MikroBitti 6-7/1990, pages 12-13 --- THE FLIPSIDE OF PIRACY ---------------------- Tuija Linden Piracy is crime, scream big ads in almost all English magazines. Piracy has become a serious problem for all game companies, even so serious that they consider dropping Amiga game development. But what are the actual effects of piracy? The Real Problem ---------------- Game companies aren't worried about a couple of kids who saved their pocket money to get a game and the copy it to a friend. From the game company perspective the worst is the distribution of unpublished games. If every gamer already has a copy when the game is released, few are going to buy it. In Finland alone this hobby causes losses of millions of marks to importers, so their irritation is understandable. Games aren't necessarily even finished when they are spread by pirates, so even a good game might get a bad reputation unnecessarily. Copyright Laws Don't Forbid Copying ----------------------------------- To make a copy of an original game is not illegal. In contrast, making a copy of a copy is. It's also illegal to copy software to sell it, even if were only for private use. It's legal to copy software for educational use, but it doesn't mean you can take the copies home. A program must be finished and commercially available before you are allowed to copy it. If you copy a game that is not yet sold in Finland, you're guilty of copyright infringement, which is punishable with up to two years in jail. The crime is considered aggravated if there are a lot of copies. The court may also consider the case as a minor offense, which can lead to fines or half a year jail sentence. In any case, the person will get a criminal record, which may affect their chances of getting a job. Getting caught of copying probably won't help if you intend to become a computer professional. (Caption: English anti-piracy federation FAST runs a hard campaing against illegal copiers. You can see many different "Piracy is theft" ads in magazines.) Out There in the Wide World --------------------------- Who can get their hands on an unpublished game then? Let's take Populous as an example. According to rumors, the programmer team that contributed a little subroutine cracked the code. And, thus, the game was spread around the world before its release. Apparently "subcontractors" are know for such behavior. Some even spy on programmers and when they leave work, they break in, copy the program and run. The tentacles of international piracy are surprisingly fast and long. The Amiga version of Leisure Suit Larry 3 was available in Finland even before its planned publisher, Activision, had even seen it! Therefore, Larry 3 had to be hurried to the market to save at least some of the sales. Even the Press Is Affected -------------------------- Game companies are very careful. Piracy has already endangered the privilege the press has enjoyed, that is, receiving so-called preview versions. For instance, marketing director Julia Coombs from Microprose bluntly stated: "We can't trust even the press any more. We have two mailing lists. The first contains people we personally know and who accept 'watermarked' previews. If our games start spreading illegally, we'll know who we can no longer trust. And that's that." Kristin Dodt, the PR representative from German Rainbow Arts, tells that no copies are distributed before all materials from instructions to the box are finished. U.S. Gold doesn't send preview versions to anybody, but their representatives travel around showing them to the British press and watch that copying software is not used. Or, alternatively, editors are allowed to visit the company to check out new games. To write a review on such basis... Piracy Hotbeds -------------- From an English perspective, the rest of Europe, Scandinavia in particular, is more geared toward programming, whereas British boys only play games on their machines. The bad Scandinavian reputation is largely based on the Danish pirate paradise, where it's legal to sell copied software. In Holland, the Eldorado of piracy, anybody can get games from a local pirate BBS before their release. In contrast, in Spain piracy has been ironed out almost completely. Heavily lowering game prices by cutting costs has worked. Game companies send the code to Spain where they take care of copying. The downside is that all game boxes look similar. One way to curb piracy is to hire pirate coders as programmers. Receiving your own game from a swapper surely won't encourage you to copy it any further. The Prices Are Rising --------------------- Piracy affects many things and pricing is one of the most important. As the sales of Amiga games don't increase, the profits have to come from price hikes. "Prices are going up and they already have. This will, of course, directly affect our pricing. We have partially sold games at lowered prices with less profit, but we can't afford that for long," says Petri Lehmuskoski from Toptronics. Toptronics has already had to drop smaller game companies off their lists. Sales of four or five copies don't cover even the shipping costs. All other importers are equally affected, so soon you can't but all games in Finland. The same principle applies in the big scale as well. It's more profitable for a game company to focus on sure hits, such as licensed games that sell well, as opposed to laborious specialities. For instance Hewson, know for its original games, is facing economic hardships, and not for the first time. And all of this will lead to a less diverse market. Copy Protection All Around -------------------------- FAST (The Federation Against Software Theft) invests unbelievable sums into developing copy protection measures. Everybody is familiar with the codes that games ask before you can play. For instance, the fine cities in Infogrames' Sim City will erode without the codes printed on colored paper. On the other hand, capable crackers may circumvent such protection by modifying the program code. "We had to start bagging our games so that the manuals wouldn't be stolen. In particular, Amiga game manuals get stolen," says Petri Lehmuskoski. According to him, consumers also destroy games and after copying them come to swap the box which doesn't include the code table. That won't be tolerated from here on. "I haven't declared a war on pirates yet. I try to affect them peacefully," states Petri, whose reputation as a big enemy of piracy is know even in England. "We're not that interested in the spreading of old programs on BBSs. The worst is that, for instance, Ocean's F29 Retaliator was found on one even before we got it." In Pirates' Defence ------------------- One of the most common arguments for piracy is that nobody loses anything, since the people who copied a game wouldn't have bought it anyway. This may, of course, be true for individuals, but if a pirate hands a copy to two others, they to two more, and they again to two more, there would have been prospective buyers among them already. "I wonder if Amiga games are somehow easier to play, since people don't seem to need the original. For example, many PC gamers buy the game for the manual alone, even if they already owned a pirate copy,", says Petri. One reason for the success of the Commodore 64 was the availability copied games. But even so the situation wasn't ever as bad as it's on the Amiga now. What's the future of the Amiga and its games then? "I don't know, the Commodore 64 became a success because of widespread game copying," answers Petri. You should still consider what's the worth of a large number of Amigas if game companies don't bother to invest in the game development? Copyrights ---------- In Finland games are spread, among others, by swapper groups, BBSs and schools' computer clubs. Nobody knows where the game was originally cracked. Likewise, we don't know how much cracking takes place here. The original creators hold the copyright to computer games. In Finland, for instance, Toptronics has purchased copyrights from English game companies to represent them here. "We legally represent tens of English game companies. In other words, we have every right to demand compensation from pirates. In practice, we have settled for only a couple of marks per game, but we could claim even tens of thousands if we wanted," states Petri Lehmuskoski. Toptronics has sent its own resellers and sellers found in magazines letters where they clarify software copyrights. According to Petri, the reception has been mixed. Some have been thankful, others less so. Interestingly, after sending the letters they have received plenty of reports. Pirates snitch on each other. And time will tell what software copyright holders will do...