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

squid5580

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Feb 20, 2008
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xemnahort said:
reap579 said:
LordNue said:
If the simple fact is that you can't afford games then you can do without them. Games are a luxury, not a requirement for life. If you can't afford the price on something then you don't really have the right to own it, do you? Just because no one gets hurt doesn't make it right.
Ding ding ding!
We have a winner!
u fail 4 being a retard b/c seriously for some people games offer a way to deal with life and if their coping mechanism is taken then they should do whatever it takes to keep from going into the homicidal deprivation stage and almost everyone who says games are a luxury r hypocrites
SEEK HELP!!!!!

Preferably somewhere else until you can use the entire keyboard.
 

Ciran

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Feb 7, 2009
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There is always a choice. There is never a situation where there a not two options. Sure one option may really, really suck, but it's still a choice and, as I'm sure many people have said, video games are a luxury, not a requirement for survival, therefore there should be no reason to steal a game.
 

Sikachu

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Threads like this really annoy me because they show just how many people swalled the lie that piracy is stealing. The basis of stealing is depriving someone else of the enjoyment of their chattel. In the standard p2p-style piracy, no-one is being deprived of anything. There are crimes that fit it (unjust enrichment, copyright violation, etc) but it is NOT STEALING. I think that the reason this happened is because copying a game to sell IS stealing, because there you are depriving the publisher of their exclusive right to vend their product.

So the debate has been massively misinformed, particularly on the self-righteous side, where analogies to eggs being stolen from people's fridges have really highlighted fundamental misunderstanding. If you want to explain your position with an analogy, explain why it would be wrong to push a button that magically added £100 to the balance in your bank account, with no harm done anywhere else.
 

asinann

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Apr 28, 2008
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If you're only paying $50US for a new release you're paying less than anyone in the US any more. You're using a very weak justification to make yourself feel better. Stop pirating, period.
 

Cherry Cola

Your daddy, your Rock'n'Rolla
Jun 26, 2009
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I find it ironic that a lot of the people calling others self-righteous are themselves self-righteous.

But I digress.

I came here to tell you what I think, and for this thread I have only one thing to say.

Piracy is never the only option.

So what if you can't afford the latest games? Gaming has not been around for only 1 year. Go and buy a damn PS2 title if you can't afford a PS3 one. Buy KOTOR for ?5 when it goes on sale on Steam. I don't care what you do, but don't ever try and say that Piracy is your only option, because that is a lie.
 

Cherry Cola

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Jun 26, 2009
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Sikachu said:
explain why it would be wrong to push a button that magically added £100 to the balance in your bank account, with no harm done anywhere else.
I actually have an argument against that.

See, that money has to come from somewhere. Someones pocket, the government, whatever, that money has to come from somewhere. If it hasn't, and it just magically appeared, then that will cause inflation. Granted, it will barely even be noticeable, but there will be a slight, and I really mean slight decrease in the worth of pounds.

And since the analogy is about piracy, this button isn't a one time thing, but something you can do over and over again. And not only you, but anyone can do it.

So now you have everyone in the world pressing a button to get money, which causes inflation and destroys the economy.

So your analogy is slightly off.
 

Cherry Cola

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Jun 26, 2009
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LordNue said:
Hubilub said:
I find it ironic that a lot of the people calling others self-righteous are themselves self-righteous.

But I digress.

I came here to tell you what I think, and for this thread I have only one thing to say.

Piracy is never the only option.

So what if you can't afford the latest games? Gaming has not been around for only 1 year. Go and buy a damn PS2 title if you can't afford a PS3 one. Buy KOTOR for ?5 when it goes on sale on Steam. I don't care what you do, but don't ever try and say that Piracy is your only option, because that is a lie.
Hell there are tons of awesome freeware games out too. If anyone likes point and click adventure games I suggest everyone check out Sanitarium which last I heard was freeware. It's an awesome game and is free by now.
And that "Games are an art that deserves to be experienced" bullshit doesn't hold up either, because most games I would even consider to be art are indie titles that are either free or incredibly cheap.
 

Sikachu

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Hubilub said:
Sikachu said:
explain why it would be wrong to push a button that magically added £100 to the balance in your bank account, with no harm done anywhere else.
I actually have an argument against that.

See, that money has to come from somewhere. Someones pocket, the government, whatever, that money has to come from somewhere. If it hasn't, and it just magically appeared, then that will cause inflation. Granted, it will barely even be noticeable, but there will be a slight, and I really mean slight decrease in the worth of pounds.

And since the analogy is about piracy, this button isn't a one time thing, but something you can do over and over again. And not only you, but anyone can do it.

So now you have everyone in the world pressing a button to get money, which causes inflation and destroys the economy.

So your analogy is slightly off.
I'm not sure that it is off. Your analysis is right on the macro side, if everyone did it it would destroy the economy. That's true of videogame piracy too - if everyone did it the industry would die, or at least warp unrecognisably (and there are many who wouldn't have a problem with this). But looking at it as a single moral act - one person enriching themselves (even repeatedly) is wrong because...? The 'if-everyone-did-it-it-would-cause-breakdown' argument can't really stand, assuming that you consider withdrawing all your money from the bank not morally wrong (where if everyone did it we certainly would have global financial meltdown) - so my question (perhaps a little qualified) still stands.
 

Sikachu

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LordNue said:
That and I don't see anyone sneaking into any local museums on a daily basis to experience the art there.
In the UK all museums are free and paid for either by benefactors or the government. No need to sneak in, the government decided that art wasn't just for the moneyed.
 

Auric

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Dec 7, 2009
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SyphonX said:
Really? Where is the magical world you live in, where your $10 is the same as the $10 in any other given country? You do realize, in some countries, keeping the price at $60 is equivalent to a few hundred bucks, or even much, much more..
I think he means the ridiculous cases where even accounting for exchange rates, the cost is far more.

Take australia for instance, we have almost the same exchange rate as the US, but normally get charged 150%, or more, for games.

If your talking about something completely different, and ive just made myself look like an idiot, please ignore this post.
 

Chamale

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Sep 9, 2009
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DarkMessiah said:
Of course someone who pirates games because they can't afford them should feel guilty.
It's not like stealing bread when you're starving and have no alternative, games are a luxury.
Piracy isn't technically theft, because you don't deny the game from anyone else. The situation in poor countries where piracy is rampant is akin to copying a bread recipe, than baking your own bread. The storeowner doesn't lose money, he simply doesn't get more profits. If he wants to go after you for violating the intellectual property rights of the guy that invented bread, he could. By not buying bread from the store owner, you hurt his profits, but our society has an idea that baking bread is "virtuous" while piracy is "wrong". When neither action directly hurts another person, and no alternate action would help others, how can we say piracy is worse than baking from a utilitarian standpoint?
 

misfit119

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Dec 24, 2008
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SyphonX said:
I dare any of you people to adjust your economic situation to the point where you can't afford basic entertainment to cope with life, and with no change seen in the future, and I DARE YOU to tell me that you would still agree with people that say you don't deserve to at least try and obtain some entertainment to keep sane.
Screw. That.

I did just this for most of my damn life and you don't hear my family whining about it. My family grew up in a shitty little apartment in the middle of the projects with no money for much of anything beyond a cheap dollar toy every now and again. My parents would crimp and save everything they could so that on birthdays and christmas me and my siblings had something worthwhile as a gift. My extended family would never buy us anything so trivial, we got clothes or educational things... maybe books if we asked really hard.

But video games were gotten by saving up for months on end. You want me to feel bad for someone because they have it rough money wise? Not a chance. It took my parents well over a year to save up enough to buy me and my siblings a Super Nintendo and some games but they didn't just buy it from some crackhead in an alley who stole it from someone. They pared down on spending, bought yet cheaper generic brand stuff where possible and just saved up.

You assume that just because someone lives in the red white and blue they make enough money to afford the luxury that gaming is. Well that's not the case and we still never resorted to theft.
 

ACM_Shadow

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Aug 6, 2009
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wow, what a heated debate. My view is some piracy is good, as long as every now and again you actually pay for a game.
For instance, i admit i have used pirated a game, as my mate lent me a copy of said game that was banned here in sunny AUS, and it was fun. Also pirated games let us try before we buy, as demo's usually have the "best" part while pirated versions have the best AND worst of it.
I also agree that games aren't necessary to live, and also that i cbf paying for a 360 or PS3 when i can download an emulator and get copies of games off my mates, but ya'know what? i cant play multi-player, and that's arguably the best part about games today.

As long as any form of payment is required for an entertainment source, people will pirate it, why??? 3 reasons.
1)Prices skyrocket in different countries compared to America which is usually the base price (i'm lucky as i usually only need to pay around $10-15 more for the game) so it isnt reasonable to buy it, but those that dont buy it cant get updates or multiplayer for the game.
2) To try the media in question...if a game to see if they actually like it compared to the small slice the demo gives.
If a movie to see if it is worth buying it, etc
3) People are stingy retards that like screwing others hard work.

also as a side note, aren't games like WoW ,Call of Duty & Battlefield series best sellers and making millions because of the awesome multiplayer hosted by the actual game servers (ie:EA online, Blizzard servers) while SP games that are extremely difficult to get other then online stores eg:steam,windows live. and games that boast extremely difficult protection (assassins creed 2) are usually the first to be pirated, often from countries that have a low monetary exchange rate to the US$ or cant access steam/windows live.

PS: sorry bout long post, bit passionate bout this subject and trying to avoid doing work.
 

PopeJewish

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Apr 15, 2010
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Chamale said:
DarkMessiah said:
Of course someone who pirates games because they can't afford them should feel guilty.
It's not like stealing bread when you're starving and have no alternative, games are a luxury.
Piracy isn't technically theft, because you don't deny the game from anyone else. The situation in poor countries where piracy is rampant is akin to copying a bread recipe, than baking your own bread. The storeowner doesn't lose money, he simply doesn't get more profits. If he wants to go after you for violating the intellectual property rights of the guy that invented bread, he could. By not buying bread from the store owner, you hurt his profits, but our society has an idea that baking bread is "virtuous" while piracy is "wrong". When neither action directly hurts another person, and no alternate action would help others, how can we say piracy is worse than baking from a utilitarian standpoint?
]]

This argument is fundamentally flawed in that a bread recipe doesn't require hundreds of people, thousands of man hours and tens of millions of dollars to develop per iteration of said recipe.
 

twaddle

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Nov 17, 2009
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but one begs the question of what about people who pirate out of date games that are no longer made. For example take people who play old playstation games. They may have a disk that is worn out and the game is no longer in production. if they download that game (it's not available on PSN either) does that make them wrong? or what about those gamers who still play gba titles on emulators, or snes games( i can't find act raiser if my life depended on it for some reason, but i can find a download of it)is pirating these old games still wrong?
 

Hiroshi Mishima

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Sep 25, 2008
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It's situations like this that really show how open to ideas of change people can be. You have the side shouting "no excuses, it's wrong", then the group going "it's okay given the circumstances" and another group saying "who cares?"

Honestly, I think that the issue of Piracy, as well as Copyright Laws, needs to be reevaluated in today's society. By the current logic of some users here (and sometimes by copyright holders) even the act of copying a CD and giving it to a friend who liked it but couldn't afford a copy is criminal. Those of like LordNue would have us believe that the person you copied the music CD for doesn't deserve and/or need it and to fuck them.

I think we also need to reexamine what we define as "needs and wants". I can't speak for other people, but if I couldn't play games period (like ever) I'd probably go nuts. Much like listening to music (most of which can not be bought like game soundtracks, or would have no idea where to buy it, like the opening song to some anime), gaming is a way for me to try and relax. I have a lot of health problems, and for me, gaming gives me something to lose myself in. Something interactive to keep myself busy instead of getting into something I would regret, or thinking about stuff that I probably shouldn't. I'm probably not explaining myself very clearly and I apologize for that.

Humans have what could be called, I think, Creature Comforts. You take away what it is that makes you personally comfortable, and after a while you become restless. Given time, you start looking for other ways to meet these needs, you can't due to lack of available income or supply or whatever the hell prevents you from obtaining those comforts. After enough time passes you start losing who you are. You can't relax, nothing seems to make the tension and stress go away. Next thing you know, you snap and do something you'll regret.

Damn where was it that I heard this one quote that would really put this into perspective... ugh, I hate my crappy memory. Something like "Humans are some of the most complacent creatures in existence, but if you threaten that complacency, they become more frightening than any demon" or something like that.

There is nothing anyone can say or do that will prevent someone from taking something if they can't get it through ordinary (ie, legal) means. Because as much as you claim it isn't a "need" for them it is. Just like when you try to pull a person who is absorbed into something like.. World of Warcraft away from that. They become aggressive and can/will become hostile. I think that it surprises people who are on the receiving end of that because they don't really understand. They still perceive it as a meer "want" but for that person it is a need.

Also, as a last bit of babbling before I cease to exist in this thread: I think a lot of people who put their heart into making some games, would love to see people who couldn't afford it play their game. Especially if they were proud (not as common these days) of the final product. Not only could it possibly make someone very happy, if they tell their friends who DO have money that could be another sale. The thing about piracy is that if nothing else, it gets word of the product out, which means there is an increased chance someone might buy the product who wasn't originally interested.

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong, sure the actions could have consequences (mostly moral ones these days though), but I'm also saying it's naive to believe that you can truly influence someone's decision if they've already made up in their mind that it's okay.

To put it simply, I think the person who started this thread isn't really doing anything genuinely wrong. It may be frowned upon by some of the .. hmm.. can't think of a term that wouldn't sound offensive... the more "vocally opposed" but if the object in question is not tangible and is strictly digital, than as others have said, absolutely nothing is lost as there was no chance of the person buying it anyways. It'd be different if they actually went into the store and stole a copy.

Also note that desperation makes people do crazy things, regardless if it's a want or need, especially if THEY perceive it as a need/desire.