My anti-piracy idea, does this sound good?

[ezri]

Ok so a lot of people are talking about SOPA and PIPA and OPEN bills that have to do with stopping piracy on the internet. What i don't get is why no one is addressing the possible ways to encourage consumers to stop pirating and buy legal products. To assume that stopping most of the piracy with these bills will lead to all that money lost coming back is a little arrogant. My biggest fear about these bills is that if they do pass, there won't just be a little bit of abuse, but a very large amount of it. Without an internet to pirate from, consumers will only have the corporations to get products from, and the corporations know that. I don't believe for a second they can be trusted to not be fair about the whole thing and keep prices the same or lower them in thanks, no they will most definitely raise their prices as a proverbial "middle finger" to everyone who ever pirated, declaring that they have won. It won't be pretty.
To that end i thought up a simple idea that would promote the legitimate sale of products and hopefully discourage piracy.
Now we have all seen that sometimes ( a lot of the time) that products online ( movies, music, video games) tend to cost the same amount as those sold in stores. This is odd do to the lack of everything that comes with making a cd/dvd/blu ray, making a case/box art, packaging it, and transporting it to the store to be bought, compared to a simple digital file online. They shouldn't be able to cost the same but they do. So obviously, the price for the online product is being raised significantly to match the same product found in the stores.
This really isn't fair to the consumer.
My plan is this. All movies,music,or video games sold online have this: You have the option of downloading half of the content (half a song,movie,or video games) to try it at its entirety(more than a beta but not the whole thing). If you like the product, you can then pay for the rest of it and download it (for roughly half to 3/4 of the store price, an actual decrease that should exist anyway). Also, the free half of the game has an expiration date (1 to 3 months maybe). Do this with all movies, music and video games and you should see an increase in online sales, meaning a decrease in online piracy
As to this possible causing a decrease in store sales, don't include a lot of the extras that tend to come with store bought merchandise, and shift you business plan to be more geared towards online then stores, since that's happening anyway its only a matter of time.
The point is, a lot of people pirate do concerns over money. A lot of products are highly over priced, especially the ones that are flops( movies that are box office bombs should not cost the same as a box office smash, video games that are short and ill put together should not cost the same as a game of over 20 hours+ that is extremely fun and re playable). Prices should be fair to the consumer while still giving the corporations a profit. Corporations should have a say in copyright issues, just not a totalitarian one. SOPA, PIPA, and OPEN have far more chance of hurting everything they touch then helping them. Simple ideas like mine have a much better shot at doing things right.
What do you think?

[armin]

No, content creators will never go for that. We already have enough of a "have a taste" system in place that they wouldn't ever allow that.

Consumers would also hate it. No one wants trialware. No one wants crap stuff that isn't complete.

For example, Apple already offers 1:30 previews of songs. That's nearly half the song! If you can't tell you like it by then, you oughtn't be buying it.

No trials, no expirations, no half-media.

There will ALWAYS be piracy. The best way to counter it is to make things that are WORTH PAYING FOR. People as an institution will buy something instead of stealing it if they think it's worth the price.

Look at bands. Several modern bands are perfectly fine with piracy, as it creates them a following and ups (doubles, triples, octuples, even) attendance at their live shows. People who pirate the stuff and find that it is good will then pay money for the sake of experiencing it.

Instead of SOPA, just make better stuff than the crap you put out now, content creators. We'll pay for it.

And don't insult your customers' intelligence with draconian DRM (like, what was it, the crap that EA and Ubisoft use that force you to have a connection to the Internet the entire time you play the game). I don't buy games often (because I don't play many games), but when I do, I buy the physical disc and then PIRATE THE ACTUAL SOFTWARE. Yes, I download the pirated version of the game instead of installing from the disc I own. Know why? Because I refuse to be told what I can and cannot do with something I own (the software on the disc). "Oh, you can only install this three times before we block you from ever installing this game you bought ever again." Go die in a fire. I'll install something I own as many times as I want.

See?

[adamka]

The idea of same-cost sales was Steve Jobs' idea which made the iTunes Store popular. Same-cost sales avoid confusion within the consumer circles and corporation circles. This actually promotes the purchase of online products because the prices are predictable and hence the consumer can easily budget unlike variable prices which result in one corporation over-pricing for this and that. It just becomes a huge mess. I like your idea but you will need extremely high security with non-standard secret technologies employed otherwise people will just hack. Always remember that the internet is controlled by the people. Fact: A classic to one man is garbage to another while it is okay stuff to another. For the games people will hack like they do today. Demos do just fine. The games department is quite okay. Believe that. The other thing is legal formalitites vary from territory to territory. Your idea is good but it needs vigorous revision with the aid of industry/technical information. Be a more precise with quantified research and you will notice why you need to revise your idea. Otherwise, it's a nice try.

[tai38]

Unfortunetly your only thinking of a tiny spectrum and it will never work.

The reason online prices are not heavily discounted is for the sake of the economy, not because its cheaper. It has a 2 fold advantage of maintaining the same price

1. This allows brick and mortar stores to stay open for buissness. Which gives jobs to millions of people. Your plan single handedly will put millions out of a job, and put the country into recesssion.
Congrats. You are now qualified to become a politician

2. The reason prices are so high are not just for profit. You have to consider many factors. Products are not found on a magical tree. It takes time to develop them and millions are put into them. Take for example the Xbox and PS3. they are actually undercutting the cost - the cost to produce are much higher then the cost of the device. So how does Sony make money?

Sony put billions into developing Blu-Ray. For Blu-Ray to be succesful it had to lower prices. Now how was that achieved? By placing Blu-Ray into PS3 it can allow direct manufacturing of Blu-Ray drives and Blu-Ray discs associated with games. These increasesd sales help drop the cost. Which is why Blu-Ray costs have started to plummet. Which is also because of this increased production prices have to started to drop. Also because of the investment in technology Sony makes a share of profits of games sold on its device. Hence it wants people to develop games for its device. The more money it makes.

So don't think prices are so high for a reason, They need to pay their workforce \ their materials \ their factories \ buildings \ etc. Alot of costs are in many places.

3. The reason Box Office Bombs still cost that much is MONEY is used to produce the movie. They do not know is going to bomb untill it hits box office. Once they already comitted to a project they can't stop inbetween. These are the risks involved, and the people who invested in the projects want to recoup their profits.

--- Another point, Already Companies such as GameFly - Onlive - Hulu - exist. For your temporary renting needs, based on subscriptions get as many games as you want. So ;since this already exists, their is no point arguing about it.



4. Should Corporations have Say on Copyright? Of course not. But will they? Of course they will. Why? Because Corporations sponsor the canidency of a particular politician. They can directly speak to a politician. Because all our politicians generally have the brains equivelent to an ape. We are actually living in the Planet of the Apes. They are not educated in the fields in which they govern. A government should be ruled by those educated in the fields in which they govern, so decisions can be made thought. Not by people who have no idea what they are about to do.

5. Since you whole heartedly ignored development cost, investment cost, upkeep costs. Their really isn't much else.

[aethelbert35]

Unfortunetly your only thinking of a tiny spectrum and it will never work.

The reason online prices are not heavily discounted is for the sake of the economy, not because its cheaper. It has a 2 fold advantage of maintaining the same price

1. This allows brick and mortar stores to stay open for buissness. Which gives jobs to millions of people. Your plan single handedly will put millions out of a job, and put the country into recesssion.
Congrats. You are now qualified to become a politician

2. The reason prices are so high are not just for profit. You have to consider many factors. Products are not found on a magical tree. It takes time to develop them and millions are put into them. Take for example the Xbox and PS3. they are actually undercutting the cost - the cost to produce are much higher then the cost of the device. So how does Sony make money?

Sony put billions into developing Blu-Ray. For Blu-Ray to be succesful it had to lower prices. Now how was that achieved? By placing Blu-Ray into PS3 it can allow direct manufacturing of Blu-Ray drives and Blu-Ray discs associated with games. These increasesd sales help drop the cost. Which is why Blu-Ray costs have started to plummet. Which is also because of this increased production prices have to started to drop. Also because of the investment in technology Sony makes a share of profits of games sold on its device. Hence it wants people to develop games for its device. The more money it makes.

So don't think prices are so high for a reason, They need to pay their workforce \ their materials \ their factories \ buildings \ etc. Alot of costs are in many places.

3. The reason Box Office Bombs still cost that much is MONEY is used to produce the movie. They do not know is going to bomb untill it hits box office. Once they already comitted to a project they can't stop inbetween. These are the risks involved, and the people who invested in the projects want to recoup their profits.

--- Another point, Already Companies such as GameFly - Onlive - Hulu - exist. For your temporary renting needs, based on subscriptions get as many games as you want. So ;since this already exists, their is no point arguing about it.



4. Should Corporations have Say on Copyright? Of course not. But will they? Of course they will. Why? Because Corporations sponsor the canidency of a particular politician. They can directly speak to a politician. Because all our politicians generally have the brains equivelent to an ape. We are actually living in the Planet of the Apes. They are not educated in the fields in which they govern. A government should be ruled by those educated in the fields in which they govern, so decisions can be made thought. Not by people who have no idea what they are about to do.

5. Since you whole heartedly ignored development cost, investment cost, upkeep costs. Their really isn't much else.

Dont be discouraged; it is often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock!