Ya interesting topic,...good tv series always get their money back via dvd sales i think ,pc games today (battle net) ,single player is doomed for PC,console games have a future in SP ,music is a harder one,but i do think that concerts and copyright (music for adds,movies and whatnot) represents enough of an income.

I think piracy is evening the playing field ,things are over priced in general and these people shouldnt be as wealthy as they were in the first place :)

long live piracy !!

http://www.wolfire.com/humble is very cool,thanks for sharing

couldnt care less!

Now that I am older, I tend to buy a lot of CD's, games and software, but some shit is just ridiculous. Photoshop is like £9999999999.

Fuck that.

I really don't get their motivation with photoshop... it's gonna get pirated, if they lowered the cost they'd at least make some fucking money. They only have to lower it for personal use too.

How can they monitor personal use though?

Better to just keep the price high so when the smaller firms they can't monitor do that they still make a load.

They don't need to monitor it, making a personal license that's much cheaper won't mean small businesses will buy that instead since they'd still be breaking the law, so they'd have 2 options: pirate it and risk getting in to trouble, or buy a personal license and risk getting into the same trouble.

Do you not think they've done the maths on this? :(

No, I really think they're just incompetent.

It's possible.

I'm amazed no one has really made a competitor product though... lots of money there and Adobe are really just running away with it.

there are, Corel draw for example, but it's like Word everyone uses the one program.

CorelDRAW is more of a Vector app, no?

hmmm, yeah I think it is, but I was more thinking of the graphics suite.

gimp can do some stuff aswell

yes, but tBone mentioned money.

Gimps also pretty shit, honestly. I've tried using it again and again, even Gimpshop. When you put the two products side by side it's not even fair.

after watching quite a few video tutorials and downloading some plugins i am able to do 75% of what i wanna do with gimp as fast and as good as i would with ps. the only thing that is still a real pain in the as are missing filter previews and everything around fonts

I've been using GIMP for a while now, and it's not that bad, but can sometimes feel like a downgrade.

It's still a great, free alternative though.

photoshop isn't that expensive.

see matlab for example, $2000m great program but you need those toolboxes
http://www.mathworks.com/store/productIndexLink.do

or Autocad at $4000 a piece and there are a lot of of add-ons for that one, too.
http://www.nextag.com/auto-cad/search-html

TV : I watch bbc iPlayer a fair amount, unfortunately i torrent American programs alot because theres no delivery system like iPlayer in the UK yet. I would be happy to watch commericals if the content was available (and not weeks behind the US).

Gaming: I torrent most games because 90% of them are shit.. the 10% i do buy are either multiplayer or really good and well priced (and i have the money).

Movies: I don't have a girl friend to take to the movies *cries* (my mates aren't big film fans). When i did we went alot.

Music : I haven't listened/downloaded anything new in years. When a band i do like releases a new album i will probably pay for it and support them, aslong as its well priced and DRM free.

Not USA but www.seesaw.com

the only noble cause that made think tbh

But you can't legally buy the type of stuff I like :<

not true

DUDE

Fucking hell Alektra Blue looks completely different from like 5 years ago. She used to look exactly like my ex.

Nice try tB0nE's ex

I was getting ready to fap at that... but really... such a turn off.

I'm personally in favour of a 'big society' with regards to government porn.

Let the volunteers take the role of the expensive bureaucratic state porn industry.

p.s. How fucking annoying would that be if you bought a porn dvd?
p.p.s. I find the idea that they think they can trick people into believing that made the dvd just for me incredibly dishonest.

wow, they all look like shit.
american porn is ugly.

They're only good till they get famous (and surgery)

B/c they're pros. Amateur is where it's at.

Ron Jeremy still looking fine though.

Yeah, was talking about the "females".
The guys look just fine.

Come on, you can't possibly be German and complain about the porn from other countries, no matter how right you are.

Way to guilt trip the paying customer.



Why do they even put this stuff in when noone puts it in the rip?

Which country has DVD's that bad?

I'd like to know so I don't accidentally end up purchasing one at some point.

germany

Man, we just get the "you wouldn't steal a car" thingy.

i would still a car from a multinational corporation in a heartbeat and i would sleep like a baby,knowing the evil fuckers have little less then they did before

uhm, weren't you the guy who lives off trading currencies, or was that someone else?

ye,sure,but i am not employed by any company ,i work for myself

i like to think im robin hood,stealing from the banks and giving to the poor ,lol (most likely stealing from small fish like myself,since banks are on the right side of the trade most of the time ) :)

You are no Robin Hood, you are the opposite. It's both not for the good of the community and it is also not illegal.

All the money you get you are usually taking from the banks and also companies that buy or sell things overseas. And that can be very small companies.

But, if you really think the companies will just accept losses and pay premiums on currency transactions without reaction you are wrong. They see this as a cost, which it clearly is, and carry it over to the end customer. That means all the money you earn comes out of the little man's pocket.
A good example is the oil price, which is that to be rougly 15% over the price it should be just through speculations. Financial investors do on a large scale the exact same thing you are doing on a small scale, and we all pay the price.

Yes, you are just a little fish and it makes no real difference to anyone whether you keep doing it or not. But you lose the right to criticize something like Hedgefonds, if you are doing exactly the same on a much smaller level: Taking money from the community without providing an actual service.

At least those big "evil" corporations, like GM, Vattenfall or BP provide a service for the money they take...


Please understand, I am not trying to criticize your decision to do what you do. That is your own choice and as I said it really doesn't have any effect no is it illegal. After all it's not that different from being a "Poker pro".
But I do feel the need to point out your hypocrisy.

i was joking with the robin hood thing,..

so in your opinion if YOU buy a small stock,hold it for a while and sell it with a profit,you are then taking money from the little guy,..that is somewhat true,but banks with 20billion dollar bonuses .running ponzi schemes and hedge funds,gambling with the money that isnt theirs,then get a bail out, which they nicely stash in their pockets and gamble your money again,until you bail them out again

yes i am exactly like the banks

"At least those big "evil" corporations, like GM, Vattenfall or BP provide a service for the money they take... "

no,these companies are killing competition,are generally above the law,"too big to fail" and run countires debt into the ground,just for the profit of the few CEOs owners and major share holders (did i mention they don't pay taxes ?)

so,yes i will criticize these satans little helpers until i die

so in your opinion if YOU buy a small stock,hold it for a while and sell it with a profit,you are then taking money from the little guy

in a way you are yes, but it's different. With investing in stocks you give money to companies which gives them the possibility to grow and provide more services (a bit simplified).

Also, most people who buy stocks keep them longer and just do it on top of their regular job.


Building something like a refinery or a automobile plant or a power plant, that has an efficiency that can guarantee us today's prices, takes huge investments. So, yeah, you will need those companies or you would have to build it with government money and have politicians run it.

I also dislike the common "big companies are soo evil" stereotype, especially when people just use that stereotype as the only proof.

But I'll leave you to your rant and just call you a hypochrite. Cause with your view of yourself and the world you would fit in just fine with the average investment banker. ("Oh look, I just made a million with 5 hours of work. Other banks do the same as I do. Those idiotic politicians deserve what they get")

if this is your reply to my previous comment and you still believing i am the same as the greedy bankers,then i seriously can't help you

at this point its like talking to an infant regurgitating what hes been told to believe

arent you a happy consumer ,hihi,happy happy consumer :)

i am disappoint becks,thought your smarter then that

funny that people always think I am smart until the very moment I disagree with them.
All I people who hate big corporations always just state stereotypes, like you just did. None of them pay taxes? Rofl.
Yes, they do get an deservedly good treatment by governments, but the no taxes things is just a lie, spread. Just remember the income taxes. And yes, big corporations have many other flaws, but hating on them is incredibly narrow minded. You do realize that they provide the living grounds for thousands of people who work for them, but I guess you'll just call them "sheep"...

They also build the computer you use right now and provide the energy you'll need to write.
If computers were built one at a piece, by hand, you wouldn't have a computer and certainly wouldn't be trading currencies. Think about that you happy customer .

Yes, you are a consumer, too. Hating the company you buy from does not make a damn difference to them.
It does make you a hypocrite, though.

i didn't say your smart,i said i thought your smarter then that,big diff
and i don't think we have ever talked before :P

i don't hate all companies,but i do hate on the multinational companies,just look at what it did to the US,small towns are dead,1 wall mart ,1 mc donalds and a few others big names,obviously people are forced to work for them for pennies with no health coverage or pension ,small business are dieing fast,thanks to globalization as well ,...tax havens exist for companies ,so they pay little to nothing,infact ,if big companies (s&p 500) paid what they should,there wouldnt have to be taxation of the common people.

All i am saying is,there shouldnt be companies with more money then many of the countries in the world,corruption and greed is the name of the game

Middle class is dieing ,thanks to these wonderful companies,central banks(privetly owned) and banks in general ...justice system and money is their tool and our world their playground,raping nature and prosperity of the common people.

I mean,being in the financial world for a while now,my view has changed drastically ,perhaps you can see that at least there is some right in what im saying.

-Yes we need companies to make things,but not like this,not for 2cents per nike shoes ,they need the 3rd world and guess what,the 99% of the worlds wealth is in control of less then 0.1% of the world population.

I think multinationals are doing a great job for it to remain that way

But your right in saying i shouldnt generalize ,but its still my view off the majority of the big multinationals,..

hmm, maybe there are some misunderstandings.

it is not the task of corporations to bring wealth to underdeveloped countries*. In fact whenever a comany moves a production site to a less developed country everybody is complaning that people at home lose their jobs. Often the people bashing the companies then, are the same that deand we should to more to help the poor third world ...
The reason that that only happens with ig corporations is quite obvious. They are the only ones who actually can move tousands of jobs from one country to another.
If a country moves like 15 jobs (like mine has done by buying a Romanian construction bureau) noone gives a fuck.

I also doubt that big companies really do push corruption that much. For one thing corruption has been a problem in the world for at least 2000 years. nowadays, small companies do it just the same as big companies. I also knwo for a fact that if you work for E.ON a German power company, you have to declare and pay taxes on every gift you receive from suppliers and customers. That is not true for many smaller companies.
But yes, at least big companies do spend a lot on bribes, which definately is a bad thing, no question about it. But who is the wose figure, the person accepting a bribe to make a decision, or the person paying a bribe? It's not that easy to call.

Anyway, I don't think I said you were completely wrong with what you said. I just called you a hypocrite since you profit off the very same system you criticise.

I work for a company constructing compressors stations for natural gas, which I can justify to myself for various reasons. But if I now started to call gas companies and power companies the root of all evil you could call my a hypocrite, too.




*But yeah there should be better methods to ensure they don't rob them either!

yes you made some valid arguments.But It is my opinion that these big corporations have much more power then we are led to believe.For example the corporate media if you ask me,is one big propaganda machine working for the corporations and not the people.I think the oscar winning BBC documentary "The century of the self" shows that nicely.
It is also my opinion that politicians are corporate puppets and the 3rd world is deliberately held back.(im not going through history proving my point,but just for example World War 1,was the invasion of Iraq,they had democracy ,infact they were very developed in all areas for that time,but corporations wanted the oil for them selves,so a dictator friendly to their interests was put in place) this is the same story all over the world,corporations own mostly everything,in latin america there was a revolt not long ago,because a corporation privatized rain water,..

Companies employ a contractor and they employ sweatshop like workers,working almost like slaves.The company has great profit,but everyone else looses. (talking about 3rd world globalization)

It is also my opinion that the same banking families have cultivated greed and corruption for the past 2000years.

E.ON a German power company:Im sure there are legit comapnies out there,but im also sure their lawyers can find a loop hole before you can write a law
My family had many small companies and i know for a fact that we were being fucked from alll sides ,so that theory of yours doesnt hold water.

Corporations giving a bribes most often doent give you many options,many are forced to take it,because of their connections of course.

If banks profited the way i did,then i would have nothing to critize

You don't have to call power companies the root of all evil,but i can,as they are infact very close to it,free energy is abundant ,your being sold a lie.

Ok,so look,we have very very different views,whats the point of this discussion ?

You don't have to call power companies the root of all evil,but i can,as they are infact very close to it,free energy is abundant ,your being sold a lie.

ahaha. Are you seriously trying to explain to an industrial engineer who studied mechanics and Business administration (specializing on financial theory and production management) and who works for the power industry, that I am being sold a lie?

And you call me naive? rofl.

people with similar educations as you ,are the most in denial ,i think it has something to do with,regurgitating the information like a parrot without a single creative/individual thought

youll come around,trust me

have you ever thought that your statement really makes no sense at all?


Imagine, I claim to heal Aids, Cancer and the common cold with the touch of my hand, who do you think will have the most doubts about my statement?
It will be doctors.


But I guess there is a chance you don't believe in doctors either, or engineers, or mathematicians. Just yourself and the internet as long as there is some guy around who shares your opinion.
What you do is not individual thinking. It's coming up with with your own view of things and then trying to make everything fit, never looking back. Much like conspiracy theorists.

I don't know if you'll ever come around from that aproach, but I do know that you'll have to do it on your own. Since listening to different opinions can't possible work for you, as you dismiss them all as brainwashed.

Good luck.

I support you fully on this matter brother. Just explain to the sheep that we don't need any big corporations to peddle us power, we have free energy for pete sake! we don't need any filthy oil, we roll on antigrav. and we don't need money either because.. well unless we trade it of course. that'll shut them up!

about the rest of your statement.

On the one had you are complaining about corporate media bullshitting us all and being brainwashed by the establishmen, and then praise a documentation by the BBC that has been awared an Oscar.
OK.


Yeah, I agree big companies are involved with lots of bad things in the third world (and yes I saw the James Bond, too). But that is not the question. The question is, would those bad things stop if the big multinational companies did not exist?

Those companies have been around for maybe 100 years, which was interestingly the time when people in the western world regained a lot of freedom from the feudalistic system.
Slavery on the other hand has been around for thousands of years.

There are also no banking families that are 2000 years old. That is a fact.


If your parents company got fucked from all sides that is unfortunate, but the fact that there are still lots of small companies or mdium sized independent companies around and other being founded, makes me speculate if you really were fucked, or if there were mistakes on your side, too. At least it explains your bitterness.

How can you say something like that when you have no experience,just theoretical bullshit ingrained in your brain


this is pointless beyond belief , funny how you think your smart ,yet your understanding of the world is very 2 dimensional and naive


this discussion as pointless as it is,is now over,at least from my side,have a nice one and good luck

so what is your experience?
Buying a few shares and currencies here and there and philosophing about it?

But that you feel the need to attack what I have learned, despite most likely not knowing what it was in detail makes it very obvious how you approach knowledge.

You believe there is only two kinds of opinion: yours and the wrong one.

Calling me naive doesn't make you look one bit smarter or correct, even though you seem to hope it does.

funny how you think your smart ,yet your understanding of the world comes from wikipedia and a couple of conspiracy websites.

oh and the "infant" remark really just shows the level you like your arguments at.

A creationist could have written that very same line.
Your inability to grasp that people might actually have a good insight, made up their own mind and still disagree with you and dare to agree with the majority, say a whole lot.

That said, blindly hating on the politicians, banks and companies without any differentiation has become such a popular sport these day, I highly doubt I am in the majority :P

conservative and naive, people like you got us in the mess we are in. he as a small speculator has zero influence on the actual rate and therefore does not take anything from anyone. want to buy currency A for currency B? he is there to take other side of that trade. if he was not, you would be getting a worse price, the best someone else could offer you. it moves his way? cool he profits. it moves against him? he loses, the original buyer wins twice because he got the order filled instantly and at a price other people would not give him.

the problem with hedge funds and prop trading banks is they have the power to move the rate externally, by influencing policy decisions through lobbying the politicians which is straight up fucked up.

Euro is dead and it is the fault of French and German banking lobbies refusing to take haircuts on Greek debt and convincing the politicians to cover their asses. they are the new generation of aristocrats stifling the purchasing power of the middle class for their own short term gain. the robin hood description fits quite well, every dollar these cunts do not make is a dollar made for our society.

hahaha, so it's not the currency traders who got us in this mess but the people who say they are bad.
Not the one that speculations like that make us pay more than we would have too.

good one.



Now, I just need someone to explain to me that big corporations controlling everything is pure evil and a coomunist system is the only solution and you made my day :P



Until then, I'd like to say that people seeing only black and white, unable to see the good and bad aspects of things, are the ones who will always get us in a mess.

i edited the post.

as i said, speculators take risk and face the consequences. banks do not, they take risk and if it does not work out, they warp the reality by influencing the people you and I elected.

and i entirely agree with the black and white part, people should always consider alternate viewpoints. 'things are so because mommy, daddy, teacher and president think they are' will not get you very far.

thank you for some common sense

you completely forgot to elaborate where I was conservative and naive, but I guess starting of with an insult really helps to make your post stronger ...


If your example were that easy you might have a point, however the problem is that of they daily currency transactions only a small fraction is used to exchane money in order to buy a real product. The rest just gets traded back eventually. Bankers and small-time traders, take their "winnings" out of that circle, and in the end the premium for the circle is paid for by the difference between buy and sell prices for a currency.

Sure, on the first look the small traders offer the best deals, but still they are just part of the system and we pay them for giving us nothing.

Now tell me, what do you think if all the trading did not exist and people could just exchange money if they are really buying a product. No possibility for banks to just trade currencies.


Also, the most prominent German banker already announced that he does not expect Greece to fulfill their debts and therefore expects haircuts.
I also heard that Greece's assets will first be used to cover the new credits from the European states, and the rest is used for older credit which is a standard procedure in a bailout.

You also must have missed the fact that when the US banks repaid their government they had to pay a pretty high interest on it. Well, maybe you didn't miss it, but the government not being cheated by the banks probably didn't fit into your calling others naive...

aw gosh ,thats a very naive reply becks,..im not sure where you get your information but look elsewhere

This is where I got my infos: http://www.fiwi.tu-bs.de/

The Institute of finance of my university.

don't look just there,take all sides into consideration and try to form an objective opinion,at least thats why i try to do,not to say my opinion is objective ,but i do try

I gave you the basis of my education, that I can't read books and articles on my own seems to be your assumption.

I doubt I have the same opinion as my professor, as I thought he was a dick.
The very basics of economics stay the same, though, no matter what text you read.

You might want to try reading theoretical texts for a while, cause it's just the same as it is with machines: rtfm.
Cool kids think they don't have to and usually fail.

I buy the stuff that owns, feel weird when it's in between and don't give a rat's ass about stuff that turns out to suck. I'd like to have a refund option on multimedia/games the same way I can do it for any other product that I don't really like. Surely doesn't help sales when you actually decide to buy an overpriced album, find out it has 2 good tracks rest sucks, and then never buy one again cos you got fucked over last time.

then again, all I ever download are rugby matches and some music every other month, cba with games or movies.

good thread.

I download music mostly. A lot, thanks to waffles. I usually pay the artists by going to their concerts and music-festivals. I also buy CDs from artists i really like. e.g. i have all of SOADs and Bright Eyes albums. i also buy their merch when they're on tour, which is pretty expensive i'd say.
(i even bought a ballpen drawing by Conrad Keely. pretty awesome imo.)
so no guilty conscience on that part.

Movies - I couldn't care less. I refuse to pay 12€ for visiting the movies (popcorn and drinks not included) and i don't have a DVD-Player.

Games - I don't play any games anymore.

I actually thought about this recently and came to a value of ~8000€ sitting on my HDD.
I heard there's a last.fm-App that calculates the value of your library. Wasn't able to find it tho.

maybe you can download the app at mpaa.com or gema.de

Please give me a shout when you found this app/tool!

I don't know how I would give back to shows like The Office or something, I could buy the DVD's I guess?

I never really feel guilty about this, because most of what I watch or listen to are from people and/or companies that aren't really struggling to make money. If some personal friend was releasing electronica music I'd buy it.

If music prices (or tv/films) were in line with the prices of games on steam I'd probably buy them.

£~1 a track or whatever is just ridiculous and they really need to rethink how they price and distribute music/tv/films.

File format/bitrates/etc should be flexible.

Don't feel guilty at all, I buy things I think are worth it but they're pretty few and far between, plus usually the legit stuff comes with so much undesirable shit that I'm not interested. Case in point: I preordered gta4 from steam > found out about securom > cancelled it and pirated it > wasn't really interested > bought it off d2d recently for £5 > it's not bad. Their loss (of £35)

I used to buy everything to support artists, companies etc, but prices over the years on things like CD's etc just got jumped up so much that nowadays I don't care. Fuck the record companies for exploiting the consumer like that. The artist barely makes a % out of it anyway (even on indie) and their money primarily comes from merchandise, touring and royalties anyway, so I just go watch them live now.

what do you do, after you realize that something you pirated, was actually worth the money?

depends. if it's music, i buy it afterwards, because i want to support the band, simple as that. even though nowadays i'm probably supporting the label more, but what can you do. anyway, music cds/dvds are way too expensive imho, with a reasonable price it would be much better. 16€ for a cd? yeah right. expensive sport. luckily for me, i'm terribly picky when it comes to music.

if we're talking about games, i don't even remember when is the last time i bought an original game. too risky tbh, especially cause some games can't really be played 20 times, so when you finish it once, it's done. unlike cds which you can listen from time to time.

but i'm gonna buy diablo 3 when it comes out. just cause it's diablo, if you started with diablo 1 in the mid 90s and made your parents rage cause your phone line was always making the annoying modem noises whenever they picked it up, you know why you must buy the original. it's just respect. and nostalgia.

when o when is episode 3 coming out!!!!?!!

He's got a point. Alot of people hate on Steam, but honestly I quite like it (well, I'm getting used to the new one anyway). Switching from WON to Steam pissed me off no-end, but considering how I can go anywhere and still play my games, not having to back stuff up, change disks to execute or clutter my shelf with CD's (not to mention now with steamcloud can use my configs anywhere) is so much easier. Same reason I download music instead of buy CD's now. The quality isn't as good, and I still have a huge CD collection, but it's just less hassle.

Other companies are slowly taking note, but they're still irritatingly bad. EA's download system is so retarded and all these security programs that go along with the other companies systems just make it more hassle then buying the damn thing on disk.

I think steam is a good example of how low my expectations of PC gaming are now. I remember when it first came out it was pretty much the first style of DRM I remember and I fucking despised it for it. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Now I own practically every fucking game they've made (well not 'own', I subscribe to it of course.)

Yep same pretty much. Wouldn't go near it until it was basically forced upon HL1-mod gamers (CS, TFC, DOD etc). Got used to it and now I just don't care anymore. Fuck, I play non-steam games through it, use it as a messenger and even use the web browser during games sometimes.


Fuck my life

You gotta join the ESReality group! :P

He is Nerd John Madden!

i don't give a shit. something i really like, i may buy, but i haven't bought anything new for a while.

i had built up a decent sized DVD collection, but then bluray/hddvd came along, and i felt a bit discouraged in buying new movies/TV seasons.

when i finish a game I rate it giving it a price, then buy it according to it
I don't pay for movies neither music. movies can just die I don't care ; and for music well they got concerts to make money (and by this way we could get rid of all the fake musicians plagging medium since decades). getting rich and be a good artist : does not comput, money corrupts

i would love to buy every music album i download. and that's a shitload. but i'm a poor student and can only afford like one or two cds per month.
regarding software: i believe i don't have any pirated software installed on any system. i tend to use open source stuff and only use commercial software if there's not a real alternative. I can also get every microsoft product for free at my university. even photoshop is more or less affordable if you're a student (like 200€).
regarding everythink else: what nukm said.

Can't afford original stuff since everything (meaning: games/movies/music) here is expensive as fuck, at least for 'normal people'. Just compare your monthly salary to the price of what you want to buy (movie/game/music) - it's often fucking hilarious. I wouldn't buy games anyway, maybe SC2 or Diablo 3 or another Quake or something for multi, but nothing more really. It's not wroth it and I guess I'm too old, games don't give me such a satisfaction as much as few years ago. I would buy some movies, but only those special ones (like Saving Private Ryan :)), classics etc. As for music I'd love to have some whole discographies of particular bands (Opeth/Tool/Dream Theater/etc) but it's still a shitload of money.

Yes, it's funny how food, drugs, alcohol, gas, etc. vary in prices from country to country, but music and games seem to be pretty much the same.

pc gaming is pretty much fucked because of piracy

probably because we are not all dumb console fanboys who quite happily shell out 40 quid for the next over hyped piece of shit title every month.

Most people who play games on a pc are computer literate and most of their online buddies are guys who u used to frag with. In other words they aren't spaztards and know how to download things such as games and porn etc. More importantly they know that PCS can be used for gaming with.

I can see both points of view but the nail in the coffin for me was that fucking lame ass securicor bullshit that comes with all new pc games. It all ripped out and bypassed in 5 mins anyway so why do companies even bother?

Most pc games nowadays are console ports as well. Good luck for super street fighter in the future. I don't see it happening.


The whole internet is going to be regulated in about 10 years time. You wont have free reign. I hope this doesn't happen but its happening already.

People now all know about torrents and the governments are slowly brining in laws that stop the use of them and give the internet fag providers power to limit your speeds and at worst cut you off?
Then it will be news groups and filesharing sites.

This all stems from piracy and the it being to easy to get anything you want on the internet fro free. Pay for shit? u gotta be joking. more and more people are becoming computer literate and are using the bandwidth for piracy. It wont stop :/


I really hope the internet stays this way it is but i can sense it changing already.

Regulated ,dull ,no piracy internet is the future. Huge companies will all own a slice and we wont be able to do anything fun on the internet any more.

Well come now, porn will always exist, and that's always fun!

Well said.

Stopped paying when I noticed I got punished for paying. Feels good, man.

I use hulu or the network website for TV shows (the few we watch), and subscribe to netflix for movies. I don't really listen to much on the radio anymore so I don't buy or dl music, and most video games I don't bother with either- don't even own a console (besides the 16-bit NES in a box I have but don't play).

Wow, that all sounds very boring, lol.

Haha, we're suppose to care?

you are not supposed to, but at least you should care out of personal interest in situations where you endanger future of the media you like. thats usually not the case, but sometimes it is.
there a lot of more reasons to care, but thats the only one imho concerns everyone

Well I am in the same boat as everybody who has posted previously.

I buy a fair amount of DVD's, and regarding music I always make sure I see the bands I admire when they tour (granted, not very often in Australia)

:(

It's not that bad, I've seen NIN twice, Pixies once, Rage once. All that's missing is Tool, who I have missed twice :(

murdering all those people sure hurt my conscience far less than burning a copy of fallout 2

Fallout 2 is such a great game made by cool people that I'd probably feel more guilty about 'stealing' it then a killing spree in a mall.

well let me just say hitting that bitch with a shovel until she bled her ovaries out was a highlight of our relationship

I torrent/megavideo TV shows depending on where I am (uni will shut you down for torrenting). I used to buy DVD box sets and I feel like they were worth it, but a lot of the time they come out so late there's no point. I bought every season of the wire on DVD and band of brothers on blu ray because they are both amazing and I had a ps3 without any HD video content.
Everything else I buy. Music I mostly listen to at my computer, so I use spotify and buy albums that are worth it for my ipod. PC games off steam (people who say PC gaming is screwed, I think steam is proving you wrong but they don't put out sales numbers like console games do), ps3 games off amazon, normally a bit after release when they are cheaper.

Probably buy it, if it's really great. Like Quake1/Quake3, I've gotten so much enjoyment out of those games, I'd say they were worth paying thousands for :)

Most things are just really really overpriced though. Music CDs are usually one good song, if any, the rest is crap.

Games are way too expensive, probably because the stores and publishers take such a massive cut. I would only buy a game if I'd tried a demo/illegal copy and really liked what I saw. I haven't bought a game since Quake4 - and that was a mistake :/

As for films, there's rarely anything worth £12+ on DVD that I'd want to see SIX MONTHS (however long it is) after it's on at the cinema.

im always broke, so i cant afford to buy music. if i download it and keep it to myself theres no harm done right? i cant buy it anyway if i wanted to.

tvseries i get because i dont wanna wait 3 years with the risk of the channel that bought 2 seasons to drop it even if there are more than 2. actually watching TV is SHIT :P

some games and movies only cost £3 after they have been out a year in and on highstreet shop/sites and amazon

games = buy cd key, download iso optional

It depends on what country you live.
In Lithuania normal month payment in job is 300 euros.
NOW READ THIS:
*In winter time you need pay 150 euro for home heating + 50 euro water / electricity / gas.
* 1L petrol cost 1.15 euro / 1L diesel 1.05 euro / 1L. ( so you can get ~250 L in month with you salary).
*Food cost more then in Germany etc.
*You need pay some health/car insurances (not much ~ 50 euro month for normal person).
*Clothes cost More then in most countrys.
* 1-2 Room apartaments cost 50 000 - 75 000 euro ( count how much year you need to work for 300 euro to get this :D ).
* And it's so on and on and on..

And ppl CRYING in other countrys there they get ~1200-2000 euro per month ( I don't blame them).

So if i would pay for INTERNET STUFF , prizes would be like: 0.1 ct for mp3 song , 1ct for dvd movie 2 ct for games!

lmao@lithuania

thats true, although the money situation is not just dependent on the country. many students for example dont have much cash either (wherever they live).

btw, why are cloth and food so expensive?

Everything are ruling by mafia in Lithuania, they set the prices..
It's even logical imposible to live in Lithuania.. 250 euro you giving just for taxes in winter. FOOD? GAS? CLOTHES? FUN? yeah forget it :))
etc on 4 month in Lithuania was spend 150 000 000 on "1000 year then known Lithuania name", we get just few statues and few concerts for these 150 milions :D Where was created fast 1000 small companys, money gived to them, companys closed, NO MONEY - NO RESPONSABLE PPL :) and half bilion in Lithuania is big money. But it's just little example, goverment stealing milions x milnions..

Are prices for food in Lithuania really that much higher than in Estonia? Cause prices for food and gas there were lower than here. (Not true for alcohol at the supermarket, though. )


But yeah, the prices for houses in "newly rich" countries always really surprise me, when I hear about them...
I mean the cost for building a house should be maybe half of what it is here, due to lower wages, but prices are pretty equal.
Guess it's all about people actually paying those prices.

People from LTU going to POLAND buy food. I was tons of time in germany and others euros countrys, food cost less, then in Lithuania. I don't say its 2x more then in germany, but its a bit more, but as I know in germany you get 1500 euro normal payment, it's like food in Lithuania is 5x more expensive.

Lot of young ppl leaving Lithuania, in this year, 4 moth leaved ~100 000 ppl, from 3 millions it's lot , but it's just official numbers and ppl are leaving LTU 3-5 years in big numbers. Soon Lithuania won't have young ppl left :))

just googled it quickly:


translated url

Really is more expensive than here, except for cinema, gas and cigarettes
At least as long as we buy the cheap discounter stuff!

Well, I do hope it will average out with the wages over time, because after all, some people do sell this stuff for those prices and they can afford higher wages and so on.

"Who, despite low wages (average wages in mid-2008: 2237 LTL - about 650 €) in Lithuania for a work like the effort should, dominate the national language."
and in this site, they picked LOWEST prises...
etc Malboro cost : 2.60 euro ! :)) they wrote like 1.3... i dont know what shit it is.. same with other consumers..
Then you read, it's a joke you know :)
Average is so big, becoz we have 140 official goverment mans (ALL usa have less :D ) and them familys, friends and other "mafia" gets 10 000 euro payments per month, so they rise average wages so much.. but true sounds diferent.

thats true: "The minimum wage is currently set at 800 LTL (€ 230) per month." , so most works for minimum here, just capital Vilnius have abit better payments.


OK ITS ESPORTS site, we wroting abit to offtopic..

thanks for the infos. Really does sound like the "usual" corruption, I really hope it will change over time, and I think it can. Cause with so many young people leaving, companies andthe rich corrupt people will run out of cheap workers. So they have to offer a better pay to hire one of the few that remain.
It will take time, tho :/


We are also in the offtopic forum so it's fine.









not that being in another forum or even a demo post has ever stopped me :P

The thing is the production costs just dont go down as fast as most people think.

Suppose game/music/video company x decides to cut prices by one half. It would appear to be logical that they would need to sell twice as many copies in order to make the same profit.

But it just doesnt work that way, production costs dont have a linear relationship with the suggested retail price. regardless of the amount of copies produced. At a certain point the graph just flatlines and diminishing returns sets in.

So what can you really do as a business executive who's shareholders pressure him/her into making as muich as possible on short term. Long term is irrelevant, most shareholders will cash in long before long term even comes into the picture..

You can"t do anything really from their point of view, you simply have no choice. You can either sit there and do nothing and keep on raking in a steady profit and keep your high paid job or go out on a limb and risk infuriating the shareholders for the benefit of the customer.

The choice is an easy one.

considering digital distribution, i doubt that there is a point where selling for a low price stops getting lucrative

Digital distribution is a freeroll for piracy in an average shareholders mind.

Obviously cd's can be copied just as easily but they do not know that, It appears to be a lot more dificcult to go from a cd to a digital format like mp3 when you are not well versed in technology

fuck the average shareholder, he is a dumbass