And the Most-Pirated Game of 2010 Is...

[LitleWaffle]

Basic Terms: You took something that didn't belong to you

^That is for both Piracy and Theft

Not So Basic Terms: Taking something under copyright and reproducing it without the creators permission which is PIRACY is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Those that make the source of the file that is pirated is under direct violation of copyright infringement. Meanwhile those that get their own version of the file from the original illegal one are also breaking the law.

Meanwhile thievery is of stealing something

How is this not obvious to you people?

Duplication of information isn't "taking". And COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT is STILL NOT THE SAME AS THEFT.

Also, please illustrate exactly how the world will dissolve into anarchy and chaos because ancient and dysfunctional copyright laws are being broken.

Theft is one thing, copyright infringement is another. They are unrelated and anyone trying to claim that they are exactly the same is an obvious idiot with no sound arguments what so ever...

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Are you reproducing the piece of information while you do not have permission to do so? Yes
-Copyright Infringement

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Is the piece of information yours to take without paying for? No
Did you have permission to take what wasn't yours by the owners that have the copyright? No
-Piracy

Is the apple from the market stall owned by someone else? Yes
Is the apple from the market stall yours to take? No
Did you have permission to take the apple from the market stall owner? No
-Theft

This quote from me of your's never says that Copyright Infringement and Theft are the same thing. If you interpreted it that way, this is how I see it above.

How would you describe pirating? I say take, what would you say? I say take because you obtain information online that does not belong to you without being payed for legally. If you are going to critique my use of words or point of view, at least put some backbone into it.

And for the part about the whole anarchy thing, I can't find where I posted that. But I shall answer it regardless.

I guess if everyone followed the viewpoint of the person who's username I can't remember that I began arguing with, which was that Piracy isn't stealing, than just about everyone would start pirating. The lack of sales would drive everyone in the gaming industry out of business, and millions more would lose their jobs, so they won't be able to pay for their taxes or mortgages.

The lack of paid taxes would add up quickly, ruining the what I believe delicate loop the government has been using to keep our economy afloat, while millions of now homeless people need money to survive, and since very few people would be willing to give out food(though the few that do should ascend to godhood),I believe the government will produce more money in order to help like mistakes in the past and would cause inflation, ruining the economy for everyone and causing a depression.

The majority of people, without knowing how to solve these problems themselves, will eventually go on a thieving rampage, killing people if they have to just to survive. Civilians will all carry guns to defend themselves. The authorities will either will have already disbanded and joined the other civilians in the anarchy, or would attempt to gun down civilians. The government will try to interfere with the SWAT which will not end well for everyone now has guns and a massacre of civilians will take place. The civilians will protest or shoot at the government and the government will either quickly or slowly fall apart.

Sure the pirating issue is quite large, but many people are still buying legally, and the fact that Black Ops has been one of the largest sales ever can easily show that. However, if everyone considered pirating not stealing or didn't care like the person I began this argument has claimed, than I think the three paragraphs above are what would happen.

 

[LitleWaffle]

several problems with that one being all Pirates are NOT us citizens believe it or not and the second being that our prison and court system are just to filled to deal with this and the biggest problem being that if any politiciam allowed real action to be taken aginst Piracy (as in fines for all of them) they would lose all their voters because they would have the pirate , their friends their familys and everyone releated to every pirate evr turned aginst them.

Well, yes, but that still emphasizes what I had said. What with human rights being too overpowered and whatnot.

And although I'm not entirely sure what your saying due to the vast amount of grammatical errors, I will agree(?) with you that not all pirates are Americans, but those ones are affecting us as a country. If we can find a way to and actually do deal with them, than we can pass the ideas on to other countries that can work with it, tweak it to work with them, or try their own method.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Are you reproducing the piece of information while you do not have permission to do so? Yes
-Copyright Infringement

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Is the piece of information yours to take without paying for? No
Did you have permission to take what wasn't yours by the owners that have the copyright? No
-Piracy

Is the apple from the market stall owned by someone else? Yes
Is the apple from the market stall yours to take? No
Did you have permission to take the apple from the market stall owner? No
-Theft

This quote from me of your's never says that Copyright Infringement and Theft are the same thing. If you interpreted it that way, this is how I see it above.

How would you describe pirating? I say take, what would you say? I say take because you obtain information online that does not belong to you without being payed for legally. If you are going to critique my use of words or point of view, at least put some backbone into it.

The thing is you can't "own" information that you have once shared with someone. You might be able to own an actual compact disc, a piece of paper or a canvas with paint on it. But you can't own the information of it (i.e the painted design on the canvas, the written message on the paper or the way the sounds sound like when the compact disc is played) if someone else has seen/read/heard it.

For instance, what are your copyright laws going to do about people with perfect memory? Let's say such a person visits a friend and that friend plays an album of a famous artist, and the person who hears it has such good memory that he basically doesn't have to hear the album play again because all the songs are stuck in his memory forever. By your reasoning, that person is guilty of copyright infringement and even theft simply by using his ears and memory because he has an illegal copy of the information that used to only be recorded on a compact disc which was supposedly illegal to copy.

In fact the only way to actually own information or an experience is to make sure that you're the only one in possesion of it and NEVER share it with anyone else (be it by payment or any other kind of transaction). But once it's out there in any shape or form, the information belongs to everyone who have taken part of it.

I mean, what are you going to do to insure otherwise? Whack people over the head until the get afflicted by amnesia and forget the information that you claim they don't own and thus have no "right" to?

So, a company can own the DVD's or blu-ray discs which the games are recorded on, and it would be theft if someone went to a store and actually stole the disc and the package. An actual item has been unlawfully removed from it's rightful owner.

But the information on it has been freely shared in the event of a purchase, and as soon as that game is played by the player, the player owns a memory and the experience of the game. Thus he or she owns the actual information just as much as the creators used to do. Making it ultimately unreasonable to think that the creators somehow think they have a right to control how that information is spread further by the new owners. And thus invalidating the claim that it would be "theft" because an actual item hasn't been removed from it's rightful location.

And for the part about the whole anarchy thing, I can't find where I posted that. But I shall answer it regardless.

I guess if everyone followed the viewpoint of the person who's username I can't remember that I began arguing with, which was that Piracy isn't stealing, than just about everyone would start pirating. The lack of sales would drive everyone in the gaming industry out of business, and millions more would lose their jobs, so they won't be able to pay for their taxes or mortgages.

The lack of paid taxes would add up quickly, ruining the what I believe delicate loop the government has been using to keep our economy afloat, while millions of now homeless people need money to survive, and since very few people would be willing to give out food(though the few that do should ascend to godhood),I believe the government will produce more money in order to help like mistakes in the past and would cause inflation, ruining the economy for everyone and causing a depression.

The majority of people, without knowing how to solve these problems themselves, will eventually go on a thieving rampage, killing people if they have to just to survive. Civilians will all carry guns to defend themselves. The authorities will either will have already disbanded and joined the other civilians in the anarchy, or would attempt to gun down civilians. The government will try to interfere with the SWAT which will not end well for everyone now has guns and a massacre of civilians will take place. The civilians will protest or shoot at the government and the government will either quickly or slowly fall apart.

Sure the pirating issue is quite large, but many people are still buying legally, and the fact that Black Ops has been one of the largest sales ever can easily show that. However, if everyone considered pirating not stealing or didn't care like the person I began this argument has claimed, than I think the three paragraphs above are what would happen.

That's a cute assesment on your part.

The thing is, the existence of open-source kind of invalidates your assesment completely. Not all people do everything simply to make money, and it is these exact same people who will continue to do stuff simply because they get a kick out of it.

Also, there is no form of capitalistic guarantee that you SHOULD have the right to make money of making music, videogames or anything else. The market is the one to decide whether you deserve money for it or not. The fact that piracy exist is a capitalistic message. The market has decided that it can distribute a lot of cultural expressions on it's own and completely free too. The only truly capitalistic thing to do is to adapt to that and try to come up with new ways to make money of it. Trying to enforce and stop this capitalistic process through arbitrary copyright bullshit is basically to hold back the global market than anything else...

 

[incal11]

Your argument is invalid. Because people still pay for stuff. Now imagine a world where piracy is not illegal. People would have no real incentive to compensate content producers other than their own ethics. Most people wouldn't. Revenues decrease. Which means production money also decreases. Which means you either get cheaper games, or the only games that are funded are tried and true formulas with as little creative risk as possible. Indie gaming ends up largely shot. Less game variety overall. Outside of the gaming market, the TV, film, music, book, and pretty much any industry that relies on people getting compensated for their creative effort goes down in flames. Given how much of the world economy is tied up in entertainment, it might survive, but it wouldn't be pretty. Of course, this is just a hypothetical, and cannot be proven without piracy actually being made legal.

For the sake of argument, you may find this link interesting:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Is the piece of information yours to take without paying for? No
Did you have permission to take what wasn't yours by the owners that have the copyright? No
-Piracy

Is the apple from the market stall owned by someone else? Yes
Is the apple from the market stall yours to take? No
Did you have permission to take the apple from the market stall owner? No
-Theft

You realise that an apple is not infinitely reproductible, also that an apple is not properly speaking a piece of art either. A video game, like a music piece or a painting, is (potentially at least) art. There for everyone to see.
With the law behind you, you can call it a kind of theft but it remains a most justifiable kind of theft. Of course we won't die of hunger if we can't get to play, but we will die happier if we get more fun.

 

[JonnWood]

For instance, what are your copyright laws going to do about people with perfect memory? Let's say such a person visits a friend and that friend plays an album of a famous artist, and the person who hears it has such good memory that he basically doesn't have to hear the album play again because all the songs are stuck in his memory forever. By your reasoning, that person is guilty of copyright infringement and even theft simply by using his ears and memory because he has an illegal copy of the information that used to only be recorded on a compact disc which was supposedly illegal to copy.

Anyone can memorize a song. What makes it CI is the unauthorized reproduction of it, whether it's by MP3, CD, or wax cylinder. If the person used their perfect memory to reproduce that album exactly, then it might be copyright infringement, though there are laws about covers.

In fact the only way to actually own information or an experience is to make sure that you're the only one in possesion of it and NEVER share it with anyone else (be it by payment or any other kind of transaction). But once it's out there in any shape or form, the information belongs to everyone who have taken part of it.

You're getting into sociology and philosophy now. In fact, you seem to have equated or equalled the memory or experience of media with the media itself.

So, a company can own the DVD's or blu-ray discs which the games are recorded on, and it would be theft if someone went to a store and actually stole the disc and the package. An actual item has been unlawfully removed from it's rightful owner.

But the information on it has been freely shared in the event of a purchase, and as soon as that game is played by the player, the player owns a memory and the experience of the game. Thus he or she owns the actual information just as much as the creators used to do.

What they "own" is a memory and an experience. The actual zeros and ones that make up the game are still on the disc. Or cartridge. Or hard drive. Or whatever. If I go to a friend's house and play a game of Monopoly and go home, I have a memory of a game of Monopoly. I do not suddenly own a box made by Parker Bros. with various bits of plastic and paper in it that says "MONOPOLY".

Making it ultimately unreasonable to think that the creators somehow think they have a right to control how that information is spread further by the new owners.

That "information", as you have defined it, is a memory. Creators generally like the idea of people talking about their game to other people.

And thus invalidating the claim that it would be "theft" because an actual item hasn't been removed from it's rightful location.

The sad thing is that I'm sure in your mind, your whole argument makes perfect sense.

The thing is, the existence of open-source kind of invalidates your assesment completely. Not all people do everything simply to make money, and it is these exact same people who will continue to do stuff simply because they get a kick out of it.

And? They're the minority. Most media creators need money.

Also, there is no form of capitalistic guarantee that you SHOULD have the right to make money of making music, videogames or anything else.

You keep using those words. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Capitalism is essentially about exchange. Person A has a product Person B wants. Person B has capital (money, land, goats) that A wants. If B gives A the capital, A gives B the product. Everything else is just elaborations on the theme.

Piracy, however, involves B taking the product without giving the capital to A, which, as argued previously, has more than a few similarities to theft. That similarity is not actually the important bit. The important bit is where B did not give the capital to A, and thus should not have the product. You've gotten around this by imagining all sorts of bizarre definitions of the product, and by claiming people should get stuff for free because "the market" demands it.

The market is the one to decide whether you deserve money for it or not. The fact that piracy exist is a capitalistic message. The market has decided that it can distribute a lot of cultural expressions on it's own and completely free too.

The people who actually pay for stuff are "the market". Pirates, as I have been repeatedly informed by apologists, generally would not pay for the things they obtain anyway. Not only do they not meet the definition of a market, but they mostly don't qualify even as a potential market.

The only truly capitalistic thing to do is to adapt to that and try to come up with new ways to make money of it. Trying to enforce and stop this capitalistic process through arbitrary copyright bullshit is basically to hold back the global market than anything else...

I get the feeling that you're just regurgitating these concepts without actually understanding them.

With the law behind you, you can call it a kind of theft but it remains a most justifiable kind of theft. Of course we won't die of hunger if we can't get to play, but we will die happier if we get more fun.

So a theft someone commits just to entertain themselves is "justifiable" in your eyes?

Well your opinion on human rights might be true but unfortunatly our country was founded on the prinsiple that it was beter to give people too many rights and allow them to evade the law then it is to give them too few and open the door for oppression. I do not think anyone even those aginst piracy would tolerate a decrease in their rights for the sake of stoping pirates.( no one wants another patriot act here)

Too bad piracy is not a right in the first place, on account of it being a violation of copyright.

these other countrys would not deal with copyright infringment because they are mostly poor totalitarian regims that want to keep their populations docile with unlimited amounts of free entertainment( another reason why no piracy action will happen in the US)

I'll bet you think Borat is a documentary.

 

[Ilyak1986]

Basic Terms: You took something that didn't belong to you

^That is for both Piracy and Theft

Not So Basic Terms: Taking something under copyright and reproducing it without the creators permission which is PIRACY is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Those that make the source of the file that is pirated is under direct violation of copyright infringement. Meanwhile those that get their own version of the file from the original illegal one are also breaking the law.

Meanwhile thievery is of stealing something

How is this not obvious to you people?

Duplication of information isn't "taking". And COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT is STILL NOT THE SAME AS THEFT.

Also, please illustrate exactly how the world will dissolve into anarchy and chaos because ancient and dysfunctional copyright laws are being broken.

Theft is one thing, copyright infringement is another. They are unrelated and anyone trying to claim that they are exactly the same is an obvious idiot with no sound arguments what so ever...

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Are you reproducing the piece of information while you do not have permission to do so? Yes
-Copyright Infringement

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Is the piece of information yours to take without paying for? No
Did you have permission to take what wasn't yours by the owners that have the copyright? No
-Piracy

Is the apple from the market stall owned by someone else? Yes
Is the apple from the market stall yours to take? No
Did you have permission to take the apple from the market stall owner? No
-Theft

This quote from me of your's never says that Copyright Infringement and Theft are the same thing. If you interpreted it that way, this is how I see it above.

How would you describe pirating? I say take, what would you say? I say take because you obtain information online that does not belong to you without being payed for legally. If you are going to critique my use of words or point of view, at least put some backbone into it.

And for the part about the whole anarchy thing, I can't find where I posted that. But I shall answer it regardless.

I guess if everyone followed the viewpoint of the person who's username I can't remember that I began arguing with, which was that Piracy isn't stealing, than just about everyone would start pirating. The lack of sales would drive everyone in the gaming industry out of business, and millions more would lose their jobs, so they won't be able to pay for their taxes or mortgages.

The lack of paid taxes would add up quickly, ruining the what I believe delicate loop the government has been using to keep our economy afloat, while millions of now homeless people need money to survive, and since very few people would be willing to give out food(though the few that do should ascend to godhood),I believe the government will produce more money in order to help like mistakes in the past and would cause inflation, ruining the economy for everyone and causing a depression.

The majority of people, without knowing how to solve these problems themselves, will eventually go on a thieving rampage, killing people if they have to just to survive. Civilians will all carry guns to defend themselves. The authorities will either will have already disbanded and joined the other civilians in the anarchy, or would attempt to gun down civilians. The government will try to interfere with the SWAT which will not end well for everyone now has guns and a massacre of civilians will take place. The civilians will protest or shoot at the government and the government will either quickly or slowly fall apart.

Sure the pirating issue is quite large, but many people are still buying legally, and the fact that Black Ops has been one of the largest sales ever can easily show that. However, if everyone considered pirating not stealing or didn't care like the person I began this argument has claimed, than I think the three paragraphs above are what would happen.

Wait a minute, we're going from internet piracy to the collapse of capitalistic civilization? Is this a joke?

I know you're trying to extrapolate for the sake of proving a point, but...I completely disagree.

For one, if you're talking about piracy being so bad because the devs don't get any money out of it, what about the sale of used video games at Gamestop? Should gamestop be completely shut down? Because derp derp, I pay for a $10 used copy of Ace Combat 5, and Namco doesn't get that $10 (or even more, because a new copy would cost more). I suppose gamestop is legal piracy because money changes hands?

On the same note, what about the sale of used automobiles? Or the sale of used textbooks between friends? I know I sold a statistics textbook to a friend in university for a lower price than she'd pay to buy it used at the bookstore, but for a much greater price than I could have obtained for selling it back used. Both parties were happy, and the only loser was the bookstore that blatantly overcharges.

Now, are you also on a crusade against the sale of anything used, and believe everything should be sold new or not at all, since that's the only way the original manufacturers of whatever widget it is get paid (be it video games, books, automobiles, you name it...)?

IMO the only difference between piracy and gamestop, when you REALLY come to think of it is this:

The exchange is done OTC (over the "counter", that is, peer to peer) rather than through the "exchange", which is gamestop, which has a *massive* bid/offer spread (aka what it will pay for a copy of the used game vs. what it would sell it for). Though in this case, I suppose that the analogy doesn't quite hold since there's another copy of the something being created, but with most games' low replay values these days, unless someone just sits there and lets everyone download from him or her, what probably happens is that he or she downloads said piece of entertainment, consumes it, and probably doesn't touch it again, before re-uploading it if at all. In that sense, it can be thought of as a "trade" by eliminating the middle man.

Anyhow, my take on things is this: most people have a very limited amount of money, and any money they spend on something that they can get for free with an infinitesimally small chance of being punished for it is money very poorly spent, speaking purely from a monetary utility perspective. On the other hand, we have people's morals and ethics.

I think quite a few pirates' stance is this: morals and ethics are nice, but I have no money with which to pay to begin with. My net worth isn't so high if at all positive (think student loans) and I'd really like a better job (if I have one at all). I'm not going to *buy* anything that I absolutely don't need, so anything I would hypothetically "pirate" would not be a lost sale.

Some articles say that by downloading something, a person puts some form of value on that something, or he or she would not download it at all. Just because I put value on something doesn't mean I have the money to currently pay the value of that something. So, I hypothetically download that something. Did I just negatively impact a company's bottom line? Not in this case.

At the heart of this matter is this: what is somebody's time worth? If I'm a big wig rolling in money hand over fist, rather than search on the internet for hours upon hours to download a torrent which may or may not work, I can buy whatever piece of entertainment I wish to consume legally. But if I'm a broke college graduate without a job in the worst recession since the Great Depression and have to be resigned to free pirated entertainment, will you begrudge me to pay when I have nothing?

Frankly, a lot of this begs the question as to why companies *insist* on trying to pry money from a market segment with probably very little purchasing power. The economy is not in the best state for discretionary spending at the moment, and video games are a definite luxury. And no, my argument isn't "stop charging so much and maybe we'll buy". My argument is "video games rank rather low on any rational person's list of priorities, and most video game players are not too well off, because by the time they are, they don't really play them anymore, so start trying to find innovative ways to monetize that segment".

Think about it. People who play video games might not necessarily have money, but what do they give you when they play your game? Time, and eyeballs. Google realized this quite nicely and now makes a killing from this realization. Why can't anyone else?

 

[incal11]

With the law behind you, you can call it a kind of theft but it remains a most justifiable kind of theft. Of course we won't die of hunger if we can't get to play, but we will die happier if we get more fun.

So a theft someone commits just to entertain themselves is "justifiable" in your eyes?

First it is called a theft because the law (seems to) say so, but it's a case where the law is wrong. The law is wrong here because it is not about a commodity, but about a work of art. Art is not simply a thing to be sold, it is an idea to appreciate. By right art should be available for anyone to apreciate, for the sake of humanity's intellectual and cultural progress. Because like books, movies, music and so on, video games have that potential.
Rewarding talented artists depending on your tastes and means is how it worked since the dawn of time, and culture hardly died down before copyrights came along. Plus it helps to expand your horizons :
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

 

[LitleWaffle]

Spoiler

Basic Terms: You took something that didn't belong to you

^That is for both Piracy and Theft

Not So Basic Terms: Taking something under copyright and reproducing it without the creators permission which is PIRACY is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Those that make the source of the file that is pirated is under direct violation of copyright infringement. Meanwhile those that get their own version of the file from the original illegal one are also breaking the law.

Meanwhile thievery is of stealing something

How is this not obvious to you people?

Spoiler

Duplication of information isn't "taking". And COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT is STILL NOT THE SAME AS THEFT.

Also, please illustrate exactly how the world will dissolve into anarchy and chaos because ancient and dysfunctional copyright laws are being broken.

Theft is one thing, copyright infringement is another. They are unrelated and anyone trying to claim that they are exactly the same is an obvious idiot with no sound arguments what so ever...

Spoiler

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Are you reproducing the piece of information while you do not have permission to do so? Yes
-Copyright Infringement

Is the piece of information owned by someone else by copyright? Yes
Is the piece of information yours to take without paying for? No
Did you have permission to take what wasn't yours by the owners that have the copyright? No
-Piracy

Is the apple from the market stall owned by someone else? Yes
Is the apple from the market stall yours to take? No
Did you have permission to take the apple from the market stall owner? No
-Theft

This quote from me of your's never says that Copyright Infringement and Theft are the same thing. If you interpreted it that way, this is how I see it above.

How would you describe pirating? I say take, what would you say? I say take because you obtain information online that does not belong to you without being payed for legally. If you are going to critique my use of words or point of view, at least put some backbone into it.

And for the part about the whole anarchy thing, I can't find where I posted that. But I shall answer it regardless.

I guess if everyone followed the viewpoint of the person who's username I can't remember that I began arguing with, which was that Piracy isn't stealing, than just about everyone would start pirating. The lack of sales would drive everyone in the gaming industry out of business, and millions more would lose their jobs, so they won't be able to pay for their taxes or mortgages.

The lack of paid taxes would add up quickly, ruining the what I believe delicate loop the government has been using to keep our economy afloat, while millions of now homeless people need money to survive, and since very few people would be willing to give out food(though the few that do should ascend to godhood),I believe the government will produce more money in order to help like mistakes in the past and would cause inflation, ruining the economy for everyone and causing a depression.

The majority of people, without knowing how to solve these problems themselves, will eventually go on a thieving rampage, killing people if they have to just to survive. Civilians will all carry guns to defend themselves. The authorities will either will have already disbanded and joined the other civilians in the anarchy, or would attempt to gun down civilians. The government will try to interfere with the SWAT which will not end well for everyone now has guns and a massacre of civilians will take place. The civilians will protest or shoot at the government and the government will either quickly or slowly fall apart.

Sure the pirating issue is quite large, but many people are still buying legally, and the fact that Black Ops has been one of the largest sales ever can easily show that. However, if everyone considered pirating not stealing or didn't care like the person I began this argument has claimed, than I think the three paragraphs above are what would happen.

Spoiler

Wait a minute, we're going from internet piracy to the collapse of capitalistic civilization? Is this a joke?

I know you're trying to extrapolate for the sake of proving a point, but...I completely disagree.

For one, if you're talking about piracy being so bad because the devs don't get any money out of it, what about the sale of used video games at Gamestop? Should gamestop be completely shut down? Because derp derp, I pay for a $10 used copy of Ace Combat 5, and Namco doesn't get that $10 (or even more, because a new copy would cost more). I suppose gamestop is legal piracy because money changes hands?

On the same note, what about the sale of used automobiles? Or the sale of used textbooks between friends? I know I sold a statistics textbook to a friend in university for a lower price than she'd pay to buy it used at the bookstore, but for a much greater price than I could have obtained for selling it back used. Both parties were happy, and the only loser was the bookstore that blatantly overcharges.

Now, are you also on a crusade against the sale of anything used, and believe everything should be sold new or not at all, since that's the only way the original manufacturers of whatever widget it is get paid (be it video games, books, automobiles, you name it...)?

IMO the only difference between piracy and gamestop, when you REALLY come to think of it is this:

The exchange is done OTC (over the "counter", that is, peer to peer) rather than through the "exchange", which is gamestop, which has a *massive* bid/offer spread (aka what it will pay for a copy of the used game vs. what it would sell it for). Though in this case, I suppose that the analogy doesn't quite hold since there's another copy of the something being created, but with most games' low replay values these days, unless someone just sits there and lets everyone download from him or her, what probably happens is that he or she downloads said piece of entertainment, consumes it, and probably doesn't touch it again, before re-uploading it if at all. In that sense, it can be thought of as a "trade" by eliminating the middle man.

Anyhow, my take on things is this: most people have a very limited amount of money, and any money they spend on something that they can get for free with an infinitesimally small chance of being punished for it is money very poorly spent, speaking purely from a monetary utility perspective. On the other hand, we have people's morals and ethics.

I think quite a few pirates' stance is this: morals and ethics are nice, but I have no money with which to pay to begin with. My net worth isn't so high if at all positive (think student loans) and I'd really like a better job (if I have one at all). I'm not going to *buy* anything that I absolutely don't need, so anything I would hypothetically "pirate" would not be a lost sale.

Some articles say that by downloading something, a person puts some form of value on that something, or he or she would not download it at all. Just because I put value on something doesn't mean I have the money to currently pay the value of that something. So, I hypothetically download that something. Did I just negatively impact a company's bottom line? Not in this case.

At the heart of this matter is this: what is somebody's time worth? If I'm a big wig rolling in money hand over fist, rather than search on the internet for hours upon hours to download a torrent which may or may not work, I can buy whatever piece of entertainment I wish to consume legally. But if I'm a broke college graduate without a job in the worst recession since the Great Depression and have to be resigned to free pirated entertainment, will you begrudge me to pay when I have nothing?

Frankly, a lot of this begs the question as to why companies *insist* on trying to pry money from a market segment with probably very little purchasing power. The economy is not in the best state for discretionary spending at the moment, and video games are a definite luxury. And no, my argument isn't "stop charging so much and maybe we'll buy". My argument is "video games rank rather low on any rational person's list of priorities, and most video game players are not too well off, because by the time they are, they don't really play them anymore, so start trying to find innovative ways to monetize that segment".

Think about it. People who play video games might not necessarily have money, but what do they give you when they play your game? Time, and eyeballs. Google realized this quite nicely and now makes a killing from this realization. Why can't anyone else?

Ummm, did you not get the part of everybody thinking it is legal to pirate hypothetically part? If everyone pirated, than no money would go to either retail stores or the creators of the game.

Also, your text book, used video game etc, you own that physical object, you can do what you want with it besides reproducing it, as said by the copyright of that text book, game etc.
Sell a game to a retail store, they can do what they want with it, they got that physical copy from a random person, not a huge company. They should be able to sell it at a reduced price because they own that used copy and want to make a business.

I'm not entirely sure as to why companies pry money from people with little, but I am going to believe that it is based off of common sense, or their potentially lack of.

Edit: You also state that both Video Games are a luxury and that people who are broke and pirate them should not be begrudged. You don't have to be resigned to free pirating, it's a luxury.

 

[Azdron]

Dantes Inferno? Seriously? I BROUGHT dantes inferno. It was terrible, why would people pirate it? Why is that a thing that has happened? Also, it appears multiplayer modes are doubling as drm functionality.

 

[JonnWood]

Edit: You also state that both Video Games are a luxury and that people who are broke and pirate them should not be begrudged. You don't have to be resigned to free pirating, it's a luxury.

You're expecting a consistent argument from a piracy apologist. That may be a lot to hope for. I once asked one of the "INFUHMASHUN SHUD BE FREEE" type to disclose his Name, Address, Social Security number, etc. He started sputtering about how games were "public information" and his info was "private information". I asked him the difference, pointing out that a leaked game could easily mean a loss of a lot more than a single person's info, and he never responded.

I also like how this lot keeps strawmanning the entirely hypothetical situation in which piracy would lead to economic collapse if it was legalized into "piracy will absolutely destroy the world". The sad part is that like most strawmanning, they aren't even aware they're doing it. They see the hypothetical, and they automatically interpret it is as something ridiculous. I try and correct them, and they still keep misreading it. It's fascinating. It'd probably be frustrating if I wasn't arguing for my own amusement.

Dantes Inferno? Seriously? I BROUGHT dantes inferno. It was terrible, why would people pirate it? Why is that a thing that has happened? Also, it appears multiplayer modes are doubling as drm functionality.

Because free games.

All the arguments pirates make about how "we shouldn't have to pay for crappy games" are nonsense. People pirate Barbie Horse Adventures, for cryin' out loud. If a game is well-promoted and/or actually good, it will be pirated more, not less.

First it is called a theft because the law (seems to) say so, but it's a case where the law is wrong. The law is wrong here because it is not about a commodity, but about a work of art. Art is not simply a thing to be sold, it is an idea to appreciate. By right art should be available for anyone to apreciate, for the sake of humanity's intellectual and cultural progress. Because like books, movies, music and so on, video games have that potential.

A simple "yes" would've sufficed.

There tends to be some disagreement with idealists like you actual artists on whether they should get paid for their work. As a general rule, they tend to think that they should, on account of having bills to pay. Most of the famous works of art in history were produced under patronage; someone paid the artist to make them. That's not "rewarding the artist", that's "paying for a service". Also, what about piracy of things that aren't art, such as software? I have a program on this computer that automatically adds text when I type certain keystrokes. Is that "art"? How about Microsoft Office? How arty is that?

Rewarding talented artists depending on your tastes and means is how it worked since the dawn of time, and culture hardly died down before copyrights came along.

Because until the printing press, reproduction was generally so expensive that only rich people could afford it. Copyright wasn't needed until it was easy to make copies.

Plus it helps to expand your horizons :
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars

Two thousand pirates is not a representative sample of millions of pirates. Also, even if someone bought music legit after pirating, they still pirated in the first place. If I take someone's car out for a joyride while they're sleeping, at work, or otherwise not using it, return it before they notice its gone with the same amount of gas, and later decide to buy that car, it still doesn't change the fact that I used their car without permission. You're about to argue that piracy doesn't actually deprive anyone of anything, to which I would respond that precious few people drive cars while asleep.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

You linked that already, and I ignored it, because the historian's theory is not actually provable, and has little applicability to digital piracy over 150 years later. Even if it was, it would be remarkably hard to prove.

 

[theSovietConnection]

The piracy rate on PC is just sad, and then ppl wonder why we end up getting poor support and shitty ports.

And unfortunately it ends up in the perpetual cycle, because the people who pirate will see that as their justification and be more likely to pirate, and the cycle continues. Oh well, I buy the game if it looks worth my money, and if it doesn't look to be worth my money, I wait until I can rent it, or give it a try at a friend's place. If I were to pirate a game, it would only be after exhausting every other option available to me.

 

[incal11]

There tends to be some disagreement with idealists like you actual artists on whether they should get paid for their work. As a general rule, they tend to think that they should, on account of having bills to pay.

Everyone has bills to pay, that's why I prefer not to waste my money on something that I dislike, with often no hope of refund (no, there isn't so many demos and the few there is are not reliable). To top it off it means I offered my patronage to an artist doing this. I prefer to save my money for artists I admire.
Wanna be an artist and eat? Do something good. Want my money ? Do something good that I like, and it is my right to take a glance to know if I'm not about to waste my own hard earned money.
That said my motives and interests are different than those of a tween who downloads black ops because his parents wouldn't buy it.

Most of the famous works of art in history were produced under patronage; someone paid the artist to make them. That's not "rewarding the artist", that's "paying for a service". Also, what about piracy of things that aren't art, such as software? I have a program on this computer that automatically adds text when I type certain keystrokes. Is that "art"? How about Microsoft Office? How arty is that?

Anything can be art in it's way, extending the subject here will get us nowhere. You don't get the meaning of patronage, the making of something that can be read, whatched, listened, or otherwise used ever after once done is not a service but a creation. Delivering pizza is a service.

Rewarding talented artists depending on your tastes and means is how it worked since the dawn of time, and culture hardly died down before copyrights came along.

Because until the printing press, reproduction was generally so expensive that only rich people could afford it. Copyright wasn't needed until it was easy to make copies.

What about traditional tales and craftmanship ? Anyway, the print came before the copyrights and copyrights came about only to make a few booksellers richer. The writers themselves were not even taken into account, it was only for the booksellers.

(...)You're about to argue that piracy doesn't actually deprive anyone of anything, to which I would respond that precious few people drive cars while asleep.

Making the material good comparison more convoluted certainly does not improve it...
By your own logic no harm was done except that authorisation was not given. I find this whole authorisation drama completely overblown when it come to creations.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

You linked that already, and I ignored it, because the historian's theory is not actually provable, and has little applicability to digital piracy over 150 years later. Even if it was, it would be remarkably hard to prove.

It's an account of what happened, save for the boost to the economy thing, not simply a theory. If you want something more direct I invite you to investigate yourself how and why copyrights came about, and how things were in London just before. If you find something that contradicts me you can then show it to me.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Basic Terms: You took something that didn't belong to you

^Th

Technically, you never own a game. You're paying money to borrow it from the person or persons that own the rights to that game. So essentially, you never own the game you "bought". This means you cannot borrow the game to anyone without the right holders permission. Doing so without permission means you are breaking the law. The current copyright laws are labeling you as a criminal for borrowing your game to say your brother and are also making him a criminal for theft since he knowingly and willingly received that game without compensating the right holders.

Do you now see why these laws are so ridiculous or do I need to spell them out for you?

snip

Actually the reason publishers are migrating to consoles is due to how easy it is to milk money out of consumers due to unified networks which was unheard of on the PC(except for Steam but it didn't realize its full potential until 2 years ago). There's also universal hardware across all platform so you don't have to worry about catering to certain people whilst ignoring others. Returning to the money thing we see how, whilst possible, addons are never heard of consoles, only DLC being heavily promoted. I'm guessing the basic idea here is that DLC would work better on consoles due to having the ability to control how a user plays the game whilst on the PC it's harder to do so and the player might be more inclined to say download a freely available huge mod from a database rather than pay money for an official one. Let's not forget advertising and huge deals ala Grand Theft Auto 4's DLC which would technically be impossible on the PC..

TLR: It's easier to control how people play a game on the console which in turn can mean an increase in profit as opposed to being practically impossible to control how a player plays a game on the PC.

 

[JonnWood]

Spoiler

words words words

You

are amazing.

Your argument is that people should make stuff and hope that they get paid for it.

Your argument is that "I want" should trump the rights creators and distributors have had since before either of us were born.

You are a parasite.

Good day, sir.

 

[LitleWaffle]

Basic Terms: You took something that didn't belong to you

^Th

Technically, you never own a game. You're paying money to borrow it from the person or persons that own the rights to that game. So essentially, you never own the game you "bought". This means you cannot borrow the game to anyone without the right holders permission. Doing so without permission means you are breaking the law. The current copyright laws are labeling you as a criminal for borrowing your game to say your brother and are also making him a criminal for theft since he knowingly and willingly received that game without compensating the right holders.

Do you now see why these laws are so ridiculous or do I need to spell them out for you?

You don't own the game, you own the CD or whatever that holds the game. You own the physical copy, not the game on it. You own that physical copy, besides reproducing the contents of the physical content, you have the right to let someone borrow it, or sell it to a friend. Even sell it to a retail store. That retail store now owns that physical copy and can sell it at a reduced price like any used game to increase their business.

Copyright is the right to copy it. Somebody that has a copyright on a game prevents anybody else from reproducing the game legally.

Don't spell it out, cause I don't think you can spell right.

 

[JonnWood]

Technically, you never own a game. You're paying money to borrow it from the person or persons that own the rights to that game. So essentially, you never own the game you "bought". This means you cannot borrow the game to anyone without the right holders permission.

If you mean "lending the game", it's not illegal. There have been some questions about certain PC games' limited installs, however.

Returning to the money thing we see how, whilst possible, addons are never heard of consoles, only DLC being heavily promoted.

DLC are add-ons, unless you mean "free add-ons".

I'm guessing the basic idea here is that DLC would work better on consoles due to having the ability to control how a user plays the game whilst on the PC it's harder to do so and the player might be more inclined to say download a freely available huge mod from a database rather than pay money for an official one. Let's not forget advertising and huge deals ala Grand Theft Auto 4's DLC which would technically be impossible on the PC..

In other words, PC gamers don't like to pay for DLC.

TLR: It's easier to control how people play a game on the console which in turn can mean an increase in profit as opposed to being practically impossible to control how a player plays a game on the PC.

Why the binary? It's entirely possible that it's for a number of reasons, including piracy and DLC. Indie devs have smaller profit margins in the first place, so it makes they would want to minimize piracy and maximize their investment. Lookit World of Goo [http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/world-of-goo-has-90-piracy-rate/].

 

[AndyFromMonday]

snip

Because I totally put a pro piracy spin in my comment instead of saying that copyright laws need a revamp.

snip

You might own the DVD but that does not mean you own the software on that DVD. Therefore, selling the game is making profit off of software that is not yours and is illegal. In regards to "selling it" to stores, it's not considered that. Technically, you return the game and are payed a part of the original price back. Borrowing your DVD whilst it has the software that does not belong to you on it is illegal because it can legally be classified as theft(since borrowing is a form of sharing, piracy is sharing, piracy is illegal therefore sharing is illegal). You also do not have the right to reproduce the software on that DVD, that is illegal.

snip

1. Lending a game is illegal. You are giving software to a person without permission from the right holders. It can even be considered piracy as if a person plays the game and finishes it they will not buy it and will therefore constitute a lost sale to the publisher.

2. I meant mods.

3. No one likes to pay for DLC. The thing is, it's harder to implement DLC on the PC whilst on the consoles you've got an unified network with no other possibilities(plus, piracy is harder as it requires large DVD's and a cracked console)

4. Because that's what it is. By reducing the alternative aka mods and piracy you're controlling the way a person will play your game, ensuring that if they want more of that game their only alternative will be to appeal to you, the developer. You can either give the "update" or content for free or you can charge money. Since there is no alternative the person will either have to pay or consider not playing. The migration to console development is all about controlling how we play games. It's way easier than attempting to do so on the PC. I guess I could spin it around and say it's about increasing profits but in order to do so you'd still have to control the way a player plays your game.