If I sneak into Disneyland, is it theft?

[Zechnophobe]

Hypothetically, imagine you could Partially pirate. That is, you don't like paying 50 bucks (or can't, or whatnot) for the latest Call of Duty, so you send 20 dollars instead, and then get the game for that instead. How ethical would such an action be? What informs you about its ethicality?

 

[SoulSalmon]

1) Not theft, Tresspass/Unlawful Entry.
2) Video Games and Theme Parks are entirely different, even if we merely focus on pricing you don't pay for a game every time you want to play it, you (usually) don't pay for almost every activity you do IN the game either.
From another angle you don't "Buy" a theme park, you pay an entry fee.

You can't say "Oh, is X the same as piracy?" when X is not a digital construct. Piracy is usually defined as "Theft of digital content" and the primary point is that there are no PHYSICAL aspects. That is to say, if you download a copy, there's an unlimited supply of copies and if you steal a copy physically, it isn't piracy, it's regular theft because you're taking a physical object that does not belong to you, which there is a finite supply of.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

On a bit of a tangent, i have a question. Hypothetically what if i download a game illegally. One that i would normally never even think of trying but coz it's free i think 'Why the hell not...free is always a good price'. I play it for a few weeks but then go out and buy a retail copy of said game because it's on sail for half price. The developers/distributors/store still get there money in the end so is there anything wrong with this?

OT
You have not payed to get into the park so it's trespass on privet property not theft. Yes i think it is an good analogy.

 

[Taunta]

I suppose it could be considered theft in the sense that you are having an experience worth X amount of money for free, therefore you just robbed the company X amount of money. That's why piracy would be theft, because while online, you taking this doesn't prevent another person from having it, the manufacturer still loses out on whatever it would cost normally.

EDIT: Yes, I understand it would be trespassing in a court of law, I'm just trying to humor the OP a little.

 

[KalosCast]

What we should colloquially call piracy (other than piracy) is just a deflection tactic to bog the debate down in semantics instead of actually debating the issue of piracy.

I say that we call in theft but follow it with a karate-chop to the throat of anyone who uses it as an opening to throw in a red herring.

 

[Taunta]

On a bit of a tangent, i have a question. Hypothetically what if i download a game illegally. One that i would normally never even think of trying but coz it's free i think 'Why the hell not...free is always a good price'. I play it for a few weeks but then go out and buy a retail copy of said game because it's on sail for half price. The developers/distributors/store still get there money in the end so is there anything wrong with this?

OT
You have not payed to get into the park so it's trespass on privet property not theft. Yes i think it is an good analogy.

I'm going to say yes, because you actually now have two copies of the game for the price of one. And the "I wouldn't enjoy it enough to buy it" excuse doesn't really hold water because you enjoyed it and were interested in it enough to download and play it. If you were really disinterested in every way, you wouldn't download it, even though it was free. There are plenty of ROMs that I have no desire to download, even though I could download and start enjoying them in about twenty seconds.

The problem is that a lot of people who download things illegally use this excuse, saying that "if I like it, I'll buy it later". Not accusing you specifically, but I wonder how many people actually buy it, and how many people are just fooling themselves.

 

[Plurralbles]

1.It's trespassing.
2.NO.

if they have too many people getting in for free they'll have to start charging for rides. And that would suck.

Therefore, don't trespass.

I guess in that way it's similar. Pirate enough and companies will only give you parts of games and start charging you for every little privelage

 

[Taunta]

Hypothetically, imagine you could Partially pirate. That is, you don't like paying 50 bucks (or can't, or whatnot) for the latest Call of Duty, so you send 20 dollars instead, and then get the game for that instead. How ethical would such an action be? What informs you about its ethicality?

Not very, because you're still getting the same amount of content for 30 dollars less than someone who bought it at full price. You're still cheating the developer the entire sum of money. If you could get 20 dollars worth of game for 20 dollars instead of the whole 50 dollar game, then that would be a different story.

You can't go to a clothing store and tell them "I don't feel like paying 20 dollars for this shirt. Here, I'll give you 10." It's not getting it for free, but you're still cheating the manufacturer out of X amount of money, therefore the manufacturer loses X amount of money that they would have in their pockets if you had just bought the shirt at full price.

And well, if you can't afford a 50 dollar game, or don't feel like paying that much, then tough cookies. You don't need to play a 50 dollar game. If you really need to scratch your video game itch, there are plenty of games available for 20$ or less.

 

[toughguyjoe]

So Sneaking onto Disneyland is tresspassing, is sneaking onto a roller coaster while unlawfully inside Disneyland theft of services?

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hypothetically, imagine you could Partially pirate. That is, you don't like paying 50 bucks (or can't, or whatnot) for the latest Call of Duty, so you send 20 dollars instead, and then get the game for that instead. How ethical would such an action be? What informs you about its ethicality?

Not very, because you're still getting the same amount of content for 30 dollars less than someone who bought it at full price. You're still cheating the developer the entire sum of money. If you could get 20 dollars worth of game for 20 dollars instead of the whole 50 dollar game, then that would be a different story.

You can't go to a clothing store and tell them "I don't feel like paying 20 dollars for this shirt. Here, I'll give you 10." It's not getting it for free, but you're still cheating the manufacturer out of X amount of money, therefore the manufacturer loses X amount of money that they would have in their pockets if you had just bought the shirt at full price.

And well, if you can't afford a 50 dollar game, or don't feel like paying that much, then tough cookies. You don't need to play a 50 dollar game. If you really need to scratch your video game itch, there are plenty of games available for 20$ or less.

Good answers, good answers. but of course this leads to my very original point. What makes it a 50 dollar game? Are we saying that we are paying LESS than the game is WORTH, and therefore unethical? This assumes the price set by the merchant dictates the Worth of the item. Obviously this is not true. Are we saying that paying less than the full price set by the merchant is unethical? But suddenly it becomes ethical when the merchant lowers the price for a sale?

Either way of looking at it, there is an uncomfortable feel. The difference with 'partial' piracy, of paying the smaller amount, and waiting for the game to go on sale, is that one is at the will of the merchant, and one is not. But this whole line of reasoning ASSUMES that the moral obligation of payment is set by the desires of the merchant.

Now, just to make sure, I'm not trying to advocate piracy with this argument. I don't really have an agenda like that, and feel developers should be paid. But there does seem to be a weird paradox here where we base what we believe is 'right' and 'just' by how well we adhere to the desires for profit by the merchant. Espcially when we know that some forms of profit are illegal, or at least unsavory. Haven't we all been angry when the product we bought went on sale the day after we bought it?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It would be unlawful entry first and foremost though an argument could be made for theft given that entry to the facility is gained through a monetary transaction.

 

[Taunta]

Hypothetically, imagine you could Partially pirate. That is, you don't like paying 50 bucks (or can't, or whatnot) for the latest Call of Duty, so you send 20 dollars instead, and then get the game for that instead. How ethical would such an action be? What informs you about its ethicality?

Not very, because you're still getting the same amount of content for 30 dollars less than someone who bought it at full price. You're still cheating the developer the entire sum of money. If you could get 20 dollars worth of game for 20 dollars instead of the whole 50 dollar game, then that would be a different story.

You can't go to a clothing store and tell them "I don't feel like paying 20 dollars for this shirt. Here, I'll give you 10." It's not getting it for free, but you're still cheating the manufacturer out of X amount of money, therefore the manufacturer loses X amount of money that they would have in their pockets if you had just bought the shirt at full price.

And well, if you can't afford a 50 dollar game, or don't feel like paying that much, then tough cookies. You don't need to play a 50 dollar game. If you really need to scratch your video game itch, there are plenty of games available for 20$ or less.

Good answers, good answers. but of course this leads to my very original point. What makes it a 50 dollar game? Are we saying that we are paying LESS than the game is WORTH, and therefore unethical? This assumes the price set by the merchant dictates the Worth of the item. Obviously this is not true. Are we saying that paying less than the full price set by the merchant is unethical? But suddenly it becomes ethical when the merchant lowers the price for a sale?

Either way of looking at it, there is an uncomfortable feel. The difference with 'partial' piracy, of paying the smaller amount, and waiting for the game to go on sale, is that one is at the will of the merchant, and one is not. But this whole line of reasoning ASSUMES that the moral obligation of payment is set by the desires of the merchant.

Now, just to make sure, I'm not trying to advocate piracy with this argument. I don't really have an agenda like that, and feel developers should be paid. But there does seem to be a weird paradox here where we base what we believe is 'right' and 'just' by how well we adhere to the desires for profit by the merchant. Espcially when we know that some forms of profit are illegal, or at least unsavory. Haven't we all been angry when the product we bought went on sale the day after we bought it?

If you want to get down to it, "worth" and "value" are hypothetical constructs. The only value anything has is what value you give it. "Worth" is projected on to an item, and enforced by whoever's opinion carries the most weight.

The manufacturers projected the item's worth on to it, and legally you have to comply. Your opinion of an item's worth may differ from the manufacturer's, but it doesn't really matter, because the law is on their side. The law is on their side because that is just how the system works. They create a product, they have the final say on how much they want to get compensated for it.

Now a third party can come in and hike up the price, which is really not changing the item's worth as much as it is charging for their third-party service, which is just added to the total, but that's a different story entirely.

Ethics play a minor role in this, IMO. Ethics imply a sense of "right" and "wrong", so I suppose it is unethical because it is going against the flow of the system (I.E. Capitalism) and therefore "wrong". It's a very nebulous argument though, and at least to me, it all boils down to "it is because it is".

 

[Taunta]

So Sneaking onto Disneyland is tresspassing, is sneaking onto a roller coaster while unlawfully inside Disneyland theft of services?

Now you're getting it.

 

[Something Amyss]

The word for that would probably be unlawful entry. Also, I would say that the comparison is not entirely fair, because you have to put in a lot more effort to climb a fence than to go to certain websites. That makes total sense.

The effort is and should be irrelevant. The act itself should be the issue, and it's another issue of trying to conflate multiple crimes/wrongs.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

If you are to compare 'sneaking into Disneyland' to 'videogame piracy', then sneaking into Disneyland would be homologous to a pirated game with a buttload of other services inside that you have to pay for(in-disc "DLC", anyone?).

EDIT:

Well, when most people come to realize that games have no real value in their current form (because they have been told as much by game companies) then the industry will crash.

Uhh, can we assume that it has "Entertainment Value"?

 

[Carlston]

Unlawful entry, which lead to theft (ticket price) trespassing, then a slap of criminal mischief, oh and breaking and entering depending on how you sneak in.

Law loves to slap multiple charges on the same act...that way you can dodge one or two but not them all.