How to stop piracy, well probably the best solution in Aus

[Caboose]

I'm sure alot of you are aware that this year, K Rudd plans on getting rid of piracy of music, games, software etc. which I'm sure he won't succeed at cos the internetz is very vast and i'm sure there are plenty of people smarter than Rudd and Telstra workers. I'm sure how he's going to do it but I have a feeling his idea will suck ass and waste tax payers dollers (crap i'm in that category now :blink:).

So in an order to help the old duffer heres an idea that i'm sure will help things out.

1. Software, Hardware, games etc. need to be cheaper. Here in Australia we pay alot for our software and stuff, e.g Call of Duty 4 costed around $90 on releases at places like EB and you might find it arund $75. While in the US it costs around half that. A mate of mine a few months ago bought me a copy cos i needed my CD-Key (had been borrowing clan mates) and i paid him back how much it cost him $47. :| $47 and we pay nearly double that, to be honest thats crap. And with the Aus dollar nearly 1:1 with the US. Last week the Aus fetched 95c US which maybe around $5 extra for a game or something.

2. TV shows and movies need to be released earlier here. According to Mininova.org the some of the top rated download here is Top Gear, and other series like Sarah Chronicles and stuff are close behind. These shows get released nearly a year ahead of us, so we're always a season or so behind. Top Gear is 2 years behind in Australia. And with ISPs offering fast plans with large limits, people can afford to do it (i can i got 40gb limit at 8mb).

So Rudd needs to address these issues in an appropriate manner, getting TV series, games, movies, software and hardware released earlier and people in Australia wouldn't have to resort to torrents, limewire (sucks use Frostwire :p:hithere:).

[Honky]

1. Software, Hardware, games etc. need to be cheaper. Here in Australia we pay alot for our software and stuff, e.g Call of Duty 4 costed around $90 on releases at places like EB and you might find it arund $75. While in the US it costs around half that. A mate of mine a few months ago bought me a copy cos i needed my CD-Key (had been borrowing clan mates) and i paid him back how much it cost him $47. :| $47 and we pay nearly double that, to be honest thats crap. And with the Aus dollar nearly 1:1 with the US. Last week the Aus fetched 95c US which maybe around $5 extra for a game or something.


I could be wrong, but I'll try to shed some light on why we pay more than then rest of the world for products (mostly entertainment ranging from DVD's and games)

From what I understand, the first surge or 'boom' of products released on media such as CD's (and later DVD's) occured when the Australian dollar was paying roughly 50 US cents. I'm unsure whether this was due to a weak Australian, a strong American or a combination of both.
As a result of the timing of the release of such products and the exchange rate, an Australian could easily say that if I paid double in AU dollars what you would pay in US dollars if would be roughly a fair deal.
However, several years on, as the AU dollar has become more stable and the American dollar becoming weaker, consumers found themselves paying the same price they had before for newer products (which in fact is higher than what it should have been...if you get the drift) As a result, vendors have continued to maintain the prices which have become greater in value.

And Cabby...unfortnately, its a lot more than $5
When I went to the USA later last year, I regretted buying my xbox 360 and wished i had bought a ps3 with its region free games. It was only until i went into the game shops where i saw the massive differences in the prices of games. The price of PC games and their equivalent back of home didn't differ in a extreme scale, however the games for newer generation platforms did shock me.
Take this example:

Assassins creed on ps3/xbox360 :$50-$60 US in the US
When i went to the USA, 1 AU$ was about 90US cents.
therefore, $50-60 US dollars would = $55-$66
Games like AC, only both platforms would be range from $100-$120 (depending where)(prices taken around January of this year)
Difference: Between $34 and $65 dollars.

Conclusion: When buying here...you're pretty much paying for two games, if you were buying overseas in places such as the US.
Yes, this was a major factor in introducing the concept of region locking, however the regulators of the RRP of these products are ripping of their consumers. No wonder why piracy is so prevalent.

i apologise for any of my juvenile delinquencies on the matter

[Caboose]

conslusion also, if you want a game buy off steam when you can buy them cheap as chips, like Frontlines is $50 on Steam, so yeah be quick. Remeber at one stage COD4 was $50 until Steam realised thier error and brought it up to $88 :S....but yeah we get screwed over hardcore when it comes to TV Movies games....pretty much Australia has got to be one the worst Westernised country when it comes to technology

[Revhed]

This type of discussion happens a lot. The real issue is that big business isn't listening to the messages being sent to them.

If I were getting value for money then I wouldn't mind spending it so much. I've bought a few games and felt hugely ripped off. Even after playing a demo! The marketing simply mis-represented what was in the box. But the reverse is that I "discovered" a game on BT which wasn't even known in the Australian media circles, and I subsequently went out and bought it because I liked it so much.

With TV eps, They lost me when they played episodes out of order, cut the seasons before they finished, repalyed seasons for a couple of years, or played more ads than there was actual TV show or played them at times different to their schedule so that I couldn't tape and watch them at a more convinient time. With Channel BT you can download without any real fuss and watch whenever suits you and you can whatch whatever interests you.

Big business are pushing a technological "solution" to their problems so that they can continue to do what they have done for years instead of innovating and leveraging off the new technologies available.....

[Aukiman]

lol sometimes I feel ripped off at the demo stage :p but yeah, I agree with your points Rev.

One for example I absolutely can't stand is .... we buy The Simpsons on DVD, and we have to sit thru an eternity of 'dont rip this DVD' adverts and 'Piracy is a crime' adverts and production house logos on EVERY DVD and more production house logos after each episode and were locked out of fast forwarding those bits so have to watch them ad naseum.

The ripped internet episodes don't have all the crap on them apparently but I get punished for having legit copies LOL !

[Caboose]

Yeah all those DVD ads are annoying, i loved DVDs at one stage when it was put dvd into player press play watch til done. Now its put in DVD, make dinner, eat dinner, do dishes, put kids to bed (for parents), look @ watch, bed time, sleep, wake up and think oh crap we forgot about the movie.....bloody annoying LOL