After my last post about Internet piracy I discussed the topic with Erkki and I also kept reading about it. I found out some things worth sharing.
It is possible to buy games online through Steam. Well, actually I knew that before but I don't use it myself (I only play games on Xbox lately) and I forgot all about it. With all the criticism I have about how the world works and how piracy is caused by the lack of fast, simple and affordable supply, I should have mentioned Steam so I will correct it right now.
Steam is an online game platform. You log in as a user and you can download and play a very wide variety of games. What they get right: Their wide selection of old games easily completes with what pirates have to offer and, even better, they sell all the well-marketed new games. This allows even the people living in nearly abandoned countryside to legally purchase games that would definitely be found in the local store. Now piracy is no longer the only option for them (aside from not playing at all or ordering a physical copy and praying it gets delivered intact). There is one thing that they do perfectly: they let people pre-download games and when it's finally the release date of the downloaded game, people get the codes to start playing it. Excellent. Ingenious!
they have understood that people can't wait so and that their servers would be overloaded during the release day of major games if everyone started downloading at the same time. But... (of course there is a 'but') ...they might be the greediest bastards of all. 
Steam sells the new games for the full price. They do occasionally sell games with huge discounts but the normal prices are just what you'd expect from a new game: €30-€60. "What's wrong with that?
", you might wonder. Sure you don't get a physical disc or a manual, but that affects the price very little and who needs those anyway. What's wrong is that you buy the game only after you sign a contract that the games will only be for PERSONAL use. That does not include a wife and a couple of kids. If you let your wife/husband play with your account, you're actually breaking the agreement. 
I don't know how that is even possible because such user agreements just can't be above marital law. What's mine is Erkki's and vice versa. Sure, it doesn't apply to all things, for example I have no right to modify or delete Erkki's Facebook account or to even view his e-mail accounts but the games he buys on Steam are just as much bought with my money. If it's really possible to sign an agreement that makes those games belong to only him, then why do people even bother signing prenuptial agreement before they get married. One of the partners could just sign separate agreements so that all the best things he buys only belong to him/her.
Actually, I realized there are things like membership fees which only belong to the person who signs the contract. If the husband joins a country club that has huge membership fees, it still doesn't make the wife a half-member. Same with gym membership cards. I have no idea what would happen to a World of Warcraft account during a divorce if the non-player spouse wanted half of it. There was some case where a woman deleted her husband's WoW account and was fined, so I guess the account is worth something. But maybe Steam is selling something completely obscure, like the right to play a game. However I think about it, I'm sure Steam found a legal loophole which justifies the "personal only" agreement, but never in a million years would I believe that they actually thought couples will buy two copies of each game that they both like. Or 4 copies if their kids also like the game. So basically they set up a system that guarantees that there will be people all over the world violating the Steam agreement.
That means Steam sows as much morally bad Internet behavior as the overpriced game industry in general. Or in other words, they re-define what to consider immoral: is it immoral to break a end user agreement? What if it's a stupid and unfair agreement?
Also, Steam games or accounts can't be sold (agreement violation), which makes the games relatively even more expensive. In Europe that's not such a big issue but in USA there are stores that actually buy back the used games and sell used games for (I would guess) a reasonable price.
Another beef I have with Steam is the regional pricing and availability of games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for example, costs €49.99 in Europe, €46.14 in USA, and €41.92 in UK. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even worse, costing €49.99, €23.06, or €35.93, respectively. The EXACT SAME GAME. Just as much data is moved across the Internet, except some people have the privileged to pay more for a game they can't re-sell or let their spouse play. And it gets even worse. Erkki bought and pre-loaded Skyrim on Steam. When it was the release date, he came home, eager to start playing, except there was a surprise. At the last moment, after his purchase, the game had been changed to "unavailable" in some parts of Europle, including Estonia and several other countries. And presumably it was all fair because Estonia is some weird country anyway, where people live in mud huts and walk around in waist-deep mud in extreme poverty.
Why would they want to play games anyway...
I'm not against Steam as such. I think it's a great start. If they enable family accounts and combine the regions, then it would all be great. And if they keep experimenting with game pricing (cool information about pricing experiments), maybe games will end up being affordable to average people and gaming piracy will become something that only poor people do.
Damn I took so many words to describe all the subtle ways how Steam secretly sucks. But there is another thing I wanted to discuss: Estonian Authors' Society, EAS (Eesti Autorite ühing, EAÜ). Most countries have similar organizations that work towards ensuring that artists get the profit they deserve and people don't break copyright laws. The idea behind it is very noble and I give them my respect for making sure that people who sing professionally actually get paid for what they produce. As you can guess, I wouldn't mention them only to praise their cause. In stead, I'm mentioning to bash their means. EAS collects money from all the digital songs (8-12%, with a set minimum fee for a song), they collect money from TV-channels and TV broadcasters (for showing channels with copyright material, they collect money from all the empty CDs sold in the store because they COULD end up having copyrighted material on them (8%), they collect 5% every time a painting is sold, they collect money from concert organizers, night clubs, restaurants with background music, etc. Basically, they get their dirty little nails behind every cent they can hoard to themselves. In the year 2008, they collected over 70 000 000 EEK.
And now it gets tricky - they only pay out fees to registered members for registered works of art and only for the member's contribution in that work of art. A song is 50% music and 50% words, so if the singer didn't write the ENTIRE song, they won't get the entire money for it. And even if he did, he still had to pay 25% that was already removed "for representing the author's rights". EAS has some partner organizations abroad as well, so they pay some money to them as well, for the authors that are registered with them, but there is still a lot of authors who are "being represented" but don't receive the money that EAS has collected on their behalf. Even the artists who are supposed to be paid, often have to contact the organization to get the money, otherwise it will go unnoticed. For that reason, in 2008, EAS distributed only 26 000 000 EEK to it's members.
I would call that robbery - they take from everyone and only make it seem like they are giving it to the people who deserve it. Their website has listed several people who owe them money, including for Anne Veski's solo concerts and a child protection day event in a park. I wish I was making it up. They're like the ultimate bad guy, taxing a person's own solo concert and robbing money from child protection day events. They should just rename their organization Musical Artists For Indulgence Association.
This "helpful" organization sets a minimum price for all songs sold online, increasing the price and thus encouraging piracy. One online music store in Estonia just went bankrupt because they couldn't pay those fees. EAS started asking for 12% which was too much for the store. It would be less tragic if Microsoft music store Zune were being distributed to Estonia, but they're not. EAS is also famous for having videos removed from Youtube. That includes any video that looks slightly dubious and they don't check if any copyright laws really were broken. One guy found that his own video of him singing his own song was removed by EAS "just in case". It was in the news recently. EAS also inhibits any fringe cultural events that don't make much profit but have to pay to EAS. If you've been to a place called Genialistide klubi in Tartu, you might not have noticed that it's a "night club".
At least that's how it's being taxed by EAS.
I hope it gave you something new to think about.
Also, almost forgot. There are no movie rentals in the 100 000 people town I live in. I guess everyone buys the movies in the mall (selection is mostly made up of 3-10 year old movies that no one ever wanted to buy) or rents one of the 77 movies in Elion digital rental (if they're Elion clients). Or they just watch movies on TV, because they know that commercial breaks are for their own good, so they can be up to date with products sold in stores.
It is possible to buy games online through Steam. Well, actually I knew that before but I don't use it myself (I only play games on Xbox lately) and I forgot all about it. With all the criticism I have about how the world works and how piracy is caused by the lack of fast, simple and affordable supply, I should have mentioned Steam so I will correct it right now.
Steam is an online game platform. You log in as a user and you can download and play a very wide variety of games. What they get right: Their wide selection of old games easily completes with what pirates have to offer and, even better, they sell all the well-marketed new games. This allows even the people living in nearly abandoned countryside to legally purchase games that would definitely be found in the local store. Now piracy is no longer the only option for them (aside from not playing at all or ordering a physical copy and praying it gets delivered intact). There is one thing that they do perfectly: they let people pre-download games and when it's finally the release date of the downloaded game, people get the codes to start playing it. Excellent. Ingenious!
they have understood that people can't wait so and that their servers would be overloaded during the release day of major games if everyone started downloading at the same time. But... (of course there is a 'but') ...they might be the greediest bastards of all. Steam sells the new games for the full price. They do occasionally sell games with huge discounts but the normal prices are just what you'd expect from a new game: €30-€60. "What's wrong with that?
", you might wonder. Sure you don't get a physical disc or a manual, but that affects the price very little and who needs those anyway. What's wrong is that you buy the game only after you sign a contract that the games will only be for PERSONAL use. That does not include a wife and a couple of kids. If you let your wife/husband play with your account, you're actually breaking the agreement. I don't know how that is even possible because such user agreements just can't be above marital law. What's mine is Erkki's and vice versa. Sure, it doesn't apply to all things, for example I have no right to modify or delete Erkki's Facebook account or to even view his e-mail accounts but the games he buys on Steam are just as much bought with my money. If it's really possible to sign an agreement that makes those games belong to only him, then why do people even bother signing prenuptial agreement before they get married. One of the partners could just sign separate agreements so that all the best things he buys only belong to him/her.Actually, I realized there are things like membership fees which only belong to the person who signs the contract. If the husband joins a country club that has huge membership fees, it still doesn't make the wife a half-member. Same with gym membership cards. I have no idea what would happen to a World of Warcraft account during a divorce if the non-player spouse wanted half of it. There was some case where a woman deleted her husband's WoW account and was fined, so I guess the account is worth something. But maybe Steam is selling something completely obscure, like the right to play a game. However I think about it, I'm sure Steam found a legal loophole which justifies the "personal only" agreement, but never in a million years would I believe that they actually thought couples will buy two copies of each game that they both like. Or 4 copies if their kids also like the game. So basically they set up a system that guarantees that there will be people all over the world violating the Steam agreement.
That means Steam sows as much morally bad Internet behavior as the overpriced game industry in general. Or in other words, they re-define what to consider immoral: is it immoral to break a end user agreement? What if it's a stupid and unfair agreement?Also, Steam games or accounts can't be sold (agreement violation), which makes the games relatively even more expensive. In Europe that's not such a big issue but in USA there are stores that actually buy back the used games and sell used games for (I would guess) a reasonable price.
Another beef I have with Steam is the regional pricing and availability of games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for example, costs €49.99 in Europe, €46.14 in USA, and €41.92 in UK. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even worse, costing €49.99, €23.06, or €35.93, respectively. The EXACT SAME GAME. Just as much data is moved across the Internet, except some people have the privileged to pay more for a game they can't re-sell or let their spouse play. And it gets even worse. Erkki bought and pre-loaded Skyrim on Steam. When it was the release date, he came home, eager to start playing, except there was a surprise. At the last moment, after his purchase, the game had been changed to "unavailable" in some parts of Europle, including Estonia and several other countries. And presumably it was all fair because Estonia is some weird country anyway, where people live in mud huts and walk around in waist-deep mud in extreme poverty.
Why would they want to play games anyway...I'm not against Steam as such. I think it's a great start. If they enable family accounts and combine the regions, then it would all be great. And if they keep experimenting with game pricing (cool information about pricing experiments), maybe games will end up being affordable to average people and gaming piracy will become something that only poor people do.
Damn I took so many words to describe all the subtle ways how Steam secretly sucks. But there is another thing I wanted to discuss: Estonian Authors' Society, EAS (Eesti Autorite ühing, EAÜ). Most countries have similar organizations that work towards ensuring that artists get the profit they deserve and people don't break copyright laws. The idea behind it is very noble and I give them my respect for making sure that people who sing professionally actually get paid for what they produce. As you can guess, I wouldn't mention them only to praise their cause. In stead, I'm mentioning to bash their means. EAS collects money from all the digital songs (8-12%, with a set minimum fee for a song), they collect money from TV-channels and TV broadcasters (for showing channels with copyright material, they collect money from all the empty CDs sold in the store because they COULD end up having copyrighted material on them (8%), they collect 5% every time a painting is sold, they collect money from concert organizers, night clubs, restaurants with background music, etc. Basically, they get their dirty little nails behind every cent they can hoard to themselves. In the year 2008, they collected over 70 000 000 EEK.
And now it gets tricky - they only pay out fees to registered members for registered works of art and only for the member's contribution in that work of art. A song is 50% music and 50% words, so if the singer didn't write the ENTIRE song, they won't get the entire money for it. And even if he did, he still had to pay 25% that was already removed "for representing the author's rights". EAS has some partner organizations abroad as well, so they pay some money to them as well, for the authors that are registered with them, but there is still a lot of authors who are "being represented" but don't receive the money that EAS has collected on their behalf. Even the artists who are supposed to be paid, often have to contact the organization to get the money, otherwise it will go unnoticed. For that reason, in 2008, EAS distributed only 26 000 000 EEK to it's members.
I would call that robbery - they take from everyone and only make it seem like they are giving it to the people who deserve it. Their website has listed several people who owe them money, including for Anne Veski's solo concerts and a child protection day event in a park. I wish I was making it up. They're like the ultimate bad guy, taxing a person's own solo concert and robbing money from child protection day events. They should just rename their organization Musical Artists For Indulgence Association.
This "helpful" organization sets a minimum price for all songs sold online, increasing the price and thus encouraging piracy. One online music store in Estonia just went bankrupt because they couldn't pay those fees. EAS started asking for 12% which was too much for the store. It would be less tragic if Microsoft music store Zune were being distributed to Estonia, but they're not. EAS is also famous for having videos removed from Youtube. That includes any video that looks slightly dubious and they don't check if any copyright laws really were broken. One guy found that his own video of him singing his own song was removed by EAS "just in case". It was in the news recently. EAS also inhibits any fringe cultural events that don't make much profit but have to pay to EAS. If you've been to a place called Genialistide klubi in Tartu, you might not have noticed that it's a "night club".
At least that's how it's being taxed by EAS.I hope it gave you something new to think about.
Also, almost forgot. There are no movie rentals in the 100 000 people town I live in. I guess everyone buys the movies in the mall (selection is mostly made up of 3-10 year old movies that no one ever wanted to buy) or rents one of the 77 movies in Elion digital rental (if they're Elion clients). Or they just watch movies on TV, because they know that commercial breaks are for their own good, so they can be up to date with products sold in stores.
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