Which is the bigger problem? Piracy or DRM?

[RhombusHatesYou]

Theft is theft, sharing is sharing. Period.

Of course the 'sharing' excuse does fall down when you start sharing things you don't have permission/the rights to share.

Put simply, it's fine if I want to share my money with my mates. It's not fine if I want to share your money with my mates.

Thats assuming I was going to buy the game in the first place.

Well, no, that's isn't an assumption I'm making. I probably should have used an example that didn't mention money. I should have gone with birthday cake. Let's try it;

It's fine if I want to share my birthday cake with my mates. It's not fine if I want to share your cake with my mates... maybe you have mates of your own you want to share your cake with or maybe you're a pig and want the whole cake to yourself, doesn't matter because it's your goddamn cake and that means you get to say who gets to have some of it... unless your family has thrown you a birthday party and invited relatives you hate or that weird kid from down the street who sets cats on fire and insist you give everyone a slice of cake because that's the polite thing to do even though you hate the cunts and didn't want them at your party and just look at the shitty presents they gave you...

...but I digress.

It's all about permission (aka authorisation). Rights holder gets to decide if they want to 'share' or not and who they 'share' with, even if they have an infinitely regenerating cake.

Lets say its one of the worse games in history. That costed $50. I've saved myself from being a victim of theft.

Nope, legally, not buying it means you've avoided buying a really shitty game. That doesn't mean you have a legal right to obtain an unauthorised copy of it no matter what tricks (legal or otherwise) the publisher/developer have tried to pull to convince you that it isn't a shitty game.


Yes, the lack of reliable demos is a massive pain in the arse and the industry needs to take a good long look at itself about it and other crappy behaviour but at the end of the day no one is putting a gun to our heads and making us buy these games (well, there might be a person or two somewhere in the world where they do have the gun-to-head situation but we can write that off as statistically irrelevent). If we don't trust the quality of a certain game, then we shouldn't buy it BUT we also shouldn't download unauthorised copies because that obscures the message. Instead of "we want reliable demos and good bloody games" the publishers hear "this is good but I like taking your shit for free. SUCK IT, BITCHES!" That isn't going to change a thing, especially when it plays up to their existing biases.

People want to mention pirates overinflated sense of entitlement? ... Well its a two way street.

I didn't mention it. Publishers and developers have a lot to answer for but the remedy to these issues isn't 'sharing' their work without their authorisation.

 

[Ganthrinor]

DRM encourages Piracy the same way telling somebody not to look at something encourages them to look.

Piracy is here to stay until somebody comes up with a way to make it more convienient or beneficial to get the "legitimate" product over a pirated copy.

 

[Savagezion]

DRM is "worse" than Piracy. (I use the term "worse" loosely here.)

First off, and most important, is the fact that DRMs take millions of dollars away from the development of the game. This means DRMs take away resources (the most important one; money) away from the developers to bring a lower quality product with alot of hassle to us, the consumers. The point behind piracy is really to get around DRMs. This can definatley be used to get free games but to chalk any pirate up as a free loader is foolish. Part of me wants to go into how skewed the numbers are on piracy but this is fine for now. I think this is enough of a point to make as far as this is concerned...

Second, it is punishing your paying customers because theifs exist. It is claimed as a deterant but it is impossible to create an uncrackable DRM. The best you can do is make one that is hard to crack and buy you as a company time before the pirates succeed. But those planning to pirate will spend time waiting for the crack or working on it rather than go out and buy it.

Then we have the fact that all this DRM business is giving consumers problems. The first place they will turn for the solution usually, is the internet. Searching for DRM problems on the internet for a game can lead a non-pirate to pirating tips and tricks to pirating that particular game and perhaps other games they are interested in. It could be argued that in this scenario DRMs cause piracy.

-SNIP-as the more publicity piracy gets, the more people get interested and learn about it, the more piracy we get and the less money they make.

However DRM pisses people off they boycott the game, or switch to piracy and we get more pirates and people learn about it tell their friends we get even more piracy and they get less money.

This quote is great for being the first response to the thread. It is important to note that alot of gamers out there pirate games they already own specifically to get around DRMs. The pirates have the BETTER version of the game! The hassle free version and no maximum install caps.

 

[Dastardly]

That argument doesn't work - no one loses his/her copy when someone pirates it. The makers of the game/car do lose money, though.

That's a terrible excuse.

Theft is theft. Period.

Did I imply that that is an excuse for piracy? I just said that piracy isn't exactly the same thing as stealing. I wasn't justifying it. I only pointed out that your argument doesn't work, that doesn't mean that I am creating excuses for piracy.

I tried to be as clear as possible, I even started the sentence with this:

While I don't think piracy is allright

I even said that "the makers of the game/car do lose money, though", and I don't know how that could be a positive thing in the context (which you quoted).

So I hope I'm clear now:

I don't think piracy is a good thing, I just believe that it differs from stealing and can't be compared to for example stealing a car.

[sub]And do feel free to point out any mistakes/untruthinesses this post may contain.[/sub]

I'll agree that people need to stop saying "Piracy is theft." Not because it's necessarily wrong, but because the pro-piracy folks like to latch onto that particular distinction and use it to ignore all other reasoning. It's like someone who claims the person their arguing against is wrong because they ended a sentence with a preposition.

Well fine, we should stop saying it just to avoid that pitfall. Instead, I find this statement to be far more accurate:

"Piracy is just as bad as stealing."

Look at some of the other ways people gain property that aren't technically stealing:

1) Fraud. You're not stealing it, you're tricking the person into giving it to you. But the punishment? Just as bad as if you stole it.

2) Splicing yourself into someone else's cable (or hopping on their wireless internet). True, you're not depriving THEM of cable, but you're receiving services for which you have not paid. Penalties are just as bad, again.

3) "Squatting" in someone else's house when they're not there. You're not taking the house, but you're using all of its benefits without paying or getting permission. Penalty? Well, it's called breaking and entering (since squatting only really applies to vacant properties). Steep penalty.

These things don't deprive the owner of the original item. Even fraud isn't depriving them of the money, it's just tricking them into giving it to you. But if these happened to you, would you feel any less stolen from?

 

[Cid Silverwing]

DRM, no contest.

They keep fucking over legitimate customers while pirates foil every attempt anyway. It's a bloated capitalistic pro-profit nightmare that needs to be banned.

 

[Boxytheboxed]

Thats assuming I was going to buy the game in the first place.

Why does that even matter? Just because you wouldn't buy something at it's sale price, does not mean it is ok to take it for free. No, you wouldn't actually be hurting the publisher/developer, but that doesn't change the fact that it is not yours to use. Everything in the world has a price, if you decide it is too high, you have made the choice not to own the product. I would never buy a Taylor Swift CD, but that doesn't make it ok for me to go and pirate it. Also, I think many would buy the product if it wasn't available to pirate.Of course, no one here can provide hard evidence, but I think most gamers care enough, and enjoy games enough that we would pay the $60 for a game. Thats just my opinion, but in the end it all shouldn't matter. Taking something for free thats under copyright is wrong, no matter if you wouldn't have purchased it.

Lets say its one of the worse games in history. That costed $50. I've saved myself from being a victim of theft. Misrepresentaion and false advertising are common place these days.

If you buy a crappy game, that's your fault for buying it. Advertising is everywhere, and is non-unique to this subject. Car companies advertise heavily, all claiming they have the next big thing in motoring, but if you buy a crappy car, you aren't the victim of theft.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I don't care about permissions, what matters here is fair use, a basic right.

Fair Use is important but let's be honest here, a lot of what people are talking about in this thread does not come under Fair Use, which is a pretty well defined legal concept (and in danger of becoming defined out of existance from time to time).

I'm not sharing anything like money, but something that is closer to an idea since it was digitalised.

So you're cool with the sharing of information? Any information regardless of the wishes of the person who's information it is?

 

[Dastardly]

I also love this empty claim that DRM encourages piracy. There is just not the slightest, tiniest bit of verifiable evidence to back up that claim. It's another one of those bullshit arguments put for by pirates because it "feels" right.

It's the same as the argument that "Well, if games were BETTER, people wouldn't pirate them!" Again, bullshit. Look into the piracy rates of games, as reported by some of the torrent sites themselves, and you'll see that:

1) The better a game is, the more it is pirated. This also makes sense because why would you pirate a game that sucks? But, oh, rest assured that when cornered, the pirate will still say, "Eh, it wasn't worth the price they were asking." Of course not--if you can get it for "free," you can spout that empty justification if the game was made by Jesus himself and he charged $2.

2) DRM has no impact. Games without DRM (take a peek at World of Goo) enjoy piracy rates as high as NINETY DAMNED PERCENT. That'll teach those smug indie developers to... umm... not put that evil DRM on their evil, corporate.... ummm... self-published games... Well, I guess all of the pseudo-activist maneuvering just doesn't quite stand up to simple fact.

People pirate things they want, and they do so because they want them for free. All other excuses are cooked up after the fact, and simply don't stand up to any of the evidence about the behavior of pirates.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

if you buy a crappy car, you aren't the victim of theft.

But if it's insured you probably hope to be.

 

[Popido]

Piracy =/= Theft.

Piracy = Copyright infringement.

Stop feeding us lies and just hand over the facts where it clearly states that piracy is damaging gaming industry, coz now it seems like public is just being too proud to admit being lead around like blind sheeps.

And as it seems I need to remind you folks.

Game download =/= Sale lost.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

People pirate things they want, and they do so because they want them for free. All other excuses are cooked up after the fact, and simply don't stand up to any of the evidence about the behavior of pirates.

Here's a distillation of the two positions:

Anti-'pirate(yarrr!)' - it's bad, wrong, immoral, inexcusable and possibly causes hairy palms.

Pro-'pirate(yarrr!)' - FREE SHIT IS AWESOME!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Stop feeding us lies and just hand over the facts where it clearly states that piracy is damaging gaming industry, coz now it seems like public is just being too proud to admit being lead around like blind sheeps.

What, and admit what all that DRM is really for? NEVER!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Of course not--if you can get it for "free," you can spout that empty justification if the game was made by Jesus himself and he charged $2.

Hey, the man can multiply loaves and fishes AND turn water into wine, what does he need my $2 for?

 

[Antari]

Theft is theft, sharing is sharing. Period.

Of course the 'sharing' excuse does fall down when you start sharing things you don't have permission/the rights to share.

Put simply, it's fine if I want to share my money with my mates. It's not fine if I want to share your money with my mates.

Thats assuming I was going to buy the game in the first place.

Well, no, that's isn't an assumption I'm making. I probably should have used an example that didn't mention money. I should have gone with birthday cake. Let's try it;

It's fine if I want to share my birthday cake with my mates. It's not fine if I want to share your cake with my mates... maybe you have mates of your own you want to share your cake with or maybe you're a pig and want the whole cake to yourself, doesn't matter because it's your goddamn cake and that means you get to say who gets to have some of it... unless your family has thrown you a birthday party and invited relatives you hate or that weird kid from down the street who sets cats on fire and insist you give everyone a slice of cake because that's the polite thing to do even though you hate the cunts and didn't want them at your party and just look at the shitty presents they gave you...

...but I digress.

It's all about permission (aka authorisation). Rights holder gets to decide if they want to 'share' or not and who they 'share' with, even if they have an infinitely regenerating cake.

Lets say its one of the worse games in history. That costed $50. I've saved myself from being a victim of theft.

Nope, legally, not buying it means you've avoided buying a really shitty game. That doesn't mean you have a legal right to obtain an unauthorised copy of it no matter what tricks (legal or otherwise) the publisher/developer have tried to pull to convince you that it isn't a shitty game.


Yes, the lack of reliable demos is a massive pain in the arse and the industry needs to take a good long look at itself about it and other crappy behaviour but at the end of the day no one is putting a gun to our heads and making us buy these games (well, there might be a person or two somewhere in the world where they do have the gun-to-head situation but we can write that off as statistically irrelevent). If we don't trust the quality of a certain game, then we shouldn't buy it BUT we also shouldn't download unauthorised copies because that obscures the message. Instead of "we want reliable demos and good bloody games" the publishers hear "this is good but I like taking your shit for free. SUCK IT, BITCHES!" That isn't going to change a thing, especially when it plays up to their existing biases.

People want to mention pirates overinflated sense of entitlement? ... Well its a two way street.

I didn't mention it. Publishers and developers have a lot to answer for but the remedy to these issues isn't 'sharing' their work without their authorisation.

No you didn't mention it, thats more to the other posts in the thread.

Yes companies have to do something about game demo's because the only reliable way currently to judge a piece of software is to have that piece of software. I can't even remember how many times I've come across Demo's that worked and games that didn't, and visa versa. Right now I don't buy games (Unless theres a very good sale on, atleast 50% off), I don't pirate them either. Over the span of 3 decades I have nearly every game I could possibly ever need. I won't even waste my time let alone my money on most of the crap that is released these days.

Most of it is so the consumer can protect him/herself. Because I garentee you EA isn't paying a lobbiest to create a law that helps you out. Legally and morally niether side is on solid ground. Its Robin Hood against the Sheriff. Pick your sides the arguement will last well past our lifetime.

 

[Popido]

Stop feeding us lies and just hand over the facts where it clearly states that piracy is damaging gaming industry, coz now it seems like public is just being too proud to admit being lead around like blind sheeps.

What, and admit what all that DRM is really for? NEVER!

Actually, Im starting to forget what it was for... <.<;

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Legally and morally niether side is on solid ground. Its Robin Hood against the Sheriff. Pick your sides the arguement will last well past our lifetime.

Actually, the Industry side is on much firmer ground legally, as you'd expect with all the money they've shovelled into making it so that they would have things that way.

 

[instantbenz]

Chicken and egg situation here. DRM causes more piracy which causes people to protect their product with more bs like DRM which makes people who want to get around it figure out a way to get around it then more bs then cracks bs cracks ...................

 

[Antari]

Thats assuming I was going to buy the game in the first place.

Why does that even matter? Just because you wouldn't buy something at it's sale price, does not mean it is ok to take it for free. No, you wouldn't actually be hurting the publisher/developer, but that doesn't change the fact that it is not yours to use. Everything in the world has a price, if you decide it is too high, you have made the choice not to own the product. I would never buy a Taylor Swift CD, but that doesn't make it ok for me to go and pirate it. Also, I think many would buy the product if it wasn't available to pirate.Of course, no one here can provide hard evidence, but I think most gamers care enough, and enjoy games enough that we would pay the $60 for a game. Thats just my opinion, but in the end it all shouldn't matter. Taking something for free thats under copyright is wrong, no matter if you wouldn't have purchased it.

Lets say its one of the worse games in history. That costed $50. I've saved myself from being a victim of theft. Misrepresentaion and false advertising are common place these days.

If you buy a crappy game, that's your fault for buying it. Advertising is everywhere, and is non-unique to this subject. Car companies advertise heavily, all claiming they have the next big thing in motoring, but if you buy a crappy car, you aren't the victim of theft.

If you buy a crappy car, you can do something about it. If you buy a crappy game, your stuck with it no matter what. And car manufacturers don't outright lie about the developments they've put into their products because they have groups that monitor what they say. Game developers have no such watch-dog group, and likely never will, unless you can afford to put more money into that politician than EA can.

The only real way to get a proper idea of what your buying is to try it out, test drive it yes? ... You can do that with a car. When you test drive a car, do they take the doors and wheels and mirrors off and then have you drive it around? Then why are demo's like they are? I'm sorry but the game industry has no excuses. They are as much thieves as the pirates. I'm just more enclined to support the underdog.

 

[Dastardly]

People pirate things they want, and they do so because they want them for free. All other excuses are cooked up after the fact, and simply don't stand up to any of the evidence about the behavior of pirates.

Here's a distillation of the two positions:

Anti-'pirate(yarrr!)' - it's bad, wrong, immoral, inexcusable and possibly causes hairy palms.

Pro-'pirate(yarrr!)' - FREE SHIT IS AWESOME!

For me, the position is "Just SAY you want free shit. Stop dressing it up as some activism, or some desperate end to which you've been driven by greedy corporations. Just admit that you're doing it because it can get you free stuff."

"...Oh, and then, if you get caught, take your beatings like a man. Stand behind the decision you made (and defended so vehemently) and quit whinging about it."

I could at least have some respect for that. People who are honest with themselves and others about their motives, and who will stand behind the decision when consequences come knocking. Enough of the "I are Robin Hood" bullshit.