Pirating Factorio

[FreeER]

I think that we both can agree on, that there are cases where shovel is better and cases where you need more serious equipment.

agreed.

You are comparing a product where you need to do X, Y and Z to be able to sell it against a product where you need to do only X.

Yes but, I was trying to take the most typical examples and generalize them, not compare those 'some' that are atypical.

Really? You can advertise shit out of a car, you can pay for use of that car in some film, you can sell sequel of a car with relatively few changes, you can sell accessories for that car and you can make merchandise for that car, models, calendars etc... manufacturers even get paid from software companies if they want to use that car in a game)

OK, maybe I didn't think that one through well enough however, i'll add that with the digital media you can do a lot of that even if the product is not used by a large number of people (niche) though obviously the more popular the more income generated. A car must be really popular (considering how many different kinds there are and cost to produce even 1) for anyone to be particularly interested in paying for it's use in films or sequels etc whereas with the digital product you are not reliant upon your product being popular but simply used by someone. Also by ads I meant ones that the devs got paid to show their customers (income) not marketing (expense, though one that is expected to bring more income).

Yes, delivery of digital product is very fast and you can make additional copies for very small added cost.
Your point is?

That non of that applies to physical products, each and every 'copy' of a physical product has an additional cost to it that digital products do not, which is extremely important when you consider the larger instances in each scenario (that time I wasn't just talking about the typical). Microsoft, while spending millions on development and testing is then reaping pure profit with each copy sold (after their break even point), A manufacturer of, say, light bulbs (something we must buy constantly) is not.

[ssilk]

Physical product X costs 10kg of steel and 10 man-hours to make
Digital product Y costs 0 kg of steel and 12 man-hours to make
Let's say that cost of 10kg of steel = 1 man-hour, result is that Y costs more to produce than X.

Best example is Factorio itself. The cost to craft a iron axe are low. But the costs to create an steel axe are immense. Because you have to build/research so many other things, before that.

Hm. I think this is a very good example, why malokin is just wrong. I cannot say: I need just notepad and can begin to program. I need the tools to make it efficiently. And those tools must be created first, which means, they must be paid.

[FreeER]

Best example is Factorio itself. The cost to craft a iron axe are low. But the costs to create an steel axe are immense. Because you have to build/research so many other things, before that.

Hm. I think this is a very good example, why malokin is just wrong. I cannot say: I need just notepad and can begin to program. I need the tools to make it efficiently. And those tools must be created first, which means, they must be paid.

um, what? The point is that with a purely digital item, you don't typically need any other tools that need to be paid for. Often a lot (if not most) of what you might need to make what you want is already available as a free third party library and you just need to use it, when it's not it's simply another level of a digital product (grab an editor and a compiler and start working). What physical material do you need to program beyond a computer??? In the real world you do not take some pack of wrenches, nuts and bolts and turn it into code to be used as you like, you take text that someone (or you) has written previously and add on to it. The exception is if you are designing something like a robot, but then you are really selling a physical product that required some digital product to actually function.

[Robik]

You are comparing a product where you need to do X, Y and Z to be able to sell it against a product where you need to do only X.

Yes but, I was trying to take the most typical examples and generalize them, not compare those 'some' that are atypical.

I would argue that in typical cases, there is more difference between simple / complex than between digital / physical in that regard. It is my opinion only and I am not trying to convince you, because that would be borderline impossible. We would have to agreed upon what are typical cases, and go case by case. For state regulations, digital is new thing and state didn't have enough time to regulate the shit of it, it is trying though...

Also by ads I meant ones that the devs got paid to show their customers (income) not marketing (expense, though one that is expected to bring more income).

Usually, you have to choose one, sell it, or show ads., if you do not want to piss your customers... I would be pissed if Factorio had ads in after I bought it.

Yes, delivery of digital product is very fast and you can make additional copies for very small added cost.
Your point is?

That non of that applies to physical products, each and every 'copy' of a physical product has an additional cost to it that digital products do not, which is extremely important when you consider the larger instances in each scenario (that time I wasn't just talking about the typical). Microsoft, while spending millions on development and testing is then reaping pure profit with each copy sold (after their break even point), A manufacturer of, say, light bulbs (something we must buy constantly) is not.

It is more or less case for every product.
Take drug industry for example
Development of new drug cost zillions, manufacturing of pills itself is very cheap compared to it. Transport in bulk costs peanuts.

[Gammro]

Meanwhile, everyone ignores my story that there ARE some costs involved, and defining at what costs it's justified to pirate(disregarding it's physical possibility) is arbitrary and useless.

Also: In the case of microsoft: They have to spend quite an amount of manhours on fixing things and updating to meet new requirements(remember when Windows XP didn't support very large hard drives?). If it's not to be called pure profit, you can say the break even line will become higher after release, and what do you think all those distribution servers cost?

I stand by my opinion that arguing about whether alleged low development costs for every piece of software in the world is arbitrary.

[FreeER]

We would have to agreed upon what are typical cases, and go case by case. For state regulations, digital is new thing and state didn't have enough time to regulate the shit of it, it is trying though...

Indeed. And really at that point it's a topic for another thread

Usually, you have to choose one, sell it, or show ads., if you do not want to piss your customers... I would be pissed if Factorio had ads in after I bought it.

Sure that's the usual approach, but it doesn't need to be the only approach. The devs could offer a cheaper version of Factorio with the ads when you start a new game or loading (while generating the terrain) and you could upgrade at any time, they'd probably get more from the ads over time than the non-ad version to be honest. This is actually what the Amazon Kindle did actually devs if you are listening do this and make it optional, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't mind turning on non-intrusive ads to give you some extra funding! The ads could be for other indie games even

It is more or less case for every product.
Take drug industry for example
Development of new drug cost zillions, manufacturing of pills itself is very cheap compared to it. Transport in bulk costs peanuts.

True, there are always exceptions to the typical standards lol

[FreeER]

I think that justifying piracy with the costs of developing something is just a bad argument, regardless of anything else

agreed.

Also: In the case of microsoft

As I stated, I was mostly talking about the typical cases. I wouldn't call hundred-thousand dollar software typical cases, though they certainly exist. Hm, bugfixes and updates does cause some differences but...

[kovarex]

I feel like we should provide some official stand on this subject.

There are two subjects that come into play, can conflict with each other and I value all of these highly:

• Freedom
• Ownership

Freedom is the most important for me, so when two principles conflict the freedom wins. One of the prerequisites for freedom is not letting others touch our privacy. This implies that piracy can never be stopped in free country.
Ownership is important as well, we are owners of our bodies our time, and our work. When I create something I have the right to do whatever I want with it. When someone creates game and sells it for 1000$ and decides to sell it just to the first 10 customers. It might be stupid, or not, but it is his choice to do so, and although you can argue, that it is too expensive, and the owner should do X+Y to sell more, sell it differently etc., you can't use these arguments to steal and not feel bad about it. No one is forced/needs to use others products (For computer games this is for sure), so you take it or leave it, but you are not the owner, you have not the right to specify the conditions it should be sold.

We are from Czech republic and it is not very custom to buy software here, when I was younger most of the people had not bought single piece of software, although they were using many, the typical argument was, that we are poor country, so we can't afford these high prices. It is bit better these days, but most of the software in use is still stolen. I stole a lot of games and software when I was younger and although I buy software more these days, I'm far from being "100% clean", but at least when I steal, I don't call it differently and I don't try bend the logic to feel good about it. If I believe I need to pirate the game to try it, I'm still breaking rules set for the product usage and I'm aware of it.

We won't fight the piracy of Factorio, not only because it is not possible, and we have better things to do. But also because we agree that sometimes it can help to promote the game. On the other hand we came to conclusion that posting torrent links on our official forums is behind the line and we will not tolerate it. Not only it makes the impression that we support the piracy, but we feel like it is done in a way that is taunting other players here.

TL;DR; Don't post pirate links on our official forums. If this happens we will delete such posts and by this we allow our moderators to do so as well.

[FreeER]

TL;DR; Don't post pirate links on our official forums. If this happens we will delete such posts and by this we allow our moderators to do so as well.

Great, now I get to wade through the topic and edit/delete posts with pirate links Couldn't this have been decided earlier?
edit: ok that wasn't so bad actually.

[Robik]

I think that justifying piracy with the costs of developing something is just a bad argument, regardless of anything else. As soon as it costs anything to produce something, you're making up arbitrary boundaries for costs.

Indeed.

Though some might say *pointing fingers* that digital products cost almost nothing compared to physical products and difference is big enough to justify such arbitrary rule.

There ARE pieces of software that costs millions to develop, and need massive developing, testing, QA and support departments(and I'm probably forgetting some). For example Electronic circuit simulation(which I happened to have pirated because I needed that $500 piece of software for one class) software.
If you place an equivalent part into the simulation, it's not just the simple ideal model of for example a transistor. It's the digital equivalent of that transistor, modelled to be within 0.0001% error margin of the real thing. Making up thousands of lines of code, just for that one part. And there's a library for hundreds of different transistor models. Then there's 1000's of other parts in that same library. Not even to mention the software functions itself. The costs to develop and produce this software are probably much higher than some other physical products(let's say, milk cartons:cents per product including shipping), thousands of man hours by expensive engineers. Not to mention this product needs to be maintained to be up to date every year, while there is a limited (specialized) market to sell to, making not shipping costs, but maintenance and updating to a limited market the continuous costs.
I'm not against piracy, but "it costs less" is arbitrary and IMHO thus irrelevant to the discussion.

nb: I did pirate that software, even though there was a student version we could use, but that one has a simulation speed limit built in. The full version literally ran 100x faster without any significant CPU load increase(another arbitrary limit). But they practically made me have a preference for their software. In the future, I might be a legitimate customer if I need it for a job.

Nice example from real life, I like it

Oh, and I didn't ignore your post, I just had hands full of my lunch to respond

[ssilk]

um, what? The point is that with a purely digital item, you don't typically need any other tools that need to be paid for.

Just not right. Before I can sit in front of my computer and begin to work, I need so many things, which are made by others. A free library is must be paid in any form. The operating system. The graphics library.
They also want to live.
That where I compare it with factorio: Before I can produce blue potion I need to make all the other stuff. And research. And so on. The digital information (research in factorio) is always based on physical things (items). They need to be done before. And they need to be paid, because unlike in Factorio the assemblies, the humans, which did it needs to live.

[FreeER]

Before I can sit in front of my computer and begin to work, I need so many things, which are made by others. A free library is must be paid in any form. The operating system. The graphics library.
They also want to live.

By free I mean that there is no cost to the person using them, they get it without paying anything and can immediately use it for whatever they like, not that they haven't been paid for in some form at some time. A lot of these libraries (I imagine, I don't actually know) have been created for their own projects which they received payment for and they eventually released these to others free of charge. It doesn't matter whether the creators want to live, it matters that they are allowing you to use them without paying anything. Since you can get these for free they add no cost to the development (unless you count time learning how to use them, which is likely less than creating your own).

[Robik]

Usually, you have to choose one, sell it, or show ads., if you do not want to piss your customers... I would be pissed if Factorio had ads in after I bought it.

Sure that's the usual approach, but it doesn't need to be the only approach. The devs could offer a cheaper version of Factorio with the ads when you start a new game or loading (while generating the terrain) and you could upgrade at any time, they'd probably get more from the ads over time than the non-ad version to be honest. This is actually what the Amazon Kindle did actually devs if you are listening do this and make it optional, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't mind turning on non-intrusive ads to give you some extra funding! The ads could be for other indie games even

I thought that Kindle is physical product?

It is more or less case for every product.
Take drug industry for example
Development of new drug cost zillions, manufacturing of pills itself is very cheap compared to it. Transport in bulk costs peanuts.

True, there are always exceptions to the typical standards lol

Alright, show me the typical standard product you are talking about where copies are not significantly cheaper than prototype.

[ssilk]

By free I mean that there is no cost to the person using them, they get it without paying anything and can immediately use it for whatever they like, not that they haven't been paid for in some form at some time. ... (unless you count time learning how to use them, which is likely less than creating your own).

Yes. I need time to learn to use it. Free means not, that it doesn't cost anything.

And to keep in my example: If this library would be a "free library factory" in factorio, you - as a player - would need to calculate the time, that this "free library" needs to develop, too. Otherwise you are a bad player. Free means not, that it doesn't cost anything. Anybody needs to pay for it.

The question is just, if it is fair payment.

[TGS]

I feel like we should provide some official stand on this subject.

Thank you, this is something I was really hoping would come about with continued discussion of this topic. It needed to be talked about, a consensus needed to be reached for you the dev(s) and you needed to decide how you wanted to handle it.

We won't fight the piracy of Factorio, not only because it is not possible, and we have better things to do. But also because we agree that sometimes it can help to promote the game. On the other hand we came to conclusion that posting torrent links on our official forums is behind the line and we will not tolerate it. Not only it makes the impression that we support the piracy, but we feel like it is done in a way that is taunting other players here.

Again thank you. Also was hoping this would finally come about. As I said time and time again in my posts. It wasn't the piracy I had a problem with, but the way it was being conducted. Saying "I'm going to pirate this game and post pirate links to said game on this forum because I believe strongly that information should be free and the game should be available to everyone to try before they buy" is a completely valid and legitimate argument as I get the feeling you agree. That would have been perfectly fine.

Sadly it was not conducted in such a manner. It was conducted in a very taunting and imo offensive way. Afaik the torrent description he has still references me and another forum user out of spite because we spoke out against him.

I love the discussion. I think it needs to be had. Because people have opinions and have rights to those opinions. But I think something that has been becoming more and more of a problem is the difference between fact, opinion and collective opinion or standards.

Spoiler

malokin seemed to imply as FACT that because he can literally take any digital media/software and distribute it to everyone as he pleases that it somehow conveys equal 'ownership' rights of said media to him the moment it reaches his computer. This is not fact. It is opinion. And while it is a growing and shared opinion by many, including many on this forum. It is still NOT fact. Nor is the alternative where the creator owns the material. This is not fact. It is collective opinion. A standard if you will. A standard of which we all agree to in almost every country save for the ones that simply do not enforce it to any degree.

What IS fact is that these countries which do enforce it (and given that even "freedom centric" countries are attempting to enforce it... really should tell you something about the nature of freedom with regards to ownership.) HAVE set the factual standard that creation implies ownership through rights. These rights allow the respective 'owners' legitimate or illegitimate (IE people that patent steal or con people into dodgy contracts) to deny and 'impede' the freedoms of others with which to do whatever they want with said product. This actually applies to physical goods just as well as it does digital goods. You cannot for example by law modify anything you want simply because it is in your possession. Especially when it comes to vehicles or things that can negatively impact others. Such as creating mobile jamming devices. You cannot by law do this. It impedes your freedom, no doubt. However this is a clear standard and a clear case where you are being told you cannot do something. Doesn't stop people doing it, but they can face consequences if they do.

Now with regards to digital goods it really comes down to the contracts and TOS. Which malokin pretty much ignores and I can't blame him, much of the world does. Most TOS and EULA are overly restrictive and really go beyond the law themselves in what they can and cannot hold people to. If you put in a contract that you own someones house if you give them a dollar and they don't realise what they've just done. Guess what? Doesn't hold up in court. There is an accepted standard of 'License agreement' and there are license agreements that sneak crap in that goes beyond the accepted standard. The absolute base agreement is simply the owner of the respective product giving you license to use it. That's it. No definition of how you can use it... just that you can use it. USE is not distributing. That's sharing. Not using. At that point you aren't using it. You're letting someone else use it. This is more often than not explicitly disallowed in most agreements. Rightfully so. Few people want you to go around giving their product away for free because you can copy it willy nilly. This isn't about ownership. This is about entitlement and essentially ignoring the rules and 'laws' of the land that I imagine malokin and others live in. Freedom is extremely important. But that applies to everyone. Developers/Media producers and pretty much anyone that wants to sell anything on ANY medium should have the freedom to make their living without fear of mass theft simply because the medium they chose is capable of it. (Protip: This internet IS the way of the future, but owning everything you 'acquire' legally or otherwise is not)

[ficolas]

You can also use normal spoiler

Spoiler

Click on spoiler=instead of spoiler and add between the = and the] a name

[TGS]

You can also use normal spoiler

Spoiler

Click on spoiler=instead of spoiler and add between the = and the] a name

Weird, tried that and it didn't parse properly in preview so I assumed that it wasn't setup correctly.
I see what I did wrong lol. Apparently if you use the standard bbcode action (Highlight + click button) it doesn't actually format right because it leaves out the =Spoiler part. I setup a bbcode for it long ago on one of my own phpbb forums and it didn't miss that bit. Oh well fixed now. Thanks!

[malokin]

It might be stupid, or not, but it is his choice to do so, and although you can argue, that it is too expensive, and the owner should do X+Y to sell more, sell it differently etc., you can't use these arguments to steal and not feel bad about it. No one is forced/needs to use others products (For computer games this is for sure), so you take it or leave it, but you are not the owner, you have not the right to specify the conditions it should be sold.

That would be true if "stealing" and "sharing" were the same thing for digital products. Just because the law treats physical goods just like software goods, doesnt mean that is a fair moral or proper way to treat those goods. You assume the law is right and things are the same as they have always been, and I assume that because these digital works act differently, and everything has changed and that the rules will follow suit.
The arguments about "time" are not justifications, the Time argument doesnt give pirates a "why" it is okay to pirate, the nature of digital goods does. I was simply responding to that argument "don't pirate the devs need money" and explaining why this argument doesnt hold water. The devs can promote and sell their game however they want, what they can't do is tell a person what they can do with their product once that person walks away. Who are you kovarex to tell me what to do with the files on my computer. Don't release said files if you are not comfortable with me putting them on the internet.

We won't fight the piracy of Factorio, not only because it is not possible, and we have better things to do. But also because we agree that sometimes it can help to promote the game. On the other hand we came to conclusion that posting torrent links on our official forums is behind the line and we will not tolerate it.

Can't you see that if you resort to attempting to enforce a policy like this on me, you ARE fighting piracy in the ONLY meaningful way you can? It just seems there could be ways for us to both peacefully coexist, but if I am wrong, then the war of ideas will just have to move on to a war of forum bans, proxy accounts, and dirty forum attacking tools.

TL;DR; Don't post pirate links on our official forums. If this happens we will delete such posts and by this we allow our moderators to do so as well.

I'll have to cancel all that work I had planned with the editor, but so be it, I will not let another human being tell me what I can do or post:
<indirect torrent links>

Round 1!

[Robik]

I'll have to cancel all that work I had planned with the editor, but so be it, I will not let another human being tell me what I can do or post

Oh, post what you want, but according to your own philosophy, you should not tell other people what they can do with local copy of your post on their own forum. It's their copy, if you wanted to keep rights to you post, you should keep it on your own computer hard drive and not publish it on internet.

[TGS]

Can't you see that if you resort to attempting to enforce a policy like this on me, you ARE fighting piracy in the ONLY meaningful way you can? It just seems there could be ways for us to both peacefully coexist, but if I am wrong, then the war of ideas will just have to move on to a war of forum bans, proxy accounts, and dirty forum attacking tools.

So basically by 'coexisting' you mean that they should let you sit here posting free links to their games? Pretty sure that is heavily slanted in your favor and not theirs. Especially given that you are making it very clear that their 'non-compliance' with your demands will be met with hostility in an attempt of forcing them to allow you to continue your antics. Hmm so you refuse to have YOUR freedoms impeded, yet you are happy to impede the freedom of others when they don't bend to your will?

I will not let another human being tell me what I can do or post:

You let human beings tell you every day what you can and cannot do. You live in this world yes? You buy things in this world? You don't go out and steal and kill and take whatever you please? Okay. Then you are letting people tell you what you can and cannot do. Please do not make this about some higher purpose because it's not. This is very clearly isolated to this place. The internet. Where you have power because the system allows you power and you are abusing it to further an agenda you feel righteous. It may be a great cause, it may not be. I don't know. What I do know is that if someone runs around spouting things like "Freedom above all else" yet as soon as you go into someone else's online domain and tell them you are going to do this and if they try to stop you that you will make war on them. That is exactly the opposite of fighting for freedom. You are imposing your will on this forum. Which is the exact opposite of freedom. One person or party imposing its will on another. Though it's fighting alright. But not for freedom. And not even really for your opinion. That's fighting for the sake of fighting. But honestly malokin, imo you made it clear from the moment you stepped into this forum that you were itching for a fight. You were taunting the entire forum. So I suppose this was probably inevitable. It's really sad. Such passion and fire wasted on such petty nonsense such as attacking a small indie game forum.