Downloading is a human right.

[Vegosiux]

Piracy = stealing.

That's all there is to it. Don't care what a law says.

Seriously, do not post opinions as facts.

Because what the law says, that's a fact, and that's the framework under which things are going to play out in case of an infarction - all the empowered institutions are going to care about what the law says, not what you think in case you're, say, filing a lawsuit against someone pirating a piece of software you designed.

You have to realize that staying within the legal definitions and differentiating between theft and copyright infringement is not the same as saying "Piracy is OK", no matter how you want to spin it that way.

Is piracy the same as theft? No.
Does that make piracy OK? Well...no.

Why does it have to be "theft" to be considered "something you really shouldn't be doing" in people's eyes?

 

[conmag9]

snop

It's still not theft. It might be something immoral, but it's certainly not theft.
Theft requires that something which is stolen, i.e. no longer in the hands of the person it was stolen from.[...]

Okay, I'll nab your bank account credentials and take all of your funds. Oh! It's not theft! Nothing PHYSICAL was taken!

False analogy. The correct one would be if you went into his bank account and copied the money, leaving his perfectly alone. This is still illegal, and immoral, but it's not stealing. Equating it to stealing is simply an emotional tactic to obscure the fact that copyright infringment, while still wrong, is objectively less serious than theft of that same product (yes, I am using objectively correctly. With theft, the victim has lost the original AND the thief gets it. Copyright infringement has the copier get it, but the original is not lost).

If it isn't clear, this is NOT saying that copyright infringement is okay, but the legal definition is different and it's irksome to see it misconstrued. That, and the penalties are completely out of scale. If I walked up and murdered an artist, I could get less jail time than if I'd pirated 10 of his or her songs. How does that make any sense?


Anyway, even beyond the moral/legal aspect of it, from a practical point of view, piracy isn't going away. If artists want to keep making money (which they probably deserve! Though just because you put a lot of work into something doesn't mean it's going to sell, which should be taken into account), alternative methods must be pursued to keep up with the changes in the market. Things are going to get copied, so learn to monotize regardless (and there are most certainly ways to do so). DRM is a waste of enormous amounts of developer time for something usually cracked within a day or two so stop throwing good money after bad after it. Should artists HAVE to deal with this sort of thing? No, but if you plug your ears and scream about how unfair reality is, you're not going to get very far.

Again, I'm not endorsing piracy or saying it's okay, I'm just acknowledging that the way the market works is changing and those who work in it have to change with it. This isn't a pleasant period of transition, but it's necessary nonetheless.

 

[Whitbane]

Downloading something you pay for might be a human right, but stealing it and trying to justify that theft is beyond stupid.

You want to buy something, pay for it.
Not enough funds? Wait and save up.

 

[Vegosiux]

I seriously doubt more than a handful of people are actually all "fuck artists."

no, they are "true artists do it for free!" which to me is essentially the same thing

Ehm, no, it's mainly a priority thing, I suppose. Say, you want to create art, and you want to make money. Depending on which of those things you pick as your main objective, you are or aren't an "artist".

It's rather nice that being an artist is not mutually exclusive with making money! But I do see it as mutually exclusive with making money being your primary concern.

 

[lazinesslord]

Well that's cool and all but people still deserve to be paid for their work.

If you're an artist "getting paid" is producing your work and having it appreciated. If it isn't and it's about the money, you're not what I'd call an "artist".

Doing it for the art is nice and all but artists still need to pay their rent, pay their taxes, have food in the fridge, and provide for their families. (That last one ain't cheap.)

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Downloading something you pay for might be a human right, but stealing it and trying to justify that theft is beyond stupid.

You want to buy something, pay for it.
Not enough funds? Wait and save up.

Bromigo, no matter how many times you tell yourself "Downloading is theft!" saying it one more time is still not going to make it true.

Same argument could be made against used games or sharing games as well.

"Want to borrow a game? Too bad, wait and save up for your own copy!" "Cant afford a new copy? Wait and save up, you cant have a used copy!"

Sharing and used media are 100% the same to a publisher or aritst, as they are not seeing a penny of revenue for the people consuming their work beyond the first purchaser, same as downloads.

Like fucking hell are they the same. I have never shared a game between me and my 5,000 friends, and no one else has, because nobody has 5,000 friends. When I share a game with my friend, we are using one copy at a time and, unless the game is designed to be played by m ultiple people, only one of us is playing it at once. The same can not be said of piracy. Finally, when I share a game with a friend, I am not breaking virtually every part of copyright law, even the sane parts. Piracy does (and while I'd like to assume you understand I'm exaggerating here... well, I don't have that much faith in you, so here's this parenthetical pointing it out). And as someone who would someday like to be an artist, it definitely is not the fucking same to me. Yes the piracy is theft argument is dumb and wrong, but seriously, the idea that sharing a single, physical copy with a friend is the same as sharing thousands of digital copies with total strangers is a whole other level of bullshit, and you must know it. I'm just hoping that you're being sarcastic here.

 

[Vault101]

Ehm, no, it's mainly a priority thing, I suppose. Say, you want to create art, and you want to make money. Depending on which of those things you pick as your main objective, you are or aren't an "artist".

It's rather nice that being an artist is not mutually exclusive with making money! But I do see it as mutually exclusive with making money being your primary concern.

thats not what I'm saying!

if you went into with money being your primary objective than your wasting your time, you might as well learn to play the stock market or something because its quite rare you'll actually make alot of money....most people/artists should know that

its not about making money, is about being able to survive, fame and excess money is merely a by product

 

[Lilani]

While we're at it, let's not knock down strawmen by pretending that the above quote is remotely true.

It's weird seeing someone simultaneously acknowledge the complexity of the situation, but also then do a blanket assault on straw-logic.

I seriously doubt more than a handful of people are actually all "fuck artists."

As Vault said, I have seen people try to justify piracy with "True artists do it for free, anyway!" Those are the people I am criticizing. However, things regarding piracy get more complicated when you're talking about things that are rare or never got a proper release, or when it comes to old games that never got a release on digital stores. That is what I mean by it is a complex subject.

And like I said, people like our friend in the blog the OP linked, making a "pirate party" and wearing an eyepatch in his Facebook photo, are not helping anybody. They're just giving themselves the appearance of "Arr, I'm a pirate and I take what I want!"

 

[Nemu]

While I disagree that "downloading is a human right", I tend to side more with pirates than I do with non-pirates as I am of the generation that grew up with CDs being priced high because "it costs a lot to produce them". Fine, okay, you tell me that they are priced $15 (average) because they cost a lot to be made (in reality it cost about 3 bucks, but whatever), and I have to accept it in order to own the music that I want.

Now, iTunes and Amazon (et al) offer the same albums for....$10-14 a pop, why? It certainly doesn't cost the same amount to "produce" these albums, so why are consumers forced to buy music that they like (in TERRIBLE audio-quality, btw) for CD-era prices? Because companies are greedy and are pissed that people grew tired of spending a ton of money for poorly produced/written/performed music. How many people have liked a song, spend 10-15 bucks on an album and HATE the album? Chance is chance, sure, but folks can't afford to throw money away these days.

Your idea that 'producing an album' only consists of how it gets into the hands of a consumer is extremely shallow. Recording and mixing an album can be a massively expensive prospect, especially when you get into the top-tiers of album production for huge artists, wherein you have dozens of people who have their hands all over the recording. Each one of those people need to be paid for the duration of their work, a good recording environment(s) needs to be sourced and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment needs to be chosen and moved to wherever the album is being recorded. Starting from scratch, creating an album can cost millions. While digital recording has made it easier for smaller artists to produce music, it will never be a cheap process.

Even when an album is purchased, so little of it actually goes to the musicians who worked on it. Studio musicians, per song, are paid royalties that can't even be calculated in any real world currency. That's if they get royalties to begin with. Most bands don't see a dime from their albums until the production costs are all paid off to the label, which can take years. I'm not saying there's no corporate greed involved - welcome to capitalism - but there's way more to it than some money hungry executives.

*facepalm*

Unless you are Axl Rose, recording an album does not take "millions".
Digitizing an album does not cost more, or even equal to, production and distribution of a physical album.
No one "starting out" purchases millions of dollars' worth of equipment.
Nor do they sit behind a room-sized Mackie anymore.
Nor do starting bands routinely hire teams of producers, unless they have financial backing from a big name.
I do believe that I stated that musicians make nearly NOTHING from album sales, it is mostly from touring/appearances. Oh, wait, no, you conveniently omitted that part in my post.

Blah blah blah. I'm going back to gaming.

 

[Korenith]

Well that's cool and all but people still deserve to be paid for their work.

If you're an artist "getting paid" is producing your work and having it appreciated. If it isn't and it's about the money, you're not what I'd call an "artist".

Except if you're not being paid anything for it how do you support yourself whilst making said art? I'd much rather any form of artist got paid for what they do so they can dedicate their time to it rather than having to do a day job as well, making it take far longer to create whatever it is they create.

Don't get me wrong, I do think an artist would be doing what they do regardless of whether they get paid for it or not but it's a much smoother process when you don't have to scrimp and save out of tiny budget earned as a till operator. Especially if said art is a movie or a game which requires a lot of money to do properly.

 

[Vegosiux]

Well that's cool and all but people still deserve to be paid for their work.

If you're an artist "getting paid" is producing your work and having it appreciated. If it isn't and it's about the money, you're not what I'd call an "artist".

Except if you're not being paid anything for it how do you support yourself whilst making said art? I'd much rather any form of artist got paid for what they do so they can dedicate their time to it rather than having to do a day job as well, making it take far longer to create whatever it is they create.

Don't get me wrong, I do think an artist would be doing what they do regardless of whether they get paid for it or not but it's a much smoother process when you don't have to scrimp and save out of tiny budget earned as a till operator. Especially if said art is a movie or a game which requires a lot of money to do properly.

Well, but there's another can of worms there...for the sake of the argument, I assume a statistically insignificant rate of piracy and lost sales (how close to real life that is, is of course, debatable).

Say, a creator puts a lot of money into their work. Are they entitled to the return of ther investment? Am I, as a consumer, obliged to help them achieve that return merely because they spent so much on it? The answer is of course, no. People can opt to not buy their product for any reason they can think of. Just making an investment does not entitle anyone to the return thereof; there is a responsibility on the side of the creator not to overstretch themselves.

And if the product bombs, you have two options, basically. Look into why it bombed, or wash your hands and blame the consumers (or pirates). And that's the issue I take with many of these piracy/DRM sentiments.

The fact that piracy exists should not give the creators a carte blanche to shove all the responsibility onto the consumer, but some less scrupulous ones are going to try their damnest to use it as one. And that's why we need to be critical and draw a line.

I draw the line, for example, at intrusive DRM that reduces the ability to enjoy the experience in the ways I want to enjoy it. Note; I don't pirate the thing afterwards, I'm not afraid of losing my gamer's badge just because I didn't play -insert latest blockbuster here-, but it bears repeating: Piracy exists, but abusing that fact as free lease to screw over your customers is just as shitty.

EDIT: Huh. Seems I got the wrong thread >.> Involved in a couple DRM/intellectual propery/piracy ones, and seems I got them confused...

 

[mateushac]

In all three cases, Used game, Bro lending, and Piracy someone is consuming media that the publisher of said media didnt get a penny for. Hell game lounges are also thieves, why you can go into them and play games for hours for a couple of bucks, and only one copy of the game is sold for hundreds of people who will play that title.

Seriously... You don't think [legit] game lounges out there pay for special licenses [https://cafe.steampowered.com/]?
Also, if you carefully read the boxes/manuals/eula of your games, you'd see bro lending IS NOT allowed for most cases. There are some cases, though, where the non-transferability clause gets overruled by court decisions, but that's another case entirely (WHICH DOES NOT EXTEND TO PIRACY EVEN REMOTELY).

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Like fucking hell are they the same. I have never shared a game between me and my 5,000 friends, and no one else has, because nobody has 5,000 friends. When I share a game with my friend, we are using one copy at a time and, unless the game is designed to be played by m ultiple people, only one of us is playing it at once. The same can not be said of piracy. Finally, when I share a game with a friend, I am not breaking virtually every part of copyright law, even the sane parts. Piracy does (and while I'd like to assume you understand I'm exaggerating here... well, I don't have that much faith in you, so here's this parenthetical pointing it out). And as someone who would someday like to be an artist, it definitely is not the fucking same to me. Yes the piracy is theft argument is dumb and wrong, but seriously, the idea that sharing a single, physical copy with a friend is the same as sharing thousands of digital copies with total strangers is a whole other level of bullshit, and you must know it. I'm just hoping that you're being sarcastic here.

You only seem to be arguing against scale.

So, how many friends does it take before lending a copy around becomes a crime? How many people need to play or consume something before it is suddenly alright? if I buy a copy of a movie and pop it into the projector at my colleges auditoriam for myself and my classmates to watch are we thieves or friends sharing? There are a couple of hundred people there watching a film, but only one of us paid for it (This isnt hypothetical btw, this is done at my college)

So, as a prospective artist, how do you feel about other people profiting from your work and you never seeing a penny of it? Because thats what gamestop does. They encourage people to give them your product back quickly so they can give it to someone else while you never see a penny of the second, or third, or fourth or tenth sale of your product.

As I said at the start, you only seem to care about the scale of people sharing, so say I have my copy of Syndicate(New one), a little 4 hour game that is overall just meh, now, I have it on the Xbox, I lend it to my 5 friends after I am done with it, thats ok right?

Well, if I have it on my PC, if I package it and drop box it to them so that my same 5 mates can play it, we are suddenly criminals because... why? the publishers and those they have duped say so? (Note this one isnt an actual experiance, just an example)

Except scale was one of three points. The other two were that it is creating multiple copies for others to enjoy and that it is illegal. Specifically it is illegal reproduction of the work. Now here is why that should remain illegal. Reproduction of a work without the consent of the holder of the work's rights (ideally the creator in most cases, but our world is far from ideal) leads to a surplus of supply to meet the demand for the work that is outside of the actual suppliers control. It's not necessarily stealing, but it does almost certainly dirrectly affect profits. If we are to aim for a functional free market, we need to eliminate such outside pressures (like one would try to stop monopolies and such) which so obviously interfere with the laws of supply and demand in a totally illegitimate manner. Now, just what kind of reproduction is illegal and in what manner is up for debate and should vary depending upon the case. Making a back-up copy for yourself is not necessarily the same as making a copy for a friend, or one to sell to strangers. The specifics do and should vary.

As for the ability for multiple people to enjoy it at once, I feel that this being an honest complaint depends upon the medium, and rightfully so. Games are not the same as film, and what is an unethical or dysfunctional way to enjoy one is not necessarily the same as the other. In fact, this can vary within a single medium.

And I don't like GameStop that much, mostly because of how they wind up screwing over consumers really, but also because their business model is harmful to the industry (to clarify, used games as a whole are not necessarily like this, but GameStop in specific is). Do publishers complain about it to deflect criticism? Definitely. Should it be legal? Sure.

Now to talk about those scenarios. In the first no law was broken, one copy exists, and only one person has control over the copy. The hundreds of students cannot up and decide to watch the movie again, they just watch it the one time. As long as nobody was charged money for anything (and I do mean anything) at the event by the ones holding it, it isn't even vaguely unethical.

You own one copy. It is your's. When you loan it, you cannot play it. When you have it, your friends cannot. One copy being used, one copy bought. Plain and simple.

 

[mateushac]

In all three cases, Used game, Bro lending, and Piracy someone is consuming media that the publisher of said media didnt get a penny for. Hell game lounges are also thieves, why you can go into them and play games for hours for a couple of bucks, and only one copy of the game is sold for hundreds of people who will play that title.

Seriously... You don't think [legit] game lounges out there pay for special licenses [https://cafe.steampowered.com/]?
Also, if you carefully read the boxes/manuals/eula of your games, you'd see bro lending IS NOT allowed for most cases. There are some cases, though, where the non-transferability clause gets overruled by court decisions, but that's another case entirely (WHICH DOES NOT EXTEND TO PIRACY EVEN REMOTELY).

None of the lounges in my area pay a special licence, hell one in my area will offer to buy good conditioned used games to add to their collection at a few dollars above the local gamestop.

And if those EULAs were legally binding then Gamestop would be out of business, so while they may say bro lending is not ok, no one is ever going to be bothered by it or stop doing it. And it does quite handily extend to piracy if you look at Switzerland who considers downloading things for personal use to be AOK.

Edit: Hm, interesting but off top thing I noticed, places where PCs are used for gaming and socialization are generally referred to as Cafes yet places where Consoles are used got gaming and socialization are generally referred to as lounges. This strikes me as strange...

The fact that people do illegal things all the time should not be taken as a statement of its legality. (this applies to the lounge argument)

Those EULA are legally binding, except for the cases when the law, which extends to court rulings, overrule them (did you even read my post?). In case YOUR country allows software license stransfers under any circumstance, that's good FOR YOU!

And pardon my ignorance, but how does transfering a single-user license equate to distributing it to multiple users? (EVEN IN SWITZERLAND, where, as you imply, the laws of logic and semantics don't quite apply)


CAPTCHA: "the dude abides"

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

In all three cases, Used game, Bro lending, and Piracy someone is consuming media that the publisher of said media didnt get a penny for. Hell game lounges are also thieves, why you can go into them and play games for hours for a couple of bucks, and only one copy of the game is sold for hundreds of people who will play that title.

Seriously... You don't think [legit] game lounges out there pay for special licenses [https://cafe.steampowered.com/]?
Also, if you carefully read the boxes/manuals/eula of your games, you'd see bro lending IS NOT allowed for most cases. There are some cases, though, where the non-transferability clause gets overruled by court decisions, but that's another case entirely (WHICH DOES NOT EXTEND TO PIRACY EVEN REMOTELY).

Okay for the first thing (ideally they should have to have a liscence if they charge at the very least), but your second paragraph relies on the idea that EULA's are even remotely not bullshit. They are terrible and there have been a significant number of cases of them being overturned by the courts. Basing your arguments on EULA's is probably not all that wise.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Surely from a games perspective, downloading is just as good as selling the real copy? As they don't have to pay for the actual real object to be made? Maybe by not much, but it's still a little bit.
Unless you're talking about piracy, and that definitely shouldn't be a human right IMO.

 

[mateushac]

The fact that people do illegal things all the time should not be taken as a statement of its legality. (this applies to the lounge argument)

Those EULA are legally binding, except for the cases when the law, which extends to court rulings, overrule them (did you even read my post?). In case YOUR country allows software license stransfers under any circumstance, that's good FOR YOU!

And pardon my ignorance, but how does transfering a single-user license equate to distributing it to multiple users? (EVEN IN SWITZERLAND, where, as you imply, the laws of logic and semantics don't quite apply)


CAPTCHA: "the dude abides"

Considering these are legal businesses operating in the open in the United States and openly advertise their services and offers when we have regional offices for Sony, EA, and other publushers in town would lead me to belive they arent quite worried about being ferreted out as law breakers.

And I did read your post, but it also happens that EULAs can claim they are legally binding but they will never hold up to any kind of legal weight.

I could say, for example: By quoting this post you are hereby entering into a legally binding agreement with myself, FelixG further to be referred to as Agreement Holder, and agree that any further quotations of Agreement Holder will result in you, Further to be referred to as Conversation Partner, will pay a fee of $500 USD for each further quotation. These fees are non negotiable and you the Conversation Partner are fully and willingly entering into this agreement and will pay feees accrued withing 7 business days before the end of the 7th business day at 5 PM Pacific Standard Time.

But, no court would uphold that. They would take one look at it and go "lol no." so, even though I say it is legally binding, its really not because no legal body will uphold it.

And it goes handily with it because they dont consider sharing media with people a crime. There is a logic to it, mainly that people who download media for personal use are also better customers than those who dont, even if you dont like it.

Seriously... if your contract didn't violate freedom of speech, and your quotations held any comercial value, you could easily claim something in court and get through with it through the 1st instance of your justice system (I don't know how the judicial system where you live is structured, though, so the instanciation thing may be different)

EDIT: Also, concerning your lounge thing, they can offer the same game to thousandos of people IF they don't let more than one person use it at the same time AND the law allows them to rent the licenses. SIMPLE AS THAT. NOTHING LIKE PIRACY!

 

[The Floating Nose]

I've never liked the idea of a "pirate party" people. Yes people should be able to share open-source software and such, but to proudly go around shouting "Hey! Artists don't deserve shit for their work if we can find other methods!" just seems childish to me. Yes the debate on piracy is multi-faceted, and let's not muddle piracy and open-source stuff, but I feel like people who enter the debate as "pro piracy" are not doing anyone any favors. It would be like someone who is pro-choice going in saying they are "pro fetus killing." There are better ways than that to present yourself.

I agree completly

another thing that irks me is "they should do it for free! for the art" <-hey...fuck you! of coarse every artist (should) do it for loce their art..BUT when it comes down to it, its work it requires time, effort, practice and dedication.No one expects you to do your job for free

Exactly ! Im all for the art and that people do what they do for the great of art BUT im pretty sure thta every artist that has mastered their craft would LOVE to have their form as art as their job.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

If it is true/downloading and using copyrighted material is an un-prosecutable action, it simply means that Europe will be that much less relevant of a marketplace. What Americans want is the only thing companies will be making, because they would be the majority of paying customers. In capitalism you vote with your wallet, so if you aren't paying then you have no voice in the matter.

 

[floppylobster]

Edit, yes i do know this aint a free for all, as stated in the update of the article, but it is still a giant leap forward.

I'm okay with this as long as you don't ever complain about paying taxes that pay for my unemployment benefit while I create art for you.