It's time to discuss piracy, ladies and gents.
The question of piracy (as a whole) is not a simple one to address, as different moral viewpoints (or even similar moral viewpoints) can end up at completely different conclusions to how to solve the problem of piracy and whether or not it IS a problem.
Let's address piracy as a crime:-
Let's address what economists / consumers usually think of piracy:-
Let's address what games publishers / most governments think of piracy:-
( Feel free to add to any of this, it isn't comprehensive, and it's probably pretty strawmen, but I think it sets the basis for the argument. )
Here is where my opinion comes in. My reasons for disliking this anti-piracy trend is two-fold:-
[list type=decimal][li]Piracy is a natural way for a consumer to weed out the terrible products from the good ones. This scares the executives and publishers, as it means they can't make terrible products and make money from them.[/li]
[li]Piracy is being used as an excuse to invade our privacy. It's not about anti-pirate versus pirate (that battle is unwinnable for the anti-pirates and they know it since all current anti-piracy methods are useless against pirated software), it's about privacy versus surveillance. If pretty much any of the anti-piracy acts go through, people in that part of the world will be royally fucked. Both the companies and the governments are attacking our liberty under the pretence of defending us.[/li][/list]
I suspect these are the ONLY two reasons (or, at least, the root reasons) why there's such an anti-piracy trend going on in the corporate and political world. Anything about it being a crime is an excuse for these two things. I can only assume this from the utterly retarded anti-piracy methods that've been made lately. And I can only assume those anti-piracy methods were made to force more people to start doing piracy in an attempt to inflate the problem to get these two goals done. I can think of no other reasons other than this and the DRM designers being utter morons.
So, think about it like this. Piracy is a natural consumer method (equal to getting a taster of a product at a shop, except the product can be made through Star Trek-esque production machines) to testing out a product. Companies and governments want to (for whatever reason, probably making more money and being authoritarian) be able to control and monitor your every move, as well as stopping you from being able to test a product before you buy it.
People can claim that piracy is a crime, but I know which one of these I think is the bigger crime.
How about all of you?
The question of piracy (as a whole) is not a simple one to address, as different moral viewpoints (or even similar moral viewpoints) can end up at completely different conclusions to how to solve the problem of piracy and whether or not it IS a problem.
Let's address piracy as a crime:-
- [li]It doesn't count as theft, as there is no theft of a physical product. You are merely copying a product over.[/li]
[li]It is a breach of copyright law.[/li]
[li]Numerous bodies are attempting to place highly invasive anti-piracy laws into our day to day lives. Including, but not limited to, internet services being cut off without any advance warning or warrant required and hacking and constant monitoring of suspected PCs involved in piracy. Even for downloading a single illegal file. I think you could do that by accident.[/li]
Let's address what economists / consumers usually think of piracy:-
- [li]It's a natural part of consumer behaviour. It's a way to test the waters of a product. Attempting to shut it down doesn't do anything useful.[/li]
[li]The vast majority of people who have access to the internet have done an act of piracy on the internet (something like 90% of teens had over 700 illegally downloaded songs on their portable music players). Making piracy an arrestable crime under law would mean a lot of people would be criminalised for it. See American prohibition, which created organised crime.[/li]
[li]More anti-piracy stuff = Fewer sales and more piracy. See Spore as an example of serious DRM getting the game into a piracy whirlwind.[/li]
[li]Wares are generally of a better quality than the product itself.[/li]
[li]Consumers don't really consider it a crime, simply because it's not causing anyone any real harm.[/li]
Let's address what games publishers / most governments think of piracy:-
- [li]It is a crime, unquestionably. Equal to theft, and should be tried as such.[/li]
[li]Piracy must be stamped out at all costs. Ignoring statistical evidence and claiming it funds child abuse and terrorism [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTH62P7fFJo] is for some reason necessary.[/li]
[li]All negative backlash against anti-piracy methods must be ignored, despite the fact they often lose sales because of it.[/li]
[li]A person's privacy doesn't matter as long as long as they aren't using pirated software. The irony is, of course, that people using pirated software won't have their privacy invaded.[/li]
( Feel free to add to any of this, it isn't comprehensive, and it's probably pretty strawmen, but I think it sets the basis for the argument. )
Here is where my opinion comes in. My reasons for disliking this anti-piracy trend is two-fold:-
[list type=decimal][li]Piracy is a natural way for a consumer to weed out the terrible products from the good ones. This scares the executives and publishers, as it means they can't make terrible products and make money from them.[/li]
[li]Piracy is being used as an excuse to invade our privacy. It's not about anti-pirate versus pirate (that battle is unwinnable for the anti-pirates and they know it since all current anti-piracy methods are useless against pirated software), it's about privacy versus surveillance. If pretty much any of the anti-piracy acts go through, people in that part of the world will be royally fucked. Both the companies and the governments are attacking our liberty under the pretence of defending us.[/li][/list]
I suspect these are the ONLY two reasons (or, at least, the root reasons) why there's such an anti-piracy trend going on in the corporate and political world. Anything about it being a crime is an excuse for these two things. I can only assume this from the utterly retarded anti-piracy methods that've been made lately. And I can only assume those anti-piracy methods were made to force more people to start doing piracy in an attempt to inflate the problem to get these two goals done. I can think of no other reasons other than this and the DRM designers being utter morons.
So, think about it like this. Piracy is a natural consumer method (equal to getting a taster of a product at a shop, except the product can be made through Star Trek-esque production machines) to testing out a product. Companies and governments want to (for whatever reason, probably making more money and being authoritarian) be able to control and monitor your every move, as well as stopping you from being able to test a product before you buy it.
People can claim that piracy is a crime, but I know which one of these I think is the bigger crime.
How about all of you?
