A question about piracy.

[fishman279]

I love KotOR. It's by far my favourite game and I've sunk so many hours into it it's insane. I got a new computer in January last year and didn't get around to installing it until about June of the same year. I immediately noticed problems and the game kept crashing so, naturally, i decided to uninstall. This was a mistake it seems because i haven't been able to get it re-installed since.
There have been a wide variety of problems, from the game simply refusing to uninstall to Cyclic Redundancy Checks and "Catastrophic Failures" which have infuriated me many a time. I've been going back for another try at installing it every few weeks and after this last effort, I've had enough. I considered returning my computer to its factory condition, but frankly if it's a problem with the disc, that won't solve anything and I'd lose my music and have to re-install every else to boot.
That's when my thoughts turned to pirating the game, something I've never attempted before, and I'm struggling to see how it can be wrong. KotOR is now pretty old to today's standards and I bought a copy of the game when it was new, so the developers wouldn't lose any money if I went through with it.
So to the point, is pirating in some cases (IE: not just doing it because you don't want to pay) acceptable?

 

[Valkyrie101]

Legally, it carries the same consequences. Morally speaking, it's hard to place it in quite the same category if you've already paid for the game once.

 

[Comando96]

Is it a corruption in the file location?

I had a problem with Rome Total war when I installed it, and re-installed it the uninstall had not removed my customised files and therefore it crashed.

Try installing a new save location or manually deleting all the info from the old uninstall just encase there is a corruption there which is the fault.

 

[FalloutJack]

I take Neil Gaiman's stance on piracy. It is akin to going to the library. More people are exposed to the work and tell others. Others actually start buying it in places where they hadn't before. There are probably also cases of those who first pirated something then buying the actual copy later.

 

[DEAD34345]

Piracy is illegal and thus automatically wrong in all circumstances. Despite the fact that you've already paid for the game, and illegally downloading it would allow you to carry on playing the game you bought with absolutely no negative repercussions, I have to advise against it.

Don't pirate it. That would be wrong.

 

[Grant Allison]

If there is another way to get it besides piracy then do that instead.

 

[JokerCR]

As long as you own the game and have a valid legal key downloading a torrent of it is not considered piracy.
I would like to say though, that I find the idea of pirates telling all their friends to buy a game instead of telling them how to pirate it is absurd.

 

[Woeps]

Why don't you see it like a big patch for you broken game? Or even self customer service.
On the other hand you could have picked up the game for pretty cheap by now...
Dilemma's dilemma's

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Piracy is illegal and thus automatically wrong in all circumstances. Despite the fact that you've already paid for the game, and illegally downloading it would allow you to carry on playing the game you bought with absolutely no negative repercussions, I have to advise against it.

Don't pirate it. That would be wrong.

somehow i cant take a pony in a wizard hat seriously. especially with that expression...
OT: i think EC said if its not available for you or if you've payed for it, pirate away.
but if it is available, then dont.

anyway, i think the reason everybody demonises it upon hearing is the word pirate.
if you just called it 'file sharing' (y'know, sharing. what parents WANT us to do) then less people would react as if you threatened to burn their spouse and rape their house (accidental rhyming ftw)

 

[fishman279]

Is it a corruption in the file location?

I had a problem with Rome Total war when I installed it, and re-installed it the uninstall had not removed my customised files and therefore it crashed.

Try installing a new save location or manually deleting all the info from the old uninstall just encase there is a corruption there which is the fault.

I actually managed to delete all of the old installation files for the first time a few weeks ago, but the problem that has arisen now is this error message: "CRC Error c:/(name of the file) doesn't match the file in the setup's .cab file" for a lot of different files, followed by a Catastrophic Failure. I tried manually copying the files on the disc onto my desktop and running setup.exe from there, but it gives the same results. I tried to open the data.cab file with winRAR to see what the problem was and I get "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged.", which suggest to me a faulty disc, but if it was faulty. surely it wouldn't run in the first place, or have allowed me to install and play it perfectly on my old computer. So bloody frustrating.

 

[Comando96]

Spoiler: Click Me!

Is it a corruption in the file location?

I had a problem with Rome Total war when I installed it, and re-installed it the uninstall had not removed my customised files and therefore it crashed.

Try installing a new save location or manually deleting all the info from the old uninstall just encase there is a corruption there which is the fault.

I actually managed to delete all of the old installation files for the first time a few weeks ago, but the problem that has arisen now is this error message: "CRC Error c:/(name of the file) doesn't match the file in the setup's .cab file" for a lot of different files, followed by a Catastrophic Failure. I tried manually copying the files on the disc onto my desktop and running setup.exe from there, but it gives the same results. I tried to open the data.cab file with winRAR to see what the problem was and I get "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged.", which suggest to me a faulty disc, but if it was faulty. surely it wouldn't run in the first place, or have allowed me to install and play it perfectly on my old computer. So bloody frustrating.

CRC error... yep, the CD is likely corrupt/damaged then.

CRC is a checking method used which adds an extra value on which should be on a value according to the data before it and if the number it is does not match up to the sum totals of the data after going through an algorithm then... it means some of the data is wrong and therefore doesn't accept the file.

The reason the CD would run with errors is simple, the location of the error. If the installer is not corrupted then it will run. Any errors would not be picked up until it was installed because, no checks have been done until anything runs. Then the Validation of the files isn't done until the data is extracted from its compressed form on the CD. Once the validation is done it says "error, number does not match up with other numbers" and then does not allow the file to be installed.

If there are multiple errors then... CD fucked.
Sometimes it just got read wrong and installing it again will fix the problem but... no... yours sounds like a fucked disk.

 

[smearyllama]

If you're having serious problems with the game, I do believe that Steam has it for pretty cheap, and it should run.

Also, after checking, it's $9.99, which is a pretty good deal, considering how good that game is.

 

[incal11]

If you already paid for it then you are not even in a gray area.
The law is not the base for morality, so saying it is "wrong" because it's "illegal" is absurd.

Rather ask yourself what makes you feel better:
re-paying it because you think it is that valuable;
or downloading it because now your money will not reward the people who made the game, and you paid for it already.

 

[Wicky_42]

I love KotOR. It's by far my favourite game and I've sunk so many hours into it it's insane. I got a new computer in January last year and didn't get around to installing it until about June of the same year. I immediately noticed problems and the game kept crashing so, naturally, i decided to uninstall. This was a mistake it seems because i haven't been able to get it re-installed since.
There have been a wide variety of problems, from the game simply refusing to uninstall to Cyclic Redundancy Checks and "Catastrophic Failures" which have infuriated me many a time. I've been going back for another try at installing it every few weeks and after this last effort, I've had enough. I considered returning my computer to its factory condition, but frankly if it's a problem with the disc, that won't solve anything and I'd lose my music and have to re-install every else to boot.
That's when my thoughts turned to pirating the game, something I've never attempted before, and I'm struggling to see how it can be wrong. KotOR is now pretty old to today's standards and I bought a copy of the game when it was new, so the developers wouldn't lose any money if I went through with it.
So to the point, is pirating in some cases (IE: not just doing it because you don't want to pay) acceptable?

IMO, you've already purchased a license to use the software, so who cares what source it comes from? At the end of the day, publishers are only selling you the license, the medium is irrelevant. Legally, that is probably not currently supported, but I'd have no moral qualms in that instance. Well, 666Chaos thinks it's legal as well as moral, but I honestly don't know - laws can be retarded sometimes, and I think the redistribution of the software is in violation of the EULA - ie, the guy seeding the download is in violation of something.

Still say you're sound, though, if you've still got your disk - even if it's damaged. You paid, end of issue.

 

[dave1004]

Hey, move to Canada. In Saskatchewan, you're allowed to pirate.

I download about 10gb a day of games, movies, anime and e-books. I have one computer that's a complete torrent machine, which goes all day long. I have three 1TB external drives, two of them full, and the other at 84%. (200$ for all three, I liked that.)

I have so much crap that I don't know what to do with it. I burn all my movies and games and give them to my friends and family. I'm pirated everything from AoE 2 to Oblivion. Eeeverything. I really don't give two flippity-flipping penguin flippers about how I take what I want. I'm an asshole, sure, but I'm an asshole who has saved thousands of dollars.