To all the people who think piracy is cool, fine, etc do any of you get paid for creative content?

[DoPo]

You see, the thing about piracy is that it doesn't need an excuse. The act of piracy in and of itself harms no-one,

I love that. Wait, actually I don't. I hate that. Although, it's technically true.

Now, would you please go and do some research, then come back and write at least of couple of paragraphs reiterating and expanding upon you your point here. I'll wait. Oh, let me give you some seeds - Demigod launch fiasco, free rider problem, tragedy of the commons. Go on, chop chop.

 

[Azuaron]

Ah, piracy as free trial. I mostly don't see a problem with that, particularly if we're talking about country-locked content. But the primary argument for that isn't, "I'm poor," it's, "I want to know if I like it first."

I fail to see the problem here.

Reread what I said. "I mostly don't see a problem with that."

I mean, did you play the last Medal of Honour?

No.

I hate the Assassin's Creed series, but hypothetically if I didn't, I would literally not be able to play 2 because I live on campus at uni, and the ports are blocked. Why the fuck should I pay for that? "You'd feel betrayed if you were a developer" is no counter-argument to "You already feel betrayed as a customer".

So... don't buy it or pirate it? Not pirating does not mean you have to buy it. You could just not get the game.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

If I really like the game, I'll throw money at it. Otherwise, if the game is awful then nothing was lost for anyone, except for my time. Really now, I wish I could file suit against some of these companies just for the monetary amount equivalent to my time wasted.

Piracy has made me a dedicated fan to several series...which I've poured far too much of my meager funds into as a result. I mainly get shows, Anime really, that aren't available here.

Thank god for subber groups.

 

[Kroxile]

So... don't buy it or pirate it? Not pirating does not mean you have to buy it. You could just not get the game.

Yeah, thats not gonna happen. If I want a game bad enough but can't afford it I'll visit TPB. If its good enough to be worth putting money into then I'll buy it.

Just going without is both stupid and unrealistic.

Its stupid because it not being played at all means thats just one less person who has seen/experienced the content and more likely one less person to generate hype/increase sales, etc.

Its unrealistic because if the means exist its going to be utilized by someone.

 

[Athinira]

So yeah what do you guys think?

I'll go back to your examples of arguments you've heard:

But I've seen a lot of arguments like:
The game isn't worth the money so I might as well get it for free
Things shouldn't be priced so high
pricing models should change

The first one is straight up invalid. If the game was worth enough of your attention to play it (at home, on your own computer), then the argument that you weren't gonna buy it anyway doesn't hold up.

The two other arguments, however, does - combined with other arguments even.

You see in every other market, prices are controlled by supply and demand. If there is a high supply and a low demand, then prices drop (and vice versa). Companies in other markets NEED to follow that rule, otherwise they go bankrupt. This helps ensure fair prices for the consumer because it allows direct competition.

Copyright laws, despite their original intent, is unfortunately an enemy of competition. While it's obvious that other people shouldn't be able to profit from the content you've created - a job which Copyright laws does a great job of preventing - they also destroy the supply and demand model. If you are say, the publisher of Lady GaGa, then Copyright Laws ensure that you alone can set whatever price you want for Lady GaGas music, and the only thing Lady Gaga fans can do about it is suck it up.
The thing about entertainment is that there aren't any substitution products - If you like Lady GaGa, but think her music is too expensive, you can't just go buy something else instead (like The Beatles or some other artist) and be satisfied with it. Lady GaGa is the only thing that will satisfy your demand in that case, and if the prices are unfair, your only choice is to bite the pill and pay up.... or pirate.

My view on this has always been that "You reap as you sow". If the entertainment industry on purpose runs their own pricing show and decides to be greedy, then it's worth remembering that two can play that game, and that people can be greedy to and simply decide to take the warez-route. There are other similar situations one can find for justifying piracy (like a company taking content away from you, for example imagine getting your Steam account with games for thousands of dollars suddenly banned by Valve for no apparent reason. Someone who experiences that is unlikely to ever trust the game industry with his money again, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want to play games).

Ultimately it comes down to the simple fact that most humans treat the world as the world treats them. If you don't give a shit about your customers (both actual and potential customers), how can you reasonably expect them to give a shit about you - copyright laws or not? )

Then there are the pirates who just pirate for the sake of pirating (likely because they envy the thought of sticking it to 'the man'). They are pretty much the same, in that if they don't give a shit about the copyright-holders, the copyright-holders cannot be expected to give a shit about them when they catch them at 6 o'clock in the morning with police officers and a search warrant and confiscate all their hard drives.

 

[DEAD34345]

You see, the thing about piracy is that it doesn't need an excuse. The act of piracy in and of itself harms no-one,

I love that. Wait, actually I don't. I hate that. Although, it's technically true.

Now, would you please go and do some research, then come back and write at least of couple of paragraphs reiterating and expanding upon you your point here. I'll wait. Oh, let me give you some seeds - Demigod launch fiasco, free rider problem, tragedy of the commons. Go on, chop chop.

The negative results of situations like the "free-rider problem" can also be caused by people's perceptions (and resentment) of the so called free-riders, and in that case I'd say the blame rests on those that react to the free-riders rather than the free-riders themselves. Even disregarding that however, in my experience the ones who free-ride with games specifically are also the ones who pay the most. They pirate on top of legitimately purchasing games. Even if they did not do their free-riding, they would not have any more money to spend on games, so nothing would be gained by stopping it.

The tragedy of the commons is about resources that actually deplete when used, or if you change it to apply to software specifically it just becomes the free-riders problem again.

The Demigod launch I'll hand to you, though. Things are a little different when you're talking about pirating games which require resources from the developer (i.e. the server capacity). In that case you really are taking something away from the developer rather than just creating a copy for yourself, so it causes harm. Doesn't apply to anything that doesn't take resources away from someone, but I'd agree that pirating in that case was wrong.

Other than countering your examples, I can't really prove my point any further as it's kind of a negative. I don't see any harm in most cases of piracy, if you have more counter examples to prove me wrong though I'd be happy to see them.

 

[mattaui]

I have a friend from school who's a technical artist at another studio, and he's like the world's biggest champion of pirating games, music, movies, etc. Like, weirdly vocally supportive of the practice.

Always nice to see some industry insight! I suppose a paid content creator might feel like he or she is especially justified in condemning or condoning the practice. For something like this, though, I'd say that it's perfectly fine to not care what happens to your own intellectual property, but not that of others. It's the same thing as being willing to give away your time or money, while not demanding that others do the same.

I'd think that no matter how much of a likable guy he was, being a champion for the theft of your coworker's hard work must cause more than a little bit of friction. I'd also ask him why he doesn't work for free, if he's so happy to encourage others not to pay.

 

[Azuaron]

~~big snip~~

So, poor people don't deserve things they can't afford. Even if they can get this thing without harming anyone, they're still not allowed to have it because they "don't deserve it". Why don't they deserve it? Are rich people better than poor people, and hence they're the only ones who deserve to have entertainment?

Maybe what I said was confusing; I will try to distill it.

Nobody inherently deserves anything.

I feel like you're trying to turn this into some kind of weird class-warfare thing where I'm some rich snob who sneers down his long nose at poor people. The only problem is that I grew up poor (scurvy story earlier) and only recently scraped myself into the lower-middle class by plunging myself into debt to get through college. I game by budgeting carefully, working sidejobs, and scraping games out of Steam (and other) sales. Mass Effect is my favorite series, and I've had to listen to gamers complain about it for months because I haven't been able to get it cheap yet.

Do I deserve Mass Effect 3 free because I can't afford to pay $60 for it right now?

You see, we seem to disagree on very fundamental levels, because I don't understand the basis of your arguments in the first place. Being poor is not a choice, so when I see a way poor people can get some of the same benefits as rich people without actually taking anything away from anyone else, I think hey, that's great. You say it's wrong, but I still don't understand why exactly.

The basis for my argument was kind of outlined above: creators should get to control how their work is distributed, including the compensation they get for creating it.

If the main issue is that you believe it's somehow harming the industry as a whole, then I'd say you are simply misinformed.

Except it is harming the industry, especially the people who are getting pirated against. 90% of World of Goo players were pirates. NINETY PERCENT. We're talking about an indie game with a small budget and a small team that was sold cheap at launch and was even featured in "pay what you want" bundles. I'm pretty sure they were harmed by piracy.

I think that the quality of life of the people who pirate these games (especially if they'd have no other way of getting them) is far more important than the wishes of the creator to arbitrarily restrict their product.

The quality of life? Are we talking about the same thing? *looks around* We're talking about videogames, right?

Do you know how to actually improve the quality of life of poor people? Fresh food. Clean water. An apartment that isn't falling apart and/or owned by a predatory slumlord. Give their kids books. No, really. For some reason, "books in the house as a kid," trumps most measures for later quality of life. And that's one reason why we have public libraries (yay public libraries!) Also, let me reiterate fresh food. Proper nutrition alone can bump someone up several IQ points.

If the main issue is the rights of the artist choosing who gets to view their work, perhaps I can at least understand where you're coming from a little, but I still disagree... If they simply didn't want people to have the content they wouldn't have released it, why does it matter to them if people other than their customers also get to use it?

Yes. People who make things should get to control the things they've made, how much they cost, and how they're distributed. People experiencing artistic works should have to abide by the rules the creator sets. If the creator wants to say that poor people can pirate their whatever, more power to them. If not, if the creator thinks everyone should have to buy their thing and anyone who pirates it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, they should be able to do that, too.

Anyway, at what point do we determine someone is "poor" enough that piracy is "okay"? And how much do they get to pirate? Is it a sliding scale? If I make $20,000 a year, do I get to pirate one game a year? Two? A hundred?

If you really believe that videogames are a quality of life issue, start a charity. You can evaluate applicants based on income and family size and hand out an "appropriate" number of games for their relative income per person. Hell, I'll be your first donator, and you could probably get on the Humble Bundles and IndieGameStand.

Or start a videogame library system.

Or something.

But you'll never convince me that piracy is anything other than unethical and sleazy, no matter the income bracket.

 

[Azuaron]

So... don't buy it or pirate it? Not pirating does not mean you have to buy it. You could just not get the game.

Yeah, thats not gonna happen. If I want a game bad enough but can't afford it I'll visit TPB. If its good enough to be worth putting money into then I'll buy it.

Just going without is both stupid and unrealistic.

Its stupid because it not being played at all means thats just one less person who has seen/experienced the content and more likely one less person to generate hype/increase sales, etc.

Its unrealistic because if the means exist its going to be utilized by someone.

Personal responsibility and morality is stupid and unrealistic?

I fear for our future.

 

[Arsen]

It's ok as long as you make up for the stuff you enjoy by buying physically or, in the case of music, going to more gigs/buying other merch.

But "I don't have enough money to pay for it" sounds exactly the same as "I chose a bad career".

I'm a student. Either way, that's pretty dumb cos not everyone can just "pick a better career".

So you're entitled to it because you can't afford it? Guess it depends on the type of medium... but not being able to afford is not a reason, excuse, nor a justification.

 

[Azuaron]

So... don't buy it or pirate it? Not pirating does not mean you have to buy it. You could just not get the game.

But that argument makes no sense. This hypothetical me likes AC. But if they buy it, they can't play it. They don't feel the company deserves their money because the company has gone out of their way to ensure the person can't play it. They feel betrayed. But they want to play the game, they enjoy the series. So they pirate.

wrong + wrong = right?

"I want to play the game" is not a valid excuse to pirate. If you feel betrayed, don't play the game.

This is why boycotts never work in the videogame industry; everyone feels like they have to have stuff even though it's very easy to play something else.

Or you could buy the game and crack it. That's at least better than outright piracy.

 

[Arsen]

I love how we live in an age where people magically believe that the guy who creates something isn't entitled to his hard earned profit from the long hours, creative thinking, business decisions, etc, on certain projects.

It's envy on some level as well. Everyone feels entitled these days. The gray areas are lessening over time.

 

[DoPo]

You see, the thing about piracy is that it doesn't need an excuse. The act of piracy in and of itself harms no-one,

I love that. Wait, actually I don't. I hate that. Although, it's technically true.

Now, would you please go and do some research, then come back and write at least of couple of paragraphs reiterating and expanding upon you your point here. I'll wait. Oh, let me give you some seeds - Demigod launch fiasco, free rider problem, tragedy of the commons. Go on, chop chop.

The negative results of situations like the "free-rider problem" can also be caused by people's perceptions (and resentment) of the so called free-riders, and in that case I'd say the blame rests on those that react to the free-riders rather than the free-riders themselves. Even disregarding that however, in my experience the ones who free-ride with games specifically are also the ones who pay the most. They pirate on top of legitimately purchasing games. Even if they did not do their free-riding, they would not have any more money to spend on games, so nothing would be gained by stopping it.

The tragedy of the commons is about resources that actually deplete when used, or if you change it to apply to software specifically it just becomes the free-riders problem again.

The Demigod launch I'll hand to you, though. Things are a little different when you're talking about pirating games which require resources from the developer (i.e. the server capacity). In that case you really are taking something away from the developer rather than just creating a copy for yourself, so it causes harm. Doesn't apply to anything that doesn't take resources away from someone, but I'd agree that pirating in that case was wrong.

Other than countering your examples, I can't really prove my point any further as it's kind of a negative. I don't see any harm in most cases of piracy, if you have more counter examples to prove me wrong though I'd be happy to see them.

The act of piracy, by itself, technically does not harm anyone. But rampant piracy does tend to accumulate bad effects.

The free rider problem is a two-fold (at least) issue. First of all, pirates do count there. To what extent, I do not know, but they do count as free riders. This is the second and probably bigger impact it has - companies can use it as an excuse to hike up the prices. This is probably the bigger issue - as long as piracy exists in significant enough levels, any company can (and there are some that do) claim that measures such as prices and bad DRM to cover for pirates (a.k.a. "lost sales" as much as I hate that term). You, I and most people here have seen this. Most recently, Ubisoft claimed that they had 95% piracy rate, and although it was a BS claim, it is one they made and there were people who bought it, even. It only takes a few people to believe it - the higher ups who know nothing better, and there would be harm - draconian bullshit DRM, anyone?

The tragedy of the commons is just the fact that piracy is simply not sustainable by itself. Sure, it's free stuff for you, but as more and more people get free stuff, there is less and less incentive to buy the stuff, so it'll get shafted eventually - so no more free stuff, no more paid stuff, either. It's just gone. Now, yes, this applies with different force across different industries and there are other factors involved, but still, simply put, piracy is not sustainable so "it harms nobody" is not exactly true as it may contribute to harm being done. We've actually seen this already in games - piracy is one of the factors some developers have moved onto console exclusive content. I, as a PC only gamers, am harmed by piracy. Well, if it's not console exclusive, then (bad) console ports aren't nice, either. If developers have no reason to cater to the PC platform, then I, along with lots of others, get to feel the results. So, "oh, it harms nobody" starts to get a little shaky.

Finally, support. As you rightfully pointed out, piracy does harm when it takes actual resources. Support is one such resource. Contacting tech support does end up with somebody paying - it's not the pirates, though, they just incur costs without contributing. And it has happened, as Pete Hines from Bethesda put it after Fallout 3 came out "The amount of money we spend supporting people who didn't pay us for the game in the first place?it's f--ing ludicrous."

Bottom line is that the act of piracy does, could, in fact, be harmful. Yes, not always, not in all cases, but "it harms nobody" is a really weak excuse that doesn't hold much water, since it can and it does.

 

[Azuaron]

wrong + wrong = right?

"I want to play the game" is not a valid excuse to pirate. If you feel betrayed, don't play the game.

This is why boycotts never work in the videogame industry; everyone feels like they have to have stuff even though it's very easy to play something else.

Or you could buy the game and crack it. That's at least better than outright piracy.

Too bad, we live in the Age of Entitlement. It's ridiculous to think people would keep themselves from enjoying something with little to no moral consequence because... well, there's actually no good reason to not pirate beyond people bleating "Piracy is wrong". You know what? Prove it. Prove it is wrong. Prove that the activity that is actually proven (by many others in this thread) to INCREASE spending is wrong. Prove that the activity which allows legitimate customers to bypass DRM is wrong, to own the product they paid for, to get copies of games that were never released for them or have been out of circulation.

But back to AC, why buy the game? Seriously, why? Because they deserve the money? No they don't, they didn't want to let you play it. Fuck them, this is capitalism. If you don't make the customer happy, you don't deserve the customer.

If someone wants the game, they'll get it. Whether they pay or not is up to the company and the way it treats it's customers. It's insane to expect people to deprive themselves of entertainment for some moral whim. How can you expect people to do that? It goes against every fundamental of human nature.

Why buy the game? Because if people don't support the franchise it'll get axed, and there won't be any more Assassin's Creed?

Because if you don't, you're an immoral freeloader?

Because they do, obviously, deserve the money, because you want to play the game? If you didn't want to play the game, then there wouldn't be this debate; you'd neither buy nor pirate it. But, since you obviously want to play the game (in this hypothetical situation), then they do deserve the money.

You say, "we live in the Age of Entitlement," like that's a good thing, or an inevitable thing, or unavoidable. Maybe we should go back to an age of, "Let's actually support the media we consume and not be dicks about it." And then maybe companies won't feel the need to use draconian DRM. And then we could dance through fields of kittens underneath endless rainbows.

Legitimate customers bypassing DRM is a separate issue (cracking/violating the EULA) from piracy.

 

[AlexWinter]

As someone who creates.

If my work reaches people that couldn't afford it through piracy... Well I'm just happy they're enjoying it.

Money is temporary, concentrate on your legacy.

Although I would hope that people who like my work try to donate as much as they can so I can continue.