The computer industry has, no doubt, been a huge success in the last 50 or so years – including the hardware side of things. Has all that success been largely thanks to piracy? The CEO of ID Software seems to think so.
CustomPC is pointing to an interesting interview on GameIndustry.biz where the issue of software piracy was brought up towards the end. Here’s an exerpt from the portion in question:
Todd Hollenshead: There’s lots of things that [the hardware industry] could do [to stop piracy] but typically just they just line up on the wrong side of the argument in my opinion. They have lots of reasons as to why they do that, but I think that there’s been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content – even if you’re supposed to pay for it on PCs – is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games.
Q: You think they’re secretly happy about it?
Todd Hollenshead: Yeah I think they are. I think that if you went in and could see what’s going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I’m not saying there’s some conspiracy or something like that – but I think the thing is they realise that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer.
And I think that just based on their actions…what they say is one thing, but what they do is another. When it comes into debates about whether peer-to-peer file-sharing networks that by-and-large have the vast majority, I’m talking 99 per cent of the content is illicitly trading copyrighted property, they’ll come out on the side of the 1 per cent of the user doing it for legitimate benefit. You can make philosophical arguments that are difficult to debate, but at the same time you’re just sort of ignoring the enormity of the problem.
Aside from the fact that there is, not only no solid evidence to support the theory that 99% of all material on file-sharing is unauthorized, but no means to even calculate exactly what is authorized and unauthorized, this seems to point to quite an interesting trend in the anti-piracy movement.
This bit of news seems to follow-up our recent report about software companies sending thousands of lawsuits to alleged copyright infringers.
Earlier this year, there was a movement to get ISPs to stop copyright infringement, but so far, only Britain seems to have been trying to follow through with the plans with France attempting similar action.
Trying everything, the RIAA tried to get anti-virus companies to filter for copyright infringement earlier this year as well, though anti-virus companies would likely be better off actually filtering out Trojan horses rather than keeping MP3’s of Metallica off of people’s hard drives.
Still, the argument that the hardware industry id benefiting off of piracy isn’t without merit. Whenever a physical anti-piracy bust actually occurs, CD and DVD burners as well as computer hardware are frequently confiscated – someone had to buy those somewhere along the line – or at least the necessary parts for it.
On the other hand, the idea isn’t without a counterpoint. It’s really hard to deny that computers have advanced at a fast rate. Part of that development was increasingly less need to compress a program into efficient code since computer processors have increased in performance as well. When there’s less need to compress the code, there is more of a need to increase a software’s capability. That, in turn, creates a need for a computer with better performance – the cycle continues today.
So if the software industry is upset over how well the hardware industry is doing, it also only has itself to blame because the software industry has also benefited from the hardware industry. This raises the issue of why there is sudden tension between the software and hardware industry in the first place when both industries seemed to have benefited from each other for years. Can one even exist without the other?
Then again, these days, there have been breaks in seemingly solid alliances. The major recording industry has upset the radio industry with royalty hikes. Internet Service Providers have been making enemies out if their own customers through spying allegations and filtering. It seems as though one can add the software industry being upset at the hardware industry to the list now. Many have said that companies would be crazy to break such alliances, yet here we are today seeing exactly this. It’s a situation that, to some, would make as much sense as Duracell taking legal aim against the flashlight industry.
One should also take into account that this is just one CEO’s opinion and might not reflect the overall opinion in the software industry (effectively blaming the hardware industry for the software industry’s supposed woes) It would be hard to imagine that everyone in the software industry thinks it’s the hardware industry’s fault that piracy exists. One thing is for sure, in a situation where many things up to the world-wide economy is in a state of flux, nothing is always certain.
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What an idiot hardware manufacturers are building products for consumers not for game makers. Its not up to the hardware manufacturers to scan peoples computers and decide what to allow and disallow. It would be suicide for the manufacturers to implement an anti piracy scheme as they would be risking backlash from consumers when the technology affects legitimate uses. It would undoubtedly also slow down performance which no one wants. We are talking about a highly competitive market here not a industry moving to a near monopoly.
If it weren’t sad enough manufacturers have pondered anti piracy measures they just have yet to implement them due to worries of consumer pressure. Apparently the CEO of ID software hasn’t heard of these initiatives and the backlash just further shows how misinformed these guys are. Just look up trusted computing if you’re interested in the farce that is copyright protection on computers.
attempting to bring in anti-virus programs into the anti piracy bandwagon is pure bullshit. thankfully there’s a more than competent open source movement waiting on the sidelines to keep the big houses (symantec et al) in line. if the big boys want to play we’ll simply switch to FREE and LEGAL OSS anti virus. they know it.
trusted computing isn’t going mainstream anytime soon either…one word “economics”. developing countries like china to name but one has a huge market for hardware spurred mainly by the availability of pirated software (hey when your average monthly income is less than $400 ~$100 for an OS is a lot). hardware manufacturers can’t ignore this segment and i’m guessing will maintain the status quo. a new approach is needed but not this one.
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/ is id Software’s own BitTorrent (P2P) server and I notice it is still online. If id Software’s CEO was really against P2P so much that legit use is worthless he’d pull the plug on his own BT server. THEN he’d change his mind when his server’s bandwidth usage goes through the roof.
Just another good example of commercial software producers not doing significant research about there customers and looking for someone else to pin the responsibility on so they can keep on being greedy… open source products are the way forward they always have been… the only way i can see the commercial software industry not to have any piracy is to switch to revenue based distribution and allow customers to select any software they want for free when they buy a piece of hardware….included it in the hardware cost but allowing it to be which ever product you want for the same price…. This might sound stupid but if yah think about it… why the hell should I buy a PC or Device with a bunch of software I’ll never use because i never got the choice? and there’s like no way I’ll ever buy anti viruses spyware scanners firewalls and registry cleaners that take up resources on my computer just so I can remove shit that really should never have been there in the first place! It’s microsoft’s responsibility to keep it’s users safe not those 3rd party companies…It’s an obligation they have to include in there OS Since we did buy it for up to $300
Plus if you’re a developer and you’re just starting out like me then Microsoft’s and Adobe’s prices are ridiculus! if i buy my PC for £2000 you honestly think I’m going to buy software just as expensive to run on it? get outa here !!!
Piracy sure makes me buy lots of blank DVDs CDs and hard drives!