Poll: Is it piracy when you already own the material?

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If you pay money, then do something wrong, it's okay, right?

Nope.

That's idiotic.

I own a dvd, I make a back up, it's okay, right?

Yes.

Both morality and ethics tell us that piracy relates to theft of properties... but how is it theft when you have paid for the information and you're merely copying it?

Is photocopying pages of a RPG book considered 'wrong'?

How about scanning various pages so you can create a quick-ref doc for your convenience?

Oh wait, that's not 'wrong' either.

If you pay for a product, how you utilise that product isn't 'wrong' as long as it relates directly to it's intended purpose of entertaining a person who purchased it.

If I pay money for a product designed to entertain me, then how I go about making alterations (Such as homebrew rules, or scanning pages to improve response time to player queries) is a natural exploration and extension of what it is to use a product responsibly.

Having two hard copies of a rulebook is pointless. Having one copy of a rulebook and a digital copy improves gameplay.

Is being able to access your games on steam from two different computers 'wrong'?

 

[Spade Lead]

I am sorry, this line

It's piracy either way

lead me to believe that your view was contrary to mine.

 

[Soods]

I voted "yes" because when you download the show, you support piracy. But in this case, I think it was completely justified to download it (Piracy =/= Wrong).

 

[Da Chi]

I've often wondered this myself with my record collection. I own the vinyl, but I'd like to hear it on my ipod. So would it be wrong to limewire a song or two from that album so I can listen to them?
Sadly, I always come to the same conclusion; that it is still stealing, no-matter what format you have it in before. Having a paperback novel and entitling yourself to the hard-cover is wrong. Owning a crappy 8-track is not the same as a digital remastered copy. Having your favorite movie in DVD, but wanting the Blue-ray for free is absurd. Simple answer, if it is worth paying for once, you can buy it again if you need whatever it is in your life.

But he isn't upgrading from DVD to Blu-Ray, he is cross-grading from DVDs, which he PAID for, to a digital copy that he only intends to use once before he deletes it.

The digital copy he is using isn't the one he paid for. He has NO reason to own that digital copy other than a selfish justification that because he's paid for it once, it isn't worth paying for ever again. I really truly believe that if he wanted to see his show so badly he can either pay for it again or wait.
He doesn't have to buy the box set again either! Rental stores usually carry box sets, Netflix shows TV episodes and neither of them are illegal. If he is too poor to do either, then he should just wait until he gets home.

 

[Gigano]

In legal terms, probably so, considering that legitimate backups are usually required to be taken from the original.

In ethical terms, I see little problem if you've paid full price for the content already, and could legally have just made a backup of it to take with you. The law extend beyond its purpose here, which is to ensure that publishers get paid, not arbitrarily limit access to entertainment.

 

[alandavidson]

A little bit of backstory before I begin:

I create films, music, and scripts for a living. You BUYING my work pays my bills, feeds my dog, lets me take my girlfriend out for her birthday, etc. I get paid in residuals, which is usually anywhere 0.05% to 20% of gross sales, depending on what I contributed to the project. So, I really don't get a whole lot, so I have to work ALL THE TIME.

That being said, yes it is piracy. "Owning" the material is legally defined as you holding the copyright to that material. Let's say I make a movie, and then sell it to Fox Searchlight. Fox Searchlight pays me $X for the movie and then we're done, they don't have to pay me any more money because they own the movie and they can do whatever they want with it. Purchasing a DVD of the movie does only two things for you. You purchase 1. A copy of the film, and, 2. A licence for private showing of the film. You do not actually own the film itself.

What does this have to do with piracy? Quite a bit, actually. I get $X from Fox Searchlight for my film, but the amount that they can give me is in direct relation to how much they are making from other films just like it. If there is a lot of piracy, the amount that is offered me is very low.

Now let's say I make a movie, but only sell distribution rights to Fox Searchlight. This means that I still own the film, but Fox Searchlight has the right to copy and distribute the film to theaters and retailers. In return, they pay me X% of sales of copies of the film. In the long run I make more money and gain more income than just selling the film. It is a revenue stream for a very long time, if the film is popular. If there is piracy, I don't get paid.

Think of it this way: You go into work and you are informed by your boss that you won't be getting paid. That makes living a bit hard, doesn't it? You have to keep working because you have to pay all of your bills, but there's only a little money coming in to pay all these bills. Please remember that in this industry we often work 15-20 hours per day for months at a time, we don't get to see our families often, and we have to be on-call 24/7. It's a really stressful job. I often stay awake for 5 days straight or more while working on a project.

We do this for one reason, to make you forget about all of the bullshit that's going on in your life and relax for a little while. Please just give us a little something in return so we can keep doing this for you.

 

[minimacker]

Well, I know that when you buy a game, you don't actually purchase the game, just the rights to install it and play it.

So technically, if you own a game, you bought the rights to play it. Thus you're allowed to illegally download it over and over. But if you were to share it with someone else, that's illegal.


Oh, we're talking about MOVIES?
*Rubs chin*

I don't know if the same principle applies. With CDs, you purchase a digital copy loaded onto a physical product. But yes, as long as you can PROVE that you purchased the old copy, then you could download it over and over.

The final issue would be that there are so many different versions from different distributors

 

[Pyro Paul]

For Music or Movies then it is perfectly legal to download or obtain virtual copies of any of these things through the internet. This is because you legally own content On the Tape/CD/DVD already.

for Games and Computer Programs it gets a little grey because even though you technically own the right to play the game or use the program you got, most of them have some sort of DRM on them. This means in order to download and use it with out the CD you'd have to crack the game, and this would violate the EULA you agreed to.

although games and programs that have online DRM and not dictated by the Disk (valve games, WoW, Adobe programs) it is fine to do, most of the things it is fine to do this with already provide you with digital installers for these programs themselves...

 

[Conza]

I'm very pleased to see so many people have replied to this, thank you everyone that has replied and/or voted.

One of the common themes I'm seeing in the replies I wanted to highlight, which broadly, people have said 'You can make copies/have a backup, but shouldn't then provide it to others, who don't own an original version themselves'. As much as I agree, the main reason for this I thought would be, if they get caught, they aren't covered like you are... Oh and they don't own the original, so they don't have the same right you do.

I would like to point out though, if I buy a DVD, then copy it to my computer and watch it, say, that is a copy. If I download it using P2P or whatever, I don't think it's really a copy, it hasn't been 'copied' from my DVD, its been... converted from a television broadcast, or, well that?s only other example; but even if it were a direct DVD rip, which is clearly the closest thing, it was still someone else's DVD.

So if you've read these 1.5 pages and haven't voted yet, keep that point in mind when considering yay or ney.
Also, yes I intend to delete the content once I've viewed it, I mean once I'm home it's right there anyway, no point in taking precious hdd space.

I also don't think there's anyway any of us who do this, and that get caught, (key 'key' phrase that last part), have a 'legal' justification, the prosecutor would likely want to make an example regardless, but the morality is a different story, which is what I find interesting, and the fact we have the facilities to make these choices ourselves, regardless of laws ect.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Hello all, I'm currently on holiday and the other day I really wanted to re-watch one of my favourite shows. I own all of the box sets for the show, but naturally, they aren't with me.

If we were in circa 1995 or earlier, I'd have to wait... But, the current day allows me to utilize the internet and simply find, download and watch the show.

Was this piracy to do so? I understand that some of you will find it hard to isolate the act from the situation, but all opinions are valid, so the poll I set up is for just this question.
I justified it to myself under the guise of 'well, since I've paid them $150-$200 worth of box sets when the show was airing, I've contributed, I'm not robbing the actors, studios, ect.'. However, it's arguable that since I acquired these materials il-legally, I'm still supporting piracy of the content.

Should anything of a similar nature also be classified piracy? Another example, I have a Nintendo 64, with several games all gathering dust. I've read, somewhere a long time ago from a forgotten/probably questionable source, that if I owned the original game, I'm not doing anything wrong by owning a 'virtual back up' of it, and playing it on my computer.

There are more examples, but from another angle, I want to put out there something perhaps even more morally blurry.

With the N64 example, let's say that everyone agreed if I owned 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time', that downloading and playing it is ok. But what if my brother or sister owned the game? Or even a cousin, or good friend. But I know that they would not have emulated it, or played it in years, so, is it ok for me to still download the game rationalizing 'well, I'm just using their currently unused licence anyway, so really its ok'?

This is my first topic, so I hope it sparks a bit of discussion, there were similar topics about piracy, but they weren't quite what I wanted to talk about - so have fun .

It sure is.
Unless you're merely creating a backup of the game to prevent the original from getting wrecked.
Or in my case when Dead Space and Mass Effect (both on pc) first came out, and I used up my 5 installs, I pirated it. I wasn't going to rebuy it just so i could install it 5 more times.
Then they released the drm unlocker so it was no longer an issue.

 

[Inuprince]

snip

You have a very valid point, but I think there's nothing wrong with the OP's actions. Even if you do consider them illegal or bad, it's still the better of two evils, and the more positive outcome for people like you :

OP has already bought the DVD, he paid money for it, there buy increasing the profit of the company producing it, if he downloads it simply to watch it, because he doesn't have the DVD with him, it is still a far better thing for the company and the workers creating said product.
Because the other option would be, that he doesn't buy the DVD, he downloads it and never pays for it, that's no profit for the company ever. If people only pirated because they didn't have their own copy with them, there would probably be no complaing about piracy at all.

There are always such arguments, that if you have a Honda at home, you can't just take someone else's off the street while abroad, because you don't have your car with you, but I think there's a difference between a few bucks worth of entertainment software, and a car worth a thousand times more.
Plus you can always rent a car, if you need one badly, while something to watch on holiday isn't such a big dilemma. The OP could have just watched something else on the TV, that still would have meant no more extra profit for the company producing the DVD ... so I think no harm is done this way.

 

[Flishiz]

It's only illegal when a partial owner (ie, a customer who bought the stuff) distributes it. So if you go on a torrent to get the stuff, you'll probably end up doing a little uploading yourself, and as a result, it will be illegal. However, if you were to, say, direct download it, then it would be fine, as you do have ownership of the material.

 

[Dastardly]

snip

It is technically piracy, though I doubt it would be aggressively enforced.

HOWEVER, remember that it is still very much piracy if, in the process of you downloading this show, you are also making it available to other downloaders. You'd be facilitating piracy, helping others to do it. That's where this thing gets tricky.

If you've bought it, and no one else is currently using your copy, I don't know of many folks that would be down on you (if you could provide evidence that these claims were true, that is). But if you were helping to disseminate a pirated copy? I think all that sympathy vanishes.

The line has to do with whether or not you're using the product without paying, or helping others to do the same. If you're not crossing that line, you're probably okay.

 

[Crises^]

Depends how you downloaded it, If you did a direct download that doesnt upload at the same time to other user's then no because your downloading a copy of a product you own. But if you uploaded at all i.e torrents the your distributing the product and breaking copy right laws.
Just looked at the ninjad comment above em :9

 

[Boris Goodenough]

(Evil Genius being one)

You can get that on Steam now (I got in the winter sales), and I am glad to see they will be bringing Dunegon Siege 1 and 2 aswell with the release of DS 3.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Well, it's definitely still piracy.

However, I'd have to say it's still justified, because you do already own it.

 

[Funkysandwich]

I've often wondered this myself with my record collection. I own the vinyl, but I'd like to hear it on my ipod. So would it be wrong to limewire a song or two from that album so I can listen to them?
Sadly, I always come to the same conclusion; that it is still stealing, no-matter what format you have it in before. Having a paperback novel and entitling yourself to the hard-cover is wrong. Owning a crappy 8-track is not the same as a digital remastered copy. Having your favorite movie in DVD, but wanting the Blue-ray for free is absurd. Simple answer, if it is worth paying for once, you can buy it again if you need whatever it is in your life.

I tend to record my vinyl through the line-out so I can listen to it on my MP3 player.
I don't think that's wrong, as usually if I like a band, a lot of my money goes their way. Once you add up concert tickets, shirts etc. and the extra cost of vinyls to start with.

Of course, lots of new vinyls these days come with free downloads of the album. I once bought a vinyl album that came with a free copy the CD.