Buried in Plastic - Piracy and Children.

[sonictail]

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. I know it's rather dangerous but I’m at the stage where I’m starting to firm up some thoughts, figure out plans of attack etc. One of the issues is piracy and how to combat it's effects / is it worthwhile spending that time. You all have heard the arguments for and against so that isn't the point of

Comments

[finback]

One thing that comes to mind - is the woman aware that to USE a downloaded DS game, you need special hardware? I mean, ROMs are one thing we're all no doubt familiar with. But ROMs for the DS won't work on anything but the DS..

Not that I'm approving, just wondering if the mother dones't get how tech works.

Tangentially, I'm finding now I'm working with a more solid income, I'm more able to purchase the games. 15 years ago, I'd have shared games with friends (ok, I still do that to some degree) but with the advent of online registrations, etc. it's not something we do as much. So I'm buying the software. Plus, a lot of the games you mentioned above I had as well, and they often came as shareware. I guess it's partially because of the changes within the industry, and changes from how the industry is marketted. 15 years ago, a lot of games developers were smallscale; these days, they're the quintessential "faceless corporations"..

[illusionbreaker]

I thought of a response, but I figure it might be faster to write up a quasi-counter article, or at least an analysis into some of the issues at hand, at least in Australia.

It's never black and white but piracy in Australia at least is a murky mess even at the best of times.

[dortamur]

I don't think you'll ever be able to avoid this sort of situation - that some people just won't pay for something if they can get it for free, with no thought for the people who created that product. It's a sad fact that some people are just plain selfish. Some people will, though, if they can afford it, and products like games need to find a balance between affordability and value, such that enough people do buy it

[arkem]

While I agree with what you're saying I don't think it is fair to equate piracy to theft. Copyright infringement is bad but it really isn't the same as stealing.