Piracy Poll If you knew of the pirating of simulation software, would you report it if you remained anonymous?

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Piracy has a cost. It costs us in higher prices, complex and convoluted "key" schemes, and in other ways. If there were a mechinism for you to anonymously report pirates when you found them, would you participate?

[Azapata87 173]

hello,I'm curious as to how this would work. Say I knew someone who used pirated FS addons, what information about them would I need to report? Their name and ip address along with the specific addon(s) they are using? Or would this mainly target those who distribute pirated addons? This seems like it would be rather complicated. Andrew

[Guest]

Whatever proof you have will help.In my experience usually IRC logs, email messages or usenet posts (with headers to identify the culprit) can offer a good starting point.Personally I'd not mind whether reporting were anonymous or not, as I report piracy already when I witness it and can present proof.

[Guest metamarty]

I voted No, because I don't believe in a society where people report eachother to authorities for minor offences. It would create a feeling of disconfort for everybody. Of course there is a limit here, so I would report major offences, but I don't believe this is one. I believe that if you find someones behaviour unacceptable, you can discuss it with him personally, but I would leave authorities out of it.

[JimmiG 244]

Yes, there's a big difference between reporting a major "warez" site or p2p sharer, and reporting your best friend because he downloaded one $20 aircraft. I would certainly report the former, but I'm just as certain I would not report the latter.It would indeed bring something of a Stasi / Orwellian "atmosphere" to the flightsim community...

[Guest ben_hewitt]

Agreed, I know payware developers in the FS community who have themselves committed piracy - unless it was very serious I would not report anybody.EDIT - I think it's a negative thing that AVSIM is trying to stop it too, it's not your problem - it is up to the developer to know about these risks and stop them by their own means. It's wrong to commit piracy but setting up a 'tell over somebody system' just seems the wrong way to go. Anyway is it actually legal or moral to go spreading private information such as IPs and logs?

[JimmiG 244]

Also what about the theft of freeware? How many freeware developers have quit because their addons were uploaded to some site without permission or sold on "addon CDs"? That's hurting this hobby at least as much as the theft of payware does. Is this system only for the rich addon publishers who can afford to participate?

[Guest ben_hewitt]

Exactly!and the excuse that the price up because of piracy is rubbish!, that excuse is used way too often to cover up the fact developers want paying more. If it is a good product it is going to sell enough to make the developers pockets very, very happy!

[Guest metamarty]

I would truly love to test this out. If I were a software manufacturer, I think I would go for it. Remove all copy protection and be honest with your customers. Tell them that you trust them and that you're trying to deliver a quality product with minimum hassle. This concept is also used by magnatune (www.magnatune.com), a music publisher. It's not a hard fact that piracy costs money. As far as I know, this has never been proven. One person says that it lowers sales because potential customers won't buy anylonger, other people say that it increases sales because it increases market saturation (5000 copies sold and 10000 illegal versions versus 3000 copies sold and no illegal copies). The fact is, we just don't know who is telling the truth.As for myself, I just like to own legal versions and I don't donwload software. I would very much like to see a software vendor (maybe a FS2004 addon vendor?) step forward and be the first one to try out the new copy protection less approach. Now I know people will reply to this that it would cause bankrupcy within months, but I'm just not convinced this is the case. As long as people sincerely respect publishers, it might work.

[JimmiG 244]

Some developers (RealAir, Carenado) only use a personal serial number, no need to connect to the Internet. I wonder how their sales compare to that of e.g. FSD or Aerosoft, who both use very restrictive copy protection systems that allow them to remotely shut down your addon if it's reinstalled to many times, for example.However, one developer that is truly using the method you describe, is the Golden Eagles Squadron (Bill and Lynn Lyons). When you buy one of their products you get a personal email with a link to download the addon (as a zip file) as well as a custom "personal" file - for example, for their Apache addon, my name was printed on the farm included in the scenery that came with the addon, and on the aircraft itself on a small plate inside the cockpit. This really makes it feel like "your" addon that you wouldn't give to anyone, and you also feel that you're dealing with humans, not an automated order system.

[Guest metamarty]

Yep, you're right about that one. I have many of Bill and Lynn Lyons addons, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything from them. It's just quality delivered with a passion for the hobby. I would really like to see some sales numbers of them compared to some other vendors. I really believe that any enthousiast who would get their hands on an illegal product of the Lyons would become a long time customer of them.

[Azapata87 173]

I believe a chat log of someone saying they are using a pirated add-on is not enough proof to report them or enough proof for the developer to try to do something about it unless the person(s) being accused are openly sharing it on a p2p network or something of that sort. (Ex: would merely mentioning that I have a lot of music on my computer be enough for the RIAA to sue me? I highly doubt it as they would have no proof that I have the music that I say I have on my computer.)Andrew

[Guest Paragon]

I tend to believe you are right. This piracy topic is as old as the internet itself...even older. Nothing that we can think of haven't been tried before. I don't condone piracy or even practise it, I just think it's here to stay no matter what people do...the only thing left is probably as you say to trust the users more and nevermind the pirates.

[MKaprocki 3]

I would just like to throw in a quick thought.My father made a program used for budgeting. He sells his software on the internet. Yes, it is listed on all the warez sites. One month his program was listed on the front page of a rather popular site. His bandwidth shot through the roof and he was forced to take down his site for the remainder of the month. However, his sales also skyrocketed. He sold more copies that month than any other month it's been available. :-)