Jobiensis said:
I hate when people pick sentences and try to respond to them individually while ignoring the entire premise of the post. You are replying out of context and don't seem to understand, because all the answers are already there.
I agreed with part of your post and did not respond to that part. I even acknowledged this at the end of your post.
I understood your post quite well. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I got the gist of your attitude right. I addressed that in the last part of my post too.
Per your individual points, most of them are trying to pull a statement out of context.
Not at all. The gist of your post is quite clear. Basically, you don't want Sony (and others) to stifle technical innovation and consumer rights; meanwhile, you don't believe piracy to be a significant enough threat to the market to matter in this discussion, even if were relevant. I disagree with the latter.
There is no evidence that piracy has slowed innovation even if restricted to the console market.
Harming "innovation," even if that were a quantifiable thing, is not the only possible harm piracy can bring.
Please explain how Compaq would implement their firmware to run code built for IBM PCs with a TPM system.
I don't have to explain that, because it is a tangent in the context of what I said. But wait, I know! I guess if Compaq were blocked by a TPM and couldn't reverse-engineer the IBM PC that way, perhaps they should come up with a different business model rather than copying their competitors all the time. </sarcasm>
Copyright law is not to protect business models. If you think that is irrelevant, you didn't read my post because that was the primary point.
Strawman. My point, in response to yours, is to point out that whether or not Sony's business model is good or not is irrelevant to whether they should try to fight piracy this way or not. Implying that that it's somehow relevant is akin to saying victims of robbery should just move to a different area of town and make money that way.
When banks start lawsuits against people explaining how to break their system you may have a point.
No, I already have a point, because my point was not reliant on making an exact analogy between a bank and a console. The point was to shoot down this whole ridiculous idea of "if piracy hurts your business model, then it's your fault because your business model sucks." Whether or not your business model sucks, you have a right and a need to fight people robbing you. Fixing your business model is a different issue.
Piracy did not prevent the PS3 from market dominance. Piracy doesn't imply market success or failure.
Once again: this is fallacious logic. Like I said, explicitly, piracy is one factor. To say that PS3 is in 3rd despite lack of piracy and use that as proof that piracy isn't that big a deal is utterly illogical, because a million other variables that lead to success or failure in the console space.
If a supermarket chain fails, despite having airtight security and thus 0 shoplifting over its lifetime, that is in NO way proof that shoplifting does not hurt supermarkets. For example, the supermarket's supply chain may have been mismanaged. It's akin to saying, "A + B + C + D = 0, therefore A <= 0."
Piracy is not a large determinant in the direction of the console market.
Uh, yes, it is. I mean, piracy is "not a large determinant"
because there's relatively little of it in the console market. To be precise, the (relative)
lack of piracy is one of the reasons the console market is relatively robust (for big budget games). It is certainly one of the oft-stated reasons why, for example, publishers tend to focus on console games vs. PC games, when it's possible. The relative closedness of consoles, to date (at least in the mainstream) has certainly contributed to their success. Of course, it's not the only factor (also: price, consistent of hardware, ease of use), but it's certainly a significant factor. Similarly, PSP failed in non-Japanese markets for several reasons; piracy was one of them but certainly not the only one.
If piracy were as easy on consoles as it is on PCs, sales would undoubtedly be affected. Significantly. Before you ask me for a source: (a) you made your claims first, so the burden of proof is on you; and (b) it's just common sense.
Sony's position in the market is because of their decisions. If you have any proof contrary to that
Strawman. I never denied this at all. What I did deny is that this somehow can be used to diminish the effects of piracy and sweep them under the rug. Sony's pricing, marketing, technology, timing: these things contributed to their drop in market share. On the other hand, the lack of piracy on PS3 certainly helped them... just not enough. The fact that it didn't proper them over the top in no way suggests that it's not a significant factor. That is a logical fallacy.
Basically, if Sony were flying high right now, PS2-style, they could still sue Hotz... and they would not be any more or less wrong in doing so. Their performance in the market is irrelevant, because it depends on many variables -- not just piracy.
rather than herp, derp, fanboy.
I was not implying you were being a fanboy at all. I was implying that you (and many other people) tend to sweep the other side of the argument under the rug, because you know what outcome you want. The reason this is a difficult topic is that, on the one hand, we don't want corporations to dictate what people do or don't do with their property, but on the other hand, we don't want piracy to hurt the industry. Pretending that the latter is not a significant factor is an easy way to resolve the difficulty of the topic at hand -- but that's all it is, pretense. Or wishful thinking.
