Is piracy bad when you don't have a choice ?

[Gasaraki]

So my question is "should someone feel guilty for pirating a software that he or she can't afford ?" since there's really no affected party involved i mean the developer is losing only the chance to sell the product to one more person who wouldn't have aforded it anyway.

As a diehard consequentialist, I find this argument extremely compelling. The logic essentially being: if I don't pirate the game, I don't have the game and the company doesn't have my money. If I pirate the game, then I have the game and the company doesn't have my money. Thus piracy is obviously the right choice.

I would just like to clarify here that I'm not trying to advocate piracy. But I am saying that the argument for piracy under those circumstances seems pretty good from a utilitarian perspective. I have never, however, come across an equalling compelling argument from the other side - all I've seen is people saying "It's just wrong" and dropping the matter. It's not the same as theft, because no-one is actually losing anything. So I'm still on the fence.

Just because no one gets hurt doesn't make it right.

If it genuinely doesn't hurt anyone, and benefits someone, then to me it's perfectly morally acceptable. As someone who remains undecided on the matter of piracy, would someone care to explain to me, in terms a utilitarian might understand, why piracy is wrong when you're pirating something you wouldn't have bought anyway? Explain to me, essentially, who is being hurt. I'm seriously asking because I want to know what the answer is. Because from my perspective, most of what I see coming from the anti-piracy side is self-righteous posturing, in this case condemning someone who lives in much less fortunate circumstances than most of the people in this thread and telling him "you'll just have to do without, then, won't you?" for no particular reason.

You've got a chance to bring me over to your side. Give it your best shot.

No one is hurt, but that doesnt make it right. regardless, you are effectively taking something from someone, without giving them anything in return. You probably have multiple eggs in your fridge, if i came in your house, and took one of your eggs because i was starving, of course thats wrong. But you have more, and can likely buy as many as u want so, its not that bad, like i said, nothing to lose sleep over.

The difference is if you steal his egg he loses an egg.
But when the OP pirates a game, the developper/publisher doesn't lose anything because he couldn't have bought it anyway.

 

[Scobie]

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[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

There is a choice. The choice is to not get and play the game.

I really don't understand this attitude that not having enough money means you have some sort of right to be able to play it anyway. I got my console and most of my games back when I was younger, working, not paying uni debts and the general cost of living and yes, I probably should have been more careful with my money.

Now I barely have the money to buy food, every holiday I work two jobs for six days a week and occasionally pull double shifts in order to make sure I can keep making ends meet up at uni, and I don't in any way have the money to buy games. My response to this situation?

I don't buy games.

It's simple enough, stealing is stealing, whatever your situation, and games are a luxury item, not a necessity. If I was starving and had no money I would steal (and have stolen) food, but that's it, because I'm still idealistic enough to believe that having food is a basic human right.

That's about it really.

 

[Dexiro]

There's the argument that says that it isn't so bad because you would have never paid for the game in the first place. It acts as a 1up on the community, the developer makes no potential loss.

Games aren't a necessary part of life though. Stealing essentials like food could be justified in extreme situations, but the same reasoning couldn't be applied to games.

I don't know, guess it comes down to your morals. The least you'd be expected to do is pay for the game if the money does become available.

 

[TruthMan]

There's the argument that says that it isn't so bad because you would have never paid for the game in the first place. It acts as a 1up on the community, the developer makes no potential loss.

Games aren't a necessary part of life though. Stealing essentials like food could be justified in extreme situations, but the same reasoning couldn't be applied to games.

I don't know, guess it comes down to your morals. The least you'd be expected to do is pay for the game if the money does become available.

Don't you think that if you were a dev you would rather have your game played by those less fortunate then say F u because you cant buy it.

 

[oxiclean]

theft is theft. a criminal act. just because i cant afford to buy famous paintings, doesn't justify me stealing them so i "can experience an art form and spread the word around". games are a luxury, and not necessary to life. they did without video games for thousands of years, and they were perfectly alright. piracy is a matter of character. i have never pirated a game, and i've pirated so few songs i cant count them on my fingers. do you want to be a thief? the same as those who rob stores? or would you rather be an honest person? what you do behind closed doors says something about you as a person. a person who steals, even just a video game, is not honest and makes it apparent they are not above theft. first a video game, then from the cash register at an employer.

 

[SyphonX]

I wasn't implying sympathy towards Romania or otherwise, or trying to imply that everyone there is poor. Sorry if it came across as that. I'm simply referring to the fact that a product is presented to the area, and the prices aren't adjust properly. Every country has this problem, for many things. Romanian people are certainly not all poor, or any less successful in terms of their neighbors or any other country. The market is just very different when it comes to various things, entertainment especially.

If a company wants to play in someone else's market, they should be prepared to adjust accordingly or not try at all. Trying to hoist something that isn't going to work, ever, in any place, and then trying to demonize people who get something they can't realistically obtain.. is quite childish.

And I wish people would stop using the "I wouldn't steal [insert exotic car] just because I can't afford it." argument, that is quite ridiculous. Digital media is supposed to be adjusted, they have different costs in nearly every country in the world, and they are placed on discs that are virtually worthless as blanks. They hold no rights-to-ownership value whatsoever. So if a company throws into a place without adjusting the price, basically saying.. "Here, have these games that cost basically your month's salary, but don't share them or you're a douche-bag." well.. basically that means the company is a douche-bag themselves.

The, "When I was a kid, I couldn't afford games, so I didn't steal them." argument, is equally null and void. We're not talking about kids here, we're talking about a different region where it's market is different. They can't afford the games, because it's not realistic in the market they operate in. These are not children.

 

[spartan231490]

*snippety snip*

No one is hurt, but that doesnt make it right. regardless, you are effectively taking something from someone, without giving them anything in return. You probably have multiple eggs in your fridge, if i came in your house, and took one of your eggs because i was starving, of course thats wrong. But you have more, and can likely buy as many as u want so, its not that bad, like i said, nothing to lose sleep over.

As I said, I believe that if no-one is hurt it genuinely can't be wrong.

And if you were genuinely starving, I'd probably just give you an egg if you asked, and I wouldn't be that pissed off about you stealing one if you were really hungry. But the analogy doesn't stand up. It's more like you replicating one of my eggs without my permission and then eating it. In that case, I lose nothing and you gain an egg.

its intellectual property, meaning that the "idea" is what belongs to the company, and you are taking the idea, and my point still stands, it's taking what isnt yours, and giving nothing in return. and people are right, it IS, a luxury item, there are hundreds of people who can afford games who dont buy them, you have no inherent right to play video games, so why is it not wrong to steal them, even if you couldnt pay for them anyway. thats not a reason, its a justification and and excuse, and the fact is, you are stealing just so you can entertain yourself. the right thing to do, would be to buy something like bicycle, and get hours and hours and years and years of fun out of it, but like i said, it doesnt hurt anyone, so its nothing to lose sleep over.

 

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

I'm going to play devil's advocate and support piracy on this one.

Video games, correct, are not an integral part of life in any way. But quickly, various gamers of the Escapist forums, imagine your life; your entire life, without gaming in any fashion whatsoever. It's weird, isn't it? You rely on simpler things for entertainment, or if you want to stretch it, internet. (But the internet will breed games and then this whole thought experiment becomes recursive.) And, looking from here, there's kind of a hole, isn't there? Sure, you can play baseball, or go into the woods and pretend to be magical-dagical wizards and warriors, but there's a ton of stuff that videogames supply to our everyday lives, outright or implied, that just makes everything different without it. So why do we have a right to deprive other people of what may be pervasive in the right just due to economic shiftiness on the part of the publishers? (Not the developers. Developers are usually innocent in DRM Schemes and such, unless the developers are the publishers obviously.)

Economically, piracy isn't that big a problem. There's four basic types of people; 1. Definite Buyers, 2. Considering, 3. Definite Pirates, and 4. Don't Care. You will never, ever get the buys of pirates, so why bother with invasive DRM that's going to do more HARM than good? The Considering, when exposed to invasive DRM, will go to the pirated version that DOESN'T HAVE that kind of bullshit, you're just losing potential buys. And as it stands, it's not like piracy sucks billions of dollars from the industry every year - that money was simply never IN the industry. Theft is a bigger problem, economically.

So... yeah.

 

[antipunt]

So my question is "should someone feel guilty for pirating a software that he or she can't afford ?" since there's really no affected party involved i mean the developer is losing only the chance to sell the product to one more person who wouldn't have aforded it anyway.

As a diehard consequentialist, I find this argument extremely compelling. The logic essentially being: if I don't pirate the game, I don't have the game and the company doesn't have my money. If I pirate the game, then I have the game and the company doesn't have my money. Thus piracy is obviously the right choice.

I would just like to clarify here that I'm not trying to advocate piracy. But I am saying that the argument for piracy under those circumstances seems pretty good from a utilitarian perspective. I have never, however, come across an equalling compelling argument from the other side - all I've seen is people saying "It's just wrong" and dropping the matter. It's not the same as theft, because no-one is actually losing anything. So I'm still on the fence.

Just because no one gets hurt doesn't make it right.

If it genuinely doesn't hurt anyone, and benefits someone, then to me it's perfectly morally acceptable. As someone who remains undecided on the matter of piracy, would someone care to explain to me, in terms a utilitarian might understand, why piracy is wrong when you're pirating something you wouldn't have bought anyway? Explain to me, essentially, who is being hurt. I'm seriously asking because I want to know what the answer is. Because from my perspective, most of what I see coming from the anti-piracy side is self-righteous posturing, in this case condemning someone who lives in much less fortunate circumstances than most of the people in this thread and telling him "you'll just have to do without, then, won't you?" for no particular reason.

You've got a chance to bring me over to your side. Give it your best shot.

No one is hurt, but that doesnt make it right. regardless, you are effectively taking something from someone, without giving them anything in return. You probably have multiple eggs in your fridge, if i came in your house, and took one of your eggs because i was starving, of course thats wrong. But you have more, and can likely buy as many as u want so, its not that bad, like i said, nothing to lose sleep over.

The difference is if you steal his egg he loses an egg.
But when the OP pirates a game, the developper/publisher doesn't lose anything because he couldn't have bought it anyway.

Pretty much. Essentially, a more accurate description with the egg-analogy is that you 'steal an egg from your neighbor by making a copy of one of his eggs via some sort of replication technology'. An egg was never 'lost', but now, the guy who broke into your house has an egg.

I agree with Furbert who said this is an extremely gray area. Honestly, I see legitimate arguments from both sides. It really boils down to how you would personally define the term 'morality' from a philosophical perspective. In my opinion, there is no right or wrong answer. Just opinions.

 

[punkrocker27]

I can't help but feel for the OP's position. What I really can't stand though is people claiming to be poor who have like all the money in the world and could just go rent the game/movie to find out what it's like, instead of just taking the easy way out and pirating. Now when it comes to music, I don't blame you for using limewire or something, that's what I do because apple's prices are ridiculous, but even I know that that's wrong when there's all these things out there for you now such as rhapsody, or netflix/redbox in the case of movies. Pirates are just leeches.

 

[TruthMan]

There is a choice. The choice is to not get and play the game.

I really don't understand this attitude that not having enough money means you have some sort of right to be able to play it anyway. I got my console and most of my games back when I was younger, working, not paying uni debts and the general cost of living and yes, I probably should have been more careful with my money.

Now I barely have the money to buy food, every holiday I work two jobs for six days a week and occasionally pull double shifts in order to make sure I can keep making ends meet up at uni, and I don't in any way have the money to buy games. My response to this situation?

I don't buy games.

It's simple enough, stealing is stealing, whatever your situation, and games are a luxury item, not a necessity. If I was starving and had no money I would steal (and have stolen) food, but that's it, because I'm still idealistic enough to believe that having food is a basic human right.

That's about it really.

and i bet that if you told the developers that they'd say "sure go ahead and download it appreciate our art" they have nothing to gain and so nothing is lost.

 

[Keava]

Games arent art. Not in the traditional meaning of art anyway, games are buisness.
Times when games were made just purely for entertainment value/fun are long gone. Today its the domain of big corporate studios that while still try to at least make parts of their games for players, mainly make them to make a living out of it.
It is not charity, it is not work pro publico bono. Its no different than making cars or tv sets.

Same time you have indie developers, that sell their games cheap or even distribute said games as freeware or open-source, and each years their products are better even though still in almost all cases much simpler than the big AAA titles.

Here is the question do you want games, or do you want the 'popular' games. If its the later, then sorry, but you are still commiting a crime by pirating those games. Its not much different than stealing a new Jaguar when all you can afford is a crappy city-car like Tico or Smart and trying to excuse yourself with economics.

Now when the issue is that the games are not being published at all and you cant obtain them through digital means in certain countries i could understand it. Its the publishers own fault they dont try to expand their market and they wouldnt be able to sell it anyway.

 

[Kurokami]

So my question is "should someone feel guilty for pirating a software that he or she can't afford ?" since there's really no affected party involved i mean the developer is losing only the chance to sell the product to one more person who wouldn't have aforded it anyway.

Go to the the "who would pirate the 1 cent humble indie game" thread, similar topic and may serve as a headsup to the kind of flametastic responses you'll need to endure.

 

[oxiclean]

There is a choice. The choice is to not get and play the game.

I really don't understand this attitude that not having enough money means you have some sort of right to be able to play it anyway. I got my console and most of my games back when I was younger, working, not paying uni debts and the general cost of living and yes, I probably should have been more careful with my money.

Now I barely have the money to buy food, every holiday I work two jobs for six days a week and occasionally pull double shifts in order to make sure I can keep making ends meet up at uni, and I don't in any way have the money to buy games. My response to this situation?

I don't buy games.

It's simple enough, stealing is stealing, whatever your situation, and games are a luxury item, not a necessity. If I was starving and had no money I would steal (and have stolen) food, but that's it, because I'm still idealistic enough to believe that having food is a basic human right.

That's about it really.

and i bet that if you told the developers that they'd say "sure go ahead and download it appreciate our art" they have nothing to gain and so nothing is lost.

so if i want to take your children (you made them, after all), then you will just tell me to go ahead and take them so i can appreciate them? i for one would be pissed if you stole something i made. before you say a kid and a game are completely different, games take many months and sleepless nights of development, and developers see them as a creative expression of their own abilities and time, and pirates just come along and take it. a kid is the same way. sleepless nights and many months of development, and your own creativity and abilities are impressioned onto the child.

 

[Dexiro]

There's the argument that says that it isn't so bad because you would have never paid for the game in the first place...
I don't know, guess it comes down to your morals.

Don't you think that if you were a dev you would rather have your game played by those less fortunate then say F u because you cant buy it.

That's one of the points i was making. It depends on the developer though.
Smaller developers probably wouldn't mind a minor case of piracy, especially if they aren't in a rush to get money.

That's what it all comes down to though. the attitude within the industry seems quite different to any other, but it's still mostly about making money.
I'm sure some devs would happily release a few free games, but they have a living to make and simply having people play their games might not be enough of a reward to keep on making them in the long run.

Piracy is a touchy subject. Even if some devs would accept minor cases of piracy you can't let people use that as an excuse to do it. It's too easy to end up with the majority of people pirating a game because they think they're in a minority, and a lot of these people wouldn't necessarily have a valid reason for doing it.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

.

and i bet that if you told the developers that they'd say "sure go ahead and download it appreciate our art" they have nothing to gain and so nothing is lost.

Or else they'd say, 'this is our creative output, and we have a right to it.'

I'm a writer and musician (who doesn't get a paycheck nearly as often as he needs to) and if I knew somebody was illegally reprinting my poems or short stories then I'd be massively pissed.

Also, if I ever manage to get a book published (response from an agent in a week) then I would hate to think that people were stealing it instead of buying it, or plaigirising it instead of writing their own, or any other number of ways you can steal someone's creation.

I side with the devs on this one, because it's my (their) work, and I (they) have a right to receive money for it, and stealing it is just wrong.

It's not acceptable to say 'oh, but I wouldn't have bought it so they wouldn't have received the money for it anyway, that makes it okay.' No it doesn't!

And just from another standpoint, it's illegal. You are breaking the law if you pirate/steal/plaigirise, thus are a criminal, and I don't have much time for criminals.

 

[punkrocker27]

Look at it this way. By telling people pirating is awright because "oh it's not hurting anybody" is basically just encouraging them not to work and earn the money they could be using to buy the game, therefore actually contributing to the industry instead of just leeching off of it. That's like market economy 101, I don't know about Romania though just that they have to get their shit together eventually.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

Piracy is bad, no matter what the reason.

I get the reasoning behind it. If you cannot afford the game, pirating the game costs the developer nothing. You didn't steal a physical disk that they paid produce with the intent of getting manufacturing costs back. It's easy to see as a victimless crime. We've all committed those. Rolling through a stop sign, speeding, jaywalking. We've all done it at one time or another.

The problem is that by supporting piracy for "the right reasons", those people that steal with the attitude of "Why pay when I can get it free?" are being supported as well. These people are a problem. These people can cause game developers to lose enough money that they can't produce as many games, or worse, have to close up shop entirely.

So ignoring the holier-than-thou attitude of "games are a luxury, if you can't afford it, tough", it still can be incredibly detrimental simply because supporting the pirating companies supports the cheapskates who don't care about the game developer.

 

[Scobie]

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