let's debate piracy and the hypocrisy behind it

[JonnWood]

What's sad is that I let myself get caught up in these arguments when I know the people on the other side won't change their opinion. I've debated with people like numaiomul before; well-meaning people who can't quite grasp the idea of an insurmountable gap between the developers and the consumers, because their conscience urges them to try and bridge that gap.

I'm willing to bet that every single one of the people in this thread who so hate and despise piracy and pirates have mp3's on their computer. I'm also willing to bet that a good portion of them have pirated multiple games and/or movies and just don't have the guts to admit it.

You're all hypocrits.

I really need to make a drinking game for these sort of arguments; there's always someone who eventually tries this.

Incidentally, I admit that I have pirated in the past. I also admit that I was wrong to do so.

Incidentally, if a guy goes to jail for a crime and comes to solely regret his decisions, does it make him "hypocritical" for him to tell kids not to end up like him? Don't answer; that was rhetorical.

I don't. I think I deserve to see whether a game lives up to it's hype for free.

...by getting it for free. Nice attempted sidestep, though.

Also, to the guy quoting the millions upon millions of pirated copies of games.. where does that data come from? I remember a case a bit ago where a game developer (it was regarding Demigod) admitted that those numbers were inflated, exaggerated, guessed at and most often FLAT OUT WRONG.

Go to torrent tracking website, look at the downloads for several popular games, do basic arithmetic.

meh boil it down, what is copy right but to ensure the copyright owner they have exclusive right to profit?

Copyright is the right to ensure the owner has a right to control the reproduction and distribution. Hence the name.

If you focus on antiquated distribution and "copies" you slide further and further into draconia where the common person has less and less rights...

By "common person", you mean "person who wants the game for free", since game developers are made up of what are generally considered "common people". And again, piracy violates the owner's right of copyright.

just look at the DMCA and making game cracks illegal.....

Because, again, cracks violate copyright. And use just one period at a time, please, it makes it hard to judge tone.

even the worst DRM can not be undermined to protected the buyer because of this not to mention one can not make a legal backup of a DVD without breaking its copy protection which is now a crime.........

How is it a legal backup if it's a crime? Is English your second language? are you adding periods based on some sort of Fibonacci sequence?

Its simple to me you can not realistically enforce distribution and "copy" rules or laws upon the public they are far to vague and infringe upon the rights of the public.

They do, in some cases. But piracy infringes upon the rights of the content producer.

But you can go after anyone who makes illicit profit from donations,ads or direct sale.If its not trying to make money then it can never harm the copyright owner not in these times and there is fr to much to lose to give the copy right owner so much power to squelch freedoms and hide information from the public just because they can not pay for it.....

It's not "information", it's a product. Something with a salable value, you mealy-mouthed double-talker. The reason copyright holders are being given more power is partially because of lobbying pressure and more than a little because of the prevalence of piracy, which deprives them of their rights.

 

[JonnWood]

1: Piracy reduces sales of games and music. There are always people who, even when they have the means to purchase something will take the free route.

Surprisingly, that one is often hard to get piracy apologists to agree on. They will start going on about how "every" download doesn't equal a lost sale, despite that not being the actual claim.

2: The reduction in sales is much less than the number of games pirated. Taking Jack as an example, with no money for games, whether he pirates the game or not, there is no loss of money. The only difference in the two different realities is that Jack plays the game in one, and not in the other. The location of money is still the same.

Point. However, the OP is arguing that content producers lower their prices in order to attract people like Jack. I think that there's ultimately very little publishers can do to convert dedicated pirates into paying customers, and there's only so much price-cutting one can do before one has to raise prices elsewhere.

3: Pirating is Copyright infringement, or something, not THEFT.

Point of contention.

Downloading a copy of a game or movie is not the same as stealing an item. Its closer to stealing an idea. Every time I see someone say 'would you steal a car...' I think 'what an idiot'. Those comparisons is like saying that if you take a photo of the Mona Lisa its the same as stealing the orriginal. If we follow the logic of piracy being the exact same as regular theft, then standing outside a persons house and watching a movie on their TV through a window without their permission would be theft, just like you broke in and took the movie.
When a physical object is stolen, it leaves where it was and goes somewhere else, there is something MISSING. When something is downloaded, there is nothing that goes missing from anyone. There is merely a new, unauthorized item that springs into existence. Piracy is still illegal, but it is completely different than the taking of a physical object. If pirates broke into game stores, it would be a different story...

That's why hardly anyone but piracy apologists actually argues it's analogous to physical theft. It's more like sneaking into a movie theater with infinite seats; whether you paid for it or not, you're still getting something you should've paid for.

4: There are several degrees of pirate.
There are some who buy the games they download but really like.
There are those who only pirate games they lost the orriginal CD for.
There are those who buy the games they really want, and only take copies of ones they had no intention of ever buying.
There are those who never buy a game or music or movie cause its cheaper to pirate them. And oddly, the people who download the most games and movies are often the ones who dont have time to play/watch any of them, but I digress...
There are those who pirate most things, but buy the games they cant find online, or that have really good multiplayer copy protection.
There is the example of Jack - who only pirates games he could not purchase even though he wants to.
Can we agree that some of those degrees are more damaging to the industry than others? Shades of grey people.

Point of contention. No matter how many times you put it through the washer, grey is never the same thing as white.

 

[Morderkaine]

Doesn't mean grey doesn't exist, some just choose not to see it. And im not saying grey is white, just that grey exists.

And I agree that piracy is getting for free, something you should have paid for, but the main point of that was that im sick of people comparing it to actual theft of physical items. There is a difference between the two, and that has to be admitted to properly discuss the situaton.

 

[Regiment]

Regarding the original post: The problem I have with this is that you're painting "Jack" (who's certainly fictional) as down-on-his-luck and forced to steal games to play them at all, in an attempt to elicit sympathy for "him" in the same fashion one might pity the thief who steals bread to feed his starving children. The problem is that games aren't essential. They're just toys, honestly, basically, and if you can't afford them you don't get to have them. That sounds cruel, and I'm certainly wording that really harshly, but:

If you can't afford to play video games, you don't get to play video games. Using the man-stealing-bread-to-feed-his-family argument fails because games are nonessential.

 

[numaiomul]

i'm not talking about the bad type of pirates. the one that HAVE money but don't pay. i'm taking about the ones that don't have money and would pay. they both are called the same way and treated the same way despite intentions.

That's the problem; you think there's a difference. Whether I rob a store to buy crack or to paythe rent, I've still committed a crime. Intent is irrelevant. Heck, the rent-paying robber at least has a necessity-based excuse. For any type of pirate, their primary reason is "I want".

it's not intent that's important it's motive. everybody who buy/pirates/steals [from a shop] a game "wants" the games but they do it according their mentality or financial status. pirates who download a game where the alternative is buying a 100$ may not by Mother Teressa but they are not demons. From a point of view he is a victim and if developers want sales and make a small compromise they might get some profit in a place where it wasn't.

Jack's actions DO hurt me though. When I bought KotOR, it wouldn't run on my computer because the DRM recognized my drive as a DVD burner, and thought I would burn the game and give it to all of my friends for free. I had no intention of doing so, but because there are "Jacks" who would do so, I was prevented from playing my legitimately purchased game. Seriously, I couldn't even open the troubleshooting doc to find help. I returned the game twice (for the exact same copy... because getting your money back on a "copyable" product is now a violation of copyright laws and store policies) and the same problem came up every single time. As mentioned, DRM is not a creative innovation to enhance gameplay experience. It is a response to a perceived problem in the industry, which is propagated by the many Jacks. Jacks have changed how the gaming industry functions in a way which hurts legitimate customers.

i already established that jack only uses pirated games as personal entertainment. he does not make any type of profit after pirating games. there are other pirates that do and they need a different make.

I really am sorry for your economic and general situation and hope things look up for you, but I have to say piracy is not going to help the gaming industry. I'd like to know a little more about your viewpoint though.
A) I'm aware that due to import taxes and such games are typically more expensive outside my United States. What about legit download options like Steam or Impulse? What are prices usually like on those?

you need a credit card which is rare around here

B) Free games have been mentioned several times, but besides a passing mention of Cave Story, you haven't really addressed why you don't just take that route. Surely, there's more than enough hours of freeware out there for whatever your interests are?

already playing free games where i can find them but there's a limit to them. true i probably tried more f2p mmo they most here have tried games but most are bad. besides you can't compare mass effect 2 with scorched earth

C) Have you addressed these complaints to game providers? Capitalism works based on supply and demand. If games companies thought they could make a profit (albeit a smaller one) by providing regional discounts they would do so, (granted ebay importing of regional copies would just cause Americans to have games shipped overseas so maybe not).

Customer service is bogus here. When i bought NFS carbon [wanting to play on-line] i went to the store and the clerk asked me if i wanted it "in the box" or not. still after i bought it i found out that an account made in version 1.2 of the game does not work in the version 1.3 of the game because EA has the same customer service like my country: "do not listen to complaints before or after the purchase of a game. just sell the game then ignore away"

companies should focus more on potential customers. don't think on how to stop people from spreading your game for free

"Spreading"--and really, you've reached some sort of total semantic disconnect--does them no good if they're not making money.

if a developer can prove their game is worth it a pirate might buy it [which is better then nothing. invest more in selling products then in stopping theft of something that isn't physical.

think about attracting customers. besides if i think that each gorgeous woman i see on the street is a potential sex partner i'd go insane.

Did you just compare piracy to rape?

right... i was thinking that physically i could have sex with her but i need to work for that. [dinner etc] developer think that just because they put a game it's supposed to be bought and because their expectations are wrong it's definitely the pirates fault.

This friend of mine James has actually gotten several roms of games from his childhood.

He admits that what he is doing isn't morally or legally justifiable, and frankly is starting to think that Jack might be a bit self righteous.

Neither of us think that Jack is a bad person, we just think that he needs to accept the moral consequences of his actions or just get out of gaming.

no one said that jack has any moral issues. i would like more options for genuine gamers that can't afford proper gaming. is that too much to ask? digital development can be extremely cheap so instead of being greedy developers can cut down on prices and still have a profit. not a huge one but it's a profit made instead of nothing which is always better.

What's sad is that I let myself get caught up in these arguments when I know the people on the other side won't change their opinion. I've debated with people like numaiomul before; well-meaning people who can't quite grasp the idea of an insurmountable gap between the developers and the consumers, because their conscience urges them to try and bridge that gap.

as i stated earlier pirating for me,jack and the rest of my country is perfectly moral-free. it's something you do not out of laziness or something but it's something you do out of lack of alternative. it the ONLY thing there is. why am i trying to close the gap? because i have a genuine love for games and hate to see the pirates like jack being bashed for being born in an underdeveloped country with huge taxes and no concern for customer service. if i had a credit card i would have bought world of goo when it was "pay what you want", i don't say i would have paid very much but i would.

Regarding the original post: The problem I have with this is that you're painting "Jack" (who's certainly fictional) as down-on-his-luck and forced to steal games to play them at all, in an attempt to elicit sympathy for "him" in the same fashion one might pity the thief who steals bread to feed his starving children. The problem is that games aren't essential. They're just toys, honestly, basically, and if you can't afford them you don't get to have them. That sounds cruel, and I'm certainly wording that really harshly, but:

If you can't afford to play video games, you don't get to play video games. Using the man-stealing-bread-to-feed-his-family argument fails because games are nonessential.

Dear sir excuse me for saying but you fail. we already agreed on the fact that jack situation in Europe, where computers and internet are crazy cheap [because people don't buy they have no alternative but to lower prices] while food is at a steady price. now gaming costs extreme amount of cash. so no jack is not entirely fictional. he representing at least 50 people i know from my high-school alone.

now one of my problems: why the hate? you are all bashing on pirates without the smallest regard for the person that pirates. yes some are retards with their vocabulary consisting entirely of swear words written in leet, but maybe some are good people that pirate for lack of alternative. instead of bashing you should try and help.[ this is a word for the developers as well] not all pirates are idiots like not all gamers are intelligent human beings. ex: original wow [and you shall see that there are morons] and some wow private servers [where you shall see that some crave for an intelligent chat and are polite and stuff]. pirates are like the poor children playing with cheap replicas of the toys the rich kids have. the pirates that can afford a game but not buy it and instead pirate are idiots.

 

[Eponet]

okay i had enough. i am speaking with 2 year old. i NEVER said that piracy is not stealing. i AGREE that piracy means STEALING. can we please now stop with that freaking argument? no one here is a saint so just shut up with the anti-piracy bravado. your are companies fanboys.
i am not making piracy propaganda but if companies don't start to adress the problem like an integral part of sales they won't advance. NOTHING EVER evolved if it was not constantly challenged.
oh and next time some says something about DRM and stuff just to something about it and stop blaming other people. if you have money for games you have money for internet so the DRM should be no problem to you all.

The internet is an uncertain thing, additionally, I want to be able to play my games if my hard drive winds up needing a reformat after the game company closes down, or they just take down the validation servers.

Though...I pretty much crack most of my games anyway just for the convinience of not having to carry disks around with me when I use my laptop, so I guess that's not really an issue.

I'm surprised that it took so long before anyone mentioned the difference between taking and copying though >_>

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

JonnWood
Copyright is the right to ensure the owner has a right to control the reproduction and distribution. Hence the name.

Which worked fine when copying and distribution only happened when soemone made a profit off it, in these times thats no longer the case.

By "common person", you mean "person who wants the game for free", since game developers are made up of what are generally considered "common people". And again, piracy violates the owner's right of copyright.

By person I mean anyone in the public who is looking up or shearing information, it is information as lyrics and text can now be protected under copyright the same as any media and with little protection for the public freedom of expression and rights of the consumer. One has to look at things beyond the
the petty and shallow scope of "patent troll" mindsets. Just because you own a copyright,ect dose not grant you absolute control over it.

JonnWood Because, again, cracks violate copyright. And use just one period at a time, please, it makes it hard to judge tone.

Only because of the copy circumvention clause in the DMCA without that cracks are legal items that a product owner can use to gain full use and control of the item they bought like modchips, its rather silly to blame the crack or mod chip whitch is legal under fair use but over ridden in part by the DMCA for illicit profiteering on the distribution of unlicensed media..... its like making bullets illegal because they may can hurt people....

I am sorry if you feel my tone to protect my rights and freedoms is not meek enough, why of coarse I feel I should rent from the media gods and never question the crap they shovel out.....

JonnWood How is it a legal backup if it's a crime? Is English your second language? are you adding periods based on some sort of Fibonacci sequence?

Because it was legal under fair use and still is but the DMCA makes it that much more difficult to protect in court. Basically its like taking a nail file into a court room or on a air plane they may charge you they may toss you out, its up to those's that are suing attention span to try and make you and the court preceding out to be a circus in order to show people that its wrong and bad to infringe on big media.

JonnWood They do, in some cases. But piracy infringes upon the rights of the content producer.

At what cost? In most cases its unrealistic and silly to drag teenagers and collage kids to court over what amounts to gaining something they would mostly likely never or rarely buy.Its taking the moot zero tolerance nature of todays mindset and saying because you have done something that has the slight appearance of doing something wrong, like taking a pocket knife to shcool.

Now granted 90% of torrent/fileshareing sites are breaking the law as I see it not because they are distributing copies but they dare to attempt to make a profit off the process, what would happen if most of those sites dropped the donation and ads? That is what I'd like to happen expand fair use to allow free non profit like shearing of media and information as not many could afford it thus its marginalized and protects both the copy right owner and the public in general.

JonnWood It's not "information", it's a product. Something with a salable value, you mealy-mouthed double-talker. The reason copyright holders are being given more power is partially because of lobbying pressure and more than a little because of the prevalence of piracy, which deprives them of their rights.

Oh but it is information, information that entertains,educates and inspires, what are humans without creativity and media is at the very least creative and informative, with inspirational and educational.

IMO media as a product should be heavily protected, illicit profit should be treated as drug crimes. But in general copying should be questioned its the right of buyer/owner to copy or not fair use gave us that much as for distribution ensure the only way to profit from it is via legal and licensed means, while ensuring the public is allowed their freedoms with the wealth of information and creativity we as a world have. Again how many people can afford to run a large shearing site without a drop of external money coming in?

As I have said in my copyright thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.188833-Zippy-plus-Copyright-profit-sharing-and-changing-the-nature-of-distribution] You make it so links and files that link to the copy righted item in question the same as the copy righted item for the sake of fair use, nothing in this chain may gain a unlicensed profit thus closing the loop hole of torrents and for profit file indexing sites. A exempting for search engines(and possibly educational sites) will probably have to be made to ensure the media industry dose not go after general indexing sites like google. A simple 3 or 4 part list would pass or fail a site. 1. 50% or more of the funds generated from the site must not come from unlicensed items that are copyrighted. If the site focuses its filters on a file type or link type that is 40% or more unlicensed items that are copyrighted. Ect.

There is so much more that we can do than "say thats mine pay up or your criminal"..... especially since infringement is not a criminal offense.... tho if the public had their rights to harmlessly infringe (non profit attempting like means) I would not mind seeing the for profit side become a harsher criminal offense....but sadly we are heading to a time and place you will go to jail for copying your wedding tape because you do not own the copy right to it......

 

[Dick Seamen]

Well.. Im just going to use your own argument here..

Let's imagine that, with no alternative, 5% (a rather low number) of the people who have pirated the game buy it after they downloaded it illegaly and liked it.

That doesnt sound to unreasonable, does it? I became a huge fan of the Football Manager games after i played a pirated copy of it a couple of years ago and have bought every realease of it since that.

The thing is though, what do you think is a higher percentage of pirates: those who just want it for free and would otherwise buy it, or those who download a game and then decide to buy it?

I would say their about the same.. The biggest piece of the cake is probably the people who just downloads every thing they have the slightest interest in, because they can.
Hopefully this pushes the industry to make an alternative solution that makes piracy not worth it.
For example, in Sweden we have Spotify. Basicly its all the music in the world for 100 swedish kronor (about 12$) a month (or free with ads). A service thats better than piracy in so many ways that its just not worth the effort to download illegaly anymore

Sure but you aren't taking into account all of the legally free games on the net. It changes the excuse from I can't afford to play games to I can't afford to play that game.

I think you misunderstood me, my point is; I think the industry is digging their own grave when they work so hard to prevent piracy (copy protection etc). Because the ones who pay the price for this are the buyers, not the ones who download a cracked version for free.
Instead they should work for alternative solutions and beat piracy at its own game.
I dont think "free" is impossible to beat.

 

[cooldud87]

1. Piracy is NOT theft. Piracy is piracy. No physical game is taken from another person, a copy is made.

Fail.

Theft - "the act of stealing"
Stealing - Comes from the word steal (obviously).
Steal [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal] - "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force"

Dictionary: 1
You: 0

Do you take the property of another?

No?

No, you make a copy. It's not like someone walking into your house and taking your game.

Do you take something that doesn't belong to you?
Yes.

Do you have permission?
No.

Then it is STEALING. Show me where it says that stealing must be a physical item. And if it doesn't, I guess I can take your bank account number, transfer you funds to my account, and enjoy myself. That isn't wrong... I'm not walking into your house and taking something, am I?

I swear I want to go around about beat people on this site with a logic stick. Downloading something is not making a copy of it. Where does the copying come in? It doesn't unless you download it and then copying it. Piracy isn't copying, copying something is copying. To copy it, you have to have it, and how do you have it without buying it? Stealing it.

Except you don't TAKE. Taking implies depriving one of his possession and attributing it to yourself. You make a copy of it, which doesn't equal taking, since it doesn't deprive anyone of any possession.

Here's the logic stick, give yourself a few whacks on the head. From a purely logical standpoint, piracy =/= stealing.

Downloading something is not making a copy of it.

Open mouth
Insert foot

Digitally, downloading uses the exact same mechanic as copying. You read the ones and zeroes and reproduce them to your hard drive. The only difference is that instead of going from your hard drive to your hard drive, it goes from somewhere else, gets modulated, passes a long distance, gets demodulated and enters your hard drive. Nothing of the above implies in any way, shape or form that the source material just disappears off the original drive it was stored on.

This here is /thread

 

[Eremiel]

I'm willing to bet that every single one of the people in this thread who so hate and despise piracy and pirates have mp3's on their computer. I'm also willing to bet that a good portion of them have pirated multiple games and/or movies and just don't have the guts to admit it.

You're all hypocrits.

I really need to make a drinking game for these sort of arguments; there's always someone who eventually tries this.

Incidentally, I admit that I have pirated in the past. I also admit that I was wrong to do so.

Incidentally, if a guy goes to jail for a crime and comes to solely regret his decisions, does it make him "hypocritical" for him to tell kids not to end up like him? Don't answer; that was rhetorical.

I didn't say "used to have". I said "has" on mp3's. If you have mp3's and oh-so-hate piracy, you're a hypocrit.

I don't. I think I deserve to see whether a game lives up to it's hype for free.

...by getting it for free. Nice attempted sidestep, though.

I'm not getting it for free. I'm getting a chance to test it out for free. I happen to live in a country where downloads are legal if deleted within 48 hours. It's considered much the same as a testing/grace period (something every consumer has a right to according to our laws). If I like the game, I'll buy it. I'd wager a fair bit of money that my collection of perfectly legit games is bigger than yours. Nice assumption, though.

 

[numaiomul]

a very close relative died today. she went in the hospital on her own feet and one and a half month later she came out in a coffin. she was diagnosed wrong about 6 time and she was in surgery about 3 times [the second and third to repair the damage done from the first surgery] in the end she had a kidney failure because of poor hydration in the hospital, her brain had internal bleeding [don't know the term], she had multiple infections caused from surgeries, she was delirious most of the time because of the poor medicine they gave her. i don't need pity i want to tell you how hospitals are in my country. we go in with a routine problem and because of lack of funds and preparation we die.

we ALL have pc games because we had a rush of internet cafes after '89 and after a decade most we're broke so they had to sell their units for some profit. besides 2 parts from my computer i have it in a discussion with a store clerk. he tell me where they throw parts out and i collect. so currently i am sick of tired of all the cry-babies that say piracy is bad just because they can afford it and other people don't. in our country piracy is something common, buying the game being the exception. why? economic crisis, extremely bad economic and huge taxes. i'm not saying that most pirates in the country will start paying for games if they had the opportunity. but a big lot of them which are sick of cheap copies will work for they game given the right method [ads, server time etc]. i repeat. i, jack and the rest of the bunch i know are in high-school and we can get a job barely after university. i mean a part-time job that actually pays. so the job is out of question.
as i stated above i am trying to find income [ptc/ptr] but most are bogus. something directly from steam with be a huge oportunity.

secondly: jack's family doesn't have enough money a month to give him food at school [not the cordon-bleu type, i mean bread and some butter].

jack sounds like an egoistical bastard. if they don't have the money for food at school,
then maybe jack should sell his computer/console so they can at least eat decently.
also, if jack plays his original games in multiplayer, then that means either the rest of his family, or online. I'm guessing online, since you can play pirated console games multiplayer if you have a second controller (and the game supports splitscreen).
so maybe they should save money off of their internet.

seriously, jack should stop whining about being poor and get his priorities straight:
basic needs for survival (food) > secondary needs (internet)

then that means either the rest of his family, or online.=? please rephrase so i can argue properly
secondly jack's family has no gaming abilities. he plays multiplayer with the few games he has.

what i mean is that if jack plays the games he acquired legally online, then that means he's not playing with his family. so that means his family needs to pay every month for their internet connection. but you said his family does not have enough money to give their kids food every day (the bread and butter thing). to go online you either need one of the newer game consoles (starting from gamecube, xbox and PS2 up to now) or a computer that can play games. none are very cheap (the cheapest i believe was the wii, but i heard PS3 dropped in price)

so that means that instead of investing in basic things like food, the family chose for videogames. as it's jack that plays videogames, it's safe to assume that the family did so at the request of jack. so jack would rather play videogames.

so the bottom line is that his family has got no food to pay for jack's gaming habits, and then jack claims they are too poor, and that's why he has to pirate games.

if jack would give up his internet connection, and sell his gaming device with games on ebay or something, i'm sure they'd have a little more food every month.

unless jack is that 14 year old russian kid that was on the escapist recently ._.

jacks family doesn't like video games the least. jacks internet connection is made for the business his mother is barely keeping up in this economic time. jack is helping as much as he can.
console =)))))) that's rich u put a smile to my face consoles are almost non existent in my world. i play guild wars:faction halo:combat evolved on my pc. the only console i had was a sega genesis and it was sold at age 7 to buy my school uniform.
oh and jack isn't poor compared to people in this country. he and his family are doing okay. which should put a question mark above you head.

1. Piracy is NOT theft. Piracy is piracy. No physical game is taken from another person, a copy is made.

Fail.

Theft - "the act of stealing"
Stealing - Comes from the word steal (obviously).
Steal [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal] - "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force"

Dictionary: 1
You: 0

Do you take the property of another?

No?

No, you make a copy. It's not like someone walking into your house and taking your game.

Do you take something that doesn't belong to you?
Yes.

Do you have permission?
No.

Then it is STEALING. Show me where it says that stealing must be a physical item. And if it doesn't, I guess I can take your bank account number, transfer you funds to my account, and enjoy myself. That isn't wrong... I'm not walking into your house and taking something, am I?

I swear I want to go around about beat people on this site with a logic stick. Downloading something is not making a copy of it. Where does the copying come in? It doesn't unless you download it and then copying it. Piracy isn't copying, copying something is copying. To copy it, you have to have it, and how do you have it without buying it? Stealing it.

Except you don't TAKE. Taking implies depriving one of his possession and attributing it to yourself. You make a copy of it, which doesn't equal taking, since it doesn't deprive anyone of any possession.

Here's the logic stick, give yourself a few whacks on the head. From a purely logical standpoint, piracy =/= stealing.

Downloading something is not making a copy of it.

Open mouth
Insert foot

Digitally, downloading uses the exact same mechanic as copying. You read the ones and zeroes and reproduce them to your hard drive. The only difference is that instead of going from your hard drive to your hard drive, it goes from somewhere else, gets modulated, passes a long distance, gets demodulated and enters your hard drive. Nothing of the above implies in any way, shape or form that the source material just disappears off the original drive it was stored on.

This here is /thread

god you made me see the light. your argument has forever changed the way i see piracy,games and transcendence. thank you for this explicit eye-opener.
a thread will close either when the people in question are idiots [which isn't the case here except 2-3 exceptions] or when a con-sense has been found. so just because you write /threat (which should pe [/thread]) won't make the smart people that say an opinion go away
ps: yes piracy is bad in it's way, no i do not encourage piracy i'm trying to encourage a movement toward providing games for people that lack alternatives.

 

[squid5580]

Well.. Im just going to use your own argument here..

Let's imagine that, with no alternative, 5% (a rather low number) of the people who have pirated the game buy it after they downloaded it illegaly and liked it.

That doesnt sound to unreasonable, does it? I became a huge fan of the Football Manager games after i played a pirated copy of it a couple of years ago and have bought every realease of it since that.

The thing is though, what do you think is a higher percentage of pirates: those who just want it for free and would otherwise buy it, or those who download a game and then decide to buy it?

I would say their about the same.. The biggest piece of the cake is probably the people who just downloads every thing they have the slightest interest in, because they can.
Hopefully this pushes the industry to make an alternative solution that makes piracy not worth it.
For example, in Sweden we have Spotify. Basicly its all the music in the world for 100 swedish kronor (about 12$) a month (or free with ads). A service thats better than piracy in so many ways that its just not worth the effort to download illegaly anymore

Sure but you aren't taking into account all of the legally free games on the net. It changes the excuse from I can't afford to play games to I can't afford to play that game.

I think you misunderstood me, my point is; I think the industry is digging their own grave when they work so hard to prevent piracy (copy protection etc). Because the ones who pay the price for this are the buyers, not the ones who download a cracked version for free.
Instead they should work for alternative solutions and beat piracy at its own game.
I dont think "free" is impossible to beat.

I agree with 99% of your post. The only part I don't agree with is the last sentence. It is much bigger than it just being free. There is also the early factor. I don't understand how or why it keeps happening but seeing copies of games coming out weeks earlier than the legit customer can get it is frustrating at times. Especially when you find out the copy they have been playing is just as good as the copy you waited and paid for.

 

[numaiomul]

Stealing is wrong. Piracy is stealing. /thread.

snip

I am well aware of the discrepancy between affordability of necessities and broadband and computers in many parts of the world thank you. It does not change the fact that this hypothetical person would be wiser to save what money he would spend on games and such for things he actually needs. Just because its cheap doesn't mean it's not a waste of money if you need other things.

You also have no clue what I would do in his situation. I have stopped buying games and canceled subscriptions when I couldn't afford them. "No other choice"? Please, Jacks aren't noble, do what ever it takes freedom fighters. They're people who don't have the scratch for something that they want so they steal it.

snip

If Jack and his country are so destitute, then he really doesn't have the time or the money to spend on games does he? Games are a luxury item and it sucks that there are haves and have-nots but at what point did not having enough money for something mean that you got it for free?

Yes, I pirate. All kinds of stuff, mostly anime and manga. The odd video game here and there. Yes I think it's wrong, but I don't particularly care. Most of the stuff I pirate I don't have the opportunity to pay for in the first place. I would stop if I really feared legal action. I don't think that there's anything that would make me pirate more, if I want something that badly and deem it worthy of my time I tend to pay for it.

guys i honestly love you

 

[squid5580]

I must admit I havent read every post here, cause its long, but it all follows the same pattern as other threads about piracy.
Can we perhaps compromise and all agree on a few points?

1: Piracy reduces sales of games and music. There are always people who, even when they have the means to purchase something will take the free route.

2: The reduction in sales is much less than the number of games pirated. Taking Jack as an example, with no money for games, whether he pirates the game or not, there is no loss of money. The only difference in the two different realities is that Jack plays the game in one, and not in the other. The location of money is still the same.

3: Pirating is Copyright infringement, or something, not THEFT. Downloading a copy of a game or movie is not the same as stealing an item. Its closer to stealing an idea. Every time I see someone say 'would you steal a car...' I think 'what an idiot'. Those comparisons is like saying that if you take a photo of the Mona Lisa its the same as stealing the orriginal. If we follow the logic of piracy being the exact same as regular theft, then standing outside a persons house and watching a movie on their TV through a window without their permission would be theft, just like you broke in and took the movie.
When a physical object is stolen, it leaves where it was and goes somewhere else, there is something MISSING. When something is downloaded, there is nothing that goes missing from anyone. There is merely a new, unauthorized item that springs into existence. Piracy is still illegal, but it is completely different than the taking of a physical object. If pirates broke into game stores, it would be a different story...

4: There are several degrees of pirate.
There are some who buy the games they download but really like.
There are those who only pirate games they lost the orriginal CD for.
There are those who buy the games they really want, and only take copies of ones they had no intention of ever buying.
There are those who never buy a game or music or movie cause its cheaper to pirate them. And oddly, the people who download the most games and movies are often the ones who dont have time to play/watch any of them, but I digress...
There are those who pirate most things, but buy the games they cant find online, or that have really good multiplayer copy protection.
There is the example of Jack - who only pirates games he could not purchase even though he wants to.
Can we agree that some of those degrees are more damaging to the industry than others? Shades of grey people.

No they are all doing the same damage. When a company finds out X many pirated thier game the reasons why it was pirated don't matter to them. They don't care if it was lack of funds, 3rd world country or it was for "demo" purposes (which is a load of horseshit if I ever heard it). All the company sees is X many pirated it. So the company does the same thing we do when there si a burglar on the prowl, they lock thier doors and hope no one has the right tools to break the locks. And hand out the keys to the paying customers. Unfortunately these locks are bloody inconvenient at times so would be paying customers don't buy the game. Which is hurting the industry. Everyone likes to point fingers at Ubisoft for thier DRM. But you know what it isn't thier fault. You wanna know who to blame for it at the end of the day? PIRATES!! It isn't thier fault they have to try and do everything they can to stop it. Since no one else will lift a finger to help them.

I will give you one thing though. You are right they aren't thieves. They are parasites.

 

[Gincairn]

Piracy is STEALING.

Don't try and excuse it, it is against the law and encourages comapanies like Ubisoft to create annoying DRM's that patronize the good law abiding user who doesn't steal games.

Don't make me show you those piracy ad's if you need more explaining.

Also Jack is an idiot, Good day Sir!

That's trash, most pirates know ways to get past draconian DRM in the first place or it's broken within days and pirated even more (Spore anyone?) saying something is unhackable is like waving a red flag to a bull as far as hackers/pirates are concerned.

the DRM is put there entirely to keep people like YOU. . . Yes YOU who went out and bought the game honest, they give the excuse that it's there to prevent piracy to make it sound important but they know it's about as useful and welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.

I used to pirate games years ago in the days of the SNES, but now I don't see the point as i'm earning and able to pay for the items that I want.

But you can't blame pirates for publisher DRM, because to be honest the pirates just bypass it anyway it causes them no problems, therefore the only people it has any effect on are the honest gamers who bought the product. I don't stand for it, as a result I don't buy their products anymore, voting with my wallet ftw.

 

[Eremiel]

"oh, are you saying you've never illegally downloaded a song?"
no i'm not. i'm saying i downloaded some, and bought the ones i liked from things like Itunes and other services (and threw the others in the bin, no need for them to take up space on my hard drive).

Then you're a hypocrite if you rant, rave and hate on the people who pirate games to see whether they like'em or not.

 

[TPiddy]

No one said you should pay for a game. You have the financial possibilities to make the choice of buying games [probably even regularly] and you made it. most of us in my country don't have that choice available. i'm not saying we're good or bad i'm saying we're a bit more limited.

Yes, you are limited. So much so that you should not be able to play games you can't afford. That is the point. The point I was making is that no one in the world is going to differentiate between your case and the case of someone who can afford games but steals them anyways, because games are non-essential and not important enough to have that distinction made.