Is is wrong to pirate games during a time of war?

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Thaluikhain

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I was wondering what people thought about pirating games owned by nations your nation was at war with. Would people be in favour of this, and, if so, would this require a Email of Marque or somesuch, to distinguish game piracy from game privateers?

Secondly, would the IP of games be something a nation could demand in war reparations, or take from a defeated enemy?

[small]Possibly the source code of captured games would have to be hidden in a server on some tropical tax haven, or somesuch[/small]
 

Trolldor

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Is it wrong to pirate games if I'm disabled and can only go out game shopping with my carer?

Edit: Is it wrong to pirate games if I have terminal cancer?
 

Katana314

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"Sir, put in an order for the factories to produce 100 more armored tanks to bring to the front lines."
"I'm sorry, sir. I can't do that."
"What?"
"I just got off the line with the armor factories. They refuse to work because our check bounced."
"Wh-...How did that happen? We HAVE been getting revenue from our video game companies, haven't we?"
"About that, sir....it seems that people have been pirating our video games."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
 

Scorched_Cascade

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Plurralbles said:
... international copyright law renders all of your question pointless.
Boo spoilsport *shoos with broom* away with your negativity.
thaluikhain said:
I was wondering what people thought about pirating games owned by nations your nation was at war with. Would people be in favour of this, and, if so, would this require a Email of Marque or somesuch, to distinguish game piracy from game privateers?

Secondly, would the IP of games be something a nation could demand in war reparations, or take from a defeated enemy?

[small]Possibly the source code of captured games would have to be hidden in a server on some tropical tax haven, or somesuch[/small]
A brilliant idea in this poster's humble opinion. Would this cause countries to go to war with those more successful media industries? I can see it now, he who controls the Source controls the world! Let's get looting lads.
 

Darth IB

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During war you probably shouldn't play games at all, but be in the army or working to sustain the war effort.
And even if that is no the case, then you should still only play your own sides computer games, to be supportive and don't ruin the morale etc.
 

leedwashere

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this made my day, good sir.

Emails of Marque and game privateers

"For I never robbed an English game, just France's games or Spain's"

---

In all seriousness, though, I suppose it would be a viable facet of an economic battle strategy, and would quite possibly be the only way to play these games if there was a war-time trade embargo put in place
 

Trolldor

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Is it wrong to pirate games if I have PTSD and want to try them out before buying them so I don't waste my money on a game that's going to remind me of my days in 'Nam?
 

Wolfram23

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It wouldn't do anything against their war effort. So no, that's silly. At worst you put a few people out of work and into the army. Which is kind of counter productive.
 

Thaluikhain

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Plurralbles said:
... international copyright law renders all of your question pointless.
Historically, nations at war have played a little fast and loose with international law.

Actually, on a serious note, there are lots of issues with people violating intellectual property laws in regards to making weapons they haven't got permission from the holders of copyright of. Places like Iran and China (Norinco, I'm looking at you) often ignore foreign IP concerns, and then you get Khyber copies and the like. But nobody prosecutes them, for obvious reasons.
 

Nightcraft66

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Is it wrong to pirate? Full stop.

Edit: Also I'm anti-war, so i'm in favour of playing video games over having a war anyday. People shouldn't be forced to fight in a war anyways.
 

Willem

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TheDarkEricDraven said:
Yes. If America goes to war with Japan, its ALL SQUARE ENIX's fault, and I will pirate thier games to show my patriotisim. Its always the citizens fault, remember.
I'd start a war just to stop Square Enix from making games.
 

Space Spoons

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It's wrong to pirate games under any circumstances. I don't see how war has anything to do with it.
 

Helmutye

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This is an absolutely hilarious question--just silly enough to be amusing, and just serious enough to provoke actual consideration!

I would argue that the time of total war between nations is over, or is at least in remission, which would make this sort of economic warfare unnecessary and even undesirable. And games, while an important part of culture, are not as effective a target as agriculture, industry, or transportation assets anyway. Piracy against enemy shipping was and is quite damaging, and might warrant state sponsorship. But I don't see games being a big enough part of an economy for that to be effective. At least not yet!

Also, there is the fact that companies, at least the big multinational ones, cannot be said to 'belong' to any individual nation. We even saw this during WWII--certain factories in Germany were off-limits to Allied bombers because they were owned by American companies, even though they were building tanks and vehicles and other products for the Axis powers. German citizens often used these factories as bomb shelters because they knew the Allies wouldn't hit them. But now it's even more exaggerated.

As an example, British Petroleum is, supposedly, a 'British' corporation. But their US division, BP America, is the largest supplier of petroleum in the US and controls billions of dollars of assets. Their US division is bigger than many companies in their entirety, and despite the fact that their headquarters is located in London the majority of their profits come from the US (most of the time--currently the oil spill has made BP America a bit of a cash bleed, though the $10 billion tax write off for oil spill cleanup efforts will certainly help). So hypothetically if the US went to war with the UK, whose side would BP be on? BP would be on both sides, supplying and profiting from both. And would either side benefit from attacking BP-owned facilities? The answer is no, because if, for example, the US bombed a BP refinery in the UK, BP would simply call up its US division and jack up the prices there to make up for the loss and punish the US for attacking them.

For really big companies, it makes more sense to think of them as nations themselves, rather than members of any individual nation. Which is absolutely terrifying if you ask me, considering that the leadership structure in a big company is almost indistinguishable from that of a fascist state.

And if that $10 billion write off from BP angers you as much as it does me, here is a link to a petition where you can do something about it! http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bp_tax_break/?rc=fb_share2
 

Plurralbles

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thaluikhain said:
Plurralbles said:
... international copyright law renders all of your question pointless.
Historically, nations at war have played a little fast and loose with international law.

Actually, on a serious note, there are lots of issues with people violating intellectual property laws in regards to making weapons they haven't got permission from the holders of copyright of. Places like Iran and China (Norinco, I'm looking at you) often ignore foreign IP concerns, and then you get Khyber copies and the like. But nobody prosecutes them, for obvious reasons.

that's the point... If you're at war you're nto giving your enemies money, no one's gong to go war over intellectual property, and if you're friends and not at war, then the International Copyright rules will be followed.

EDIT: and another guy brought up the fact that almost no major company is strictly one national so... yeah... that's why I said it was pointless.