Quick question, is this stealing?

[Arnoxthe1]

Legally, yes it's stealing.

Metaphorically, no.

 

[Sikratua]

If you want to be pedantic about my example, how about if I somehow brought a photocopier with me that ran off a battery and I used my own paper and ink. So, how then are you deprived of anything? You're not, therefore there is no theft.

So, what you're saying is that whenever I come up with logical answers to your examples, you're just going to pull random, nearly impossible criteria out of your ass, in order to save your extremely flawed arguement. I'd at least have some respect if you would at least concede a poor example on your part.

He didn't deprive EA of anything because they didn't have the money to begin with! If you don't have a proprietary interest in something, it cannot be stolen from you. EA are literally in the same position they would be in if he hadn't modified the ini at all. He didn't use any of their resources and they haven't provided him with a service. Yes, he got something without paying, but that alone is not sufficient to convict someone of theft. The mental state of someone and the intentions behind their actions is a huge part of criminal law.

Edit: And you can't steal electricity as it is not property under s.4(1) TA 1968(Low v Blease)

But, EA is the only legal seller of the item in question. By taking the item without paying for it, in ANY regard, you are depriving EA of the money for their work. You still haven't actually explained how this is somehow not theft. And, of course, the funniest part is, we seem to agree that the guy committed a criminal act. Where we're drawing issue is with exactly which crime he committed.

Also, I never said that you did steal electricity. I said that you were depriving me of whatever money would have been required to pay for that electricity. Also, that said, to produce enough printer ink, paper, and batteries to power your supposed battery powered printer, it would cost more than the cost of the book. Seriously, I'm forced to say it again. Your example sucked. Will you please just admit that, and stop embarrassing yourself?

 

[Sikratua]

it's not my fault you lack the mental capacity to see why. (And, a bunch of other horseshit to which it's not worth my time to reply.)

You had to go there, didn't you? You had to take a discussion about law, and devolve it to a personal attack. Fine. We will play this by your rules. I'm done being respectful in my disagreement.

On top of that, you keep quoting English law, when English law has no bearing on this issue. The OP is an American, and committed his act in the United States. Your laws, straight up, do not matter. "It's not my fault that you lack the mental capacity to see why." Sound familiar?

The law does not care what a person takes, or by what method. If a person takes something that does not legally belong to that person, without paying for it, that person is guilty of a crime. Period. You want to simper about whther or not it's theft. Fine. Do that. You want to bring out idiotic criteria that has no place in any reasonable discussion? Fine. Do that. All you accomplish is to weaken your own position.

But, then you venture into direct insult when called on your non-existant point? At this point, you are, simply put, no long worthy of my time.

 

[Moochkin]

@ Sikrata

i never meant to imply that it is legal to do so as i know it would be seen as illegal and he should have payed for the content bad choice of words on my behalf, i reckon however shipping a game with content locked is a very bad business practice and it should be stopped (it wont but it should) if only developers actually shipped a finished game or a game in which you could play what was on the disk it would be nice. Its a very underhanded way of making games and reckon most of the gaming community see this as very unfair.

 

[Rage4Kon]

I would consider this being clever. Well done sir.

 

[s0p0g]

it may be technically illegal because someone who studied twisting of law says so, but i'll be damned if it's illegitimate. screw 'em.

 

[Shycte]

I don't think it's theft, but if you pay for it then you should recive it. However, are you sure that this wasn't covered in the fine prints when you bought it?

 

[Altorin]

if you bought the game new, (and considering it's steam, there's no other option) there's nothing wrong with it in the slightest IMO

 

[Cavouku]

...Isn't it more like performing a service that is offered to you, for a price?

I mean... let me clarify; If I believe I can do my own plumbing, not hiring a plumber does not constitute as "stealing" business from the plumber.

Project $10 only makes sense from a certain viewpoint. You could look at it as "Oh cool, I can buy some DLC. And hey! It doesn't take forever to download. Cool."

But, like you, most people will say "Why is there a restricted function that I have to pay to unlock? I already own the disc, why is it saying I don't?"

I like to make the "negative money" analogy. I could give the customer two quarters and four dimes (as I have no nickels at work), or, brilliantly, I could give them one loonie, and a negative dime. Brilliant, smaller change amount = happier transaction

And then I look at the tip jar and realize I have just been tipped into bankruptcy.

(this is something I made up, obviously)

It's not an inherently bad idea, it's just an idea with too many flaws to work effectively.

 

[yusukethehedgehog]

So, what you're saying is that the OP is guilty of permanently depriving EA of 10 bucks. How is that not theft, again?

Allow me to quote from American law, because, since the OP is an American, it actually applies. Even better, since the OP is from California, I can quote direct California law on the subject. While I will admit that California Penal Code § 484 isn't as succinct as yours, It certainly gets the job done.

Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who shall fraudulently appropriate property which has been entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and designedly, by any false or fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other person of money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft.

The key phrases are "Fraudlulently appropriate property" (which he did) and "defraud any other person of money." (Which, again, he did.)

He has the DLC. EA did not receive 10 dollars. Therefore, 10 dollars of EA's money is actual money missing from their coffers. That's not "potential."

No, he did not. The property was given to him willingly, as it came with the supplied legal download. And he deprive EA of their $10, he deprived them of his $10 that he could have given them.

But, because I like the ironic echo trope, "Why is this topic so difficult for people to get?"

Edited: Just because I feel like having a bit of fun with this guy, please, allow me to quote British law. The Theft Act of 1978 states:

(1) A person who by any deception dishonestly obtains services from another shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) It is an obtaining of services where the other is induced to confer a benefit by doing some act, or causing or permitting some act to be done, on the understanding that the benefit has been or will be paid for.
(3) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection

The "service" in question is unlocking the material. Shall I invoke the ironic echo again?

Ah, but he did not obtain the service, he performed the service himself.

Let's see. You altered the .ini file, and that unlocked the DLC? You used no third party software to do this? If that is the case then it's a failure on EA's part to provide adequate security.

I assume he edited the ini with notepad, which is technically third-party software. However, because it was a format designed to be edited by the software which existed before the file was made, this point is moot.

By altering the code of the game, the person violates rulings on the books since 1989. (Nintendo V. Tengen) Furthermore, these rulings were given more strength by the rulings given in Sony v. Hotz, which were likely a major part of the reason for the settlement in that case. Frankly, Sony should have curb stomped the douchey little toad, as an example to all who might have follwed him. But, they showed mercy, and in doing so, became a major target for pretty well every hacker on the planet, for a time.

The quoted Nintendo case (assuming you mean the case about bypassing the NES's lock-out chip and not the Tetris case)is not the correct... the word slips my mind (I know it starts with a p). Tengen violated Nintendo's patent on their lock-out chip. They were also distributing the derivative works of this infringement commercially for profit.

That being said, the Sony case is quite relevant because of it's relation to DMCA. What fail0verflow (the group from the Sony case) did in essence wouldn't have been illegal if they hadn't done one thing, they distributed the jailbreak. By doing so, the jailbreak lost its fair use status, as it was no longer for personal use. Now, technically the OP didn't distribute the bypass for the dlc, he did post how to do it. However, saying how he did it violates no law as long as he doesn't distribute the file for the bypass.

With all that out of the way, I retract a bit of my previous post. After reading up a little more on Project $10 in relation to this game in particular, I found that EA announced the free dlc for PS3 and 360 copies if it was purchased through them (I could still be wrong, however, as my source for this is ye olde wikipedia), so a Steam purchase wouldn't apply for this.

 

[Turigamot]

It's theft, on EA's part.

 

[Stoike]

No because it's alredy there you're just "making" the "key" as it were to get to what is already yours

 

[Gladiateher]

Hi everyone I have a question, I recently disassembled my light bright to get the lightbulb out of it i then used this bulb in a lamp. Was this stealing? KTHXBAI

 

[saucecode]

Personally, no. If it's on the disk and they aren't providing you with a way to get to it then you should be able to get it yourself.

I agree. If its on the HDD, then you should be able to get it yourself. They won't get you for theft, like. come on! "This man stole something he didn't pay for, although he did buy the game that held it."

Heh, yea rite.

 

[robert01]

Hi everyone, this is about Project Ten Dollar.

So, I recently bought Alice: Madness Returns when it was released some time ago on Steam. Well, I was told there was a neat little DLC that gave me extras. EA pushing Origin so hard and didn't put it on Steam so I couldn't buy it, this DLC is like most/all of EA's, it's following the Project Ten Dollar template.

For those that are unfamiliar with this, it's essentially EA having DLC on the disc/data you purchased. So you still pay for it, but instead of downloading it, they simply 'unlock it' for you. So, as it was, it was actually there, I just couldn't use it. Well, being on PC, I just changed the 'Engine.ini' file to 'unlock' it.

So, I was curious, would you consider this a theft?

NO it is not. Maybe I would consider it stealing if there was a way to still buy it like there is for XB360 and PS3(don't know if you can still now, but you could after the game launched). Also it shipped on the disc, if you ship dlc on the disc then technically I have the right to use it, I licensed the info on the disc.

 

[Olrod]

If you paid for the disc already, I don't see a problem.

Were you supposed to be paying them $10 for the DLC itself, which doesn't make sense if they'd already given it to you before you paid the $10, or paying them for simply *unlocking* the DLC which you already purchased?

If you're able to simply unlock it for yourself then it's not theft, it's saving money.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

I did this exact thing. Except i bought the store copy first..returend it, then bought it on origin with the dlc and it ended up being ten bucks cheaper .. so ummm yea. I guess that's kinda stealing