Poll: Is it piracy when you already own the material?
- Thread starter Conza
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Good first post, mate. I was thinking about something similar to this.
Now, what you describe, I see as acceptable.
What I don't see as acceptable is this: My friend, we'll call him J, is a huge pirate. Recently, he pirated Minecraft, and is encouraging everyone else in my class's gaming community to do so also. He does this every time he pirates a game, and it pisses me right off, knowing good indie devs are losing possible money because of twats like him.
Now, what you describe, I see as acceptable.
What I don't see as acceptable is this: My friend, we'll call him J, is a huge pirate. Recently, he pirated Minecraft, and is encouraging everyone else in my class's gaming community to do so also. He does this every time he pirates a game, and it pisses me right off, knowing good indie devs are losing possible money because of twats like him.
I think Tom's right there, people have used cars as an example of 'buy one get one free', but its just not the same. For that example to work here, it'd have to be that the first car cost the manufacturer, and you money, and the second, didn't belong to anyone and you were allowed to just take it because you had the first one (which is close to the iPod policy I think, excuding the manufacturers cost). But as that isn't the case, the car analogy is a bit off.
Also, the morality and legality, in my opinion, are completely different, on the basis that your morals may not be aligned to the law. That doesn't mean that if you think its ok, that you get away with a crime, or even should, it just means you break that law regardless.
EDIT: Thank you InnerRebellion. Your post wasn't there when I finished this.
Also, the morality and legality, in my opinion, are completely different, on the basis that your morals may not be aligned to the law. That doesn't mean that if you think its ok, that you get away with a crime, or even should, it just means you break that law regardless.
EDIT: Thank you InnerRebellion. Your post wasn't there when I finished this.
Morally, no. Piracy is morally bad because you're cheating hard working people out of their money. If you've already purchased it, you've already paid their salaries.
Legally, yes. "Piracy. is. stealing. Stealing. is. against. the. law."
Legally, yes. "Piracy. is. stealing. Stealing. is. against. the. law."
I think it's not piracy, especially in cases where you have a disk but it's damaged beyone repair (like my copy of Metallica's Death Magnetic" CD which my old car destroyed in the CD player). I do have the music data on the CD, I just can't access it due to stupidly deep scratches. My Master of Orion 2 disc (great game BTW) snapped in half in high school, I still have the data but the disc is beyond screwed. I think in both cases I should be able to legally download them because I have the data in my house (actually within arms reach) but it's inaccessible.
This whole thing is why I LOVE steam. Disc damaged? No problem, download a new copy.
This whole thing is why I LOVE steam. Disc damaged? No problem, download a new copy.
This rule is applied to ROMs: if you own a hard copy of the game and get it off the Internet, it's legal. I see no reason why this shouldn't be true with anything else.
The idea is that you have to dump the BIOS from your OWN Playstation to make it work legally. If you took a BIOS off the internet, that would be illegal.TRR said:
A similar question would be "I'm lazy, can I just get a BIOS off the internet and pretend it's mine, because I have a Playstation?"
Ok, perhaps that was not fair I'm really sorry, but you see my main point was, that wanting to watch a film you already bought, but do not carry it everywhere you go ... there is no harm in downloading if he already payed money for it, he will certainly not buy another copy while on holiday just to watch it - because the alternative would be that he would watch something else on TV ...alandavidson said:
Bought DVD once + downloading it just to watch it once elsewhere = 6$ for you
Bought DVD once + watching something else on TV = 6 $ for you
I think you should be happy in this case, because if someone enjoys the product so much that he wants to see it, even on his holiday because his purchased copy is at home - means you did a good job, because you created entertainment that he thought is worth his money and both his spare time on his holiday - while other people just download everything and never buy anything - now those are the people you are never going to see money from - you should be more mad at them.
My netbook doesn't have a CD drive so I can't reupload my music to it. The companies have got my money already so they can go fuck themselves if they think I'm not getting my money's worth.
With digital technology it has gotten almost impossible to figure out where right ends and wrong begins. I think it is largely a personal choice about what you feel is right. I have hassled my friends over pirating things before, but I would not even consider hassling you for downloading a show that you bought the $200 box set for. That being said, you will find fewer cases of moral ambiguity if you just keep it simple and only use what you bought--if you just said 'well, I'd like to watch this show but I forgot to bring it and I didn't take a copy from the discs I bought, so I guess I'll have to wait' you would be in 100% okay territory. It is a question of whether you can deal with the inconvenience of waiting a short time before watching your show.
A lot of people make excuses about piracy, and some of them are pretty clever--the vinyl argument someone used earlier, the 'I have this on vinyl but I want to put it on my iPod,' is one I'd never heard before!--but it really just boils down to a question of ease. It is really easy to pirate something, and there are virtually no consequences for doing so. Dress it up however you like, but this is the reason most people pirate: because they can get away with it.
Most of the justifications really don't hold up. For instance, take the vinyl argument: you bought that particular record, and that particular format. I'm not sure if this is old vinyl, or if you got it as some sort of collector's item, but the process of creating a record is very different than creating a digital version, and you only bought the record version. You did not buy that song, for all eternity and in all forms. If I buy a 30 year old cassette tape for $.25 at a garage sale, do I have the right to download for free every song on that tape, even though they're now selling for $1 a piece?
Imagine if we discovered a new way to make computers (say they're optronic rather than electronic) that is far superior but requires everything to be remade and reprogrammed. We all own operating systems now, and tons of software. Do we have a right to expect all that stuff for free on our new optronic computers? Keep in mind that people had to spend money to program and develop that software. In order to offer us those products, the companies spent time and money. If nobody pays them for their time and money spent, they will go bankrupt. And why would somebody spend hours and hours doing hardcore programming for free? If that's the case, they would probably program something that was enjoyable to them personally, rather than useful to society, and that would be a loss for everyone.
Now, I definitely understand the indignation a lot of people have towards software companies. They are, with very few exceptions, jerks. They claim that piracy is a much bigger problem than it actually is, bully their legitimate customers trying to combat piracy, release version after version of essentially the same product, but slightly altered to wring more money out of their customers, release deliberately incomplete versions to squeeze out more money, try to deny people the use of the ease of digital reproduction, etc. There are plenty of companies and products that probably do have it coming. But my feeling is that if you are going to use something, you should compensate the people who created it and made it available to you, because it sucks doing a lot of work and getting little or nothing in return for it. You would be mad if you spent tons of hours researching something for your boss, only to have him tell you, after you finished it, that he went onto Wikipedia and found what he needed, so your research report is unnecessary and you won't be paid for your work. So don't inflict that on other people.
A lot of people make excuses about piracy, and some of them are pretty clever--the vinyl argument someone used earlier, the 'I have this on vinyl but I want to put it on my iPod,' is one I'd never heard before!--but it really just boils down to a question of ease. It is really easy to pirate something, and there are virtually no consequences for doing so. Dress it up however you like, but this is the reason most people pirate: because they can get away with it.
Most of the justifications really don't hold up. For instance, take the vinyl argument: you bought that particular record, and that particular format. I'm not sure if this is old vinyl, or if you got it as some sort of collector's item, but the process of creating a record is very different than creating a digital version, and you only bought the record version. You did not buy that song, for all eternity and in all forms. If I buy a 30 year old cassette tape for $.25 at a garage sale, do I have the right to download for free every song on that tape, even though they're now selling for $1 a piece?
Imagine if we discovered a new way to make computers (say they're optronic rather than electronic) that is far superior but requires everything to be remade and reprogrammed. We all own operating systems now, and tons of software. Do we have a right to expect all that stuff for free on our new optronic computers? Keep in mind that people had to spend money to program and develop that software. In order to offer us those products, the companies spent time and money. If nobody pays them for their time and money spent, they will go bankrupt. And why would somebody spend hours and hours doing hardcore programming for free? If that's the case, they would probably program something that was enjoyable to them personally, rather than useful to society, and that would be a loss for everyone.
Now, I definitely understand the indignation a lot of people have towards software companies. They are, with very few exceptions, jerks. They claim that piracy is a much bigger problem than it actually is, bully their legitimate customers trying to combat piracy, release version after version of essentially the same product, but slightly altered to wring more money out of their customers, release deliberately incomplete versions to squeeze out more money, try to deny people the use of the ease of digital reproduction, etc. There are plenty of companies and products that probably do have it coming. But my feeling is that if you are going to use something, you should compensate the people who created it and made it available to you, because it sucks doing a lot of work and getting little or nothing in return for it. You would be mad if you spent tons of hours researching something for your boss, only to have him tell you, after you finished it, that he went onto Wikipedia and found what he needed, so your research report is unnecessary and you won't be paid for your work. So don't inflict that on other people.
As I understand it, many companies make the argument that you're not paying for the physical media, but rather the license (privilege) to use it. Conversely, shouldn't that mean that if you've paid for the license/privilege for personal use, you should legally and ethically be allowed to use it regardless of the source?
No, I suppose not, but then that's where we hit the grey area, isn't it? Worse yet, it's way too easy to justify something like piracy with context that's...benevolent, for lack of a better word. So you need to ask yourself: where will you draw the line? Where do you say no?
1: Bullshit. I already have permission to photocopy characcter sheets and the like as per the fine print at the back of the book.Sober Thal said:
2: 'Kinda not really?' Care to elabourate at all? Or should I assume you haven't a leg to standd on in the matter?
3: Yes, because absolutely no rpg book in the history of the world has ever told the GM 'Look, this shit is up to you how you res judicata on a situation'. Oh wait, all of them do? How peculiar....
4: Actually all electronic media allow for circulation and reproduction of electronic material. Steam, for example, allows downloads to multiple computers. All computer games allow for atleast a certain number of 'reproductions' in that they can be installed on multiple laptops.
DVDs/electronic mediums aren't encoded so they only work on one specific 'player'. Well certain security dvd are but thats for corporate privacy purposes rather than anything else.
Games like TES series, Starcraft, etc etc have allowed user created modifications and even celebrated their existence through continual community support and providing the tools to change game material and create new content.
5: Says you ... I like reading through a rulebook and having a pdf handy on a laptop so whilst I'm reading I can punch in pg. numbers or keywords and immediately zoom to what they are talking about.
I can do that faster that just having two rulebooks and it improves reaction time from player - GM queries concerning game material.
I know, I've played 3.x and have most of their splat books.
That and I have to travel with already 12 kilos of books. The Rogue trader rulebook alone feels like 2 kilos. Thanks, but carrying around two of them when it's slower and less efficient when researching data seems counter-intuitive.
i do download alot but i also buy it so i can have a dvd copy ( mostly anime) i think its only if you gave your download to other people or if it doesnt have copyright
i go to business college, and we are being teached about laws. It says in our book, that if you own the product (like a cd, dvd) you are allowed to make a copy of it, for example, a copy for your car, and keep the original home, but selling or giving away, or simply let a friend borrow it is illegal. I live in Denmark, so I dont know if the law changes from country to country, so check up on it if you can. Hope this helped