But the bottom line is that when something can be gotten for free let’s just say that more people than not will try to “maximize their opportunities”.

In my eyes the only currently viable model is the one offered by NetFlix and the current Napster. Everyone pays a monthly fee for unlimited access. The host tracks which movies are watched which songs are downloaded games played etc. and pays royalties accordingly. BUT THIS ONLY FOR NEW RELEASES. There is no reason to expect a 50 year old movie or song to generate much in the way of royalties as every day there are more movies made and songs released. No one can enjoy every single one of them in a lifetime. And the Disney/Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act is a farce.

@OU
I know say what u will but at least the guy is trying to improve himself….

He sees it as a chance to improve himself……….
“But actually talking to the pirates has revealed a huge group of people who really appreciate genuinely good games. Some of the criticisms of my games hit home. I get the impression that if I make Kudos 2 not just lots better than the original but hugely overwhelmingly massively better well polished designed and balanced that a lot of would-be pirates will actually buy it. I’ve gone from being demoralized by pirates to actually inspired by them and I’m working harder than ever before on making my games fun and polished.”

Games giant Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM) a US replicator based in Charlotte North Carolina. Ubisoft alleges that an OEM employee took home a copy of Assassin’s Creed PC and leaked it onto the internet six weeks prior to the game’s launch in April leading to over 700000 illegal downloads of the game and millions of dollars in lost sales.

The official court document states: “Ubisoft is one of the largest independent publishers and developers of video games in the world. One of its most successful games is Assassin’s Creed. As a result of an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence by Defendant Optical Experts Manufacturing (”OEM”) one of OEM’s employees leaked onto the worldwide web the PC version of Assassin’s Creed (the “Game”) six weeks prior to its release. This leak resulted in over 700000 illegal internet downloads of the Game which caused Ubisoft to lose millions of dollars in sales. OEM should be held accountable for that loss.”

Research figures from NPD indicate that the PC version of Assassin’s Creed sold only some 40000 copies through June; negligible compared with the sales on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. According to Ubisoft what makes matters worse is that the earlier version of the game contained a bug for security reasons that would make the game crash halfway through. While the bug was not supposed to be on the final release the company claims that the mix of reviews based on the ‘buggy’ release and those based on the retail version “created customer confusion and caused irreparable harm” to its reputation.

The bottom line is that Ubisoft is suing OEM for copyright infringement breach of contract and negligence. For the breach of contract and negligence the publisher is looking for at least $10 million in damages.

Let Ubisoft sue OEM and they should IMHO considering they have an obligation to protect the product of a client.

However it won’t change anything. It’ll only delay the inevitable that the game will be pirated and made freely available to all. Who will Ubisoft sue then? The entire world?

Copyright-infringing music site shut down in Italy

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Four alleged operators of a popular copyright-infringing music forum face heavy fines and potential prison sentences after Italian police shut down the site and seized servers and thousands of illegal files and discs. Downrevolution.net was one of the biggest forum sites in Italy providing links which 30000 registered subscribers used to illegally swap music and film. Content was being made available via known locker services such as Rapidshare.com and megaupload.com which resulted in some half a million downloads.

Jeremy Banks IFPI’s head of internet anti-piracy unit says: “This shows a real commitment by the authorities to stopping online copyright theft and it also highlights that forums such as these are anything but immune to the law.”

The four people believed to be the operators of the site which was founded in 2007 and was also earning revenues from banner advertising have been prosecuted for violating Italian copyright law. They face potential imprisonment of up to three years a fine of €15000 and administrative sanctions running into hundreds of thousands of euros.

Despite improvements in piracy levels in many countries during 2007 those nations with the highest rates caused PC software losses to rise by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion.

That’s according to the annual global PC software piracy study from Business Software Alliance (BSA) Washington DC. Of the 108 countries included in the report use of pirated software dropped in 67 and rose in only eight. However because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38% in 2007.

The three lowest piracy countries were the US (20%). Luxembourg (21%) and New Zealand (22%). The three highest piracy countries were Armenia 993%) Bangladesh (92%) and Azerbaijan (92%).

“By the end of 2007 there were more than 1 billion PCs installed around the world and close to half had pirated unlicensed software on them” said John Gantz chief research officer at IDC.

BSA’s “blueprint” for reducing software piracy includes:

* increasing public education and awareness
* updating national copyright laws to implement World Intellectual Property Organization obligations
* Creating strong enforcement mechanisms
* Dedicating significant government resources to the problem
* Leading by example by implementing software management policies and requiring the public sector to sue only legitimate software