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Peter Moore: Suing PC Pirates Not the Answer, 'It Didn't Work for the Music Industry'
by Nick Breckon, Aug 21, 2008 8:03pm PDTFollowing the announcement that several game companies are filing suit against PC video game pirates, former Microsoft VP and current EA Sports head Peter Moore said that he expects the measures to be ineffective toward thwarting further file sharing.
"It didn't work for the music industry," said Moore to Eurogamer. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer."
Atari, Codemasters, Reality Pump, Topware Interactive and Techland have hired law firm Davenport Lyons to file suit against 25,000 file sharers on their behalf. The lawsuits demand the pirates pay GBP 300 (US $557), or face trial.
While Moore recognizes that constructive solutions to piracy are scarce, he would rather the industry look for some than run to the courts.
"Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property," he continued, "I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers."
Several EA Sports games, including Madden 2009, did not see PC releases this year, with Moore citing "serious business challenges" as the reason. Moore has said that the franchises will return to the platform next year, but bolstered with "meaningful" online connectivity.
"I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money," added Moore. "I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."
Comments
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Also games are different than music. Music is a lot harder to track and way easier, so many more people can do it. Music can easily be swapped on blogs with P2P apps like limewire. WIth games, its a different story.
And I think calling people who steal your hard work "custemors" is stretching it.
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No, they've stolen nothing. They've COPIED something. Copyright is not theft. Copyrighted ideas are not property. They're simply ideas you have the rights to.
Language like using "stolen" to refer to violation of copyright and "intellectual property" to refer to copyrighted ideas (ideas you own the RIGHTS to; you don't actually have property to be stolen) are used to try and win in the court of public opinion. I wish this dishonest language on the part of COPYRIGHT holders feeling threatened by COPYRIGHT VIOLATION would stop.
Yes, I know it's just splitting hairs, but theft and copyright violation are two separate crimes under law for a good reason. One involves depriving somebody of something they own. The other does not deprive them of what they own, but instead denies them their rights for their works to be distributed as they see fit. These are very different crimes with different consequences and different methods of resolution.
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I like that quote a lot. I'm huge on multiplayer gaming so even if I wanted to pirate games I really wouldn't get much value out of it. Online play requires authentication. Maybe purely single player experiences could disappear from the PC all together. It already seems like most of the really successful games on the PC these days have a very strong multiplayer component or are exclusively multiplayer.
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It's a good thing there are some less enlightened publishers around still releasing their games.
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During the same time I saw the Orange Box for 25 EUR and bought it too.
I think lower prices would cause a massive increase in sales numbers. Of course high prices don't excuse bad behavior (like mine).
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I have a bunch of own ideas as to how and why piracy is what it is http://leidegren.blogspot.com/2008/08/piracy-causality-and-pc-vs-console.html and I hope in time that more and more business execs come to realize that the solution is not trivial, but there is certainly a lot of things you can do. Which by the way does not involve legal actions or copy protection...
That crowd really doesn't need the help, I prefer to watch them trip over themselves as they construct sound logical arguments.
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