Used Games are simply another form of Piracy (THQ joins EA to stop the used games market)

[Tony2077]

Now amazon.com is as much a threat as Piratebay.com?

What has the world come to.

Next thing you know, they'll find links between used games and cancer...

well they found a link between pesticides and adhd so who knows

I think that's less of a surprise. I mean pesticides have chemicals and stuff in, which can be inhaled.

Also, used games and health risks, lol.

who knows stranger things have happened
alas truth is stranger then fiction or what ever it is

 

[ExileNZ]

It's not another form of Piracy.

Second hand marketing has been around for ages, and nobody has complained about them before. We have all been OK with second hand stores for clothing, buying used Television sets, flea markets, the works. But now, because video game publishers say it's hurting the industry, it's suddenly wrong?

Fuck no, it's not wrong.

If I'm tired of something I own, something I either can't get enjoyment out of, or something if it's something I want to replace with something better, should I simply have to throw that thing away? Why can't I make a profit and sell it to someone else who needs it? Am I a bad person for helping someone acquire something they want for an even cheaper price than at the store? No, I'm not. I'm a good person for giving someone that opportunity.

Amen.

Anything and everything can be sold second-hand, games should be no exception.

 

[ideitbawx]

Second hand marketing has been around for ages, and nobody has complained about them before. ... But now, because video game publishers say it's hurting the industry, it's suddenly wrong?

Fuck no, it's not wrong.

If I'm tired of something I own, something I either can't get enjoyment out of, or something if it's something I want to replace with something better, should I simply have to throw that thing away? ...

Again. I disagree.
Second hand clothes, toasters, cars dont have same value as a second hand game. Used clothes may be in some way damaged, have bleached colors, wont last for as long etc. There is a valid reason why those things are that much cheaper than brand new. All those things just arent as good as they would be if bought new from shop. You pay less for a flaw in performance/usability. ...

so, disc damage is now nonexistent? when did this happen? they can have problems from exposure to adverse conditions, overuse, careless handling, etc, (older cartriges can have similar issues as well, it doesn't matter that they're obsolete now) just like used clothes, coffee makers, and whatever else you mentioned. the companies who make those products are getting screwed out of making money because people aren't buying a new coffee maker, they're picking up a used one from value village! so if those things are fine to sell but video games aren't, then i don't see your point. because one's a video game and the other's an appliance/piece of clothing/vehicle?

oh, and i know the used stores at least try to check the games--well, most spots do, anyway--but that doesn't stop them from selling shoddy games. my brother bought a copy of jackal for the NES that glitched so much he couldn't get past the first level before being bombarded with zeros, ones, and spliced apart sprites. my copy of mario 64 was second-hand and it plays alright, but random parts of the game become shaded red when the camera hits from certain angles; it's really distracting, and it always seems to be in the same spots. and don't even get me started on disc-based games!

by the way, i love how you imply a second-hand car is less valuable than a video game. maybe if it's at 180,000 miles, has a leaking brake line and is covered in dents. and believe me, i've seen a lot of games in terrible codition, from playstation to the original NES. but especially with disc-based games, like everything coming out these days.

This isint the case with games tho. You still get the same game, with same features, same gameplay time. Nothing changes, the game wont become shorter or less playable because its used and the only person that benfits from such sale is the guy you bought it form. No the devs, not the publisher, noone in the actual game industry.

Now why is it worst than piracy? Because you spend money on the game but the game industry doesnt get this money. You just give it to some random guy .

just like the appliances you went ahead and listed earlier. does chevrolet get a royalty every time a used '03 malibu gets sold from joe shmoe's used motors? no. even if they only drove it for a few months in late '02 then sold it to joe (which, i remind you, seems to happen a lot in the games industry). it's still the same car, with the same featues, and--wow, only 4,000 miles? what a steal! (pun very heavily intended).

this business works like every other: money made equals price of product times number of products sold. if ea's numbers are going down, maybe they need to just start making better games. for instance, why the fuck is need for speed now an arcade racer?! what made it so great back in the 90's was how real it felt, even with the shitty graphics. now it plays like a crusin' usa spoof! if i wanted to play an arcade racer, the last people i'd think of asking is ea.

problems with
piracy: broken coding from missing files, poorly-made cracks, chance that a virus/worm is encoded with the game, chance the game won't run at all
used: possible product damage from previous owner/mishandling by store staff, selection of games will most likely be shit anyway
new: risk of paying ridiculous amount of money for a bad game, chance devs will release patch after patch after patch to fix in-game issues the testers missed because it was shoved out the door too soon/devs pulled a 3d realms and thought jerking off was more productive

NOTE: i realize you may have already been addressed with similar arguments already, but i can't wade through 12 pages of posts just to double check two points

A car manufacturer manufactures one car.

It goes to a taxi driver, who drives people around in it for a year.

It then gets sold to a family of 4.

Three years later, a college kid buys it out to sqeeze out the last few dozen k miles out from it.

One car. Manufacturer got paid once. The store got paid once.

Several people used it.

Explain to me how this is car piracy.

 

[shadow skill]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

Pseudo intellectual bollocks aside, do you live in such place where clothing isn't a necessity? Do you live in a place where warmth and protection is not required? If so, I would love to move that paradise.

Sorry to overlook your highly exaggerated response but clothing does not equal video games. No matter how much you want to sugar coat it with something I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk.

Last time I checked you won't die if you don't have clothes in most climates on earth. There are still people that go around naked. You complain that what I said is "pseudo-intellectual" while telling other people to be ashamed for agreeing with a perfectly sound analogy because of a distinction that exists only in your head. It's not a paradise I live in, it is the real world that exists outside of your head. According to your logic the human race came into existence with clothes covering their body. Guess what, that didn't happen.

Furthermore has it never occurred to you that entertainment in all of its forms serves to relieve stress which is directly related to human health? So even in the world that exists in your head your own argument is worthless. Before I forget clothing and videogames are commodities as well so the problem with your last sentence is actually four fold (Counting stress relief as three.) rather than a mere two.

It's tiresome to see this same silly argument come up in all of its permutations whenever the subject of piracy comes up. Someone always comes along with some variation of the "Necessity vs. Luxury" argument and proceeds to try and take some sort of strange high ground.

Last I checked, you certainly don't need video games to survive. There are more countries that live without electronic entertainment and yet they still manage to find some sort of clothing. There is far more versatility in clothing than video games, which is why I have designated it higher on the realm of necessity in my opinion. I understand what you're going on about, (perhaps necessity was too strong of a word to use at the time) after much thought but your reasoning for it is becoming flawed. You should have kept it where you were going until adding this one....

Stress relief? Really? That is bloody absurd. Then you beg me to ask, has it ever occured to you that there is means of entertainment outside of video games? Stress relief is hardly an excuse for pirating games when there are other ways to do it that doesn't involve stealing someone's hard work. It doesn't justify the means when you could go play some sports, go for a walk, read a book, or have some friendly social interaction. All of which are fairly inexpensive ways to cope with stress that aren't illegal. And I won't even begin to explain that it's a well known fact that sitting in front of the tele or computer for hours on end is actually a means of providing stress.

For the record, since I feel I need to reiterate, I don't have a problem with piracy. I just feel that it's becoming equally tiresome to hear "pirates" try to justify what they're doing. Why is it so hard to just agree that it's meant to be illegal and be done with it all instead of trying to cover it up with excuses?

Didn't I say entertainment in all of its forms? Oh wait that's right I did. Weren't you the guy agreeing with the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy? In order to do that you must focus on the effect that used game sales have as it relates to money that the publisher receives. This is fine until you realize that simply not having any interest also has the same effect, as does the product not being available in a given area for purchase.

In short this line of reasoning is completely worthless because you would have to equate parties who are simply not interested in a given product with "pirates" because of identical effects. Your opinion on clothing vs videogames is not a fact. The fact is that the two are indeed equivalent on multiple levels only one of which is the fact that they do not posses different objective values. Which just goes back to my original point.

Secondly it is a known fact that people who suffer from stress tend to experience health problems like high blood pressure or heart disease. Therefore using the "Necessity Vs. Luxury" argument would automatically elevate any form of stress relief into a necessity because stress/stress relief can be demonstrated to have a direct impact on survival, thereby rendering the argument worthless with its own logic. So in the end the argument is both internally and externally broken.

For the record I never justified piracy in my response to you. I did however say that "Necessity Vs. Luxury" is a worthless argument against it.

Oh and saying that there are places that live without electricity and find clothing therefore clothing must be elevated to a necessity is stupid. It's like saying that every culture on Earth has developed a religion therefore religion is a necessity.

 

[Petromir]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

Pseudo intellectual bollocks aside, do you live in such place where clothing isn't a necessity? Do you live in a place where warmth and protection is not required? If so, I would love to move that paradise.

Sorry to overlook your highly exaggerated response but clothing does not equal video games. No matter how much you want to sugar coat it with something I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk.

Last time I checked you won't die if you don't have clothes in most climates on earth. There are still people that go around naked. You complain that what I said is "pseudo-intellectual" while telling other people to be ashamed for agreeing with a perfectly sound analogy because of a distinction that exists only in your head. It's not a paradise I live in, it is the real world that exists outside of your head. According to your logic the human race came into existence with clothes covering their body. Guess what, that didn't happen.

Furthermore has it never occurred to you that entertainment in all of its forms serves to relieve stress which is directly related to human health? So even in the world that exists in your head your own argument is worthless. Before I forget clothing and videogames are commodities as well so the problem with your last sentence is actually four fold (Counting stress relief as three.) rather than a mere two.

It's tiresome to see this same silly argument come up in all of its permutations whenever the subject of piracy comes up. Someone always comes along with some variation of the "Necessity vs. Luxury" argument and proceeds to try and take some sort of strange high ground.

Last I checked, you certainly don't need video games to survive. There are more countries that live without electronic entertainment and yet they still manage to find some sort of clothing. There is far more versatility in clothing than video games, which is why I have designated it higher on the realm of necessity in my opinion. I understand what you're going on about, (perhaps necessity was too strong of a word to use at the time) after much thought but your reasoning for it is becoming flawed. You should have kept it where you were going until adding this one....

Stress relief? Really? That is bloody absurd. Then you beg me to ask, has it ever occured to you that there is means of entertainment outside of video games? Stress relief is hardly an excuse for pirating games when there are other ways to do it that doesn't involve stealing someone's hard work. It doesn't justify the means when you could go play some sports, go for a walk, read a book, or have some friendly social interaction. All of which are fairly inexpensive ways to cope with stress that aren't illegal. And I won't even begin to explain that it's a well known fact that sitting in front of the tele or computer for hours on end is actually a means of providing stress.

For the record, since I feel I need to reiterate, I don't have a problem with piracy. I just feel that it's becoming equally tiresome to hear "pirates" try to justify what they're doing. Why is it so hard to just agree that it's meant to be illegal and be done with it all instead of trying to cover it up with excuses?

Didn't I say entertainment in all of its forms? Oh wait that's right I did. Weren't you the guy agreeing with the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy? In order to do that you must focus on the effect that used game sales have as it relates to money that the publisher receives. This is fine until you realize that simply not having any interest also has the same effect, as does the product not being available in a given area for purchase.

In short this line of reasoning is completely worthless because you would have to equate parties who are simply not interested in a given product with "pirates" because of identical effects. Your opinion on clothing vs videogames is not a fact. The fact is that the two are indeed equivalent on multiple levels only one of which is the fact that they do not posses different objective values. Which just goes back to my original point.

Secondly it is a known fact that people who suffer from stress tend to experience health problems like high blood pressure or heart disease. Therefore using the "Necessity Vs. Luxury" argument would automatically elevate any form of stress relief into a necessity because stress/stress relief can be demonstrated to have a direct impact on survival, thereby rendering the argument worthless with its own logic. So in the end the argument is both internally and externally broken.

For the record I never justified piracy in my response to you. I did however say that "Necessity Vs. Luxury" is a worthless argument against it.

And are videogames the only way of reducing stress? Of course not thaere are far more out there than video games.

Far more people get on without video games than without clothes (aside from the fact that in most parts of the world some form of clothing is required to move outside). Then in addition theres more than enough legally free stuff out there to keep your stress levels down if you choose gaming as your method of stress reduction. So unless you've developed a mental addiction theres no need for you to game (and if you have then you should get it treated). You've also failed to respond to the important assertion that long periods of gaming/tv watching can be a casue of stress not the cure, to which I'll add this is often true even if it seems different.

 

[Dr. Danger]

snip.

You have barely read what I said. Still emphasising "necessity" when I distinctly admitted that it may have been too strong of a word.

There's no point in arguing when half of the party involved is only reading what they want to read.

 

[shadow skill]

snip.

You have barely read what I said. Still emphasising "necessity" when I distinctly admitted that it may have been too strong of a word.

There's no point in arguing when half of the party involved is only reading what they want to read.

Says the guy who claims I'm trying to justify piracy. WHERE DID I DO THAT? But oh no I'm the one who only reads what he wants to. I did read it. I addressed not only the Necessity Vs. Luxury argument I addressed your agreement with the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy. Both of these things take time to deconstruct. Although the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy is much simpler to deconstruct.

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

Pseudo intellectual bollocks aside, do you live in such place where clothing isn't a necessity? Do you live in a place where warmth and protection is not required? If so, I would love to move that paradise.

Sorry to overlook your highly exaggerated response but clothing does not equal video games. No matter how much you want to sugar coat it with something I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk.

Last time I checked you won't die if you don't have clothes in most climates on earth. There are still people that go around naked. You complain that what I said is "pseudo-intellectual" while telling other people to be ashamed for agreeing with a perfectly sound analogy because of a distinction that exists only in your head. It's not a paradise I live in, it is the real world that exists outside of your head. According to your logic the human race came into existence with clothes covering their body. Guess what, that didn't happen.

Furthermore has it never occurred to you that entertainment in all of its forms serves to relieve stress which is directly related to human health? So even in the world that exists in your head your own argument is worthless. Before I forget clothing and videogames are commodities as well so the problem with your last sentence is actually four fold (Counting stress relief as three.) rather than a mere two.

It's tiresome to see this same silly argument come up in all of its permutations whenever the subject of piracy comes up. Someone always comes along with some variation of the "Necessity vs. Luxury" argument and proceeds to try and take some sort of strange high ground.

Last I checked, you certainly don't need video games to survive. There are more countries that live without electronic entertainment and yet they still manage to find some sort of clothing. There is far more versatility in clothing than video games, which is why I have designated it higher on the realm of necessity in my opinion. I understand what you're going on about, (perhaps necessity was too strong of a word to use at the time) after much thought but your reasoning for it is becoming flawed. You should have kept it where you were going until adding this one....

Stress relief? Really? That is bloody absurd. Then you beg me to ask, has it ever occured to you that there is means of entertainment outside of video games? Stress relief is hardly an excuse for pirating games when there are other ways to do it that doesn't involve stealing someone's hard work. It doesn't justify the means when you could go play some sports, go for a walk, read a book, or have some friendly social interaction. All of which are fairly inexpensive ways to cope with stress that aren't illegal. And I won't even begin to explain that it's a well known fact that sitting in front of the tele or computer for hours on end is actually a means of providing stress.

For the record, since I feel I need to reiterate, I don't have a problem with piracy. I just feel that it's becoming equally tiresome to hear "pirates" try to justify what they're doing. Why is it so hard to just agree that it's meant to be illegal and be done with it all instead of trying to cover it up with excuses?

Didn't I say entertainment in all of its forms? Oh wait that's right I did. Weren't you the guy agreeing with the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy? In order to do that you must focus on the effect that used game sales have as it relates to money that the publisher receives. This is fine until you realize that simply not having any interest also has the same effect, as does the product not being available in a given area for purchase.

In short this line of reasoning is completely worthless because you would have to equate parties who are simply not interested in a given product with "pirates" because of identical effects. Your opinion on clothing vs videogames is not a fact. The fact is that the two are indeed equivalent on multiple levels only one of which is the fact that they do not posses different objective values. Which just goes back to my original point.

Secondly it is a known fact that people who suffer from stress tend to experience health problems like high blood pressure or heart disease. Therefore using the "Necessity Vs. Luxury" argument would automatically elevate any form of stress relief into a necessity because stress/stress relief can be demonstrated to have a direct impact on survival, thereby rendering the argument worthless with its own logic. So in the end the argument is both internally and externally broken.

For the record I never justified piracy in my response to you. I did however say that "Necessity Vs. Luxury" is a worthless argument against it.

And are videogames the only way of reducing stress? Of course not thaere are far more out there than video games.

Far more people get on without video games than without clothes (aside from the fact that in most parts of the world some form of clothing is required to move outside). Then in addition theres more than enough legally free stuff out there to keep your stress levels down if you choose gaming as your method of stress reduction. So unless you've developed a mental addiction theres no need for you to game (and if you have then you should get it treated). You've also failed to respond to the important assertion that long periods of gaming/tv watching can be a casue of stress not the cure, to which I'll add this is often true even if it seems different.

Please go back and read what I said. I said that all forms of entertainment relieve stress. This is in the context of Necessity Vs. Luxury. Logically when you use that argument all forms of stress relief whatever they may be (Outside of things that cause physical harm to people or property. Before someone decides to bring up the guy who robs banks or eats people's faces.), must then be elevated to the status of a necessity. When you ignore the subjective construct that forms the basis of the argument, everything becomes a luxury. In short the argument is neither an argument for or against anything.

Anything that people do can cause stress, really it isn't much of an assertion to address because it does not change the fact that people do use games and any number of other things to relieve stress. The requirement that you wear clothes when out in public has zero to do with whether or not you will die without them. Cultural traditions shared by most people on earth do not necessarily elevate things above something like a videogame.

 

[Keava]

-snipped due to overly extending quote-gasm

See, the problem is how you percive the game. For you, as suppose majority brining into table simillar arguments, its the disc + the thing you play + all that its tied to it.
Sadly the reality is a little bit different. By buying a product in the store you dont buy right to the game, for a simple reason - games are not physical goods.
Game is, like a poem, music or movie, intelectual property and unless someone sells you the rights to it, all you buy is a license to use it and means do so in form of cd/dvd or sheet of paper. All you have right to are those things that said license grants you, nothing more.

When you buy a car, toaster, pants - they are yours, you obtain physical objects that you have full rights too, you can modify it without consent or knowledge of the manufacturer. With games you own the box, the instruction, and the physical piece of synthetic material called disc, but you do not own the game itself (exception are open-source games but in that case you obtain the rights to the source-codes and agree to open-source license, which still doesnt let you to profit from that code).

By reselling/trading-in a game you re-distribute intelectual property that at no point was yours to begin with and profit from it.

To make it seem a bit more clear on how intelectual property works. Lets say you have a website, a professional one, with some sort of your works. Be it essays, reviews, graphic art, movies. You provide access to them based on subscription model, meaning all the paying visitors have right to be in awe of your works and enjoy the entertainement value they provide.
Few months forward, one of your subscribers decides he is bored with your work, he however made hismelf a backup of your works. He was allowed to do it because generally you are allowed to make backups for your own private use. But he figured there is someone willing to pay to get acess to it. It is one person, he gives his backup to this customer and earns money from it, he lost the backup.
One one hand. You can be happy, there is someone else who might get interested in your works and become subscriber to your website brining you profit. On the other hand however, the guy just sold something that is rightfully yours and he made money of it, not you.

Now all its left is the matter of scale. Game industry goes into millions of dollars and its not puny 1 or 5 people that just sell your intelectual property without you even knowing it but its big retailers, earning another millions off something they dont really have right to. Thats when it stops being just alittle thing and grows to actual problem. Pirates at least dont make money off your work.

 

[shadow skill]

-snipped due to overly extending quote-gasm

See, the problem is how you percive the game. For you, as suppose majority brining into table simillar arguments, its the disc + the thing you play + all that its tied to it.
Sadly the reality is a little bit different. By buying a product in the store you dont buy right to the game, for a simple reason - games are not physical goods.
Game is, like a poem, music or movie, intelectual property and unless someone sells you the rights to it, all you buy is a license to use it and means do so in form of cd/dvd or sheet of paper. All you have right to are those things that said license grants you, nothing more.

When you buy a car, toaster, pants - they are yours, you obtain physical objects that you have full rights too, you can modify it without consent or knowledge of the manufacturer. With games you own the box, the instruction, and the physical piece of synthetic material called disc, but you do not own the game itself (exception are open-source games but in that case you obtain the rights to the source-codes and agree to open-source license, which still doesnt let you to profit from that code).

By reselling/trading-in a game you re-distribute intelectual property that at no point was yours to begin with and profit from it.

To make it seem a bit more clear on how intelectual property works. Lets say you have a website, a professional one, with some sort of your works. Be it essays, reviews, graphic art, movies. You provide access to them based on subscription model, meaning all the paying visitors have right to be in awe of your works and enjoy the entertainement value they provide.
Few months forward, one of your subscribers decides he is bored with your work, he however made hismelf a backup of your works. He was allowed to do it because generally you are allowed to make backups for your own private use. But he figured there is someone willing to pay to get acess to it. It is one person, he gives his backup to this customer and earns money from it, he lost the backup.
One one hand. You can be happy, there is someone else who might get interested in your works and become subscriber to your website brining you profit. On the other hand however, the guy just sold something that is rightfully yours and he made money of it, not you.

Now all its left is the matter of scale. Game industry goes into millions of dollars and its not puny 1 or 5 people that just sell your intelectual property without you even knowing it but its big retailers, earning another millions off something they dont really have right to. Thats when it stops being just alittle thing and grows to actual problem. Pirates at least dont make money off your work.

At least one court in the US disagrees with you:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_v._Autodesk,_Inc.

As does the first sale doctrine in the united states:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

 

[DustyDrB]

This topic is the herpes of the boards right now.

 

[Dr. Danger]

snip.

You have barely read what I said. Still emphasising "necessity" when I distinctly admitted that it may have been too strong of a word.

There's no point in arguing when half of the party involved is only reading what they want to read.

Says the guy who claims I'm trying to justify piracy. WHERE DID I DO THAT? But oh no I'm the one who only reads what he wants to. I did read it. I addressed not only the Necessity Vs. Luxury argument I addressed your agreement with the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy. Both of these things take time to deconstruct. Although the premise that used game sales are another form of piracy is much simpler to deconstruct.

I didn't say that you were the one trying to justify piracy.

I was using that as reasoning as why I was even arguing in the first place. Cool your jets.

 

[XMark]

It seems that game companies want to treat the purchase of a game as purchasing the license to play the game.

 

[cjneon]

When you buy a car, toaster, pants - they are yours, you obtain physical objects that you have full rights too, you can modify it without consent or knowledge of the manufacturer. With games you own the box, the instruction, and the physical piece of synthetic material called disc, but you do not own the game itself (exception are open-source games but in that case you obtain the rights to the source-codes and agree to open-source license, which still doesnt let you to profit from that code).

1. How does the ability to modify a car/appliance relate in anyway to resale rights of video games?

2. Selling a game disc is fully legal as by selling your copy (as long as it is the sole copy, you have no back-ups) you are no longer able to use the product yourself. Much as if I have a book I am fully within my rights to sell it on.

3. Intellectual property rights dictate that you cannot duplicate any protected material for sale or profit, (without permission from the author) neither of which occurs during the sale of a used product.

4. By buying a game (in this case new from a retailer) you buy the licence to use the game and all its packaging. You may not duplicate save for back-up or modify the contents of the disc. You can however sell the physical product and the data on it as long as you maintain no copies of that particular disc, and therefore transfer the licence to a new gamer.

All this must be true because if you don't have the right to allow someone else to use the game, that would mean you could never lend a game to a friend, play split screen multiplayer or simply just allow a mate to play your game.

Otherwise when i play games co-op on one system i'm technically pirating the game...

 

[Keava]

By lending/gifting/etc you do not profit form that however. The part that draws the controversy is profit made of the intelectual property.

As for the law. It is US specific law, i admit i didnt really bother with researching that one moslty because i am not resident of USA and base it in majority on laws in my country. US law is always controvertial for us, non-US people due to the fact US law is heavily based on precedence cases, while, in my country we dont base it on single cases.

Ofcourse, rentals/trading is legal, because law doenst prohibit it (yet) and well, if it wasnt legal im pretty sure companies like GameStop wouldnt be able to profit from it so openly.

Problem lies on the relation between companies that enocurage re-sales/trade-ins and developers/publishers. As i said, when its a single person or avery few it doesnt really concern that big coporate monster hundreads of miles away what the heck you do with your game, but when the profits from re-selling/trade-ins start to be noticeable, its obvious for the publisher party to consider it a threat.

Nowadays a game release can make be sold in million copies within first month. Thats ~60 million dollars. Ammount of money equal to over 1000 years of work at my current salary. Now some smart people, due to how law works manage to make additional millions of dollars from it fully ommiting the holders of intelectual property they base their profit on. This is where the nature of the problem is.

Easy solution to the porblem would be developers moving fully towards digital distribution, but would you like it? Would majority of gamer accept it in the nearest future? Im pretty sure it owuld be a big no-go and protests everywhere. Instead they try to different way. You can blame their greed and the corporate mindset but in the end, in their place you would probably want to limit the number of people making big money of your hard work without giving you anything in return.

 

[team star pug]

But with piracy the developer never wins, but with second hand buying the studio gets at least one sell for their product. Its not as bad.

 

[team star pug]

By lending/gifting/etc you do not profit form that however. The part that draws the controversy is profit made of the intelectual property.

As for the law. It is US specific law, i admit i didnt really bother with researching that one moslty because i am not resident of USA and base it in majority on laws in my country. US law is always controvertial for us, non-US people due to the fact US law is heavily based on precedence cases, while, in my country we dont base it on single cases.

Ofcourse, rentals/trading is legal, because law doenst prohibit it (yet) and well, if it wasnt legal im pretty sure companies like GameStop wouldnt be able to profit from it so openly.

Problem lies on the relation between companies that enocurage re-sales/trade-ins and developers/publishers. As i said, when its a single person or avery few it doesnt really concern that big coporate monster hundreads of miles away what the heck you do with your game, but when the profits from re-selling/trade-ins start to be noticeable, its obvious for the publisher party to consider it a threat.

Nowadays a game release can make be sold in million copies within first month. Thats ~60 million dollars. Ammount of money equal to over 1000 years of work at my current salary. Now some smart people, due to how law works manage to make additional millions of dollars from it fully ommiting the holders of intelectual property they base their profit on. This is where the nature of the problem is.

Easy solution to the porblem would be developers moving fully towards digital distribution, but would you like it? Would majority of gamer accept it in the nearest future? Im pretty sure it owuld be a big no-go and protests everywhere. Instead they try to different way. You can blame their greed and the corporate mindset but in the end, in their place you would probably want to limit the number of people making big money of your hard work without giving you anything in return.

Ha Ha, porblem... But anyway good point.

 

[Reenix]

It's an interesting theory - I think EA are selling themselves short, though. I don't play many sports games so I can't really understand the full effect of this, but I can see how it's dividing the gamer base.

 

[HysteriaIsFun]

I figured I'd add something in here. I'm new so go easy on me. I haven't read through everything as its very long (and I have work to get on with) but I figured I'd put my input in here.

When you buy something the physical thing you have bought becomes yours. Of course the intellectual property (i.e. the ideas in it) do not become yours. For example, if I buy a CD the CD itself is mine but the actual music is not. Similarly the actual game I buy becomes mine but the actual material of the game is not mine.

You do have the right to re-sell a legally purchased copy of the material (i.e. the physical disc). As I believe it says in the United States Copyright Act 1976 you can sell or give away a copy of copyright protected work without permission once it has been obtained. You control ownership as long as you don't do anything illegal with your own copy.

The second-hand market is not piracy. It exists in many other forms (electric goods, charity shops, second hand/vintage clothes, video games, DVDs, music, ebay, amazon, etc.) and in most cases there is no profit gained by the publisher. However, it is not illegal, whereas piracy is. The main difference being that piracy involves the unauthorised multiple distribution (i.e. distribution of more than your one legally owned copy) of copy-righted material whereas second-hand selling is merely the one time transfer of your own property.

The fact that publishers don't make any money leads to a different debate. The time, money, and effort involved in making a game probably means that they are due something from second-hand sales. I, however, don't think its right to take that "something" from the consumer. It should come from the companies (i.e. the game's shops) that are making the majority of the profit on the second-hand sales. I personally don't think that EA are going about it in the right way.

Anyway it's probably been said a million times, but the argument is pretty much null. Legally and technically speaking the used game market is not a form of piracy, and regardless of your own subjectivity in the matter, the objective truth is that second-hand sales are legal (in the video game market and many others), perfectly within the owners right, and are not equal to piracy.

 

[ideitbawx]

-snipped due to overly extending quote-gasm

--what the fuck is a quote-gasm? ah who cares, it sounds samrt

"Pirates at least dont make money off your work."

people sell pirated shit all the time. they're called "bootlegs" and they're sold by "bootleggers". if it's something out of print that the original creators wouldn't be making money from anyway, it might not be right for someone else to profit from it, even if they take no credit for it. is it wrong for me to still want to see it?

but then you go on about how intellectual property works. you kind of explain it like i've never traded at a second-hand store or burnt a mix cd for a friend to "look into these bands" or whatever. yes, at one point or another i've seen intellectual property get spread around with no profit going to anyone. i have a website where i've posted music and poetry and other gay shit for people to view if they really wanted, hosted on a free server, with no donation bin, no copyrights in place, and access available to everyone. technically, if someone likes a song i posted there to use in a car commercial, they can use that song without consenting me and i can't do a thing about it; but 1) there's no product i'm trying to push with the intent to make money--i'm not famous, or at the head of some big corporation, i'm some bored canuck who likes to play and record music; and 2) i knew the risks of posting online before i did it in the first place. that's the law of the internet; if you post it, they will download. it seems like rather than ea trying to use this to their advantage to work the revenue stream differently, they want to chastise those who aren't on "their level". sometimes a little role reversal helps ...

and something physical, like a toaster, does have one intellectual property: the blueprint. or, i guess more specifically and yet at the same time more vaguely, the concept. for instance, what about the multiple companies making multiple versions of the same product? how many different companies make toasters? proctor-silex ain't the only ones, i know that! the patent holder obviously gets a share because it started as "his idea" (like copyrights in artforms), but does the patent holder get any revenue from second-hand purchases? no. does he even get a cut of individual sales? unless he runs the company, doubtful. initially, he'd be paid by the company for the blueprints and the prototype (if he/she has one that works), and then from there the rest is history. the rest of the sales go the store who sold it, who buy in bulk from the company that made it, the distributors who delivered it, the factories & their workers that produced it, and the managers, CEOs etc who run the whole show.

look, if you're trying to support independent studios getting enough funding to keep making games, buy them how you wish. but if you're supporting someone like ea who's already worth their weight in platinum-plated dump trucks, then i think you might be having some trouble reading between the lines. all i see are rich douchebags trying to squeeze more money out of broke/overly-supportive/fanboy customers, because they don't see people; they only see dollar signs. it's like they want everyone who rents/pirates the game to be a full blown customer instead of a potential one, but people don't think that way. it's like trying to convince all of humanity to stop killing each other--it ain't gonna happen. if it's good, people will keep buying it. if it's bad, people will start taking the hint and stop buying into it. if it's good but underpromoted, well, best of luck to them.