Downloading is a human right.

EtherealBeaver

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Lilani said:
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.
Legal piracy does not equal no payment for artists. In fact, the swiss study suggests it means more sales and thus more payment for artists. Here is the link to the article : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114537-File-sharing-Remains-Legal-In-Switzerland
 

Entitled

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Lilani said:
Madkipz said:
People paid for the album, and people used to gather around a music player to share it with their friends. People even used empty VCR's to record movies that went on TV. Guess what the TV industry did? They cried piracy, and now there exists this thing called the internet that allows anyone that have brought a digital good to share it with everyone for free.
I don't feel like the situations are that comparable, because with TVs and VCRs the most anyone could feasibly share it with was their friends which would be like a handful of people at most.
That doesn't make the two cases incomparable from the individual's side.

Whether I set up my VCR to record tonight's show, and then watch it tomorrow, or I don't set it up and watch the show tomorrow on youtube, I'm causing the same kind of "harm" to the publisher. I have the same level of moral and financial responsibility.

Yes, the latter is more of a problem for the content industry on a large scale. So what? They will figure out something to make money eventually, but until then, governments shouldn't write laws that limit individual freedoms, just to protect established industries from disruption.
 

Madkipz

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Therumancer said:
Madkipz said:
[

Because there is no money to be had here without violating basic human rights, forcing ISP's to expend vast amounts of value for no benefit (as the real pirates will just go offline and start decrypting their files like child pornography industry). Meanwhile the EU would be expending their tax money to have even more people in jail and spend lots of money enforcing American practices that hold no benefit to anyone as a whole.

This is basically Europe investing in physical goods, and physical tangible properties while discouraging the current trend in the digital age for people to monetize their digital products while also producing nothing of real value.
Not really, it is not a basic human right to steal from someone else, and things like video games, music, and movies are luxuries, not the nessecities of survival. Thieves by definition should be punished.

That said, value is dictated by people wanting something. The reason why this is an issue is that people want the TV shows, movies, music, games, etc... which is why they have value, they just don't want to pay for them, so they rob the creators by taking them for free. It's pretty straightforward at a basic level.

Europe isn't acting because these things have no value, but because Europe is too short sighted to see anything besides how it benefits them right here and now. Europe as a whole does not produce the IPs that it wants, or at least not in any quantities equivilent to what other nations produce, thus it feels it has no vested interest in protecting such goods. Europe has never been good at seeing the big picture and how on a fundemental level there is no differance between intangible creative works at this point, and physical goods, all that matters is the demand. Not to mention that at it's core the information behind physical goods (the pattern for a pair of pants, the formula to make a drug, etc...) is also intangible by it's very nature, which is the arguement China makes when robbing everyone including Europe. To their way of thinking they have the right to simply analyze or obtain the formula for a drug and manufacture it in any quantities they want without having to pay the creator who could very well have invested billions simply testing it to make sure it was safe.

It's a pretty straightforward situation right now, trying to say it's an issue of basic human rights is ridiculous though.

For the most part we agree though, the bottom line being Europe not wanting to spend the money to police someone else's trade in any area it doesn't participate much in. The big picture simply doesn't enter into their consideration, at least not yet, which is ultimatly a very European perspective, Europe as a whole being short sighted enough where it rarely acts until things are right on their front door and at a cataclysmic level. Also should Europe ever start producing more competitively on the IP front you'll probably see the tune change rapidly, and trying to overturn this kind of ruling is going to be amusing to watch. Ditto for the fact that I don't think Europe gets that a trade war isn't good for anyone, Europe costs the US money, the US is going to start screwing with European trade right back, and as I said, the only one that benefits from that is The Far East. Europe might not benefit from enforcing IP laws directly, but trade has usually been a "you scratch our back, we scratch yours" arrangement, you watch the back of the US and what it's trading, we do the same for your goods, nobody gets robbed, everyone makes money. To be honest that paradigm falling apart contributes to the economic problems, combine with nobody yet wanting to stand up to China which is pretty much running a thieving vaccum economy, ripping off everyone, while we all squabble, and nobody gets organized enough to send a combined western military to force economic compliance BEFORE China can build up a substantial enough Navy to make it that big a problem.
It is a basic human rights issue. The pirates are not thieves but simply people who have brought the game that want to share their culture and their luxury with others for free.

The "pirates" are doing with their property that they have brought as they see fit, and precisely because it is a luxury means you do not fuck with the basic principles of human rights just because some backwater corporation wants to ensure they have a bottom line that they can nickle and dime.

You cannot police the internet without violating people's right to privacy and forcing ISP's to start policing their users.

Any attempt at this will only get the pirates that matter to resort to decrypting their files through the services like Mega, and the end result of following down the path of enforcing American laws on European soil would just be a lot of wasted money, and result in locking up even more human resources (jail).

It will be better to force that kind of industry to change, and let people keep their individual internet freedoms instead of conforming to some kind of pseduo american laws and making a ton of changes.
 

Lilani

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May 27, 2009
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Entitled said:
Lilani said:
Madkipz said:
People paid for the album, and people used to gather around a music player to share it with their friends. People even used empty VCR's to record movies that went on TV. Guess what the TV industry did? They cried piracy, and now there exists this thing called the internet that allows anyone that have brought a digital good to share it with everyone for free.
I don't feel like the situations are that comparable, because with TVs and VCRs the most anyone could feasibly share it with was their friends which would be like a handful of people at most.
That doesn't make the two cases incomparable from the individual's side.

Whether I set up my VCR to record tonight's show, and then watch it tomorrow, or I don't set it up and watch the show tomorrow on youtube, I'm causing the same kind of "harm" to the publisher. I have the same level of moral and financial responsibility.

Yes, the latter is more of a problem for the content industry on a large scale. So what? They will figure out something to make money eventually, but until then, governments shouldn't write laws that limit individual freedoms, just to protect established industries from disruption.
Yes it's comparable on an individual scale. The Holocaust and a person getting killed by a home invader are also comparable on an individual scale, or 9/11 and a fatal car accident. Either way, if you are one of the poor souls involved, you're dead. But that doesn't in any way make them the same thing, and nor does it mean they can or should be dealt with in the same way.

And I know how silly it is to compare piracy to the Holocaust, but it's the first thing I could come up with.
 

Carrots_macduff

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i've always thought that if copyright holders want to curb piracy, they should give it a less cool nickname. like.... fraudacy or theifacy. after all who doesnt want to be a pirate?

drink up me hearties, yo ho!
 

Entitled

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Lilani said:
Yes it's comparable on an individual scale. The Holocaust and a person getting killed by a home invader are also comparable on an individual scale, or 9/11 and a fatal car accident. Either way, if you are one of the poor souls involved, you're dead. But that doesn't in any way make them the same thing, and nor does it mean they can or should be dealt with in the same way.

And I know how silly it is to compare piracy to the Holocaust, but it's the first thing I could come up with.
It's OK, I also do that occasionally, it's always easier to think of grand famous examples.

Though I'm not really sure what you are trying to tell here. There is difference between getting killed by nazis and getting killed by robbers. For that matter, there is a difference between getting killed by robbers and getting killed by other robbers, or between getting killed in Auschwitz and getting killed in Treblinka, so sure, they are not exactly the same thing.

Bu all your example are comparable enough that we can always treat them at least with the same directional approach, a negative judgement.

The same can't be told about your treatment of disc-borrowing, VCR recording, etc, and Internet piracy.

If you say that causing financial losses to publishers, or limiting an artist's right to tell what happens to their work, is always wrong, then the best thing you could tell about VCR recordings and about disc-borrowing, and about digital used sales, that they are a lesser evil than piracy, but that's no reason why they should be allowed.

To say that these things should be seen as acceptable, you would have to admit that publishers DON'T always deserve to get payed for their IP being viewed/played/used not even if they wish to get paid, and artists DON'T always deserve to tell who gets to watch their content
 

Tom_green_day

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Lilani said:
the music industry has always been about making money.
Exactly this. The games industry, film industry, music industry etc, they are to make money. If they were not, they would not be called an 'industry' And if people think the standards of making money using these mediums is bad, look at history. Look at Motown where they literally hired hundreds of songwriters who got the same salary regardless of if they made hundrers of hits or a few alright tunes. These things are made to make money and if you won't give them your money, why should they give you their creations?
 

DudeistBelieve

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BeerTent said:
SaneAmongInsane said:
Valkrex said:
Piracy = stealing. That's all there is to it. Don't care what a law says, if you take a product (or a copy of a product as the case may be with digital products) you are stealing and depriving the creator their hard earned profits. I really don't get why people defend piracy. They are essentially defending theft, and are being smug self-righteous assholes at the same time.

Piracy DOES NOT help ANY industry. Just like breaking into a store and taking everything for free doesn't help. It actively harms the content creators.
It doesn't help any industry because the industries refuse to change with the times.

They need a new business model.
Please, elaborate.

While I agree that Joe-blow shouldn't get sued a quarter billion dollars for sharing a few music files, considering that musicians get a paltry sum of money for their work at best, but the way you come off to me is that "If an industry changed with the times, adopted a new business model or methodology, piracy could benefit them."

There's no way you meant that. I'm probably retarded for interpreting that as such.
zehydra said:
Piracy is not theft.

Want creativity in an entertainment industry? Get rid of publishers. There you go.
You haven't a fucking clue how this works, do you? Not one single clue? Let's look at the Indie games scene, shall we?

Lets look at Decker. The guy who made Decker feels that his game should earn him some cash, so he implements a login system and made it a fuller game. Pops a "for sale" sign on his website.

Have you ever heard of Decker? Do you even know what's it about? No? Did you know anything about FTL before it found it's way on steam? Even if you heard of it, what would your impressions be? "Oh, just some space rts? Where you shoot another ship? No planet exploration? whatever."

One of these examples poured a considerable amount of money into their creation, actually became a studio. Both of these examples poured blood, and absolutely stunning amounts of time into their work. And without a publisher, neither would have gotten a single cent for their work unless they took off like Minecraft. Minecraft is an exceptional exception. Penny Arcade gave them free advertising, so it was no wonder the word of mouth spread.

Publishers are needed. While I'll agree with you that they shouldn't be gutless pigs about what they do, FTL would never have gotten more than a paltry sum for their work, and the studio would have died if they didn't have a publisher. I estimate that 70% of the games that are released today would never have seen the light of day without a publisher to advertise their work, and provide the help required to produce millions of discs, manuals, and cases for the game. Without a publisher, Consoles wouldn't exist. Are you a STALKER fan? Never would have heard of it without a publisher.

And on the first thing, you know that thing you do, when you install software? when you go through that, there's an agreement. Yeah, that's a legally binding contract. Let's take a look at one, shall we? For example, let's say we "procured" a copy of Mirror's edge. [http://eacom.s3.amazonaws.com/EULA+Standard+Aug+08+43170_1.pdf] When you install Mirror's edge, you agree to a legally binding contract.

So, you download it from a torrent site... "You may make a one time permanent transfer to all your rights to install and use the Software to another individual or legal entity: Looks like the original owner of the game already broke the EULA, which affects you. If you're using Torrents, you've busted Paragraph 1-C, "You are prohibited from making a copy of the Software available on a network where it could be used by multiple users." Whatever, let's keep going, you're concerned about Copy protection, so you get your firewall everything it needs to permanently block the game from the internet. You've broken paragraphs 3 and 4. While I may not agree with paragraphs 3 and 4, this does not mean you have a legal right to prohibit EA from gathering the information (vaguely) that EA acquires through it's software. Remember, this is a legally binding contract! For realsies!

Finally, the Software has DRM. What a pain in the arse! You go grab Reloaded's crack, and oop! Broke it again! "Our Software uses access control and copy protection technology. An internet connection is required to authenticate the Software and verify your license. EA reserves the right to validate your license through subsequent online authentication." Every pirate that says "I'm not stealing, I'm avoiding the DRM, and not paying! Because I'm an entitled fuck!" gets hit on this one. By installing that crack, you're breaking the licence agreement, and you've got unauthorized software installed on your computer. Which is illegal. Doesn't matter where you're at, your committing an action that could land you in court, where you can lose very, very quickly.

"By installing or using the Software, you consent to be bound by this License. If you do not agree to the terms of this License, then do not install or use the Software. Section 3 below describes the data EA may use to provide services and support to you in connection with the Software. If you do not agree to this use of data, do not install or use the Software. IF YOU INSTALL the Software, the terms and conditions of this License are fully accepted by you."

You've broken the license agreement, time and time again. If there was a bouncer between you, and leaping over tall buildings, the bouncer would probably slug you in the face. But there's no such thing, so you're just another thief that feels "entitled" to play a game, and not pay the artists, which poured piss, blood, and sweat into their work.

Piracy is theft. You're using a service you're not permitted to even use in the first place, for free. Before you say "Mirror's edge is $60. For what, 20 hours of entertainment?" consider that Go-Kart's is $100 for 3 hours. A ski-trip is $50 for 5 hours. A night drinking with me is upwards of $100. You're getting a good deal, and you piss on it and have the gall to say that "I'm not a thief." How is robbing not only the publisher, but the people who built the game and fucking with the industry not stealing? Explain this to me? I want to make a game, but I'd like to be fucking paid for my work. That programming diploma on the wall wasn't free, you know. I don't particularly enjoy answering calls in a call center because someone felt that my work is valued at exactly $0.

One last thing, a lot of groups like reloaded explicitly state, "We provided this to you because we want to prove we cracked the software. If you like the game, support the developers and buy it!" Would you?
Find a business model that supports giving the work away for free.

This could range from in-game advertising, microtransactions, ectera.

I rightfully don't have the answer, but clearly there is a demand out there for free content.... So instead of trying to rebel against and stick to a model that slowly eroding away, find a way to profit off the pirates.
 

blackdwarf

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I really detest pirate parties. They are everywhere and they want internet freedom. I get that, but you just want it to download stuff so you won't have to pay for it. I don't want to go all up a high horse, because I have a history with downloading stuff, but I stopped doing it when I realized I just was not paying for the service of making this game. Way too late of course. And people have the most idiotic reasons to pirate. Saying they are protesting the game publisher because of DRM, not realizing they are reason for that and other stuff. I wanted to be cheap, the idiot that I was, but at least that is honest(although still stupid in another way).
 

Longstreet

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Capitano Segnaposto said:
Longstreet said:
Well, atleast as far as i understand this.

http://falkvinge.net/2013/02/07/court-of-human-rights-convictions-for-file-sharing-violates-human-rights/

Specifically this sentence;
'This means that people can no longer get convicted for violating the copyright monopoly alone. The court just declared it illegal for any court in Europe to convict somebody for breaking the copyright monopoly law when sharing culture, only on the merits of breaking the law. A court that tries somebody for violating the copyright monopoly must now also show that a conviction is necessary to defend democracy itself in order to convict. This is a considerably higher bar to meet.'

is pure download freedom gold.

So escapist, what you do think about all this? Discuss.

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 will say what I normally say:

Stop being lazy and get a damn job. Buy the items. I don't care if you hate DRM, buy the damn game and pirate a DRM free copy if you want. As long as you buy the damn thing, I don't care what you do to play it.
So, JUST because i post a topic like this. And think piracy is just something of this time and companies should accept it rather than live in denial. Also believe that some of the lawsuits filled against regular people is completely absurd. Means, according to you, i have no job?

Well, i will keep this polite, since i have a clean record so far and try to keep it. Plus it is the internet so i can actually think (a bit) before posting. I know, a rarity right.

You, sir, are wrong.

Now i might not have the best earning job in the world. But then again i am still going to university. So only some part time stuff.

On another note. I Tried to buy a CD once, i would have it in 2 days. FIVE weeks later i still did not have it. THAT, among many, many other reasons (you know, downloading being somewhat legal in my country) is why people download (or as some people call it 'pirate')

It would happen way less already if 1)They would actually give you the product you pay for and 2)Actually create content that is worth the money they ask for it. Sure individual taste and all, you might find something worth 60 bucks that i wont give two nickels for. But i still find 60 bucks for a 5 hours single player campaign (and nothing more) a bit absurd.

Pro tip of the day, just because your stuff is being downloaded, doesnt mean it is because HURR DURR FREE STUFF. Ever stop to think it might just suck.
 

Hagi

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I think a serious mistake many people here are making is that piracy is purely about free stuff.

It's not. There's no shortage of studies showing that people who pirate spend more money on entertainment even though pretty much all entertainment can be pirated. If free stuff was all that mattered there'd be absolutely no reason whatsoever for those people to spend any money at all on entertainment.

Yet they do.

I think you'll find that whilst free stuff certainly is part of the decision there's plenty of other factors that contribute to a person's decision on where to get their entertainment.

Things like ease of access, proper indexing, integration of social features etc. all contribute.

Services like Steam and iTunes show that it's perfectly possible to make huge profits on digital items that most users have ample opportunity to pirate. And I can guarantee you that the reason they don't isn't because of any sort of amazing moral fiber possessed by these individuals.

It's because having a game in your Steam library, together with all your other games, whilst having your achievements, play times and sometimes even save games tracked is a superior service to piracy. If companies provide that then people will purchase their products. If they don't then people will pirate it.

And seeing as the only way to prevent that is to seriously infringe on privacy and many, many other completely legal and beneficial uses of the internet I don't think it's a bad decision to simply make downloading a human right and force companies to find other solutions.

Pirating certainly isn't a good thing. But 'solutions' that genuinely work in preventing it are much, much worse.
 

BeerTent

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SaneAmongInsane said:
[...]Find a business model that supports giving the work away for free.

This could range from in-game advertising, microtransactions, ectera.

I rightfully don't have the answer, but clearly there is a demand out there for free content.... So instead of trying to rebel against and stick to a model that slowly eroding away, find a way to profit off the pirates.
But then you have people complaining about micro-transactions, you've seen the hate going out for Dead Space 3, and the hate lofted out there on TF2. What if nobody deems your Spiral Knights energy worth paying for? Your servers will be down in a month. Some games simply aren't designed for this model. How would you monetize X-Com EU with this methodology? Natural Selection 2? Mirror's Edge? Were you there when VALVe included in-game advertising for Counter-Strike? People don't want ads. A good chunk of people don't like micro-transactions. When the servers get pulled down two months later, will you say this again? "The industry needs to change."

Just because there's a demand for something, doesn't mean that it's smart to persue it. Look what happened for Dell, they felt there was a demand for Software. If people want other people to work for free, they were born into the wrong society. What did the Joker say? "If your good at something, never do it for free."

conmag9 said:
BeerTent said:
zehydra said:
BeerTent said:
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.[...]
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.
You know what? This is actually the response I was aiming for. Someone out there to say. "Hey, saying it's theft is misconstrued. It's Piracy because..." If piracy is not theft, then it's its own category. But you're still taking. You're taking software, you're taking time, and money from the developer/artist. You can't return that... And while you may say that DRM is a waste of time, it's absolutely essential. We can't release a product without it now because of this problem. Pirates can say that "DRM is the sole reason..." but how many times has a game from GOG been copied? The purpose of DRM is to prevent Day Zero piracy. Where the product is available for pirates before it's actually released. This does impact sales. If you released a crack for my game, which is $5, and the tracker records 500 downloads, then you've taken me down by $2500.

I had a much longer response planned, but this is the general gist of it. While I agree that you shouldn't serve 25+ in prison for downloading games, that's not the big problem here, It's distribution of these games, which, through torrents, you're automatically guilty of because of the very nature of how they work. In Canada and the US, this is where they can get off on fining you 2.5K
 

Entitled

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Tom_green_day said:
Lilani said:
the music industry has always been about making money.
Exactly this. The games industry, film industry, music industry etc, they are to make money. If they were not, they would not be called an 'industry' And if people think the standards of making money using these mediums is bad, look at history. Look at Motown where they literally hired hundreds of songwriters who got the same salary regardless of if they made hundrers of hits or a few alright tunes. These things are made to make money and if you won't give them your money, why should they give you their creations?
Just because businesses are in the business of making money, doesn't mean that we should go out of our way to give them even more ways to control our daily life for even more money.

Factories are trying to make money, that doesn't mean that they should pollute the environment with no limits. Facebook and Google are trying to make money, that doesn't mean that we should let them use all our private information for maximum profit.

The copyright industry is even worse than either of these, because while at least these could be justified with a laissez-faire attitude, the current copyright system means that instead of just letting them be, we are actively giving publishers extra authority to suppress data transmission, control personal activities, and rule the market through these monopolies.

Maybe some of these are monopolies are necessary for commercial art to exist. I guess if we would totally abolish all IP, and every TV channel would be allowed to air any show, or any book publisher would be allowed to print any book on their own, there would be chaos.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't limit them at least so much that they are not allowed to harrass individuals for their private Internet usage. That's just a gross imbalance between the rights of the many and the needs of the few.
 

Daverson

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Entitled said:
I don't think that we should have a human right for unlimited data access, but then again, I don't think that IP holders have a "human right" for stopping filesharing either.

IP is just a bunch of government-granted monopolistic regulations, that are supposed to help the economy work better. If new technology is making it's old limits useless, then there is nothing wrong with redrawing the lines.


Daverson said:
So, basically, pirates, you're telling me as a content creator, I should have absolutely no rights when it comes to stuff I've made? Do you have any idea how pants on head retarded this is? Maybe I don't agree with what other content creators are doing with this right, but that doesn't mean they should be stripped of it.
Where did anyone say that? The part of copyright law that stops individuals from downloading, is just one, recently relevant part of the whole package.

Even if we would say that personal downloading is a human right, there are plenty of other IP rights that guarantee that arzists can be the only ones who *sell* copies of their work for a profit (e.g. phisical books, or discs), that they have exclusive licensing rights (whether to be aired on on a Tv channel, or in a cinema), trademark rights (to stop foreign usage of your franchise), etc.
If you're removing the right of the copyright holder to seek legal recompense against those who have chosen to use their work against their wishes, then you're effectively saying to them "you have no control over your work".


Entitled said:
Daverson said:
Ownership is the most basic tenant of capitalism. If you don't like capitalism, well, that's fine by me, why don't you move to North Korea, see how you like the alternative?
And mixing up IP with actual "ownership", is the most basic tenet of misleading copyright industry propaganda.

Copyright didn't ever mean "ownership" of an idea. It meant a certain amount of monopolistic regulations granted to publishers, that were always limited by a number of public rights (Fair Use, Public Domain, ect), and consumer's rights (re-selling rights, personal copy-keeping rights, etc).

Limiting publisher's rights has nothing to do with limiting ownership, and everything to do with limiting monopolistic licenses that go as far as infringing on the individual's private communication and data transmission.
Intellectual property is something you own, hence the term "IP Owner". If you're going to try and argue someone's wrong because they've misused a word (which, by the by, not a great idea to begin with), you might want to check you're right. You're in danger of looking a bit foolish if you don't. And, given you've chosen the handle "entitled" and you're talking about some made-up right to pirate stuff... well, not exactly the image that garners sympathy, is it? =p
 

keosegg

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Lilani said:
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!"
I actually follow the guy who wrote the blog and the party he represents. The moniker "pirate" is actually an ironic one, the guy in question and most of the people who follow him are all Regular Joes who go out and buy CDs, DVDs, games, et al. and then after said purchase, they upload two of their favourite songs to their personal blogs, or they post snippets of the movie on YouTube.

Under current copyright laws, they were deemed "pirates" and were at risk of being sued for god knows how much for uploading one or two songs or a snippet of a movie on their personal blog/YouTube channel that gets like thirty hits a year, despite having already bought the CD/DVD/whathaveyou.

Naturally, they all thought this was pants-on-head retarded and decided to form a political party to fight it, taking the name "pirate", given to them by the copyright lawyers as an ironic statement, a V-sign to the Megacorps, so to speak.

Just a little tidbit of info for you, given because I enjoy being a big know-it-all.

But also because knowing stuff is cool.
 

Atmos Duality

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Oh Lord, the "True Artists" and "Information wants to be FREEEEEE!!!" crowds are poking out again...

First rule of Material Culture:We do not talk about Material Culture [sub](only very small parts of it)[/sub]

Second rule of Material Culture: Everything has a cost and nothing is truly free.

Your right to live? It's paid for by someone.
Your right to create art, to share art? That's also paid for by someone.
Your ABILITY to create art was in fact, paid for by someone.

That someone might be you, or it might be a patron. It might even be the public.

Costs for services/products aren't kept in a vacuum or in some magic air-tight bubbled called "Art"; they are no different from any other human industry or endeavor, and should not be given special treatment no matter how "good" their intention may be.

Knowing that, "True artists don't charge for their work" is preposterous.
Artists have to eat like everyone else, and there is absolutely NOTHING morally or logically wrong with them charging for their works.
 

Da Orky Man

Yeah, that's me
Apr 24, 2011
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Valkrex said:
Piracy = stealing.


That's all there is to it. Don't care what a law says, if you take a product (or a copy of a product as the case may be with digital products) you are stealing and depriving the creator their hard earned profits.
Not quite.
Piracy is copyright violation. For example, say I went onto a torrent and downloaded the film The Wild Blue Yonder. Now then, I would have just committed piracy, copyright infringement. However, I rented that movie a while ago, and it was shit, so I'm certainly not considering buying it.
On the other hand, say I walked into a store, and stole the DVD on said film. I then would have committed theft. The store, and by extension, the creator, will have lost money because I deprived them of something worth money.

So no, piracy is copyright infringement, not theft. You are free to state your opinion, but the definition of theft is enshrined within the law, and it does not cover piracy.
 

SecondPrize

New member
Mar 12, 2012
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I just need to stop going to these threads. Do whatever the hell you're going to do, but quit trying to justify your piracy.
You don't have the right to try a product on your terms before making the decision whether you want to purchase it or not. Ford dealership won't let you take a car for a month long test drive? You don't get to steal it for a month and make extra sure you want it. Ubisoft won't release a demo of Italians jumping off things VI which consists of the entire game? You don't get to construct your own demo plan. Whether it's a discrete object or a copy of information has absolutely no bearing on your rights to appropriate it. Be a responsible consumer and use the enormous amount of resources available to make an informed decision on whether you want to buy the damn thing or not.

There's no difference if you want a 'better' product either. EA decides to release all of its products with always-online DRM and you don't like it? Too fucking bad, you don't have the right to a DRM free copy if they don't release it.

It's okay because you're copyright-infringing from the big bad publishers? Company A approaches the asshats at EA with a proposal for a game and get funding. Lets look at 2 possible outcomes. In outcome A, they make the game and sell 10 million copies, and don't make a dime more than they contracted for. In outcome B, they sell 5 million copies, 5 million copies are pirated and they don't make a dime more than they contracted for. Which outcome do you think is better for the artists who created the game when it comes time for them to negotiate a contract for their next pitch? Even if a developer isn't independent, do you really think they're not going to be treated better if they pull in more revenue for the Man?

I don't pirate games, but if you come up to me and say (don't do it here) that you do because you're a cheap bastard and you want to, at least you're an honest asshole. Don't come up with bullshit about how you have the right to pirate shit because of reasons, you don't.