So most people understand that piracy is NOT theft, technically...

[immortalfrieza]

I find it interesting that so many people are so up in arms against piracy, some, even having the audacity to claim to never have pirated before. Look at you avatar, if you did not create it 100%, then chances are that too is a form of piracy. So lets all drop the elitist boasting.

Ever heard of a thing called "fair use"?

There's only 1 difference between Fair Use and Piracy, Fair Use is legal, Piracy isn't, in every other way Piracy and Fair Use are the EXACT same thing. Thus, no one cares about fair use, but Piracy has people up in arms over the it. People look at Piracy and say "Piracy's illegal!!! That makes it bad!!!" People have no other reason to hate Piracy at all, because it's a completely victimless crime.

 

[Agayek]

There's only 1 difference between Fair Use and Piracy, Fair Use is legal, Piracy isn't, in every other way Piracy and Fair Use are the EXACT same thing. Thus, no one cares about fair use, but Piracy has people up in arms over the it. People look at Piracy and say "Piracy's illegal!!! That makes it bad!!!" People have no other reason to hate Piracy at all, because it's a completely victimless crime.

Except it's not.

The very nature of piracy is to take something without paying for it. Does it deprive anyone of their copy of the item? No, but the fact remains that you now got something without paying the creators.

It doesn't matter if it's legal or not, it's still morally wrong.

As for Fair Use, the difference is that it must fit certain criteria to be considered usable. Generally, things like reviews, commentary or educational purposes are covered by fair use. For a more concrete example, one could make a video ala Escape to the Movies with no issue under fair use. However, one could not post that video to YouTube. There's very much a difference between using bits and pieces in certain situations and actively taking the original product.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Nintendo is the only company that can develop ANYTHING Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. related without their permission, and only THEY can decide anything from how those products are distributed, where, to even the CONTENT that these products contain. For instance, some places never see releases of some Nintendo games, and even if it's incredibly stupid not to have it if they don't like something their developer is putting in a game it's gone, just like that.

In short, copyrights allow companies to have complete and utter control over everything that has their copyright in it, and they can charge us whatever they want for any product with their copyright on it, because they know that if we want that product, they're the only ones we can get it from.

And what is wrong with this? Why should somebody else get to make a crappy game, slap "Mario" on the cover, and trick people into buying it? The only reason anyone wants a particular franchise is because of the hard work that has gone into keeping it good. That mechanism goes straight to hell if just anyone can pick up a character and do whatever they want. I wouldn't want that with a franchise I created, so why should Nintendo?

Now, if a game didn't get released where you are and there's no reasonable method of obtaining it, pirate away. It's not your fault if Nintendo is refusing to take your money.

If there were no copyright laws and some guy decided to make a truly awful Mario game, and somebody else decided to just buy it without considering it's merits first, then they deserve to end up paying for a big steaming pile of crap. If copyrights didn't exist, it would be a market where people actually LOOK for quality, instead of just buying anything with a popular name on it (which is one of the REAL things that ruining the gaming industry).

Besides, your argument could easily be flipped, without copyright people could take an IP and make an absolute masterpiece of a game that the original creator could NEVER make.

 

[Wintermoot]

I see it as breach of copyright.
it,s the same as me having th blue prints for a car and building one in my backyard according to said blue prints.

Piracy is not theft.

Piracy is not counterfeiting.

Piracy is UNSTOPPABLE.

pretty much this even if you where to take down the entire Internet nothing is going to stop people from recording from TV or from the radio.

 

[immortalfrieza]

There's only 1 difference between Fair Use and Piracy, Fair Use is legal, Piracy isn't, in every other way Piracy and Fair Use are the EXACT same thing. Thus, no one cares about fair use, but Piracy has people up in arms over the it. People look at Piracy and say "Piracy's illegal!!! That makes it bad!!!" People have no other reason to hate Piracy at all, because it's a completely victimless crime.

Except it's not.

The very nature of piracy is to take something without paying for it. Does it deprive anyone of their copy of the item? No, but the fact remains that you now got something without paying the creators.

So? Nobody victimises ANYBODY by pirating. Nothing is physically stolen from content creator, the content creator isn't physically harmed, no other people are harmed by it, plenty of people still buy the product, while anyone who pirates would never have purchased the product anyway, so nobody's even being hurt in the wallet, and if somebody pirates in most cases the content creator isn't even AWARE of it. A guy that throws something away on the ground in a park once in his entire life (as you probably know, littering is also illegal) does more harm to himself and others with his crime than Pirates do.

It doesn't matter if it's legal or not, it's still morally wrong.

This is pretty much the whole point of my last post, if Piracy was legal, and especially if it always had been you wouldn't think it was wrong in the least, in fact, like Fair Use (below) you probably wouldn't even think about it.

As for Fair Use, the difference is that it must fit certain criteria to be considered usable. Generally, things like reviews, commentary or educational purposes are covered by fair use. For a more concrete example, one could make a video ala Escape to the Movies with no issue under fair use. However, one could not post that video to YouTube. There's very much a difference between using bits and pieces in certain situations and actively taking the original product.

Fair Use is still taking another person's copyrighted material and using it for your own purposes without that person's permission and likely without even notifying them of that fact.
Whether it used as a whole or not, or "fits certain criteria" is irrelevant. In fact, to use copyrighted material in your own product of some sort is another form of copyright infingement, and it would be hard to find anyone anywhere on the internet that doesn't do it constantly. Fair Use is still Piracy, as well as being probably the highest form of copyright infringement, Fair Use is just LEGAL, that doesn't mean it's not the same.

 

[Akimoto]

In short, copyrights allow companies to have complete and utter control over everything that has their copyright in it, and they can charge us whatever they want for any product with their copyright on it, because they know that if we want that product, they're the only ones we can get it from.

Oh, right. I see where you're coming from. I prefer to call it 'ass-hattery'.

and defecation.

I'm not sure what you intended to say there but it amused me.

Just as planned...

Look at you avatar, if you did not create it 100%, then chances are that too is a form of piracy. So lets all drop the elitist boasting.

Aww.... but she's so cute!

Anyway, it's nice to see someone practice what they preach - and that was NOT sarcastic. Hopefully Dodd does not see your post or he may jump on the idea of avatar IP. I am not going to pay to use an avatar, I rather go faceless.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Technically, piracy is breach of contract. Nothing worse.

Yeah, no it's not. If I download a copy of, say, Modern Warfare 3, what contract have I breached? More to the point, I haven't entered into any contract to breach in the first place.

See heres the problem. Some people go strictly by the legal definitions, while other people talk about how they personally view piracy.

Personally, I think you really are stealing from someone when you pirate, even if it doesnt fall under the correct legal definition.

But the legal definitions are the ones that actually matter. When people refer to pirates as thieves, there is an implication that they have committed the crime of theft, which legally they haven't. I really don't get this obsession with calling it theft or stealing (or need to call it fraud, counterfeiting or whatever), we already have a term for it, copyright infringement, why can't just that be used?

Eh, its easier to say stealing. The words copyright infringement are too big and scary.

Its really just a minor detail anyway.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

So, in the end, it's not about how we frame piracy in words, but as one poster put it, one group of people uses 'theft' in the legal sense, and the other group uses it in the moral sense, and both being right to a degree, it's not going to get sorted by a bit of rebranding.

I tried

However, I do put it to you that my view of the damage done is closer than the whole 'potential losses' idea. That a heavily pirated game loses some of its value by virtue of it being widely spread and easy to get hold of for free.

I also agree however, that we need to stop calling it theft or anything else, as it's too arguable. It's copyright infringement, it's illegal and it's wrong. (Yes there's cases where it's either legal or morally grey, I know).

What I'd suggest to the entertainment industry is some positive ads, instead of continually berating your paying customers with anti piracy ads, because your customers are the only ones being forced to watch them.

Also, 'Pirate DVDS fund the drugs trade' - if you can't even get repeated customers for your crack and heroin, I think you'll struggle to sell a pile of dodgy Avatar dvds.

I hope that they're slowly learning that many of their customers aren't the sheep they used to be and actually know and learn stuff, and they're going to have to stop taking so much advantage.

Pirates are bad, but they're sure as hell not the only bad side in this fight.

 

[Nielas]

Technically, piracy is breach of contract. Nothing worse.

Agreeing to a contract with the intention of breeching it is fraud.

The way I look at it, the copyright holder has the right to decide how his/her IP is going to be used and distributed and ask you to follow certain rules in order to be allowed to use it (ie pay for it, not distribute copies, etc.) It's an open ended take-it-or-leave-it contract. If you do not want to accept it, you are free to do so but cannot use the IP. If you still use the IP but do not intend to follow the rules the IP holder wants you to follow then you are committing fraud.

It's similar to you being asked to work overtime but your boss never intending to pay you for it. Most people would call it your boss stealing from you.

 

[Wolfram23]

Piracy actually has a definition.

Copyright Infringement

Not theft, or counterfeiting, or whatever (though it's close to counterfeiting). Not technically piracy either.

 

[anthony87]

But what if a person pirates say...a game that's no longer being sold. I mean, isn't emulation technically piracy? Or is there a whole other set of rules that I'm missing with regards to that?

 

[Woodsey]

Its not theft in the strictest definition of the word "theft". Even so, it is still theft. You take a product that is not yours, that has been created for the purpose of being sold, you consume it, and you don't pay for it. You've gained, they've lost - whether or not you were going to buy it anyway is irrelevant (for this side of the argument, it would be relevant if we were talking about DRM), you've assigned a value to it by way of consuming it.

This whole thing is very odd. Gamers seem to get antsy about it being "JUST FUCKING COPYRIGHT ARE YOU STOOPID OR WOT?" purely because the morons in the the government of various countries are too fucking old to actually understand the issue with trying to introduce laws on the internet.

Personal opinion in a nutshell: piracy is theft, (current) attempts at trying to regulate the internet are ridiculous. If someone invests time and money into a product that they are going to sell, and you consume it without paying, then you have robbed them of that time and money.

 

[Realitycrash]

Would people perhaps agree that it's closest in crimes to counterfeiting?

You're taking something of value and copying it, and in doing so, making more copies than were originally available, and in doing so, devaluing the originals.

It is after all, one of the pirate's excuse that 'games/cds/movies aren't worth the asking price', but that's coming from the perspective of someone who gets them for free.

This isn't a criticism or defence of piracy, more some desperate plea not to see 'its theft/no it isn't' take up a full page of every tangentally related thread on here

I don't believe every download is a lost sale, but I do believe piracy in general devalues what's being copied.

Call it theft, call it counterfitting, call it piracy. It's equally morally bad, be it a physical theft from a physical company or a digital theft from a company. The only difference is that when you take something physical, you also take whatever object that the information is stored on, which is worth...Well, not really much at all.
You can argue about the semantics of it all you want, and what the law calls act X or act Y. The moral fact behind it remains unchanged.

(Then again, "moral" ia very subjective, so one can think that theft or piracy isn't immoral at all, then you're good to go.)

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Technically, piracy is breach of contract. Nothing worse.

Care to elaborate? I don't recall signing any contracts saying what I will and will not use the internet for.

When you buy a game and pop it in the tray (in the case of a PC game), you might have noticed the EULA that pops up. If you're like me, you click "I agree" without reading it, or shuttle down the text if the "Next" button is grayed out.

That boring word salad nobody wants to read is a contract. By installing any given game, you're agreeing to some conditions. Depending on the publisher, you might be agreeing to owning only a license of the game or to being entrusted with an actual copy. In both cases - except in Shareware or Demo releases or other Creative Commons licenses - you're agreeing to not copying the contents of the disc or to display it as a performance (which technically shoots down Let's Plays, too).

Knowing that fact, cracking a game you purchased for the purposes of seeding it on a Torrent site is a breach of contract and warranty.