Educate me about piracy

[Radeonx]

See, the thing about a lot of the popular sites is that they are stationed in European countries that don't have copyright laws, so the sites can't be taken down.
If SOPA somehow is passed, this will change, but would end up causing a ridiculous amounts of problems that would be much worse, but that's another discussion completely.

Shows how much you know. There is no such thing as a European country without copyright laws. Do your homework before you start educating others. No offense, but it just spreads a lot of ignorance if everyone is a self-proclaimed expert.

Yes, because me saying stuff that I think I know automatically makes me a "self-proclaimed" expert.
And either way, even if the copyright laws ARE in place, clearly there are enough holes in them/holes in the US laws for Piratebay and about 300 other sites to run virtually without problem.

 

[Radeonx]

And yes, you're a self-proclaimed expert when someone asks for information on a subject, and you pass on your ignorance as fact, or dispute actual facts by referring to your own beliefs. As if you were an expert. Ergo, self-proclaimed expert.

Okay. I was wrong and you're right.
Honestly, I don't know why me being wrong has to turn you into a condescending know it all, but so-be it.

 

[Veret]

I hate to pimp my own writing; it makes me feel like such a tool. But I did a piece early last year about piracy [http://intelligentgames.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/a-piratical-interlude/] that's very relevant and addresses most of the arguments in this thread in as balanced a manner as I could manage.

Yes, I'm a shameless traffic whore. Cast your stones at me. But then go read the article (and the comments, for more interesting discussion).

Dendio, about your friend's public admission: There's nothing anybody can do about it. Suing him for saying he pirated something is a violation of free speech. Suing him for actually pirating something requires proof, and proof requires a lot more than a casual admission. Suing in general requires time, money, and lawyers, and is rarely worth the effort to squeeze some poor kid who can't keep his mouth shut.

 

[Darkmantle]

It isn't allowed and I'm pretty certain that it's illegal in Canada.

However, pirates are not the easiest bunch to catch. Get one, and there's a million billion trillion gazi... a lot of others right behind him. It makes your chances of getting caught pretty damned small, though not quite infinitesimally so. The best thing to do is threaten and show everyone that you can actually catch one. "Hey, everyone, this is what we'll do if we catch you"! But even that doesn't deter people because, hey, none of their buddies are getting caught.

I'm pretty sure pirating was completely legal in Canada up until last year. and even now the law is still so new and untested that it might fall. Apparently the law did not recognize the copying of files as theft, because no physical damage was done.

I'm not joking, I looked it up one day

Huh. I did not know that. I wasn't 100% certain, but I was 95% certain that piracy was just as illegal in Canada as it was here in the good ol' US of A.

Well think about it, has there been any cases where someone sued a pirate in Canada? all those stories are almost exclusively USA

 

[dave1004]

Piracy may not aid the industry, and it's generally only done by scums, but sometimes things are pirated just to try before you buy.

See, I didn't know if Skyrim would run on my PC. So, I downloaded it and played it. It worked great, so I ordered a copy on Amazon. I now have a legit copy. I played a pirated Terraria version for a bit, and then it went on a 75% sale, and I bought it.

Now, I do steal anime. Hell, watching a T.V show online is basically pirating; - Anime selections are limited to buy, and when you do buy it, the price is insane. I saw a special edition box set go up to 72,000 Yen. I do buy the shows when they're available to me, but I have other things to spend my money on.

I don't believe that pirates are good, but they're not evil either. As long as it's a "Try before you buy", then it's good. Note however, that I am NOT promoting Piracy. There are a few good websites that will tell you if you can run a game/program, but they're not 100% reliable.

I was going to post another paragraph, but then I took an arrow to the knee...

 

[Harlief]

Piracy is a market force which has produced some fantastic business models, most notably Steam.
Steam has discovered that the best way to combat piracy is to offer reasonable prices, great customer service, community support, automatic and universal game updates spelling the end to compatibility issues when playing online, great anti-cheat measures and HASSLE FREE DRM.

And yet piracy continues because companies continue to offer bad customer service, expensive DLC, pain in the ass DRM, etc.

At this stage, a good deal of piracy (in my experience) is a protest against companies who produce games which provide WORSE service for people who buy legitimate versions of their games than the gaming experience they could have got from a pirated copy of the same game.

The big companies can complain all they want that piracy is decreasing their sales: the fact is that their terrible customer service and mistreatment of their paying customers is driving piracy.

Tl;dr: I used to pirate all my games and now I have over 100 games on Steam because the customer service is better than piracy.

 

[Rack]

One of the important things we have to notice in this particular area is that while Piracy may cost games and movie companies something, it costs the economy almost nothing. If Piracy were effectively eliminated it might gain the software industry a few billion dollars. But that money would all come out of other industries. If someone buys a $60 game they would otherwise have pirated that money has to come from somewhere. A few movie tickets, a meal out, a few drinks at a bar but somewhere.

 

[JET1971]

At this stage, a good deal of piracy (in my experience) is a protest against companies who produce games which provide WORSE service for people who buy legitimate versions of their games than the gaming experience they could have got from a pirated copy of the same game.

The big companies can complain all they want that piracy is decreasing their sales: the fact is that their terrible customer service and mistreatment of their paying customers is driving piracy.

*cough*UBI*cough*SOFT

I dont condone piracy to get free shit, but piracy does serve some purposes for consumers. but for companies like Ubi?? eff them. quit with the draconian DRM and I may return as a customer, until then i will spend my money on your competitor. Not saying I am doing what you said in the quote....

 

[Zoe Castillo]

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[Yellowbeard]

Im not going to pretend to speak for anyone else but I buy almost every game I torrent . In the past I downloaded games to see if they can run on my pc. now I use it as a demo to see if the game is worth buying .

I've done this recently. I didn't think Bioshock would run on my computer, but a cracked copy proved that it would. I played 90% of the way through it before getting bored and taking a break, but later I bought it on Steam. I downloaded Prince of Persia: Sands of Time to see what all the hype was about. Finished it, bought it on Steam again. Downloaded Portal for the same reason; bought the Orange Box.

It's having the legit product conveniently available and, above all, reasonably priced that makes me actually happy to pay for it afterward.

 

[Durgiun]

it annoys me for the smaller studios who need the revenue. steal from EA and it might not even register, steal from a small indy studio and it does hurt them

THIS

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh...I can understand the argument that piracy isn't hurting the games people if you weren't going to buy the game whether you pirated it or not.

But, you've still got no reason to do it. It's not like you absolutely need the latest copy of whatever, you're only doing it cause you want to and you're pretty sure you can get away with it. If some magic way to stop piracy without affecting anything else popped up tomorrow, hardly any pirates are going to be legitimately worse off in any real way.

...

Why is it called piracy, though? To make it sound cool?