Piracy, simply put.

[bad rider]

Really, this thread again? We all here have heard this, unless you're new here, but seeing as your join date is in 2009, not likely...

OT:

Aren't we accustomed to screwing people over by now?

No, I am not fond of "screwing people over"...

Where is that picture from? Because, its awesome.

Sorry for thread derailment.

 

[TheTurtleMan]

Nope, it's still stealing. I don't think that pirating is that bad or hurts anyone except for the developers, although it's still illegal. Download whatever the hell you want, just don't try and justify it. At the end of the day, it's still acquiring an item that would normally cost legal tender. Forget about the corporations or the evil publishers, it's still morally wrong in my opinion.

 

[saruman31]

I never seen anyone starving because of piracy. It`s as simple as that.

 

[BrassButtons]

Piracy's not stealing, because nothing is taken.

You're right, it's not stealing. It's copyright infringement.

Which is so terrible.

My point wasn't that copyright infringement is terrible, but that defending piracy by saying it isn't theft is a straw man argument. It's like trying to defend trespassing by showing how it isn't arson.

If anything is lost

Copyright infringement isn't about things being lost any more than trespassing laws are about things being burned down.

it's a few bucks out of the pockets of the guys who know next to nothing about games, care nothing for putting out good ones, and only want more money from consumers.

Keeping in mind that this is an argument against the idea of piracy as theft, your claim is that people who don't understand games, don't make good ones (why pirate them then?), and only want to make money (as opposed to all those people who work every day for a song and a dance), should have different legal rights than everyone else. This is discrimination.

The guys who have actually spent a day in their lives toiling away at making those games you love happen are the ones down below, who had to give up all rights to their own IP just so it could see the light of day.

They didn't have to do anything. They entered into a voluntary agreement with the company they work for. That decision was between them and their employer, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of the deal.

I never really thought it over until Jim brought it up, but all Copyright law is doing in these cases is screwing over the people who deserve the rights to their own games.

If you agree to give up the copyright to something then you no longer deserve it, because you gave it away. Similarly if I agree to give away my computer I no longer deserve rights to use it because I gave those rights up.

If you pirate a small game like Jamestown, I have a bone to pick with you. But if you pirate MW3 I couldn't give any fewer shits than I already do, because the people who stand to lose anything over that $60 sale are not the ones who toiled away for hours on the straps on a dozen soldiers' boots or recording gun sounds and tweaking them for hours to get them just right. They're the ones who decided $60 was a fair asking price after the 3th carbon copy of CoD4, and that they had to make MORE money by pushing out expensive map packs and online service subscriptions.

Either copyright laws apply to everyone equally--meaning that both small indie developers and big corporations get the exact same protection, and pirating from either is wrong--or you're discriminating against a group that has done nothing wrong (and entering into voluntary agreements is not wrong, even if you disagree with what they agreed to. You're not part of the agreement, so your opinion of it doesn't matter).

 

[DELTA440]

i say piracy is ok if you purchased the product and need to get it agian example i bought warhammer 40k soul storm i had wanted to play agian but realised i had lost the cd so i downloaded it its absoluetly legal considering under the law a person is legally allowed to back up their data since i bought the game i owned it so i had the right to download it found the torrent on piratebay and got my game back. saved me money so i didnt have to pay twice for something i already own the same goes for those who purchased software that has become damaged could be corrupt data or damaged disc if your bought it you sure as hell should be able to download it agian.

 

[I Have No Idea]

My landlord is probably not going to like the idea of me re-prioritizing my expenditures to the purchase of entertainment products.

If you're concerned about cost, then maybe you should cut down on gaming or shouldn't have bought a console/decent game PC.

Some say you shouldn't download stuff you can't or don't want to afford. Why? Who's that helping? Who's getting paid in Karma points?

Uh, yeah. Because if you can't pay for it, then don't buy it. And don't pirate it. It's that simple.

People don't get critizised for waiting a year until the retail price drops to $10. Well, they might as well download the game right away and mail the dev $10.

That honestly makes no sense. We wait for it to drop so we can still pay for it, but it's a little less weighty on our wallets. That math makes no sense. If I wait for a $60 dollar game to drop to $50, I still pay $50 dollars. If I just pirate it and send the devs a $10 bill, they're still cheated out of part of that $40.

I don't hoard money. Can't. I spend all my income. Every month. I'm doing my part.

Honestly, this argument holds no water. It's the "I'm too poor so I can't buy games" argument. If you can buy a console or decent gaming PC, which are luxury items to begin with, you can definitely stand to save some extra cash for games. You're lying to yourself and everybody you say that to.

Let's say I need to ride the bus home. I only have five dollars on me. I can't pay more. But five dollars is only gonna get me within four blocks. The bus is empty, or at least empty enough, so I don't take nobody's seat. Who is helped by me getting off the bus to walk the rest? (apart from my health).

That also has no relevancy whatsoever to this topic. That analogy doesn't work.

What kind of twisted Christian guilt morality makes one assume it is wrong to just ride the bus until home?

Are you kidding me? Now you're blaming it on "Christian morality"? No, it's called breaking the federal law! Plus, that still makes no sense!

What does that conscience say when you proudly buy a video game full price like a good patriot, and then play it on the X-Box that is only so cheap because some legal slave in China assembled it for 2 bucks a day, while you're wearing the T-Shirt that some Indonesian kid sowed instead of going to school?

....

Did I just read that? Did I just actually read that? So now you're trying to guilt trip up because we're playing on a console or PC that was (in your example) made by a slave? Uh, hello, you're gaming on one of those, too, idiot.


This thread reeks of self-justification. I cannot believe you compressed that much stupid into a single post.

 

[Red Is Dead]

Don't even try to pull that demo crap. Thats the biggest load of BS out there, if you want to try it, rent it.

That demo BS is complete shit. A demo gives you a teaser of things not always in the game, not the whole fucking game you'll never uninstall.

There is no game rental service available anywhere near here. The closest game shop is a 3 hour car ride, or a 15 euro train ticket. Add the game's rental price and I might as well just blindly buy the game - nevermind the fact that it's still a 3 fucking hours trip and I can't really do that twice a week with the price of gas and stuff. I'm not even sure if it's still open anyways, haven't been there in ages.

So yes, demos are pretty fucking important to me, and i'll gladly take a demo over downloading ISOs and cracks from torrents with the potential bullshit that comes with 'em. Sadly, some game companies don't release demos anymore so I have to deal with it.

And I have like 20+ games in my backlog, the only reason I have a pirated game installed for more than a couple days is when they're so bad I completely forgot I had tried them. Like Skyrim, it collected digital dust for weeks before I suddenly wondered what was taking all that bit space.

 

[M920CAIN]

This is The Escapist. People are elitists here, it's a simple fact. They will not accept your piracy. You know that, so don't bother making threads about it.

Yeah, I pirate shit too. Not trying to justify though. I simply don't have any moral qualms whatsoever about doing it, because I'm a lonely nihilistic asshole who doesn't give a fuck about living and behaving like a proper person anymore.

And here I thought I was the only one left. Nice to meet you )

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

tl;dr: "I want things but don't want to save for them, so I should be allowed to take them".

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

I never seen anyone starving because of piracy. It`s as simple as that.

So you'd be cool with someone walking into your house and taking all your belongings, right? You wouldn't starve because of it and you just used that as justification. Don't say it's different because piracy doesn't remove an item--you aren't using that argument. You specifically said "no one is starving because of piracy".

What's that? You *want* those things? Just like the people running their business want their money, too. They don't need that money. You don't need the computer you're using to read this.

Your comment is invalid.

But, I'll pretend you have a point and still prove you wrong: Company A makes a game--Game 1. Company B makes a game--Game 2.

Game 1 is pirated as much as it is purchased. Company A make $100,000 from the $200,000 they should have made.

Game 2 is not pirated at all. Company B make $200,000.

Company A's CEO, board of directors and brand mangers, etc., etc. all keep their jobs and their income. However, the dev. team, the artists, the designers, the programmers and the assistants are not re-hired to make a sequel or any other game, as Game 1 didn't return as much money as it could have. They are now out of work.

Company B's CEO, board of directors and brand mangers, etc., etc. all keep their jobs and their income. The dev. team, the artists, the designers, the programmers and the assistants are rehired to produce a sequel to Game 2. They keep their jobs and are able to pay the rent and look after their families.

Piracy isn't about the guys at the top--they make a lot of money. Piracy threatens the jobs of the people who actually make the games you enjoy. They *need* their games to sell a lot. Every time you say "nah, I'll just pirate it. Not like my one purchase means anything" a million other people say it and it *does* mean something.

When you pirate, you steal people's jobs.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

1) If I buy, I gain and the other party gains. This is obviously the optimum.
2) If I copy, I gain and the other party doesn't gain.
3) If I abstain, neither of us gains.

How is 3) better than 2), objectively?

Because if you couldn't pirate it (or didn't) you would have had to purchase it to have access to it.

You're using ease of stealing as an excuse.

Classy.

 

[FatTony]

It's funny how people get so uptight about piracy and view the perpetrators with the same level of disgust they would a serial child rapist.

Being guilty of terabytes worth of illegally downloaded material myself my opinion is somewhat biased, however I fail to understand what is just so terrible about piracy. Yes, tens of millions of people downloading a game off Demonoid or TPB can hurt the game studio in some fashion. But most naysayers can't or won't see the flip side of that coin.

I download things illegally for one of two very simple reasons; A.) I can't afford it. Or B.) I simply think it's not worth the money yet I still desire to possess the software in question. With that in mind how is my, or anyone else's piracy negatively impacting the company?

If I were physically unable to download something my lack of finances or unwillingness to give the company my money is no different than downloading it off a torrent site because either way, they still don't get my money and if I'm not going to pay them anyway I may as well get what I want for free. It's quite clear I'm not the only one who feels that way.

In short, piracy being illegal is a moot point. If someone didn't buy the game they didn't buy the game and it affects the company just the same either way.

 

[Sansha]

Here's your fuckin' 'simply put':

You don't want, or are too lazy, to pay for stuff, and thus use any excuse you can to justify your thievery to yourself and others.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Being guilty of terabytes worth of illegally downloaded material myself my opinion is somewhat biased, however I fail to understand what is just so terrible about piracy. Yes, tens of millions of people downloading a game off Demonoid or TPB can hurt the game studio in some fashion. But most naysayers can't or won't see the flip side of that coin.

I download things illegally for one of two very simple reasons; A.) I can't afford it. Or B.) I simply think it's not worth the money yet I still desire to possess the software in question. With that in mind how is my, or anyone else's piracy negatively impacting the company?

If I were physically unable to download something my lack of finances or unwillingness to give the company my money is no different than downloading it off a torrent site because either way, they still don't get my money and if I'm not going to pay them anyway I may as well get what I want for free. It's quite clear I'm not the only one who feels that way.

So even though you agree people pirating can hurt entertainment industries, you are exempt from this because you are just one person? No, you are one of the tens of millions of people hurting the industries.

As for your justifications for pirating:

"I cannot afford it" is the easiest to refute: if you cannot pay for it, you can't have it. Simple as that. Believing differently makes you an entitled person. Also, pirating a game means you had to have the money for a computer, an Internet connection, and potentially a console and Television. If you're saying you cannot afford a $60 game, you're doing something wrong.

"I don't think it is worth the money": well then wait for it to come down in price, or look out for sales both in shops and online services (i.e. steam, psn, etc...). There were so many games I bought for a fraction of the cost during the June sales at EB games. I got titles like Fallout 3 and GTA IV, games I never would have paid full price for, for around thirty dollars. Paying full price is the price you have to pay in order to play a game as soon as it comes out. Wanting it both ways is you just wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway": if you are willing to illegally download something, you have enough of an interest in that product. You can't really say otherwise. You are willing to break the law to get that product. You are interested in it. Also it's equivalent exchange: you don't pay for the product, you don't get to use the product. Choosing not to buy something at all is not the same as choosing to pirate something. People really need to stop using that argument; it's getting beyond a joke.

"Other people agree with me": and a lot of other people disagree with you. If this were a matter of opinion, you might have a point. It's not, so you don't.

 

[Red Is Dead]

I would love to test kitchen appliances before buying them too, but there's no real way to do that. Since I can't break in a store to steal one and return it if it doesn't fit my needs, and get away with it (which is the important part, really) - well, i'm SOL.

Ah, so here we go. The real deciding factor is simply whether you can get away with it. Thanks a whole lot. So basically you're saying that the software companies are right. They simply need better DRM to keep you from being able to get away with it. And so when they add things that require constant online for a single-player game, we can look directly at you as to the cause of why.

What an amoral, selfish piece of work. I sincerely hope that no good people are your friends, because they're obviously going to get hurt one day when it poses some minor benefit for you.

Indeed, what an amoral, selfish piece of work I am, looking to try things before buying them. How horrid. Truly I am the cancer that is killing the video game industry. Not the 200mb day one patches to fix the buggy releases or the "Yet Another Battle Warfare 27: the Cash Cow" franchise.

I mean, if you disregard all the money I spend on video games I bought after trying them, obviously.

You know what's funny? Lately there's one game I bought without trying first - a huge deal because I basically never do that if I can avoid it: Swords of the Stars II. Hahaa, I still can't play it two months later. Yeah, lesson learned.

 

[hooksashands]

I said it many pages ago, but it was probably somthing hard to argue against so it was ignored

On many levels I don't care about the artists or publishers. Do they need more money? Doubtful at best.

What *I* care about, and why piracy pisses me off is that I see how it's affected the people in the trenches. My first job was at a record store. Remember those? Probably not most all but dissapeared the moment CD burners became commonplace. That isn't a coincidence. I liked the vibe of going into a record store. Much like comic shops, they were places where you could interact with like minded people with simillar interests and talk it up with the staff. Just chill and listen to whatever was playing in the place. Occasionally there would be artists signings or even performances in store. It was much more personal than just typing on a screen. We've lost that, and we've lost all the jobs of the people that worked there...The Warehouse, Tower Records, The Record Factory, thousands of mom & pop stores all GONE, and that is thanks to piracy. Having a hard time finding a job? It was much easier before it became so easy to say "we can download everything, the hell with spending money" video stores and book stores have big 'ol targets on their backs and are becoming rarer and rarer as well.

I don't care what the publishers have lost, I care about what we've lost in both jobs and personality & vibe on every "Main Street" around. I have 3 malls near me...and you can't buy a CD or DVD at ANY of them.

Well said. More and more it feels like we are entering the all-digital age of distribution, which could spell the end of these kinds of stores. Places that offer used games and Cd trade-ins have been disappearing regularly from my corner of the map, but I hesitate to name piracy as the main villain responsible. In truth, I think both creators and publishers see no profit in used sales of anything... whether it's a Cd, a Dvd, an AAA game or even a ratty VHS tape. It's re-circulated media, the original copy has already been bought, the profit already made. Once a physical copy is sold for the first time it becomes dead weight. Publishers especially hate this, and since Gamestop does it on a global level (for videogames anyway) I think they have painted a giant target on Mom & Pop videogame stores. Although Gamestop has exploited pre-owned merchandise on a far grander level than these M&P shops, their business model is fundamentally the same: Sell already sold things.

This scares away content creators and publishing backers, who quickly move to digital distribution... No packaging or production costs, no having to do inventory, no worrying about damage. And yet here is where the aforementioned problem rises: Pirates. To the greedy publishers, a pirate and a used buyer/trader are cut from the same cloth because neither are handing them the money they feel entitled to. Of course, pirates contribute nothing. There's no money changing hands, just a seeded file being taken from a server. A used buyer is supporting a business. He or she is helping them pay their employee wages and stay afloat.

Music is a bit of a different beast. I feel like it's okay to take it for free if the artist says I can. One of my favorite bands, Century, offered their new album for stream and download on Revolvermag.com and even better-known bands like Radiohead have gone on record saying you can pay whatever you want for In Rainbows (this includes giving them literally 1 cent of US currency). I wish this trend would carry over to games more often. When cHair studios made Undertow free, I felt appreciated as a customer even though it wasn't a great game by any means so I paid $15 and got another cHair game, Shadow Complex. And it rocked! So it's true: You get what you pay for.

But yea, just wanted to say I agree. Piracy does make it harder for job creators, but what's also annoying is when publishers whine about the way money is spread around. They simply have to come to terms with the fact that they'r only going to sell so many copies before their product has to be price-slashed or even made free. If somebody wants me to buy something directly from them it has to meet their competitor's prices. No EA, sorry. If I can buy a physical copy of Mass Effect 2 for 10 dollars instead of downloading a DRMed version for triple that price, it doesn't mean I'm a bastard. It means you fucking fail at both economics and marketing.

 

[FatTony]

Being guilty of terabytes worth of illegally downloaded material myself my opinion is somewhat biased, however I fail to understand what is just so terrible about piracy. Yes, tens of millions of people downloading a game off Demonoid or TPB can hurt the game studio in some fashion. But most naysayers can't or won't see the flip side of that coin.

I download things illegally for one of two very simple reasons; A.) I can't afford it. Or B.) I simply think it's not worth the money yet I still desire to possess the software in question. With that in mind how is my, or anyone else's piracy negatively impacting the company?

If I were physically unable to download something my lack of finances or unwillingness to give the company my money is no different than downloading it off a torrent site because either way, they still don't get my money and if I'm not going to pay them anyway I may as well get what I want for free. It's quite clear I'm not the only one who feels that way.

So even though you agree people pirating can hurt entertainment industries, you are exempt from this because you are just one person? No, you are one of the tens of millions of people hurting the industries.

As for your justifications for pirating:

"I cannot afford it" is the easiest to refute: if you cannot pay for it, you can't have it. Simple as that. Believing differently makes you an entitled person. Also, pirating a game means you had to have the money for a computer, an Internet connection, and potentially a console and Television. If you're saying you cannot afford a $60 game, you're doing something wrong.

"I don't think it is worth the money": well then wait for it to come down in price, or look out for sales both in shops and online services (i.e. steam, psn, etc...). There were so many games I bought for a fraction of the cost during the June sales at EB games. I got titles like Fallout 3 and GTA IV, games I never would have paid full price for, for around thirty dollars. Paying full price is the price you have to pay in order to play a game as soon as it comes out. Wanting it both ways is you just wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway": if you are willing to illegally download something, you have enough of an interest in that product. You can't really say otherwise. You are willing to break the law to get that product. You are interested in it. Also it's equivalent exchange: you don't pay for the product, you don't get to use the product. Choosing not to buy something at all is not the same as choosing to pirate something. People really need to stop using that argument; it's getting beyond a joke.

"Other people agree with me": and a lot of other people disagree with you. If this were a matter of opinion, you might have a point. It's not, so you don't.

If I can't pay for it, people don't want me to have it. As for the latter half of that paragraph I fail to understand how having an internet connection and computer is equivalent to sleeping on sheets knitted from one hundred dollar bills. Some people live paycheck to paycheck only able to spend money on their current bills, rent and things needed to live, i.e. groceries and buying anything else just isn't in the budget.

Not worth the money wasn't meant to mean not worth the price they are charging at the time. It was meant to mean not worth spending any money on at all regardless of it were $60 or $20.

Because I am interesting in something doesn't mean I'm willing to spend money on it, I'm interested in the 2012 model Dodge Challengers, but I'm not going to go buy one.

The whole debate about piracy is one big opinion, just like every other major argument that people can't agree on like religion and abortion.

 

[sabercrusader]

Well, I can already see the shit has hit the fan in this thread. I'll put my views simply. Yes, I've pirated before, and I'm willing to bet most of you have too, at least once. What you try and justify pirating with, is just stupid, plain down stupidity. You do not have a right to something created by another person just because you have no money for it. I don't care if they don't know you're doing it, you're still doing it, them not knowing is irrelevant. It is illegal for a reason, because it is technically stealing when you take it from someone who is selling it for profit. The arguement that games cost too much and things like that are also stupid. Games really don't cost much considering how much time and effort are put into them. If you can't buy them, and think that they shouldn't be sold for the price they're at, then wait for the drop in price, just because it's more expensive than you'd like doesn't mean you should go ahead and take it for free. The same thing goes with pirating, do you want people getting your item for free when you put 100's of hours and time and effort into it, and you're essentially relying on it to help you pay the bills? I know I wouldn't like that, regardless of the knowledge of "if" someone is doing it, just the knowledge of it possibly happening. Your arguements are stupid and not well thought out, just desperate ways to justify your piracy, there is a reason I don't pirate things anymore. And your analogy makes no sense either. Chose a better one, because the whole time I was reading it, I was having trouble understanding what it had to do with piracy at all.

 

[saruman31]

When you pirate, you steal people's jobs.

I`m pretty awesome then. I`ll continue doing so until everybody is fired. Damn...always wanted to do evil and now finally i get my chance.

 

[saruman31]

1) If I buy, I gain and the other party gains. This is obviously the optimum.
2) If I copy, I gain and the other party doesn't gain.
3) If I abstain, neither of us gains.

How is 3) better than 2), objectively?

Because if you couldn't pirate it (or didn't) you would have had to purchase it to have access to it.

You're using ease of stealing as an excuse.

Classy.

You don`t get it. Pirates are not potential costumers. Pirates still wouldn`t have bought a game if piracy was impossible. They are non existing costumers. And banning piracy is akin to banning information. Just because a person can not afford education, do you think they should be unable to get it?