Poll: Can piracy be justified?

[itsthesheppy]

In my opinion, it is only justified if and when there is something you want that literally cannot be acquired legally, but is available legally somewhere else out of your reach.

 

[tangoprime]

Be careful, this thread's a trap!

Seriously though, in cases where an old product is no longer available, *and no comparable product is available from anyone who could rightfully claim ownership of the original product, I think it's justified. For instance, the article with the heavy duty modernization mods for Thief 2 and System Shock 2- there is no legitimate way to obtain a new copy of those, as the IP belongs to EA, but development rights belong to an insurance company after the studio folded, thus there's no way to obtain a legitimate copy or replacement of either as far as I know, and nothing is currently being done, or will likely ever be done with them by the rights holders.

I guess an argument could be made about piracy where a product is blocked or banned from being sold in/imported to your region, since that wouldn't be a sales loss for the rights holder, since sale to you would be prohibited anyway (for instance, some Iranians really wanting to get an ARMA 3 fix if/when it's released, no income loss for Bohemia Interactive there).

 

[tangoprime]

If for any reason you own a legit copy of the game, and you pirate it, it's fine.
Otherwise no.

Not if you're doing it by p2p/filesharing, then you're assisting others in obtaining illegal copies. You're also very likely violating the EULA for the software as well.

 

[4RM3D]

The Youtube mini-documentary Everything Is A Remix reveals a lot of the problems and straight up corruption lying in Copyright legislation. I think everybody interested in the subject should go watch that.

http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-part-1/

That was an interesting series.

(I wanted to watch it sooner, but due to circumstances, I couldn't)

 

[Skratt]

- The media is released at unfairly high prices (I'm looking at you Australia)

This argument has zero bite to it. If something is too expensive, you cannot simply steal it - your only option is buy or not buy. Except in life or death scenarios, which media piracy does not fall into that category.

The other arguments are weak moral arguments:

- The media is not being released in your country
- The media is being censored or otherwise is inferior in your country
- The media is being released with (intrusive) DRM or other kind of regional restrictions that makes the media unplayable for you

Basically your argument is (in all cases) that you would buy if these situations were not present. Therefore, if these restrictions were removed and you had previously pirated, you would be under a moral obligation to immediately purchase (at the current released price) as soon as those above stated justifications for piracy were no longer present.

Even in that highly suspect scenario, the proper course is still to NOT buy and NOT pirate the media. You may contact the creator and express your dissatisfaction, but that's about it. The creator of the media is under no obligation to you or anyone else to give you a product you want. They give you a product they think you want, or that they want to sell, and you can then buy it or not buy it.

The only justification for piracy I can think of is if the piracy saves life or limb. Otherwise it's just stealing. If you are going to steal, at least have the stones to be honest and admit what you are doing, if only to yourself.

 

[Skratt]

If for any reason you own a legit copy of the game, and you pirate it, it's fine.
Otherwise no.

Not if you're doing it by p2p/filesharing, then you're assisting others in obtaining illegal copies. You're also very likely violating the EULA for the software as well.

Actually, you are just assisting others in obtaining copies. You have zero direct knowledge if they are obtaining legal or illegal copies. p2p/filesharing is not a bad technology, just like guns are not bad. It's all about the people using it. Either way, pirating something wouldn't be pirating it if the creator allowed it. So, if the creator said no to p2p, EVERYONE that obtains a copy is getting one illegally, even if you morally justify breaking the law.

 

[Skratt]

Property is theft. Intellectual moreso. The only way I passed my last college course was through downloading textbooks which were not available in the public library and which were prohibitavely expensive.

Umm, because the author put a lot of time into doing that, and with a relatively small pool of potential purchasers needs to charge more money to buy food and other extravagant things.

Dude, studying costs money. I'm going to university next year and it's not the cost of the books I'm concerned about.

Lets see.

If you are going to University in England, you will be in debt to the tune of 27,000 pounds with regards to tuition loans and, at a minimum, 10,500 pounds with regards to maintenance loans. A university education, which used to be funded by the state, now puts the average student in debt to the tune of 37,500 pounds. Factor in the insane idea that maintenance loans should not be forced to at least cover the cost of housing (My housing for this coming year comes in at 3674 pounds, 174 pounds MORE than my loan to cover housing, clothing and food) and getting a degree is almost pointless from a fiscal outlook. Degree holders earn, on average, 7% more than people who do not have degrees. Chances are, unless you become an MP, a lawyer or a scientist, your degree will never pay for itself or at least take until your 40's before you have recouped the costs.

So if you are going to University for fiscal reasons, you are an idiot. Knowledge should be gained for the sake of gaining knowledge.

As for intellectual property being damaging? Well, one has to look no further than the genetically modified crop market. Currently we are in a situation where people are able to sell crops that are not independently tested. Due to their copywrited nature, those who produce them only allow scientists who are willing to sign NDA's to do any research into the crop to see if it actually does anything. Only studies proving the effectiveness of the seed are allowed to be published, the nature of intellectual copy write prevents the free exchange of scientific papers within this area.

That is but one example of how intellectual copyright is damaging to the entire world.

If anyone, and I mean anyone with the ability to study such things, was allowed to look at the genetic makeup of those seeds, science would advance at a much higher pace. Copyright is, by the by, utterly damaging. During the push to sequence the human genome one of the greatest factors with regards to the speed of publicly funded scientists was attempting to beat (With great success, thankfully) privately funded scientists. For if a private company had managed to sequence the genome first they would have been able to copy write the sequence and put an artificial barrier of cost in the way of all further research, genetic testing, you name it.

When you look at the pharmaceutical industry you see these damages even further. Medicines, which could be made for between 10 and 15 dollars, are sold for hundreds (In some cases, thousands) of dollars due to the nature of intellectual property. People die due to an inability to afford medicines that could be made for a fraction of the cost if these forced copyrights simply did not exist.

So that is a bunch of examples how intellectual property utterly fucks science.

Intellectual property stunts the growth of science. With regards to music and books it is different, true, but the idea that someone can own a tool that is required for learning, forcing schools and libraries to fork out hundreds of thousands of pounds in order to attain a decent amount of copies of a simple textbook, when textbooks are required to teach, is insane. It prevents the growth of new ideas, you name it.

I guess this mainly comes down to morality. I believe it is morally wrong to prevent people from learning, from studying, morally wrong to put artificial roadblocks in the way of scientific research (I do not consider ethics to be an artificial roadblock, mind), it is damaging for science and, as a direct result, damaging for the entire planet.

Pirates are "Good" for the economy, a study done in Switzerland showed that pirates habitually spend more on media than non-pirates.

Find me a link to the study, otherwise this is inadmissible as evidence.

Well, I could not find a link to the actual study. I believe it was in one of my old copies of new scientist. What with moving around a whole bunch prior to uni I lost most of my collection. The only copy I can find is a few weeks old and centered around why inequality is not evolutionarily selected for and how inequality drives groups, tribes, nations, empires. Which, admittedly, is not really relevant to the argument. Even if I were to argue that the inability to share drives inequality.

However, I did find the following:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/01/sopa_stopping_online_piracy_would_be_a_social_and_economic_disaster_.html - This argues that stopping piracy would be bad for the economy. I skim read it though, it is more of a blog and not exactly admissible as evidence towards the study I was attempting to draw attention to but it does make a few valuable points.

As for some of my other reasoning behind piracy not being a negative force in the least, well, read above.

It does not take much thinking overall to work out how piracy is not necessarily a force for bad. At worst it is simply neutral. I mean, using music as my example, who here owns an entire library purely made up of music they themselves has bought? Who here has never shared a song with anyone, never listened to an unofficial youtube song (Back in the day, anyway, most of them have been slashed, you get the idea). Chances are each and every one of us has benefited from piracy in some way at some point down the line.

Sharing is a natural human instinct. All of us share. Sharing is good, hell, it is one of the few things that seem to be taught to all kids, regardless of background! Sharing is caring, share your toys, stuff like that.

I guess a lot of my points in this post are more relevant to science and pirating non-fiction, but hell, those are the two most important things around these days.

As for music?

*goes to look up how much muscians earn from CD sales when compared to concerts/gigs*

Well, fuck, I will just use myself as an example (I know I am not representative of the entire music-listening community but still, the internet is going too slowly to do any research).

I was introduced to an artist called Frank Turner through an unoffical youtube video by a close friend. I instantly fell in love with his music and started listening to everything he had made at that point.

Following this, my friend lent me a USB stick with his music on it. At the time that was a single album. I checked up on things and next time he was in town I went to see him at the Cornerhouse. I believe that first ticket cost me something like 7 pounds. A few years later he came back to where I was living to do another gig. The tickets had inflated somewhat along with his rise to semi-stardom and cost me 35 pounds each (I bought one for my then girlfriend). If it was not for piracy, for copywrite infringement, I would have never been introduced to him. And never spent over 70 pounds on tickets to see him, which far outstrips the amount I would have spent had I bought every album he has made (Or even every song as a single from itunes). If it was not for me having those tracks, I would not have been able to introduce more people to his music, get more people to go to his gigs (And in some cases, like my parents, get more people to buy his CD's). From this single (Totally pointless) example I can show how piracy got me, in particular, to spend lots of money to see such an amazing artist.

Hell, My sister and her bloke have everything by Muse on both of their ipods. All of which was downloaded illegally. Because they love Muse so much they proceeded to go to a Muse gig in London for their 5 year anniversary, with tickets that cost in excess of one hundred pounds a pop. Sure, they were listening to "Stolen" music at home, yet they still spent far more than the price of every album on seeing Muse live.

I am done with utterly anecdotal evidence.

tldr;

Intellectual property harms science and the world as a whole as a result, listening to music which has been shared is not damaging in the least to Musicians, people spend far more on going to gigs than on music. I understand that if someone never goes to gigs and only listens to pirated music they are not exactly helping the music industry but hell, they are still introducing more people to the music and whatnot and this could, in turn, lead to greater profits than the sales of the CD's alone ever would.

EDIT: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties2.htm This article neatly explains just how little muscians make from their music. I didnt post it at the start cause my internet is incredibly weak.

Quite the read. Thank you!

 

[4RM3D]

*snip*

Interesting. Though one little comment about the profit of gigs vs the profit of CD and digital sales.

When someone pays like $100 for a gig then that person will probably have spend more money on the gig than on the CD collection (with the exception of artists like Madonna who have +50 CD's). But the number of people attending a gig is lower than the number of people buying the (digital) CD. Because of this you can't compare it on a person level, like you did. Nonetheless, I understand the point you are trying to make and I agree.

 

[incal11]

Well, that was an interesting read. I want to mention two things though:
- Piracy is not stealing, it's copyright infringement.
- Talking about what is the greater good, is going to be a tricky discussion. But it's also going to be interesting one. So let's have it.

I know it's not stealing, but some are so fond of calling it so that I learned not to mind.

On the "greater good", I see you running away with the idea and try to determine THE greater good, rookie mistake. The concept itself is not that complicated.
There is no such thing as a greater good that stands above all others. An absolute greater good would mean that there exist something beneficial for all no matter the length of time considered or your frame of reference. It's an utopia.

Avoiding your carceral sidetracking I'll bring you back to piracy, what I'm trying to explain does not change anyway and we might as well stay on topic.
I explained that in a serious discussion the goal is to determine which line of though or action can be proven to be in the best interest of the most people for the longest period of time. That means not just arguing what you feel, but trying to understand why you feel that way. This for every little detail of the issue.
Is there any way to control the reality of what you believe? If you can't find any, is the other side doing any better? If yes anything should be considered, even if it shatters your soul to it's very core. If no one can can control the reality of what they say then maybe the subject is just too removed from reality, or a wrong turn was taken.

Here for example tolerance toward file sharing might be proven to be in the best interests of artists and everyone who enjoy the arts in whatever form (I'd say anyone who is mentally healthy and as far back as the first cave paintings) but not in the best interests of certain middlemen. By opposition the number of these middlemen is much lower, and they care more for short term profitability than the arts. Plus the existence of corporations seeking monopolies has shown itself to be a true nuisance in many occasions through history, and for most anyone but the super few reaping all the profits.
Of those two goods, which one is the greater ?

Many who defend those middlemen refuse to acknowledge another frames of reference because they'd have to consider that the "good" they defend is not the "greatest" one. They often defend a certain system of value where the will of whomever "holds the rights" is sacred. They don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, that this notion is a fabrication of those same middlemen. From there it should be possible to prove that the benefits of an artist's "right of absolute control" on his work are not all of what they are made out to be.
Another line of defense is the idea that the law can never be contested outside of imprecise and semi-mythical "proper channels". Even when it is obvious that those proper channels are already used for lobbying in the interests of the few. They are not defending the greater good, in the topic of piracy at least.
Plus they should be reminded that civil disobedience is a basic line of defense against the loss of freedom, but we are generally made to forget that for some reason.

I am curious. Please do tell.

You're on, I'll PM you.

 

[4RM3D]

The devil agrees that piracy is good. No surprise there.

On the "greater good", I see you running away with the idea and try to determine THE greater good, rookie mistake. The concept itself is not that complicated.
There is no such thing as a greater good that stands above all others. An absolute greater good would mean that there exist something beneficial for all no matter the length of time considered or your frame of reference. It's an utopia.

That explains the question I had about the greater good.

You're on, I'll PM you.

That's quite a long post. I'll get back to you once I have read all of it.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

If its something that's out of print or just ridiculously hard to get or too expensive if you do, then for sure.

 

[funnydude6556]

IF there is no legal way to obtain the game legally then it's totally fine to pirate the game. I think it's a good way for the creators of the game to see what people like and say a lot of people were pirating the game it'd be a good way to tell how many people would be willing to pay for a game if it was to get a sequel.

The problem I have with piracy is that everyone who take part in it have the most stupid reasoning behind pirating. They act like it's not their problem or they were never going to buy the game in the first place. It seems to me that it's just wrong, your stealing and yes it's not the form of stealing where you've actually done anything wrong no it's far closer to plagiarism. Like the love child of Petty Theft and Plagiarism. You haven't stolen anything you've just taken a copy of what the creator is stealing for free and for some people with every intention of giving it away for free.

It'd be like if you made something say a book and then I write down everything in your book and started writing it down in my own book and gave out free copies to all my friends. I haven't stolen your book but I've still taken a giant chunk out of your potential profits. That's how I see piracy and I don't think I'm about to change my mind.

 

[Altorin]

my views on piracy would probably get me banned, so I'll abstain. I voted in one of the YES columns, if that helps.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

All I'll suggest is I'm not against it when the companies in charge make it so hard to be legal.

For instance, great TV shows, instead of locking them so non US viewers can't see them (and scurry off to torrent sites), put them up on itunes, a dollar a pop, an hour after viewing, and you'll see a shedload of sales, and a ton of money flowing in.

We'd LIKE to buy things, simply and reasonably priced, but you choose to lock us out, maybe let us buy it in an overpriced box set 9 months after it's been on US TV. Is it any wonder people wander off to torrents?

I'm not saying it's ok, I'm saying if companies pulled their damn fingers out, and tried SELLING this shit to us, instead of treating us like naughty children, and telling us we have to wait til they say so, they'd be rewarded by loyal, repeated custom.

Steam has proven it a thousand times, you CANNOT beat piracy on cost, however, make it reasonable pricing and then beat them on ease of use and service, and you'll have a deal!

The great Stephen Fry himself said " you're not a pirate or a good citizen, almost everyone is a bit of both" and Graham Linehan, writer of many of the UK's finest comedies, tries to explain here, why many pirates are fans, and you're not losing money, you're just pissing off your customers.

 

[Do4600]

Can piracy be justified?

The internet makes it convenient to steal content, these excuses exist because people are narcissistic, greedy, lazy and just sick enough to see themselves as being persecuted when they are denied something they feel they deserve.

- The media is not being released in your country

Screw importing, how could X company be so insensitive as to not think of MY NEEDS when they planned their release areas. Better steal it.

- The media is being censored or otherwise is inferior in your country

No blood and swear words? Better steal it.

- The media is released at unfairly high prices (I'm looking at you Australia)

Oh, a luxury good is priced too high...better steal it.

- The media is being released with (intrusive) DRM or other kind of regional restrictions that makes the media unplayable for you

The media is being released with DRM because everybody is already using the above lame egotistical reasons to sooth their consciences. Better steal it again, you deserve that thing.

 

[Vegosiux]

-snip-

Seriously, stop helping, you're weakening your own position there >.<

If all you can say is "Piracy is STEALING and if you pirate, you are a CRIMINAL!" then you simply come across as a pretentious youknowwhat, contributing nothing to the discussion.

Even worse, you're casting a bad light on all the people who have done their homework and presented their arguments against piracy well, because as hard as they might have tried to write coherent posts, now they have to deal with being likened to you, who have not done your homework, and have not presented any argument at all.

You going to apologize to the folks who happen to be on your side, just aren't going all knight-templar?

It's a "Thanks, but no thanks" scenario, now we have to try and cool the tempers and calmly, rationally explain just what the problem with piracy is.

Again.

Because some people don't seem to think it's worth their time to actually put their money where their mouth is.

 

[4RM3D]

...Like the love child of Petty Theft and Plagiarism...

And thus copyright infringement is born.

 

[Mr F.]

*snip*

Interesting. Though one little comment about the profit of gigs vs the profit of CD and digital sales.

When someone pays like $100 for a gig then that person will probably have spend more money on the gig than on the CD collection (with the exception of artists like Madonna who have +50 CD's). But the number of people attending a gig is lower than the number of people buying the (digital) CD. Because of this you can't compare it on a person level, like you did. Nonetheless, I understand the point you are trying to make and I agree.

Once you consider the amount of people attending a gig and factor in the minute royalties from CD sales it becomes much easier to see how most of the money comes from a gig.

Again, to use Frank Turner as the example.

He has like, 3 albums. I think he recently released another one, so lets call it four. Last time I saw him the entire venue was packed, hell I ended up in the seated area. Which was fail. Regardless, you are talking about 5,000 people paying 35+ pounds per ticket.

That is 175,000 pounds from the sale of tickets alone. Sure, a lot would get eaten up through venue hire but in the case of FT, he did not have any supporting acts. That is a whole lot of money.

That article I linked to shows just how little musicians actually get from the sale of CD's. They get sliced, again and again, still being forced to pay for "Packaging" despite sales being digital, you get the whole idea.

When you look at much bigger artists like Muse the profit margins are insane.

Wembley Stadium (Where my sister and her bloke saw Muse) has a capacity of 90,000. When they went the gig was sold out, with each of those 90,000 people paying over 100 pounds per ticket. You are looking at way in excess of 1,000,000 pounds just from the sale of tickets for a single gig.

That is a fuck of a lot of albums to try and shift.

I am not denying that artists do make some money from CD sales. But even when you factor in there being more CD sales than concert goers, if you were to state that, say, one in one thousand people who have listened to pirated music go to a single Gig a year it more than makes up for the price tag of the stolen music.

Then again, as you said, you understand the point I am trying to make and agree. If you read up through the thread there is also the Gaiman defense of piracy, which holds true. If something is good enough to buy people will buy it despite already owning it in Pirated form.

 

[Mr F.]

Can piracy be justified?

The internet makes it convenient to steal content, these excuses exist because people are narcissistic, greedy, lazy and just sick enough to see themselves as being persecuted when they are denied something they feel they deserve.

- The media is not being released in your country

Screw importing, how could X company be so insensitive as to not think of MY NEEDS when they planned their release areas. Better steal it.

- The media is being censored or otherwise is inferior in your country

No blood and swear words? Better steal it.

- The media is released at unfairly high prices (I'm looking at you Australia)

Oh, a luxury good is priced too high...better steal it.

- The media is being released with (intrusive) DRM or other kind of regional restrictions that makes the media unplayable for you

The media is being released with DRM because everybody is already using the above lame egotistical reasons to sooth their consciences. Better steal it again, you deserve that thing.

Huh, even though a few people on YOUR side of the argument are already tearing into you for being less than helpful, I think I will join in from the other side of the argument.

Lets see, point one:
- You have moral reasons to disagree with the nature of intellectual property and copyright, either because you are a Socialist/Communist who believes that all property is theft or you believe that copyright is holding everyone back by putting artificial barriers in the way of science and education. I am talking about Non-Fiction here cause piracy is a very, VERY broad issue.
- The media not being released is a good reason to pirate. In places like where I grew up it was significantly safer to pirate films and songs that were banned because importing them could get you kicked out of the country yet they had no laws against piracy and already having the items on your computer. Soo... There are PLENTY of reasons why piracy is justified over importing, depending on where you are.
- Media being censored? See above. Whilst American Pie was released where I grew up, the film was LESS THAN 30 MINUTES LONG. They censored out all swearing and references to sex or jokes that were considered to be in bad taste. Another good example is the Passion of Christ, the film was censored to remove all references to Christianity. It was shorter than the adverts prior to the film.
- Ah, DRM. My favourite argument. You know, there are companies that do without and they still make sales. Why? Consumer loyalty and releasing a decent product. Hearts of Iron, Victoria, Crusader kings, All of those amazing grand strategy games by Paradox do not contain ANY DRM of ANY kind. They still make sales. Because people want to buy them, because people want a product that automatically patches itself, you get the idea. Games like Assasains Creed get pirated because of bullshit always online DRM. If the pirates get a better service than the paying customer you would be a fucking idiot NOT to pirate.

Yet you are arguing that I am "Sick in the head" for being able to come up with a rational defense of Piracy.

So I will break this down for you:
If you already own the game/media and it got lost/damaged, piracy is justified. You are not "Stealing" in this case, just reacquiring.
If the game/media is so censored and broken in your country as to be unplayable, pirating is jutified. Why would you buy a broken product?

Those are the only two examples where it is sorta undeniable that piracy is justified.

However, with regards to books, music, genetic code and just about any other "Copyright Infringement" (Which is the REAL name for piracy.) well, go look at my other posts.

Guys, I have an awesome idea. Can we stop calling piracy piracy? I know, I know, it sounds so fancy and swashbuckling and people like the Pirate Party have a badass name. But it makes Copyright Infringement sound so much worse than it is.

 

[kickassfrog]

Pirates are "Good" for the economy, a study done in Switzerland showed that pirates habitually spend more on media than non-pirates.

Find me a link to the study, otherwise this is inadmissible as evidence.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/05/swiss-government-study-finds-internet-downloads-increase-sales/

There ya go, thats the study as close as I can find it from the swiss govt

That will do nicely, I withdraw my objection.