Jimquisition: When Piracy Becomes Theft

[theultimateend]

Ohhhh After Effects.

SOMEONE'S rolling in money

or they y'know pirated it...

People who pay for Adobe make me so sad.

I bought that Software years back and it crashes like a mofo. I went to college to use a revision that was 2 full numbers up and it STILL CRASHED LIKE A MOFO.

Worse still they haven't invented any kind of auto save yet.

REALLY?! It's hundreds of dollars for the cheaperst version, how the hell is office surpassing this product?! I got office for free just by working at Best Buy...

I can't stand adobe, they are so lazy and seem to think a few new filters will make up for a level of stability that cannot justify the price tag.

As for the video, I do agree those people are assholes. WoG was quite fun, bought it twice. Since it wasn't cross platform .

I use it professionally, paid for it and it has paid for itself many times over. Most (if not all) Adobe programs have a programmable auto-save function going back to at least CS2. So that problem is fixed. Premiere Pro CS 5 has added native support for DSLR cameras which is a fucking godsend if you shoot DSLR and I know Final Cut Pro trainers looking to swap over. I make a living thanks to Adobe's software line and yeah it's not without bugs and problems but it's an amazing program for people in video production and I would be pretty jobless without it.

I'd be interested if you could show me where that autosave is. I know Western Washington University would thank you since nobody in the art department knows of any such thing.

People who say, "I can just pirate it" have no fucking clue how much of an asshole they are being.

I agree! It's so annoying!

I just want to shake these jerks and say "It's not 'piracy' it's copyright infringement! Piracy is a moral abomination, copying things is wonderful and natural!"

I feel your pain.

Piracy involves a boat, weapons, and another boat usually.

The fact that they use the word for file sharing (illegal or not) has always felt silly to me.

Like changing the name of jaywalking to "rape" to try and make it sound much more horrible than it is.

I'd prefer folks bought their stuff, but when people call it piracy it really feels like the debate has fallen apart before it even began.

 

[The Lugz]

i vote jim for president of the usa, so i can sit back in the uk and watch what madness occurs with popcorn in hand

it's a win-win scenario.

 

[IlikeLolis]

If anyone hasn't said it yet, I'll say it now and agree with them;

Anyone feel like Playstation Plus is the same as Piracy?

"I get games for free that others have to pay for."

Sounds like Piracy to me, it's only ok because Sony gets a small fee from the tarts that subscribe to it.

I would assume most pirate sites don't even ask you for money to do the same thing.

 

[incal11]

As for the video, I do agree those people are assholes. WoG was quite fun, bought it twice. Since it wasn't cross platform .

If you're proud to pay for what you like so are others. Many would not get it if they did not got it for free first. I showed you proof of that before, it works for AAAs and indie games the exact same way.
Sad to say but not all indies are worth the price they ask for. The ones who asked for those who liked their games to donate always profited from this, actually. There are some who really are a bit stingy, but I don't hate them because at least they open up their horizons. They do not pay for everything they liked, but they are still pat of a trend that benefits creators.

So what is it that I missed and which keeps you unconvinced so ?

 

[Lono Shrugged]

SNIP

On the toolbar in Premiere and After Effects. EDIT-PREFERENCES-AUTOSAVE.

You can adjust how often, where and how many times it saves.

Saved my ass many times.

EDIT: I am kinda surprised that they never twigged the Auto-save function considering it's normally saved with project files, plus you need to manually specify it when you are setting up your project folders. Your media management must be in shambles.

Book me a flight to America and I will wrangle that media for you like a motherfucking digital cowboy.

 

[Tanakh]

And here I thought Sterling was a lost cause, then suddenly he makes this video. Thanks for it Jim, it was a much needed adition to your series about piracy.

Btw. another article I read about this today: http://www.webpronews.com/paulo-coelho-on-sopa-pirate-everything-i%E2%80%99ve-ever-written-2012-02

For the love of God, DON'T pirate Paulo Coelho. His prose is coarse and the content is magic based self-help bland crap; given the option i would rather inhale the smoke of burning one of his works before reading them (and yeah, i read them before, painful).

He is, with Alejandro Jodorowsky, a overhyped, pseudo spiritual POS that sells illusions to desperate lost people.

 

[SpaceBat]

Jim for president.
Pretty much agreed with everything he said. If you can't find a shred of decency within yourself to pay money for things like that and can't even realize that you're a worthless piece of shit, then the only appropriate reaction to that is sheer pity (due to said pirate being permanently brain-damaged)

 

[sadmac]

I liked this series so far, but I have to draw the line here.

Piracy is too new and complex an issue to sacrifice semantic clarity for the sake of emotional impact. We need to speak precisely about these things as much as we need to speak loudly. Saying it's ok to call piracy theft, even while admitting it's factually incorrect, because it sets the right "tone," is dragging this debate into the same miserable tradition of rhetoric that US politics exists in. It's shameless alarmism, and a low, "ends justify the means" subversion of rational discourse.

If you need to equate piracy to an existing crime that has emotional weight for people, try vandalism or destruction of property. That's what piracy really does. It doesn't deprive the developer of the game, or their rights to the game, but it makes the developer's rights to the game less valuable overall because it no longer provides the same opportunity to make money that it did.

 

[incal11]

Now all of that sounds good and all, but they seem to not have a grasp of the real world. Yes, developers are creating video games and other media because they enjoy creating these things, but in order to do that they will need to be able to survive. These people need food, shelter and adequate warmth. If developers had to get a job as well as make games they would not have enough time to do both. Certain creations are ideas and want to be exchanged freely, other creations are products and want to be exchanged for goods. People do not want to pay for ideology, but they will be willing to make donations.

Being at the mercy of your public's good will is part of being an entertainer. If you just pretend to be an entertainer and try to sell a bland "product" at a fixed priced because you just want to eat, you chose the wrong career.

I'm also very familiar with this debate, If you're interested in exchanging some views tell me and I'll PM you.

 

[MPerce]

In conclusion: the world is full of dicks. The World of Goo situation was really sad because they went above and beyond the call of duty, making these incredibly easy for the consumer.

And seriously, who the hell pirates the Humble Indie Bundle?

It may not be "theft," but it still makes you one of the biggest douchebags on the internet.

And now I'm off to play my legally purchased copy of World of Goo.

 

[westx207]

Nope. Definition of theft cannot hinge upon whether not committing the act would help someone who needs it versus doesn't need it. Doesn't make sense.

 

[orangeapples]

snipped for length

I do have a question about your post. You say that importing is piracy? Can you explain that to me? How is it piracy when you've legally paid for it and the large shipping fees that come along with importing from another country.

I do not personally believe it is piracy. I believe it is a part of capitalism. You want a product so you purchase from a market that supplies it. It is more akin to black-market or bootlegging than actual piracy.

But the companies that lose out on the sale categorize it as piracy. For them, sharing, reselling, and importing are "piracy". They are all very different things, but companies use a blanket term to make them all "evil". I did my best to use the quotation marks on piracy in this sense. sorry if that didn't come across as I intended >_<

 

[internetzealot1]

You're wrong Jim. There is no difference between pirating an indie game and pirating a game that is backed by a major corporation. Either way, you're still depriving people of money that they worked to earn.

 

[orangeapples]

Now all of that sounds good and all, but they seem to not have a grasp of the real world. Yes, developers are creating video games and other media because they enjoy creating these things, but in order to do that they will need to be able to survive. These people need food, shelter and adequate warmth. If developers had to get a job as well as make games they would not have enough time to do both. Certain creations are ideas and want to be exchanged freely, other creations are products and want to be exchanged for goods. People do not want to pay for ideology, but they will be willing to make donations.

Being at the mercy of your public's good will is part of being an entertainer. If you just pretend to be an entertainer and try to sell a bland "product" at a fixed priced because you just want to eat, you chose the wrong career.

I'm also very familiar with this debate, If you're interested in exchanging some views tell me and I'll PM you.

Well, technically they still are at the mercy of the public by selling at a fixed rate. If your product sucks, then nobody buys it. The problem with the piracy of these products is that they are not given the chance with people's money. Those people want entertainment for free regardless of the people who put that entertainment together.

Devs would have some better luck if they were to ask sites like escapist/destructoid/screwattack/ign/etc. if you would be interested in having an indie developers section on their sites. Essentially asking them to give free advertising to these devs. Get their product in the face of the gamers.

That would not be a bad idea at all. Perhaps if they get enough indie devs in the section they could do an indie developer spotlight or something. Do these sites already do something like that?

 

[SoDaRa]

I have to say I loved World of Goo so much, that even though I had already bought it for Wii, I bought it one Steam just to have it on my laptop, and when they make an Android version, I'll probably buy that too.

 

[Raesvelg]

I agree! It's so annoying!

I just want to shake these jerks and say "It's not 'piracy' it's copyright infringement! Piracy is a moral abomination, copying things is wonderful and natural!"

I feel your pain.

Unless, of course, the person who created the content in the first place hasn't given you permission to copy it.

At which point, copying things is not wonderful, nor natural, but rather analogous to, y'know, theft.

There are those, of course, who argue that the concept of intellectual property itself is inherently bad. These people are, for lack of a better word, innocents.

Because there are a great many things in this world that would not exist without intellectual property laws. Things like Mass Effect.

And I like Mass Effect. I like a great number of things that simply would not exist if people were not given the ability to have their ideas and intellectual labors protected by law.

This is not some post-capitalist Marxist utopia in which vast bands of self-motivated people gather together for large collective projects since all of their material needs are taken care of. Here in the real world, large projects require large investments, investments which entail a great deal of capital. People, after all, need to get paid.

There are those who like to crow about the Humble Indie Bundles, and use them as an example of a new model of intellectual property. Except that the Humble Indie Bundles, all told, have made something like $11 million dollars. Which is something like 20% of the development budget of the average AAA title.

Or significantly less in some cases.

So sure, Louis C.K. can put out a show for $5, and the HIB guys can throw things up on a pay-what-you-want scheme, but in these cases we're talking about production costs measures in the tens of thousands of dollars, not tens of millions.

If we assume that the more outrageous budget figures for The Old Republic are true, for example, EA would have to sell 100 million copies at $5 each in order to just break even.

So copyright laws definitely exist for a reason, and the people who decry their existence, particularly over something so incredible trivial as entertainment media, come off, to me, like squalling children complaining that their allowance isn't big enough. It's a movie. You don't have to watch it. It's a game. You don't have to play it. And in all cases, far more importantly, you don't have the right to watch it, any more than I have the right to go into your home and make a copy of your diary, so that I can distribute it to whoever I want.

I could almost accept the argument that the world would be a better place without IP laws when it comes to patent law, given the sheer preponderance of life-altering technologies and pharmaceuticals that could probably be made available more cheaply without it, except that the cold, hard truth of the matter is that most of those things wouldn't exist without it. And the people whose lives might have been saved would have died anyway, along with all the people whose lives were saved.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I don't understand those kinds of people. I can sort of understand piracy when there is no demo, because PC specs aren't exactly clear cut when it comes to compatibility. But people tend to go too far, you can't blame people for wanting the internet policed.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I already promised my vote to Steven Colbert. But I think he could use a Secretary of Video Games and Cock Dismemberment.