accounts on your shiny web services without paying.

Anecdotes of (c) described in the parent are few and far between, and don't
justify the instances of (b) or the unintended consequences / moral hazard of
(a).

(Disclosure: I sell software for a living, and have discovered [and
reconciled] piracy of my products by very large organizations in the past. I
imagine there are many other instances I'm not aware of.)

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2282875>

~~~
petercooper
_I'm surprised that so many here, a community where lots of people are engaged
in entrepreneurial ventures and where many donate to the unpaid author of
widely-pirated shareware [1], would appear to be so laissez-faire on this
issue. Whether you call it theft or breach of contract, piracy is wrong and
not good._

Did anyone here really say that copyright infringement was good? Saying that
it's not "theft" doesn't automatically throw one into the pro-piracy camp.
Copyright infringement can certainly be wrong and extremely detrimental to our
culture - that's why we have copyright laws in the first place.

~~~
jellicle
Well, no. There's no morality to copyright infringement laws, and if we were
to apply a moral component, it would clearly come down on the side of freedom
of information. Copyright laws are at best amoral, and at worst immoral.

"Why we have copyright laws in the first place" is because corporations
lobbied for them - self-interest. There's no moral component.

~~~
cemerick
That view would seem to have some pretty far-reaching consequences, insofar as
many of us produce information of one sort or another and nothing else. Sounds
like the only way we should expect to get paid is through generous benefactors
and donations.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> many of us produce information of one sort or another

> Sounds like the only way we should expect to get paid is

> through generous benefactors and donations.

Or stop producing information and start producing something which people
voluntarily pay for. What youre doing now is basically legislating prohibition
of copying so you can make a living by selling copies. Trying to make a living
by producing and selling copies in an age where everybody and their dog can
produce copies themselves effortlessly is a ridiculously bad business
decision. It is so outworldlishly ridiculous that it is no suprise, that most
of those who for some reason chose that path can not come up with a solution
to their little problem than crying for protectionism to ban DIY.

It is no different than the story of the french button wars:

* <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml>

* <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23623616>

~~~
cemerick
> something which people voluntarily pay for

When was the last time you were forced to pay for something you didn't want?

I know that isn't what you meant, but if the producer of a good is not capable
of determining the terms under which that good is sold/licensed, then you're
still in effect talking about donations.

This has nothing to do with buttons: there's no aristocracy attempting to
limit your access to that ebook or that piece of software. The _creator_ set a
price, and you're saying it should be perfectly fine for anyone to read that
book or use that software for free, whether the creator agrees to that or not.
"DIY" isn't pulling torrents, it would be producing the content or software
you want to consume or use yourself.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> then you're still in effect talking about donations.

No. Donations would imply that you do not have a business model at all. Just
set up a business in a way that you do not care about people copying
information bits.

> but if the producer of a good is not capable of

> determining the terms under which that good is sold

He is determining the price of his copies and selling copies. But he knows
that if everybody else is _also_ allowed to produce copies, nobody will buy
his copies. So instead of solving _his_ problem of a obsolete business model
(manufacturing and selling copies), he solves it by downgrading everybody
else's rights to freely exchange information with eachother.

> This has nothing to do with buttons

It has absolutely _everything_ to do with buttons. Its the same "prohibit
DIY-X so we can keep selling X"-principle.

> there's no aristocracy attempting to limit your access

They are limiting what kind of information I and my neighbour may exchange for
the sole purpose of making their copy-selling business thrive. The button
guild criminalized ordinary people for making DIY cloth buttons in order to
make them buy their originals.

> it should be perfectly fine for anyone to read that book

> whether the creator agrees to that or not.

This is not what I am saying, but a consequence. What I am saying is that
neither the author nor anybody else should have absolutely any say whatsoever
about who is "allowed" to copy what bit of information. Allowing copies only
when somebody "agrees" (usually for money) is protectionism and for-profit
censorship, pure and simple, and I am against it.

> "DIY" isn't pulling torrents, it would be producing the

> content or software you want to consume or use yourself.

No, the author created the work once, and is afterwards selling copies. This
worked 50 years ago, when ordinary people couldnt produce copies, so his
copies had value. Today they dont any more, since everybody can produce them
effortlessly themselves. My grandmother can copy Avatar as easily as 20th
Century Fox can. 50 years ago she couldnt. So today the business of
manufacturing and selling copies is gone like the button business. The only
way to sustain it is to scare people into not DIY-copying in order to make
authors copies "valuable" again, so the author can continue making a living by
"allowing" copies like he did in the 50s by selling real-value copies.

~~~
cemerick
It sounds like we're down to services and live performances. I think you just
eliminated most of the classes of content that you likely consume in a
recorded form. And in the software world, some would say hosted services
should be freely available as well (viz. AGPL), thereby driving absolutely
everyone to commodity pricing.

> Allowing copies only when somebody "agrees" (usually for money) is
> protectionism and for-profit censorship, pure and simple, and I am against
> it.

Crazy town. I only now noticed your "*-gnu" handle, but things make more sense
now.

Just out of curiosity, what do you have in mind for a suitable business model?

------
citricsquid
The thing almost everyone seems to be ignoring is Markus isn't saying "I think
piracy is great and you should all do it" he's saying it exists and you just
have to deal with it.

It seems almost everyone is taking what he has said as justification of
piracy, "oh well he's rich now and he doesn't mind piracy so it must be okay
for me to pirate!". If we ask him whether or not he thinks people should
pirate he'll not say "yes, do it" he'll say "Well I'd rather you bought it,
but if you're not going to then you may as well play it for free as I'd rather
you play my game than go without, and I'm not going to spend millions trying
to stop you... but I'd prefer if you paid for it".

~~~
naner
_Markus isn't saying "I think piracy is great and you should all do it" he's
saying it exists and you just have to deal with it._

This is kind of where I always stood (I don't pirate personally, though).

If you're selling some intellectual property, you can sell a bazillion copies
with almost no production costs. You produce once and then copy for (almost)
free.

Now that everyone has the ability to copy, that massive advantage is somewhat
tempered. It isn't quite the wild west, which is good. If piracy was easy and
convenient it would eviscerate sales. Most people can't figure out or don't
bother with piracy and blatant piracy is legally squashed (in the developed
world, at least).

There's not much you can do but accept it as a cost of doing business and
soldier on.

------
petercooper
Quite right. The English definition of theft: _"A person is guilty of theft,
if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the
intention of permanently depriving the other of it"._ To thieve something,
there must surely be _some thing_ to thieve.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
At some point can this develop beyond a semantic discussion of the term
"theft"?

I agree it's sloppy to think that theft and intellectual property violation
are interchangeable but the point has been made on here about a million times
so it doesn't really add much to the debate.

~~~
cturner
I share the frustation, but I'll explain why I think it's important not to let
an issue like that slide.

A lot of the time the copyright debate is fought between people these world
views.

1) Copyright opponents define propert as being like a car - something which
one person has by denying it to another person.

2) Copyright advocates think of property as a "bundle of rights" enforced by
the state. i.e. property is whatever a judge says it to be.

People who insist on calling it theft are steering the debate towards the
second definition - that theft is whatever a judge or politician says it is.
It's crucial to knock back attempts to do that. That worldview believes the
whim of the state is the root of philosophy, and fundamentally correct in its
judgement of right and wrong.

Property predates the state. It exists even in states that try to outlaw it.
It's a strong algorithm that is useful for the efficient allocation of
resources. Intellectual propert is neither a strong algorithm, nor a mechanism
that leads to an efficient allocation of resources. It is not property.
Intellectual property violations are not theft.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
No-one is saying that you're not right, we're just saying that this has been
said so many times that it doesn't need saying again.

Anyone who insists that copyright infringement and theft are the same thing
isn't someone who has anything useful to add in this debate. Given that why
not focus the debate on useful, genuinely contentious areas and solutions, not
rehashing an argument that has been had and won over and over again?

(And yes, I know there are people who don't buy into this but by and large
they're not reading Hacker News so you're doing nothing to progress the
argument on that front repeating it here).

~~~
sophacles
Human interaction is not code. Human discussion is not code. People are not
code. Repetition is how people learn and understand things. Seeing a point
once makes a person think "oh good point". Seeing many times forces them to
think of it in different contexts and different ways. This allows them to
understand it better.

Congratulations to you for being around long enough, and seeing this point
enough times, that you find it commonplace. I guarantee however that there are
plenty of people here who still need to see it. There are lots of people on
this site who are very intelligent in many ways who make comments like "you
need to protect your patent or you lose it" or "copyright doesn't count unless
registered". As long as they exist, this point can be made without it just
being echo chamber fodder.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
And what determines what is important vs. what is not? Certainly something
like spam is pure noise, but what justifies the repetition? I'm trying very
hard not to see it as consensual groupthink, but coming up short. I see this
in every community: a set of near-sacrosanct 'truths' emerges that inevitably
must be defended, and part of that process involves repeating them, often
under the guise of 'educating' others.

IMO, the argument is simply being reframed to avoid dealing with the larger
and more difficult problem. I'm not interested in avoiding the real issue here
-- compensation for creators in the age of easily-copied goods.

If we fix that, the semantics argument won't be an issue. After all, if we
have a just system that fairly compensates individuals for creating while
providing good incentives for consumers not to infringe, we don't need to
nitpick about theft v. infringe.This, to me, serves as a good indication of
what is actually important in this issue.

~~~
sophacles
Perhaps the argument is being reframed back and forth, not to avoid an issue,
but as proxy to this issue: creators are over-valuing their work and/or
copiers undervaluing. The semantics chosen are done so because they reflect
the point of view of the speaker. Put a different way: there are 2 ideas of
fair out there, each set of semantics represents one idea of fair accurately.

------
blub
Funny thing how this obviously flawed analysis has popped up at the same time
as the Trumpet Winsock piracy story:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2282875>.

Small developers can get badly hurt by piracy.

~~~
Deestan
The Trumpet Winsock story had to do with commercial actors "stealing" software
and mass-redistributing it for profit.

This story has to do with people "stealing" software for their own private use
without paying.

Given the existing level of confusion in all piracy discussions, I believe it
is counterproductive to lump these two scenarios together.

~~~
benologist
"commercial actors "stealing" software and mass-redistributing it for profit."

So basically exactly the same as torrent sites?

~~~
TheSOB88
Torrent sites don't have a financial incentive to get you to take the product,
do they?

~~~
benologist
Other than the millions/billions of ad impressions every month they show along
the way? No.

------
cturner
I defended copyright charges in a civil suit in the late nineties. I was
already skeptical about it, and the combination of my skepticism and the case
caused me to start to argue against it openly. It has been and is thrilling to
see the debate continue to turn against the idea.

Ten years ago, the idea of questioning the justification of copyright was
alien even to geeks and lawyers. People who copied lots themselves considered
it to be cheeky, unjustified. The idea of questioning it hadn't thought about
it, and wouldn't even raise the energy to consider that it might be worth
questioning. The reaction to skepticism would always be that laugh that's
reserved for contrarians, followed by a brief "doesn't compute" look and then
a search for distraction.

Things are shifting.

~~~
Derbasti
Funny thing, Germany does not have copyright. Instead, it has _creator_
-right, which is very similar and usually compatible with copyright, but not
exactly the same.

The difference is that copyright gives rights to the copyright holder, which
may or may not be the author. With creator-right ('Urheberrecht'), these
rights are always bound to the author and can not be sold.

I think this is interesting, because I would agree more with Urheberrecht than
with copyright.

------
psykotic
Whenever a discussion on this subject devolves into bickering over the meaning
of words, I feel an urge to smack the participants.

It's completely irrelevant what you call it unless you are one of those
curious people who considers private property to be almost an ontological
category. Protection of private property exists to the extent it's judged
useful to society. Protection of so-called intellectual property exists to the
same extent. Counterfactual what-if reasoning is as valid or as suspect in
this debate as in any other.

~~~
_delirium
> Protection of private property exists to the extent it's judged useful to
> society.

I agree with that view, but I suspect this issue comes up a lot because many
people don't agree with it. A common view is that private property is a
natural right of some sort, merely _recognized_ by society, rather than a
convention _created_ by society.

If you took that view, then whether intellectual property is legit turns
largely on whether it is or isn't part of this natural-law category of
"property" (which is what you find debate about in libertarian writings on IP,
for example).

~~~
jules
Explain how any right is a natural right. This is a spectrum, some rights
require more effort to protect than others. Private property rights require a
great deal of effort to protect, as do intellectual property rights.

~~~
_delirium
It's not really the effort to protect, but whether you see it as a choice
society can legitimately make, or something inherent pre-existing society. Is
private property something that a society should recognize or not recognize
based on pragmatic reasons, like how well society functions as a result? Or is
private property some sort of inherent/moral right (as e.g. John Locke and
most libertarians argue)? A similar debate comes up with copyright: is it a
privilege that we as a society choose to recognize as a means of encouraging
the production of creative works? Or is it some sort of inherent/moral right
of a creator to control the reuse of their works?

~~~
psykotic
In a given context, rights can be more or less fundamental. Imagine a
hypothetical post-scarcity society. Protection of private property in our
sense ceases to have meaning there and cannot be considered a right. How can
anyone of sound mind mistake private property as a natural right in light of
such thought experiments? It's a contingent and therefore non-absolute right.

You can consider protection of private property the most important right in
societies like ours, so important it occupies a lofty stratum of its own, and
yet not commit the fallacy of claiming that private property is a _natural_
right. However, it's understandable why people with priorities like that would
make such a mistake.

~~~
prodigal_erik
It seems to me that, somewhat like adultery, most people treat infringement
against their property as threat to some stone age survival instinct. We can
hear it when a small child shouts "MINE!" and see it in the cumbersome hoards
of garbage some homeless people drag around. I doubt a post-scarcity society
will be able to coolly regard all stuff as ephemeral and fungible; we'll still
defend our stuff vigorously only there will be more of it.

This is why "infringement is theft" arguments are so manipulative and
dishonest. They try to tap into this indignation rather than win the debate on
the merits.

------
marcelvdg
Surely lost sales _must_ exist... Markus is obvioously doing ok, and pirated
copies of his game are aiding virality, but still...

Software, movies and music are now perceived as free. Which is one reason why
many developers are now moving to closed platforms such as Apple's iOs where
they are guaranteed payment for installations.

That said, I can see the logic behind "going with the flow" when it comes to
piracy, especially when cumbersome anti-piracy measures usually only harm
legit, legal owners. (E.g. its more convenient to crack Digidesigns ProTools
audio editing software and be able to run it on my laptop without any fuss,
than to have to insert my legal USB dongle every time I boot the software).

I think anti-piracy measures will work if they are baked into a product from
day one. And I don't mean contrived, un-user-oriented measures, I mean doing
it iOs-style or cloud-style. In iOs the users love the App Store - its an
advantage, not a hindrance. And its the same with Cloud-based or hosted
software. Its a selling point - its part of the offering.

Me and some friends have a SaS app that we changed from free to a minimal
monthly subscription. Logically, we saw a decline in sign-ups and follow-
through by new users, but this was worth it cos we now make some money from
the service. If the software had, instead, been a download, then my guess it
that we never would have been able to profit of the small user-base that we
have. The free version would be out there, and even though it took off we
would never have seen any profits.

And then we might not be motivated to cary on creating cool stuff.

------
hnfwerr
That's what I would call sharing. The problem with physical goods is that if
you share it with someone, you don't have it anymore.

With digital goods, you can share and still own the product, so both are
happy.

This works perfect for consumers, but not so good for the companies....

~~~
rome
"This works perfect for consumers, but not so good for the companies...."

The movie industry is thriving and they've been hit pretty hard by sharing.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/piracy-
once-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/piracy-once-again-
fails-to-get-in-way-of-record-box-
office.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss)

------
bialecki
I don't know whether it is or isn't piracy, but it's hard to take his opinion
on this as representative or forward thinking because of how "special"
Minecraft is (i.e. it's massively popular). Maybe his goal is to maximize
revenue, but it doesn't seem like that. In that case, I'd be more interested
in the perspective of someone who's pulling in 30k/year in sales and has the
same 70% "lost sales" rate. When you're making millions, there's a threshold
above which more money is just more money and doesn't really matter (depending
on the person). But the difference between 30k/year and what might be
60-80k/year if there was a lower piracy rate would probably drive me nuts
because that's the difference between making a living doing something and not.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm glad you got something from the numbers in that article because I didn't.
Something about 1% of the registered users coming in the last 24 hours? And a
million out of 600,000 being such-and-such.

Is there some place other than that puff piece to get real MineCraft numbers
from?

~~~
teamonkey
Minecraft won an award (multiple awards?) at the Indie Games Festival Awards
at the Game Developers Conference yesterday. That would explain the sales.

It beat out other indie games, which of course wouldn't get as high a sales
boost. So yes, Minecraft is an example of a very rare case.

~~~
citricsquid
Sales haven't changed since winning the award, it has been a steady 10k/day
for months now.

------
sanj
If only that were actually true.

Colin Messitt actually ran an experiment to figure this out. I reposted it
about 15 years ago with his permission:

[http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19990420024127/http://scraw...](http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19990420024127/http://scrawlsoft.com/products/common/hardnose.html)

------
iterationx
Piracy first increases product visibility and increases overall sales until a
saturation point is reached. Once market visibility is achieved then piracy
represents a loss of sales.

[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/24446/is-
ther...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/24446/is-there-a-list-
of-software-companies-that-have-gone-out-of-business-due-to-pirac/24525#24525)

As for the X is or is not theft discussions, let's see what Richard Feynman
has to say about it:

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when
you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So
let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned
very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing
something.

------
olivercameron
What gripes me most about pirates is that a lot still feel they have some form
of entitlement for support. For example, I get emails all the time saying
"I'll pay for the app, but only if you provide feature X and fix bug Y, until
then, it's just not worth 99 cents.".

------
mlellsworth
Minecraft is mind boggling from a business perspective AND a gaming
perspective. Are there any other communities that are similar to Minecraft
that anyone can think of?

I just find it fascinating that a game like Minecraft has such an involved
ecosystem around it.

------
iwwr
Buying Minecraft is not just buying a program, it's a kind of license
agreement; the buyer is expecting future updates and feature improvements.
Whereas, software bought in a box comes as-is, at most with the occasional
bugfix patch.

~~~
pilif
That's not quite true according to their Terms and Service
(<http://www.minecraft.net/copyright.jsp>),

 _When you purchase the game, you pay for it as it is right now. Future
updates are an added bonus._

Sure. So far the game has been updated regularly, but they explicitly stated
that they are not guaranteeing any updates.

~~~
mostly_harmless
That was a recent addition to the Terms. What that is referring to is
additional DLC once the game is complete. Right now it is in beta. If you own
a alpha license, you are guaranteed to receive additional updates free. The
idea was that they were afraid of a "Everything in the future is free" clause,
so just in case; they added that. There is currently no planned 'bonus
updates'

~~~
pilif
The clause I quoted was there even during alpha (unfortunately web.archive.org
doesn't have older versions so I can't link it).

During alpha the rules were: " _if_ they release updates, you get them for
free. But you agree that when you pay, you pay for the game as-is and you
don't have any right to _expect_ updates".

Meaning: "Maybe I lose interest in doing this and just stop updating it. You
have no right to be mad about this. If I update it though, you will get that
update for free"

------
antihero
I generally support examples like this, but it's important to note that
Minecraft development budget is hardly anything compared to the investment of
a major game studio, hence the lower price point.

------
pnathan
What I hear is that there is a vested interest by the common consumer in
Getting Stuff For Free.

I like free stuff too. But believe me, I'd rather put in some registration
features to "keep people honest" than to let myself be ripped off.

------
blahblahblah
Actually, piracy is theft. Specifically, it's a form of robbery that takes
place at sea. The attempt to equate the crime of copyright infringement with
piracy is a gross misuse of the English language. When a ship of Somali
bandits with AK47s boards your yacht, murders everyone on board (or leaves
them stranded somewhere), and takes everything of value -- that's piracy. When
a college student downloads warez, bittorrents "Pirates of the Carribean", or
downloads the new Lady Gaga album through a P2P app -- that's copyright
infringement. When the MPAA, RIAA, or BSA use the word "piracy" to describe
the latter activity -- that's propaganda.

------
chopsueyar
See "larceny".

------
lotusleaf1987
"No big studio picked up the film [Ink] for theatrical and home distribution.
Double Edge Films pitched the movie directly to independent cinemas and to the
DVD, Blu-ray and online distribution by themselves. After the release it
became the most downloaded movies in file sharing torrent sites more
accurately 400,000 times in a single week and exposed the film to a large
audience, leading to higher DVD and Blu-ray sales in return. The independent
filmmakers wrote in their newsletter that they had "embraced the piracy" and
are "happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure." :
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071804/trivia>

------
leon_
Oh please, can't we keep those piracy apologist posts away from HN? It's bad
enough that gamasutra.com's comments are flooded with those "I pirate games
because piracy = freedom"-kids. I don't think this kind of discussion would
enrich HN in any positive way.

~~~
mkr-hn
This isn't a piracy apologist post. This is an article about the creator of a
wildly successful game saying piracy isn't as big a deal as people make out of
it.

