Poll: What's wrong with piracy

[lizards]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Actually, simply put it isn't stealing, it's copying without permision from the publisher

theirs a word for that i believe its "stealing"

No, the word is copyright infringement.

No matter how you feel about piracy, it is not theft.

no copyright infringement is, by a simplied definition, using an idea or object to promote something you made without the creators consent, claim an idea or object was made by you, or using it on something you made without the authors consent

when you pirate something its the same as if you were to take the movie off the shelf of and retail store and walk out without paying for it, ABSOLUTELY no difference

 

[lizards]

Snip

Yeah, I overlooked my grammar there. I'm aware human beings have a conscience but the problem is that going unpunished by their actions may encourage repeated action. I wouldn't underestimate this.

I'm talking about a fully priced retail game being taken outside retail services. Buying or renting it from them is fine in which the policy then applies. Getting around this is technically taking it without permission.

My point is, that in most cases piracy actually leads to a sale and the sharing of pirated games serves as word-of-mouth advertising amongst a pirates friends. When companies actually listen to the people who pirate games, they realise that pirates are potential customers who don't agree with the old-fashioned business models that some of the big games publishers are so desperately clinging to. The companies who've let go of the old models and are being innovative are making a killing.

I choose to spend my money on the companies who are rolling with the times, and I have spent soooo much money on these companies. Valve listened to the voice of internet pirates and created a system whereby what they paid for was better than free, now they are worth billions of dollars. Piracy isn't destroying the games industry; the demonisation and refusal to listen to millions of internet pirates (who are all potential customers) is just plain retarded.

no that former model was the way it should work, if someone puts their own money and time in creating something then they should be paid for it FLATOUT, and i dont know what your talking about piracy adding to sales or whatever, most of the people i know who play games pirate things, want to know the last computer game any of them bought? i have no idea because its been a few years

this isnt as deep as most of you people are making this, this is just internet shoplifting, thats all piracy is, and if you disagree walk into a store and take a game off the shelf, because in both cases it ends the same way

 

[Olrod]

when you pirate something its the same as if you were to take the movie off the shelf of and retail store and walk out without paying for it, ABSOLUTELY no difference

Except that's the removal of a physical item, which prevents someone else from taking it instead.

So no, it's completely different.

 

[fenrizz]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Actually, simply put it isn't stealing, it's copying without permision from the publisher

theirs a word for that i believe its "stealing"

No, the word is copyright infringement.

No matter how you feel about piracy, it is not theft.

no copyright infringement is, by a simplied definition, using an idea or object to promote something you made without the creators consent, claim an idea or object was made by you, or using it on something you made without the authors consent

when you pirate something its the same as if you were to take the movie off the shelf of and retail store and walk out without paying for it, ABSOLUTELY no difference

There is a difference.
In your hypotetical example the retail store loses it's copy of the film.
When one pirates no copies are lost.

A very real difference.

I know you want it to be theft, and pirates to be nothing but simple thieves.
But it is not.

Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft". In copyright law, infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[5] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "...interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held.