My beef with piracy.

[tomtom94]

Now, the thread about the Obama administration's plans is filled with enough examples of this that I refuse to return there.

Spoiler

People's privacy should not be invaded. However personally I'm surprised the internet isn't monitored more strongly than it already is. In England I believe your internet history is held by the government for 12 months then deleted, should they need to use it against you.

This is not invading people's privacy. This is keeping people's internet history in the short term so that they have it if you commit a crime and they need evidence. If they didn't do this then the law which governs us would be unenforcable.

What people seem to be after is a world where the internet is left unfettered, because breaking the law is of greater benefit to Hollywood, they just don't realise it because they're too busy with their money baths.

But anyway.
My problem with piracy is the justifications, the "It's try before you buy / free advertising", the "It's because prices are too expensive" excuses.

I'm sorry, but that is like somebody driving away from a petrol station without paying because they want to protest against high petrol prices.

Sure, you get your petrol, until the police show up and arrest you. They don't arrest you because you represent a threat to bureaucracy and they want you silenced, they arrest you because you committed a crime. You didn't pay the price for the petrol you used.

Joe Biden called it "theft". It's not hyperbole - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. You are taking a service without paying.

If you want a CD but don't want to pay the full price - just wait a few months. CDs decrease in price. Same with DVDs, same with games.
If you don't want the publishers and record companies to get rich, you can buy one second hand.
If you still believe yourself to be vindicated, feel free to argue with me - if you can find a way of proving this without using any of the above I shall be impressed.

(Oh, and anyone who says "Everybody does it" as an excuse...you have been warned.)

I'm anticipating this thread devolving quickly into a flame war and being locked. Please attempt to prove me wrong.

 

[delet]

This will be my answer to every piracy thread from now on. Yes, piracy is bad and all.

 

[infinity_turtles]

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Torrent sites are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

There are only three real differences; amount of content, ease of access, social acceptance.

 

[DuplicateValue]

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Torrent sites are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

There are only three real differences; amount of content, ease of access, social acceptance.

That is..........a very good point. Never thought of that...

 

[Luftwaffles]

Well.....you know how american series dont air till much later in other countries? Sometimes some people just want to watch them. For example, it took NZtv aaaaaages to start airing Futurama, and it one of my favourite shows. Now the new season is coming out, i dont think they would start the new season anytime soon.
I only pay for what i think is worth it. (but then how much will we pay if we get caught right?)

 

[Radeonx]

Yes, pirating is bad.
Do I care? Not really.
I may or may not pirate games all of the time. Is it stealing? Maybe. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.
So if it could be equivalent to anything, it would be burning a disc of a game and letting people use it for a monthly membership.

 

[JanatUrlich]

I know it's illegal, but that's not going to stop me. You are assuming that everyone has morals.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Yes, pirating is bad.
Do I care? Not really.
I may or may not pirate games all of the time. Is it stealing? Maybe. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.
So if it could be equivalent to anything, it would be burning a disc of a game and letting people use it for a monthly membership.

Or they rely on donated books. Still, for a game to be uploaded it has to be bought once first as well. And I've never been to a library that charged me a fee for anything other than late returns and damaged books. Anyway, the owner of the IP isn't making money from the place after the first sale in either case.

 

[Radeonx]

Yes, pirating is bad.
Do I care? Not really.
I may or may not pirate games all of the time. Is it stealing? Maybe. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.
So if it could be equivalent to anything, it would be burning a disc of a game and letting people use it for a monthly membership.

Or they rely on donated books. Still, for a game to be uploaded it has to be bought once first as well. And I've never been to a library that charged me a fee for anything other than late returns and damaged books. Anyway, the owner of the IP isn't making money from the place after the first sale in either case.

I suppose that's true.
Well, I actually kind of have a justification for when people nag me for pirating.
I'm going to use that analogy, if you don't mind.

 

[Matt_LRR]

Now, the thread about the Obama administration's plans is filled with enough examples of this that I refuse to return there.

Spoiler

People's privacy should not be invaded. However personally I'm surprised the internet isn't monitored more strongly than it already is. In England I believe your internet history is held by the government for 12 months then deleted, should they need to use it against you.

This is not invading people's privacy. This is keeping people's internet history in the short term so that they have it if you commit a crime and they need evidence. If they didn't do this then the law which governs us would be unenforcable.

What people seem to be after is a world where the internet is left unfettered, because breaking the law is of greater benefit to Hollywood, they just don't realise it because they're too busy with their money baths.

But anyway.
My problem with piracy is the justifications, the "It's try before you buy / free advertising", the "It's because prices are too expensive" excuses.

I'm sorry, but that is like somebody driving away from a petrol station without paying because they want to protest against high petrol prices.

Sure, you get your petrol, until the police show up and arrest you. They don't arrest you because you represent a threat to bureaucracy and they want you silenced, they arrest you because you committed a crime. You didn't pay the price for the petrol you used.

Joe Biden called it "theft". It's not hyperbole - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. You are taking a service without paying.

If you want a CD but don't want to pay the full price - just wait a few months. CDs decrease in price. Same with DVDs, same with games.
If you don't want the publishers and record companies to get rich, you can buy one second hand.
If you still believe yourself to be vindicated, feel free to argue with me - if you can find a way of proving this without using any of the above I shall be impressed.

(Oh, and anyone who says "Everybody does it" as an excuse...you have been warned.)

I'm anticipating this thread devolving quickly into a flame war and being locked. Please attempt to prove me wrong.

The issue is not that it isn't theft. The issue is that technology has denmocratized consumption, and the companies at the heart of the issue have failed to react, adapt, and cater to these new consumption methods in an effective way.

Media companies are adamant about retaining their control over the consumtion habits of customers, and desire to direct the path of the industry themselves.

The fact of the matter is that piracy, theft or not, DOES serve a functional purpose for consumers aside from simply taking shit they want without paying.

The ability to try before you buy, as it were (which, as evidenced by the consumption patterns of pirates, is a pretty common pattern of behavior), allows customers to identify and expose themselves to more media, and to more knowledgably direct their money towards artists and content creators that they feel have earned it. The democratization of media allows consumers to identify products they don't like, preventing them from wasting money,a nd allowing them to spend that money on products they do.

Legal Consumption in this manner isn't inherently costing media companies money. More simply it's made consurmers much more avid, efficient consumers of media, and has granted us a much greater ability to direct industry trends.

Under the old model of content distribution, media finding and exploration present HUGE financial obstacles consumers. This is what generated the pop superstar back in the 50's and 60's. With those obstacles being torn down, the industry has seen a huge surge of indie artists, and unknowns getting significant exposure. The industry is seeing fewer big, easily bankable stars, but the tradeoff is thousands upon thousands of niche markets, scrambling for more.

The industry needs to work at monetizing and catering to this new breath of taste, and they need to bereak down the barries of media exploration. Understand that people want to know what they're spending their money on before that money is spent, and the industry needs to find ways of providing that access to information in a low-investment way.

It's not impossible to rebuild an industry model around consumer need. But the way to curb piracy, and wrap these people into the fold is decidedly not to call them all criminals and sue them into the dark ages.

It's also not to cling vehemently to a distribution model that was born there.


A person who pirates 1000 CDs, but buys 100 of their favorites is doing a great deal more to support the industry than a person who bought 5 or 6 nickelback records, and Big Shiny Tunes 3.

-m

edit: it's also worthy of note - in the old model it's up to the industry to find, identify, and build fanbases for artists. Under the new model we do that for them.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Yes, pirating is bad.
Do I care? Not really.
I may or may not pirate games all of the time. Is it stealing? Maybe. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.
So if it could be equivalent to anything, it would be burning a disc of a game and letting people use it for a monthly membership.

Or they rely on donated books. Still, for a game to be uploaded it has to be bought once first as well. And I've never been to a library that charged me a fee for anything other than late returns and damaged books. Anyway, the owner of the IP isn't making money from the place after the first sale in either case.

I suppose that's true.
Well, I actually kind of have a justification for when people nag me for pirating.
I'm going to use that analogy, if you don't mind.

Aye, glad that you be doin' that me hearty. Spread the word to all them sprogs that all us Library goers deserve to be known as mighty buccaneers under the grand ol' Jolly Roger.

 

[DSK-]

It's stealing but not in the normal sense of the word. Stealing to me means taking something from someone else that doesn't belong to me. Something that is physically in the world. That is not the case with digital information. You don't 'see' the vicims (if there are any - they still make money regardless).

I only see one reason why people consider it bad and stealing, and that is that the powers that be (the developers, publishers, writers, performers - whatever the case may be) won't earn any money on the potential sales of the products that are pirated.

Someone buy's a game from a retailer and pays full money for it. Then they pirate it and share it to people on the internet. There are copies made of that specific game and copy of said game.

With the digital age upon us it is become hard to see the between the lines.


The bottom line is this: Why pay for something which you can get for free?

yes, I know it is not free in every sense of the word, but it's simply a case of "ooh I like that". *Downloads*

 

[Matt_LRR]

Yo wouldn't download a purse.
You wouldn't download a car.
You wouldn't download a girlfriend.

Yes I would.

I download a girlfriend nightly... :\

-m

 

[Pecoros7]

library

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Torrent sites are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

There are only three real differences; amount of content, ease of access, social acceptance.

That is..........a very good point. Never thought of that...

No. That's not a good point. That isn't how libraries work. With libraries, you don't retain the intellectual property you borrow. It has to be returned or you have to pay for it. Libraries also obtain their content through a distributor under license for the owner of the intellectual property. The content was made available to the library for rental purposes with the informed consent of the creator. If the creator of the original work doesn't want the book/movie/whatever in the library, they don't distribute it to libraries.

Torrent sites distribute intellectual property without consent of the creator or appropriate license holder. They distribute full copies of the content for indefinite use. Most software distributed by torrent sites comes with an EULA which represents a binding contract that is being broken by distributing the software and usually comes packaged with the means to bypass DRM which is also illegal.

Summary: Libraries have permission from the content's creator. Torrent sites don't.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

When you steal gas from the gas station you've actually damaged someone because the supply of gas is finite and quantities are limited. Digital property has the advantage of being infinitely multiplyable, when you download something, you don't deduct it from a limited supply, you create an extra copy. You don't make damage, at least not any more damage than you cause by just not buying something. It's like going to the gas station and magically spawning another gallon of fuel in your tank with your mind and leaving. It's not theft. The issue is whether you have the right to do this and enjoy something for free while others are paying for it. And the library analogy is sort of on the side of yeah, you do...

 

[RanD00M]

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.

Well someone had to buy the original to be pirated.So it is kinda like a library.

OTiracy can't be stopped.It's kinda like anonymous.It is anonymous,therefor there is no one to put the blame on.So you can't punish it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Yes, pirating is bad.
Do I care? Not really.
I may or may not pirate games all of the time. Is it stealing? Maybe. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

How about this justification:

Libraries are places that host other people's intellectual property that you can view for free while the creator makes no money off of it, whether you enjoy it or not.

Actually, libraries must purchase the books.
So if it could be equivalent to anything, it would be burning a disc of a game and letting people use it for a monthly membership.

Except a library card is free, and the person who initially uploaded the file in question had to either buy it, rent it from some place, or check it out from a library. This isn't smashing in the window and stealing a DVD so much as it is going to a friends house and having a movie day.

The copyright holders have blown this way out of proportion, but they get away with it because of all the money they have to throw at PR. I remember when, a few years back, the RIAA tried to get the royalty rates raised to a ridiculous, prohibitive rate on internet radio. The backlash from that alone was bad enough, but once it became known that the actual artists rarely get the royalty checks in question -- never, in the cases of independent or foreign artists, who make up a sizable portion of internet radio playlists -- it seemed even more ludicrous. Point is, this is profit driven, and moreso on the publishers' side than on the devs'/artists' sides; there's just not a lot of money at stake either way for the actual content creators, unless they publish all of their own stuff like Stardock or Valve.

Edit: Majorly ninja'd. In my defense, it took me quite a while to write that, as I kept getting interrupted.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

If you can pay for (or save up and pay for) a game then you are a total dick for pirating.

If you don't have the money or the means to purchase a game then you are not a total dick for pirating.


It is as simple as that really.