To the people who don't pirate: Is life really so bad?

[erefe]

If you think about it, pirating is just a way of implementing a tip system. Most pirates will pay for a legal copy of the item they pirated iff they liked it. Because of this, a game, movie, or song's success is more closely related to its quality rather than how much effort went in to marketing. Seeing as the purpose of the entertainment industry is to entertain, quality would seem to be a more appropriate aspect to encourage.

note to those pirates who never pay for anything even if it's good (you know who you are). you're being just as rude as someone who doesn't leave a tip at a restaurant even when the food was perfect.

 

[Citrus]

I don't pirate as much as I used to, but still do from time to time. I buy the things I want, and pirate the things I'm only mildly interested in. For example, buying the Dark Knight and then pirating Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

If I like a game that I pirate, then I buy the real deal so that I can have a unique CD key and the feeling that I've contributed to a company that strived to make a good game. If not, then I just saved myself some money.

If console games were more convenient to pirate, I'd probably employ the same strategy with them. It's not so much me not wanting to pay as it is me not wanting to pay for something I'd regret paying for later.

 

[The Wooster]

I went to EB Games today. They want 69 dollars for Call of Duty: World at War.

69 God damn dollars. Fuck that, 69 bucks is far too much for a game, hell, sixty is pushing it.

Until games cost a reasonable ammount there'll always be piracy, hell there'd still be piracy even if these games cost 20 bucks, but I'd wager not as much.

 

[Klagermeister]

Actually, not pirating is better.
It makes it just that much more fun knowing you worked for it.
Pirating, I'm guessing, makes video games lose their charm after a while.

 

[iTeamKill]

Every game I ever pirated, all two of em, I never even bothered to finish because they were exactly as I expected them to be. Pushed out the door to make a quick buck. which is why I downloaded them and promptly deleted them.

I have become better at being smart with my money now when it comes to games, mostly because I became stupid with my money regarding mountain bikes. I must have spent around $400 fixing up an 8 year old Joshua 'Y' trail bike. Rides great though and only weighs 28lbs. I'd say its money well spent, but it is the reason I have yet to buy FEAR2. which is probably good because I doubt I will like it as much as the first one. It looks closer to gears of war now then the crisp clean fear 1 I remember playing thrice over. Also the lack of 16:10 support just pisses me off...

I guess I just don't even see a need to pirate games. 9 times out of 10 I just don't like sequels anymore... Valve seems to be one of the only companies left who put real thought and testing into PC titles anymore.

 

[PersianLlama]

I don't pirate, except if it's really old games like FF1 or Super Mario Brothers. Stuff you just can't get anymore. Otherwise, I don't, and I'm not miserable at all.

I didn't read the pages so this might have been mentioned before.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/30/world-of-goo-publisher-files-for-bankruptcy/

The article is about a company that filed for bankruptcy due to a very large amount of piracy of their games.

That's really sad too, World of Goo is one of my favorite games.

 

[TMAN10112]

I'm considering pirating some music, but thats only because I currently have a grudge agianst Itunes and their damn copyright protection(long story). Other then that, I have never pirated anything and probably never will.

 

[Scarecrow38]

I don't think piracy is anywhere nearly as bad as stealing. I have the best of both worlds. If there's a game I really want I'll go ahead and buy it myself. But if there's a game that someone recommends to me I'll get a pirate copy (Oblivion and Fallout 3 were good!) I buy most of my games, but I don't have too much of an issue with piracy. I think Blizzard and EA will live.

 

[E-hannon]

I have never pirated a game before. With that said i pirate music.
Alot.
I mean a alot, like entire discographies, and do this frequently. However, i don't know if Miles Davis is really going to care if i get *****'s brew for free. I'd like to think that most of the musicians I download would rather have people enjoy their music and not grip about how I got it. If a friend burns me a CD should i feel guilty that i didn't pay for it?

 

[Superpuff]

Yeah man its rediculus but money is money

 

[lgrayson]

Ideologically, pirates are the moral equivalent of people who illegitimately live off of social security for their entire lives.
It takes a lot of people doing the right thing (paying taxes or buying legitimate copies of games/music/movies etc.) to support those who take what they want for free.

You may like to argue that you're fighting a cause, taking a stand, or enacting a victimless crime, but the simple fact is that what pirates do has a commercial impact.

If more people are stealing/copying a product, the price goes up for those that buy it. If more people are unfairly distributing material, companies take more stringent measures to protect their property.

The more you do this, the worse it gets for the people who are actually paying. You can say that buying the goods and services that I want makes me a fool, but if I (and those like me) didn't, pirates would have nothing to steal in the first place.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

(By the by, seeing something you've made being pirated feels exactly like that creepy sense of vulnerability and outrage at getting screwed over you get after you've had a break-in. Well, it did for me, anyway.)

I don't doubt it. The issue is, how important is that feeling in deciding how we approach this topic? Sure you made it, but did you *own* it? Or did some company own it? Some company with investors? If you only made it, but someone else owned it, you're more like someone who builds a house for someone else. I'm sure a contractor doesn't want to see the house he built get trespassed upon, but, we don't consider trespass a legal--or even a moral--transgression against the builder.

...

I don't doubt your feelings--I just question whether they are the important thing here, if those feelings are just the result of being born in this space of time where so much of the world's wealth went from things you can hold in your hand to just magnetic charges on a disk platter.

I'll tell you why that doesn't wash for me.

I used to work in the paper games industry as a writer. I don't anymore; one company folded, another got into such a tight bind they had to lay off. I can't claim that piracy was the cause of both situations, but when you're walking down the street with your employment record in your jacket to sign up for EI again and you see someone with an illicit copy of what you wrote, it fuckin' hurts. A lot.

I don't write for games these days. It doesn't pay my bills, so I have to spend my time doing something else that will. Maybe some odd scribble in my spare time, perhaps (and that gets yoinked too, according to Google, but other than giving a bitter smirk at how low you have to be to plagiarise fanfic it's not worth chasing after) but no one's getting my A-game anymore.

Victimless crime. Sure. Pull the middle one; it's got bells on it.

-- Steve

 

[Trace2010]

AAAARRRRRRRR!!!!

Well, yes, I pirate specifics, but if the product is good, I will buy it anyway in order to support the creators of the product.

 

[azadiscool]

It's not always money that drives pirates. I don't pirate my music or games, only applications. Sony Vegas and Adobe Master Collection mostly. Anyhow, some people just don't think it is practical $1000+ on something that you can download for free. Okay, so that still has to do with money. But it's not that they don't have the money, but that they don't want to fuel the buying of applications that are free through a different mean. And the ends justify the means, right? Does that work in this context?

In the end, pirating is convenient and lets you try stuff out without throwing money around. I would never have discovered my film making hobby without TBP...

Edit: If you are confused, what I was trying to communicate was that you can't argue about the ethics of piracy and whether or not it is stealing. So many factors bias your view that it is impossible to make an effective argument. In some places, torrents are legal (which they should be, considering they are not actually copies of the files. They just link you to other computers where you download it from), and in others, it is frowned upon. In the end it doesn't matter whether or not it is stealing, but whether or not you are okay with pirating. I am, and I couldn't care less if it is stealing. It's copying, not stealing. Take it out of context, argue that it's like copying a VHS and giving back the original, do whatever you want. But in the end, everybody is just going to do what they feel right doing.

Well, that was longer than I expected.

 

[Liverandbacon]

I'd just like to put this forward: All you people who say "I only pirate because I want to avoid game breaking DRM etc." are kidding yourselves. You could buy the game, then download a crack in order to get around the DRM. This means a smaller download as well.

As for the "Well, I'm copying it, so no one's losing anything, so it's not stealing" argument, think of it this way. If you wrote a book, but instead of buying it, everyone just got photocopies of it, you'd probably be pretty pissed.

 

[lewa nua]

I have a challenge 4 u pro piraters. Learn a programming language then make a short game in full 3d then out the kinks then still tell me the companies still dont deserve the money.

 

[Blair Bennett]

but perhaps that's why people view libraries as a different beast.

People view libraries as a different beast only because they're more interested in getting to take the moral high ground in this debate than they are in actually figuring out how to deal with a monumental, unprecedented advance in human civilization--the ability to cheaply distribute entertainment media.

Once again, the idea of sin, of 'you do not deserve to have that' gets in the way of human progress.

Not only a good point, but an interesting look at the human condition as well.