I haven’t seen someone explain how a digital creator is supposed to make money without charging, y’know, money for their product.
Maybe the question we should be asking isn’t whether or not piracy is theft, but instead whether or not piracy is harmful.
The makers of Hangul Word Processor in Korea had to be bailed out by the government because despite the fact that their software is installed on almost every single computer in the country, and is most certainly on any computer used in any official capacity, almost no one paid for it. That means that at least some part of my tax dollars were used to support a software company I abhor. Their always-running updater shows ads in the taskbar. (At least it did when I was forced to use it.) The actual word processor is janky and crap, but at this point they’re so in bed with the government, they’re never going away. All because everyone and their dog pirated their software back when Korea’s PC industry was sweeping the country.
Nintendo sold more Nintendo DS Lites in Korea than games. Retailers sold flash carts loaded with games right beside the units. Who’s going to pay $50 for a single game when you can pay $50 for a hundred of the exact same games? The next console released by Nintendo (WiiU) never came to Korea. I wonder why.
Maybe piracy isn’t theft by some outdated definition of the term, but it most certainly isn’t not harmful either.
I think the underlying issue is that the digital product is by its nature infinitely copyable and requires a different system/approach then the old physical distribution model. I don’t think digital creators are today struggling for ways to monetize their work, but having issues convincing consumers of the value of that work. People are getting squeezed and it is changing how much (or even if) they spend on entertainment, art, etc. A major part about anything’s value that keeps getting overlooked (by companies, creators, and often experts) is that the consumer does ultimately decide what that value is. With something that can be endlessly copied with little to no cost the assigned value drops, and we see in this current economic space more and more. Piracy is nothing but a byproduct of tech and market forces. I don’t really think it is necessarily harmful or the core issue. I don’t think gov bailouts are the fault of piracy, and more so using Nintendo as an example of a victim steels me in the other direction. As for the definition of theft, as has been said over and over here, it is not outdated and is very, very scary to think of the implications of a world where the definition is changed to include software piracy.
I get that it sucks being on the shit end of a shift in spending habits (hell, I sell drugs for a living and see the reduction in recreational spending firsthand). But to think that people are going to not bootleg, pirate, blackmarket trade, make knockoffs or such is, has and always be naive.
using Nintendo as an example of a victim steels me in the other direction
Yes, Nintendo is pretty disgustingly anti-consumer in a lot of cases, but in the case of the DS in Korea, I think they were entirely justified in just not releasing their next console here. Why bother when it’s going to get immediately hacked and sold chipped in every little video game store with a pile of burned discs next to it? If you’re selling something, and you know one of your customers is going to take your thing and copy it and resell it, why on Earth would you ever sell anything to them ever again?
I agree we shouldn’t immediately label piracy as theft, but we definitely shouldn’t dismiss it as totally harmless, either.
I looked into the wii thing a bit and I don’t think it was the R4s and what not that had them not release the wii in Korea (at least not until 2019 for some odd reason). They released it in Brazil for shits sake, if risk of piracy was an issue I don’t think they would have. I think the reason they did not release in Korea in a timely was just an odd choice (the wii had a few of them) and I would assume the same rational for the gamecube also not releasing in Korea. If it had something to do with piracy then I can assure you places like Brazil (November 26, 2013), Mexico (November 29, 2012) or South Africa (November 30, 2012) would also not see these consoles.
Actually now that I am thinking on it did South Korea not until fairly recently have a ban on Japanese electronics or media? Maybe the old Japan/Korea relations play a role in Nintendo’s neglect?
This whole rabbit hole was neat, and thanks for that. However I do think this is a great example of a folk tale or rumour becoming the foundation of an idea that is just not actually true but feels true. And in time these examples used over and over become accepted as true, like the effectiveness of allied bombing in ww2 or that Margret Thatcher somehow invented soft-serve ice cream 20 years after it became popular. I don’t think piracy is always harmless, but honestly in the grand picture of the world today I would say it is mostly harmless and so far down the list of “things to solve”. Re-esablishing basic property rights to non rich people is much higher and even then I doubt it is in the top 100.
Maybe the old Japan/Korea relations play a role in Nintendo’s neglect?
While I don’t doubt that that could also be part of the reason it never released here, it is a fact that the DS sold more hardware than games here in 2007.
In South Korea, many video game consumers exploit illegal copies of video games, including the DS. In 2007, over 500,000 copies of DS games were sold, while the sales of the DS hardware units was 800,000.
I haven’t seen someone explain how a digital creator is supposed to make money without charging, y’know, money for their product.
Maybe the question we should be asking isn’t whether or not piracy is theft, but instead whether or not piracy is harmful.
The makers of Hangul Word Processor in Korea had to be bailed out by the government because despite the fact that their software is installed on almost every single computer in the country, and is most certainly on any computer used in any official capacity, almost no one paid for it. That means that at least some part of my tax dollars were used to support a software company I abhor. Their always-running updater shows ads in the taskbar. (At least it did when I was forced to use it.) The actual word processor is janky and crap, but at this point they’re so in bed with the government, they’re never going away. All because everyone and their dog pirated their software back when Korea’s PC industry was sweeping the country.
Nintendo sold more Nintendo DS Lites in Korea than games. Retailers sold flash carts loaded with games right beside the units. Who’s going to pay $50 for a single game when you can pay $50 for a hundred of the exact same games? The next console released by Nintendo (WiiU) never came to Korea. I wonder why.
Maybe piracy isn’t theft by some outdated definition of the term, but it most certainly isn’t not harmful either.
I think the underlying issue is that the digital product is by its nature infinitely copyable and requires a different system/approach then the old physical distribution model. I don’t think digital creators are today struggling for ways to monetize their work, but having issues convincing consumers of the value of that work. People are getting squeezed and it is changing how much (or even if) they spend on entertainment, art, etc. A major part about anything’s value that keeps getting overlooked (by companies, creators, and often experts) is that the consumer does ultimately decide what that value is. With something that can be endlessly copied with little to no cost the assigned value drops, and we see in this current economic space more and more. Piracy is nothing but a byproduct of tech and market forces. I don’t really think it is necessarily harmful or the core issue. I don’t think gov bailouts are the fault of piracy, and more so using Nintendo as an example of a victim steels me in the other direction. As for the definition of theft, as has been said over and over here, it is not outdated and is very, very scary to think of the implications of a world where the definition is changed to include software piracy.
I get that it sucks being on the shit end of a shift in spending habits (hell, I sell drugs for a living and see the reduction in recreational spending firsthand). But to think that people are going to not bootleg, pirate, blackmarket trade, make knockoffs or such is, has and always be naive.
Yes, Nintendo is pretty disgustingly anti-consumer in a lot of cases, but in the case of the DS in Korea, I think they were entirely justified in just not releasing their next console here. Why bother when it’s going to get immediately hacked and sold chipped in every little video game store with a pile of burned discs next to it? If you’re selling something, and you know one of your customers is going to take your thing and copy it and resell it, why on Earth would you ever sell anything to them ever again?
I agree we shouldn’t immediately label piracy as theft, but we definitely shouldn’t dismiss it as totally harmless, either.
I looked into the wii thing a bit and I don’t think it was the R4s and what not that had them not release the wii in Korea (at least not until 2019 for some odd reason). They released it in Brazil for shits sake, if risk of piracy was an issue I don’t think they would have. I think the reason they did not release in Korea in a timely was just an odd choice (the wii had a few of them) and I would assume the same rational for the gamecube also not releasing in Korea. If it had something to do with piracy then I can assure you places like Brazil (November 26, 2013), Mexico (November 29, 2012) or South Africa (November 30, 2012) would also not see these consoles.
Actually now that I am thinking on it did South Korea not until fairly recently have a ban on Japanese electronics or media? Maybe the old Japan/Korea relations play a role in Nintendo’s neglect?
This whole rabbit hole was neat, and thanks for that. However I do think this is a great example of a folk tale or rumour becoming the foundation of an idea that is just not actually true but feels true. And in time these examples used over and over become accepted as true, like the effectiveness of allied bombing in ww2 or that Margret Thatcher somehow invented soft-serve ice cream 20 years after it became popular. I don’t think piracy is always harmless, but honestly in the grand picture of the world today I would say it is mostly harmless and so far down the list of “things to solve”. Re-esablishing basic property rights to non rich people is much higher and even then I doubt it is in the top 100.
While I don’t doubt that that could also be part of the reason it never released here, it is a fact that the DS sold more hardware than games here in 2007.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS
And yeah, as far as issues plaguing the world today, software piracy is pretty far down the list of ones that need immediate attention.