Copyright/Piracy

[DarkGrievous7145]

I've been meaning to post this thread a while. Kinda wanted to share my own thoughts on the subject, and some of what I've heard. Also would like to hear what others here think about it.

First major thing would be, I honestly can see plenty of justifiable reasons to either pirate something, or "infringe upon it". However, I draw the line on commercial infringement. There's of course, also the "Stop when told to" , but this is open to debate, given there's a fair use thing. (or is SUPPOSED to be)

Some of the acceptable reasons I either would have to pirate something, or have heard are:
1. no money, or not enough.
2. not actually supporting the actions or thoughts of the artist/company. (a friend told me this one)
3. realistically knowing you might just throw it away, anyways. (and demo/trial versions of programs tend to suck)
4. At one point owning a legal copy of the copyrighted materials, or even that you already do.
5. For game development software, when you know you're not even going to make any money out of what you do with it.
8. not being able to justify either paying for it, or someone, selling it. *
9. Unaware there's a law about it

And then as for alleged "infringement":
1. fan games / ports / clones
2. parodies
3. music videos or animations
4. original characters
5. fan fictions
6. fan art
7. needing/wanting something, and being unable to find/contact the original creators. Typically, I try to find/contact/credit them, but it's unreasonable for someone to assume this is actually possible 100% of the time. The information tends to change at a moment's notice.
8. not being able to justify either paying for it, or someone, selling the rights to it. **
9. Unaware there's a law about it

Ofc, we've all heard all of the stuff about how piracy and whatnot is a crime, and it's stealing, and etc...

crime: by definition, yes. but the bulk of these pirates certainly don't do it with malicious intent. Big companies and I bet even government organizations sure do, though.

stealing: the problem here is any true "theft" requires the original to be stolen. It's an unauthorized reproduction, but the original is still there. it's by what we've legally extended to be defined as stealing, but it's truly anything but.
loss of money/profits: A simple piece of common sense blows this out of the water. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch". In order to really lose money from piracy, two conditions must be met. Firstly, there needs to be an exchange of money. Secondly, it would need to be exactly, or even more, than what a legal copy is selling for.

it's "immoral and unethical" : The big companies and some artists need to be reminded of this. suing common-folk who happen to be pirates for millions and billions of dollars is beyond either of these definitions. It's also asinine, because odds are, if they didn't have that money to begin with, then there's little to no chance of ever getting it from them. Filing C&D and DMCA for what actually is protected by fair use is completely unacceptable. Oh, and withholding the materials from public domain till basically the end of time, is bullshit. DRM also is clearly not the answer, as it fails too often, and usually tends to be nothing more than a legally distributed virus.

enforceable: not really. Making an example of one or two pirates won't change a thing but to piss the rest off. Rounding them all up requires too many resources, and actually dealing with the bulk of them would require mass torture and execution. And over copyright infringement, there's absolutely no way to justify these extreme measures.

I recently had a little chat with a youtuber who made some videos I like, and he's been dealing with copyright issues so much lately it's not even funny. He's not making money, and what he's doing falls under fair use in the first place. His videos have been getting removed, and he's starting to lose his upload capabilities. He told me that these companies might have millions of dollars, but there are millions of people struggling with this, and if they all filed a class-action lawsuit, there'd be some changes. Told him that yes, this probably is true, but it's unlikely to happen, and some proof in that is how long it took for someone to finally step-up and assert "Happy Birthday" is public domain, by going to court, of course. By the time this has happened, that song is basically dead. No one wanted to pay, so they all just didn't use it, and many made their own version. I also said other stuff, but this was the main point.

If people can't get their shit together, get along, and reform copyright to what it should be, the only actions regarding it which I fully support are those that involve abolishing and outlawing it entirely. Same goes for patents and trademarks. Too many organizations and individuals abuse these systems. The rest don't enforce any part of them correctly.

That should be everything, now I'd like to hear some feedback and your own thoughts on the matter.

Spoiler

*
**
Both of these mainly apply to programs that do relatively simple tasks (or happen to be open source ***), and for which free ones might exist. Same with artwork. My main issue here is with stock art, though, and more specifically, single-color stock vectors, and even more specifically, of things that probably can't even legitimately be copyrighted. I am pissed-off at how many of these I find when searching for reference materials or even ready-to use graphics. Sorry, but Egyptian Hieroglyphs, if they were copyrighted, belong to the Ancient Egyptians! (This is one of many things I needed some quick and decent ref material, and found more extremely low-res stock art than ANYTHING ELSE)

***
I found a JavaScript Library/script one time. Was free to use non-commercially, and they honestly expected people to pay a license fee or something for any commercial uses of it. I was going to use it non-commercially, but decided, thinking ahead, if I ever used it commercially...no. Needless to say, I continued searching for scripts to do what I needed.
I can justify paying to use artwork commercially. I can justify paying for a closed-source library to develop my commercial application. But something that's nothing more than a plaintext script file that was provided for download in its full, original form...EXCUSE ME? How they'd even manage to enforce this in the first place is beyond me.

[DarkGrievous7145]

Since technically, sprite-ripping does fall within the gray area of this subject, anyways, what does everyone think of ripping from brand-new games, and even the alpha or beta builds of these, at that?

It kinda bothers me, honestly.
Personally, I won't rip, or at least, won't publicly post rips from, really new games.

But what does everyone else think about it?

[daemoth]

Personnally, i dont care if the game is new or not, its more about who owns the franchise and the sprites. I wont care if its a company that makes millions per year, but its another story if its an indie dev.

[BullockDS]

Two wrongs don't make a right IMO. The copyright system has gotten silly and clearly needs an overhaul (this has especially become apparent with the constant bypass of "Fair Use" on YouTube) but that doesn't entitle someone to have what are (in most instances) luxury products they can't afford. Being nonessentials, how can you feel "cheated" just by not having them?

I can only find it understandable if it's prohibitively expensive (i.e. more expensive than it should be, such as some non-rereleased games because fuck paying $90 for a used copy of Path of Radiance, or a utility like Sony Vegas) or if it's content locked within something you paid for already (at that point it's not even piracy to me since you're not copying the game or content). I don't even consider it piracy if you already own the software in question either.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I don't recall mention feeling cheated, although I kinda do with the stock art and ALWAYS finding it when I need some quick reference or free to use. The bulk of it uses designs that technically can't be copyrighted, too.

Equating it to theft still isn't valid, though. And again, loss of profits is a major stress of the actual situation. Then the big companies go and make these DRM's, or do other anti-piracy shit, and piss everyone off, including their legit customers, and woder why everyone hates them.

In a world where most of the games and movies are crap, no sense in renting that majority of movies anymore. So, regardless of having the money or not, if it's something pretty nonessential to your movie or game collection, that you might throw away, then no justifiable reason to throw trash at it. Also, you pay them to make shit, they'll make more shit.

And there's still the not even supporting the developer/artist/company. Let's just say, hypothetically, the KKK went and released an awesome game that isn't racist (don't ask how) for, oh $5. Only someone who actually supports them is going to contribute money to getting a copy, because that money is probably going to go into their funds for doing bad things. Ofc, one could always just not get the game at all, but meh...

Somehow I missed a key point in one of my posts: something old that's either unavailable elsewhere, or would cost an insane amount of money to acquire.

And then there's the subjects tied into ROM-hacking, emulation, and ripping. This site is a large-scale, ever-growing copyright infringement, if you think about it.

Indie vs. Big Company. This is admittedly true, but some indie devs and artists are actually real pieces of work... I've encountered one or two. I also know of an artist who has been screwed through infringement (and it was commercial infringement, too). But this also goes to show that the protection offered by copyright even has gaps, too.

I will say this, though, the companies and artists who act like total assholes, to their customers, and anyone else, treating them all like crooks, DESERVE to actually suffer damages because of pirates and others who might infringe upon their works. I read a comment on youtube advocating the piracy of stuff from Sony as revenge for taking-down popular parodies of songs owned by them (that also served as free advertisement to the originals) left and right in the name of "copyright". I gave said comment a big fat like, and it'd get more if I were able.

You're right that already owning it shouldn't count as piracy. I have a VHS or two that's actually destroyed, now. I'm not buying a damn DVD to replace something I already owned in the first place.

"prohibitively expensive" applies to most of the big game, movie, image, or photo-making or editing applications. Adobe CC is by far the worse thing that particular company has done, $90 (or whatever it was) a month adds up pretty damn quick. It also is not much more than a rental, which is bullshit for downloaded software

And on the subject of those tools, if you're not using them to make money, why cough-over the thousands of dollars to use them? Simple, you don't.

At the end of the day, copyright laws are always inherently flawed in their designs, and any form of infringement except that which is covered under "Fair Use" is illegal according to said laws. Those who choose to comply do so for their own reasons. Those who choose to only comply partially, or not at all, also do so for their own reasons. Hence why I left this as an open discussion. I actually originally started as a full supporter of those laws, and even feared them.To some degree, I still fear them, but I barely support them, after learning the ugly truth about how these companies that claim to be stolen from deal with anyone accused of this, regardless of the amount. Also noteworthy that unless it's an indie artist or game designer that the majority of the profits go to people who had nothing to do with the actual creation of the product. Due to Easter, I must cut this reply short, and there's one more major thing I needed to discuss, but I'll do so later. In general, my reply has been hasty and sloppy because of this situation.

[Kriven]

First of all: The concept of copyright is not inherently flawed. Its intention was to protect creators so sleazy third-parties could not repackage and sell their artwork, which was a legitimate problem for authors in the 19th and mid-20th century. If content creators cannot survive, there will be less content created. The continued advancement of culture depends on the existence of copyright law.

All that said, corporations and a handful of personal estates have taken a system designed to protect individuals and bastardized it to suit themselves. This is what is broken and what needs to change.

Just as important as a copyright law is a public domain stipulation... Presently nothing can fall out of copyright in the US, which has created a large void in accessible material. It's causing creators and consumers to become blind to the history of media, due in large part by copyright holders refusing to relinquish their ownership or to reprint old material. This is why material from the 1960s onward is so prohibitively expensive. It just isn't readily available, with exceptions of course. Just look at the thousands of video games officially trapped on old hardware... it is only the efforts of pirates that keep these games publicly consumable.

Second: Development tools aren't marketed for individuals, they are marketed for development studios. "How's a guy expected to afford Adobe?" doesn't work as an argument because a guy isn't expected to afford these programs... a collective is. Particularly where game development suites are concerned.

[BullockDS]

I don't recall mention feeling cheated, although I kinda do with the stock art and ALWAYS finding it when I need some quick reference or free to use. The bulk of it uses designs that technically can't be copyrighted, too.

Equating it to theft still isn't valid, though. And again, loss of profits is a major stress of the actual situation. Then the big companies go and make these DRM's, or do other anti-piracy shit, and piss everyone off, including their legit customers, and woder why everyone hates them.

In a world where most of the games and movies are crap, no sense in renting that majority of movies anymore. So, regardless of having the money or not, if it's something pretty nonessential to your movie or game collection, that you might throw away, then no justifiable reason to throw trash at it. Also, you pay them to make shit, they'll make more shit.

And there's still the not even supporting the developer/artist/company. Let's just say, hypothetically, the KKK went and released an awesome game that isn't racist (don't ask how) for, oh $5. Only someone who actually supports them is going to contribute money to getting a copy, because that money is probably going to go into their funds for doing bad things. Ofc, one could always just not get the game at all, but meh...

Somehow I missed a key point in one of my posts: something old that's either unavailable elsewhere, or would cost an insane amount of money to acquire.

And then there's the subjects tied into ROM-hacking, emulation, and ripping. This site is a large-scale, ever-growing copyright infringement, if you think about it.

Indie vs. Big Company. This is admittedly true, but some indie devs and artists are actually real pieces of work... I've encountered one or two. I also know of an artist who has been screwed through infringement (and it was commercial infringement, too). But this also goes to show that the protection offered by copyright even has gaps, too.

I will say this, though, the companies and artists who act like total assholes, to their customers, and anyone else, treating them all like crooks, DESERVE to actually suffer damages because of pirates and others who might infringe upon their works. I read a comment on youtube advocating the piracy of stuff from Sony as revenge for taking-down popular parodies of songs owned by them (that also served as free advertisement to the originals) left and right in the name of "copyright". I gave said comment a big fat like, and it'd get more if I were able.

You're right that already owning it shouldn't count as piracy. I have a VHS or two that's actually destroyed, now. I'm not buying a damn DVD to replace something I already owned in the first place.

"prohibitively expensive" applies to most of the big game, movie, image, or photo-making or editing applications. Adobe CC is by far the worse thing that particular company has done, $90 (or whatever it was) a month adds up pretty damn quick. It also is not much more than a rental, which is bullshit for downloaded software

And on the subject of those tools, if you're not using them to make money, why cough-over the thousands of dollars to use them? Simple, you don't.

At the end of the day, copyright laws are always inherently flawed in their designs, and any form of infringement except that which is covered under "Fair Use" is illegal according to said laws. Those who choose to comply do so for their own reasons. Those who choose to only comply partially, or not at all, also do so for their own reasons. Hence why I left this as an open discussion. I actually originally started as a full supporter of those laws, and even feared them.To some degree, I still fear them, but I barely support them, after learning the ugly truth about how these companies that claim to be stolen from deal with anyone accused of this, regardless of the amount. Also noteworthy that unless it's an indie artist or game designer that the majority of the profits go to people who had nothing to do with the actual creation of the product. Due to Easter, I must cut this reply short, and there's one more major thing I needed to discuss, but I'll do so later. In general, my reply has been hasty and sloppy because of this situation.

The "cheated" comment isn't necessarily directed to you specifically (sorry for the confusion).

You directly say that DRM stems from the fault of pirates, so how can you turn around and blame the company for it (unless I'm misunderstanding that)?

If a lot of stuff is shit, be patient and wait for reviews. Or if there's a demo, try that first.

It is true that not paying bad companies for their product seems good, but pirating their stuff is still giving them a userbase, and the logical conclusion of that is DRM, as you've stated earlier.

I should've addressed ripping assets from games. On the whole, I don't have a problem with this sort of thing, but don't be a dick; be sure to denote spoiler-y stuff from new games.

People who pirate indie games (especially those priced far lower than regular games) are total scum.

I covered the whole asshole company thing a bit back: don't give them a userbase period, or your principles mean nothing.

I'm fine with not rebuying rereleases of games one owns if they don't have the opportunity to transfer purchases between systems when they really should be able to. (Cue angry glare in Nintendo's direction. I'm NOT paying for FIVE releases of Super Mario World.) And this is where I start to go into the gray: I'm fine with pirating "HD" rereleases/remakes if they change little to nothing from the original (hi Twilight Princess HD).

My use of the term "prohibitively expensive" might be too heavy for what I find acceptable. I'd even encourage piracy of the Virtual Console Pokemon releases (if it's even possible; is it?) for arbitrarily costing twice as much as other VC Game Boy titles. Not that I can't afford $10 but that's out of line and is only happening because the Pokemon Company are especially notoriously greedy.

Also, to touch on Fair Use, I think that a lot of people being smacked with takedowns on YouTube are being unjustly screwed, but one instance of complaining I find ridiculous and indefensible are standard Let's Plays that are monetized. Why? For the same reason most content creators on YouTube dislike "React" channels; it's some asshole(s) showing off someone else's work in its entirety and getting money off of it just because they're "enhancing the experience with their commentary" or some horseshit loophole excuse.

[Kriven]

TBH, I think Let's Play monetization should see a 50/50 split between the YouTuber and the developers. There's an obvious demand for that kind of video, and creating a good one can be pretty involved... So both parties should be paid their dues. Particularly when so much of a LPer's money is going to cycle right back into the industry via acquiring new content to LP.

This format has been around since at least MST3K, granted that program made use of PD material.

I think that in general there should be legitimate avenues for monetizing fanwork, whether it's fiction, art, merchandise, LPs, whatever. A portion of that money being driven back to the proper rights holders might make up for some of the dwindling profits in recent years, meanwhile it provides fans with a legitimate avenue to generate enough income that they can actually afford to purchse SMW five different ways. It creates a healthier economy in general.

[DarkGrievous7145]

Again, due to schedules, I must withhold my replies, but I definitely have some things to bring-up in regards to monetization

[psychospacecow]

TBH, I think Let's Play monetization should see a 50/50 split between the YouTuber and the developers. There's an obvious demand for that kind of video, and creating a good one can be pretty involved... So both parties should be paid their dues. Particularly when so much of a LPer's money is going to cycle right back into the industry via acquiring new content to LP.

This format has been around since at least MST3K, granted that program made use of PD material.

I think that in general there should be legitimate avenues for monetizing fanwork, whether it's fiction, art, merchandise, LPs, whatever. A portion of that money being driven back to the proper rights holders might make up for some of the dwindling profits in recent years, meanwhile it provides fans with a legitimate avenue to generate enough income that they can actually afford to purchse SMW five different ways. It creates a healthier economy in general.

Heh, I can already imagine Sega's newfound economy in the sonic fandom blossoming.
One thing that I do like about the Let's Play format is that it is pure, and total exposure. You get someone to play a game that just came out that no one would have heard of, and you just earned yourself an audience's worth of people considering it and others involving their audiences.

[DarkGrievous7145]

TBH, I think Let's Play monetization should see a 50/50 split between the YouTuber and the developers. There's an obvious demand for that kind of video, and creating a good one can be pretty involved... So both parties should be paid their dues. Particularly when so much of a LPer's money is going to cycle right back into the industry via acquiring new content to LP.

This format has been around since at least MST3K, granted that program made use of PD material.

I think that in general there should be legitimate avenues for monetizing fanwork, whether it's fiction, art, merchandise, LPs, whatever. A portion of that money being driven back to the proper rights holders might make up for some of the dwindling profits in recent years, meanwhile it provides fans with a legitimate avenue to generate enough income that they can actually afford to purchse SMW five different ways. It creates a healthier economy in general.

This is itself cannot truly happen because youtube takes a majority of the ad revenue. Although it adds-up, a 50/50 split of what the youtuber actually makes is practically nothing, compared to the chunk of cash YT/Google pulls-in. Your logic as to why it should work-out this way actually makes a lot of sense. I'm a little iffy about the idea your job can be to buy and play games, however...just in general. I suppose because I was taught to make an honest living, and playing games just to play games or review them is basically just turning what's intended to be a hobby into a career.

No comment, not heard of this

And it would theoretically put some of these fan projects in the clear. It's a win-win situation. Sadly, these companies still use the outdated business models that don't support/suggest it. And that's another reason people pirate stuff, they're pissed at the studios. I once read thing that if the industry were to change their business model, most pirates, but not all of them would pay. In fact, remember what I said about the youtube thingy? Here's what really bothers me, regardless of if I have the funds or not: The people who do the actual work, while they still get paid a lot, only get a small fraction of the revenue generated from the legitimate copies of the game/song/movie/tv show/etc... I recall reading a comment on a website that showed the sorry state of affairs for how the music industry actually works. I'd rather directly pay the people who did something, not the suits, the agents, etc... The artist is worth considerably more than they are.

Now, monetization, in general, I'm iffy about. Some of the ways it is used these days are in my book, unacceptable. Firstly, modding is a community-oriented thing. Mods are to be shared, perhaps even with their source code, so others may learn from, or adapt it. And copyright disputes should not even come into the question, aside from the fact mods do tend to have content from other IP's going into them. Anyways, mods should be free, and they should be free to clone or modify. IIRC, that's the whole idea behind modding, customizing the game, and even customizing the customization to the game, and to share freely the knowledge to do so. If you're going to offer the content to the public for free, don't hide it behind monetization systems and insist that's the only way, tell people "no modpacks" , etc... This is exactly what Minecraft's modding community is like. Most mods are monetized, and closed-source, and the best part is: some mod creators are their followers will either annoy anyone who "steals" this mod to no end about "copyright" , or even file actual copyright claims/strikes on these allegedly infringing mods/packs/downloads and their authors or distributors. Maybe it's just me, but when I do mods, I want people to learn from my code, or at least to have free access to the results of that. A donation would be nice, or some other support, but I'm not going to DEMAND they use adf.ly , or not to share the files, or not to link directly to them. All I really expect is to credit me for my code or assets. The MC Modding community to me feels more like EA or Blizzard, than a community. The mods are free, but the developers clearly are in it more for the money and the fame than anything, hence hiding behind adf'ly and proprietary code, and occasionally... copyright strikes. Modding wasn't intended to be a commercial industry in any sense of the word.

[DarkGrievous7145]

First of all: The concept of copyright is not inherently flawed. Its intention was to protect creators so sleazy third-parties could not repackage and sell their artwork, which was a legitimate problem for authors in the 19th and mid-20th century. If content creators cannot survive, there will be less content created. The continued advancement of culture depends on the existence of copyright law.

All that said, corporations and a handful of personal estates have taken a system designed to protect individuals and bastardized it to suit themselves. This is what is broken and what needs to change.

Just as important as a copyright law is a public domain stipulation... Presently nothing can fall out of copyright in the US, which has created a large void in accessible material. It's causing creators and consumers to become blind to the history of media, due in large part by copyright holders refusing to relinquish their ownership or to reprint old material. This is why material from the 1960s onward is so prohibitively expensive. It just isn't readily available, with exceptions of course. Just look at the thousands of video games officially trapped on old hardware... it is only the efforts of pirates that keep these games publicly consumable.

Second: Development tools aren't marketed for individuals, they are marketed for development studios. "How's a guy expected to afford Adobe?" doesn't work as an argument because a guy isn't expected to afford these programs... a collective is. Particularly where game development suites are concerned.

Yet the very law intended to protect content creation, if not patched, shall cease it.

Yeah, it needs to...but 'needs to' and 'will be' are two entirely different things.

Exactly. This needs to stop.
There are many games tied-down to just about everything. And it is sad a majority of them will be destroyed, and forgotten forever. And it's not necessarily just older hardware or software. I would expect even the "newer" stuff to one day cease to exist if someone doesn't archive it. But it's only the pirates that will do this.

[Kriven]

All I do with YouTube is upload old movies... I get probably 10k views/month (probably less... admittedly, I haven't checked in a while) and I make about $35 each month. So personally, from me if I were a LPer, Nintendo and I would get roughly 16.50 each off my tiny ass viewership. Multiply that by ten YouTubers, that's 165 that Nintendo did not have to work for, and that the Tuber barely worked for. An active LPer should be able to garner a much larger viewership than my dinky little channel. A professional LPer shouldn't have an issue making the rent.

I personally feel like mods are okay to monetize and fit the mold of a creator/consumer economy very well. As long as the original game publisher is okay with monetized mods, so am I. People deserve to be compensated for their time, effort, and talent.

---

First of all: The concept of copyright is not inherently flawed. Its intention was to protect creators so sleazy third-parties could not repackage and sell their artwork, which was a legitimate problem for authors in the 19th and mid-20th century. If content creators cannot survive, there will be less content created. The continued advancement of culture depends on the existence of copyright law.

All that said, corporations and a handful of personal estates have taken a system designed to protect individuals and bastardized it to suit themselves. This is what is broken and what needs to change.

Just as important as a copyright law is a public domain stipulation... Presently nothing can fall out of copyright in the US, which has created a large void in accessible material. It's causing creators and consumers to become blind to the history of media, due in large part by copyright holders refusing to relinquish their ownership or to reprint old material. This is why material from the 1960s onward is so prohibitively expensive. It just isn't readily available, with exceptions of course. Just look at the thousands of video games officially trapped on old hardware... it is only the efforts of pirates that keep these games publicly consumable.

Second: Development tools aren't marketed for individuals, they are marketed for development studios. "How's a guy expected to afford Adobe?" doesn't work as an argument because a guy isn't expected to afford these programs... a collective is. Particularly where game development suites are concerned.

Yet the very law intended to protect content creation, if not patched, shall cease it.

Yeah, it needs to...but needs to and will be or two entirely different things.

Exactly. This needs to stop.
There are many games tied-down to just about everything. And it is sad a majority of them will be destroyed, and forgotten forever. And it's not necessarily just older hardware or software. I would expect even the "newer" stuff to one day cease to exist if someone doesn't archive it. But it's only the pirates that will do this.

Pretty sure that's what my second paragraph is about?

"Needs to Will Different Things"

Uh, kay? Isn't the point of this conversation to identify the things that are wrong with the system? How does saying "Yeah, but the fatcats will never do it" move things forward?

[DarkGrievous7145]

"Needs to Will Different Things"

Uh, kay? Isn't the point of this conversation to identify the things that are wrong with the system? How does saying "Yeah, but the fatcats will never do it" move things forward?

and i was actually AWAKE when i typed that, dafuq... I'll go fix that post

I'm just looking at it from a realistic perspective, they're greedy, power-hungry, and generally rotten to the core. Thus, they'll on;y change if FORCED to, and even that's a crapshoot now.

[DarkGrievous7145]

Alright, now that my thoughts are straightened-out a bit, I'll try to finish-off some of my points.

I do recall "use demos!" being brought-up.
The major problem with a lot of demos is that they don't support many of the features that even give you a reason to like or buy the product. Or, especially with development or graphics tools, they put some ugly watermark that ruins the output so badly it's unusable.

Now, tools marketed towards studios.
The problem is that realistically, a significant portion of those using them, regardless of how their copies of the program were obtained, are "your average joe" , or a student, or something like that. And the fact is these programs are designed in such a way, combined with the overwhelming amount of free resources, renders the actual need for an entire studio is pretty much null and void in most cases. There's also many free, sometimes open source, and often significantly superior alternatives to most of these programs. The need for them in some cases merely boils-down to compatibility. This is actually the only reason I have any adobe stuff. If I could ever quit ending-up with .fla, .psd, .eps, .ai, and CERTAIN .tiff, etc files, I'd be deleting those programs. Same can be said if 100% working free alternatives appeared for dealing with those types of files.

Also, CC? ... no way. I'm against limited paid subscription-based, games and programs. It feels more like a rental, and I cannot justify this for something I download. I'm on the borderline with rental stuff, anyways, but something where the physical copy isn't being distributed? nope... Originally, I did intend to pay for Flash if I ever started to turn a profit from it. So far I haven't, and at this rate, I'll be doing all of my coding with Java, JavaScript, or with FlashDevelop , something that I was originally unaware of. I was getting ready to use Fd and then my desltop started to have over-heat issues. Since initially learning about Flash, I've learned about free options and alternatives, and that the .swf format is actually free/open. And then CC came-along, so me ever actually buying something from Adobe is slim to none at this point.

Lastly, DRM.
The companies are losing money to their AP efforts, not the pirates.
The pirates can only be blamed via cause-and-effect chain, but as earlier stated "two wrongs don't make a right" , who started/caused it doesn't matter as the final outcome and who caused THAT.
Firstly, DRM is notorious for catastrophic failure. It has caused all kinds of damages to paying customers, especially, and in some cases, has rendered the affected machines inoperable. This thus forces the company to pay damages in some cases, and it can cost them the paying customers. Seeing as the pirates didn't go to the paying customers and make them quit buying the product or supporting the company, nor did they write what amounts to a computer virus into the media, it is ultimately the company a fault for the damages. The second part is assuming DRM can even work on pirates. It cannot. Pirates will either strip it out, or disable it. Thus, the lost money towards developing DRM is not from the pirates, but the company believing the very flawed concept they can make something that cannot be stolen.
Let's say you have a city, and I want to invade it.
so, I build an enormous wooden horse, and put a bow on its head, and load my men into it, and leave it as a present. You or your guards take it in, and when the moment is right, the assault begins. Following this, you heighten security. Yet, I manage several more successful attacks, because I exploit the one weakness you either cannot fix, or choose to overlook. Eventually you have ten foot thick metal walls, missile silos, rocket launchers, and every other possible method of defense for your city, yet for whatever reason, my trojan horses continue to make it in, because somehow, this exploit is being overlooked. I kill more and more people, destroy more and more buildings, and you loose countless citizens because they realize they're on a sinking ship, and leave. DRM is the same, aside from the preventative measures cannot be made. The known exploit absolutely, cannot be patched-up. (well, within reasonable/practical means, and I'm talking extremes to which DRM luckily does not reach) A dedicated pirate, or for that matter, any person with a fixation knows no bounds. They won't take "no" for an answer, and often times, even if only because of their concentrated willpower, they get what they want. as the old saying goes, "where there's a will, there's a way" . This isn't always true, but in this case, it is very true for the pirates. If they want something bad enough, they're going to find a way to get it. The companies blame the pirates for loss in revenue, but in reality, it is the company, themselves, costing them the most. Their world is falling apart around them, and they need a scapegoat for it.

p.s.
The majority of these pirates they bitch about are only minor threats, if any threat at all.
There are those who seek to turn a profit off of piracy, and THESE are the ones that need to be dealt with. I have no respect for them, and I don't condone their actions.

p.p.s.
"luxury item" or not, think about the purpose of sites like this one. There's a lot that can be done with the assets from a game. Technically speaking, code, data, and dialogues, are much more disposable than assets. Push comes to shove, a fangame developer can create an entirely new pokemon/mario/zelda engine from scratch. Maybe the assets. But, it is easier to just have them all there, ready for download, and use. Now, they can't turn a profit (or aren't supposed to), but they can make their own versions of the game. Someone further along the line may come and play/download said fan-game, as well. This is why I'm not entirely ok with ripping stuff from new games, or publishing it immediately, that is. Unlikely as it may be, someone could come-along, find a sprite rip, and try to create a game that competes with the original, or even is an exact replica.

I do have one (really) last thing, but I'll deal with that later.
Sorry for the textwall AGAIN... >.>
I tried so hard not to.