Piracy

[Maria Caliban]

But I take piracy a lot more serious than I do DRM. DRM can be a pain, it can even on rare occasions cause a serious computer problem, but it still isn't a crime. Piracy is.

It's not a crime because consumers and consumer advocacy groups lack the political pull of game, music, and movie publishers.

If you're going down that road, there is no end of officially-illegal activity that you can justify as morally permissible.

 

"Child molestation is only illegal because NAMBLA lacks the political pull of the local PTA!"

Landmines, rape, and now child molestation?

 

Wait, you were being ironic weren't you? Oh, you are a sly monkey.

[sorophx]

it's a bit different with music.

 

there's a lot of really obscure bands that never released more than 500 copies of their only record, which is not getting re-released, and I'm not going to spend days on ebay hunting for ridiculously priced used LPs (while in the US it's possible to find the same record in the bargain bin for 2 bucks, on ebay it could go for 30-50 USD). besides, I don't have a turntable. so it leaves me with two choices. download a ripsome collector kindly made available on blogspot, or just forget about it.

 

or I could contact the band and hope they have the master tapes somewhere and can send me a digital copy for a small sum. but let's be realistic, what are the chances of that happening

[Nepenthe]

But I take piracy a lot more serious than I do DRM. DRM can be a pain, it can even on rare occasions cause a serious computer problem, but it still isn't a crime. Piracy is.

It's not a crime because consumers and consumer advocacy groups lack the political pull of game, music, and movie publishers.

If you're going down that road, there is no end of officially-illegal activity that you can justify as morally permissible.

 

"Child molestation is only illegal because NAMBLA lacks the political pull of the local PTA!"

And hey, not long ago a bunch of guys thought that gassing a couple million people was ok, or at least morally grey, because they had saturdays off instead of sundays. Ie. people will be able to convince themselves of the moral acceptability of their actions, no matter how terrible.

 

 

(Yes, I went there, mostly because it was the only suitable escalation. And yes, take it with a pinch of irony, but also understand the point.)

[Giantevilhead]

I wish someone would do a study and gather stats on the demographics of pirates. I'm guessing that culture is a huge reason for piracy. I think that the people who pirate the most come from cultures that either don't have a very good conception of intellectual property and don't have any social stigmas toward piracy.

 

When people are first introduced to something new, they tend to exploit it to the fullest extent. A good example is when supermarkets first opened in China. All sorts of unseemly things were happening. Shopping carts were being stolen all the time. There were people practically living off of the free samples. Shoplifting was rampant. People were just eating the food inside the super markets and dumping the trash in the restrooms. Similar things happened when fast food restaurants opened. Free napkins and condiments were being taken by the bucket load. People were keeping the drink cups for months at a time for the refill. However, there was a concerted effort by the super markets and the government to establish proper etiquette and create social stigmas around those kinds of behaviors. After a while, those problems were more or less stopped.

[Gorgon]

There are services out there right now that let you have access to truly humongous libraries of music for a small monthly fee. The offline mode leaves a little to be desired, but honestly it's worth it for just having all that stuff at your fingertips. There are instances where you can't buy something but can find a torrent for it, but it's getting exceedingly rare.

[pmp10]

I think that the people who pirate the most come from cultures that either don't have a very good conception of intellectual property and don't have any social stigmas toward piracy.

But social stigma usually results from harming economical interests of your society.

When all the software producers are from a country far away (and one that is clearly rich) it's rather hard to convince anyone to care about their business.

[Volourn]

The US is rich?

 

I laugh at how the anti US contigent will, in one breath, claim that the US is rich and evil cause it doesn't share yet in the veyr next breath mock it for its relatrively high unemployment rate, the amount of poor it has, and how the economy is supposedly in shambles.

 

You cna't be rich and poor at the same time. Pick one. Is US rich or is it poor?

[ShadySands]

We're whatever evil you need us to be for whatever point you're trying to make.

 

You're welcome

[pmp10]

The US is rich?

 

I laugh at how the anti US contigent will, in one breath, claim that the US is rich and evil cause it doesn't share yet in the veyr next breath mock it for its relatrively high unemployment rate, the amount of poor it has, and how the economy is supposedly in shambles.

 

You cna't be rich and poor at the same time. Pick one. Is US rich or is it poor?

I think you are barking up the wrong tree as I don't remember ever calling US poor or it's economy in shambles.

[Fighter]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

[Orchomene]

"crime" is a very broad and subjective term in today's realities. it's against the law in some (most?) countries, yet same countries have laws that don't make any sense/are criminal

 

But piracy is not subjective at all. You are taking property without permission. The people who have worked to create what you are taking are unhappy about that. There isn't any moral 'grey area' here.

 

Not really true. Intellectual property is at the limit of the concept of property and remains in many cultures unaccepted for its absurd constraint put on a society.

I won't develop too much in the concept of property and usage, but those two point of views remain a long time in opposition and property became the winner during european dark ages and has been spread to many places in the world by constraint in opposition to most other cultures.

In short, property is the merchant ideal : everything has a price (well, as long as it enters the market concept) and obtaining something by a legitimate (i.e. socially accepted) acquisition (being legal theft or by exchange of money or something accepted by the former owner of the 'object') is essentially unchanging (the owner can break it, can sell it has a full control on the usage of it).

Whereas usage is a communitarian ideal that is collectively better than property but is individually poorer. With usage concept, no object is the unchanging property of its owner since if the owner/user has no usage of it, the object can be given to someone else. The user has no right to break it or sell it.

In China, you don't buy a house for more than ten years. You just buy the usage of it for ten years. After ten years, the house will be given back to the collectivity that can sell its usage to someone else.

 

In many cultures, usage is considered above property because when you are not in an overabundant society, having 'objects' that can't get back to the collective pool can be an unacceptable concept that can trigger a lot of rebellions (especially if food is concerned or any essential goods).

 

Now, to get back to intellectual property, we reach the limit of the property concept because you don't really own a physical object. When you buy a video game, you don't buy a CD or a digital code, you buy a license that allows you to use the software at leisure. At first, second hand market was limited since the intellectual property was linked to a physical support that could see some degredation and was more difficult to exchange that an immaterial information. With internet and the development of second hand markets, the second hand market becomes a lot more difficult to restrain.

That's the second hand market issue that is tolerated by comparison with physical property yet reaches the limit of the ideal for merchants.

 

What is absurd is in the sentence : "You are taking property without permission."

You don't take anything since there is no deprivation of the owner. The owner has the same thing he had and could not see (without spying you) that you are using the software (or other intellectual property).

Piracy at this moment (without considering the economical effect linked to the way developper and producer earn their money from 'selling') is just a multiplication of an intellectual good. Like seeing shoes by a merchant, going home and producing shoes for its own usage. There is nothing morally wrong.

After that, producing more shoes and giving shoes to other people is not morally an issue.

The moral issue is that the merchant used its margin on the shoes he sells to receive the money he spent (and time he spent if he is the one who developped the shoes) on developping the conecpt of the shoes.

 

But all the banter to say that in usage moral, piracy is not immoral at all. What is immoral is the possibility to deprive both categories of people of something : the merchant deprives the usage to the one that don't pay for something that has almost no production cost (development cost, yet almost no production cost since it can be duplicated with very few resources), and the pirates deprive the producer/developer from the time/money they spent on development.

 

I don't have a lot of solutions since property is such culturally inscribed in western society, yet intellectual property remains heavily refused in some intellectual domains (research being one, no one can put a licence on a new mathematical theorem) and is subject to legitimate contest since it is a very poor way to handle such kind of immaterial goods (high development cost, almost no production cost, i.e. the first produced cost several millio0ns and second one and followers cost almost nothing).

[Gorth]

But all the banter to say that in usage moral, piracy is not immoral at all. What is immoral is the possibility to deprive both categories of people of something : the merchant deprives the usage to the one that don't pay for something that has almost no production cost (development cost, yet almost no production cost since it can be duplicated with very few resources), and the pirates deprive the producer/developer from the time/money they spent on development.

Emphasis by me. The difference between theft of tangible and intangible goods is really irrelevant from an ethical point of view. If you cheat people out of pay for their time and effort you cheat people out pay of their time and effort. Only difference is theft of tangible goods is easier to prosecute and people hate the thought of paying for something they can get away with not paying for, regardless of how absurd the justifications may sound.

[Malcador]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

 

Path of least resistance, yup.

[Orchomene]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

 

You can also wait for huge sales or go for the second hand market.

[Rosbjerg]

We're whatever evil you need us to be for whatever point you're trying to make.

 

You're welcome

 

Don't forget ally and close friend when the real enemies come knocking.

 

-

people hate the thought of paying for something they can get away with not paying for, regardless of how absurd the justifications may sound.

 

I think it's more complicated than that.. I know some who have no problem pirating films but find it horribly to pirate games.

[Gfted1]

On the whole I don't care about pirates, I'm not convinced that we'd be paying less for our games if piracy didn't exist.

 

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99?

[Hurlshort]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

 

Ah, the good old entitlement argument, I knew you'd show up eventually.

 

Orchomene, I skimmed your overly long post and all I got was you are nitpicky and you might be trying to justify piracy, but you don't want to commit fully.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Hurlshot

[WDeranged]

On the whole I don't care about pirates, I'm not convinced that we'd be paying less for our games if piracy didn't exist.

 

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99?

 

I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim.

[Malcador]

Was also raised in this thread too. Maybe that will be their next idea, jack up the price to account for all their "losses" due to piracy.

[Gfted1]

On the whole I don't care about pirates, I'm not convinced that we'd be paying less for our games if piracy didn't exist.

 

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99?

 

I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim.

 

So you are saying that you have read that were it not for piracy, prices would have somehow decreased since the 90's / early 2000's? Weird.

[WDeranged]

On the whole I don't care about pirates, I'm not convinced that we'd be paying less for our games if piracy didn't exist.

 

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99?

 

I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim.

 

So you are saying that you have read that were it not for piracy, prices would have somehow decreased since the 90's / early 2000's? Weird.

 

Yeah, many, many times over the years, I'm pretty surprised you haven't

[Hurlshort]

On the whole I don't care about pirates, I'm not convinced that we'd be paying less for our games if piracy didn't exist.

 

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99?

 

I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim.

 

So you are saying that you have read that were it not for piracy, prices would have somehow decreased since the 90's / early 2000's? Weird.

 

Yeah, many, many times over the years, I'm pretty surprised you haven't

 

Can you maybe find some links for us? I'm with Gfted, I've never heard that claim. I've heard them complain about development costs rising due to piracy, but I've never heard that the price is being shifted to the consumers.

[Orchomene]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

 

Ah, the good old entitlement argument, I knew you'd show up eventually.

 

Orchomene, I skimmed your overly long post and all I got was you are nitpicky and you might be trying to justify piracy, but you don't want to commit fully.

 

Not at all. Otherwise, why would I pay for the games I play with ? Explanation is not justification. Piracy itself is an effect on the choices of our society. That don't means it is a welcome effect, yet it is a natural one.

When something has a low production cost compare to its development cost, people will replicate it.

This replication is illegal only because the only way developers/producers get paid for the money/time spent is by selling the final product (which itslef, as a product and with only considering its production price has no cost).

If developers and producers had an other mean to get paid, that wouldn't be illegal and they would be the first to applause to those that help them deliver the product.

 

Take the music example : some musicians put their lyrics free to download on their own site. Why ? Because they get paid by concerts and events. Thus, having people helping them deliver their songs to other would help them become known and attract people to their concerts.

[Zoraptor]

If I had no money I would pirate. Life is short. If I want to play I will play. Period.

 

Ah, the good old entitlement argument, I knew you'd show up eventually.

Both sides have entitlement issues- Ubisoft feels entitled to sales despite shoddy ports, hopelessly annoying DRM and a horrendous attitude, for example, and appears entirely unable to examine their own actions' role in the face of their imploding PC sales. They're selling an entirely voluntary luxury form of entertainment with hundreds of alternatives available yet believe that they ought, by right, to have better sales no matter what and no matter how they treat their customers.

[Volourn]

"Both sides have entitlement issues- Ubisoft feels entitled to sales despite shoddy ports, hopelessly annoying DRM and a horrendous attitude"

 

Except, here's a thought, if one thinks Ubisoft has a horrible product/service.. don't buy them or play them. Why would you steal soemthing you think is crappy? That's stupid.

 

People don't pirate things they think suck they pirate things they actually want. But, want for free. Period.

 

If I'm a thief in a grocery store.. I'm gonna steal something I want like chocolate cake yumm.. not something I hate like broccoli yuk.