I'm pretty sure here in Canada it's not actually illegal to download pirated games. It's just illegal to upload. So I guess if you don't seed, you're not braking the law.
Stupid, I know.
Stupid, I know.
Is piracy illegal everywhere?
- Thread starter ksn0va
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I love those ads!WalkingHawking said:
I live in New Zealand, so all our DVD have anti-piracy ads for Australia.
"Australia makes good films, and we want to continue making good films. *Image shows a poster of Wolf Creek*" HA!
Although my favourite one was some red dude sitting by a fire, while some ponce telling me that "Piracy was illegal. Piracy funded pirates. Piracy Funds TERRORISTS! Piracy is costing the movie business two hundred million dollars a year."
Luckily, Avatar has paid for piracy for the next ten or so years!
Here in Mexico it's illegal but laws are enforced just from time to time. You can buy movies and music of the street.
Antipiracy adds on DVD annoy the hell out of me almost to the point of buying pirate DVD instead. Is like they punish you for buying original.
Antipiracy adds on DVD annoy the hell out of me almost to the point of buying pirate DVD instead. Is like they punish you for buying original.
In Serbia it's illegal to sell pirated discs on the street and at first people got arrested for doing that. Now you can usually see a policeman buying new album (probably full os songs like this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EISHsufVlww]) from the friendly neighbourhood warez-man.
On the other hand, these guys that sell warez usually don't care about what they're selling so, for example, people give 15eur for GTA 4 (either PC or Xbox version) and find out that it isn't working.
What I'd really like is lower prices of retail games, at least for PC. By the looks of it, we can become new Australia when it comes to prices of games.
On the other hand, these guys that sell warez usually don't care about what they're selling so, for example, people give 15eur for GTA 4 (either PC or Xbox version) and find out that it isn't working.
What I'd really like is lower prices of retail games, at least for PC. By the looks of it, we can become new Australia when it comes to prices of games.
pirated game being sold in russia and ukranie is being lowerd, but in indonesia and veitnam, every game is pirated
In Russia, pirated stuff sells you.
No really, when I was back there, it was nearly impossible to actually buy a legit copy of anything copyrighted. Granted, that was in 1996, but still!
No really, when I was back there, it was nearly impossible to actually buy a legit copy of anything copyrighted. Granted, that was in 1996, but still!
Wakikifudge said:
There were some recent law changes in August so you should check up on that.Requx said:
Before those changes it was legal to download them you just couldn't sell them. It was also illegal to move music from the CD's you bought to your MP3 player as well which is one of the reasons for the changes.
The Escapist ran an article called "nation of pirates" that addressed this issue when it came to Brazil I believe it was, showing how rampant piracy is overseas. Other articles have dealt with issues like China dealing with nothing but knock offs.ksn0va said:
Legality varies from country to country, but the bottom line is that very few countries seem to really care about piracy even when they have laws in place.
One thing people have to understand is that piracy of video games internationally is one tiny aspect of bigger problems involving the protection of patents and intellectual properties in general. China right now is a rising power and the world's #2 economy not based just on cheap labour and human rights abuses, but simply that they take technology from around the world, knock it off, and then sell it for less than the creators do without having to have had any investment in the innovations to begin with.
China produces pirated copies of everything from clothing, to video games, to medicine, and legal recreational drugs like Viagra. They even attempt to counterfeit labels, and say put Calvin Klein or Levis markings in Jeans so they can be sold as the genuine article even if they were never manufactured by those companies.
To a lot of the world, China is doing a good thing because they provide goods, even if they are inferior knock offs and fakes in most cases, that they would otherwise be unable to obtain from the creators. To a person in say South or Central America, Southeast Asia, Africa, or Eastern Europe all they care about is getting their Jeans and Viagra, and if they can get the illusion that their Jeans are real Levis, so much the better.
People who take a humaneocentric view of this and see it as a good thing for the third world, are those who of course have no investment in having created those things and spent millions or billions of dollars, and however many thousands upon thousands of man hours in the creative process, experimentation, development, and of course safety testing in many cases.
This is one of the biggest reasons why I am both militant, and don't take the pro-piracy stance that a lot of people in my condition do. I think this kind of thing is not only dead wrong, but also hurts the nations like the US and a lot of our allies who actually innovate. Through their actions countries like China not only pump up their own economy, but do damage to ours as well. I personally think a lot of the economic problems we are dealing with right now are based on the "robber economy".
The fact that this kind of theft happens legally in many countries is one of the reasons why I have increasingly little respect for national sovreingty. I feel such things should cease to matter when what another nation is doing affects you, and I think economics are a perfectly valid reason to start wars, even big ones.
I also have little respect for groups like the UN as it has been entirely ineffective on issues like this. One of the things George Bush did from my reading besides start the whole "War On Terror" was bring the issue of Chinese patent violations in paticular up before the so called "World Court" (which isn't what it sounds like). An action which is totally pointless because the guy isn't even President anymore, and we have yet to see any kind of desician.... of course then again any desician made on the subject is going to start World War III. Vote in China's favor and the nations holding the patents are forced to go to war to protect their own economies and innovations. Vote against China and China is forced to go to war since changing it's policies, never mind paying damages, is going to decimate their country's rising economy since their power base relies largely on stealing from, and knocking off the innovations of other nations.
I know this is getting off subject somewhat, but I feel it's all related. One of the biggest real issues going on today, and ironically one of those that gets the least amount of attention in the media.
A lot of backward European nations (technically first-world ones, but lagging behind major EU powers in living standards) have laws against piracy that aren't being enforced. The "game shop that sells pirated copies"-thing has been non-existent since around 2003, but that's when broadband internet was introduced. Now people mostly torrent, and the local authorities have no "central culprit" like an illegal shop to go after, and generally don't have a stake in some american game's sales, so they don't care. So it's even LESS enforced than ever.
However, MMO subscriptions and Steam downloads have become very popular lately, and less and less people pirate (the generation that was first introduced to games via pirating in the 90s is now the working class).
Still, it's a completely ignored region, half the games don't get released, or are released at ridiculous prices of over $100. The industry isn't really helping to create a market - piracy has basically established an interested audience, but nobody bothers to cash in on it.
However, MMO subscriptions and Steam downloads have become very popular lately, and less and less people pirate (the generation that was first introduced to games via pirating in the 90s is now the working class).
Still, it's a completely ignored region, half the games don't get released, or are released at ridiculous prices of over $100. The industry isn't really helping to create a market - piracy has basically established an interested audience, but nobody bothers to cash in on it.
What changes? If you're talking about Bill C-32 it was only just introduced into committee and hasn't gone to Parliament for a reading yet.elementsoul said:
I've never seen a game or DVD in Thailand that isn't pirated. I don't know if it's illegal but if it is, nobody cares.
It's more or less illegal everywhere, but as it was mentioned before, enforcing those laws is another thing.
I knew of a store where the guy was selling all sorts of pirated movie DVD's, and even the local cops got their movies there, and only after he got up someones noes too much did they bust him.
And the official story was they only found him after an anonymous caller revealed information of his business... ya, cuz noone else knew
I knew of a store where the guy was selling all sorts of pirated movie DVD's, and even the local cops got their movies there, and only after he got up someones noes too much did they bust him.
And the official story was they only found him after an anonymous caller revealed information of his business... ya, cuz noone else knew
Well, I am one of these people, and I have been arguing against this point of yours for a while. Basically, if enough people share, enough will donate to the artists and they will be more interested in culture, both things very good for artists too. Also that the logic behind copyrights is fundamentally harmfull.Therumancer said:
This isn't really the topic of this thread, so if you want to discuss this...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.236854-On-the-morality-of-copyright?page=1
I disagree with you needless to say, but there is no point to further derailing the thread.incal11 said:
I feel what I said was on topic here given the very nature of the subject, since piracy (the violation of IP rights) is the subject, and that is simply one aspect of a much bigger debate, which is what I was pointing out.
Truthfully though, The Escapist HAS run some interesting articles on the subject over the last couple of years, ranging from "Nation of Pirates" (which I mentioned) to bits on the R4 (I think I have the number right) carts. There is plenty of information on this site for people who are interested, irregardless of what stance they take.
nope just like our Drug Policy piracy IS legal here as long as you dont make any money of pirated works or claim it as your own its legit although a few company,s are pushed by BREIN (a orginazation similair to the RIAA) to ban acces to The Pirate bay...
Of course but you could have answered on my thread, or at least read my OP; and I have read most of the escapist's articles on this. I know you have good reasons behind your opinion, so do I, just saying you're missing some facts.Therumancer said:
More on topic, "piracy" didn't use to be illegal in the past, and some countries did better without some of the laws against it.