Is it stealing to pirate a game you own physicaly but cant install

[Levethian]

Legality and morality are completely unrelated.

Indeed - completely.

Of course it's piracy, so the Internet Elders will get you.

 

[kabooz18]

it would not be piracy to download the same version of the game you have
however it clearly would be piracy If either you don't own it or you distribute a copy to other illegally (e.g. if to other who do not own the game).

so If you download it no problem but if you UPLOAD it (via torrents for example) it would be highly illegal so it matters more how you get it^^

on a side note: in GERMANY (where I live) it would be totally legal to download a game you bought if the CD/DVD broke as long as you still have the reciept^^ (or can verify that you actually own the game) however I do not know if that's the case in America or UK

 

[Ruwrak]

snipped

Really? That is really interesting. What about the downloading of movies?

Also you guys make great chocolate.

We're not Belgium guv (nor are we germany, we are in between england and germany, above Belgium)

Well basically downloading is 'legal'-ish. The uploading is named to be strictly forbidden.
Though lately, this "Brein" foundation (fighting copyright things) got their poitn through in court (after a couple of tenfold tries) that software such as news & usergroups are just as guilty to supplying. Wich is kinda weird, as the law states that a product can not be held responsible for the cause it is used for (just like you can't sue a knife company for making murder weapons.)

Makes sense for the most part.

If you say things like guv I would guess you were from 19th century England. And while we over here in North America do mostly think of Belgium chocolate,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_process_chocolate
Jeez telling you about your own history. Kids these days. I only knew about that because I used to hangout with some chefs.

Don't get all to high and mighty, chocolate is not our trademark to begin with
We only have 1 really famous chocolatprocessing factory, wich is Van Drosten (also known for the Droste Effect, picture in picture in picture.. you get the idea) But we are not commonly known for making good chocolate. Sure we process it, but most of the chocolate is actually from Belgium.

And yes I do speak my older langauges slightly, as so is my field of interest. History that is, not just old english language. All ye who enter here and all that jazz. By the by I'm not one of "kids" these days. I'm 21 thank you I'm past that point. I'm now "gah semi-adolescents these days"


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-> Back to topic.
Piracy is a tricky and grey area for most people. Some people yell information should be free, but then books should also be free and if I take one from the store then I sure as hell get arrested for shoplifting. It's just there is no internet police to arrest someone who steals from the internetshops. (or arrest 'dealers / uploaders' of information for that matter.) Hence it's so easy to obtain things for free. But there are many drawbacks if everyone would just rip it off the internet. I mean, think about it for a minute. Companies usually dont get very rich from making games. Alot of the money they make go into new projects. A game these days costs 20 miljon dollars to get started. And then we're talking about the average game. High quality developped games take even more money. No income on those would equal less money to invest in new good games.

 

[imperialreign]

No, it's to authorize someone to make a copy for you from your physical copy, from the serial number associated with your physical copy. Besides, you're not authorizing other people to make torrents. You're just going to TPB (or some similar site) and doing a search for <name of game&gt;. That's not the same.

The whole thing about copyright infringement comes down to licenses. When you buy the game, you are buying one license. One. Pirating a copy for a game you already own is considered copyright infringement because you're obtaining the rights to a second license without paying for it. That's why downloading a torrent for the game is still considered copyright infringement.

I tend to agree . . but if the original serial number for the game works with the downloaded version, than essentially you're not circumventing the second license as the serial associated with your original license works. Although you're still downloading a pirated copy, if you can play with your original disk/serial than you're still within the better side of the grey area.

This grey area, though, is typically introduced by the game devs, as they tend to only have one specific game version that recognizes thousands of serials. Essentially why pirated versions will work because they've found a legit serial for a specific copy. We've heard stories of owners of a legit copy who can't play because the serial associated with their copy has been used by the pirate community. I recall a specific instance over at TechPowerUp where w1zard put up a legit copy of a game for a contest, and it turned out afterwards that the original serial had been already used on Steam - which lead to a long processes of dealing with Steam and getting a new serial for the software copy that was legit.

 

[meowchef]

I think this is the only time that pirating a game is acceptable... if you paid for the game.

 

[isnosche]

Yes, it is.

Piracy means attaining a digital copy of a game without paying. Period. Owning it has nothing to do with it.

Is it wrong? I don't care. Is it piracy? Yes.

Really?
no, Piracy is Copy Right Infringment.

the word was used to Demonize people who where manufacturing things that they copied off of a bigger industry and sold at lower prices in the 1600s and thus undercutting larger industries. they effectively titled these small up start companies as nothing more then Brigands and Cutpurses (pirate acctually is latin/greek for Brigand).

with the establishment of copyright in the 1700s the word was then used to identify the act of Copy Right Infringment by copyright holders.

in modern times, it has been used to identify Copyright Infringement through online mediums.



but all that aside.
How am i violating copyright laws when i already own a copy and i am entitled a digital copy through the EULA agreement provided with the product? EULA and ToS doesn't specifically state how i should obtain this digital copy...
and P2P torrents are Not acctually an illegal act...

so how would i be pirating?

It is legally pirating, as you are obtaining a digital product without paying, regardless of if you already have it or not. Piracy and theft don't take into account if you own the product you're stealing - that's besides the point.

That's the legal side; it is piracy.

On a 'morals' side, I don't care, really. Is anyone being hurt? Not unless you see a torrent.

This is true what you are saying, however you are not getting a new digital product you're not paying for.
Since you already own the license to this piece of software.
You are not breaking any laws.
To make it even easier.

Sometimes you are even renting a piece of software.
You are renting a license to use that software as you normaly are buying to use that CD KEY.

You are not BUYing RENTING to use the DISK but the key.
I can lend my disks to EVERYONE on this board if they all paid for their cd-key.

Easiest to compare too is WOW were you are renting the cd key basicly and the game can be downloaded for free. Sure your Cd key comes with some nice packaging and the better looking and more stuff with it the more expensive...

So basicly when you get a new copy of your digital meduim for your own ! use.
you are not breaking the law.

 

[XT inc]

what if say your disc got cracked or you are arbitrarily locked out of an older pc game because you lost the piece of scrap paper they put the code on, would it be wrong to download it again or find a keygen?

 

[Dejawesp]

The important part in buying a game is that your purchase the licence to use it. Which you have so no its not pirating.

You cannot pirate a game that you have the licence to use.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Yes, it is.

Piracy means attaining a digital copy of a game without paying. Period. Owning it has nothing to do with it.

Is it wrong? I don't care. Is it piracy? Yes.

Really?
no, Piracy is Copy Right Infringment.

the word was used to Demonize people who where manufacturing things that they copied off of a bigger industry and sold at lower prices in the 1600s and thus undercutting larger industries. they effectively titled these small up start companies as nothing more then Brigands and Cutpurses (pirate acctually is latin/greek for Brigand).

with the establishment of copyright in the 1700s the word was then used to identify the act of Copy Right Infringment by copyright holders.

in modern times, it has been used to identify Copyright Infringement through online mediums.



but all that aside.
How am i violating copyright laws when i already own a copy and i am entitled a digital copy through the EULA agreement provided with the product? EULA and ToS doesn't specifically state how i should obtain this digital copy...
and P2P torrents are Not acctually an illegal act...

so how would i be pirating?

It is legally pirating, as you are obtaining a digital product without paying, regardless of if you already have it or not. Piracy and theft don't take into account if you own the product you're stealing - that's besides the point.

That's the legal side; it is piracy.

On a 'morals' side, I don't care, really. Is anyone being hurt? Not unless you seed a torrent.

EDIT: Spelling

Wrong.
Piracy = Copyright Infringement.

no where in its definition does it extend to anything else beyond copyright infringment.
Due to DMCA laws in the US and EULA contracts you have with Publishers you are not infringing any copyright laws to obtain a digital copy of a product you own.

ergo, it is not piracy.

Your definition of Piracy is wrong.

 

[teh_Canape]

I had a similar problem

see, I had a retail copy of Mirror's Edge for PC, which, being GFWL (nothing really big, just that I noticed a pattern =P) I had to put on the disk before running the game

and since I "live" with little kids hanging around in my house (you know, 'cause my aunt and my cousin, who have little children, come a lot to my house, or, well, my parent's house, where I live) and they already screwed my SF4 disk, which I can barely get it to run now

so, I figured, "I already own the game and the disk may get screwed, would it be bad if I used a No-CD Crack for the game I paid $180 for?"

but now I finished the game and I no longer use the disk, so it's just sitting in the shelf

 

[isnosche]

Otherwise you could not get a new disc of windows 7 for 5 Euro's Mailed to you.
Would never happen

 

[isnosche]

I had a similar problem

see, I had a retail copy of Mirror's Edge for PC, which, being GFWL (nothing really big, just that I noticed a pattern =P) I had to put on the disk before running the game

and since I "live" with little kids hanging around in my house (you know, 'cause my aunt and my cousin, who have little children, come a lot to my house, or, well, my parent's house, where I live) and they already screwed my SF4 disk, which I can barely get it to run now

so, I figured, "I already own the game and the disk may get screwed, would it be bad if I used a No-CD Crack for the game I paid $180 for?"

but now I finished the game and I no longer use the disk, so it's just sitting in the shelf

There's nothing illigal about a no-cd crack unless its mentioned and a definate NONO in the user agreement.

 

[quantumsoul]

It's in no way piracy. Look at roms for example. They're legal to use only if you own the game. You already own the game how you get to work doesn't matter.

 

[karloss01]

Of course it's not piracy, you already own the right to make personal copies of the game so have as many as you want. I don't know why this is so difficult for some people to understand ...

^ like Fennec said, as long as those copies are not going to you're friends, family members or a guy who asked for one its not piracy. my opinion is that as long as the publisher is not losing money from a potential sale then its good.

 

[k-ossuburb]

What you've got is two copies of the same product; one you paid for and one you didn't, the fact that one is faulty is not an issue when it comes to these things, since it will be argued that you should've just returned it. Let's replace the games with something else, let's say you bought a pair of headphones and when you opened them up you quickly found out they didn't work, so you go out and "steal" another pair just like them that do work. Actually that analogy sucks, but you get where I'm coming from.

I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong, I'm simply saying the worst possible scenario.

Personally, I don't think it's stealing since you bought a faulty product and therefore have every right to replace it, technically this could be viewed as simply repairing the faulty product yourself, which is what I'd rather view it as. But sadly people will be a-holes about it and say that is is stolen because you already own a copy and stole another.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

What you've got is two copies of the same product; one you paid for and one you didn't, the fact that one is faulty is not an issue when it comes to these things, since it will be argued that you should've just returned it. Let's replace the games with something else, let's say you bought a pair of headphones and when you opened them up you quickly found out they didn't work, so you go out and "steal" another pair just like them that do work. Actually that analogy sucks, but you get where I'm coming from.

I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong, I'm simply saying the worst possible scenario.

Personally, I don't think it's stealing since you bought a faulty product and therefore have every right to replace it, technically this could be viewed as simply repairing the faulty product yourself, which is what I'd rather view it as. But sadly people will be a-holes about it and say that is is stolen because you already own a copy and stole another.

Except in this case it's not a faulty product. The computer he wants to play the game on lacks a disc drive.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

If I own the copy digitally, can I go into Walmart and take a copy and it be ok? Or if I own a physical copy, can D2D, Steam, or any other site give me that gave for free since I already have it? No. And considering this topic is already at 8 pages, you probably already got the flood of "pirating isn't stealing, it's copying!" losers who seem to think something has to be physical to steal it.

 

[isnosche]

What you've got is two copies of the same product; one you paid for and one you didn't, the fact that one is faulty is not an issue when it comes to these things, since it will be argued that you should've just returned it. Let's replace the games with something else, let's say you bought a pair of headphones and when you opened them up you quickly found out they didn't work, so you go out and "steal" another pair just like them that do work. Actually that analogy sucks, but you get where I'm coming from.

I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong, I'm simply saying the worst possible scenario.

Personally, I don't think it's stealing since you bought a faulty product and therefore have every right to replace it, technically this could be viewed as simply repairing the faulty product yourself, which is what I'd rather view it as. But sadly people will be a-holes about it and say that is is stolen because you already own a copy and stole another.

Except in this case it's not a faulty product. The computer he wants to play the game on lacks a disc drive.

Doesn't mather as long as the user agreement doesn't say you can only have 1 active copy at a time and even then you could argue that his other copy isn't active...