Not seeing forest for trees. Yes, Google does that for pirates where legitimate takedown notices are posted, but they also do that for cases not involving piracy where the DCMA notice is an attempt to stifle public discussion or to hide bad acts that someone doesn't want public, or to censor. It's generally not wise to consider what's in one's personal interest to be the sole factor in determining whether something serves a larger good.

Not seeing forest for trees. Yes, Google does that for pirates where legitimate takedown notices are posted, but they also do that for cases not involving piracy where the DCMA notice is an attempt to stifle public discussion or to hide bad acts that someone doesn't want public, or to censor. It's generally not wise to consider what's in one's personal interest to be the sole factor in determining whether something serves a larger good.

You aren't seeing the planet that hosts the forest - it is the DMCA, not the DCMA. The "larger good" in this context is determined by the laws of the United States is that safe harbor protections are extended only in the case that a network provider follows this process,  and that is not in the interest of Google. Google is a publicly traded corporation that generates significant revenue from an extremely pervasive advertisement system - its no more or less self interested than other corporations that are involved. They've simply found a clever way to use the DMCA to harm any entity that sends them a take down notice. Google could examine a link and send a counter notice if they were really interested in protecting free speech. They could do that and protect the individual rights of creators and also protect public discourse, too.

Personal interest (also know as "greed') vs the larger good is a philosophical argument highly prone to logical fallacy and looks like a backhanded ad hominem attack. It can be argued to the end of time and still produce nothing.

Hi

I am reposting part of a post I made In July 2014 in response

to the Claim of poser Merchants having Lost "Millions"to piracy.

This is not a personal Attack on anyone just an Observation 

of the Objective,Observable reality

As a merchant selling Digital products here at Renderosity

I have long since accepted the reality that

This is not a viable way(IMHO) to make a primary living which is why I still rely on custom character animation,3D motion graphics and good old fashioned 2D graphic design for print.

I recently read a very interesting book

on my Kindle called "The second Machine Age"

This book was very blunt in clarifying the reality of selling "Data sets" (ie digital products) as a business model.

In Short our business model CANNOT be compared to a craftsman selling, Maintaining an inventory of, and shipping&delivering even the most generic physical product that he created/manufactured.

This because our only real cost is the purchase price of whatever development software we used and our own subjective opinion of what our expert labor costs to produce ONE original copy.

After that, the "shelf life" & dollar value of your product is severely limited by several factors

,not the least of which, is the ability by you, ( and others),to instantly "manufacture" store and distribute unlimited copies at a cost of ZERO dollars.

As Merchants of digital poser content Our "loss" thus is not literal as in the case of the real life open sea "pirate" stealing a physical shipping container of Apple Ipads at gun point,that Apple Paid to develope &manufacture, and  thereafter can NEVER be sold (By Apple) for a profit.

As they have been "Pirated"or physically removed from apple's inventory in a Zero Sum Fashion.

Our "loss"can only be a theoretical estimate of what all those unlimited copies would have sold for ,at our retail price.

Alas IMHO our scenario then becomes a sort of "Schrödinger's cat" paradox wrapped in endlessly debatable semantics.

whereby I am enjoying the benefit of being able to "manufacture" one million copies of my $10 dollar python script at a cost of Zero.....

while simultaneously asserting I have suffered a $10 Million Dollar "loss" when  disparate users worldwide collectively create one million copies of this same script via unauthorized digital downloads on torrent.

" Most network providers hide behind the DMCA and pull the content, but they do not unplug accounts or pull the blogs that are used entirely for piracy (many Ive found our stuff on, there are also links to cracks of Adobe products, etc)".

On the matter of ISP unplugging accounts or inserting themselves into disputes over ownership of content being

hosted or transferred on their networks.

I personally know several individuals who partake in the Cottage industry of selling "bootlegged" DVD's& music in low income urban areas to the non tech savvy populations there.

One Such person has Verizon as his ISP.

He recently received a notice,from verizon, that Paramount studios(IIRC)

Accused him of Downloading one of their movies or TV shows

Via Torrent.

Verizon inc Made this Man "sign " a digital Statement

Promising to "desist" from this activity

and he Did so.

Shortly thereafter he was Accused of Downloading more

Bootlegged movies .etc.

This time Verizon sent him a policy Statement indicating

that in the( frankly unlikely) Event of a Lawsuit by Paramount etc

they ( Verizon), would share his personal information with

the Claimants if the claimants lawyer requested it.

No Threat of shutting off his service was ever Made by Verizon

This shows us that ISP's are in the Primary business of COLLECTING MONTHLY Service fees from their subscribers.

Not Deleting Consumer accounts (in this highly competitive market) over DVD/Bluray  rips of "Star Trek" or  last seasons TV episodes of "the Good Wife" or "Two broke Girls".

Paramount is a Multi-billion Dollar Corporation 

they Could Afford the cost of legally pursuing those who

distribute their movies & TV shows.

But they almost Never Go after individuals

and even  in the case of State sponsored "piracy"

( such as China,North Korea etc,) they defer to the Buffoons in

 Washington  DC to Decide if it is in their Political interest to

take any action.

So what real options does a pose/Daz merchant have over

stopping distribution of his

purpose built $$ small market$$ digital goods???...not many IMHO.

whereby I am enjoying the benefit of being able to "manufacture" one million copies of my $10 dollar python script at a cost of Zero.....

while simultaneously asserting I have suffered a $10 Million Dollar "loss" when  disparate users worldwide collectively create one million copies of this same script via unauthorized digital downloads on torrent.

Your business model is not the same as mine or PhilC's. PhilC, myself, Sixus1 and others have generated revenue to support one or (many) more people doing this professionally, and have done so for many years now. Other content professionals do the same.
Our creation of content is exactly the same as R&D in any market. We acquire tools, and there is a cost of production. There are often, but not always, salaries and taxes paid, and these are no more subjective than a company estimating salaries (if you take it seriously). What happens thereafter depends on if you are running a true business, a multi-service contractor or just having a hobby that pays some extra coin.

Brokerages like Rendo assume the cost of marketing and first level support for you, and you pay them a percentage of the revenue. If you are an indie business, you also do this yourself. Brokerages costs and indie business costs are ongoing. Products that are not marketed and supported die on the vine relatively quickly.

Let me share a teachable moment with you in regards to one brokerage. We were told that the shelf-life of content was very short, which we knew was wrong. Their estimates were that some pieces of content would effectively have no value after 6-12 months. That estimate was based on the short view of marketing as accepted by that brokerage - and that they were doing all the marketing. Five years later, we got an apology and acknowledgement. The right kind of marketing and support for a product generates ongoing revenue, but its also an ongoing cost, too.

Old concepts of production and sales, cost of goods, bill of materials did not fade away; they were transformed in part or in whole to digital analogs. Usually the digital analogs cost a lot less, but not always. Concepts of theft are different too - "shrinkage" is something else in the digital world. And old concepts of marketing have been replaced by new ones that are not free.

There are many vendors who do nothing more than make some models, do some promo renders and write a little text, and then let Rendo run with it. The same thing plays out in other types of brokerages - ie photo stock, music production, etc. You can choose not to do the marketing and sales (and get nothing), or hand it over to a brokerage for a percentage, or you can do it yourself.

"Your business model is not the same as mine or PhilC's. PhilC, myself, Sixus1 and others have generated revenue to support one or (many) more people doing this professionally, and have done so for many years now. Other content professionals do the same.

Our creation of content is exactly the same as R&D in any market. We acquire tools, and there is a cost of production. There are often, but not always, salaries and taxes paid, and these are no more subjective than a company estimating salaries (if you take it seriously). ......"

Lovely..Bloody Good for You.

As I stated earlier,  these Hyperbolic claims of "Millions lost to Piracy",even in your business model, are subject to endlessly debable semantics

"There are often, but not always, salaries and taxes paid,"

But Alas,under the current western Economic system our "losses" to "piracy" are not Claimable to any insurance underwriter or IRS tax Deduction.

(as in the hypothetical Case of the hijacked shipping container

of Apple ipads would be)

That IMHO makes such  Dollar amount Claims Illusory at best.

Best wishes

I knew I had those links around somewhere...

People insisting that digital has to follow the same rules of physical when it comes to the market should read these:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061026/102329.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061115/020157.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061129/010043.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061025/014811.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939/grand-unified-theory-economics-free.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061026/102329.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120503/14160618768/nobody-cares-about-fixed-costs-your-book-movie-whatever.shtml

"Your business model is not the same as mine or PhilC's. PhilC, myself, Sixus1 and others have generated revenue to support one or (many) more people doing this professionally, and have done so for many years now. Other content professionals do the same.

Our creation of content is exactly the same as R&D in any market. We acquire tools, and there is a cost of production. There are often, but not always, salaries and taxes paid, and these are no more subjective than a company estimating salaries (if you take it seriously). ......"

Lovely..Bloody Good for You.

As I stated earlier,  these Hyperbolic claims of "Millions lost to Piracy",even in your business model, are subject to endlessly debable semantics

"There are often, but not always, salaries and taxes paid,"

But Alas,under the current western Economic system our "losses" to "piracy" are not Claimable to any insurance underwriter or IRS tax Deduction.

 

(as in the hypothetical Case of the hijacked shipping container

of Apple ipads would be)

That IMHO makes such  Dollar amount Claims Illusory at best.

Best wishes

I am not disagreeing that its really hard to assign a number to losses.  There's no telling how many people downloading a pirated product would actually have paid for it. Collecting data just for the downloads themselves is herculean, but some really huge numbers can still be estimated depending on server data, and a creators pricing can be assigned to those downloads, even if the downloader never would have paid for it. And if there are a million downloads at $1 each based on USSRP - you took it, you pay full price for it reasoning - easily $1 million (PhilC's prices not used here).

But here's the inherent problem with your response and reasoning, which I have seen many, many times. Since the actual amount of harm caused is extremely hard to calculate, that is then used in the argument that losses are not actual at all because they cannot be easily quantified. And then that fuels the argument of the actual "cost" of the product vs penalties that are vastly bigger.

On the face of it, suing some kid for $250,000 for a $20 download seems absurd. But this is a "death by millions of cuts" problem rather than a one time beheading, and the associated use of that may have a different value entirely. This sort of semi-mythic numbers association is nothing new legally, its just really unfortunate that the industry is driven to it for lack of enforcement and weak laws.

The software industry has been suffering from this for a long time. The more peripheral a product is, more likely for a single project or a one time use, the more likely typical payers are to consider pirating something. It used to be for example, that most pro artists were happy to pay for their photoshop license, but then they'd consider pirating a plugin because "they only need it this one time".

The software industry has a partial solution (it also solves the software maturation problem)  that we content folks don't have - the subscription model. I completely hate it. But if the software can be turned off remotely, like a service, then they have the opportunity to enforce licensing. With the direction both Poser & DS are going with interactive downloads of content in their software, its possible we'll see that as well for content. That's less control over what we buy for everyone.

Just ignoring it means more controls over what we do on our computers are coming - they are already here in fact.

@keith

Great Links

Thanks

I knew I had those links around somewhere...

Mike Masnick's articles ( Techdirt has effectively been his blog, later a group blog) have been around for a long time. In a nutshell, he posits that value isn't lost from something of which there is an infinite supply, so digital content providers don't have much of a leg to stand on when they cry foul over piracy, and that digital content providers should just "adapt" to the "everyone is going to copy" mentality and find other ways of making money. He's picked up an number of other causes along the way and makes pundit appearances to people who share his point of view. He's a better writer than a speaker.
He researches just enough to support his point of view and ignores anything that doesn't.

For example, since each unit in distribution doesn't actually "reduce" the supply of a piece of content, then no value is lost, and therefore makers aren't really losing anything. Sharing a digital copy of the tune Brown Eyed Girl doesn't deplete the supply or value of Brown Eyed Girl, and if Van Morrison expects to make money he should go on tour and sell t-shirts.

As a copyright holder (and outside of actual fair use), you can limit supply and / or control how a piece of content is distributed, and the cost,  in order to maintain its value. The limits and costs are everything in the digital goods business, both for the copyright holder and for the licensee. Here's a Poser example...

Most of my models for artistic use (anything you render that doesn't actually directly compete with the model itself) is usually anywhere from $9.95 to $15.95. Some people can afford it, others cannot. The ones that can and want to use them, know that the model isn't going to appear just anywhere because there is a price of entry and limits to the license. Their use of the model won't likely appear "tired out" from overuse. For example, if 20 religious or archaeological documentaries and 2000 amateur video people use my model of The Temple of Solomon, then the use of my Temple of Solomon will no longer appear innovative - its value is tapped out for them. And in that case, nobody wants to license it anymore. This is something well known in the stock photo and video market but less discussed in our market.

So yes, making a copy doesn't diminish the actual structure of my model or its infinite supply possibilities, but distributing many thousands of illegal copies, posting them on various share forums and pirate blogs (that can include things Id never let my model appear next to, for the same devaluing reasons) greatly diminishes my ability to ensure Im compensated for my work, the reputation of my business, and the way I distribute it to ensure its value to my legal licensees.

This is the sort of thing the pundits ignore. Their response is to tell me to suck it up and me and Van Morrison need to find some other way to make money.

Just out of curiosity, what would be your response if someone created their own independent version of that model (or hell, made a better one) and undersold you or gave it away for free so it showed up in 20 documentaries and 2000 amateur videos? Would that not have the same effect? And how would you deal with that?

This conversation reminds me of the sort of thing that goes on in boardroom meetings, where people waffle on forever not realising that nothing they say will change the facts, which in this case are:

• Non-tangible goods are the main source of the problem.
• You will never see an end to piracy, and taking liberties with people's rights and freedom is not an acceptable solution (there is no solution).

That is all.

Just out of curiosity, what would be your response if someone created their own independent version of that model (or hell, made a better one) and undersold you or gave it away for free so it showed up in 20 documentaries and 2000 amateur videos? Would that not have the same effect? And how would you deal with that?

Keeping up with and knowing your market, you respond in a way that makes sense for your business. There's plenty of healthy, legal competition in our market. Sometimes we compete, and sometimes we cooperate. Some of us know each other very, very well. Its a small "serious" vendor community and its a lot friendlier than you might think.

A lot of vendors have similar ideas or work from the same concepts, but their expressions are all different. They often have different licensing (granting you different rights) and different prices to go along with them. Everyone has different after market strategies. Geometry, textures, setting up how various parts work in Poser / DS, compatibility, etc, are going to be different, even if we are all making a rocket powered toadstool.

Someone could spend their time making a model like a commercial model and giving it away for free. That could be their market approach. But that's their choice, their work, and their gamble. It would surprise me if any of the serious poser / ds vendors start working on a model they intended to license to others without doing some sort of search to see if someone else made something just like it. That influences us on what we do next. For example, I considered making some Lovecraft monsters many years ago, until I saw the great work Sixius1 does; we went ahead and did themed buildings instead.

Creating a model using the same base idea and competing in this market is completely different than taking my model and uploading it to upload.com or jumbling it in with 2GB of DAZ models via torrent distribution, or remapping it and trying to sell it on another site.

On Google and/or ISPs:

Private companies are not Law Enforcement. In fact, while they have a duty to uphold the laws that they operate under, they have no duty to enforce the law in regards to their users or, in some cases, their product. And, if they take action in an effort to become some sort of "law enforcement" or, at the very least, an active "informant", they risk opening themselves up to litigation and embroiling themselves in a region that is frankly not in their domain.

Google removes links from its searches as a "service." It's not doing this in an attempt to act as a law-enforcement agency.

An ISP, during the course of normal network analysis, can issue an alert to a user that they may be engaging in illegal activity or can send such a notice at the request of a third party or, most definitely, at the request of Law Enforcement Authorities.

Any private concern, whether or not its an individual or a company, can report someone for suspected illegal activity to appropriate Law Enforcement agencies.

That a communications company performs certain services or transmits certain communications and warnings does NOT make it a Law Enforcement agency. That being the case, we can't give them attributes like a Law Enforcement Agency and, most certainly, the last thing anyone would want is to be made to rely on search engine providers, ISPs and other private companies for Law Enforcement services. Yes, they can help. However, we must remember that they are not law enforcement agencies and we must never attempt to give them that sort of power. That's not the service that they are designed to provide users and they are not bound by the same restrictions that "due process and privacy" laws attempt to enforce upon Law Enforcement.

This conversation reminds me just how often we tend to "make the perfect the enemy of the good". Just because a proposed measure cannot completely resolve an issue or is only safely used black and white cases, which are unambiguous, does not mean it is not useful to implement it. Our entire approach to medicine is based on incrementally beneficial adaptations and on balancing potential harm with potential harm reduction. 

So, no, expecting search engines not to promote illegal download sites to the top of the list is not a perfect solution, and yes, it does carry with it the potential for the chilling of legitimate sites. However, to pretend that it's not possible to determine which sites are which in every case without serious investigation is a bit silly. And to permit the most egregious violators to continue reaping the benefit of search engine algorithms because we are afraid that some innocents will get caught in the net is also a bit extreme. We are not, after all, talking about implementing the death penalty.

In a perfect world, I would support complete freedom of expression on philosophical and moral grounds alone. But as the world is far from ideal, I prefer to take a more pragmatic view. And while I don't have the greatest of trust for the ethics of private entities when it comes to restrictions of rights, I also don't trust governments either. Neither should hold the monopoly of such restrictive power, and I think the potential harm is best reduced by dispersing that power among a large variety of different entities (both private and governmental) rather than refusing to do anything at all. But I realize there are plenty of other ways to look a things, and no one has, as yet, enough data to come up with the definitive answer.

On Google and/or ISPs:

Private companies are not Law Enforcement. In fact, while they have a duty to uphold the laws that they operate under, they have no duty to enforce the law in regards to their users or, in some cases, their product. And, if they take action in an effort to become some sort of "law enforcement" or, at the very least, an active "informant", they risk opening themselves up to litigation and embroiling themselves in a region that is frankly not in their domain.

I don't think anyone is claiming they are. Companies, like people, can be compelled to action which is legalistic to avoid consequences.

DMCA has specific provisions for network providers to maintain their "safe harbor" status. Google is considered a network provider (so is any public community site, like Rendo or FB for that matter). If they follow procedures outlined under the DMCA, then they are "safe" - they cannot be held accountable. The whole process does have provisions for challenging a takedown notice, but its just too much effort and greater risk than just taking it down, whatever it is.

I agree with your point "make the perfect the enemy of the good". In the world that we live in now, the one thing you can expect is that something is going to come along that unlocks the unbreakable lock, or undoes the need for the necessary (and creates a new necessary in the process).

There is no way to stop pirates doing what they do, and the only way to reduce the numbers is by sacrificing your rights and freedom.
Screw that.

If people learnt to separate what are actually two different things here, things would turn out for the better.  Piracy is something that happens as a result of the way things are, and the way things are is down to the lack of tangible goods.  The mistake you're all making (in typical corrupt govenmental style), is that you're incapable of understandig the concept of "tackling the root of the problem" instead of the result of it.

It is impossible to stop piracy, so what you should be asking yourselves is: How can we get people to buy what we're selling, instead of pirating it?

It was pointed out by someone earlier, that there is no loss of sale to someone who downloads a pirated version of your software, they would not a have paid for a download of the software anyway.  The failure there, is on the software publishers side, because just like the mentality of almost all the other companies out there, they don't understand why people donlt like paying for "non-tangible" when they know others out there have got it for free.

THAT is the problem which most dumbasses in business are incapable of grasping.

A lot of the poeple who download pirated software will do so because they don't feel any worth in paying for it, and even less worth when they know it's a product that will be getting pirated.  Piracy in the music industry is rife, but believe it or not, it's being dealt with, the answer being "tangible" formats, this is one of the reasons Vinyl continues to make a massive comeback.

One thing is for sure, if you're a band trying to make some sales, you will do better by releasing on Vinyl than allowing a-holes like Apple to suck on it.  What you do is you create your album, get a couple of hundred presses, and promote it on the indie stores.  You can sell Vinyl for extremely generous amounts of return, and the reason you can do that, the reason people are prepared to pay it, is because they get something the pirates don't get

THEY GET SOMETHING PHYSICAL!!!

Once that understanding becomes more and more obvious to people, more artists will get the sales they deserve, and the customer is happier with a physical, tangible product that can actually increase in value, and that's yet another reason why customers are happier with physical goods.

Apple and their iTunes, Amazon and their Kindle, virtual books, virtual music, virtual movies, Adobe and their greed-machine, all of that sort of stuff needs to be avoided.  Tangible is the answer to all of this, it has been proven time and time again that people are more prtapared to pay for tangible goods than virtual ones (for the resons pointed out above).  The bottom line is, people need to stop whining about the way things are if they're the sort of person that is prepared to buy virtual books, virtual music, and virtual movies - you deserve everything you get - because you form part of the problem by supporting such mechanisms.

If you want to support artists, support them as directly as possible, buy physical, and keep the greed-machines out of the picture, simple as that.
You have to give the PAYING customer something that the piratees can't get in the pirated version, and that means the product must be tangible.

I had to PAY for EVERY Vinyl I have, BECAUSE it's tangible!
Get it?

I can sell when I want, even at a profit!
Get it?

I don't need permission to sell!
Get it?

Therefore, I'm more than happy to PAY for a TANGIBLE product!
Get it?

Interesting tidbit regarding piracy and music.. Apparently, piracy of music has gone down by 70% in Norway in later years.. however, profits have NOT gone up.. indicating what many people have already said, that a pirated copy does not equal a lost sale.

This is by no means proof that piracy doesn't hurt sales, but it sure is an indication.. and I'm aware that music patterns can't automatically be transferred to 3d content, but it would surprise me if there is a huge difference.

http://torrentfreak.com/unprecedented-music-piracy-collapse-fails-to-boost-revenues-150126/

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about.
Here's the album "Third" from the kickass band "Portishead", look at it closely and you'll realise it's more than meets the eye, but what's so special about it?

• It deals with piracy
• It ensures Portishead (The Artist) gets a lot more money out of every sale than they would if it were a virtual download on iTunes or crap like that.

This is a modern Vinyl boxset, and what's special about it is that it's a perfect example of what I pointed out in my previous post:
"How do we get people to buy instead of pirating?"

It's as simple as is demonstrated here, cause people who download a pirated version won't get out of it what the people who bought the set get out of it.

• It sounds better.
• It looks better.
• You can read it and enjoy it physically as well as listen to it.
• Fans of the band are going to want the exclusive Portishead USB key.
• That USB key also happens to contain a digital version of the music for your convenience.
• People who where genuine enough to buy it, can now sell at a profit if they so wish (and it's likely a true fan will never want to sell it).

There's six reasons that the tangible version is superior in every respect to the virtual music download, and six reasons it could not be pirated.  Portishead don't need to worrry about this box set being pirated, because it's physical, and just as importantly, it was inventive enough to sell-out quite quickly to genuine paying customers.

Portishead would have to sell a lot of virtual downloads to earn the same money they earn from just a single boxset.  With stuff like physical Vinyl boxsets, the artist is much more, if not completely in control over their product, their pricing, and their distribution.

And how does this relate to software?
I'll tell you.

One way a software developer can sway a potential customer not to pirate, is by offering a complete physical user manual with their products, but sadly, this is something else that has seen a decline over the years, to the point where it's virtually impossible to even find one that has a complete manual these days.  Laziness and greed is why you no longer have a physically printed manual.  You can buy a physical version of some software, but even they don't come with a complete physical manual, so there's not much point in the physical version in that case, is there?

FAIL!

Which brings me back to what I said earlier, in order to make more sales and suffer less piracy, companies simply need to make a tangible version of the product that is enticing enough to persuade them to purchase it, instead of downloading an illegal copy - which is what Portishead have achieved with their boxset.

Piracy CANNOT be stopped, but more sales >>>CAN<<< be made by making TANGIBLE goods attracive enough to purchase!

DAZ used to sell disks of content, but I don't think they have in at least 10 years.

http://web.archive.org/web/20021227234009/http://store.daz3d.com/catalog/category.php?cidx=31

Edit: this is a Way-Back Machine image of the DAZ Store in 2003; none of this stuff is actually for sale these days...

Of course, here in the States, a physical copy of a book, movie or recording can then be resold under the "Doctrine of First Sale."  It's not clear if that applies to software and other content (I know it applies to Software in the EU)  There was a recent case here where the Court found against it, but the fellow was reselling old copies with licenses that had been used to qualify for upgrades; I remember Lotus used to require you send in the old disk to upgrade back in The Day.

You get tired of V5, put the disk on eBay; that would likely hurt sales more than Piracy... :D

PS;  I would have expected a render of a Pirate being killed creatively in the MadLab or something by now... :)

Rod Wrote:
"I would have expected a render of a Pirate being killed creatively in the MadLab or something by now... :)"

Well this lady has a quick and efficient technique that could be used on pirates I suppose!
She's hot but she's quite a bitch (violence warning) :-D

My understanding for the disappearance of manuals and boxes is that:

• They are expensive to produce (like those lovely manuals we used to get from Macromedia)
• They have a limited life span; once a version ends, they go to the dump (money and waste), and the vendor pays for that
• Retailers don't want or accept big software boxes, if they carry software at all

I've never been the decision maker on these things (the parent company of Meshbox has though), but I have translated my share of manuals for software and game companies - so Ive seen the hair pulling ;-)

"One thing is for sure, if you're a band trying to make some sales, you will do better by releasing on Vinyl than allowing a-holes like Apple to suck on it.  What you do is you create your album, get a couple of hundred presses, and promote it on the indie stores.  You can sell Vinyl for extremely generous amounts of return, and the reason you can do that, the reason people are prepared to pay it, is because they get something the pirates don't get

THEY GET SOMETHING PHYSICAL!!!"

But that wont stop Piracy/Unauthorized Distribution of Music,

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Turntables/ci/2493/N/4294549053+4236662109

There are Old school Vinyl record shops still in business.

And they are all just quaint little outlying ,niche shops

with small dedicated followings,

languishing in the crumbling caves of the past

The Old pipeline Infrastructure for the distribution of New

recording contracts on Vinyl no longer exists.

and no record label operating in a sane,rational state of mind

would dare to try and resurrect it.

No manner of shrill yelping& rallying calls from Vinyl Enthusiasts will change this reality

"customer is happier with a physical, tangible product that can actually increase in value, and that's yet another reason why customers are happier with physical goods."

Customers are happier with physical goods offer unimpeachable

physical utility

such as items that can be:

Eaten

Driven

Lived in for shelter

and worn on the body for warmth and or fashion etc.

IMHO "Artists" should stop operating under this woeful delusion that what they do is  so Bloody vital to human Civilization

...it is not.

Sure..Artistic expression is often a useful indicator of the cultural

Identity of a group when studied  by future Sociologists/Archeologists etc..

But for the most part it is largely a rather personal expression

of an individuals view of his larger world... ok thats nice

This notion that our "Poser/Daz Products" carry the same societal importance as Tangible goods that feed and house or heal people has finally been debunked by the advent  of the "Digital Age"

its all a bit of disposable Entertainment that can easily be reproduced.

Depend on this as your primary living at your own peril.

@Chikako
I see where you're going with that, but you're missing the point in that if there were completed physical manuals with the product, more people would pay for it.  No matter what way a person looks at it, there's always going to be something that someone see a problem with, but my point is extremely simple, to make people want to buy a physical copy.  If you can entice someone to buy a physical copy, you win, the pirate loses.

If you don't, you lose and the pirate wins, which is what is happening right now.  You don't get a printed manual because it saves on cost, but the cost saved is nothing compared to the revenue lost by people chosing not to buy.  Customers need an incentive to buy a physical product over a download, otherwise they might go astray and get it for free - which is what they're doing ;-)

On the other hand, no one got the Portishead boxset for free, because you can't distribute a physical product on a via download.

@Wolf
Can you see the problem you have?

I gave just you a real example of a product that beats the pirates into submission, yet you still dismiss it.  Everything you just wrote was a complete load of bullshit, because the proof of what I'm explaining is here, in the picture right in front of you, that boxset doesn't suffer from piracy, so what part of that don't you understand?  They have beaten the pirates, and they did so by breaking away from the dumbass culture that uses iTunes and spyPads and crap like that.  Pirates can copy the virtual download of every track in that boxset, they can even copy the artwork, but they cannot create another boxset or another Vinyl from that one.

• Portishead wins because every copy of that boxset had to be purchased.
• The pirates loose because their talent stops at distributing other peoples files (and Portishead's product isn't a file).

Carry on kidding yourself, Wolf, but I have faith you might figure it all out someday :-D

Wolf Wrote:
"There are Old school Vinyl record shops still in business.

And they are all just quaint little outlying ,niche shops

with small dedicated followings,

languishing in the crumbling caves of the past

The Old pipeline Infrastructure for the distribution of New

recording contracts on Vinyl no longer exists.

and no record label operating in a sane,rational state of mind

would dare to try and resurrect it.

No manner of shrill yelping& rallying calls from Vinyl Enthusiasts will change this reality"

I don't know what planet you've been on for the last five years, but I suggest you switch-off your touch device and re-enter the real world, where Vinyl has forced demand for production to breaking point, and that means from both the big names as well as the indies.  Fancy a soundtrack from one of the biggies that, according to you, would not touch Vinyl?

They've all gone back to to Vinyl already, but maybe you blinkled and missed it due to being brainwashed into your touch device.
You stick to paying Apple or Amazon for virtual nothings, and I'll stick to actually getting something tangible and resellable for my money, cheers ;-)

Here's one from one of the big publishers, much more pretty than a worthless download, don't you think?
But anyway, stop being an ass, dump the touch device and start playing with adult toys instead.

Buy that lovely turntable you just pointed out, add it to a real Hi-Fi, one for grown-ups ;-)

The problem with your physical records is you believe the value is the record itself and not the music it contains.  I am sure there are a couple of people that buy the record to have the record and never listen to the contents, however the vast majority buy it to listen to the music.  The music is the thing that has value and the record is only a means to get the music to the listener.  Pirates could careless about the format that the data is delivered in they only want the data.   Do you really believe that you can not go on the internet and not be able to download a copy of the music that is on that recordset?  And the argument that the record is better because it is analog and not digital does not hold up, because a digital copy will always sound the same each and every time.  Play a vinyl record and each time more of the high frequencies disappear due to the needle cutting away the very thin pieces that make up that high frequency, that is why most people when they bought a record in the long past made a cassette tape version of it and play the tape until it wore out.  

When I lived in the UAE, back in the early 90s, there was a company that produced and sold copies of the latest music and most movies on cassette and vhs (tho many movies were banned from sale there based on certain content). You found them in any shop that sold music or movies, and they sold for a fraction of the cost of the original CDs and cassettes. I never saw vinyl records there, originals or bootlegs. Maybe the heat was a factor in that, who knows. CDs and legit cassettes were expensive, at around $50 to $100 each, but they were usually available for sale right alongside the bootleg cassettes that you could buy for pennies on the dollar. I didn't realize at the time that the reason these cassettes were so cheap was because they were unlicensed copies of the original recordings and the two companies that were running the show were making a fortune doing it because they operated outside of international copyright laws. The UAE, at least at that time, had no copyright laws in place, and didn't honor any laws from anywhere else, so as long as the content didn't violate their religious laws, anyone could copy anything and sell it freely. I don't know how all of that works in the UAE today, as I left there over 20 years ago. I remember hearing something a while back about a big lawsuit that finally shut them down but I can't find any details on it at the moment.

Here in the US, you can usually go to any flea market and find vendors selling bootleg copies of movies and music all day long. They get run off eventually, some jailed, just to be replaced by a half dozen others doing the same thing. It's pretty common, and once in a while there will be a news clip on another ring of bootleggers getting busted. It doesn't matter what format the original content comes on, if it can be recorded it can be bootlegged. Vinyl is no different. And bootlegs always sell for a fraction of the original, and these days it can be pretty difficult for the average person to tell the difference in sound or picture quality with all the software that's available to reproduce it with. 

Back in 2011 or 2012 there was a push to make it illegal to resell anything you buy. Basically, once you bought something from the original manufacturer, the license would be non-transferable. Would not matter what it was, from stereos to socks. Once you buy it it's yours. Selling it would be illegal. This would shut down flea markets and 2nd-hand shops across the country and even cause problems with retailers who would have to change the way they buy from distributors.  

Here's one article on it. The topic never got much media attention and I haven't googled enough to know if the SC ever ruled one way or the other on it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04

I'm not in favor of this kind of overreaching. I am in favor of companies and artists having more control over who uses their stuff. And whatever guy that was mentioned in an earlier post claiming that artists just need to find a different way of making a living needs a good punch in the esophagus. And he needs to learn that value is created entirely by supply and demand. The more abundant and easily obtainable something is, the less value it has. 

The thing is tho, it doesn't matter if something is tangible or digital, if it exists it can be bootlegged. Obviously digital content is much easier to pirate than tangible goods as there is no cost to the pirate in doing so. What I've never understood is the ass-hats that buy the content with their own money and then turn around and distribute copies of it freely on pirate sites. I guess it makes them feel like they're being robin hoods or somethin. Some pirating does result in future sales, as some people will download something, like a game for example, to see if they like it and then go buy it if they do. There is always a risk with pirating software as you never know when that next game is going to fry your PC. Personally I'm in favor of companies working in some form of fail-safe that does exactly that once the game or software realizes it's been cracked. Ah. Now you need a new mother board, which is much more expensive than the $50 or so you would have spent had you bought a legal license. So far the closest I've seen them get with that is when games only let the player reach a certain point until they encounter some beast that's impossible to get passed. At least that's something. I hate thieves. 

As it stands, the software companies that have gone to subscription models have made it much more difficult to pirate their software, and have made it more affordable for people to use their software, so that is a plus, and it shows that subscription models are making a difference, tho probably not much of one. It would be nice if digital content artists could come up with a way of doing the same. Install managers could check the account against their store and if the license for that content doesn't exist, the content doesn't function. But I guess that's too much to ask. 

@Richard
Yes indeed, being an analogue format that involves physical contact, they wear down eventually after masses of playtime, but that means is another sale ;-)

Personally, I don't have that problem because I listen to my music on Audio Cassette due to it being a recordable analogue format.  Whenever I buy a Vinyl, I stick it through an analogue exciter and record it to tape, something I thoroughly enjoy doing because I sort of become mastering engineer.  I listen to almost all my music on cassette (I have a very nice cassette deck for that).  Recording to cassette also doubles the convenience for me, because when I go out for a walk or whatever, I just stick that same Audio Cassette into a cassette Walkman and listen to that.  No twatting around with stupid codecs and files for me, I just have incredible sounding audio wherever I want it, just like it used to be before all this digital shit came along and almost ruined it all.

I can't tell you how pleased I am that Vinyl is coming back with the sheer force that it is, it's freaking awesome!  Buy yup, I never wear down my Vinyl, I only ever spin it if I fancy the enjoyment of watching it spin or I want to have fun recording from it through the exciter.  I don't care when a cassette recording wears down, because to me it sounds better the older it gets, and I can always re-record from the Vinyl if I wanted to anyway.  That's one of the main attractions of it for me, I see Vinyl as an Analogue original that I can record from, so I always have the best quality audio possible, I have complete control over the recording quality - fun stuff :-)

And I see it on YouTube more and more, the iPad generation are starting to discover Vinyl, Audio Cassette decks and Open Reel systems, and understandably, they love it to bits, you can see the obsession in their faces, it's really nice to see.  And what's extra good about the Vinyl comeback, is that it's happening in front of a generation who knew nothing other than the inferior digital technology that is being forced down everyones throat.  The select young generation that are now dumping their iPads and discovering Vinyl, will then move onto real amplifiers, real Hi-Fi speakers, and finally real analogue recording (and that means either cassette or open reel).

The same thing has happened in the musical instrument industry.  Big names like Korg and a whole bunch of others have now started to manufacture real analogue sysnthesizers again, and now that the iPad generation have had a taste of there, there is no going back.  As with Vinyl, this is great news because it's the first time during all this touchscreen nonsense, that they finally realise why the older music sounds better, why it sounds like it does, and why they can't be manipulated in ways they are being practiced by Apple etc.  They are starting to get a glimpse of a world that still exists, a world without Apple.  They're diving right in to analogue, and in turn, they're telling their friends about it, who in turn, are telling thir frends about it.

Anyway, my apologies, I can see I'm rambling on far too much here.

@Shane
I'm glad I don't live in the UAE with Cassette prices like that, bloody hell :-D

As for the other stuff, bootlegs etc.  It's a problem, but again, remember that with pyhsical analogue formats, those pirates were only putting-out second generation copies at best.  And even if the copies were as good as the original, those massive pirate and bootleg outfits are a lot easier to track down and shut down than people sharing files in cyberspace.  It's the convenience of digital that makes it easy to share, but there is no such convenience when you're dealing with physical analogue formats.  Those pirated copies have to be physically distributed, making it comparatively easy for them to be dealt with.

Apple and their iTunes, Amazon and their Kindle, virtual books, virtual music, virtual movies, Adobe and their greed-machine, all of that sort of stuff needs to be avoided.  Tangible is the answer to all of this, it has been proven time and time again that people are more prtapared to pay for tangible goods than virtual ones (for the resons pointed out above).  The bottom line is, people need to stop whining about the way things are if they're the sort of person that is prepared to buy virtual books, virtual music, and virtual movies - you deserve everything you get - because you form part of the problem by supporting such mechanisms.

If you want to support artists, support them as directly as possible, buy physical, and keep the greed-machines out of the picture, simple as that.
You have to give the PAYING customer something that the piratees can't get in the pirated version, and that means the product must be tangible.

So, how do you listen to your vinyl on the bus? While you're out for a walk? Driving in a car? Lying around the pool soaking up the sun? Because unless you convert that vinyl into a format that allows portability, then you've hobbled yourself to only listen to your music where there happens to be a turntable sitting around. You've completely got cause and effect backwards here. The people who published movies and books and movies and whatever fought like hell to prevent people from putting it on any format other than what they provided. It wasn't Apple that created portable digital music (the iPod was certainly not the first MP3 player, it just became the most successful). It wasn't Amazon that created the e-book..in fact, Amazon and the Kindle came late into the game. It was consumer demand that created those markets and dragged the assorted entertainment industries kicking and screaming and fighting (with some exceptions, like Baen Books) the entire way.

I already said how I listen to my (quality) audio, I record Vinyl (a physical analogue format) onto a portable Audio Cassette (another physical analogue format), I do this via an analogue audio exciter.  Vinyl is strictly for home enjoyment through a real Hi-Fi, tape recording allows me to take that quality wherever I go, and I prefer the warm sound of tape to any other format.

Tape recording is one of the secrets to the quality "big-console" type sound that more and more modern musicians are starting to catch on to (but most like to keep a secret of course).  Record a real analogue synthesizer (many new models coming onto the market) to one of these machines, and you'll be rewarded with lush, thick, solid, analogue sound that can only come from real analogue equipment.

There's a clear pattern that emerges with todays button-pushing musicians:

• They get an iPad.
• They realise it doesn't sound as good as what other people are producing.
• They wonder why (lol).
• They discover real analogue synthesizers.
• They recognize it is the quality sound they hear and always wanted for themselves.
• They ditch their iPad and buy a real analogue synthsizer.
• They get uncontollable techno-stiffies from using it.
• They record their analogue music to digital (bad idea).
• They realise something was lost by recording digitally.
• They look into the equipment that the better-sounding recording artists are using.
• They spot Open Reel Analogue recorders everywhere they look, and suddenly it hits them like a cannonball in the knackers.
• They buy an Open Reel Analogue recorder.
• They get that uncontrollable techno-stiffie again.
• They stick to analogue, no going back, they twidde their knobs and secretly laught at the kids still playing with iPads.
• They revel in comments like "Woah, that's an awesome sound you have to your work!"

This is a basic but high quality Analogue Open Reel machine, all the guy did was record to a brand new tape (in this case a Quantegy 478 tape) to demonstrate his machine.  This is the sort of warmth I have on every recording a take with me, and to hear it, I simply put a cassette into my Walkman, put on my headphones, press Play, and start walking ;-)

Don't expect to see beautiful Open Reel machines being manufactured again any time soon, but it's not impossible due to the resurgence in Vinyl, which in turn is going to mean people will want to record in real analogue as well as hear it.  This in turn means that people will want to buy physical analogue media, both to record from and record to.

Analogue is making a massive comback, be pleased about it because crazy as it sounds, life just isn't the same without it:

And here's an analogue fanatic, Adrain Utley (Portishead) being let loose on a brand new, modern-day, real analogue synthesizer from Arturia. If you've been brought up on digital, you probably can't imagine what it would sound like being recorded to that Open Reel machine above, or better still, via an analogue exciter in it's recording path ;-)

Anyway, this is starting to get a bit OT, and believe me, I could talk analogue non-stop - so I'd better shut-up now!
Now where was we, oh yes ... how to beat the pirates ... check out Adrain's boxset posted earlier and consider it absolute proof of concept ;-)

@Keith: There are still walkman cassette and cd players. Problem is you have to tote around a box full of cassettes where ever you go if you want to listen to more than a dozen or so songs on your trip to where ever that way. Which is why I like my 4gb Diesel flash drive plugged into the stereo in my truck. It has about 300 songs on it right now and about 3.5gb of free space left. I just haven't bothered adding more music to it in a while. And my cell phone, as crappy as it is, doubles as an mp3 player, with a headphone jack and a 32gb micro sd card, so I can put whatever music I want on it and go anywhere that my truck wont go. Much less bulky than a walkman and a bunch of cassettes. 

The digital age has allowed a lot of artists an avenue to distribute their music and other works for free and get their names out there in ways that were never possible before without some significant investment in cash. Back when I was in high school, had the internet and digital music existed the way it does today, all my friends could have recorded their music for free and shared it with whoever they wanted without having to drum up the $1500 to $2000 it would have cost them to get a handful of demo tapes recorded. That kind of money isn't easy to come by now and it definitely wasn't easy to come by 20-25 years ago for a bunch of teens or early 20s guys recording in their parent's garage. Now you can spend $20 on a stack of 100 blank cds and burn your own album off your pc, if you want to distribute actual copies. Or just create a youtube channel and share links to your work on facebook or twitter and it doesn't cost you a dime. And if you're good, you can monetize your youtube account and even make money off of it, if you can get enough people to subscribe to your channel. You have any idea the number of people that are getting rich just posting videos to youtube? The most popular channels are "Lets Play" videos where they just record themselves playing video games and being jerks and have gathered hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of views with every video. Those numbers have resulted in some of the top earners averaging anywhere from $150K to $1mil per month last year, in ad revenue. These kids are getting rich playing video games all day every day. 

Vinyl may be making a come-back but it's not replacing anything digital. It's the nostalgia factor, that's all it is. The articles I've read on it have stated, most of the kids buying it aren't actually listening to it, they're just hanging it on their walls as art. Nothin wrong with that. I often like to buy the collectors edition of my favorite movies games or music, etc, for the artwork and extra goodies that come along with it. When I see a set I like I'll buy it even if I already have the digital version, just for the collector's aspect. 

I have only one word to say about analog tape: hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssss....

And yes... I worked in broadcasting for about 25 years as a producer and audio engineer. I know what different equipment sounds like.

I'm willing to bet there are people in this thread who would love to go back to tube type amplifiers.

To each his own.

I'll stick with digital, 

Hey... Shane... are we OT enough yet?

@Shane
Those articles talk bollocks I'm afraid, I suppose the brand new analogue synths aren't getting used either :-P
I'm guessing the industry is crapping it's greedy pants at the very thought of analogue, believe me, especially a-holes like Apple.

You want to talk kids stuff, buy an iPad.

@Doug
Don't start hisssssssssing, it makes you sound like Mr Devil Snake, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of hiss ;-)
BTW, I'll stick with analogue, the superior technology that is the result of a pure, unquantized signal :-D

I also know a fair bit about audio, in fact a lot more than you do, obviously.

Hah. I'm not bothering with OT threads anymore. I tried that and got shot down by admin. 

LMFAO, really?
Well I'm glad Tina gave you a bloody good hiding :-D

She didn't. She simply said they are allowed. They never used to be except at the mod's discretion, but so be it. 

I also know a fair bit about audio, in fact a lot more than you do, obviously.

Whatever helps you get through the night.

If you don't, you lose and the pirate wins, which is what is happening right now.  You don't get a printed manual because it saves on cost, but the cost saved is nothing compared to the revenue lost by people chosing not to buy.  Customers need an incentive to buy a physical product over a download, otherwise they might go astray and get it for free - which is what they're doing ;-)

On the other hand, no one got the Portishead boxset for free, because you can't distribute a physical product on a via download.

These specialty packages are exceptional items - high quality yes, and persuasive to die hard fans who have the money to spend on them. But you have to be a fan to buy something like that. It works for premium, limited run products. This is much like the suggestion that musicians can support themselves by giving live performances. Creating a high quality physical product and getting them out to a lot of users is no easy thing. Most creators can only effectively do this by working with third parties who, for the most part, simply replace the corporate entities like Apple iTunes. The creators get less, not more - and they certainly assume more risk. Yes, print-on-demand, and its like are all solutions, but they create overhead.

Let me share with you what I fear is inevitable, because laws are not enforced and people cannot control their impulse to take whatever they want.

Software companies are already evolving into subscription based services. Some, like Adobe, are able to force or persuade because they already dominate their respective niches. If Creative Suite is no longer available, then you have no choice but to go with Creative Cloud. If in their estimation a price mix is too onerous, or they can acquire even greater numbers by lowering the price, they will. Because once you are locked in, its much, much harder to move away. These software / services will also begin to serve content.  And much like developers who sell now through Mac App Store (or iTunes iOS apps), creators will believe they have no other choice but to upload their content to these new "in app stores". As a user, you will not have complete access to the content, and terms and pricing can be changed at any time. In fact, from the top down, every feature of the software all the way down to every piece of content, will be optimized by the "publisher" based on highly granular analysis of user habits.

     Roxie still does vinyl...  :D

I don't know what collector's edition vinyl has to do with Poser content -- but I'm pretty sure that no one is really interested in a collector's edition of Poser on a gold tinted DVD nor on any vendor's content similarly packaged. So how does the music example translate to anything else?

Games? I don't believe for a moment that the special Skyrim collector's version that came with a map did a whole lot for Bethesda's bottom line, frankly.

Thing about digital content: people are used to getting things immediately after they have paid for them. No one wants to wait around for things to be shipped. Even Amazon was offering one day shipping because its customers are so impatient -- for physical goods. We're even more impatient when it comes to digital products. I don't want to buy software that I have to pay shipping fees and duties on AND wait 2 weeks to get it. I'm sure I'm not alone. Very few people really want to go back to the 20th century in this regard.  And who on earth is going to want a CD of a pair of jeans for V4 that they have to pay to be shipped?

What about photographers who are selling royalty free stock photos? Do you think businesses that use these will want a physical print that they have to scan? NOT. ON. YOUR. LIFE. 

The pace of work has increased dramatically, and clients expect their projects to be finished in record time. You can't wait around for assets to be shipped, even if it only takes a day, or you'll lose out to the person who can meet tighter deadlines. If you need an image for your news article, you have minutes to find one, not days or weeks. This is the reality, and it's nothing like just buying some music to listen to. 

Edit: One of the many reasons that ordinary, usually law-abiding people turn to "piracy" is that they cannot get the content any other way -- or it's just too inconvenient. People pirate because of regional restrictions on content (can't watch half the TV shows that stream for free into the US -- because I'm not in the US, for example; can't watch a movie I bought in Europe because it won't play on North American devices.) If anything, going to physical copies would encourage "piracy" among those who could afford a digital download but simply cannot afford the additional costs of shipping and duties or because the manufacturer refused to ship to their country. And they would justify it in their minds because this would be yet another way they were being screwed by the content creators.  

Someone could spend their time making a model like a commercial model and giving it away for free. That could be their market approach. But that's their choice, their work, and their gamble. It would surprise me if any of the serious poser / ds vendors start working on a model they intended to license to others without doing some sort of search to see if someone else made something just like it. That influences us on what we do next. For example, I considered making some Lovecraft monsters many years ago, until I saw the great work Sixius1 does; we went ahead and did themed buildings instead.

So, to summarize, the business model depends on the basic theory "God, I hope no one does anything different from we do or we're screwed"?

@Doug
Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssss ;-)

@Chikako
Seriously, I'm going to have to contain my urge to say stuff I shouldn't when it comes to a-holes like Adobe.  What they're doing ought to be illegal and they ought to be forced to allow people who have paid in subscriptions, to have their respective amounts go towards payment of a perpetual licence (for anyone who want's a perpetual licence).  if you want an example of how disgraceful Adobe really are, visit allegorithmic and check out the way they handle a subscription, that's the right and fair way to do it.

Like I said, what Adobe are doing ought to be illegal, greedy manipulative b@stards.

@Seachnasaigh
Nice one, and of course, Roxie being the kickass super-cool girl that she is, it's only natural she does Vinyl :-D
She's gone through two "pointy needle things" as she calls them, already!

@Moriador
The connection with Vinyl should be obvious.  The answer to piracy is to make a TANGIBLE product that is enticing enough to get people to part with their money.  As with software, the music contained on those Portishead Vinyl's can and will be pirated.  What cannot be pirated, however, is the "tangible" aspect of it.  Thier boxset is proof that you CAN beat the pirates, because THEY have, that's exactly what they did because you won't find that boxset on any pirate website, you'll find the music no doubt, but you won't find the "tangible" product, that would be impossible :-)

Again, discussing what you can do to "catch the pirates" is utterly pointless, simply because it CANNOT be done, you will never see an end to piracy.  What CAN be done, as demonstrated by Portishead, is to create a TANGIBLE product that is enticing enough that people will buy it.  What that means is that a paying customer gets something the pirates don't get, and for that reason, people are prepred to part with money for it.

The problem with non-tangible goods, is that there's no difference between the version you pay for and the version you can get from a pirate site.  People don't like paying for something that they know can be had for free by others.  It's hardly surprising that piracy is rife for this reason alone.  People want something tangible for their money, it really is that simple - and that's why Portishead beat the pirates with their boxset - it's not rocket science.

We're talking about how to beat the pirates, I posted a proven, successful way to do it :-)

By all means ignore it, but it won't change the blazingly obvious facts.  If boxsets could laugh, I'm guessing that Portishead boxset must be hysterical by now, because a proven mechanism for dealing with piracy is right in front of you, literally staring you in the face, and you still cannot see it.

TANGIBLE goods is the answer to piracy :-)

People were pirating movies and music long before iTunes or any other digital services offered digital versions for sale. They just ripped the cd's and cassettes and records they had to mp3 and shared them that way. Remember Napster?  In fact piracy is one of the main reasons services like itunes came about in the first place, to offer a legal alternative to downloading music. 

Adobe still offers hard copies of CS6 for sale to those who don't want to subscribe to CC, you just have to ask them, and hand them the $4K it will cost you for a hard copy license, that will never be updated and is already about 4 years out of date. 4 years is a huge amount of time in terms of software technology. Their subscription service has opened their software up to millions of people who could not afford it before, because $500 a year for their entire suite plus all updates is far more affordable to most people than a one-time fee of $4K for a bunch of software that most studios have moved away from by now. And it gives software companies more security against piracy. And the majority of the industry leaders are moving to subscription services, because statistics have proven over and over again, the majority of consumers actually prefer subscription based services due to their ease of use and always available anywhere you go platform, which is why netflix and amazon are killing premium cable channels and video rentals. The majority of people making the most stink about software subscriptions are those that want to pirate anyway and are upset because they know subscription services will eventually kill the majority of piracy. 

It's not the subscription model I have a problem with, and yes, I agree, it's a good way to fight piracy.  But there's a big difference between fair subscription models, and the type Adobe operate.  Did you visit allegorithmic.com to check-out what I'm talking about?

Basically, you "subscribe to buy", meaning that once your monthly payments have covered the cost of a permanent licence, that's what you get, and there is no need to continue with a subscription if you don't want to, yet you are still able to keep the licence.  Seriously Shane, you can't tell me that you can't see the difference there, why Adobe's manipulation and greed is unacceptable.

Allegorithmic have basically adopted the system I spoke about in that Photoshop thread; it's a fair system that Adobe should be forced, by law, to adopt.

A company or individual, is free to charge whatever they want for their product and services because that's the nature of the free world. No one is forcing anyone to buy or use that product or service. If I want to charge $50 for a cup of coffee I have the right to do so. It's my coffee. So what if my monthly fees eventually add up to the cost of a full license. I don't get any updates unless I pay for those as well, and in a year or two I'll have to turn around and buy another license because that software will be outdated, which makes it useless to me on a professional level. With a subscription service I never have to worry about my software eventually becoming outdated because all updates are included in my subscription. If I'm paying month to month and don't need it that month I just turn it off and turn it back on when I need it again, saving me even more money in the long run. I can also activate it on 3 different machines at any given time and not have to pay anything additional on my subscription. So no, I don't see any benefit to your method. I prefer Adobe's method and I look forward to other companies offering the same. 

That still doesn't answer the question though, does it.
Allegorithmic have a fair system, Adobe do not.

And I'm glad Allegorithmic have chosen this method, because the more people become aware of a fair system, the more people will assign Adobe to the shitpan, which is where all greedy manipulators belong.

Shane Wrote:
"I prefer Adobe's method and I look forward to other companies offering the same."

So you prefer a method that constanly charges you for something you'll never own, to one that will get you a permanent licence :-D
No offence, but when people make such idiotic comments, it's time to call it a day and stop wasing time discussing it.

l'll leave you to it, Shane.

You don't own it. You never own software unless you wrote the software. You only own your right to use that software. That's all a license provides you. In 5 years that license will be outdated and mostly useless. Maybe a bit longer depending on the software and the machine you're running it on. 

I already 'own' a full legal license to CS4 design premium, which I got back in 2009 and does me no good when applying for jobs today that require CS6 or CC - more commonly CC. And most jobs available, whether it is full time studio work or freelance gigs, require Adobe software more than any other software out there. Once in a while you'll see Corel, but mostly it's Adobe. 

All that other plan does is allow you to pay for your license over time instead of right up front. And they're charging you more for paying over time. And between their two options, there is no added benefit. They price it based on how much revenue you're making, as if that's any of their business. You're not getting any additional features for the difference in price. And when that version of their software is outdated they'll expect you to buy a new upgraded license. 

Another added benefit to a subscription service, at least in the U.S., for freelance artists, is tax deductions. You can deduct the cost of your subscription from your total income as a business expense every year, as opposed to the one lump sum you would only get the first year. Just pointing that out. 

But not everyone who uses Photoshop uses it for a business, and all that stuff about not owning the product is irrelevant, you're splitting hairs.

Let me phrase it another way then, what you're saying is that you prefer a system that constanly charges you for a licence you will never own, against a licence you would own once you covered the cost of one.  I'm sorry but no matter what way I look at it there is no sense in what you said.  It's absolutely impossible for Adobe's system to be better or fairer than the one Allegorithmic are offering.

I consider myself extremely intelligent, and even I can't figure that one out, how a person can prefer to pay for something they will never own, and to prefer it to a better systerm that would get them a permanent licence.  Honestly, I don't know how else to reply to such a thing because it defies common sense on every level.  I don't get how, after paying a subscription, you prerfer to not own a licence over being able to keep the one you paid for - it just doesn't compute.

There is no way on earth that Adobe's greedy system, one that constantly sucks on your wallet and leaves you with nothing, can be preferable to Allegorithmic's much fairer system that will get you a permanent licence at the end of it.  If Adobe's system is preferable to you then I think there's something seriously wrong somewhere, there must be.  It's like saying you'd prefer to rent a TV but never get to own it once you'd covered the cost, like saying you'd prefer them to take it from you rather than let you keep what you just paid for.

What you're saying is beyond my comprehension, it just doesn't compute, but like I said, I'll leave you to it.  I don't mean that in a condescending manner either, I really do mean I'll leave you to it, mainly because it seems so idiotic that I cannot fathom it.  You got me on that one Shane, I honestly don't know how else to respond to it other than what I just wrote.

Nope ... just doesn't make sense ... doesn't compute.

@Keith: There are still walkman cassette and cd players. Problem is you have to tote around a box full of cassettes where ever you go if you want to listen to more than a dozen or so songs on your trip to where ever that way. Which is why I like my 4gb Diesel flash drive plugged into the stereo in my truck. It has about 300 songs on it right now and about 3.5gb of free space left. I just haven't bothered adding more music to it in a while. And my cell phone, as crappy as it is, doubles as an mp3 player, with a headphone jack and a 32gb micro sd card, so I can put whatever music I want on it and go anywhere that my truck wont go. Much less bulky than a walkman and a bunch of cassettes. 

The digital age has allowed a lot of artists an avenue to distribute their music and other works for free and get their names out there in ways that were never possible before without some significant investment in cash. Back when I was in high school, had the internet and digital music existed the way it does today, all my friends could have recorded their music for free and shared it with whoever they wanted without having to drum up the $1500 to $2000 it would have cost them to get a handful of demo tapes recorded. That kind of money isn't easy to come by now and it definitely wasn't easy to come by 20-25 years ago for a bunch of teens or early 20s guys recording in their parent's garage. Now you can spend $20 on a stack of 100 blank cds and burn your own album off your pc, if you want to distribute actual copies.

Indeed. I just came back from an extensive business trip where, due to the amount of time I was spending on planes, waiting around for meetings, and nights in hotels with nothing to do, I read a lot. It worked out to about 15 books, all of them on my e-reader, where I have several hundred other books so wherever I am, I not only have something to read but if I get a recommendation for something new, as long as there's a digital version of it, I can get it so long as I have some kind of connection to the internet. No need to order and wait for it. No need to try and find a bookstore (and where I live...no bookstores. At all.)
And among those books are works by writers who never would have gotten a chance before the advent of digital. Because the cost of digital distribution is effectively 0, not only can individual afford to "publish" without needing to go through a publishing company, actual publishers can take risks on new authors who can get enough attention to warrant hardcopy publication, or to raise the knowledge of older writers no longer in print.

pumeco, what is the difference when you rent a house, or a car? You will never own that either.

You are renting a tool with the systems in place by Adobe and many other software companies.

For that matter, you have to pay for things like a drivers license. And you don't own that either.

Rent to own is one thing, and no software company is going to rent to own a version of a program that will be years old before you pay for it.

Leasing has been around for a long time, and that is what the Adobe system is. You are leasing the right for the newest version, etc.

It is not much different when you lease a car. At the end of the lease you turn it in and lease another one. And you never owned it at all.