Jimquisition: When Piracy Becomes Theft

[ThunderCavalier]

First off, I have to say that if Jim Sterling really does win the election, I'll probably be happy one moment and then very, very terrified for the next four years.

Anyway, I can understand pirating in 'some' circumstances, perhaps emulators for region-locked games or extremely old ones, but I don't see the point in pirating indie games that are both cheap and easy to acquire. If the paying process had seven different steps and the game was only available in Norwegian, maybe I'd understand, but the only real difference between pirating a game and buying it is the fact that, in the process of doing both, only one will lose you money. ... Chump-change money.

 

[wiggler]

I have literally no time for pirates, I think they are morally reprehensible. I don't mind piracy if its for a game that can no longer be purchased in a store, or whose developer has ceased to exist (though with good old games this argument is greatly weakened). I also dont mind people pirating a game when their own version has been broken through no fault of their own (though this is rare)

However, in any other case I have no time for pirates. They can make whatever lame justifications they want, about how they're godamn freedom fighters or hate DRM or whatever, but at the end of the day in my eyes they just want something for nothing, because they feel they're better than the people who made the game, and everybody who is willing to keep the games industry going by supporting it.

I don't like DRM, but the only reason it exists is because of pirates. I find it shocking and funny that pirates call companies greedy, while they themselves are perfectly willing to take things without any real justification.

As it has been argued earlier, a game is a luxury, not a nessecity, its not like you'll die without it, so any argument for -needing- it is a load of rubbish in my opinion.

The whole argument that piracy is the faul of 'legal' systems is also wrong I think. Sure copyright laws can and are messed up in some regards, but thats not an excuse for somebody to go out and steal something which has taken a vast amount of man-hours, blood, sweat and tears, to produce.

Any pirate just uses copyright laws and DRM as an excuse to justify the fact they are a theif. Maybe not a literal theif, but a thief in mindset at least, in that they don't find any moral difficulty in getting something for nothing.

So yeah, I despise pirates.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Aside from me actually buying Aquaria and never playing it so far along with the other half of my games on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Dexter111/games/?tab=all&sort=name (Has played 132/276 games.) it wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever as any pirated copy still doesn't equal a lost sale, quite the opposite it might create new ones because people liked it so much and want to pay for it or they recommend said game to their friends.
If I let a friend play Aquaria through my Steam account that doesn't mean that is a "lost sale" either as the likelihood of him getting it was very low to start with, if I give it a bad review and 3 people on my friends list decide not to buy it because of that even though they've been eyeing it I haven't generated "less sales" either. So, no... no one would have robbed anyone of anything.

I'm still not convinced that it is not a lost sale by what you just wrote and you not playing the game seems pretty irrelevant.
If someone plays the game (so that they like it and they may buy it) friend or otherwise someone needs to purchase it in the first place.
As a side note, specifically with Aquaria there is a demo if you want to try it anyhow meaning that pirating the game just to try it is a mute point.

What you say still doesn't change the fact that if the game were for instance only available as a physical copy and there wasn't file sharing for someone to get the game they would have to physically pilfer a copy from a store or somewhere. Following that they could go about the reasoning you just put up and let friends play and they might then like it and then go to the store and buy it. Doesn't change the fact that it was first stolen. That at one point in this cycle someone didn't pay the fee it takes to have the game in their possession and ergo robbed the developer of their money.

You need to buy it in the first place to let someone else try it out. So yeah, still that lost sale I was talking about.
On top of things that is a very specific example you're portraying which I don't think is a very good reason or example of how taking a game for free which would actually cost something is not theft.

 

[Alterego-X]

The whole argument that piracy is the faul of 'legal' systems is also wrong I think. Sure copyright laws can and are messed up in some regards, but thats not an excuse for somebody to go out and steal something which has taken a vast amount of man-hours, blood, sweat and tears, to produce.

Then maybe the laws need to be rewritten, so it won't be stealing any more, but perfectly legal filesharing.

Any pirate just uses copyright laws and DRM as an excuse to justify the fact they are a theif. Maybe not a literal theif, but a thief in mindset at least, in that they don't find any moral difficulty in getting something for nothing.

If everyone who accepts "getting something for nothing", then every beggar on the streets is a thief in the mindset, every child is a thief for expecting to get raised up for free, everyone who ever watched TV or listened to the radio without paying for the content, not to mention everyone who is expecting to read the Escapist as free entertainment/information.

If "getting something for nothing" is inherently immoral to you, then your morals are wildly differing from the mainstream perception.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Hit the nail on the fucking head there Jim, keep up the good work.

 

[dbenoy]

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.

Throughout history, this exact reasoning has been used to justify atrocious invasions of human rights, and it continues today with copyright.

Far from ending the debate, its illegality is the very source of the contention. These laws are wrong. Period. Full stop. End of story.

Regardless of how you feel about the value of copyright, nothing justifies jailing and suing peaceful harmless people for daring to duplicate the ideas and expressions that surround them.

There are people out there having their lives ruined in litigation to protect the interests of rights holders, and the fact that "games, and the like, are wants not needs" makes this intrusion even more senselessly tragic.

 

[Gunner 51]

Piracy is undeniably dickish no matter who gets pirated, and I don't do it.

As for that Pay What You Want bundle, did it still make a profit? I sure hope it did, especially if it benefitted charity. Unfortunately, you cannot stop people from being tight bastards - especially in these difficult times.

But I guess the bottom line is still. Piracy is dickish and mean you really shouldn't do it.

Secondly, I really take issue of comparing pirates to paedophiles. I know it's Mr Sterling's hyperbolic childishness schtick at work. I normally take it with a pinch of salt, but I think that one crossed the line.

I know Jim was trying to find a word to describe the mean spiritedness of the pirates. He could have used words like idiot, douchbag, scumbag, crook, smeghead, goit and my personal fave - git. But he just had to compare a pirate to the most morally reprehensible people on the planet. That wasn't cool, Jim.

Paedophiles take a children's innocence, dignity, pride and leave them with mental scars to last them a lifetime. Pirates are nothing compared to this. I think Jim was wrong this kind of comparrison. (I've seen the emotional damage that comes from the fallout when a seemingly invincible family members relive the times they were molested by one and they completely break down as a result - believe me, piracy doesn't compare to that.)

I'm not asking Jim to censor himself or even an apology, but I do ask that he try to keep things in some kind of perspective.

 

[Raesvelg]

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.

You're assuming a continuation of the status quo here, for reasons I can't quite discern.

The reason that private servers are "lame", and require people to miss out on content updates, is because they're small teams of people working part time on limited budgets.

(Which ironically could easily be how something like WoW would be in the first place in a post-copyright world, but we're assuming that a service-based model is still profitable enough to warrant spending money on for the purposes of this example.)

If there were nothing to protect Blizzard's IP from being copied, their competition could simply take the code, and with equal or greater resources create servers where the people on them missed out on nothing, getting equal or greater number and quality of 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.

All of which is still protected by copyright law. And funded by IP law, for that matter, since Google makes a good chunk of its money by being the predominant search engine, a position it maintains through the use of proprietary algorithms.

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.

Yes, but self-published films are... "lame". Amateurish.

Which is my point. Broader, yes. But shallower.

 

[yundex]

Piracy = pedophilia? Wow, being one of the 0.1% of the people on this website with a little girl, go fuck yourself jim.

On the other hand 99% of this website users ARE little boys and girls. If they can take a joke and not be offended being the targets of pedophiles, I would assume an adult would be able to be more sensible.

You do realize the thought process was more or less "i want to find the WORST kind of people there are, humm, let's go with pedophiles". What is offensive about that?

I may be offended, but I think he should be able to say whatever he wants and I should be able to do the same. Obviously, I can't. Saying something like that even as a hyperbole ruins what little credibility he had. All I can do is voice said anger and prevent ad revenue, that's good enough for me.

You can say what you like. Just as people can then criticise what you've said, it being a public forum and all that.

I know how public forums work, but if for some reason you thought I didn't...my bad?

 

[Dandark]

Very nice video Jim, once again I totally agree on most of the points. Im glad that you were able to realize that while not all pirates are horrible monsters there are still plenty that are total dicks, or as you said Pedo burglers.

 

[McMarbles]

There is a special place in hell reserved for people who pirated the HIB.

 

[Raesvelg]

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.

And I don't ascribe any particular level of creativity to someone who wants to play in someone else's world and apparently has no alternative. It's a fun thing to do occasionally, no doubt, but if your dreams are crushed because you can't make money off of someone else's back... I shed no tears for you.

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.

You can say as much about nearly any criminal prosecution short of capital crimes though.

The simple answer is not to do it. It's not as though corporations are out there, scouring the net with lawyers in tow, looking for any innocent violation they can set eyes upon to set loose the hounds of litigation.

No, they find something that's not a blatant attempt to cash in or rip them off, and the worst you can expect is a C&D letter.

You can argue that it's not important enough to warrant prosecution, and I can say it's not important enough to risk prosecution.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

Shouldn't it be three levels of piracy?

One level for the people with the Robin Hood complex who thinking pirating from major developers is somehow "sticking it to the man".

The I'm a cheap bastard level who rather pirate an indie game or cheap older game than to pay a few bucks for it.

And the I've looked to find someone to sell me this game but no one will take my money so to pirate it is the only way to play it people.

 

[idodo35]

jim iff you will let me be the guy who uses the giant chainsawsword to punish criminals i will become an american citizen and vote for you!
go jim 2012!

 

[dbenoy]

And I don't ascribe any particular level of creativity to someone who wants to play in someone else's world and apparently has no alternative. It's a fun thing to do occasionally, no doubt, but if your dreams are crushed because you can't make money off of someone else's back... I shed no tears for you.

So when Disney made those movies, he was "making money off someone else's back"? That's a bold claim, especially since his works are far more historically treasured than the public domain material it ripped off.

I think you may be confusing your vision of a post-copyright world with reality. In reality, people who copy art are capable of putting tremendous amounts of work into their projects, and producing something amazing and culturally irreplaceable. Every time one of these new works of art dies in infancy thanks to copyright it's an unseen, unheard travesty that diminishes us all.

You can say as much about nearly any criminal prosecution short of capital crimes though.

Alright, I withdraw that contention, then. Saying that something is or is not important, in our opinions, doesn't justify anything. I shouldn't have been factitious.

People have the free right peacefully do what they please with their own person and property, and whether someone thinks that their interests are frivolous or not does not justify the introduction of force.

I recognize that you are really devoted to protecting the status quo for copyrights. You strongly value the way things are currently done, but how do your opinions rightfully translate into an obligation on me? When I copy, I harm nobody.

 

[Alterego-X]

Shouldn't it be three levels of piracy?

One level for the people with the Robin Hood complex who thinking pirating from major developers is somehow "sticking it to the man".

The I'm a cheap bastard level who rather pirate an indie game or cheap older game than to pay a few bucks for it.

And the I've looked to find someone to sell me this game but no one will take my money so to pirate it is the only way to play it people.

There are an awful lot of "levels" to piracy.

There is the "I'm mostly paying for my stuff, as much as I can, but I don't particularly care about the letter of the law, so I might as well also download some more" type.

There is the "I don't have any money to spend on media anyways" type, that is really that poor, and actually says the truth, but then gets used to the habit of pirating, that really just pirates everything for the sake of it, even later when he could afford at least a few of them.

There is the type in between the above two, that mostly doesn't have money for media, and doesn't mind pirating what he can't buy, but at least honestly pays for whatever he can.

There is the "Information wants to be free" activist, that unlike the Robin Hood type, doesn't want to stick it to big publishers only, but artists as well, generally believing that the idea of copyright, or at least it's current implementation is wrong, and doesn't feel obliged to follow wrong laws.

There is the naive kid, who you don't find in such threads, who just doesn't think about how content distribution works, just copies stuff as it is self-evident to them from the nature of the Internet.

There is the hoarder type, who is just downloading for the sake of downloading, even things that they don't intend to use, out of habit, even free stuff gets mixed in it.

This is not a complete list, and most actual people combine multiple traits. For example, the "Robin Hood" isn't so much a separate type, as an argument used by all others as an exttra argument, that "besides, they aren't deserving it anyways". Likewise, someone might pirate for activist reasons and still occasionally buy things at their own will to reward publishers, as a form of donation.

 

[Raesvelg]

So when Disney made those movies, he was "making money off someone else's back"? That's a bold claim, especially since his works are far more historically treasured than the public domain material it ripped off.

As a matter of fact, yes, yes they were. The fact that they got to do so for free doesn't alter the fact that they benefited substantially from someone else's effort.

Tarzan, for example, wasn't exactly an unknown property that Disney abruptly resurrected and thrust back into the public consciousness. In effect, they had a substantial amount of advertising done for them, by Burroughs, in the previous 80 years.

I recognize that you are really devoted to protecting the status quo for copyrights. You strongly value the way things are currently done, but how do your opinions rightfully translate into an obligation on me? When I copy, I harm nobody.

In truth, there are a number of things I'd change about copyright law. Removing the necessity for IP holders to defend their property or lose the right to do so, for example, would allow IP holders significantly more leeway in how aggressively they pursue people who infringe upon their rights.

As for your contention that by copying, you harm nobody, however, there I have to disagree. Because that's analogous to me saying that, by standing at your mailbox and intercepting your paychecks, I harm nobody.

I'm not taking anything you have after all, simply depriving you of the money you've earned by means of your time and effort.

Which is precisely what you do to the IP holder when you copy illegally.

 

[dbenoy]

The reason that private servers are "lame", and require people to miss out on content updates, is because they're small teams of people working part time on limited budgets.

(Which ironically could easily be how something like WoW would be in the first place in a post-copyright world, but we're assuming that a service-based model is still profitable enough to warrant spending money on for the purposes of this example.)

If there were nothing to protect Blizzard's IP from being copied, their competition could simply take the code, and with equal or greater resources create servers where the people on them missed out on nothing, getting equal or greater number and quality of updates

What makes them lame (What's with the quotes?) is mostly that your friends are on it. That can't be duplicated.

Making 'clones' of software is, with the singular exception of MMOs, completely legal everywhere, so we don't have to come up with a bunch of hypothetical theories here. Just look at all the myriad examples of software 'cloning' that happens all the time.

A fast moving, constantly improving original piece of software can not be cloned in a timely manner and still remain profitable. This is not just a theory.

The only hope of clones is if they innovate in some completely new way, or service some untapped market need, creating their own superior offering in the process, and thank god for that! Copyright obstructs this process, by permitting original creators to rest on their laurels and grow fat on royalties, safe from all the people who are anxious to pick up the dropped ball and innovate.

Even if I were to grant that copyright somehow makes life easier for straight up internet services like MMOs (Which would be very difficult to defend given that copyright currently does not do that except in select cases, and businesses are still fine), then I still would be unable to fathom the contention that they would be completely crippled and doomed and unable to function. Online service businesses are incredibly agile and innovative. Why in the world would they be unable to survive without the ability to legally destroy their competitors?

 

[dbenoy]

As a matter of fact, yes, yes they were. The fact that they got to do so for free doesn't alter the fact that they benefited substantially from someone else's effort.

Is that the measure of whether you've done something wrong? If I work hard and create something, and my creation enriches my life, as well as enriching the lives of everyone else in the world, then I've been robbed? Then I should have the right to crash down their doors and demand payment?

The perpetuation of ideas and expressions throughout society is the elementary beauty of human life. The fact that we can see what others do, integrate those things into ourselves, and use those lessons to improve our own lives is what got us to this point. Without the free flow of ideas and expressions, we wouldn't even be able to have this conversation.

Copyright seeks to destroy what what makes us a human society in order to protect a select few business models and connected industries. It's no different from any other form of industry protectionism.

Some people accuse the copyright abolitionists of believing themselves to be noble or heroic, and they're damn right. We're agitating for freedom, what's ignoble about that?

 

[dbenoy]

As for your contention that by copying, you harm nobody, however, there I have to disagree. Because that's analogous to me saying that, by standing at your mailbox and intercepting your paychecks, I harm nobody.

I'm not taking anything you have after all, simply depriving you of the money you've earned by means of your time and effort.

Which is precisely what you do to the IP holder when you copy illegally.

When I copy something, I deprive nobody of anything.

When you take my paycheck there's still only one paycheck. When I copy software, now there's two.