[conanbatt]

Again, talking about piracy and fairness should be a moot argument. Something being expensive doesnt give you the right to consume something without the permission of the one who made it.

Think of this in terms of source code. If you wanted the source code for facebook, facebook might sell it to you (for billions ofc), but you cant pay for it. That doesnt give you the right to steal it.

Its just too easy to do. Its a basic microeconomics argument. But piracy has not only risks, but costs, and hence it does allow the product to be sold at a higher price. It constricts supply.

[ajuc]

> Something being expensive doesnt give you the right to consume something without the permission of the one who made it.

Of course it doesn't (except in some special cases, but that's another debate, and doesn't concern games - see life saving drugs for example).

But the discussion was about DRM and whether they work - IMHO they don't, because the main reason behind piracy isn't accessibility, but too high (price/perceived value). So - limiting accessibility of piracy isn't going to stop it.

Also it would have worked by now if it worked at all.

Also also :) EU did a study in 2013 which found that piracy doesn't really hurt sales, because most people who pirated X and haven't bought it later - wouldn't have bought it anyway. https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_s...

[conanbatt]

Im damn sure it works because if piracy were not punished, popcorn time would swallow the entire consumer market, much like it has in countries like Argentina and the netherlands. The barrier of installing a VPN adds an expense higher than paying for netflix, making it unappealing.

> EU did a study in 2013 which found that piracy doesn't really hurt sales, because most people who pirated X and haven't bought it later - wouldn't have bought it anyway.

I haven't read that paper, but from an economic standpoint, this is still not enough to prove what people would have bought if they had access to piracy. Again, look at popcornTime. If people were fined in Argentina like they are in the US, I assure you netflix would surge in subscriptions.

[ajuc]

I have no idea what popcorn time is, and there are next to no fines for piracy in my country. Well, in theory there are, but in practice there aren't.