Poll: What's wrong with piracy

[Filiecs]

It's still stealing. The developers asked for money in return for the data of the game. You are using that game data without paying for it.
To anyone who says "it's copying", you're still stealing. Copying someone's research without their consent is stealing and so is copying a companies data.

In my opinion, piracy is ALWAYS morally wrong. However, depending on the situation, resorting to piracy can be understandable.

 

[SonicKoala]

Because there's a fundamental difference between me stealing your car, and me copying your DVD while leaving it completely whole. The car was stolen, I infringed on your right to private property. The DVD was copied, your copy of the DVD doesn't magically disappear because I copied it.

By copying the DVD, you infringed on the owner's right to intellectual property. You are still taking something you aren't entitled to.

It might be useful to look at the original crime of larceny, which was later replaced by theft:

"Larceny: The unlawful taking and removing of another's personal property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner. The wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person."

What, in your example, are you taking and removing with the intent of permanently depriving?

The compensation which that person was entitled to when they produced that particular intellectual property? There is no taking, I suppose, but there is still deprivation.

 

[crazyarms33]

Let me start off by saying that in all my life I have torrented 1 game, Doom 1. I have also been given a pirated version of Age of Empires 2 (a game I already owned but needed to run off a memory stick). Thats it, and both of those files are long gone.

None of this however is a moral objection to piracy, I have no objections to people that do it, I mainly don't pirate due to my desire to have a large physical collection of games, and the fact that old games are easier to find through legitimate means which usually work better. But when I see people complain about piracy I often wonder, why are you against it? I understand that there are some situations where piracy is harmful, like if a game sells poorly or if it is in support of a charity, but who gives a shit if a game like Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim is pirated.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

Why is stealing in general wrong? According to your logic, or at least how I perceive it, it's the same argument. For example let's say that someone steals a Nissan car. But Nissan sells millions of cars a year, why should we mind just the one that gets stolen? Hell we won't even prosecute them, after all whats the difference between 2.5 million cars and 2,499,999 cars? Granted cars are more expensive and people are less likely to steal them than a game but the principal remains the same. In fact I would argue that because games are so much cheaper than cars more people are likely to steal them. And as for the whole idea of "but it sold millions of copies so one stolen one won't matter" take that idea and multiply it by a factor of about 100,000 and suddenly its not 1 free game, but thousands. And piracy will only get worse as long as there are no repercussions against those that do it.
Game piracy will always be around, but as was mentioned it could cripple the industry.

 

[New Vegas Samurai]

there's nothing inherently wrong about it. if you've ever looked into it, even the pirates urge people to buy original if they liked the software.
What makes it evil, are people who make a living of it. Here in the philippines, people pirate and openly engage in the sales of the copies.
That's what I think makes it evil.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It is outright theft. I know some people will argue since you aren't stealing an actual product, it isn't but I believe it is. You are taking away from potential sales. If you claim you weren't going to buy the game anyway, that doesn't make it right to steal it. Neither does the fact that you couldn't afford it. Video games are a luxury, not a right.
I think the major detrimental effect of pirating is all the total bullshit that paying customers like myself have to put up with because of it. Draconian DRM, online passes, DLC, poor development for PC. A lot of this would not be an issue if there were 0% pirating.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Because there's a fundamental difference between me stealing your car, and me copying your DVD while leaving it completely whole. The car was stolen, I infringed on your right to private property. The DVD was copied, your copy of the DVD doesn't magically disappear because I copied it.

By copying the DVD, you infringed on the owner's right to intellectual property. You are still taking something you aren't entitled to.

It might be useful to look at the original crime of larceny, which was later replaced by theft:

"Larceny: The unlawful taking and removing of another's personal property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner. The wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person."

What, in your example, are you taking and removing with the intent of permanently depriving?

The compensation which that person was entitled to when they produced that particular intellectual property? There is no taking, I suppose, but there is still deprivation.

Compensation refers to giving someone back something they've lost. Until you can point to what exactly has been lost here, there's no sense in bringing up compensation.

 

[Magnicon]

SNIP

Pff, now that's just complete and utter console superiority talking. The Elder Scrolls series has never had an installment that was made as a port to the PC.

Maybe you don't see it that way, but that isn't the issue. Piracy has and is still taking from the deserved sales of PC games. Is this really the thread where we should be bickering about console vs. PC gaming? Come on, man, don't give me that attitude, at least not over something as stupid as console vs. PC.

I'm not sure why you thought I was being a console elitist. I do not own a console, and haven't for well over 5 years. I specifically dislike playing games on consoles. I was simply pointing out the well established fact that consoles always have much higher sales figures at this point.

Also, I'm not sure where you got your info about TES games being ports to PC.

"Skyrim to be developed for consoles, ported to pc
Jun 08, 2011 at 12:29 PM - APY - 7 Comments
Now there's a piece of disappointing news. Skyrim's lead producer Craig Lafferty confirmed in an interview with CVG that Skyrim is being developed with consoles as the lead SKUs. That means that while the game will simultaneously be released on pc, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it will not be optimized for pc."

It's well known that Skyrim was a PC port. Oblivion was as well(well known), but I can't find anything at the moment.

Really, why wouldn't someone release these numbers with the Steam sales? That makes everything completely inaccurate and misleading.

Are you really asking why the big greedy corporations that whine about piracy would do anything that would skew public perception on sales numbers to support their argument?

 

[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"

 

[SonicKoala]

Because there's a fundamental difference between me stealing your car, and me copying your DVD while leaving it completely whole. The car was stolen, I infringed on your right to private property. The DVD was copied, your copy of the DVD doesn't magically disappear because I copied it.

By copying the DVD, you infringed on the owner's right to intellectual property. You are still taking something you aren't entitled to.

It might be useful to look at the original crime of larceny, which was later replaced by theft:

"Larceny: The unlawful taking and removing of another's personal property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner. The wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person."

What, in your example, are you taking and removing with the intent of permanently depriving?

The compensation which that person was entitled to when they produced that particular intellectual property? There is no taking, I suppose, but there is still deprivation.

Compensation refers to giving someone back something they've lost. Until you can point to what exactly has been lost here, there's no sense in bringing up compensation.

Compensation:

"Something, such as money, given or received as payment or reparation, as for a service or loss."

That's the second definition taken from thefreedictionary.com

Note the word service. Compensation also refers to payment in exchange for a service, i.e. providing someone hours of entertainment via a video game.

 

[Devin Griffin]

I just wanted to say I am impressed at the level of common-sense and maturity that is shown here on the Escapist - compare to other sites like Youtube... or Gametrailers.

Pirating is stealing.

Good-day.

 

[Xanthious]

My figure was actually based upon the week sales numbers in the US of when Skyrim came out, which (I thought) must have included Steam sales.

Here's the source:
http://www.vgchartz.com/charts/weekly.php?reg=USA&date=40860

Really, why wouldn't someone release these numbers with the Steam sales? That makes everything completely inaccurate and misleading.

Yeah Steam is pretty tight lipped about their sales information for some reason. Because of that and the fact that digital PC sales have bypassed boxed PC sales it's almost impossible to gauge how well any particular PC title is or isn't selling unless the actual developer releases numbers and even then you can't help but wonder if they may be spinning those numbers for some reason or another.

If I had to estimate though I'd wager Skyrim is well over a million total PC sales by this point and could well be pushing 1.5 million or more if you assume it's selling just as well (if not better) digitally as it is in retail which isn't hard to believe. If you look to The Witcher 2 as an example which has 660k retail sales when you look on vgchartz but according to the developer has sold 1.5 million total copies.

 

[Alexander Bradley]

You know, if the gaming industry goes down from piracy, then they've obviously goofed pretty bad with their salesmanship. Anyone is going to steal anything if they want it bad enough, but if more people are stealing an item than there are people buying it, that usually means that the industry isn't marketing their products well enough.

If best-selling games like Skyrim, Portal 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolutions, or other games sold for $30 or less, instead of $60, I'd guarantee that there would be a lot more consumers and a lot less pirates out there. The amount of money earned from sales and investment returns would be more than enough to earn a fairly hefty profit for the producers and developers of the game.

But since gaming companies insist on making these games unreasonably high-priced, people are going to want it either a) pre-owned or used for a better price or b)they're just going to pirate the game to see if it was even worth its pricing. Which, in my opinion, is rarely ever the case considering I could fill up my car completely and be set for about 2-3 weeks off of the money I could risk on buying a game that may not even be worth the hype.

It would also help if the gaming industry was willing to take more risks and actually listen to their targeted marketing denominations instead of playing things safe and going off of what's been easier to do in the past. I'm more than certain that plenty of wonderful game designs and ideas have been shot down by major gaming companies because it wasn't something they were 'comfortable with investing in'.

 

[Death God]

Because industries loose money and if online piracy is accepted the people will begin to wonder what else can be pirated.

 

[Peteron]

Piracy is stealing, stealing is bad. Not that hard to figure out.

 

[Knight537]

I disagree with piracy because video game companies lose money over their games so publishers are less willing to take chances that won't guarantee them money because they know some sales will be lost to piracy. And good people have to pay a lot of money to get a game nowadays and not having to pay for when others do is just wrong. That being said piracy should be allowed for old games that are no longer available on the market like "Doom" or other really old games.

 

[Magnicon]

Piracy is stealing, stealing is bad. Not that hard to figure out.

Piracy is sharing, sharing is good, sharing leads to awareness, awareness increases fan base if the product is good, fan base leads to sales. Only slightly harder to figure out.

 

[The Chaz]

There is another website I frequent. During a podcast they had this very same discussion. To paraphrase a paraphrased quote made by one of the members of the podcast; Piracy is like a hole in the fence of a popular amusement park. People can sneak in through that hole and ride free rides all day. However, this is terribly unfair to anyone not utilizing that hole in the fence. The park is kept running by the people buying tickets. The more people using that gap in the fence, the higher ticket prices are raised, and now these people who were doing the right thing all along are being punished for the disobedience of others.

Yes, games like MW3 and Skyrim are still making millions, but because there are contributing citizens paying for them. Those who pirate are stealing, not only from the industry, but from those citizens; their fellow gamers.

So, in short, it is unfair and insensitive. That is why it's wrong.

 

[CodeOrange]

Yes and no.

Yes because of all of the aforementioned reasons and that it's technically STEALING.

No because in some cases, games are rare to find and/or are much easier to just be downloaded, legally or illegally. Same thing with music and movies. Don't forget that in some cases, the pirated copy is superior to the purchased ie Spore. There's also the usual argument where a game isn't worth purchasing, and that it's usually the best way to see if a game is worth buying.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Because there's a fundamental difference between me stealing your car, and me copying your DVD while leaving it completely whole. The car was stolen, I infringed on your right to private property. The DVD was copied, your copy of the DVD doesn't magically disappear because I copied it.

By copying the DVD, you infringed on the owner's right to intellectual property. You are still taking something you aren't entitled to.

It might be useful to look at the original crime of larceny, which was later replaced by theft:

"Larceny: The unlawful taking and removing of another's personal property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner. The wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person."

What, in your example, are you taking and removing with the intent of permanently depriving?

The compensation which that person was entitled to when they produced that particular intellectual property? There is no taking, I suppose, but there is still deprivation.

Compensation refers to giving someone back something they've lost. Until you can point to what exactly has been lost here, there's no sense in bringing up compensation.

Compensation:

"Something, such as money, given or received as payment or reparation, as for a service or loss."

That's the second definition taken from thefreedictionary.com

Note the word service. Compensation also refers to payment in exchange for a service, i.e. providing someone hours of entertainment via a video game.

Games aren't a service. They're a good. I can't be providing a service if I'm sitting on my backside doing nothing with no loss incurred. For example if I lent you the use of my garage for a day that would be a 'service' because I could otherwise be using it to sell lemonade from.

http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-goods-and-services/