Jimquisition: When Piracy Becomes Theft
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
The bar has been raised for Obama, he needs to do something more awesome than castrating people with a wooden chainsword replica if he wants my vote. Otherwise Jim Sterling gets my vote and the vote of everyone I can convince to vote for him.
This kind of licensing burden is what I mean when I say that creative people's visions are severely hampered, or completely crushed in the case that the copyright holder refuses to license or demands too high a price.Raesvelg said:
Disney did nothing wrong when he made Alice in Wonderland. The law was right not to punish him then, and it would be right not to punish him today if he were alive to make another amazing film reinterpretation about, say, Harry Potter or Twilight without sending 'protection money' to original authors.
You've said a few times now that perhaps it's not worth worrying about because it's just art and art isn't a life or death thing. That's actually one of my contentions against copyright. Copyright litigation can be a devastating, life destroying experience. At the very least, it will be incredibly expensive and time consuming, and at the worst it can carry jail time or plunge you into financial ruin. Is it really worth doing that to peaceful, harmless human beings just to prevent the latest Twilight movie from being remixed or shared on the internet? It's not like we're talking about life saving drugs, or something.
Mehhhh I won't absolutely dismiss what Jim is saying here but it irks me. If his over-inflated fantasy world with him as world leader existed in reality, and the Sterling rule of law was consistent with the ideology presented in this video, then robbing Wal-Mart or giant Banks would be completely legal, while only tiny local Banks and mom-and-pop stores would be protected from theft. What would obviously happen as a result is that large banks and Wal-Mart wouldn't exist. Meaning that we wouldn't be able to make big loans or buy inexpensive groceries.
Taking it back to video games, if it were completely legal to download games published by EA or Activision with total ease, no one would ever buy them and then EA and Activision would stop existing. Then there'd be no more Call of Duty with million-dollar production values which, no matter how much you hate it, will rob the gaming consumer base of what they want to service your own selfish ideology of 'big, evil nasty corporations!'
Yes, yes, yes, I know, I KNOW: Jim is not advocating radical changes in the law, nor does he have the ability to actually take over the world. Nor'nor is he even completely serious presenting this 'pedophile burglar' nonsense as any sort of moral compass. It's just that... ehhh... it's like saying
"Hey I get pissed off at all these fuckin' Mexicans eating in restaurants so close to me. I mean, it's not wrong what they're doing and it shouldn't be illegal or anything, it just pisses me off."
It's like why should you be spending time spreading messages like that, especially to an internet audience of thousands? It's one normal, everyday guy at a time saying 'perhaps, maybe those people of different physical appearance aren't fully human' that eventually leads to slavery.
Taking it back to video games, if it were completely legal to download games published by EA or Activision with total ease, no one would ever buy them and then EA and Activision would stop existing. Then there'd be no more Call of Duty with million-dollar production values which, no matter how much you hate it, will rob the gaming consumer base of what they want to service your own selfish ideology of 'big, evil nasty corporations!'
Yes, yes, yes, I know, I KNOW: Jim is not advocating radical changes in the law, nor does he have the ability to actually take over the world. Nor'nor is he even completely serious presenting this 'pedophile burglar' nonsense as any sort of moral compass. It's just that... ehhh... it's like saying
"Hey I get pissed off at all these fuckin' Mexicans eating in restaurants so close to me. I mean, it's not wrong what they're doing and it shouldn't be illegal or anything, it just pisses me off."
It's like why should you be spending time spreading messages like that, especially to an internet audience of thousands? It's one normal, everyday guy at a time saying 'perhaps, maybe those people of different physical appearance aren't fully human' that eventually leads to slavery.
"Backing Music: It's off of FFIX"
It's called Rose of May or also known as Beatrix' Theme, also know as Loss of Me (I think Rose of May might be the official title, though). Ever since I heard it for the first time, I knew it was from FFIX...and thus I accepted Jim as our lord and savior.
Nice intro and outro, by the way. And cool chainsaw...blade. Is that from Warhammer?
Hmm...I wonder if my actual-size keyblade would stand a chance...
...No, it wouldn't.
It's called Rose of May or also known as Beatrix' Theme, also know as Loss of Me (I think Rose of May might be the official title, though). Ever since I heard it for the first time, I knew it was from FFIX...and thus I accepted Jim as our lord and savior.
Nice intro and outro, by the way. And cool chainsaw...blade. Is that from Warhammer?
Hmm...I wonder if my actual-size keyblade would stand a chance...
...No, it wouldn't.
I don't believe that making art better justifies the aggression of copyright, so even if you convinced me that you're right about that, I would still not be able to support it.Raesvelg said:
However, I've seen some incredible projects flourish wonderfully without employing copyright. Just look at comic strips. They're way better on the internet than they ever were back in the days where they relied on copyright.
I still don't buy the idea that an MMO requires copyright in any way. I find the idea that WoW would lose its subscribers if they loosened their leash on competing servers to be completely absurd
Nobody wants to be on some lame third party server unless they're cheap as shit and willing to miss out on content updates.That applies to more than games, as well. Google, for example, is a software writing company, but they host all their software on web servers, rather than selling copies, and it's all advertisement sponsored. Their projects cost insane amounts of money.
Also there are 'patrons' and crowd sourced development. For example, Linux is the most popular operating system in the world (on all computers except personal desktops/laptops). It costs extreme amounts of money to maintain, but it has no problem finding funding because businesses hire coders and have them contribute. In a post-copyright world, (or in fact, even if copyright continues to exist) I predict that we'll see this type of model being used to create blockbuster games. Just as home video editing software became so easy and powerful that everyone could become a film directory and publish themselves, we are likely to see a similar revolution with game development as technology improves.
All piracy is theft, doesn't matter that the legal term refers to an item being 'removed' or whatever. It seems to me people are just justifying there criminal acts. I don't care if the DRM sucks (then don't buy the game), I mean I live in a country where the internet sucks and it's more expensive than bloody fuel so bad DRM is a real problem for me! At the same time you have stinking rich (in contrast to the rest of the world) Americans and Europeans that pirate games because they don't want to pay $60 for a game that can play on their Xbox 360 next to their huge ass flat screen!!!
Think about this, piracy started DRM and now pirates are blaming DRM?!!!!
Think about this, piracy started DRM and now pirates are blaming DRM?!!!!
Now that I think about it, there's specific example of an extremely deep and complex crowd sourced game (TOO deep and complex to be feasibly commissioned for money, probably) that was created without copyright: nethack
Can you imagine the boundless possibilities if EVERY game that ever came out could be used to strengthen crowd sourced games? I can't even conceive of the level of depth that can be achieved by a project with a thousand passionate developers working for twenty years with all of human expression as their source material. More than money can buy today, that's for sure.
Can you imagine the boundless possibilities if EVERY game that ever came out could be used to strengthen crowd sourced games? I can't even conceive of the level of depth that can be achieved by a project with a thousand passionate developers working for twenty years with all of human expression as their source material. More than money can buy today, that's for sure.
What about non-indie "mainstream" games that do not have the intrusive DRM of today?
Titan Quest could be a prime example. Sure, it had DRM but if you had the official version of the game you wouldn't have noticed that it existed (Apart from "Please put CD into drive").
Or, Demigod for that matter but I'm not entirely sure what DRM that game had.
Titan Quest could be a prime example. Sure, it had DRM but if you had the official version of the game you wouldn't have noticed that it existed (Apart from "Please put CD into drive").
Or, Demigod for that matter but I'm not entirely sure what DRM that game had.
That is like saying that a kid who reaches through the fence to steal an apple from a huge corporate apple orchard isn't doing anything morally wrong, but the kid who picks one from one of the trees in the neighbor lady's garden is a dirty pedophile-burglar.
It is just based on unfounded stereotypes about how corporations are evil, while individuals are always good.
And it avoids just WHY piracy is controversial. The issue is not whether or not some owners deserves to get ripped off, but whether or not piracy is really causing meaningful harm to anyone at all.
Yes, World of Goo had 90% piracy rate. World of Goo was also a ridiculously hyped indie hit, that made millions of dollars of profit, where that piracy was either the CAUSE of it's success, by spreading the word of mouth, or an after-effect, where some people who didn't particularly care about it just got fed up with hearing about it everywhere, decided to check it out. (Crysis, Skyrim, Modern Warfare, etc, also have unnaturally high pracy ratio).
These kind of people are simply non-consumers. But even if you would assume that each of these are lost sales, just the fact that it could be bought for one cent, would make it exactly THE SAME as the above analogy with a kid and the apple. Or maybe not, an apple is probably a lot more expensive than that.
And no, I'm not "humanizing" pirates even by comparing them to kids. In fact, many of these pirates ARE kids, who simply don't have any paypal account to pay even one cent for the game, or adults who are just as ignorant about the Internet and ddeveloper revenues and copyright as a kid. They are a niche at the periphery of the industry. Treating them like a dangerous force that is trying to destroy us, is like demonizing that apple-stealing kid as an immoral person whose ways will destroy the apple industry.
It is just based on unfounded stereotypes about how corporations are evil, while individuals are always good.
And it avoids just WHY piracy is controversial. The issue is not whether or not some owners deserves to get ripped off, but whether or not piracy is really causing meaningful harm to anyone at all.
Yes, World of Goo had 90% piracy rate. World of Goo was also a ridiculously hyped indie hit, that made millions of dollars of profit, where that piracy was either the CAUSE of it's success, by spreading the word of mouth, or an after-effect, where some people who didn't particularly care about it just got fed up with hearing about it everywhere, decided to check it out. (Crysis, Skyrim, Modern Warfare, etc, also have unnaturally high pracy ratio).
These kind of people are simply non-consumers. But even if you would assume that each of these are lost sales, just the fact that it could be bought for one cent, would make it exactly THE SAME as the above analogy with a kid and the apple. Or maybe not, an apple is probably a lot more expensive than that.
And no, I'm not "humanizing" pirates even by comparing them to kids. In fact, many of these pirates ARE kids, who simply don't have any paypal account to pay even one cent for the game, or adults who are just as ignorant about the Internet and ddeveloper revenues and copyright as a kid. They are a niche at the periphery of the industry. Treating them like a dangerous force that is trying to destroy us, is like demonizing that apple-stealing kid as an immoral person whose ways will destroy the apple industry.
You can say what you like. Just as people can then criticise what you've said, it being a public forum and all that.yundex said:
Putting aside all the semantical arguments about the issue, whether or not it's called copyright infrigment or theft, there is one inescapable fact about the issue. That is this; in most nations of the world it's illegal. That's all anyone should take away from it. Illegal. As in if caught doing so you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Period. Full stop. End of story.
It does not matter how we, as individuals, decide to dress up the issue or even what name we call it. What matters is the laws regarding these actions are specific and speak to the illegal nature of the actions as well as the consequences thereof.
There is no moral high ground nor justification for it. Games, and the like, are wants not needs. In some cases I can understand why certain people do pirate games. I can even empathize with those reasons. That, however, does not make the action any less illegal.
Saying things like copyright laws are evil and should be abolished are, imo, a completely specious and spurious argument. They hold no water. For very much the same reasons why communism failed in such a massive way. Everything belonging to everyone is a noble ideal and goal but just doesn't work. It's predicated on everything and everyone having the same intrinsic value which, sadly, is not true and more the likely won't ever be.
It does not matter how we, as individuals, decide to dress up the issue or even what name we call it. What matters is the laws regarding these actions are specific and speak to the illegal nature of the actions as well as the consequences thereof.
There is no moral high ground nor justification for it. Games, and the like, are wants not needs. In some cases I can understand why certain people do pirate games. I can even empathize with those reasons. That, however, does not make the action any less illegal.
Saying things like copyright laws are evil and should be abolished are, imo, a completely specious and spurious argument. They hold no water. For very much the same reasons why communism failed in such a massive way. Everything belonging to everyone is a noble ideal and goal but just doesn't work. It's predicated on everything and everyone having the same intrinsic value which, sadly, is not true and more the likely won't ever be.