Why do people care about piracy?

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I would have to disagree. Art has been the inspiration for many great deeds throughout history, and without art you must only turn to George Orwell's 1982 for a possible future.

Oh, please. Im not even going to respond to a prediction purely based on fiction.

So you are saying that making Art is not a real job? What about movie directors? Producers? Writers? Actors? Authors? Programmers? Those people all make art, do you want to put them all out of a job?

No, if they like doing all those things then im not going to stop them. I will however question their supposed "right" to be able to earn a living off of those activities. Well aside from the programmers, since their activities often are involved in the production of goods that do advance human survival.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Technically it's stealing, which is illegal in all civilized countries.

Stealing music is the same as stealing a CD player. They should be in jail...

Piracy bothers me because I see it as theft. I would not want to be robbed on a business or personal level, so why is it right that I steal from people I don't know? Just because this crime is widespread and goes almost entirely unpunished does not make it acceptable.

didnt you learn in school stealing is wrong?

Piracy is not stealing or theft. Please can people stop saying that it is.

Exactly unless you take the original file or object but since it's spread across cyberspace it's just mere infinite copies that people claim to buy for it's no different from free copies.

 

[b3nn3tt]

but it's not like the artists loose money from people downloading them if they're signed to big labels anyway.

EXACTLY! Because a person downloading a song wouldn't necessarily pay for that song if they didn't have the option of downloading it.

Thusit is impossible for the corporations to actually prove that they have "lost" anything through piracy because there is NO GUARANTEE WHAT SO EVER, that the people who downloaded pirated copies of songs would've paid for the songs if they couldn't download them.

And this very fact, invalidates pretty much every argument against internet piracy.

I could not disagree more! Saying 'well, they wouldn't have paid for it anyway' in no way gives people the right to have something for free. If they don't think it's worth paying for, they don't have it. Why should they get it for free just because they don't feel like paying for it?

 

[Aeonknight]

Technically it's stealing, which is illegal in all civilized countries.

Stealing music is the same as stealing a CD player. They should be in jail...

Piracy bothers me because I see it as theft. I would not want to be robbed on a business or personal level, so why is it right that I steal from people I don't know? Just because this crime is widespread and goes almost entirely unpunished does not make it acceptable.

didnt you learn in school stealing is wrong?

Piracy is not stealing or theft. Please can people stop saying that it is.

Exactly unless you take the original file or object but since it's spread across cyberspace it's just mere infinite copies that people claim to buy for it's no different from free copies.

What a nice paper-thin justification you got there.

here's an example to contradict it. Bootleg movies. It's not theft/piracy as long as I'm not taking the film itself out of the projection room and selling that? What a joke.

At the end of the day, it's intellectual property that you are taking without paying for. People wanna get paid, and you're too lazy/cheap to do it. Just because it's a copy doesn't mean it no longer represents the original product.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I could not disagree more! Saying 'well, they wouldn't have paid for it anyway' in no way gives people the right to have something for free. If they don't think it's worth paying for, they don't have it. Why should they get it for free just because they don't feel like paying for it?

That's debateable.

But this fact only proves that you anti-piracy proponents have equally paper-thin justifications to the actions of the corporations that you claim that the other side has.

It's ridiculous to sue someone on the premises that their actions made a party lose POTENTIAL profits. Or do I have to sit down with you and explain the difference between POTENTIAL and ACTUAL?

 

[AperioContra]

No it's not stealing. You're so called "elaboration" here is pretty flawed but if we're REALLY going to elaborate, then the "ponce" you speak of wouldn't have "stolen" any brooms, but BOUGHT a broom and then found out a way to copy that broom at pretty much no cost at all and then share those copies for free.

And you're trying to tell us that being able to copy a broom (a physical object) an infinite amount of times is a BAD thing?

A this is where the metaphor becomes extremely tortured, because at that point you're talking about matter replication. And if a person has the ability to replicate matter, I suggest we build the U.S.S. Enterpise and begin exploring space, because commerce has obviously died and been replaced. We're not talking about matter replication, we're talking about intellectual property, copyright laws. We're talking about whether or not it is ethical to steal (and yes, it is stealing) copyrighted information and reproduce it without the express consent of the owner. A more apt comparison would be to replicate a painting with out consent of the painter.

Remember the "supply and demand" issue once again. The only real reason why corporations are needed is because the demand for a given product is higher than the current abiliy to supply said product. Hence why someone is able and in the right to be able to ask for compensation to meeting the demands.

But when a method is discovered to meet the demands for a lot lower prices or even FREE, then the previous supplier no longer deserve any compensation since their method is too expensive and have thus become obsolete.

That's the way of the game, and each supplier better learn that fact and try to cope with it if they have the intention of staying in the "supplier"-business. Trying to STOP these superior methods of duplication and distribution just because it only proves exactly how obsolete you are is purely senseless and selfish and ulimately harms all of humanity since it leads to actions intended to stop progress.

Free to what consequence. Free to the point that the coders and the developers don't get paid for doing a task that they agreed compensation on? Free to the point that people lose jobs because the corporation has to let them go? How about free to the point it inhibits progress. Copying isn't progress, by definition it is stagnation. The money those companies get back is the money they use to fund the next game, or the next innovation. Until the day comes when the average joe could do that with out money spent in research, planning and execution, it's not progress. It's standing stil

I would argue that the ultimate harm to the medium is done by piracy (at least in this case, but more on that later). Piracy isn't the elaboration of ideas, it is the copying of them. To truly have innovation you have to have materials, and for that you need money. Research costs something. Building new games costs something. Risks cost something. By depleting that fund you are disallowing progress.

You mention a harm to humanity. Exactly what harm does the sale of video games or music have to humanity anyway? Just asking.

It is obsolete if you for once stop and consider what a game is. What is a videogame if broken down to it's constituent parts?

Is it a disc? No the disc is only a medium upon which the game is stored. So what is the game in it's most base form? That's right a set of "1's" and "0's" arranged in a specific order. Now what do we call written characters arranged in a certain order that can be interpreted as some sort of message? INFORMATION!

So videogames are simply information. Information that is read and interpreted by a computer or videogame console, which in turn sends other signals of information to a screen and a set of speakers, which in turn sends other signals of information (video and audio) which are intended to be percieved and interpreted by human senses.

By the same logic movies are information, nuclear warhead schematics are information, all matter in the universe is a form of information. Are we truly suggesting that abandon the idea of property? That a person should not sell... anything? Maybe when the day comes that property has no value we'll see eye to eye on that, but as it is today property and information have value, and thus a price can be determined. You mentioned that a computer is information as well. Should the computer companies just be giving you computers? What is the point of commerce if you need not earn anything?

Your "make, set price, sell"-method of spreading said information is obsolete in the extreme considering how often information is being made and distributed EACH AND EVERY DAY in the modern world. You can read a blog for free. Heck you can even read this forumpost that im typing for free. You can even go down to your local library and borrow litterature (fiction as well as scientific texts) for free.

Everywhere in the world, information is free and freely distributed and in massive quantities since internet was invented and used on a large and private scale.

And you still think that the videogame publishers aren't adhering to an OBSOLETE and OUTDATED businessmodel the way they try to hawk the INFORMATION that they create?

You keep saying that the sale of information is obsolute as if it is self-evident. I cannot disagree more. Just because there is a library does not mean there is not a bookstore. And one thing, libraries are sanctioned by law and permission is still required for a library to distribute books. We also have rental stores and plenty of cost-effective means to obtain these things. But just because it is information does not mean that the company, who invested frightening amount of money in the product, does not deserve the right to profit from their endevor. This is not obsolete, this is business. If I worked hard building a car, would that entitle you to steal it off the lot? Or how about if I slaved to build the schematics for the car, and you took it and copied it to give to other companies without my permission, are you not putting me at a disadvantage, even though I slaved for that work? The sale of information is the norm of western society today. We do not deal in manufacture as much as information (To the point that there are only 4 steel factories operating in America today). We have become an information society and part of that is the transition from sale of goods to he sale of information. The sale of information is quite modern, actually and in no way outside of your opinion obsolete, it is, in fact, growing.

As an example the stock trade is the sale of information, as is banking, bonds, and most IT work. It's not obsolete, it's actually the opposite.

The progression in communication and exchange of information is giving a clear and obvious message: information can't be and SHOULDN'T be stopped. The way that the exchange of information of the modern day even circumvents local laws and restrictions just prove that fact. The way of the future is the free flow of information, regardless if it's digital, binary, verbal or alphabetical. And THE ONLY WAY to change that fact is to try and stop it. Which is exactly what these corporations are trying to do, BECAUSE THEIR BUSINESSMODEL IS OUTDATED AND OBSOLETE. AND TO STAND IN THE WAY OF HUMAN AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS IS WRONG SINCE IT ULTIMATELY BENEFITS MORE PEOPLE THAN TRYING TO STOP SAID PROGRESS DOES!

Nobody's talking about stopping information. All of this information is available, provided that you obtain it through legal means. Nobody is stopping you from obtaining it, we're asking you to pay the price that is asked for it. I never thought that this would be an issue of struggle, you pay for something you want to play because it requires money to make it. They're asking to pay their employees, to make new experience, and yes to get a little profit. Is there something wrong with a company getting profit for their work and the money they spend?

(Oh, and your caps lock seems to be broken, I'd get that checked (jk))

You might think that this is all harmless and argue that "they're only making videogames! We're not going to go extinct if we have to live without them", but consider this: what if a group of people manage do invent a cure for a deadly disease? Take AIDS for example. Say that a group of people, a sort of "pirates of the pharmaceutical indsutry" if you will, discovers a cure for AIDS. Heck they might even have "stolen" some corporate sponsored research in order to find this cure. ANd they intend to take this cure and spread it to each and everyone who needs it completely for free.

Would you argue that pharmaceutical companies are doing the "right thing" by SUING these people and trying to get the police and the courts to shut this worldsaving operation down because the pharmaceutical companies had the intention of continuing making profits forever and ever by never releasing a definitive cure and keep selling these HIV-inhibitor treatment drugs?

Because that's pretty much exactly what the record labels and major players of the videogame industry are doing. This is the kind of laws and legistations that they want enforced. And frankly there's no reason to care if people are "dying" because they lose access to videogames/music or not, because the principle is still the same. namely that it's somehow supposed to be "okay" to stand in the way of human- and technological progress if your profits are hurt by it. How is that reasonable or even SANE?

This is an extreme scenario, and I don't quite buy that playing a videogame is on par with the saving millions of human lives, and I don't think I'm being controversial here. This is a simply Black/White logical fallocy, that because ethics are changed in an extreme scenario (such as including human life) that it remains the same across the board. I honestly don't see the correlation between depriving people of their life and asking that they pay to play with a video game.

This argument would make sense if depriving of video games effected human life to the extent that people would die. But, in this extreme I would present that they were both unethical. One for depriving human life, and the other for attaining it through unlawful means. But when it comes to court. Of course I would side with the pirates because the benefit to human life greatly outweighs any ethical issue I have on the matter. My question then becomes, what is the benefit to human life that justifies stealing the information in video games?

How so? If the pirates actually tried to SELL the illegal copies they would be just as bad as the companies themselves. By sharing for free they're being altruistic and further human progress. The companies however do nothing for progress unless they can turn a profit of it.

So one entity provides us all for free. The other will ONLY provide if they get compensated. It's pretty easy to see which one of these entities are more beneficient and altruistic. ANd I for one are going to go with the "nicer" one over the greedy one.

I was not talking about one for free or not, I was talking about business models and strategies. Stealing is not a viable strategy. If one company stole information and sold it, it would be worse than the pirate of today. But we're not talking about that. We are talking about one legitimate business getting information stolen by a third party. The third party is not in legitimate competition, they are stealing from them. This is not the same thing.

Stop using the word "stealing" because it's plain wrong. Someone STILL BOUGHT AND PAID for the game in question, it's just that they are producing copies of it because they can.

That's not stealing. That's copying. Totally different (even the law recognize a difference between stealing and copying, hence why there are different punishments for each respective act).

If we were talking about two businesses with two different strategies, then I would be inclined to agree with you, the one with the crappier model will fail, tough luck that's the nature of the beast. But as it is this isn't business against business, this is one side stealing from the other and pretending to have a moral agenda about it.

So what you're saying is that if Nintendo release a game, and EA sends a guy out to the store to pick up a copy of that game and then bring it back to the office so they can copy that game, package it and pretty much sell the copy but for a vastly reduced price, then EA is doing the right thing?

As long as someone is charging the customers for the games it's all okay?

I don't know about you but in my world "free of charge" is always better than some greedy bastard trying to force people to pay for everything, even when demanding payment is completely unreasonable.

Piracy has a moral agenda about it. The only people who try to claim that there isn't a moral agenda are people who realize that they can no longer suck money out of obsolete businessmodels.

Black's law dictionary defines theft as:

"The taking of property with out the owner's consent."

It goes on to elaborate:

"... it includes taking of personal property belonging to another, embezzlement and that generally, and one who obtains possession of property by lawful means and thereafter appropriates the property to the takers own use..." That last one is presented by People v. Pillsbury, protecting the right to the property after it has left the owner's hands. I'm sorry, but the law disagrees with you, it is theft, stealing if you will.

Oh, and what moral agenda is that? The right to play a video game? The right deprive developers of jobs? The moral agenda of listening to RKelly at ones own leisure?

yeah, like how that person SUED the McDonalds corporation because the apple pie burned that persons tounge. Oh what a great tribute to civil order and rights that lawsuit was! *facepalm*

Luckily, not every country is like the U.S where anyone can sue anyone for pretty much anything. Where I live, someone trying to sue a restaurant for burning themselves on a piece of apple-pie being to hot would have their case thrown out immediately, the judge pretty much saying: "Are you a fucking idiot? First of all, burning your tounge on hot food isn't going to disable you for life. Second: cooked food CAN BE HOT! Most of us learn this before we even learn to speak properly, that's why you DON'T just take a huge bite out of cooked food but actually USE YOUR SENSES a little to test if it's too hot to eat and perhaps blow a little on the piece of food to cool it DOWN before we put it in our mouth! Now get your retard ass out of here and don't bother us again unless a REAL crime has occured or I'll have your ass thrown in jail for misappropriation of tax payers money!"

That would be a reasonable reaction. But in the U.S that person got paid in the end, and McDonalds had to (to insure themselves from further ridiculous lawsuits) put warning labels on the packages for their apple pies warning the "poor, defenseless consumers" that cooked food is hot. *faceplam*

So please, excuse me if I take your statement about lawsuits being a "great tool" for maintaining civil order and rights with a huge grain of salt, and probably snigger a bit about that suggestion. *snigger*

Lawsuits are not about civil order or rights, it's all just another redundant, money-making industry keeping unscroupulous lawyers in business. And more often than not, those lawyers are in the employ of major corporations and used to oppress lone consumers or corporate rivales.

So if you refuse to believe in the genuine moral agenda of internet piracy, why should I believe that lawsuits are moral or even beneficient to civil order and rights when they clearly are not when put into practice?

I never said that they couldn't be used for bad means. But that does not mean that they are inherently bad. Brown v. The Board of Education set the precedence for the Civil Rights movement and abolished the Jim Crowe laws ending segregation. Stockholders v. Enron abolished insider trading so that stockholders wouldn't be left penniless. Rosenburg v. Board of Education protects the right of all literature to be displayed in schools as does Marchinni v. Strongville. New York Times v. The United States protects the freedom of information, the very freedom you uphold.

Don't take my word that they are good, lawsuits and civil action have been to the benefit of rights and mankind. Sure there are times in which it fails us, but does not every movement fail us? Dismissing something because it can be used wrong is like not allowing me to have my power tools because I can kill a person with them (and no doubt people have), they're still useful tools meant for good and to protect.

You mention these self-evident "genuine moral agenda" of piracy. What have they done to help us? I ask again, what moral right is this? Name one thing that piracy in and of itself has done to the true benefit (and don't tell me freedom of information, you know I'm not going to buy that), because if asked, I can tell you a hundred more lawsuits that have benefited rights.

It's no the same thing. Money is a financial record of the amount of man-hours you've worked and how much value of produced goods you are entitled to buy. You can't compare that to insubstantial information like videogames, because the price set on videogames is an arbitrary one.

No one's very survival is dependant on videogames or if the information that they are made of, but if you mess with my bank account and steal money, then you're not just causing me a "slight inconvenience", but you could actually cause me to starve to death since if I don't have money then I can't buy any food.

So the comparison doesn't really work, because money is not the same thing as wares or goods or even insubstantial information like videogames.

But you can can compare the amount of man hours required to make a video game, and the costs vs. the expected outcome. You are not taking the money from their pocket, but you are enjoying their product with out giving money to enjoy it. People are not buying the game, but playing it, ensuring that they don't need to buy it anymore. The companies see no money out of this gambit and if just 2% out of 60 million people who will play that game were to pirate that's $72 million dollars that company is out. Because you wanted to play the game for free. That's not a minor inconvenience by any stretch of the imagination. That's the price to make another game. Another game that is lost to piracy.

As a post-scrypt, this is a fun discussion and you are a fine adversary, but if we continue to do these breakdown arguments, I'm pretty sure a moderator is going to get a bit peeved. PM me to continue, if you wish. This is very enjoyable.

 

[Jessta]

hmm sounds like your post isn't about how you think piracy isn't bad but rather how you think the industry overreacts to minor cases of it, judging by the example you gave.
They might not have lost that much money to that particular incident but I have no doubt they might have lost that much money overall if say everyone who downloaded the song illegally free since ever had paid for the song but do you think they could REALLY track down EVERYONE who illegally downloaded their song and charge them a buck fifty for it? get real, the guys being made an example of by paying for everyone else who does it to.

On a side note there are a couple of instances when I don't find piracy all that bad, for example downloading old NES games on my comp or downloading games I already own on my comp... I also got a cd crack for diablo 2 because over the years I have purchased that game like fifteen times and EVERY TIME I get bored, it breaks, and I had to buy a new one, I got sick of it so I kinda cheated there.

 

[b3nn3tt]

I could not disagree more! Saying 'well, they wouldn't have paid for it anyway' in no way gives people the right to have something for free. If they don't think it's worth paying for, they don't have it. Why should they get it for free just because they don't feel like paying for it?

That's debateable.

But this fact only proves that you anti-piracy proponents have equally paper-thin justifications to the actions of the corporations that you claim that the other side has.

It's ridiculous to sue someone on the premises that their actions made a party lose POTENTIAL profits. Or do I have to sit down with you and explain the difference between POTENTIAL and ACTUAL?

No, I fully understand the difference between potential and actual, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of being patronised.

I'm not even talking about the idea of suing people, I'm talking about something far simpler. A company make a game. they spend a lot of time, effort and money making this game. They decide to sell this game for money. Person X decides that they don't want to spend their money on this game. At what point does it seem in any way acceptable that Person X should now be able to access that game for free?

The simple fact is, that if an artist (to use the simplest term available at this point) wants to charge people for something that they have created, that is their prerogative, and nobody is then entitled to that work for free.

 

[Woodsey]

Games are a luxury; can't afford it, don't play it.

Very simple.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Uh, since when did this argument suddenly become about me personally?

I don't have any aspirations to earn a living through my art and I've never claimed that I do. So where did you come up with those accusations that im "blaming everybody else" and "making excuses"?

I create art purely for my own self-satisfaction, not to attract some fucking audience or to be able to put a pricetag on it. Partly because I think such aspirations would stifle my creative abilities and partly because, frankly I think it's inappropriate.

Inappropriate? Oh brother, you're one of those types. But yeah, you sounded pretty butthurt there a few posts back, when you were going on about how only people with connections have a chance at success with art, lol.

Supporting me? Am I on welfare or something? It sounds like you're simply jealous that other people can make money doing something that they enjoy.

No but if you get paid doing something that produces absolutely nothing integral to human survival, whereas others actually work to produce the things you need for your own survival (like food, medicine, clothing etc.)

They produce vital products for our survival, and you get to have access to a piece of that without actually producing anything vital at all through this economic system. How is that fair?

Just because you invest your time in something, it doesn't mean that it's actually important or even useful for survival and the perpetuation of the species.

So we make art and games and all this nice, non-essential fun stuff for you. If after a hard day's work of super important stuff, we have some time left over, it's our privilege to provide you said non-essential entertainment. For free, because you are somehow entitled to it.

Man, I love gamers.

Also, we live in the 21st century, wtf is all this crap about human survival and procreation.

I wanna see this art that has you all sour grapes to the "noncontributing" members of society leeching off the backs of hard, honest working people like yourself.

Impossible im afraid.

I rarely keep my works after completing them. Im not very sentimental about my creations once they've been completed.

It's kind of the same thing as with those buddhist monks who sit around making complex works of art with coloured sand, knowing full well that the slightest breeze of wind might cause all the sand to blow away, ruining the piece instantly making them contemplating matters of futility and how transient the physical world is.

Ahahahahaha. I haven't heard anything so utterly pretentious since art school. And that's pretty hard to beat.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

No, I fully understand the difference between potential and actual, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of being patronised.

I'm not even talking about the idea of suing people, I'm talking about something far simpler. A company make a game. they spend a lot of time, effort and money making this game. They decide to sell this game for money. Person X decides that they don't want to spend their money on this game. At what point does it seem in any way acceptable that Person X should now be able to access that game for free?

The simple fact is, that if an artist (to use the simplest term available at this point) wants to charge people for something that they have created, that is their prerogative, and nobody is then entitled to that work for free.

Since the current technological development has made it possible for others to access that game for free because someone bought it and decided to share it for free, then they are entitled to it.

If I went with your line of reasoning, then the only logical entity I could blame for this would be the technological progression (since it's allowing people you claim to be "unentitled" to the information in question to access it), and I refuse to do that since im a big fan of technological development and a transhumanist to boot.

The free flow of information through technology is something GOOD, not bad. It's one of many beneficient gap-bridgers between the rich and the poor. I like the progression towards a state where money will ultimately become meaningless due to ingenious technological solutions to make everything accessible to everyone. I.e "freedom" in the most litteral sense possible.

Internet piracy accomplishes this in certain ways, thus making it impossible for me to think that it's bad.

And this process is only going to happen through some form of evolutionary process. And in essence, what you're doing is faulting those who are in the pole-position of this process because their actions make it more difficult from those behind to prosper. It would kind of like arguing that birds should stop flying, because several land-based animals without this ability can't catch them when they do that and thus will starve to death.

I say, instead of whining about those ahead of you in this evolutionary process, spend that energy you spend on whining to try to catch up and adapt.

 

[b3nn3tt]

No, I fully understand the difference between potential and actual, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of being patronised.

I'm not even talking about the idea of suing people, I'm talking about something far simpler. A company make a game. they spend a lot of time, effort and money making this game. They decide to sell this game for money. Person X decides that they don't want to spend their money on this game. At what point does it seem in any way acceptable that Person X should now be able to access that game for free?

The simple fact is, that if an artist (to use the simplest term available at this point) wants to charge people for something that they have created, that is their prerogative, and nobody is then entitled to that work for free.

Since the current technological development has made it possible for others to access that game for free because someone bought it and decided to share it for free, then they are entitled to it.

If I went with your line of reasoning, then the only logical entity I could blame for this would be the technological progression (since it's allowing people you claim to be "unentitled" to the information in question to access it), and I refuse to do that since im a big fan of technological development and a transhumanist to boot.

I don't understand that logic in the slightest. Technological development has made it possible to steal a car, are people entitled to do that? Technological development has made it possible to infect computers with virus that wipe the entire system, are people entitled to do that? Technological development has made it possible to kill billions of people at the touch of a button, are people entitled to do that?

The fact is, someone has created something that somebody else wants. That someone wants paying for it, and the somebody else has no right to claim it for free.

 

[blaze338]

Randy Blythe just covered this a few days ago on his twitter account, for anyone who wants to see look for @lambvox to read his tweets. He made a great analogy about how if everyone in the world got a key to a burger restaurant and were able to walk in and take all the free burgers they wanted, it would affect everyone in the burger business that ever tried to make their own restaurant. Fact is it costs money to record good quality albums and to rent studio time, The price of the albums are part of the way to make this money back, and albums cost more today because so many people do pirate music. Call it what you want and give whatever excuse you want, but piracy is stealing, by taking all your music for free you are helping to crumble the businesses that create the music you like and you take away from the artists who make what you like.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Inappropriate? Oh brother, you're one of those types. But yeah, you sounded pretty butthurt there a few posts back, when you were going on about how only people with connections have a chance at success with art, lol.

Well then you were reading too much into it.

Stop doing that and we won't have these misunderstandings.

Face the arguments instead of trying to figure me as a person out, guessing "why" I have certain opinions and make certain arguments. Because I (as a person) is NOT relevant to the topic, and you're not going to win any arguments by attacking me as a person.

So we make art and games and all this nice, non-essential fun stuff for you. If after a hard day's work of super important stuff, we have some time left over, it's our privilege to provide you said non-essential entertainment. For free, because you are somehow entitled to it.

No one's forcing you to dabble in arts, that's your choice. And if you feel that some people aren't entitled to your art then don't record it in any kind of medium that can be pirated, because if you do you no longer have sole control over the piece in question anymore.

The PRIVILIGE im talking about is to actually be able to profit enough from your art that you can earn a living through it and maintain the distribuion of it as a viable businessmodel.

Man, I love gamers.

Okay.

Also, we live in the 21st century, wtf is all this crap about human survival and procreation.

Since we (the humans) gave rise to systems like capitalism and politics, it's hardly strange that these fundamental needs and concepts (like survival and procreation) form the ultimate basis for these systems.

Strip down all the superficial stuff of our societies and forms of trade and government, and eventually it'll all be about survival and procreation. We are living creatures after all, and thus our behaviour is intristically influenced by the driveforces of life itself.

It's like Liquid Snake said in Metal Gear Solid: "You can't fight your genes. It's fate."

Ahahahahaha. I haven't heard anything so utterly pretentious since art school. And that's pretty hard to beat.

I don't care if you think it's pretentious. It's the truth.

Like I said: I like creating my art for the sake of creating it. Once a piece is completed, I have no further use for it so I tend to give it away, lose track of it, just leave it somewhere and sometimes I even destroy it myself.

Being pretentious doesn't come into it, I just don't see the need for keeping that stuff around anymore afterwards.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I don't understand that logic in the slightest. Technological development has made it possible to steal a car, are people entitled to do that? Technological development has made it possible to infect computers with virus that wipe the entire system, are people entitled to do that? Technological development has made it possible to kill billions of people at the touch of a button, are people entitled to do that?

Internet piracy isn't destroying systems, getting cars stolen or kill people. It's a process of duplication and distribution. I.e a CREATIVE and SUPPLYING process. Thus it's automatically better than destroying systems, killing people or removing actual physical objects from their designated location.

The fact is, someone has created something that somebody else wants. That someone wants paying for it, and the somebody else has no right to claim it for free.

No, it's more like someone has created something that somebody else wants. That someone wants paying for it, and that someone GETS paid for it by someone else. Then that last someone use that something (which has been bought and paid for) to create duplicates of that something at no cost, and THEN that someone is sharing said copies for free, and thus ANYONE has a right to claim those copies for free.

If you don't want stuff to run the risk of getting copied, then don't let others have access to those stuff. Plain and simple.

 

[b3nn3tt]

The fact is, someone has created something that somebody else wants. That someone wants paying for it, and the somebody else has no right to claim it for free.

No, it's more like someone has created something that somebody else wants. That someone wants paying for it, and that someone GETS paid for it by someone else. Then that last someone use that something (which has been bought and paid for) to create duplicates of that something at no cost, and THEN that someone is sharing said copies for free, and thus ANYONE has a right to claim those copies for free.

If you don't want stuff to run the risk of getting copied, then don't let others have access to those stuff. Plain and simple.

Yes, and then someone else acquires one of those copies for free. That's not right. Also, you appear to be saying that if game developers don't want their games pirating they shouldn't create games, which is just terrible logic.

We are never going to see eye to eye on this issue, so I'm going to suggest that we agree to disagree before this turns acrimonious, which I fear it may do if this back and forth continues.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Inappropriate? Oh brother, you're one of those types. But yeah, you sounded pretty butthurt there a few posts back, when you were going on about how only people with connections have a chance at success with art, lol.

Well then you were reading too much into it.

Stop doing that and we won't have these misunderstandings.

Face the arguments instead of trying to figure me as a person out, guessing "why" I have certain opinions and make certain arguments. Because I (as a person) is NOT relevant to the topic, and you're not going to win any arguments by attacking me as a person.

"Wake up, sheeple!!! Stop drinking the corporate kool-aid, man!!!"

Sorry, your argument is honestly too retarded and obviously troll-bait to even take seriously. And I know better than to try to have a meaningful and productive argument on an internet forum, even when the other side isn't spouting paragraph after paragraph of tl;dr nonsense. If you just came out and admitted you pirate products because you want free things, I'd at least respect your honesty. But you've managed to construct a position where you not only get all the free stuff you want, but end up enlightened and ethically superior to everyone else. Give me a break.

So we make art and games and all this nice, non-essential fun stuff for you. If after a hard day's work of super important stuff, we have some time left over, it's our privilege to provide you said non-essential entertainment. For free, because you are somehow entitled to it.

No one's forcing you to dabble in arts, that's your choice. And if you feel that some people aren't entitled to your art then don't record it in any kind of medium that can be pirated, because if you do you no longer have sole control over the piece in question anymore.

The PRIVILIGE im talking about is to actually be able to profit enough from your art that you can earn a living through it and maintain the distribuion of it as a viable businessmodel.

Lmao

 

[SirDoom]

The real problem arises when they try to outlaw things like playing your song in public, or burning music you own onto your Ipod. They don't want to adapt, but they try to keep us from adapting as-well.

Agreed. It's one thing to go after pirates who don't pay for the product, but it's another entirely to treat your paying customers badly. I personally like to make backups of my cds and dvds in case they break, but many of the discs out there pretty much say "You're a terrible person and we won't let you do that!" when you try to make a backup, or put it onto your mp3 player or phone.

Don't even get me started on all that DRM nonsense either. I liked the "Type in the CD key you found on the box, and never be bothered by us about it again" approach, but apparently that's giving the consumer too much freedom. It's like the publishers of media are trying to treat the disc as the property of the buyer, but all the content on it as a service- to be used only as the publisher sees fit. (...and if you break the disc, too bad! That part was your property, so you have to buy a new one)

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

"Wake up, sheeple!!! Stop drinking the corporate kool-aid, man!!!"

Sorry, your argument is honestly too retarded and obviously troll-bait to even take seriously. And I know better than to try to have a meaningful and productive argument on an internet forum, even when the other side isn't spouting paragraph after paragraph of tl;dr nonsense. If you just came out and admitted you pirate products because you want free things, I'd at least respect your honesty. But you've managed to construct a position where you not only get all the free stuff you want, but end up enlightened and ethically superior to everyone else. Give me a break.

Oh I get it, you're just pissed because you can't come up with any arguments that point out any inconsistencies or flaws in mine, and thus your only solution is the immature one:

Namely calling me retarded, dishonest, a liar and a troll. (despite not having the least bit of evidence to back these accusations up).

Oh well, perhaps you'll grow up someday too.

Also, why would I ever admit to committing internet piracy on a forum driven by such oppressive and censorhappy moderators that they actually give warnings and ban users for giving that kind of admissions? Please, im a lot smarter than that.