Piracy

[Zoraptor]

Everyone has to make their own decisions but to me theres not much difference between pirating and lifting someones wallet in a crowded subway, only the methodology changes.

Yes yes, and everytime someone equates copyright infringement with theft they're murdering logic, raping and pillaging reason, and cannabalising reality.

 

They aren't the same, it's entirely an Appeal to Emotion. Copyright infringement does not involve depriving the owner of the use of and possession of something, ie the legal and actual definition of theft. If you steal a car or wallet the owner no longer has them in their possession and cannot use them. If they were duplicated the owner would still have use of them. It's also not a criminal matter (except in unusual circumstances), but a civil one, unlike theft. Ultimately you are of course free to consider piracy as theft, barratry, arson, libel, murder, DUI, terrorism, fraud or whatever but it'll only ever be copyright infringement.

 

I also find it rather difficult to muster any outrage whatsoever that multiple years ago someone may have duplicated an infinitely reproducible virtual good that was not available for purchase at the time- I see little point to whiteknighting corporates at the best of times (frankly, corporates don't give a asterisks beyond what benefits them, so hey! reciprocal right back at 'em) and a situation where a product is arbitrarily unavailable due to geography is hardly the best of times- it's simply not anyone else's business but the copyright holder's and the infringers.

[Delfosse]

I admire your self-restraint. That's all.

[Orogun01]

Everyone has to make their own decisions but to me theres not much difference between pirating and lifting someones wallet in a crowded subway, only the methodology changes.

Yes yes, and everytime someone equates copyright infringement with theft they're murdering logic, raping and pillaging reason, and cannabalising reality.

 

They aren't the same, it's entirely an Appeal to Emotion. Copyright infringement does not involve depriving the owner of the use of and possession of something, ie the legal and actual definition of theft. If you steal a car or wallet the owner no longer has them in their possession and cannot use them. If they were duplicated the owner would still have use of them. It's also not a criminal matter (except in unusual circumstances), but a civil one, unlike theft. Ultimately you are of course free to consider piracy as theft, barratry, arson, libel, murder, DUI, terrorism, fraud or whatever but it'll only ever be copyright infringement.

 

I also find it rather difficult to muster any outrage whatsoever that multiple years ago someone may have duplicated an infinitely reproducible virtual good that was not available for purchase at the time- I see little point to whiteknighting corporates at the best of times (frankly, corporates don't give a asterisks beyond what benefits them, so hey! reciprocal right back at 'em) and a situation where a product is arbitrarily unavailable due to geography is hardly the best of times- it's simply not anyone else's business but the copyright holder's and the infringers.

So it would be more akin to counterfeit goods rather than theft.

[Mamoulian War]

Everyone has to make their own decisions but to me theres not much difference between pirating and lifting someones wallet in a crowded subway, only the methodology changes.

Yes yes, and everytime someone equates copyright infringement with theft they're murdering logic, raping and pillaging reason, and cannabalising reality.

 

They aren't the same, it's entirely an Appeal to Emotion. Copyright infringement does not involve depriving the owner of the use of and possession of something, ie the legal and actual definition of theft. If you steal a car or wallet the owner no longer has them in their possession and cannot use them. If they were duplicated the owner would still have use of them. It's also not a criminal matter (except in unusual circumstances), but a civil one, unlike theft. Ultimately you are of course free to consider piracy as theft, barratry, arson, libel, murder, DUI, terrorism, fraud or whatever but it'll only ever be copyright infringement.

 

I also find it rather difficult to muster any outrage whatsoever that multiple years ago someone may have duplicated an infinitely reproducible virtual good that was not available for purchase at the time- I see little point to whiteknighting corporates at the best of times (frankly, corporates don't give a asterisks beyond what benefits them, so hey! reciprocal right back at 'em) and a situation where a product is arbitrarily unavailable due to geography is hardly the best of times- it's simply not anyone else's business but the copyright holder's and the infringers.

So it would be more akin to counterfeit goods rather than theft.

 

Yes...

[Delfosse]

Depends on what you mean by counterfeit. Counterfeit money is one thing, a generic drug that somehow bypassed the patent is another thing. If it's the latter, then yes. If it's counterfeit money, then no. If it's an "abibas" t-shirt or an obviously fake Dolce Gabbana pants, then I think it's just another product altogether.

[Hurlshort]

Depends on what you mean by counterfeit. Counterfeit money is one thing, a generic drug that somehow bypassed the patent is another thing. If it's the latter, then yes. If it's counterfeit money, then no. If it's an "abibas" t-shirt or an obviously fake Dolce Gabbana pants, then I think it's just another product altogether.

 

True, games are closer to counterfeiting money, since the overhead is so low compared to manufacturing drugs and fake pants. Good point!

[Hurlshort]

 

Also given your low opinion of so many Americans, I'm not sure why you are hanging out on the board of an American corporation.

This xenophobic remark beats everything your american buddy said, congrats.

 

I'm not saying you aren't welcome here. Although if I did, it would be because of your general unlikability rather than any nationality.

[Malcador]

Lets just take a quick second and be honest, are you a child? Your "discussions" immediately devolve to name calling whenever someone disputes you and you reference things not even being discussed. I can only conclude you are young or this is your shtick and if its the latter, we already have angry soviet nationals on board that are doing a better job.

 

Haha, that's pretty rich. Not so sure on describing it as counterfeiting, it might well work as they do recompile the files with slight changes and so on. And sometimes they try to pass it off as the real deal (who's dumb enough to believe some Chinese store is selling games 80% cheaper than everywhere else I'm not sure).

[Delfosse]

Haha, that's pretty rich. Not so sure on describing it as counterfeiting, it might well work as they do recompile the files with slight changes and so on. And sometimes they try to pass it off as the real deal (who's dumb enough to believe some Chinese store is selling games 80% cheaper than everywhere else I'm not sure).

 

I so happen to work in a fashion industry. Do you know the production price of Diesel jeans? It costs 2 dollars to make. They sell them for 300-500 dollars in Europe. Make a few logical connections.

 

And there are no-name mp3 players with a small screen akin to ipod etc, with 40 gigs of memory, etc etc, and they only cost 30 dollars in China. There's an online chinese shop that ships only to Russia, the reviews about the quality are very good. They sell other stuff too. I only wished they shipped to Europe, because that's where I am atm.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Delfosse

[Zoraptor]

Counterfeiting is certainly a better comparison than theft, though from what I remember counterfeiting in most places would require a physical good- thus things like hacking a bank to get more money on your account while to most practical extents equivalent to counterfeiting notes is actually a different crime.

 

I don't really see a need to go beyond copyright infringement or piracy as terms, people in general know what they mean even if opinions differ as to how significant they are as infractions.

[Gorth]

I don't really see a need to go beyond copyright infringement or piracy as terms, people in general know what they mean even if opinions differ as to how significant they are as infractions.

Pretty much this. It's like watching reports from Egypt or Libya where goverment officials and insurgents try to paint each other as devils. They are probably both right. I think I mentioned in one of this threads predecessors my view. When you are cheating somebody out of payment for their work, you are "stealing" (call it whatever you prefer) their most valuable asset, the time and labor invested in something, which could have been put to more beneficial use instead. Not all creators of assets that can be reproduced digitally at little or no cost are big bad corporations. Some people actually depend on getting paid for their work to pay their rent (put kids in college, whatever).

[Orogun01]

All things considered, publishers lose more money to retail stores rather than piracy. I mostly wait for the drop on prices and lots of time buy used since the store has a system in place to encourage you to buy used.

I would compare it to a drug manufacturer that gets constantly swindled by their dealers and does nothing about it.

 

Maybe a change in the production and distribution markets would end up increasing revenue for publishers without the need for intrusive DRM.

[Gorth]

Maybe a change in the production and distribution markets would end up increasing revenue for publishers without the need for intrusive DRM.

Well, that is part of the problem with the "publisher" model, isn't it? Being investment companies there is a constant drive to try to tap new markets (or squeeze more out of existing). Sometimes through added advertising (product placement and targeted advertising through profiling), sometimes nickling and diming (DLC) people to death, price fixing (hello EA and others), acquisitions and mergers (to prevent competition) and so on. Anything goes when trying to corner a market.

[Orogun01]

Maybe a change in the production and distribution markets would end up increasing revenue for publishers without the need for intrusive DRM.

Well, that is part of the problem with the "publisher" model, isn't it? Being investment companies there is a constant drive to try to tap new markets (or squeeze more out of existing). Sometimes through added advertising (product placement and targeted advertising through profiling), sometimes nickling and diming (DLC) people to death, price fixing (hello EA and others), acquisitions and mergers (to prevent competition) and so on. Anything goes when trying to corner a market.

One of the reasons that I like Bethesda as a publisher it's that they're a developer. Much like in the music industry producers are often musicians who had their careers, yet they bring all of their love of the art, experience, and craft to the table. To keep the comparison with the music industry, a producer who's an artist or has a love of the art will look for talent, an investor it's looking for the next hit. So investors tend to play it safe on guaranteed results because they have no idea what their product's really worth because they know next to nothing about it.

So we get a 100 cloned games greenlighted because of investors, effectively stagnating the industry. I could easily equate the disco explosion of the 70's to the modern FPS phenomenon.

[greylord]

The entire digital piracy thing is an interesting item.

 

Who here has ever played a Bioware game.

 

Congratulations, you participated in piracy.

 

Wha...What? you say?

 

That's right. Some of the items used in the BG series were used WITHOUT the original author's authorizations. T$R claimed full rights to those items, but depending on how you view copyrights...it's impossible for them to say they actually OWN some of the stuff that they have in the FR.

 

Now I love bioware, and I love the FR, and I even loved TSR...but saying that piracy equals theivery or robbery is plain stupid.

 

If I go steal your car, you cannot use your car anymore. If I go steal your food, you don't have it anymore. If a piece of software wasn't even available in a location and someone pirated it, that company LOSES NOTHING in that transaction. They can't even say they lost a sale really, because that person had no real way to actually BUY the dang thing in the first place.

 

Now I have backed up some of my games...something which some companies and a few nations try to bill as piracy as well...EXCEPT IN SOME PLACES WHERE I LIVE A BACKUP COPY IS ALLOWED BY LAW AND TRYING TO PREVENT THAT CAN BE SEEN AS BREAKING THE LAW...aka...in many instances the companies have broken the law themselves in this anti-piracy fit. Over time they've gotten some of those laws overturned, or at least ignored in their favor...but this entire piracy bit on the part of software companies goes a little overboard.

 

Their only recourse is to try to convince you that you aren't buying a physical product, but merely renting a license to use a product. AKA...instead of selling you a product they are now trying to turn it into a service industry. So they are selling a service instead of a product.

 

Now when you get to thievery in a service, they actually have to GIVE you the service and DO the service for you with your acceptance prior to anything else if they think that they are going to be stiffed. However...in the case of a nation where they didn't offer the service in the first place...aka...the game rental...there's NO theivery, robbing, or anything else since there was NO service to be taken.

 

Anyways, I have my games legal...but with the unending ridiculous loopholes that the companies keep putting on legit customers like me...I'll probably always side on the way with the Piracy campaign simply because they aren't the ones who are actively trying to constantly rob me in my book. I leave that up to the big wigs in the software industry currently like EA and Activision (always on DRM...bah...stupid things like that). Most of the time their "service" is more of a pain in the rear to legit customers like me rather than anything else.

 

I mean, just to install ME3 I have to remember which email account I made origin under.

 

Just for clarification: Those who wonder why I'd accuse the game publishers of trying to steal from me, many times it seems that they are just HOPING AND PRAYING they made the game installation soooo complicated that you won't actually be able to use the product you legally purchased!!!

 

 

Why should I, a PAYING customer have to jump through hoops to get to use their product? It's like they dont' want me to use it.

 

So just return it...someone suggests...EXCEPT all the stores I know of have a no returns on open computer software, once opened it's not accepted back.

 

So basically the publishers want me to open it, try to use it, fail...and they get my money without having to provide ANY service or goods whatsoever....

 

In just about every place I know of...that's considered stealing...REAL...TRUE...stealing....and yet people always accuse the pirates of this stupidity when ignoring the REAL thieves in the business...the companies that are installing these safeguards that actually prevent LEGITIMATE buyers from actually using their products or services. What makes it worse is there doesn't seem to be anyone to actually take these theives down and make laws that are ENFORCED that say...if a company doesn't provide what it says...it WILL get punished for criminal acts...just like these companies want done to the people who don't actually pay for thier stuff (but typically have an easier time using the software since they don't have to jump through hoops like us legit buyers).

Edited May 4, 2012 by greylord

[pmp10]

If I go steal your car, you cannot use your car anymore. If I go steal your food, you don't have it anymore. If a piece of software wasn't even available in a location and someone pirated it, that company LOSES NOTHING in that transaction. They can't even say they lost a sale really, because that person had no real way to actually BUY the dang thing in the first place.

The problem with this argument is that you want to judge whether any value was lost.

Or to put it another way: If someone doesn't use their car is it okay to steal it?

Surly it was going to rust no value loss will occur.

[Humodour]

Im surprised they havent figured out some way to send an electrical pulse back to the servers and simply fry them.

 

Wow, you really have no clue how the Internet (or electricity) works.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Krezack

[Gorth]

Regarding one of the parts not quoted from your post, most terms and conditions explicitly points out that it in part or whole may be superseded by local legislation.

 

In just about every place I know of...that's considered stealing...REAL...TRUE...stealing....and yet people always accuse the pirates of this stupidity when ignoring the REAL thieves in the business...the companies that are installing these safeguards that actually prevent LEGITIMATE buyers from actually using their products or services. What makes it worse is there doesn't seem to be anyone to actually take these theives down and make laws that are ENFORCED that say...if a company doesn't provide what it says...it WILL get punished for criminal acts...just like these companies want done to the people who don't actually pay for thier stuff (but typically have an easier time using the software since they don't have to jump through hoops like us legit buyers).

 

Nobody forces you to buy those products, just like nobody forces you at gunpoint to play video games. Entirely anecdotal, but I refuse to buy BD movies that are region encoded. A few major Hollywood companies actually offers them up on Amazon and they are the only ones that goes into my cart. Then they (movie companies) can whinge about dropping sales all they want. Do I regret buying ME3? You bet, it got uninstalled together with Origin again. Steam is currently the extreme pain threshold as far as I'm concerned.

 

Don't like local laws? Vote some different politicians in. It's part of the game of democracy (conveniently forgotten by those who cry "censorship!" when a part of some imaginary wild west universe suddenly has to follow the same rules as those outside their protective bubble).

 

Hands up those who think TPB has anything to with free speech (I know there is supposedly one born every minute, but still).

 

It's going to take a lot of convincing to believe the outrage isn't the loudest and most vehement from those whose illegal downloads are going to be impeded and they actually have to do a little work to find new sources or alternate routes to the same sources.

[Orogun01]

 

Hands up those who think TPB has anything to with free speech (I know there is supposedly one born every minute, but still).

 

Well, if we have defined copyright and intellectual property as ownership over ideas it could be a free speech case. Just with another meaning of the word "free"

[Gorth]

Well, if we have defined copyright and intellectual property as ownership over ideas it could be a free speech case. Just with another meaning of the word "free"

I don't know if it's defined as ownership of ideas (isn't that more a patent office thing???), I usually think of it as the right to determine what happens with the result of your own work. Lawyers could probably write page up and page down about what the definition is, what the intended purpose of the definition is and a number of examples and precedents and interpretations of the definitions (and charge you $300 per hour doing so)

[Malcador]

It's going to take a lot of convincing to believe the outrage isn't the loudest and most vehement from those whose illegal downloads are going to be impeded and they actually have to do a little work to find new sources or alternate routes to the same sources.

 

Pft very, very little work to find a decent torrent site. Well unless they're hunting porn, but I imagine the DD sites like RS/FS/Oron can pick up the slack for that

[Amentep]

Many people are looking at it this way.

 

If I am in European Union, I have same duties and must obey same common laws as inhabitants of UK, Germany, Sweden. I want to have same privileges than them. If the company does treat me as a lower human being compared to other less "backwater" countries, I will treat the company same way...

 

I am not telling that it is right/wrong, but I hope you get the point, what is in a mind of less responsible youths...

 

All EU inhabitants are the same in the eyes of the EU laws, but still they are not...

 

This is an interesting way of putting it, it'd be similar to everyone in the US being able to play a game except people in the Dakotas because there wasn't enough people there to make it worth distributing the product. Thanks.

 

The entire digital piracy thing is an interesting item.

 

Who here has ever played a Bioware game.

 

Congratulations, you participated in piracy.

 

Wha...What? you say?

 

That's right. Some of the items used in the BG series were used WITHOUT the original author's authorizations. T$R claimed full rights to those items, but depending on how you view copyrights...it's impossible for them to say they actually OWN some of the stuff that they have in the FR.

 

Forgotten Realms, D&D all of that are IPs belonging to TSR and their successor companies; I can't think of any work done for TSR that wouldn't (or shouldn't) have been done by an employee, a work-for-hire, or a licensee and most big companies don't let total rights to their properties go to other companies. Was there something specific you were referring to?

 

The only iify thing I can think of were the rights to the cartoon which are still with Marvel Animation, but the use in BG II I think would fall under fair use / parody.

 

At any rate even if you're correct and I'm not thinking of something obvious that was questionable in use, I'd think the "piracy" in such a scenario would be on the part of Bioware, not on the part of the (unknowing) customer.

 

If I go steal your car, you cannot use your car anymore. If I go steal your food, you don't have it anymore. If a piece of software wasn't even available in a location and someone pirated it, that company LOSES NOTHING in that transaction. They can't even say they lost a sale really, because that person had no real way to actually BUY the dang thing in the first place.

 

I think the comparison comes up because of the idea that (a) some creator isn't getting paid for their work (or in the case of games, some creator won't be paid for future work because this game flopped since everyone pirated it) and (b) in the US at least the people who pirate have legitimate ways to purchase the product but choose not to procure via that method.

 

Anyways, I have my games legal...but with the unending ridiculous loopholes that the companies keep putting on legit customers like me...

 

I don't like some of the draconian measures in place myself; and with the recent rumors about the next gen consoles - well I have great worries about companies moving to a "you have to be online to validate ownership of a game" model. Where I live its currently impossible to have any kind of internet connection other than dial-up (I happen to live in a giant ass gap between various service areas) and this kind of model would remove me from gaming at all.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Amentep

[Gfted1]

Because you think I'm gonna try to convince an impregnable arrogant insulting fool that he's wrong? Are you serious? No, I'm gonna take offense in your gibberish, tell you who you are and be on my way to do actual interesting things instead of talking to a spastic. If you want to become someone better, drop everything you're doing right now, lock your doors, shut your phone and start reading philosophy/history/politics books for a year. I know you're not gonna do this, so even writing this was a waste of my time. By the way, soviet national is an oxymoron.

 

Rofl...I didnt even know you were trying to convince me of anything. See, your problem is that youre a weak minded fool who can only debate by being overly aggressive and trying to redirect to random points in history. Im not the only one youve taken this stance with so this isnt some one-off cause "you so angy". Rant on but you just look like a tool.

 

Im really surprise by the attitude of some of you whos opinions I respect take property rights. Its "not really stealing"? What? Whether its the stone tablets of yesteryear, the books / 1 & 0's of today, or the pulses of light tomorrow, property rights dont cease to exist because the medium of distribution changes. Also, you dont deserve something beacause you are a special unique snowflake.

[Amentep]

I find the "1s & 0s" argument interesting. There's an area in art about taking something that exists (and which you may or may not own the rights too) and being transformative of it so that a new and unique item of the artist's making is created and I almost feel that this is where the argument is going except that when someone says something like "its just 1s & 0s that if decoded the right way would make a game" there's never an explanation of what other use there would be to downloading that particular set of 1s & 0s other than decoding the way to make a game.

 

I'm not sure that digital piracy really falls under property rights (since there isn't a physical entity to have a right to) and I think that's why there's such a struggle to understand what it means by many people. Instead of taking a physcial disc, some electrons are inconvenienced. Some intellectual rights, copyrights, distribution rights, maybe even patents might be violated though. In some ways the Internet has opened a number of issues that I think our society and our laws are struggling to conceptualize.

 

I recall a time a few years ago when a few companies got in trouble for appropriating art from people's deviant art accounts and using them for their own posters. The companies actually said "we found them online and assumed fair use". The end result of these were that the companies were in the wrong, but there was little the creators could do to prevent it from happening once they posted the work online other than close the barn doors after the horses were gone.

[Delfosse]

Don't like local laws? Vote some different politicians in. It's part of the game of democracy

 

But there's no democracy, only kleptocracy and lobbying. And lobbying >> your vote. Made me laugh, thanks.