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

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

Alot of people I know do it, but I have never done it however their may a be a future where that is almost normal,but their would be a lack of ambition, and no game is worth one hundred dollars atleast right now.

 

[Minnichi]

First off, "I can't afford it" can be a very valid reason.
I am a single mom that just switched from welfare to OSAP. I cannot afford daycare, and I was lucky enough to recieve a subsidy for it.
On that note. I downloaded a copy of a school textbook because I found it for free online. I NEED this book for my course. But to purchase it would cost $150. I'm never going to use this book after I'm done college. My reasoning. I would rather see my son in warm clothing with a full tummy, than spend money on a book I'm rarely going to use. If that makes me a horrible person for stealing money from the publisher. Then I am a horrible person, but I'm a good mom.
Yes, you could argue that school is a luxury. And since I'm so poor I should get off my ass and find a job. But McDonald's won't pay me enough to send my son to daycare, keep him clothed, fed and in a warm house. Going to school gets me the good resume that gets me the good job.

 

[DoPo]

I've seen one study published in the Netherlands (I believe) that said that the net effects of piracy were neutral as the money people weren't spending on the things they were pirating they were spending in other areas of the economy.

This would be a no-brainer. People spend money all the time. If they don't spend it on one thing, they'll spend it on another. But how does this make it a neutral effect? If instead of spending, say, 100$ on video games, one spends them on a new sofa, I don't see this as a neutral balance. The same argument can be had about robbers - sure they can steal money, but the money gets back into the economy, so it seems that robbery has a neutral effect.

I'd like to see this study.

Dude...read what you wrote. Robbers STEAL money. STEAL. How is that comparable to "oh, I don't want to buy THIS, so I'll buy THAT instead"? Am I a robber for getting milk instead of juice at the supermarket?

They also spend the money back to the economy, yes? So it's a neutral effect - no money is lost overall. It makes as much sense as piracy having a neutral effect on the economy.

Is it fun to play dumb? I'm gonna give it a try I think, it MUST be fun considering how often people do it. Or maybe you're just one of those who thinks piracy is theft, when it is in fact copyright infringement, and you can't tell the difference?

Dude, read carefully now. "Piracy has neutral effect on economy" makes as much sense as "robbery has neutral effect on economy". Which part of that do you not agree with? The two are equivalent in the amount of reason they have in them. They are equally valid. I'm not sure how else to say it. OK, here it goes, both are BS claims that say abso-fucking-lutely nothing 1. new 2. relevant. I'm calling OP on making a stupid claim. What are you doing in the mean time? Ignoring reading comprehension and critical thinking? Because it's pretty damn obvious that "neutral effect on economy" makes zero fucking sense and you only focused on the "robbery" part like it was the crux of my existence or something.

 

[Something Amyss]

Alright, I made some comments, but here we go.

Part of my income come from freelance journalism. Nothing major, except I got one piece in a fairly sizable paper. I'm not big leagues, but I've never aspired to be big leagues. The other part of my current income comes from basically playing tech support for local businesses. That part doesn't matter.

So really, I'm already getting paid for a combination of creative work and personal effort. When I do an actual report on something, that is time and money spent researching it. And you know what? My stuff is fairly easy to copy, as there are websites for almost every paper I've ever worked on, no matter how small.

I'm also an aspiring professional author. I don't expect to become rich, just to be paid for published works as they come out. It probably won't mean I even get to stop working two jobs on top of it.

If someone plagiarises me and makes money off it, I'll be pissed. But I'm not worried now, and I hope I won't be worried in the future either, about piracy.

Now, I support none of the reasons the TC gives. I do not support the idea of "It's too expensive, so I'll pirate it." I DO agree pricing models should change, but I don't think that justifies piracy. I was joking with my GF earlier that if a publisher signs me and then charges full price for ebooks, I'll probably start supporting the piracy of my own work.

I think people who put out creative content absolutely have the right to control their works and expect financial compensation for them. I also think combating piracy is stupid and pointless, as it is pretty futile. Piracy is part of the modern model. Like it or not, it is here and it is going to be virtually impossible to wipe out. Some see it as a blessing, others as a scourge, but it's part of the culture and we need to adapt.

But again, the need to adapt doesn't mean piracy is good. I don't need to like hurricanes to acknowledge they will probably always happen.

It offends me more to see people rationalise piracy than it does to see piracy happening.

 

[Dante DiVongola]

I honestly think that game devs are starting to realize that they can no longer monopolize and prey upon gamers with cheap tactics anymore. For over 30 years, people could only buy/play games from cerain places and the prices on those games were completely controlled by the company producing and shipping those games out. Now, with the internet and popularity of media/data sharing, people don't have to accept the prices (or any pricing for that matter) of these games and could easily either buy a used copy of the game on eBay or pirate it.

There are also places like Steam that regularly have deals and drop the prices on games that would seldom have anything of the sort happen to them in a retail store. Though I only hold that position on videogames alone. People can afford to shuck $10 for an album or rent a movie, so they really punish the creators of the content instead of the producers/publishers shooting the creators in the foot.

 

[Entitled]

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.

Some people would disagree with you about that. including the World of Goo developers [http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/], who believe that those 90% were non-consumers to begin with, just potential extra audiences.

I love it how people keep using World of Goo as a prime example of pirates killing indie gaming, igoring both the fact that 2dboy made millions of dollars with World of Goo, and the fact that they are actually vocal supporters of accepting piracy as a non-issue. They even consider it "wrongheaded" to call unauthorised downloaders as "pirates". [http://2dboy.com/2011/10/03/xbla/].

Man, fuck those entitled piracy apologist, right?

 

[Entitled]

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.

Nonsense.

Creators aren't allowed to set laws and moral expectations solely on their own.

Of course, every worker would like to get as much control over the things that they make as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are entitled to whatever they ask for. What if a creator doesn't wish to pay taxes after their sales? What if they wish to keep their IP in private domain of their heirs for 200 years? What if they wish to forbid Fair use of their work? If they want to stop used sales?

Creators are not supreme lords and rulers of all media, they are just workers. Yes, guaranteeing their basic livelihood is important, but if this one particular system of distribution becomes impractical, unenforceable and harms the free Internet, why should we feel obliged to follow it?

Painting those who want to allow artists to charge for every copy as "moral", and those who don't as "immoral", would only make sense if you would truly believe that everyone must ALWAYS follow ALL the whims and wishes of creators, and if piracy apologists would want to ignore ALL ip laws, including trademark, exclusive sales rights, and plagiarism laws.

But when the debate is actually about exactly how much control artists vs. users should have, and you are on the side of more control to artists, then justifying it by saying that it's because "artists should have control", is disingenuous.

 

[DoPo]

I've seen one study published in the Netherlands (I believe) that said that the net effects of piracy were neutral as the money people weren't spending on the things they were pirating they were spending in other areas of the economy.

This would be a no-brainer. People spend money all the time. If they don't spend it on one thing, they'll spend it on another. But how does this make it a neutral effect? If instead of spending, say, 100$ on video games, one spends them on a new sofa, I don't see this as a neutral balance. The same argument can be had about robbers - sure they can steal money, but the money gets back into the economy, so it seems that robbery has a neutral effect.

I'd like to see this study.

Dude...read what you wrote. Robbers STEAL money. STEAL. How is that comparable to "oh, I don't want to buy THIS, so I'll buy THAT instead"? Am I a robber for getting milk instead of juice at the supermarket?

They also spend the money back to the economy, yes? So it's a neutral effect - no money is lost overall. It makes as much sense as piracy having a neutral effect on the economy.

Is it fun to play dumb? I'm gonna give it a try I think, it MUST be fun considering how often people do it. Or maybe you're just one of those who thinks piracy is theft, when it is in fact copyright infringement, and you can't tell the difference?

Dude, read carefully now. "Piracy has neutral effect on economy" makes as much sense as "robbery has neutral effect on economy". Which part of that do you not agree with? The two are equivalent in the amount of reason they have in them. They are equally valid. I'm not sure how else to say it. OK, here it goes, both are BS claims that say abso-fucking-lutely nothing 1. new 2. relevant. I'm calling OP on making a stupid claim. What are you doing in the mean time? Ignoring reading comprehension and critical thinking? Because it's pretty damn obvious that "neutral effect on economy" makes zero fucking sense and you only focused on the "robbery" part like it was the crux of my existence or something.

WOw. Ok, let me try to explain this like you're a 4 year old.

Are you deliberately trying to not understand what I'm saying? Why are you STILL hyperfocusing on one thing while ignoring my point. Let's go over it again.

When you steal something, whoever used to own it LOSE IT. It's LOST. GONE. They've effectively LOST money, which is why you call it "robbery". They've been robbed. That's NEGATIVE money. Are you with me this far?

That is correct, also not related to what I'm trying to explain but whatever.

When you pirate something, nobody loses anything. Not the copyright holder, not the pirate, nobody. The pirate gets stuff for free that would otherwise have cost to get, which he perhaps would never have gotten at all regardless. So now he still has all his money, which he can use to buy OTHER things, and he will most probably do that. In this case, people GAIN something, because someone spends their honestly earned money to purchase someone else's product. Using his FINITE pool of money. There is a limit to how much he can spend, so regardless of what he spends it on, the economy GAINS something and nobody has LOST anything. Nobody has been robbed. Sure, the copyright holder of the thing he pirated doesn't gain anything, but they also don't LOSE anything. But someone else gains and the economy as a whole gets that money still.

OK, now read this: I steal 100$, right? Let's assume I steal them from a store in one form or another. So that's 100 bucks gone from the economy, correct? I then go and spend them on beer and cheesecake. So that means that those 100$ are back in another store and back into the economy. Therefore, me stealing had a overall neutral effect on the economy. And there you go - the whole "neutral effect on economy" is a whole load of bullshit is what I'm saying. Now do you agree or disagree with that? Because you never ever mentioned your opinion here, instead going on about "robbery" being different to "piracy". Yes they are, but what difference does it make when I'm talking about them on equal terms other than the actual mechanics.

So how is that reading comprehension? Do you understand now? Or, again because you never answered this question, are you one of those...special people, who think piracy is theft and don't understand what copyright infringement is?

I've written enough about piracy in the piracy threads so I'd assume you would be able to derive that. But I'll make it easy on you - no I don't. I also don't see why you brought it up in the first place since I never ever claimed anything to that effect.

Also, FYI, piracy is counted as partially lost sale. The fact that one acquires something, means that they ascribe some value to it. Value they are likely to not want to pay. It may not be full product value, it may not be half, but some. Otherwise they wouldn't be getting the thing, in the first place. So there is some lost money there - money some people just plain out discard as beneath their attention when they discuss piracy. Basing your argument on omitting facts is a fallacious, I hope we can agree to that.

And one more thing

Using his FINITE pool of money. There is a limit to how much he can spend, so regardless of what he spends it on, the economy GAINS something and nobody has LOST anything.

Go back and read my post about how "piracy harms no one" is an argument that doesn't actually hold well under scrutiny. I don't feel the need to repeat myself.

 

[Entitled]

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

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.

Yeah, and if everyone would be gay, mankind would die out, therefore homosexuality is immoral.

Or is it? Just because the most extrapolated extremes of an act could be harmful, doesn't mean that an act is harmful in itself. It is very unlikely that there is a future, where everyone will pirate absolutely everything. Even now, when piracy is very easy to do and hardly persecutable, content industries still gather significant profits. In fact, some of the bigges paying customers are those who also use piracy.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/file-sharers-are-content-industrys-largest-customers/
The kind of fans who are the most conscious about the media industry, and want to support their favorites, are also the ones who are most conscious about file-sharing technology, and occasionally help themselves with some free stuff that they don't want to support.

And even in countries such as the Netherlands, or Switzerland, where personal file-sharing has been entirely decriminalized, there has been no significant drop in media spendings. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114537-File-sharing-Remains-Legal-In-Switzerland

It seems like people have a fixed media budget, and if they get a chance to, for example, watch ten times more movies than before through piracy, they will still go to the cinema as much as they used to.

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.

Is it? The thing is, that if we can't measure lost sales, we can't really say whether they exist to begin with.

A publisher can release a multiplatform game, and witness higher sales on one platform than another, and then blame piracy for the difference, but for all we know, consoles simply have an inherently larger audience, with all the readily assembled hardware, and the "pop-in a disc and play" system.

Not to mention, that easy to misidentify a newly growing sub-market, as a shrinking old market. Most of those developers that made PC exclusive games 1-2 decades ago, were very small, and the games very cheap. I would say, it's very likely that there is as much money in the PC industry as there ever was, it's just more ignored by "gaming culture" treated as a side note compared to the console genres that became more mainstream and more popular since that, even if there is more money in this year's Kickstarter indie PC games alone, than in the whole PC gaming industry of 1992 together.

 

[DoPo]

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

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.

Yeah, and if everyone would be gay, mankind would die out, therefore homosexuality is immoral.

Or is it? Just because the most extrapolated extremes of an act could be harmful, doesn't mean that an act is harmful in itself.

Which is what I said, isn't it? There - very first sentence: "The act of piracy, by itself, technically does not harm anyone." Why did you feel the need to reiterate my words? That's a very, very low level and narrow view, though.

It is very unlikely that there is a future, where everyone will pirate absolutely everything.

True, however we don't need such a future - if enough people people enough things, the industry can just scrap the product as it's not bringing profits. And remember - it's the industry's view that matters, be it right or wrong, as it happens to mostly be.

Even now, when piracy is very easy to do and hardly persecutable, content industries still gather significant profits.

Yet again, it's the industry that decides if it's "significant" or not. If I'm some sort of publisher and I expect to be gaining a profit worth 150% my investment, but I'm not, why should I bother continuing the investment? I could invest somewhere else, after all. Just look at it this way for a second. This is how the industry does. A large enough portion of it, at least. This is further complicated by the investors not actually being savvy in the computer field and relying on traditional business models which prove either ineffectual or faulty to some degree in the computing field. You've seen how hard it was for the music industry to change and adapt. They are getting better at it now but they were woefully behind times and trying to keep the flawed status quo not too long ago.

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.

Is it? The thing is, that if we can't measure lost sales, we can't really say whether they exist to begin with.

A publisher can release a multiplatform game, and witness higher sales on one platform than another, and then blame piracy for the difference, but for all we know, consoles simply have an inherently larger audience, with all the readily assembled hardware, and the "pop-in a disc and play" system.

Not to mention, that easy to misidentify a newly growing sub-market, as a shrinking old market. Most of those developers that made PC exclusive games 1-2 decades ago, were very small, and the games very cheap. I would say, it's very likely that there is as much money in the PC industry as there ever was, it's just more ignored by "gaming culture" treated as a side note compared to the console genres that became more mainstream and more popular since that, even if there is more money in this year's Kickstarter indie PC games alone, than in the whole PC gaming industry of 1992 together.

You bring up true facts - a huge success on a different platform could be a different sign. However, keep in mind that PC piracy is still higher. Developers have migrated over to consoles while they did PC games only before. And I'm not talking about "very small" companies and "very cheap games". The head of of Software has gone on record saying "Piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform" also, Epic Games and Crytek have said the PC market is simply not as desirable partly due to piracy. Yes, that's id, Epic and Crytek. I don't consider them neither small nor producing cheap games. Consoles are seen as safer to develop for. Now, eliminating piracy from the picture may indeed yield similar results, where consoles are simply more profitable, however neither you, nor I have the means to assess that. And it's the developer's and the publisher's view that matters. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'. And for the people looking at if from the other side it does mouth something PC gamers aren't comfortable with.

 

[Chemical Alia]

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.

Yeah, I actually really agree with you on that. It's best if we try to only speak for ourselves when it comes to stuff like this, the situation and personal perspective can be very different from one group to the next, and you can't always just make a blanket statement about what is and isn't justified.

And I remember that friend getting into some really heated and really frequent arguments with other outspoken people whose viewpoints were the polar opposite.

 

[Entitled]

It's the industry that decides if it's "significant" or not. If I'm some sort of publisher and I expect to be gaining a profit worth 150% my investment, but I'm not, why should I bother continuing the investment? I could invest somewhere else, after all. Just look at it this way for a second.

The industry is not a single hivemind that can be right or wrong, this is a free market. If some CEO thinks that he needs to add always-on DRM to everything, or abandon the PC, or only make online games, or even abandon the whole gaming business, or whatever, they are free to do so, as long as there are people willong to pay millions for games on their own account, the demand will be filled in by others.

If they decided it for themselves that they have a right to all the hypothetical "lost sales" of piracy, and they make their profit plans with expectation of that, then they are free to go bankrupt, and the next bunch might build up a smaller industry, that already takes it into account that a number of people will play games without paying for them.

Developers have migrated over to consoles while they did PC games only before. And I'm not talking about "very small" companies and "very cheap games". The head of of Software has gone on record saying "Piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform" also, Epic Games and Crytek have said the PC market is simply not as desirable partly due to piracy. Yes, that's id, Epic and Crytek. I don't consider them neither small nor producing cheap games. Consoles are seen as safer to develop for.

Id Software is not a small company now, but as a PC exclusive developer back in the 80's and 90's, their games didn't require millions of sales to be profitable. Maybe Rage, or Doom 4 are, but that's an issue with the company growing so big, that they can only support themselves on consoles.

Meanwhile, the PC niche is being filled in by other studios, that are doing the same thing what id and Epic did decades ago instead of doing what they do now.

 

[AnarchistFish]

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.

I didn't say that. I was just showing that your statement was silly.

 

[DEAD34345]

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?

The way I see it, nobody inherently deserves anything more or less than anyone else. In the society we live in, rich people get more than poor people, that's a fact of life. This doesn't mean they necessarily mean they deserve to have more than poor people however, so when poorer people have a way to also get some of these more expensive things without taking them away from anyone else, I think that's a good thing.

Also you kind of pissed me off with the way you worded this the first time, but I don't think you really meant that in the way it sounded to me.

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.

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.

Here we simply disagree. I have almost never seen piracy harm the games industry, except maybe in the example DoPo gave, and in fact I myself would not be a gamer today (who spends a very large amount of his income on games) were it not for my dad bringing me pirated games when I was a child and introducing me to the hobby in the first place. The same can be said of more than one of my friends.

90% of World of Goo players were pirates. Ok, that's... nice? When I don't see piracy as a problem, telling me that it happens isn't really going to affect me in any real way. You say you're pretty sure they were harmed by piracy, but I still don't see the harm.

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.

Games are an improvement to the quality of life of people. Having games provides them with entertainment, which is an improvement. All I meant by that is that those people's lives are better off with the games than without, hence why they choose to pirate or buy them.

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.

This is the key area in which we disagree, I think. A creator can choose what they want to do with the things they create, whether that's selling their creation to a publisher, keeping it to themselves, releasing it for free or whatever. I do not think they should have the right to control what others do with their creation, at least not when it does not impact them specifically.

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?

The point I was making is that piracy is almost always OK. If it doesn't cause any harm for anyone else, then it is none of my business, basically. I know that many of my friends pirate, and these are the same friends that spend lots of their money on games. I see no reason why I, or anyone else, should care that they do this.

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.

Oh, if that were at all possible for me to do, I'd definitely do so. Sounds like a great idea to me.

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

I never expected to convince you otherwise, to be honest. As for myself, I haven't been convinced that piracy is unethical or sleazy. Really, this discussion was probably never going to change any minds, but it was still interesting to hear your reasoning.

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?

Ok, so I certainly agree that the people who use piracy as an excuse to do bad things are in the wrong. I don't see how that makes the piracy in and of itself wrong, however, because it is not the piracy that is causing any harm. Adding draconian DRM to everything is annoying, but the excuse they've decided to use to justify it doesn't really matter.

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.

Again, piracy is an excuse being used. The reason publishers are moving away from the PC as a platform is because there is less profit to be made selling on PC. You (or they) might claim this loss of profit caused by piracy on computers, but I've seen no real evidence to that effect whatsoever.

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."

Taking up support for something you didn't buy is unethical as far as I'm concerned. I pretty much agree with you here.

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.

I keep saying this, but "it harms nobody" is not an excuse. If you're doing something that harms nobody, you don't need an excuse. If you pirate something and it harms nobody (which is clearly not the case in all instances of piracy), then you don't need to make an excuse for doing it, in my opinion. My point is that piracy in itself is not unethical, doing other (related) things like taking up technical support for pirated products may be, however.

 

[Olas]

Piracy is illegal too. So there's that.

The more intelligent nations laugh at the ones that made it illegal.

Where exactly is copyright infringement legal?
And why wouldn't they want it to be illegal?

 

[Entitled]

Piracy is illegal too. So there's that.

The more intelligent nations laugh at the ones that made it illegal.

Where exactly is copyright infringement legal?
And why wouldn't they want it to be illegal?

Well, of course "copyright infringement" is not legal anywhere since it's a crime's name by definition, but in some countries, personal downloading of copyrighted content doesn't count as "copyright infringement".

The Netherlands and Switzerland are two that I know about.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114537-File-sharing-Remains-Legal-In-Switzerland

Also, in my own Hungary, it's a decriminalised "non-prosecutable offense", so you can't actually get punished for it.

 

[Kroxile]

Personal responsibility and morality is stupid and unrealistic?

I fear for our future.

Yes, I am an immoral despot because I don't believe in paying for something not worth the money to be bought.

Now, I have some kittens to stomp, puppies to kick, babies to eat, etc, etc. Enjoy your high horse buddy!

Captcha: good samaritan... haha, nice.