Sunday, September 12, 2010

Piracy: Industry vs. Consumer in Digital Age

I have to admit I was surprised the first time I heard Monkey D. Luffy say "I wanna be a pirate!". In this kind of modern age where children are supposed to be educated that law is above everything, and now you are talking about being a pirate? And in addition challenge the World Government?

However I share the same dream. I do believe that the current world's order should come to an end. Or it should be revolutionized. One person once mentioned that the greatest challenge of current age is not about inventing, but merely about harmonizing. And in my mind: Terminator's version of SkyNet, global nuclear detonation, and years of nuclear winter should get the jobs done. Yes...harmonize.....

The first time I heard about copyright law, DRM or whatsoever they called it, I was skeptical (perhaps as always). I still remember how the press covered it and the goverment mentioned it as a guarantee of intellectual property. It was like "without this law, we will have no future..." However I see it as something that pretend to act good and put everything in order, but merely a facade to cover up deeper and broader greed of the industry.

And now, yes it is ridiculous, so ridiculous even sickening that I sympathize with the 'P' version. Recently we saw mass lawsuits to downloaders of Oscar winning 'Hurt Locker' which turns the business model upside down: legal blackmailing. They even set up a portal where the alleged file-sharers can 'pay or else' with major credit cards accepted.

Ask a Singaporean about pale anime environment and he/she will point out to 2007 Odex's saga which scars the entire country up until now. Upon hearing the story I even asked ' Is the owner Singaporean?', since I couldn't fathom what kind of person would do such horrible things and expect to survive the aftermath in such a small country.

As for the computer game, I loathe at the ridiculous DRM that the company implemented. When Ubisoft dictates that every game should be played with internet connection, I bulked out and farted. I don't even want to see their new launch of Settlers 7. Ok, should I be sorry that I live in country with crappy internet connection but at the same time is one of the most expensive in the region (read: world)? I buy your game in this is how you treat me? Ask me to spew more money FOR PLAYING it?
Fortunately for EA they've changed their stance. I found DA:O as acceptable and bought the original copy. Compared to Spore which almost made me fainted with its limited 3 times installation (even God knows you will install and uninstall game to free up some space and 3 times?? WTFH!!).

And you think that you can go back to the mommy and daddy's good ol' days when you can see the worth of your 'collections'. Nowadays? It is all a total junk, since they came up with the terms of 'selling the license' instead of 'selling the software', and the license agreement strips your ability to resell the software. So once you're bored, it should go right to the trash bin.
Gone all those good lending days, and even the very concept of library is under attack (see above link).

I really don't want to understand this digital age.