Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

[MisterShine]

But ignoring all that, none of the semantics change the fact that two games/cds/dvds/etc, sold at the same price and produced for the same initial cost, if they both sell [x] amount of units, will make exactly the same amount of money regardless of how many times either of them is pirated; game #1 could have 1,000 illegal copies floating around the nets, and game #2 could have 1,000,000, but if they both sold 40,000 copies, then they both sold 40,000 copies. There is simply no way to equate that reality with the concept of "flat, unadulterated theft" - differentiating between legal definitions and what we say in public symposiums and online is bloody important, because people NEED to know the difference.

And allowing piracy (or rather, allowing what pathetic measures are in place now to continue being ineffectual) causes lost sales. Period. We all know that it does. Yes, what the RIAA does and when a company says something like "A million people pirated our 60 dollar game! We lost 60 million dollars!", it makes my head want bleed from every orifice, and while equating each count of piracy with a lost sale is complete bullshit, it still causes lost sales.

Whenever you see news stories about increasingly draconian DRM, or ludicrous fees levied against people who used filesharing applications, you'll see whole hosts of misguided forum-goers agreeing with the companies eroding their rights and treating paying customers like thieves, agreeing with strongarm tactics employed against scapegoats, people not questioning the industry line when that industry line is comprised of bullshit.

Companies have every right to protect their products however they wish, as long as the customer knows what's the deal beforehand. I think what they choose to do sometimes is futile and/or ridiculous, but it is still their product and I wouldn't ever tell them they couldn't legally do as they wish with the rights to distribute that product.

It is bullshit when huge fines are levied against such small offences (like that women who is getting charged 600k for 26 songs), but those companies have every right to seek punitive damages against people that hurt their business. That woman (and every pirate) broke the law and violated the companies right to sell their product as they wish, and should be punished for that. All 25.76$ it would have cost her to buy them legally. Plus legal fees.

The folks giving the Obama administration money want them to equate piracy with theft, because people know "theft is wrong", and they want you to think piracy is killing their industries (because of all those people stealing from them!). They want you to think this because they want you to agree with them when they employ under-handed tactics that erode your rights as a consumer, rather than crying foul as you quite rightly should.

The rights you have as a consumer are whether or not to purchase the product as it is offered to you. Piracy IS hurting the industry. People ARE stealing from those companies/individuals. Grossly exaggerated, used as a means to do underhanded things? Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that piracy is a problem and needs to be tackled.

Letting the fallacy that theft and copyright infringement are essentially the same stand unquestioned, in spite of the facts that there is nothing stolen when copyright is infringed and each unauthorized copy cannot even be attributed to a sale lost while theft is taking somebody else's property away from them, is therefore injurious to a reasoned defence of consumer rights and something we should not let slide because "in essence, they're the same". They are not.

I'd point out that we have "identity theft", and nothing is removed from the person other than what they might be able to do (taking out loans and such), sort of like how pirating a game removes the possibility that an amoral person would ever buy the product later.

With piracy, you are thieving away a companies right to distribute their product as they please. They no longer have that ability if their product is available for free elsewhere.

(people who pirate might have no money in the first place, might never have even considered buying the product if they couldn't pirate, etc)

And while I have no personal issue with people pirating as a demo or because they are broke, that doesn't mean they are entitled to it and should be protected. That's just ridiculous.

As a final note, I think a little more highly of the general population to understand that internet piracy and storefront theft are two different things in practice, but not in intent. You're taking something you don't have a right to.

 

[Mikkaddo]

I just lost respect for this administration.

two words for you

politics and bullshit

as a wise man both said "in most every situation a man finds himself in, those two words are almost always impossible to tell apart" no matter what administration you find yourself chained to, never, NEVER think they completely have your back, because . . . like everyone before them . . . the next administration will be just as much judged by . . . say it with me kids . . .

politics and bullshit.

plain and simple.

 

[MisterShine]

I highly doubt that netflix is paying for more than a few hundred or thousand copies of the same movies, basically they are taking the money they make renting you your movies to buy more movies from the same company,

True, and the companies agree to this deal. They don't agree with pirates giving away their stuff to anyone who comes along and downloads it.

so if pirates pay for a game/cd/movie then download a copy for convenience (using the game on a flashcart to avoid having 30+ game cards, watching the movie on their Ipod or whatever, using an MP3 for songs) it should be legal, of course enforcing that idea is far too hard as I may pay for a game then return it, and keep the pirated copy.

Actually, I'm fairly certain that keeping a digital copy of something you own IS legal, at least in the U.S. It's just if you sell/trade that original away, you must delete the copy. Now I'm not 100% certain of that, but I've seen it quite a few places. And if it isn't, I agree with you that it should be. Hell, I do it myself

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

I was one of the first downloaders. I loved anime music, which was nigh impossible to find anyway. Heck, most of the 90s anime music on the net is there because I put it there. It was paradise.

Now I have a job and work in the anime industry. Everywhere I look I see ruin. I see companies laying off 70% of their workforce. I see anime stores stocked with things fans love and need, yet aren't buying--because they stole it. I see the PEOPLE. These people were once well-rewarded for what they did. Now they struggle to survive--some don't.

Tower Records went under. They used to buy a lot of anime, spending millions. Now they're dead. See what piracy did? It killed the music chain that was feeding the anime business. Now they are $1 million short and can no longer afford to pay 30 people.

Some say downloading was good for new and independent artists to get their music out. Really? Everybody musician I've met seems to also need a day job. Their music is getting out, sure, but isn't "musician" supposed to be a job? Multiplying the number of People With Songs Available by 1000 divides the money each artist gets by 1000. That's why my lead vocalist friend is a lawyer now.

This is a national growing pain. This phenomenon is less than 15 years old and we aren't sure what to do about it. Worse, it began as a new thing that no one thought would hurt anyone. By the time the pain resonated in the industry it was too late; Americans already had a mentality that they could use their new technology to get movies and music for free. Pyschologically it doesn't resonate as theft with anyone because no one is in a store.

Am I mad that Obama calls this theft? 10 years ago, yes. I'd think he was raining on my parade--we'd finally found a way to get anime and anime music. Am I mad now? Not after what I've seen. It's easy to hate the soulless corporations that sue children, and it's hard to sympathize with something that only made $13 billion instead of $16 billion. How about the thousands upon thousands of people are out of work now that Tower Records and Hollywood Video are gone, and Blockbuster is about to declare Chapter 11? How about the dedicated fans who sought to make a living doing what they loved, now their fortune is yanked out from under them and they're barely scraping by?

Obama is right for wanting to fix this. It really IS stealing. Try selling a DVD. People actually admit, right in front of me, they got my $20 DVD for free. I paid for that DVD. If it doesn't sell, I've lost that money. And I'm not some megacorp where I can write off millions for shoplifiting or compensate using stock dividends--that pirate just turned my potential $10 gain into a $10 loss. Every 100 times that happens is someone's paycheck. How many movies are on your hard drive? Yes, the porn counts.

 

[Blind Sight]

Hey Obama, you know what else is stealing? Planning to hike up social security rates, and then telling everyone it will benefit them in the long run, only to have the Cato Institute point out that it was simply a way to solve the Social Security deficit without spending other government money. Oh wait...he did that...in 2008. Seriously, I don't really think that the majority of people in the government have the right to criticize stealing. They practice legalized stealing known as 'taxes', sure, but in the end it's always backed up by the barrel of a gun.

I just lost respect for this administration.

two words for you

politics and bullshit

as a wise man both said "in most every situation a man finds himself in, those two words are almost always impossible to tell apart" no matter what administration you find yourself chained to, never, NEVER think they completely have your back, because . . . like everyone before them . . . the next administration will be just as much judged by . . . say it with me kids . . .

politics and bullshit.

plain and simple.

"The Oval Office carpet is thick with Presidential semen. They look out of the window, think "I own you all" and jack off like ugly apes in humping season. It's what they live for. No one who wants that is to be trusted. Why can't you all see that?" -Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan.

Thought that quote fit your point perfectly.

 

[Cliff_m85]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/08/obama-administration-piracy-is-flat-unadulterated-theft.ars

Pirates beware. Obama is coming to kick your butt. =P

Why should I care his opinion? He's a politician, they're known thieves and liars.

 

[MisterShine]

I was one of the first downloaders. I loved anime music, which was nigh impossible to find anyway. Heck, most of the 90s anime music on the net is there because I put it there. It was paradise.

Now I have a job and work in the anime industry. Everywhere I look I see ruin. I see companies laying off 70% of their workforce. I see anime stores stocked with things fans love and need, yet aren't buying--because they stole it. I see the PEOPLE. These people were once well-rewarded for what they did. Now they struggle to survive--some don't.

Tower Records went under. They used to buy a lot of anime, spending millions. Now they're dead. See what piracy did? It killed the music chain that was feeding the anime business. Now they are $1 million short and can no longer afford to pay 30 people.

Please don't say "pirating killed the industry" without providing some solid evidence to that fact. There have been some major economic downturns recently and everyone is feeling a crunch, plus the fact maybe they just aren't marketing right or there simply aren't enough consumers to make such purchases viable? Economics has 1,000,000 factors all interacting in real time, don't say it was just one element of a complex web.

 

[Lord Devius]

Well, from what I know about pirated PC copies, most of them can't access multiplayer (don't want online verification of a bad copy, after all), and can't give out trophies as achievements usually use Windows Live or Steam. Not to mention, many pirated PC games downgrade the cutscene quality to save download space.

Also, (just throwing it out here) some pirated games remove cutscenes entirely.

I haven't encountered any games in which pirated copies have lower-quality or removed cutscenes (and I've downloaded a lot of games, older and new-ish). Most of the time, it's a combination disc image (or setup executable) and crack for the game, which means it quite literally is what you would have gotten in a box copy (or official digital download), with a crack to nullify the DRM.

If that's actually happened in games in the last 10 years, I'd like some examples, because that just... seems odd.

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

Letting the fallacy that theft and copyright infringement are essentially the same stand unquestioned, in spite of the facts that there is nothing stolen when copyright is infringed and each unauthorized copy cannot even be attributed to a sale lost (people who pirate might have no money in the first place, might never have even considered buying the product if they couldn't pirate, etc) while theft is taking somebody else's property away from them, is therefore injurious to a reasoned defence of consumer rights and something we should not let slide because "in essence, they're the same". They are not.

You rail against fallacy but seek solace in semantics? Theft, piracy. They destroy all the same. If I club your knee with something, it's broken. If hitting knees with a baseball bat is illegal, would you defend me by saying "it was a lead pipe?"

It's probably true that record companies inflate loss estimates for their sob stories. The method of such inflation is to count each download, not each download committed by someone with the money to buy it. But you're forgetting one thing: If you're in a store and you have no money, doesn't that mean you can't take anything out of the store?

The record companies can't have it both ways though. If it's theft, shoplifting penalties should apply.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Russian government has been saying exactly that for a long time, however piracy is still in issue. Well, several people ended in jail, but only for uploading files, downloading is still not punished.
Let's see what happens in USA.

 

[Darth Pope]

Finally. One more thing I agree with the man on.

Which brings the list to 5 things. I'm not a big fan of Democrats or Republicans. I agree with the democrats on social issues like gay rights and abortion, but I agree with the Republicans on financial issues.

Finally. One more thing I agree with the man on.

Which brings the list to 5 things. I'm not a big fan of Democrats or Republicans. I agree with the democrats on social issues like gay rights and abortion, but I agree with the Republicans on financial issues.

Hooray! Your a Libertarian!

 

[Robby Foxfur]

Thanks Obama I can use a dictionary too :3, but seriously is the Obama administration just gonna repeat things most people know already?

 

[Blind Sight]

Finally. One more thing I agree with the man on.

Which brings the list to 5 things. I'm not a big fan of Democrats or Republicans. I agree with the democrats on social issues like gay rights and abortion, but I agree with the Republicans on financial issues.

Finally. One more thing I agree with the man on.

Which brings the list to 5 things. I'm not a big fan of Democrats or Republicans. I agree with the democrats on social issues like gay rights and abortion, but I agree with the Republicans on financial issues.

Hooray! Your a Libertarian!

He'll have to learn to speak Libertarian. There's alot of eye-rolling involved.

Mr. president, learn economics.

it might be theft, but the rewards of doing it is just too much and the cost for not stealing is too high.

When companies support the FREE FUCKING MARKET and stop their cartels and price fixing we'll talk.

Amen, my reasonable friend, perhaps Obama needs to read 'the Road to Serfdom' and realize he's the problem, not the solution.

 

[Charisma]

I'd be fine with this if they actually charged the people with the actual price of the things pirated, but no that's not good enough, they have to ruin some teenage lives.

Seriously, where the Hell is justice if a kid can pirate $35's worth of mp3s and get sued for fucking six digit figures?

There's no denying piracy is theft, but the men in white coats would like to have a word with you if you think the victims of anti-piracy lawsuits are getting no less than they deserve.

Also I think the Two Wrongs sentiment has relevance here.

But I'm not sure. (JK I am.)

 

[Mikkaddo]

Yes, if everyone who bought used titles now pirated them instead, 3rd parties like Gamestop would face loses because of piracy - obviously I don't particularly care about them, and while I'm fully aware that rights of resale are a well established facet of transactional economy, as a PC gamer I effectively don't have any such right anyways - I can't even return opened software, only exchange it.

I like your response, let me add one thing. The Draconian DRM has actually become even more a joke recently than it ever was before as the companies have decided to define the terms of "digital products" as anything and everything. Have you tried to read the descriptions in the official laws about piracy and what qualifies a line of code as "yours"? Even if you go line by line you won't get a straight answer out of it because the definition it gives is that if you paid for it, it's yours, but you don't own it cuz the game company can take it back without notice. But if it's "stolen" by another user you can get it back with interest, but the company can choose to deny it out right for any reason they choose but if you go to court over it, it doesn't count as official property because it's digital not physical.

Let me ask you . . . did that last bit make ANY sense to you? yeah . . . me neither. The idea of piracy gets even more confusing though. It's only theft technically if the original copy is stolen. Yes a copyright has been broken by copying the data, but you've not removed it . . . you've not removed the game from circulation by copying it.

If a pirate steals a physical copy and then cracks the code and spreads it as a download yes, it will in that case be an official case of "flat unadulterated theft" however, if a pirate (usually someone who not only is well off enough to have a state of the art computer, but is smart enough to know how to crack a brand new game (including getting past up to date DRM) and is obviously well off enough to be able to AFFORD THE FUCKING GAME. This is hardly out right theft. Illegal, certainly, you're keeping a game store and game company from possible sales. But out right theft? flat, "unadulterated" theft? no . . . not at all.

UNDERSTAND I AM NOT SUPPORTING PIRACY BY ANY NOTATION what I am doing here is trying to draw a clear line. Piracy is not theft: it is copyright infringement Mr. President. Run with that . . . go wild, tell the nation if you please, but make the clear distinction, the clear, obvious and intelligent distinction between theft and copyright infringement. The gaming public will thank you for being one of the first outside OF the gaming community to not blindly call all gaming evil, or all game enthusiasts (you're welcome Yahtzee) criminals. Piracy can be damaging, but damaging broad span DRM is killing us as a people.

A final note: TO ALL GAME DEVS AND GAME COMPANIES: DRM THAT NEVER TURNS OFF AND STACKS ON TOP OF EACH OTHER IS KILLING US, MY PC HAD TO BE FLASHED BECAUSE OF YOUR FUCKING DRM I HAVE NEVER PIRATED A GAME I HAVE BLEED OUT THE CASH EACH TIME FOR THE GAMES I WANTED SO BADLY ONLY TO FIND AFTER A WHILE THAT MY COMPUTER WAS GOING TO BE PERMANENTLY DEADLY SLOW BECAUSE OF THEM UNLESS I WENT TO DRASTIC MEASURES THANK YO FOR KILLING A HARDDRIVE

 

[coolman9899]

omg wow, watch Obama kick him self in the ass as the acta destroys the internet