Atari Founder: PC Piracy About to be Eradicated

[Bridgetbracer]

Holy shit i am daring oh fuck this is the scariest moment of my life oh man i'm riding the line like the motherfucking fist of the north star

Get a clue Dejawesp. Pirates are not immoral scum, and in fact more than a few people who legit buy games are glad they are around otherwise they would be stuck with useless games they bought with no way to play them, while when we get some of the epic DRM fuckups these days, a few minutes on a torrent site can get us a nice neat working copy.

Pirates are actually good people who help us gamers out!

 

[oranger]

Buying the entire franchise means buying the right to sell the product under your own name, and being able to alter who gets credit for its creation.
You are referring to a rental or lease, or even a conditional sale, where you do not own the product fully.

And Bridgetbracer, quit talkin' crazy ;p

 

[oranger]

Actually, I agree, up to a point, cheeze.
All it would take to make "Piracy" illegal is for these companies to put full, easy to read, multilingual, braille stipled licensing agreements on each and every box, probably on the back as it is reasonable not to read the writing on the sides/top/bottom.
The writing could not be too small, either, so massive EULA's are probably out.
This way, there WOULD be an agreement between the consumer and the producer.
What this would do to sales would be terrible, mind you.
As it is, the game I buy is my property. If there are conditions to its use without prior agreement with the vendor, then it would have to be in part public property as that would cause it to be subject to a conditional usage, set forth by a governing body.
The cause and effect relationship with such a condition would be crazy, though.
All symbols associated with communication becoming in part public property, and thus subject to governmental whims? evil stuff...
I say ALL, because if the language contained on a disc becomes in part public property, then the identical language which appears elsewhere is ALSO public property, even with context in mind. Otherwise you could EASILY sidestep this law, and alter the context of the information.
All or nothing.
Imagine the wording on that monster of a law...they'd have to jump through hoops of fire and ice just to make it SEEM equitable and not 1984ish.

 

[Undeed]

To anyone defending the corporations with the argument that they are losing significant amounts of money: That's garbage. I will admit that money is lost when a game is pirated, but the profit margins in the gaming industry are ridiculous. And profit means after everyone got their checks and the electric bill's been paid.

You do not get to decide at what sum it becomes okay to steal from a company no more than a homeless person get's to decide when it's okay to steal from you.

I was not attempting to make a moral pont, or say it's ok to steal. I was pointing out that amount lost is not significant enough to cause any trouble for the companies fiscaly. And you need to stop calling it stealing if you truly believe

It's not copyright infringement to watch those things. It's copyright infringement if you actualy copy them. Which puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the people who host the youtube servers.

Because that means it's only wrong to make them available, and taking advantage of that availability is fine.

I've only heard one remotely reasonable compromise: Find out why piracy exists, and take steps to solve those problems.

That's a broad question. In my opinion piracy exists for several reasons. Some of them are the simple entitlement attitude that people have, another is people who just refuse to pay for anything when they can get it for "free". I'm really not sure what one can do to eliminate piracy when the problem is this deep.

I know that there are some people who will never pay for a product they can get for free, but I'm sure that there's plenty of people pirating that have another reason. Maybe it's a bit too expenssive, maybe all this copy protection has got them down, maybe it's easier, maybe games ship months or years after their initial release. I'm not saying they're good reasons, but there's more than "Hey! Free stuff!" on their end. In fact, let's forget the people downloading. Let's talk to the actual pirates, the ones cracking the protection. Why do they do it? Some of them for fun, I'm sure, some just to stick it to "the Man", but again, there has to be more here.

 

[Royas]

sigh...progressing where? technologically? socially? biologically? and which should take precedence? the term "progress" is huge, very generalized.
Whats right for society usually may not be right for the individual, including the individual artists who's work is being copied.
Also, since people keep comparing "Piracy" to stealing, or other crimes, how about this comparison: Is it immoral to buy a painting from a store, take pictures of it, and give those pictures away on the sidewalk, along with the painters name? The pictures do exactly what the painting does.
By any legal definition, you are not committing a crime, and neither are you stealing from the artist because you own the painting you already bought.

This would make sense except that when you buy a game you dont buy the rights to the entire franchise. You buy a liscence to use the game. You could buy the franchise but depending on the game it would cost several millions and then you would be free to hand in out for free

While I am against piracy, and I do think it is damaging to the PC gaming industry (though not to the extent the chicken littles of the world seem to think) I am getting tired of this whole "You are only buying a license" thing. I know that's what most of the EULA's say. I won't dispute that. However, just because the EULA says it, doesn't make it so, no matter what the publishers want us to believe. At least in the USA, the courts have been somewhat mixed on portions of the most common EULA terms. Some federal courts have treated the games as licenses, this much is true. Some have also treated them as physical property, with all of the property rights of the buyer intact. That would include the right to sell, rent or whatever the game.

I don't consider copying a game and distributing it to be one of those rights, I might add. Personally, I disapprove strongly of piracy. It is immoral at worst, unethical at best (in most circumstances. However, I disapprove even more of publishers attempting to limit my rights as a customer. Limited numbers of activations, copy protections software that won't work if you are running legitimate software (yes, disc copy software has many legitimate uses), disallowing the making of backup or archival copies... These things are just as immoral and unethical as any pirate distributing game copies. Limiting my rights as consumer so a corporation can exercise it's "rights" as a business entity is not acceptable to me.

For the record, I also don't see anything really wrong in downloading such things as no-CD cracks and cracks that circumvent activation schemes, so long as you have bought the actual game. I bought the game, I'll use it as I please, I don't feel the license aspect of the EULA is valid. I also don't have much trouble with the idea of downloading abandonware titles and titles that have been long out of print. While I know that a gamer has no real "right" to play those games, I don't see that it does any harm. IP law in the USA was originally in place with the intent that any IP that was released would eventually become public property. That intent has been perverted by having the time periods extended again and again, and the periods are now unreasonably long for the fast paced world of computer software. So, while abandonware is technically not a legal argument, I can't get ticked off about it either.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

i'll believe it when it works for a few monthes....

 

[Nugoo]

All right. Not ironic, hypocritical.

Do feel free to elaborate or even back up your statement.

They can write whatever they want in the manual. Does'nt make it legaly binding. Just like when a clothing store says you can't return items bought on sale but in reality you can.

Here, you say that the stuff written on the instruction manual is not legally binding.

Actualy "Sins of a Solar Empire" does have copy protection. Just look through the cd or even the cover and you will find

© 2003-2008 Ironclad Games Corporation Vancouver, BC. All rights reserved.
© 2006-2008 Stardock Entertainment"

Also known as "copyright" and perhaps the most effective part of copy protection because it allows them to take action against any server that hosts their game for download.

Here, you say that the stuff written on the CD is legally binding. Unless you mean to imply that what is written on the CD is different in legal or moral terms from what is written in the manual, that's hypocrisy.

 

[Dejawesp]

For the record, I also don't see anything really wrong in downloading such things as no-CD cracks and cracks that circumvent activation schemes, so long as you have bought the actual game. I bought the game, I'll use it as I please, I don't feel the license aspect of the EULA is valid. I also don't have much trouble with the idea of downloading abandonware titles and titles that have been long out of print. While I know that a gamer has no real "right" to play those games, I don't see that it does any harm. IP law in the USA was originally in place with the intent that any IP that was released would eventually become public property. That intent has been perverted by having the time periods extended again and again, and the periods are now unreasonably long for the fast paced world of computer software. So, while abandonware is technically not a legal argument, I can't get ticked off about it either.

I compleatly agree. If you bought the game legaly then you can crack and copy it all you want with my blessing. But if you start selling the copies or handing them out then we have a problem.

Here, you say that the stuff written on the instruction manual is not legally binding.
Here, you say that the stuff written on the CD is legally binding. Unless you mean to imply that what is written on the CD is different in legal or moral terms from what is written in the manual, that's hypocrisy.

Fine I will make a few examples then. Things writen in the manual are not legaly binding per default. The copyright information however is legaly binding no matter where in the games pappers you put it. Because it has gone through all the legal channels and been liscenced

So they can write "Dont lend this game to anyone" but just because that sentence is in the manual does'nt mean that it's illegal for you to lend out the game. So you can't say that "The man is opressing you" just because a game developer chose to add that sentence to the manual.


Just like if I write a book that has 2 sentences. "Wearing short pants on friday is not allowed" and "Stealing is not allowed"

The second sentence is legaly binding but that has nothing to do with the book. The text is binding on it's own.

See what I mean?

 

[Incandescence]

Dejawesp, please pay attention to the following out of the graciousness of your heart. I do not want to get back into the debate--having already made all my relevant points--but I do want to help you out a bit.

The degree of your conviction is stunning. Countless arguments have been made against your position, and yet you hold it as staunchly as ever, regardless of its irrelevance, obsoleteness, or unhelpfulness in dealing with the issue of piracy. I am truly impressed.

However, as strong as your central beliefs may be, your methods of debate themselves have been degrading for some time now. I did not ever think that your posts demonstrated a great deal of insight into the issue, but since about page four the quality of your rhetoric has headed steadily downhill. I see many ill-founded accusations, murky analogies, and logical fallacies appear in your posts now, and it makes you even less convincing. I would prefer not to point every one of them out, but if you feel it is necessary I will oblige; though, the reason I am pointing this out is so that you can recognize your faults yourself and not have someone else do it--in this way, you might be able to improve your posting technique.

I offer these observations in the kindest spirit possible, for I do not foresee you convincing anyone in this thread that your perspective is worth taking into account if you continue to post in the manner that you have been. Alternatively, if your goal is to be as antagonistic as possible, then feel free to ignore me and carry on.

 

[pasquinelli]

he's exaggerating. there is no way to secure your software 100% from its owner without alienating them, TPM or no.

and here's the "override" for the TPM: don't enable it. it's your TPM, you own it, you can do with it what you want.

Nolan Bushnell is largely talking out of his ass.

 

[oranger]

Well, I'm going over to my fav file sharing site to get a new E-book, maybe insult a vegetarian or two with callous cow jokes.

My parting comment is this: this whole thing comes down to whether or not we own something when we buy it, and if not, is it OK for someone with lots of money and identical rights to my own to determine my rights as a citizen, and by extension everyone else's.

 

[oranger]

From my research, the UCC in the 'states covers only transactions between individuals in regards to monetary exchange.

 

[Anniko]

What copy protection makes a game unplayable for a legitimate user?

People keep using this excuse but I have never ran into a game I could'nt play due to any copy protection.

Nice quadruple post.

Bioshock, I am now completely unable to play that game due to it's DRM. It won't even install for me. If I want to play it, I now have to go and download a completely new image of the CD, one that doesn't call home to download the .exe file. They've taken down their activation servers and now I can't play the game I paid $100 AUD for.

Just because you haven't had trouble with DRM schemes in games, doesn't mean everybody else hasn't had trouble with em.

When you make a game, you have 3 people who are going to play it.

The people who won't pay for it and will download it.
Who the fuck cares about these guys? They're not giving you money, therefore, you don't care about them.

The people who will download it and will buy it if it's good.
These guys need a good game to impress them. If it's good, chances are, they'll buy it. If they don't buy it, then they're not in this group, they're in group #1.

The people who will buy it regardless.
Make it as easy as possible for these guys to play your game once they've bought it. This means the game needs to install flawlessly and, preferably, have it check their hardware and choose settings that will have the game play at a minimum 30fps.

The last group is your primary target, the second group is your secondary market and the first group is irrelevant.

One more thing, your morals are not my morals. Please stop throwing around the word "immoral" as if it actually means anything.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

One more thing, your morals are not my morals. Please stop throwing around the word "immoral" as if it actually means anything.

Society's morals are shared though. Immoral does mean something at that point.

 

[Dejawesp]

Um.
It is actually 100% up to us to decide if a price is fair or not. If you sell your game for 1000$ you will have barley any customers if any. So you will be forced to lower the price.
Ergo, the customer forced you to lower your price.
We are in control.

No I wont be forced to lower them. I can keep them at $1000 forever if I like and you still are faced with the 2 choices to either buy or not buy it. However if I put a price tag like that on a game then I would go out of business and the same goes for the games being sold today.

Seeing as hundreds of millions even billions of games are being sold every year then obviously the prices we have today are fair. But that wont stop the ocassional people on intenet forums claiming that the prices are universaly unfair just because they would like to pay less. So thanks for proving my point.

Bioshock, I am now completely unable to play that game due to it's DRM. It won't even install for me. If I want to play it, I now have to go and download a completely new image of the CD, one that doesn't call home to download the .exe file. They've taken down their activation servers and now I can't play the game I paid $100 AUD for.

You should have uninstalled the game properly. Everytime you uninstall it the game calls home and restores you "installation point"

Just because you haven't had trouble with DRM schemes in games, doesn't mean everybody else hasn't had trouble with em.

Mayby I'm just the one lone person on the earth who actualy use my games properly (aka does'nt systematicly break the bioshock installation and throw the computer in a river 3 times since last september)

One more thing, your morals are not my morals. Please stop throwing around the word "immoral" as if it actually means anything.

There are many universaly accepted morals in our society. "Theft is wrong" happens to be one of them. I could name a few more but then I have to spend the next 2 pages explaining that piracy is not as bad as rape or murder even though it's still immoral. (See the "irony" posts as an example of how far people will go to remain thick on purpose just so vaguely use your own posts against you when it's not even the case.