{"id":2240,"date":"2009-02-20T17:05:50","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T22:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2010-05-12T08:38:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T13:38:39","slug":"experienced-points-excuses-on-the-high-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2240","title":{"rendered":"Experienced Points: Excuses on the High Seas"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Piracy” has been this week’s topic at The Escapist<\/a>, and I jumped on the bandwagon with my run down of common reasons given to excuse piracy<\/a> and why they (mostly) don’t work. (Although there are a few reasons (surprisingly, DRM doesn’t dominate the article, hooray for self-restraint) to which I am sympathetic.) <\/p>\n

For contrast, self-professed pirate Lee Evans at Downwards Compatible<\/a> has posted a list of common reasons for piracy<\/a>. On Monday he plans to offer some suggestions on how piracy can be reduced. <\/p>\n

I’m always glad to read the thoughts of clear-headed pirates who are honest with themselves about what they’re doing. I’ve said before that piracy is a social problem, not a technological one<\/a>. I still think piracy is wrong<\/em>, and I take no part in it myself, but I also don’t like the common practice of lumping pirates in with muggers, carjackers, or scam artists. I’m not suggesting that pirates are downtrodden victims and that if we listen to their reasons and have a hug that everything will be just fine. I’m saying that unlike crime in meatspace, you can’t fight piracy with guns, lawsuits, or DRM. It’s a social problem that can only be mitigated, never eliminated. Step one in solving a social or cultural problem like this is understanding what motivates people. Some are dedicated pirates who are lost to publishers, but some can<\/em> be turned into customers. I think publishers would have better luck ignoring the former and wooing the latter, instead of ineffectually attempting to punish both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Piracy” has been this week’s topic at The Escapist, and I jumped on the bandwagon with my run down of common reasons given to excuse piracy and why they (mostly) don’t work. (Although there are a few reasons (surprisingly, DRM doesn’t dominate the article, hooray for self-restraint) to which I am sympathetic.) For contrast, self-professed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[155,159],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column","tag-experienced-points","tag-piracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}