Poll: Let's Discuss Piracy

[Devour]

How can you not consider it theft? It still costs companies money.

And that makes it theft?

I think someone needs to read the posts I've made in the thread.

Wikipedia's definition of theft [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft]:-
"In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, fraud and sometimes criminal conversion. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny."

By your example, anything from speaking out against a company's malpractices to having an executive slip up in a speech could be counted as "theft".

 

[Marter]

How can you not consider it theft? It still costs companies money.

And that makes it theft?

I think someone needs to read the posts I've made in the thread.

Wikipedia's definition of theft [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft]:-
"In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, fraud and sometimes criminal conversion. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny."

By your example, anything from speaking out against a company's malpractices to having an executive slip up in a speech could be counted as "theft".

You are taking something that the company is charging for, their property, and benefiting from it. Sounds like theft to me.

 

[Devour]

You are taking something that the company is charging for, their property, and benefiting from it. Sounds like theft to me.

Then you're an idiot.

Do you really not understand what I am saying?

When you say theft, you say a word with multiple concepts packed into it. Theft is a complex idea, and it has multiple components.

I will put down a couple propositions for you, very clearly:

A: Theft means I gain your thing, and you lose your thing.
B: Copyright Violation means I gain your thing, but you do not lose your thing.

Do you understand these two ideas? Do you understand how they are different from each other?

Assuming you understand that:

C: Piracy means I gain your thing but you do not lose your thing.

This means Piracy is the same thing as Copyright Violation. It means Piracy is not the same thing as Theft.

Let's move on:

D: In Piracy, even though you keep your thing, I gained it from you for free. I might have bought your thing instead. So by doing the Piracy and getting your thing for free, you "Lose A Sale".

This is a little more complicated, but I needed to say it. Part D is where a lot of people think the Piracy becomes Theft. But Copyright Violation already has the idea of a Lost Sale in it. If you do Copyright Violation, it is a crime, but it is not Theft.

Conclusion: Theft is a thing. Copyright Violation is a thing. Piracy is Copyright Violation. Piracy is not Theft.

I cannot make this any clearer for you.

 

[slowpoke999]

Your poll is flawed, first off, "It's a crime but should not be punished" doesn't make sense, a better phrasing would be "It's a crime but I think it shouldn't be", if a crime isn't punishable there's no point of it being a crime.

 

[Devour]

Your poll is flawed, first off, "It's a crime but should not be punished" doesn't make sense, a better phrasing would be "It's a crime but I think it shouldn't be", if a crime isn't punishable there's no point of it being a crime.

And, yet, people have selected that option.

And, there're certain crimes that aren't punishable, like possessing Class C drugs. You just get the offending items removed from your possession.

 

[Steppin Razor]

The definition of theft is centuries old and in serious need of an update to match modern times. Regardless of what it's called though, piracy is wrong. People try to make a living by putting their time and effort into a piece of software that you than get to enjoy for free. That's wrong, plain and simple.

You don't want to pay for it, you don't get it.
You can't afford it, you don't get it.
It has annoying DRM you don't like, you don't get it.
You want to try a game before you buy, you get the demo.
You want to listen to a band before you buy, you check Youtube or band sites for official music videos and song streaming.

 

[slowpoke999]

Your poll is flawed, first off, "It's a crime but should not be punished" doesn't make sense, a better phrasing would be "It's a crime but I think it shouldn't be", if a crime isn't punishable there's no point of it being a crime.

And, yet, people have selected that option.

And, there're certain crimes that aren't punishable, like possessing Class C drugs. You just get the offending items removed from your possession.

Isn't getting stuff suspended from you that you own(even if it is illegal) technically a punishment?

And i'm pretty 50-50 on piracy, from a totally literal standpoint,the pirates aren't entitled to the game and the gamemakers aren't entitled money from just making a game(thought they are entitled if someone buys it).The problem is when you look at it,every single game is just software, if someone were to duplicate it in notepad to the last byte then techinically they made it, because that's all a game is,lines of code, you may be sweet when you say a game has a soul, but a game,it's engine, and it's audio/sprites/models are either code or a complicated jumble of pixels and audio data.

Pirating is just making the copying process much much easier, it isn't stealing and can never be compared to a car, or physical peice of paper, I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it can never ever be stealing, it is literally impossible. Copyright infrignment on the other hand is a different story, especially if you sell it, pirating is more akin to ripping of someones idea and passing it as your own(if you sell it ofcourse). If people were pirating stuff and selling it then it should definately be punishable, that'll be like making a crappy flash superman game and selling it, keeping your pirated shit to yourself shouldn't be punishable, but ofcourse morals still come into play(unless you pirate an Ubisoft game).

And this is from someone who has never pirated before, either movies/songs or games.

 

[Devour]

Isn't getting stuff suspended from you that you own(even if it is illegal) technically a punishment?

I wouldn't really count it is so, and I doubt most others would.

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

To me, piracy isn't a copyright thing. Because no one is taking MW2 and Going "oh hey look at me I made this game!!!". It doesn't seem like a copyright issue unless someone is falsely taking ownership of a piece of intellectual property. It seems to me like this is a case of unauthorized manufacturing, which can be whatever the courts decide it should be, but it is not a copyright violation, because the ownership of your work is not stolen. The only thing being stolen arguably, is the ability to keep tabs on the distribution of said product.

Then again, piracy is in effect, stealing. You are taking something that you are legal required to pay for and not paying for it, except for maybe internet charges. I mean piracy is pretty much un-defend-able, but it's one of those things that need to be kept under wraps. That's really the best way to restrict it, in fact. If no one talked about it, no one would know about it, except those who already did. Blabbering about piracy only spreads knowledge of it, and well then, more people will pirate stuff. The best thing to do in this case is not acknowledge it's existence cause then maybe everyone will forget about it.

 

[phar]

The real problem is that all the people opposed to piracy expect people to just go out and buy everything. I have Back to the Future on VHS. Why should I have to spend again to get it on DVD and then again to have it on BluRay and probably soon will make the movie in 3D no doubt, its the same thing just better quality. I didnt include any of the other failed movie formats that there have been over the years including beta, laser disks and hddvds. I dont see why I should buy the same movie every few years so that it plays with the latest technology. Its the same with nearly everything these days, everything is set up to be obselete or fail within a few years (my snes is still going strong yet im on my second 360 and PS3).

Another problem old games or movies or music that you cant get anymore or somethings that arnt sold in your region.

 

[lacktheknack]

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.

No, you are not having a "taster", you're grabbing the whole product and fleeing.

The "natural consumer method" to product testing is called a "demo". You know, what the company sets out as the free taster.

Piracy threads attract flame, that's why no one responded at first... then boy, did they respond.

 

[Arcticflame]

Then again, piracy is in effect, stealing. You are taking something that you are legal required to pay for and not paying for it, except for maybe internet charges.

But that isn't the definition of stealing. Stealing is taking something that isn't yours, in the process depriving someone of that item.

Not that piracy isn't bad, it's just something else entirely from theft.

 

[Billion Backs]

Is piracy a crime? Yes. Is it the same as theft? No, nor should it be treated as such when deciding on punishment for those who are caught pirating. Simply put, those are my thoughts on the subject.

Piracy has been around in one form or another since the early nineties. Pirates will continue to pirate, and legitimate customers will continue to buy movies/music/games. The one thing developers need to keep in mind is that they can't alienate their customers with overly-ambitious DRM in the hopes of preventing piracy. It won't help.

People used to share and make extra copies of tapes since way before that. I'm pretty sure that more or less counts as piracy, considering how the original copy remains in hands of it's owner, but the new "user" benefits from an equivalent while the artist/dumb recording company doesn't get any profit.

My parents used to be in a tape-sharing "club" in University back in the 70s and 80s... But then again, it wasn't exactly easy to get your hands on a lot of decent music in USSR. Not legally, at least.

Meh. It just comes down to balance between two forces. Absolute anarchy and absolute authoritarian order. I'd rather side with the former then the latter... People who pirate want free stuff and will continue to pursue free stuff, especially when they can go virtually unpunished and as a moral relativist and generally amoral selfish bastard, I can agree with them. However, I can see how that could, at some point, be doing harm to the people responsible for creating the material, especially in our current capitalistic system.

On the other hand, the companies that sell you the stuff would like nothing more then to charge you for it as much and as often as they can. And as a consumer I'm obviously against that. DRMs and similar ineffective devices keep pushing in that direction, harming the legitimate consumers even more - and the fact that most pirate figures are made up or don't necessarily mean 100% lost profits only complicates the whole deal further.

And of course, there is always the option of going deeply philosophical and explore the idea of immaterial belongings (Well, in a way. Said music or games are just data, they don't so much represent physical objects) and all that, but at 3 AM I couldn't care less.

 

[acosn]

1) Piracy is basic level theft. You're taking something that does not belong to you.

2) Bearing that in mind, there's easy potential for reasoning piracy of certain things- I don't consider pirating Mozart theft. He will never see the money. Nor will anyone if I pirate NES / SNES titles- the period of sale and direct benefit by the maker is long gone.

I don't support pirating directly but I also think companies are every bit as responsible a hand as the people who provide the means in this- I have a hard time buying an album when maybe 2-3 tracks are good and the artist won't even see but a small fraction of the sale. Just the same I have a hard time handing over my hard earned money for a game when there's no demo and no way to properly know if it's good or not (IE: demo.)

 

[robobengt]

Piracy is not theft. Neither is it kidnapping. Nor arson. These are all different crimes. Why is that so hard to understand?

The copyright laws wouldn't be if you could "steal" intellectual property. It's pointless and totally semantic anyway because people don't care.

Anyway...One could argue that in a market, price is a result of demand and supply. When it comes to physical objects, supply is costly. To make more of a thing you need to spend resources which drives up the price of the final product. In intellectual property, the duplication of an already existing product is free. Seeing as how the supply is virtually limitless the price of virtual products should go towards nothing.

(But I still spend all my surplus money on electronic entertainment since I think it's morally correct to do so)

 

[Newa]

This has been done to death.

 

[Devour]

1) Piracy is basic level theft. You're taking something that does not belong to you.

2) Bearing that in mind, there's easy potential for reasoning piracy of certain things- I don't consider pirating Mozart theft. He will never see the money. Nor will anyone if I pirate NES / SNES titles- the period of sale and direct benefit by the maker is long gone.

I don't support pirating directly but I also think companies are every bit as responsible a hand as the people who provide the means in this- I have a hard time buying an album when maybe 2-3 tracks are good and the artist won't even see but a small fraction of the sale. Just the same I have a hard time handing over my hard earned money for a game when there's no demo and no way to properly know if it's good or not (IE: demo.)

As someone on the B12G forums mentioned, without piracy he would never have been able to play the games he did in his childhood simply because they are no longer supported or sold by the companies.

Pirating is also a way to preserve decades of virtual and computing culture online.

 

[Asehujiko]

I think that if we decided to ban everybody who's arguments against piracy basically comes down to "I'm so right I don't need to give any arguments and you are so wrong that I will ignore all your arguments and just tell you again that you are wrong" we'd end up with more pro-piracy people then anti-piracy people.

 

[Devour]

I think that if we decided to ban everybody who's arguments against piracy basically comes down to "I'm so right I don't need to give any arguments and you are so wrong that I will ignore all your arguments and just tell you again that you are wrong" we'd end up with more pro-piracy people then anti-piracy people.

I know you from somewhere. Are you on B12G?

And, yep, you're pretty much right.

"IT'Z ILLEGULZ AND THERE4 WRONG".

Another point to consider: Pirates force companies to make decent games / release extra free content. They're the ones that force companies to have a standard.