Piracy in the Indie Community

With piracy being such a mainstream issue now involving all forms of media I took a moment to think about how this may affect people like us small-time indie guys.

My catalyst for this line of thought came from me thinking about how to distribute my Torque 3D Environment Pack. I'm not much for developing websites, truth of the matter is I don't know a damn thing about it, so I don't feel like making a complex system of extra security and user accounts, I simply don't have the time to learn all of that with college on the side as well. Eventually I came up with a way to do it that will be easy enough, but definitely not secure. I figure just make a password protected download page. Someone makes a purchase, they receive an email with the download link and password. Nice and simple.

However as you can guess, this leaves things open to piracy, if people should be so inclined. All someone has to do is hand out the link and password to other people and anyone could download my work for nothing. Which of course led me wonder about the impact piracy may have on our entire community.

There's of course no need to be so naive as to think none of us here have ever done some level of piracy. A lot of times it's justified in the sense that major companies really won't lose much through some small-time piracy. Download a movie or some songs? The people who worked on that are still going to be millionaires with more money than they know what to do with. But what about the indie game scene like us here?

Obviously starting from the top source, Torque itself, a quick piratebay search shows 3 torrents. One that doesn't have a version, a TGE 1.5, and a T3D 1.0.1. So clearly Torque itself isn't safe from pirates which means we have to have a few right here in this community itself. (especially considering there's a significant amount of people seeding the torrent)

So, what about stepping it down a bit to something more specific? Well, as I was writing the previous paragraph I had the thought to search for Marble Blast and sure enough, a Marble Blast Gold torrent. Also multiple torrents come up for various model and art packs, no immediate way to tell if some did or did not come from this very site. So while obviously there's no doubt people here who occasionally pirate some form of media from some major company, there also those around here who actually are providing some of the stuff here to BE pirated.

This all concerns me so much because soon I'll be apart of that which may be pirated off of. When people pirate software or other media they justify it in that the other person really doesn't NEED it however for some of us here this is very far from the truth. I use for example my own situation. Last November I was discharged from the military 3 years early for a shoulder injury. I had two large surgeries and more physical therapy than I ever want to think of in an attempt to fix it and in the end it wasn't enough and I was kicked out way soon than was planned, also leaving me with a right arm that is virtually useless for any real physical work. Last time I tried, I was able to do an entire 1 pushup before it gave out. So I get removed for a steady source of income, thrust into the outside world during difficult economic times, greatly limited in what I can do. Obviously my only practical option was to go to college, military helps pay for it and I'm going to need the degree. Still doesn't fix the fact though that money isn't exactly easy for me to come by due to my injury and that I was thrust out of my previous job sooner than expected.

With this environment pack I'm working on, I'm hoping to come up with a few extra bucks. Nothing super special, but every dime helps, you know? I'm working on a degree in game design, one of my favorite things to do, next to engineering. However with my shoulder the way it is, things with engineering usually are just painful anyhow as soon as physical work comes into play, so... game design is the safer path. So I figure make a few dollars doing something I love while tryin to make things work everywhere else in my life.

So, that there is the rundown of my story here and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a story like this to tell. Maybe not those exact ways but I'm sure there are others here just like me hoping to use this stuff as an outlet for their practice and love for the art while getting a small amount of compensation.

I'm sure we have pirates here, some people reading this may be the very ones guilty. People that, given the chance, will take any game, movie, or artwork for free and pass it on to others. If anyone like that IS reading this, think about mine and everyone else's situations first...

Download the DVD rip of Avatar, James Cameron will still be able to afford the 10 brand new sports cars for his mid-way birthday. But steal the work of people like myself or others here and you actually ARE taking food out of someone's mouth.

I don't support piracy but in the full corporate world, it has minimal impact. In the indie world though, it is the death of all that we work for. Don't do it. :(